Three factors contribute to the miraculous spread of English 【C1】______ an international l

anguage: English usage in science, technology and commerce; the ability to 【C2】______ vocabulary from other languages; and the acceptability of various English dialects.

In science, English【C3】______ German after World War II. With this technical and scientific dominance 【C4】______ the beginning of overall dominance by the language, 【C5】______ in Europe and then globally.

Today, the information 【C6】______ has replaced the industrial age and has 【C7】______ time and distance. This is transforming world economies from industrial production to information-based goods and services. 【C8】 ______ geography and borders, the information revolution is reflecting our world. In less than twenty years, information processing, 【C9】______ limited to the printed work, has given way to computers and the Internet. Computer-aided communication is closing the gap between spoken and written English. It encourages more 【C10】______ conversational language and a tolerance for diversity and individual style.

English, 【C11】______ many languages, uses a phonetic alphabet and fairly basic grammar. But most importantly, it has a large and extensive vocabulary, 【C12】______ about 80% is foreign. It has borrowed and continues to borrow words from Spanish and French, Hebrew and Arabic, Hindi Urdu and Bengali, Malay and Chinese, 【C13】______ from languages from West Africa and Polynesia. This language characteristic makes it unique 【C14】______ history. Finally, 【C15】______ English language central authority guards the standards of the language: therefore, many 【C16】______ have developed: American, British, Canadian, Indian, and Australian, 【C17】______ a few. There is no standard pronunciation. But within this diversity is a 【C18】______ of grammar and one set of core vocabulary. 【C19】______ . each country that speaks the language can introduce 【C20】______ of its own culture into the usage and vocabulary.

【C1】

A．as

B．like

C．as if

D．of