研究生英语视听说教程单元1U n i t O n e Language and CulturePart 1 English and Its OriginTask 1Directions: Listen to the following passage about variations of English. You will hear it three times. During the first reading, you should listen carefully for a general idea of the whole passage. During the secondreading, you are required to fill in the missing information by either using the words you have justheard or writing down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read the thirdtime, you can check what you have written.In Great Britain at present the speech of educated persons is known as Received Standard English. A class dialect rather than a regional dialect, it is based on the type of speech cultivated at such schools as Eton and Harrow and at such of the older universities as (1) _________________________. Many English people who speak regional dialects in their childhood (2) ________________________________________________________while attending school and university. Its influence has become even stronger in recent years (3) ________________________________________________as the British Broadcasting Corp.An important development of English outside Great Britain occurred with the colonization of North America. American English may be considered to include the English spoken in Canada, although (4) ____________________________________________________________ andvocabulary. The most distinguishing differences between American English and British English are in pronunciation and vocabulary.(5)_____________________________________________________________ __________________________. Written American English also has a tendency to be more rigid in matters of grammar and syntax, (6) ____________________________________________________________________ __. Despite these differences, it is often difficult to determine—apart from context—whether serious literary works have been written in Great Britain or the U.S./Canada—or, for that matter, in Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.Task 2Directions: Listen to the following passage the history of the English language. The passage will be read only once. After listening, decide whether each of the following statements is true or false. If false, give abrief explanation..1. Old English was mainly a mixture of some Germanic languages.2. Old English is more like modern French than modern German.3. The Normans brought many Latin words to the British Isles and added them to Old English.4. Many words from Scandinavian languages were also brought into Old English as a result of the settlement of Viking invaders in England.5. After England was conquered by the Normans, the upper class in England learned Norman French becauseEnglish was forbidden.6. The French-influenced language of England from about1100 to 1485 is now called Middle English7. By the end of the 1300’s, the French influence declined sharply in England because the Normans becameincreasingly distant from the English society.8. By 1485, the English language was spoken in many parts of the world as the English explored and colonizedsuch areas as Africa, Australia, India and North America.Task 3Directions: Listen to the following passage about characteristics of English. The passage will be read only once.After listening, choose the best answer from the four suggested choices marked A, B, C, and D to eachof the questions you hear.1. A. 60,000 B. 600,000 C. 6,000,000 D. 60,000,0002. A. Latin B. French C. German D. Italian3. A. Because many English words were borrowed from other languages.B. Because many English words were formed by combining other words.C. Because many English words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently, or vice versa.D.Because the pronunciation of some words remained the same, though their spellingchanged.4. A. Pronouns B. Nouns C. Verbs D. Adverbs5. A. They are used to express relationships between function words in a sentence.B.They are used to show the structural meanings of the sentence.C.They are used to carry the basic vocabulary meanings.D.They are used to indicate variations of words.6. A. One B. Two C. Three D. FourPart 2 Language and Language LearningTask 1Directions:You are going to hear a passage about American English spelling reform. The passage will be read twice. After listening, you are expected to complete the following sentences, based on what you haveheard.1.In addition to his well-known American Dictionary of the English Language published in1828,__________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________.2.Webster’s books sought to standardize spelling in the United States by________________________________________________________________ ____________________.3.The development of a specifically American variety of English ______________ ______________.4.Some of Webster’s most successful changes were spellings with or instead of our(honor, labor for theBritish honour, labour) and ______ __ ___________5.And other changes were spellings with an s instead of a c (defense, license for the British defence, licence);with a final ck instead of que(check, mask for the British cheque, masque); and ____________________________________________________________________ ___________________.6.Canadian spelling varies between the British and Americanforms, __________________________________________.Task 2Directions: You are going to hear a passage about development of language. The passage will be read only once.After listening, you are expected to answer the following questions as briefly as you can in your ownwords.1.How long has language probably existed?________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________2.According to the passage, how did language come into being?________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________3.What is the first real evidence of language?________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ /doc/631457930.html,nguages change. Please name one of the reasons why changes take place.________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________5.Do languages become better, worse or different?________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________6.Why do languages change even more slowly in modern industrial societies?