红DeltaTest3综合写作Summarize the points made in the lecture, explaining how they are similar to points made in the reading.作文范文+答案解析
The human voice is capable of making a very large number of sounds, but the sound system of each language restricts the number of acceptable sounds to a relatively small number. The sound stream of a language consists of separate, ordered parts: syllables, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Understanding and learning language comes naturally to us because the structure of language is so logical. Language has syntax, which means that syllables and words are organized into meaningful constructions. Syntax is a condition of all human languages. It controls the flow of information and expresses relationships. Linguistic syntax is most obvious at the phrase, clause, and sentence levels.
One of the most interesting aspects of language is how it changes over time. There can be changes in a language’s sound system, such as a change in the pronunciation of a vowel.Such a change affects the “color” of the speech but has no effect on the meaning of a word. Change can also come in the creation of new words. Inventions, discoveries, and new contexts generate new words to describe them. Words also disappear as their relevant contexts disappear.
The vocabulary of a language has a great capacity to expand. The adoption of foreign words is part of the natural growth of almost any language. When language communities are forced together through political alliance or conquest, linguistic competition arises as two peoples try to converse. Often this results in a pidgin language, a mixing of words and expressions from the two languages.
Music is made of the same medium as speech: the sound sequence. Just as language is made up of separate, ordered parts, music is made up of notes, chords, measures, phrases, tunes, and so on. Because both language and music have structure, our ability to understand and learn them comes naturally.
Just as we are able to separate the sounds in spoken language, we can distinguish the individual sounds that musical instruments make. When we hear someone speak a foreign language, we notice how continuous the speech seems, but we cannot distinguish single words. The experience of hearing a foreign music is sort of the same. We aren’t sure what counts as a note, or where one note ends and another begins.
The sound system of a musical language defines musical sounds. This is why we are able to distinguish one sound from another, to recognize the difference between A and A-sharp. And, just as spoken languages limit their sounds to a small number of all of the sounds that the human voice can make, so do musical languages limit the pitches to a small number within the octave.
Like spoken language, music has syntax. Musical syntax refers to the relationships such as the hold between notes and chords and phrases. The primary purpose of musical syntax is to control and order the flow of information streaming to the ears. Musical syntax reduces the randomness of sound. It produces patterns of melody and harmony, thus allowing us to process a phrase and to understand it.
Music, like language, evolves over time. An example of a sound change in a musical language could be the introduction of a new instrument or the slow advance of a particular vocal technique—things that change the color of the sound.
When two musical communities come together and compete, musical influences are at the heart of this contact. One of the most dramatic results of competition in music is American jazz. Two very distinct musical languages, the African and European, had existed side by side in American society, so the ground was fertile for the evolution of jazz, a new musical language containing elements of both African and European music.
