高英第七册UnitOne.doc

Contents

Unit One
Text I English and American Concepts of space
Text II Private Space
Unit Two
Text I Tourists
Text II Chestnut Street from a Fire Escape
Unit Three
Text I The Subway
Text II Living in Two World
Unit Four
Text I Style and Purpose
Text II Pub or Groggery?
Unit Six
Text I How to get things done
Text II Now That I’m organized
Unit Seven
Text I The Aims of Education
Text II Another school Year --- Why?
Unit Eight
Text I Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem
Text II The Civil Right Movement: What Good Was It?
Unit Nine
Text I Roots of Freedom
Text II The Philosopher and the Conqueror
Unit Ten
Text I Fear of Dearth
Unit Eleven
Text I Beyond Invalidism, Part One
Unit Thirteen
Text II The Trial that rocked the World
Unit Fourteen
Text I Reading the River

Unit One
Text I:
English and American Concepts of Space

Pre-reading Brainstorming:
1) What do you know about the concepts of space?
2) How do you usually judge a person’s social status: by his family background, the place where he lives, his education, or by his profession? Why do you do so?
3) Do you feel the need for a private room entirely for yourself to take refuge in when you do not want your thoughts to be intruded on? If there is no such facility, what would you do?
reference: 西方文化词典 --- Polemics & Territoriality

About the Author
Edward Twitchell Hall (1914 ---), U.S. anthropologist, author, and teacher, received his Ph.D. degree in anthropology from Columbia University. He has taught at various institutions, such as Harvard Business School, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University. His works include: The Silent Language (1959), a study of nonverbal communication, and The Hidden Dimension (1966), a study of “social and personal space and man’s perception of it.” The present text, a selection from The Hidden Dimension, gives a contrast between English and American concepts of personal space.

在人类学方面,Edward Hall研究空间,出版了两本重要著作,即《无声的语言》(The Silent Language, 1959)和《隐藏的空间》(The Hidden Dimension, 1966),探讨人际空间距离对人类行为的作用,及其在不同文化里的差异,影响后来有关空间行为学的研究
距离关系（proxemic patterns）
空间的传统在不同的文化中亦有不同的意义。人类学家爱德华·霍尔（Edward T.Hall）在他的著作The Hidden Dimension及The Silence Language 中亦提及，距离关系（proxemic patterns）--- 在固定空间内的有机关系 --- 可以因外在环境，如天气、噪音及光线而改变人的空间距离关系。盎格鲁-萨克逊和北欧文化比热带地区的文化用的空间大些。而噪音、危险、黑暗均会使人相互接近。霍尔将人类使用距离的关系分为四种：
（1 ）亲密的（intimate），
（2）个人的（personal），
（3）社会的（social），
（4）公众的（public）,
霍尔以人的皮肤至十八英寸远称之为“亲密距离”，这种距离有人与人间身体的爱、安慰和温柔关系。这个距离若被陌生人侵入，则会引起怀疑或敌意的反应。在许多文化里，亲密距离关系若在公众场合表现，会被认为失仪而粗鲁。
　　“个人距离”大概是十八英寸到四英尺的距离（约手臂长）。个人彼此间碰触得到，较适合朋友与相识之人，却不似爱人或家人那般亲密。这种距离保持了隐私权，却不像亲密距离那样排斥他人。
　　“社会距离”约为四英尺到十二英尺长。这通常是非私人间的公事距离，或是社交场合的距离，正式而友善，多半是三人以上的场合。如果两个人的场合保持这种距离就很不礼貌，这种行为也表示冷淡。
　　“公众距离”则是十二英尺至二十五英尺或更远的距离。这个范围疏远而正式，若在其间呈现个人情绪，会被视为无礼。重要的公众人物通常会在公众距离出现，因为其空间涵盖较广，手势及嗓音都须夸大以利清楚表达。
　　大部分人的距离关系都是直觉的，如果有陌生人站在离我们十八英寸的地方，我们通常不会觉得：“这家伙侵犯我的亲密空间。”除非我们好斗成性，要不然都会走开。当然，社会因素也支配距离观念。比如在很挤的地铁里，每个人都在亲密距离之内，但彼此的态度却是“公众的”，身体有接触，却互不交谈。

Library work
Proxemics is the study of the communicative value of space and distance in various cultures. It includes the study of the physical distance between people when they are talking to each other, as well as their postures and whether or not there is physical contact during their conversation. These factors can be looked at in relation to the sex, age, and social and cultural background of the people involved, and also their attitudes to each other and their state of mind. Of interest are such features as the physical distance considered proper or each other in public places. These and other nonverbal behavioral features, which vary from culture to culture, have been called “silent language” by Edward T. Hall. “The proxemic details” (1.6) refer to facts or pieces of information related to proxemics, e.g. how closely two people should stand or sit apart when talking to each other, whether one should have his office door open or closed, etc.

