共用题干
English and English Community

1There 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.

Overall there are more speakers of Chinese than of_________.
A: a second language
B: the same language
C: the same speech community
D:any other language
E:national boundaries
F:a part of one's heritage