巧妙的语言技巧
巧妙的语言技巧

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It can be rude to talk politics over dinner…explicitly at least. But subtle linguistic cues might reveal more than you think about your political views, whether at the dinner table—or on Twitter. "There's a lot of information in the details of our language." Matthew Purver, a computational linguist at Queen Mary University of London. "The little words we use, the way we join together our sentences, and the kind of interactional patterns, where we react to other people."

Purver’s research team used Twitter as their communications forum, randomly selecting 28,000 users, half of whom clearly followed one political party’s Twitter feeds, for example, @GOP, but not the other, for a more or less even split among Republicans and Democrats. Then they analyzed the words in those users' timelines during a two-week period in June 2014.

As you might expect, the tweets of users who followed Republican accounts were a lot more likely to contain words like "obamacare" and "benghazi," whereas "bridge gate" came up more among Democratic followers.

But the researchers also found that the left-leaners were much more likely to use words like sh#& and fu@$ than were the righties. And whereas Republican followers preferred plural pronouns like "we" or "us," Democratic followers used more singular pronouns, like "I" or "me".

That pronoun use could reflect previous work on how people on the right and left forge their political views. "People on the right end of the political spectrum are more likely to be concerned with group conformity. Whereas people who tend to be on the left are perhaps more likely to see their morals or their values deriving from individualistic ideas, if you like." The study is in the journal PLoS ONE.

Of course, just following a political account is not proof of political belief. But these findings suggest that algorithms may increasingly be able to read between the lines, detecting nuances in human communication that even we humans can't perceive.


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1.What is the meaning of "There's a lot of information in the details of our language." ?

A Information can be conveyed through the way of word combination, sentence pattern, etc. explicitly or implicitly.

B We coney our meaning directly through language.

C People say what they want.

D Language is the only way we convey our meaning.

解析:选A。细节理解题。根据文章第1段最后1句The little words we use, the way we join together our sentences, and the kind of interactional patterns, where we react to other people.可知,语言细节如词语组合形式等能明示或者暗示信息。

2.What result does Purver’s research team find?

A Republican followers used more singular pronouns.

B Democratic followers preferred plural pronouns like "we" or "us".

C Republican followers are more likely to be concerned with group conformity.

D Democratic followers did not care about Libya problem.

解析:选C。细节综合题。根据文章第4段中的And whereas Republican followers preferred plural pronouns like "we" or "us," Democratic followers used more singular pronouns, like "I" or "me.". 可知,追随共和党的粉丝们喜欢用复数代词,民主党的则更多用单数形式。而复数代词的使用表明更可能关注群体一致。

3.What preference can pronoun use reflect?

A That pronoun use could not reflect people’s political views.

B Democratic followers are more likely to see their morals or their values deriving from individualistic ideas.

C Either Democratic or Republican followers choose the pronouns at random.

D Republican followers’ political views are on the left.

解析:选B。细节推理题。根据文章第5段中的Whereas people who tend to be on the left are perhaps more likely to see their morals or their values deriving from individualistic ideas, if you like." 可知,偏向左翼的人士更有可能从个人主义思想来展示自己的道德观和价值观。

4.Which of the following is true?

A A. It’s right to talk about politics over dinner.

B B. People use Twitter to express their political views explicitly.

C C. Humans may not perceive what we convey through language.

D D. Linguistics has nothing to do with algorithms.

解析:选C。推理综合题。根据文章最后1段…algorithms may increasingly be able to read between the lines, detecting nuances in human communication that even we humans can't perceive.可知,越来越多的应用算法来读取字里行间的含义,并察觉到一些我们尚未意识到的人类交流中的细微差别。