English and English Community 1 There is no doubt that English is a useful language. The people who speak English today make up the largest speech community in the world with the exception of speakers of Chinese. 2 A speech community is similar to other kinds of communities. The people who make up the community share a common language. Often they live side by side, as they do in a neighborhood (街坊), a village, or a city. More often they form. a whole country. National boundaries, however, are not always the same as the boundaries of a speech community. A speech community is any group of people who speak the same language no matter where they happen to live. 3 We may say that anyone who speaks English belongs to the English speech community. For convenience (方便), we may divide the speakers into two groups: one in which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the speakers learn English as a second language for the purpose of education, commerce,and so on. 4 Learning a second language extends one's vision and expands the mind. The history and literature of a second language record the real and fictional (虚构的) lives of people and their culture a knowledge of them adds to our ability to understand and to feel as they feel. Learning English as a second language provides another means of communication through which the window of the entire English speech community becomes a part of our heritage. 第 23 题 Paragraph 1______