英语听力精选进阶版 14023

Who is tweeting in London?

Summary

29 October 2012

Researchers have been analysing the Twitter traffic in London, to identify which languages people are tweeting in. English still accounts for nine out of ten tweets in London, but the research also reveals many other languages communicating across the capital.

Reporter:

Vincent Dowd

Report

This was an independent project at University College London. For six months, researchers captured London's twittersphere, as sent by GPS telephones and tablets, and used a computer programme to identify which languages they were in; that's 3.3 million tweets in a total of 66 languages. 92.5% were in English, but the fascinating detail comes in the analysis of the non-English portion.

The biggest presence was of Spanish language tweets, followed by French, Turkish, Arabic, Portuguese¹ and German. The map created also shows where in London the tweets were sent. The pre-eminence of Spanish tweeting may, in part, be due to the recent influx² of young Spaniards seeking work, as well of course as London's resident Latin American population. That French was the next most tweeted language reflects the fact that there are an estimated third of a million French people living in London, but also that they're often younger and more likely to be Twitter users.

Less obvious languages which registered included Basque and Haitian Creole. Early research seemed to throw up a large amount of Tagalog, the language of the Philippines. But it turned out the computer programme was wrongly identifying text-friendly terms such as 'ha ha ha' and 'lol, lol, lol'.

1 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

2 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。