补全短文是职称英语考试的第五大题，共有5道小题，每题2分，总计10分。补全短文要求考生根据文章的内容选择5组句子并将其补回原处。做此类题要遵循原则：就近原则，在文章空白处的上下文中寻找解题的线索;时间原则，出现时间、年代等词语时，要注意文章中的时间与选项中的时间的对应关系;代词原则，因为指示代词指代前面的内容，所以一般不能作为段落的开头;重复原则，根据语义走向一致的原则，往往上下文有重复的词是核心词。

The Day a Language Died

When Carios Westez died at the age of 76. a language died, too. Westez, more commonly known as Red Thunder Cloud, was the last speaker of the Native American language. Catawba. Anyone who wants to hear the songs of the Catawba can contact the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where, back in the 1940s, Red Thunder Cloud recorded a series of songs for future generations. __________(46)They are all that is left of the Catawba language. The language that people used to speak is gone forever.

We are all aware of the damage that modern industry can do to the world’s ecology(生态).However, few people are aware of the impact widely spoken languages have on other languages and ways of life. English has spread all over the world. Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi have become powerful languages. As well, ___________(47).When this happens, hundreds of languages that are spoken by only a few die out.

Scholars believe there are about 6,000 languages around the world, but more than half of them could die out within the next 100 years. There are many examples, Araki is a native language of the island of Vanuatu, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is spoken by only a few older adults，so like Catawba，Araki will soon disappear. Many languages of Ethiopia will have the same fate because each one has only a few speakers. _________(48)In the Americas, 100 languages, each of which has fewer than 300 speakers, also are dying out.

Red Thunder Cloud was one of the first to recognize the threat of language death and to try to do something about it. He was not actually born into the Catawba tribe, and the language was not his mother tongue. _________(49). The songs he sang for the Smithsonian Institution helped to make Native American music popular. Now he is gone, and the language is dead.

What does it mean when a language disappears? When a plant or insect or animal species dies, it is easy to understand what we’ve been lost and to appreciate what this means for the balance of the natural word. However, language is only a product of the mind. To be the last remaining speaker of a language，like Red Thunder Cloud，must be a lonely destiny, almost as strange and terrible as being the last surviving member of a dying species. ____________(50)

A. As these language become more powerful. their use as tools of business and culture increase.

B. For the rest of us, when a language dies, we lose the possibility of a unique way of seeing and describing the world.

C . These language don’t have many native speakers.

D . However，he was a frequent visitor to the Catawba reservation in South Carcinoma where he learned the language.

E . Papua New Guinea is an extremely rich source of different languages，but more than 100 of them are in danger of extinction(灭绝).

F . Some people might want to try to learn some of these songs by heart.

答案：

46、F ;47、A ;48、C;49、D;50、B