________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Task 3Directions: You are going to listen to a passage about learning a foreign language. The passage will be read only once. After listening, you are expected to choose the best answer from the four suggested choicesmarked A, B, C, and D to each of the questions you hear.1. A. Reasons for learning a foreign language.B. Skills in mastering a foreign language.C. The importance of age in language learning.D. Common issues involved in language learning.2. A. Two B. Three C. Four D. Five3. A. There are many important reasons for learning a foreign language.B. Foreign language can help add to your knowledge of your own language.C. Foreign language can help add to your knowledge of another language.D. Learning a foreign language helps you add to your general stock of information.4. A. He can speak and write.B. He can understand.C. He can read.D. He can make himself understood in speech and writing.5. A. Attitude of the person learning it.B. Motivation of the person learning it.C. Age of the person learning it.D. The way the person learns it.6. A. Before the age of 10.B. Around the age of 10.C. After the age of 10.D. At the age of 10.Part 3 Culture and CommunicationTask 1Directions: You are going to hear a passage about how cultures change. The passage will be read twice. While listening, you are expected to take down the main points of the passage according to the hintsprovided.All parts of a culture do not change at the same time.Sometimes,_________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ _______________ At other times, ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ _______________Characteristics of cultural change include:Diffusion:__________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ _____ Acculturation: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ _______________ Assimilation: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________Task 2Directions: You are going to hear a passage about communicative style in interpersonal situations. The passage will be read twice. After listening, you are expected to summarize orally what you have heard. Yoursummary should be based on the hints provided.1.Differences in communicative style of different nationalities.2.What communicative style refers to.3.The influence of culture on people’s use and understanding of communicative style.Task 3Directions: You are going to listen to a passage about American small talk. The passage will be read only once.After listening, you are expected to choose the best answer from the four suggested choices marked A,B, C, and D to each of the questions you hear.1. A. Controversial topics of American small talk.B. General topics of American small talk.C. Political topics of American small talk.D. Recreational topics of American small talk.2. A. Sports B. News itemsC. Physical surroundingsD. Family matters3. A. Their social lives B. Their recreational interestsC. Their teachers and classesD. Their favorite stars4. A. Because they are too formal topics which makeAmericans uncomfortable.B. Because they are controversial topics which often lead to arguments .C. Because they are intellectual topics in which not all the Americans are interested.D. Because they are not Americans' understandable topics.5. A. Because politics is the most appropriate topic for their discussion.B. Because they can learn a lot from their discussion of politics.C. Because politics has more to do with their lives and work.D. Because discussing politics is their favorite way to kill the time.6. A. Personal concerns.B. Social lives.C. Financial matters.D. Interpersonal relations.S S c c r r i i p p t t s s f f o o r r U U n n i i t t O O n n e ePart 1 English and Its OriginTask 1In Great Britain at present the speech of educated persons is known as Received Standard English. A class dialect rather than a regional dialect, it is based on the type of speech cultivated at such schools as Eton and Harrow and at such of the older universities as Oxford and Cambridge. Many English people who speak regional dialects in their childhood acquire Received Standard English while attending school and university. Its influence has become even stronger in recent years because of its use by such public media as the British Broadcasting Corp.An important development of English outside Great Britainoccurred with the colonization of North America. American English may be considered to include the English spoken in Canada, although the Canadian variety retains some features of British pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. The most distinguishing differences between American English and British English are in pronunciation and vocabulary. There are slighter differences in spelling, pitch, and stress as well. Written American English also has a tendency to be more rigid in matters of grammar and syntax, but at the same time appears to be more tolerant of the use of neologisms. Despite these differences, it is often difficult to determine—apart from context—whether serious literary works have been written in Great Britain or the U.S./Canada—or, for that matter, in Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.Task 2The history of the English language can be divided into three main periods. The language of the first period, which began about 500 and ended about 1100, is called Old English. During the next period, from about 1100 to 1485, the people spoke Middle English. The language of the period from about 1485 to the present is known as Modern English.Old English was mainly a mixture of the Germanic languages of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Old English resembles modern German more than it does modern English. The vocabulary of Old English was chiefly Germanic, though some words came from the language of the Celts. The Germanic people had learned some Latin words while they lived on the European continent. These people brought some of those words to the British Isles and added them to Old English. More Latin words were added during the 500's and the 600's, when Christianity spread in England.During the late 800's, Viking invaders from Denmark and Norway settled in northeast England. As a result, many words from Scandinavian languages became part of Old English. In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, a people from the area in France that is now called Normandy. Their leader, William the Conqueror, became king of England. The Normans took control of all English institutions, including the government and the church.Most of the English people continued to speak English. However, many of the members of the upper class in England learned Norman French because they wanted influence and power. The use of French words eventually became fashionable in England. The English borrowed thousands of these words and made them part of their own language. The French-influenced language of England during this period is now called Middle English. The Normans intermarried with the English and, through the years, became increasingly distant--socially, economically, and culturally--from France. The Normans began to speak English in daily life. By the end of the 1300's, the