A public school in Britain is a private secondary boarding school with a pre-university curriculum. Admission is by entrance examination. The term “public school” emerged in the 18th-century when the reputation of certain grammar schools spread beyond their immediate environs. They began taking pupils whose parents could afford residential fees and thus became known as “public school”, in contrast to “local school”. A public school is different from a comprehensive school, where children of all abilities and social backgrounds are taught together. A public school generally prepares students academically for higher education. Therefore, students who go to public schools are supposed to be better educated than those who go to comprehensive schools.

1) Main Idea:
With regard to space the English and Americans have been conditioned quite differently.
Re. thesis statement: If there ever were two cultures in which differences of polemic details are marked it is in the educated English and the middle-class Americans.
英国人和美国人虽然说同一种语言，但对个人空间的意识却有着不同的认识，文章重点谈论了这种不同的认识所产生的原因，以及这种认识的不同引起同事之间误会的可能性。

2) Purpose of writing and Tone:
To expose / an expository writing).
Manners: serious
Cf:
In this text, the author gives a contrast between English and American concepts of personal space, and shows us the implications of such a difference
3) Organization and Development:
1) Introduction: (P1)
Thesis statement: If there ever were two cultures in which differences of proxemic details are marked it is in the educated English and the middle-class Americans;
2) (P2-3)
Contrsting the American’s sense of space that can be called his own with the Englishman’s sense of shared space --- differences in how space is allotted;
3) (P4-5)
Contrsting the different ways in which Americans and English behave when seeking seclusion;
Cf: Introduction to the thesis statement: (Para. 1)
The English and the Americans are different in their attitudes toward how space is allotted.
Body: (Paras. 2-3 )
Para. 2: The Americans’ feelings for their private rooms.
Para. 3: The Englishmen’s attitude toward his own space.
Conclusion: (Para. 4—5)：The contrasting English and American patterns have some remarkable implications.
The most obvious method used to development the author’s ideas is “contrast”. In fact, paragraph 2 and paragraph 3 have formed a sharp contrast. In paragraph 2, the author introduces to us the feeling of Americans for their own rooms and in paragraph 3, the author is mainly introduces to us the English people’s feeling about private rooms. In the text, the author has used contrasts several times to express us that there is so great a difference between Americans and English people in their attitudes towards private space.
This passage is an expository essay.

Cf: SISU’ analysis
Structure and organization
Though an excerpt from a book, the present text is self-contained in terms of structure. The first paragraph serves as an introduction; the last paragraph is the conclusion; the three paragraphs in between form the body of the text.
The thesis statement of the article can be found in the first paragraph: If there ever were two cultures in which differences of the proxemic details are marked it is in the educated (public school.) English and the middle-class Americans.
The topic sentence of the second paragraph is the first sentence of the paragraph: The middle-class American growing up in the United States feels he has a right to have his own room, or at least part of room.
The third paragraph concentrates on the middle and upper-class Englishman. The topic sentence of the paragraph is implied. Yet it is obvious that this paragraph is intended to contrast sharply the previous one.
The fourth paragraph deals with the implications which contrasting the two cultures entail.
The fifth paragraph is the conclusion. The point the author aims to make is found in the last sentence: The important point is that the spatial and architectural needs of each ate not the same at all.

