There are great impediments to the general use of a standard in pronunciation comparable to that existing in spelling (orthography). One is the

fact that pronunciation is learnt ‘naturally’ and unconsciously, and orthography __1__is learnt deliberately and consciously. Large numbers of us, in fact, remain throughout our lives quite unconscious with what our speech sounds __2__like when we speak out, and it often comes as a shock when we __3__

firstly hear a recording of ourselves. It is not a voice we recognize at once, __4__whereas our own handwriting is something which we almost always know. We __5__begin the ‘natural’ learning of pronunciation long before we start learning to read or write, and in our early years we went on unconsciously imitating and __6__practicing the pronunciation of those around us for many more hours per every __7__day than we ever have to spend learning even our difficult English spelling.

This is ‘ natural’, therefore, that our speech-sounds should be those of our im- __8__mediate circle; after all, as we have seen, speech operates a means of holding a community and to give a sense of ‘belonging’. We learn quite early to recognize a __9__‘stranger’, someone who speaks with an accent of a different community—perhaps only a few miles far. __10__

参考答案及解析:

1. 将and改为whereas/but/yet

2. 将with改为of

unconscious of 是固定搭配。

3. 删掉out

speak out 意思为“大胆地说”，“大声地说”，与此处意思不符。

4. 将firstly改为first

5. 将which改为that或者将which删掉。限制性定语从句前面的先行词是something，因此要用that引导定语从句。也可以将which删掉，不用任何引导词。

6. 将went改为go

7. 删掉per或者every

8. 将This改为It

It在此处做形式主语，后面的that从句是真正的主语。

9. 在community后面加together

此处的大意为“语音是把社区团结在一起的工具”。

10. 将far改为away

“只有几英里远”应是 a few miles away。