Why does the author mention school, courts and the market?
Linguists estimate that many of the world's languages will fall silent within a century. The loss is often described as a loss of knowledge, and with reason: a language holds a community's names for plants, its stories and its way of reasoning. Yet some commentators say that the loss is the price of progress, as speakers choose languages that offer wider opportunities. It is true that no language survives without speakers who choose it. But the choice is not made in a vacuum. Where a language is excluded from school, courts and the market, parents who choose the dominant language for their children are responding to pressure and not to preference. The question is whether the community would choose differently if its language were given room, and that can be tested only by giving it room.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. To illustrate where a minority language may be excluded
- Step 1: The passage says where a language is excluded from school, courts and the market, parents choose the dominant language under pressure.
- Step 2: The only choice consistent with this is "To illustrate where a minority language may be excluded".
Answer
To illustrate where a minority language may be excluded.
Why not the others: School, courts and the market are named as places where a language may be excluded, not as multilingual institutions, targets for abolition, unfair or places with too many languages.
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