Linguists' premises ·Two claims to support view that Chinatown Chinese is a new dialect
(1) It's difficult for traditional dialect speakers who are <strong>new</strong> to the US to communicate with Chinatown Chinese speakers. (2) If one knows Chinatown Chinese terminology, speakers of any traditional dialect can communicate with other Chinatown Chinese speakers.
REJECT LINGUISTS' FIRST PREMISE ·The language barrier between traditional dialects and Chinatown Chinese is exaggerated
As long as the Chinatown Chinese speakers avoid or explain unfamiliar terms (which are usually references to local things) a traditional dialect speaker can communicate easily with Chinatown Chinese speakers who know the same traditional dialect.
Reject linguists' second premise ·Knowing Chinatown Chinese terms does not guarantee one can communicate with other Chinatown Chinese speakers
The traditional dialect of a Chinese speaker makes a big difference. Two speakers of different traditional dialects might not understand each other even if they both know Chinatown Chinese terms.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
3.
The author mentions the words █████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██
Question Type
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
The author brings up these words as examples of vocabulary from Chinatown Chinese that comes from American English, either “transliterated” or a “direct translation.” The broader purpose is to show much of the difficulty a newcomer might have in speaking with a Chinese American would relate more to this vocabulary and less to any significant difference in the dialect that Chinese Americans speak.
The author doesn’t suggest that terms from English “dominate” Chinatown Chinese. We don’t know what proportion of Chinatown Chinese comes from English terms.
b
illustrate how Chinese █████████ ███ ████ ██ ███████████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ███████ █████ █████████ ████████
The purpose doesn’t relate to showing how Chinese Americans communicate with each other.
This best captures the purpose of mentioning the words as explained above.
Difficulty
89% of people who answer get this correct
This is a low-difficulty question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%120
132
75%147
Analysis
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
Critique or debate
Humanities
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
2%
160
b
2%
153
c
5%
160
d
2%
155
e
89%
163
Question history
You don't have any history with this question.. yet!
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