French influence had declined sharply in England. English was used again in the courts and in business affairs, where French had replaced it.By about 1485, English had lost most of its Old English inflections, and its pronunciation and word order closely resembled those of today. During this period, the vocabulary of English expanded by borrowing words from many other languages. Beginning in the 1600's, the language spread throughout the world as the English explored and colonized Africa, Australia, India, and North America. Different dialects of the English language developed inthese areas.Task 3English language is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is used as either a primary or secondary language in many countries.English has a larger vocabulary than any other language. There are more than 600,000 words in the largest dictionaries of the English language.Some English words have been passed on from generation to generation expressing basic ideas and feelings. Later, many words were borrowed from other languages, including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. For example, algebra is from Arabic, fashion from French, piano from Italian, and canyon from Spanish. A number of English words were formed by combining other words. Words can also be shortened to form new words.Pronunciation and spelling in English sometimes seem illogical or inconsistent. Many words are spelled similarly though pronounced differently. Examples include cough, though, and through. Other words, such as blue, crew, to, too, and shoe, have similar pronunciations but are spelled differently. Many of these variations show changes that occurred during the development of English. The spelling of some words remained the same through the centuries, though their pronunciation changed.Grammar is the set of principles used to create sentences. These principles define the elements used to assemble sentences and the relationships between the elements. The elements include parts of speech and inflections.Some modern scholars divide the parts of speech into two categories, content words and function words. Content words are the main parts of speech--nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives--and carry the basic vocabulary meanings. Function words express relationships between content words in a sentence. They show the grammatical, or structural, meanings of the sentence and are also called structure classes. Function words include articles, prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions.English has fewer inflections than most other European languages. An inflection is a variation of the form of a word that gives the word a different meaning or function. An English noun has only two inflections, the plural and the possessive. Inflections are used to change the tense and number of a verb or the case of a pronoun. Inflections can change adjectives to the comparative or the superlative--for example, big, bigger, biggest.Questions:1.According to the largest dictionaries, approximately how many words are there in the English language?2.Many English words were borrowed from other languages. From which language was the word Pianoborrowed ?3.Why do English pronunciation and spelling sometimes seem illogical or inconsistent?4.Which of the following parts of speech does not belong to the category of content words?5.What is the function of content words, according to this passage?6.How many inflections does an English noun have?Part 2 language And Language LearningTask 1American English spelling differs from British English spelling largely because of one man, American lexicographer Noah Webster. In addition to his well-known American Dictionary ofthe English Language published in1828, Webster published The American Spelling Book in 1783, with many subsequent editions. TheAmerican Spelling Book became one of the most widely used schoolbooks in American history. Webster’s books sought to standardize spelling in the United States by promoting the use of an American language that intentionally differed from British English. The development of a specifically American variety of English mirrored the new country’s separate political development. Some of Webster’s most successful chan ges were spellings with or instead of our (honor, labor for the British honour, labour) and with er instead of re (center, theater for the British centre, theatre). And other changes were spellings with an s instead of a c (defense, license for the British defence, licence); with a final ck instead of que (check, mask for the British cheque, masque); and without a final k (traffic, public, now also used in British English, for the older traffick, publick). Later spelling reform created a few other differences, such as program for British programme.Canadian spelling varies between the British and American forms, more British in eastern Canada and more American in western Canada.Task 2No one knows how language began. Because all people who are not disabled have the ability to speak, language has probably existed at least as long as the modern human species. Most scholars believe that language developed very slowly from sound, such as grunts, barks and hoots, made by prehuman creatures. According to this view, a simple system of vocal communication became more complex as the human brain and speech organs evolved. But no one knows when and how this process took place.In fact, there is no record of language for most of its existence. The first real evidence of language is writing. But scholars believe that writing did not appear until thousands of years after the origin of language. The earliest known written records are Sumerian word-pictures made about 3500B.C. and Egyptian hieroglyphics that date from about 3000 B. C.. Written Chinese dates from perhaps 1500B.C., Greek from about 1400B.C., and Latin from about 500 B.C..No one knows all the reasons why languages change, but they continue to do so as long as people speak them. In a few cases, the changes can be explained. For examples, words are added to a vocabulary to refer to new ideas or objects. Contacts between speakers of different languages may cause words from one language to enter into another language.Most language changes occur for unknown reasons. Languages do not become better or worse, only different. The change is very slow. Speakers of English may notice differences between how they and other English speakers talk and may also recognize certain changes in their own speech. But these differences do not make English speakers think that they are changing from one language to another. If present-day speakers of English try to read Old English, however, they find that it is as unlike modern English as are French