2023年武汉大学博士课程考试英语段落分析.doc

Unit 1 para3
Our second major discovery was that the Information Marketplace will dramatically affect people and organizations on a wide scale. Besides its many uses in commerce, office work, and manufacturing, it will also improve health care, provide new ways to shop, enable professional and social encounters across the globe, and generally permeate the thousands of things we do in the course of our daily lives. It will help us pursue old and new pleasures ,and it will encourage new art forms, which may be criticized but will move art forward, as new tools have always done. It will also improve education and training, first in specific and established ways and later through breakthroughs that are confidently awaited. Human organizations from tiny companies to entire national governments will benefit too, because so much of the work they do is information work.
Topic :The affection of the Information Marketplace Perspective: people--organization
Aspect(s):material-spiritual, individual-society Method: classification
Skill:examples Questions: what how

Unit1 para12
The wise eye will also see that the information Marketplace is much more influential than its parts –the interfaces, middleware and pipes that make up the three-story building on which we stand. Once they are integrated, they present a much greater power — the power to prevent an asthmatic from dying in a remote town in Alaska, to enable an unemployed bank loan officer to find and succeed at a new form of work, to allow a husband and wife to revel in the accomplishments of a distant daughter while also providing emotional and financial support. These powers are far greater than the ability to send an e-mail message, or to have five hundred TV channels.
Topic :The influence of information marketplace Perspective: power
Aspect(s):material-spiritual Method: hierarchical structure 层次构造（life-work-pleasure）
Skill:examples Questions: what how

Unit8 para1
Countless cultures around the world have disappeared, along with their mythologies. In Mesoamerica, dozens of ornate Mayan temples lie mute, as do an untold number of Incan monuments in Peru, Celtic cairns in Wales, Khmer statues in Cambodia, and magnificent ziggurat-like structures in central Africa.
Topic : The disappearance of culture Perspective: world
Aspect(s):culture【material】 Method: space order
Skill:examples Questions: what how

Unit8 para2
Easter island, celebrated for the giant statues left by its vanished civilization, is unique in archaeology because of its isolation from its neighbors. current archaeological evidence indicates that some 1,600 years ago the island's first settlers, explorers from Polynesian, found themselves in a pristine paradise with subtropical forests, dozens of wild bird species, and no predators. they multiplied and prospered, distributing resources in a manner that suggests a sophisticated economy and complex political system. rival clans erected ever-larger statues platforms, emulating the stone carvings of their Polynesian forebears, trying to surpass each other with displays of power and wealth.
Topic : The civilization of easter island Perspective: island/civilization
Aspect(s):enviroment-society Method: progression-classification
Skill:statement-example Questions: what→how

Unit8 para4
It is likely that changes in the forest occurred over decades and would have been difficult to detect immediately. An islander might easily have missed the long-term trend, thinking: “This year we cleared those woods over there, but trees are starting to grow back again over here.” Furthermore, any islander who issued a warning against the oncoming disaster would have been silenced by the ruling class. Chiefs, priests, and stone carvers all depended on the status quo to retain their positions and privileges.
Topic : The detection of change Perspective: islander
Aspect(s):idea behavior - Method: classification progression
Skill:quotation statement Questions: what why

Unit8 para6
Humanity may not act in time to prevent the decimation of the rain forests, fossil fuels, arable land, and fisheries. In only 40 years, Ethiopia’s forest cover shrank from 30% to 1%. During the same time period, the rest of the world lost half of its rain forests. Powerful decision-making groups ignore those who sound an alarm; their political, economic, and religious agendas fail to address the problem of disappearing natural resources.
Topic : The prevention of the decimation Perspective: humanity
Aspect(s): decimation 消灭 (material-spiritual ) - Method: causal order 因果次序
Skill: statistics - statement Questions: what how(what how why)

