2016年职称英语等级考试教材_理工类新增文章：牙牙学语

清枫月

Baby Talk

Babies normally start to talk when they are 13 to 15 months old. Ryan Jones is only eight months old, but he is already “talking” with his parents. When lie is hungry, he opens and closes his hand. This means milk. He also knows the signs for his favorite toy and the word more.
Ryan is not deaf, and his parents are not deaf, but his mother and father are teaching him to sign. They say a word and make a sign at the same time. They repeat this again and again. When ___1___ Ryan’s parents think that he will be a happier baby because he can communicate with them.
Ryan s parents are teaching Ryan to sign because of a man named Joseph Garcia. Although Garcia was not from a deaf family, he decided to learn American Sign Language (ASL). First, he took courses in ASL. Then he got a job helping deaf people communicate with hearing people. In his work, he saw many deaf parents sign to their infants. He noticed that these babies were able to communicate much earlier than hearing children. ___2___ When they were one year old, they could use as many as 50 signs.
Garcia decided to try something new. He taught ASL to parents who were not deaf. The families started to teach signs to their infants when they were six or seven months old. ___3___ More and more parents took Garcia’s ASL classes. Like Ryan’s family, they were excited about signing with their babies. They wanted to give their babies a way to communicate before they could use spoken words.
Some people worry about signing to babies. They are afraid that these babies won’t feel a need to talk. Maybe they will develop spoken language later than other babies. ___4___ In fact, one study found just the opposite. Signing babies actually learned to speak earlier than other children. As they grow older, these children are more interested in books. They also score higher on intelligence tests1.
There is still a big question for parents: Which are the best signs to teach their babies? Some parents make their own signs. Other parents want to teach ASL. ___5___ There’s no clear answer, but we do know this: All signing babies and their families are talking quite a lot!

词汇：
normally /'nɔ:m(ə)li/ adv. 正常地；通常地，一般地
infant /'infənt / n. 婴儿；幼儿；未成年人
communicate /kə'mju:nikeit/ 通信；交流；感染
opposite /'ɔpəzit/ adj. 相反的；n. 对立面，反义词

注释：
1. intelligence test：智力测试

练习：
A    However, research does not show this.
B    All parents want to teach babies to sign.
C    Ryan learns a new sign, his family is very excited.
D    These babies started using signs about two months later.
E    It can be useful because many people understand it.
F    They talked with signs by the time they were eight months old.

答案与题解：
1.    C  第二段主要是讨论Ryan学习手语的过程，当他学会一种新的手势时，父母非常高兴。
2.    F  这一段讲的是婴儿在学习手语过程中的共同规律。题目前一句讲Garcia注意到学习手语的婴儿比普通婴儿更早开始交流，后一句讲婴儿1岁时能使用的手势多达50种，因此，此处应填“这些婴儿从8个月起就开始用手语交流”。
3.    D  这一段讲有些家庭在婴儿六七个月的时候开始教他们手语。D选项中的these babies指代这些婴儿，符合题意。
4.    A  前文讲有些人担心婴儿学习手语会导致其会话能力发展缓慢，后文讲的是研究表明并不是这样，因此空格处应填表示转折的句子。
5.    E  E选项是对前文中ASL的解释，ASL是通用手语，因此能被更多的人理解。选项中的it即指代ASL。