4) Comprehension Questions:
1) In what sense dose Hall use the word “separated” in the first sentence?
--- Made culturally different.
2) What has really separated the English and the Americans according to the author?
--- the different ways of handling time, space and materials.
3) What does the “social system” in England refer to?
--- the traditional way of stratify （使成层） society (阶层，界) into classes, which remains important / influential even today.
4) Why do you think that one’s spatial location means almost as much to the Americans as one’s social location does to the English?
--- Think of the different history of the two countries. Britain has a long history of feudal social hierarchy, which had been firmly rooted and survived in the bourgeois revolution in the 17th century. This system has not been completely overcome and the country is still a kingdom today. Aristocratic titles have been hereditary and are still regarded as a mark of a person’s social status. On the other hand, the United States has a short history of about 200 years, which began with a vast expanse of land that provided abundant space for people to fully exercise their imagination and develop their talent. A person’s background is far less important than what space he can find for himself and what he can achieve in that space.
5) What conclusion has the author reached by the end of the first paragraph?
--- Spatial allocation does not have the same implication for the English and for the Americans.
6) How is the first paragraph related to the second one?
--- The last sentence of the first paragraph introduces the next two paragraphs, which illustrate differences between the English and the Americans in the allotment of space.
7) What does the author try to contrast in the second and third paragraph?
--- How differently space is allotted in Britain and the U.S., the former having a strong sense of “shared space” and latter of “one’s own space.”
8) How do you interpret “experiencing strain in his relationship with Americans” in paragraph 4?
--- having trouble getting along with Americans.
9) How differently would the English and the Americans behave when they want to be alone?
--- The Americans would go to their own rooms and shut the door, whereas the English, instead of finding architectural screens to shut themselves off, wou8ld provide subtle clues to others present that they do not wish to be disturbed.
10) How would the English and the Americans feel if they are not talked to by people present in the same room?
--- Americans would feel that they are being rejected. The English would fel happy that others have recognized the unseen barrier they have erected to keep off intrusion.
11) This article is written by a professor of anthropology based on his research findings. Some words the author uses has added to the academic flavor of the writing. Can you identify some of them and explain what they mean?
--- e.g. proxemic (L.6) --- adj. of proxemics, a branch of sociology that studies spatial relations, people’s sense of space and their need of space in different situations, etc.
Subject (L.20) --- a person that undergoes scientific experimentation or investigation
ego (L.4) --- the self of a person
condition (L.35) --- determine, accustom
seminar (L.47) --- regular meeting of a group of students under the guidance of a tutor or a professor
5) Difficult Sentences for paraphrasing
1) The differences for which language gets blamed may not be due so much to words as to communications on other levels beginning with English intonation (which sounds affected 做作的 to many Americans) and continuing to ego-lined ways of handling time, space, and materials. (L.2-5)
--- Some people complain about the English language for its being so different in the two countries. These differences, however, may have resulted not from the words people use, but rather from individual linguistic habits, which are displayed in the adoption of a particular intonation (English intonation sounds unnatural to Americans), and extend down to the way people look at the world.
separated by a common language
Observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.--George Bernard Shaw
BrE = British English
AmE = American English
OED=Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn. [1989], unless otherwise noted)
（
Or --- (SISU)
The difference between the Americans and the English is attributable not just to the different words they use, but also to the different ways they speak the language, and, if we trace even further, the difference is attributable to the different ways in which they regard time, space, and materials, which are specific to their respective culture.
2) One of basic reasons for this wide disparity is that in the United States we use space as a way of classifying people and activities, whereas in England it is the social system that determines who you are. (L.7-9)
--- One of important factors that has contributed to such a big difference is that the place where one lives, to Americans, can present a symbol of one’s status or activity, while in England, the class one belongs to identifies one’s position in society.
3) As a consequence, the English are puzzled by the American need for a secure place in which to work, an office. (L.41-43)
--- As a result, it is hard for the English to figure out why Americans invariably feel it is necessary to find themselves a space, such as an office, where they may work without being disturbed.
4) It took some time but finally we were able to identify most of the contrasting features of the American and British problems that were in conflict in this case. (L.59-60)
--- It was not until some time later that we managed to discover the major differences that had frustrated both sides in the above story.
5) They have in effect internalized a set of barriers, which they erect and which others are supposed to recognize. (L.66-67)
--- They have virtually built up, for themselves, a wall, which may keep them safe from disturbance when necessary and which, they assume, others should be able to perceive and respect.
6) Difficult Sentences for Translation (E-C):
1) The differences for which language gets blamed may not be due so much to words as to communications on other levels beginning with English intonation (which sounds affected 做作的 to many Americans) and continuing to ego-lined ways of handling time, space, and materials. (L.2-5)
2) One of the basic reasons for this wide disparity is that in the United States we use s