英國(guó)孩子愛用美式英語(yǔ)

The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare， if the findings of a study into children's writing are anything to go by.

Researchers who looked at the entries to a national competition found that their written work was littered with American English， exclamation marks and references to celebrities. They were increasingly using American words such as garbage， trash can， sidewalk， candy， sneakers， soda， cranky and flashlight.

The writings， written by pupils aged 7 to 13， show how fairy cakes are referred to as cupcakes and a dinner jacket has become a tuxedo. “Smart” is now often used for “clever” and “cranky” for “irritable”.

Celebrity culture also has a powerful influence on children’s work， with Simon Cowell and Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi among the famous names cropping up repeatedly.

Pupils are let down by basic spelling， punctuation and grammar， according to the study by Oxford University Press， which looked at the entries to BBC Radio 2’s “500 Words” competition. Children stumbled over simple spellings such as “does” and “clothes” and are unable to use the past tense correctly， often saying “rised” instead of “rose” or “thinked” instead of “thought”.

Researchers also found that punctuation was underused， especially semicolons and speech marks. Some did not know how to use capital letters. However， exclamation marks were overused. Researchers found 35，171 examples in total， with some young writers using five at a time.

Popular US works such as the vampire novels and films are thought to be fuelling the increasing use of American vocabulary and spelling.

Modern technology was also influential. Out of almost 300 references to “blackberry”， nearly half referred to mobile phones.

如果一項(xiàng)對(duì)兒童作文的研究結(jié)果可靠的話，那么比起狄更斯或莎士比亞的影響，書面英語(yǔ)的未來(lái)受好萊塢電影的影響更大。

研究人員閱讀了英國(guó)作文比賽的參賽作品后發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些書面作品中到處都是美式英語(yǔ)、感嘆號(hào)和名人的名字。作文中越來(lái)越多地使用美式英語(yǔ)詞匯，如：garbage（垃圾）、trash can（垃圾桶）、sidewalk（人行道）、candy（糖果）、sneakers（運(yùn)動(dòng)鞋）、soda（蘇打水）、cranky（暴躁不安的）和flashlight（手電筒）。

這些作文是由7歲至13歲的小學(xué)生寫的，從中可見小學(xué)生們用“fairy cake”（仙女蛋糕）來(lái)指代“cupcake”（紙杯蛋糕），晚禮服的說(shuō)法也從“tuxedo”變成了“dinner jacket”。“smart”取代英式英語(yǔ)“clever”，“cranky”取代“irritable”（易怒的）。

名人文化對(duì)兒童作文也有強(qiáng)大的影響力。“真人秀”評(píng)委西蒙·考威爾和阿根廷足球運(yùn)動(dòng)員里奧內(nèi)爾·梅西都是反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的名人名字。

牛津大學(xué)出版社查看了英國(guó)廣播公司第二電臺(tái)舉辦的“500單詞”作文比賽的參賽作品后發(fā)現(xiàn)，小學(xué)生們?cè)诨酒磳憽?biāo)點(diǎn)和語(yǔ)法上很有問題。孩子們總是弄錯(cuò)一些簡(jiǎn)單的拼寫，如“does”和“clothes”；許多孩子不能準(zhǔn)確使用過去時(shí)態(tài)，常常把“rose”拼成“rised”，把“thought”拼成“thinked”。

研究人員還發(fā)現(xiàn)，許多標(biāo)點(diǎn)該用的時(shí)候沒有用，尤其是分號(hào)和引號(hào)。有些孩子不知如何應(yīng)用大寫字母。然而，感嘆號(hào)卻被過度使用。據(jù)研究人員統(tǒng)計(jì)，濫用感嘆號(hào)的情況總共出現(xiàn)了35，171次，有些小作者一次用了5個(gè)感嘆號(hào)。

熱門美國(guó)作品，如關(guān)于吸血鬼的小說(shuō)和電影，促使孩子們?cè)絹?lái)越多地使用美式英語(yǔ)詞匯和拼寫方法。

現(xiàn)代科技對(duì)英語(yǔ)也有影響。在這些作文中，“blackberry”一詞出現(xiàn)了近300次，其中近一半指的是黑莓手機(jī)。

Vocabulary

entry：參賽結(jié)果

refer to as：被稱為；被認(rèn)為

crop up：突然出現(xiàn)

punctuation：標(biāo)點(diǎn)符號(hào)的使用

stumble over：給……絆倒

semicolon：分號(hào)

vampire：吸血鬼

fuel：給……加油