Unit8 para8
If we are going to avoid the fate of the Easter Islanders, we must change the myths that are leading us toward extinction an find inspiring visions of a plausible and appealing future. The old myths have collapsed, but no new ones have emerged to fill the vacuum. For transformation to occur ,human beings must actively shape the future , an enterprise that goes to the heart of mythmaking. If we are each a cell in what Peter Russell calls “The Global Brain,” then this is an individual as well a collective venture.
Topic : The change of the myths Perspective: mythmaking
Aspect(s): myths—idea：understanding Method: problem-solution order
Skill: statement-statement Questions: what why how(what how )

Unit8 para12
But as the Grand Narrative of Progress came to dominate other values and views, it cast a malignant shadow. The invention of the automobile was the quintessence of progress, but it left overcrowded highways, air pollution, and deforestation in its wake. Fertilizers in creased crop production but also increased the growth of algae in lakes and canals. The discovery of powerful insecticides — first greeted with enthusiasm and a Nobel Prize — was followed by the unintentional poisoning of fish, birds, and animals. Nuclear power plants increased available energy but led to storage problems, life-threatening contamination, and at least one accident with worldwide repercussions. The waste products of technological living began to choke great cities and foul once-pristine lands. Although Western housing, clothing, and religion were brought to abotiginal people, and the rate of infectious disease went down, the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, and spouse and child abuse went up.
topic :The shadow of GNP Perspectivs: science-society
Aspect(s): shadow (material) Method: classification
Skill: examples Questions: what how

Unit8 para25
The third principle is to identify real-life situations in which antagonists can find common ground. With a recognition of the limitations of linguistic exchange, postmodernists urge that groups “press beyond dialogue.” For example, athletes and musicians from all walks of life can generate smooth and effective teams or musical groups. Business executives and scientists from conflicting backgrounds are often able to work together to generate multinational corporations and cooperative research undertakings.
topic :The principle of common ground Perspectivs: situation（common ground）
Aspect(s): press beyond dialogue Method: antithesis对比(homogeneity-heterogeneity)同质异质
Skill: examples Questions: what how

词汇：
Rational 理性旳、合理旳
Illustrate 阐明 ——Illustration 例证
Linear thinking
Linear way of thinking pattern 线性思维方式
Discourse 论述
Material——spiritual 物质——精神

Point of view ——perspective 角度

Micro 微观
Macro 宏观

Advantage disadvantage

Nowadays, it becomes more and more important for Chinese PhD candidates to write English well, not only for studying abroad, but also for writing English research papers. Actually, a number of papers written in English by most PhD candidates seem to be far from English, though many of them can write high quality papers in Chinese. Thus how to improve the writing ability of English has become a problem that needs to be considered.
The reason why we Chinese students cannot write an accurate “English” paper is that our mother language, especially the thinking patterns, influences us. The features of a discourse have close relation with those of culture. What is reflected on the writing discourse is the sentence and passage organization form. There are different ways of expression with different thinking patterns. For example, When a Chinese student writes an English paper, he is used to using our Chinese thinking patterns to construct the discourse and organize the sentences. Well we may consider it a good writing, but an English–speaker may dislike it. So we should know about these differences between Chinese and English and be able to converse our thinking patterns to English.
Generally, it is vital to know how to use words suitably, how to write sentences correctly, and
how to organize paragraphs logically.
Firstly, at the sentence level, the basic grammar such as word spell and sentence structure must be all right. When it comes to the written form of the sentence, the thinking pattern must be taken into account. For example, Chinese people are used to using personal and active voice just like“we did this experiment” , contrast to the Chinese, English people always use impersonal and passive voice just like“this experiment was done by us”.
Secondly, writing a paper is just like building a house. To finish the house is far away from our aim. And there are buildings with different styles in different countries. Every sentence and every paragraph has a close relation with its neighbors. Only spelled out some sentences could not make a good writing. So it is necessary to analyze discourse from logic construction, deductive reasoning, and so on. To the paragraph writing, we should adopt the “Triple style” which divides the paragraph structure into three parts: topic sentence, body/development and conclusion. In every passage, materials must be prepared around the topic. These materials are organized by some skills and methods from the special perspective and aspects which used to develop the topic.
In a word, all these elements are influenced greatly by culture and thinking patterns. From sentence to paragraph and then to passage, we need not only to develop the writing skill, but also the linear way of thinking.