| 完形填空。 | ||||
| Most people who travel from China to the US find that, despite having studied English for years, they have to "re-learn" it 1 arriving. Words that we learned in English classes are not 2 the same way here. To truly be part of the "melting pot", 3 in English is not enough. You need an accent to stand out. When I first came to the US for graduate school, I was a 4 foreigner. I felt so out of place that I wanted to hide everything about me that was " 5 ". To talk like an American became one of my goals. During my first term as a teaching assistant (TA), my students 6 they could not understand me. I learned later from a study that this complaint was 7 among US students with an international TA. It is called the "Oh, no!" syndrome (综合征):"Oh, no! Not another international TA, and not that 8 again!" So I imitated (模仿) the way 9 speakers talk and, over time, I made 10 good progress that American friends started to 11 my English as having "almost no accent". I took this as a sign of my success. Ever since, people have often 12 me for someone from many 13 : the Midwest, the West Coast, China, Japan, South Korea. Most frequently, people think I am from California. But then suddenly, conformity (一致) was 14 a praise: If I talk like an American, am I still Chinese? If I lose my Chinese accent, do I also lose my cultural identity? Am I denying my past by being 15 into a new culture? Now I 16 that a person's accent is a permanent record of their past cultural experience and it is a 17 of one's exposure to diverse cultures. As a fourth-year student in the US, I am no longer a nervous foreigner. My nervousness has been 18 by a desire to hold on to my cultural 19 . Now I consciously add some Chinese "accent" when I speak. I do not wish to speak " 20 " English because I am proud of who I am. | ||||
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