or German. In modern industrial societies, language changes take place even more slowly. Educational systems and such centralized communication systems as radio and television promote the use of a standard form of a language. Under these conditions, a language is likely to remain more stable. However, language will probably never stop changing entirely.Task 3There are many important reasons for learning a foreign language. Among them are the following: (1) Learning a foreign language increases your range of communication. For example, if you speak only English, you can communicate with over 400 million other speakers. If you also learn Spanish, you could speak to any of the 371 million Spanish-speaking people in Latin America, Spain, and other parts of the world. (2) A foreign language can help you add to your knowledge of your own language. For example, by studying Latin, you can improve your understanding of many of the thousands of English words that have Latin root. (3) Learning a foreign language helps you add to your general stock of information. A foreign language can be a key that unlocks new fields of knowledge. If you learn German you will be able to read books that are written in German on almost any subject you may wish to study.Learning any language involves four skills: (1) speaking, (2) understanding, (3) reading, and (4) writing. If you understand a foreign language, and can make yourself understood in speech and writing, you have mastered it.No language is easy or difficult in itself. The ease or difficulty of any language depends on the age of the person learning it. Before the age of 10, all languages are equally easy when learned by the natural speaking method ( listening and imitating ). After 10, learning a language becomes more difficult. Therefore, it is desirable to learn foreign languages as early as possible. Some schools start foreign language instruction in kindergarten or in the primary grades.Questions:1.What does the passage mainly discuss?2.How many important reasons for learning a foreignlanguage does the passage list?3.What point does the author illustrate by the examp le “studying Latin”?4.According to the passage, what does it mean to say one has mastered a language?5.On what does the ease or difficulty of learning any language depend?6.At what age are all languages equally easy when learned by the natural speaking method?Part 3 Culture and CommunicationTask 1Every culture changes. But all parts of a culture do not change at the same time. Science and technology may sometimes change so rapidly that they lessen the importance of customs, ideas, and other nonmaterial parts of a culture. At other times, changes in ideas and social systems may occur before changes in technology. The failure of certain parts of a culture to keep up with other related parts is referred to as cultural lag. No society is so isolated that it does not come in contact with other societies. When contact occurs, societies borrow cultural traits from one another. As a result, cultural traits and patterns tend to spread from the society in which they originated. This spreading process is called diffusion. Corn growing, for example, began in what is now Mexico thousands of years ago and eventually spread throughout the world.Diffusion can occur without firsthand contact between cultures. Products or patterns may move from group A to group C through group B without any contact between group A and group C. Today, diffusion is rapid and widespread because many cultures of the world are linked through advanced means oftransportation and communication.When two cultures have continuous, firsthand contact with each other, the exchange of cultural traits is called acculturation. Acculturation has often occurred when one culture has colonized or conquered another, or as a result of trade. In addition to adopting each other's traits, the two cultures may blend traits. For example, if the people of the cultures speak different languages, they may develop a mixed language called pidgin in order to communicate. The cultures may also exchange or blend such traits as clothing, dances, music, recipes, and tools. Through acculturation, parts of the culture of one or both groups change, but the groups remain distinct. In this way, acculturation differs from assimilation. Through assimilation, one group becomes part of another group and loses its separate identity.Task 2Pushy Greeks. Shy Chinese. Opinionated Germans. Emotional Mexicans, Brazilians, and Italians. Cold British. Loud Africans. These are among the stereotypes or general ideas Americans have about some other nationalities. In part, these stereotypes arise from differences in what is call ed “communicative style.”When people talk to each other, they exhibit a communicative style that is strongly influenced by their culture.Communicative style refers to (1) the topics people prefer to discuss, (2) their favorite forms of interaction in conversation, (3) the depth to which they want to get involved with each other, (4) the communication channels (verbal or nonverbal) on which they rely, and (5) the level of meaning (“factual” vs. “emotional”) to which they are most attuned.Naturally, people prefer to use their own communicative style. Issues about communicative style rarely arise when twopeople from the same culture are together because their styles generally agree. Most people—including most Americans—are as unaware of their communicative style as they are of their basic values and assumptions. Foreigners who understand something about the Americans’ communicative style will be less likely to misinterpret or misjudge Americans than will foreigners who don’t know the common characteristi cs of interpersonal communication among Americans. They will also have a better understanding of some of the stereotypes Americans have about other nationality groups.Task 3When Americans first encounter another person, they engage in a kind of conversation they call "small talk." The most common topic of small talk is the weather; another very common topic is the speakers' current physical surroundings--the room or building they are in, the sidewalk where they are standing, or whatever is appropriate. Later, after the preliminaries, Americans may talk about past experiences they have both had, such as watching a particular TV program, going to New York, or eating at a particular restaurant.Beyond these very general topics of small topic, there is variation according to the life situation of the people involved and the setting in which the conversation is taking place. Students are likely to talk about their teachers and classes; if they are of the same sex, they are likely to discuss their social lives. Adults may discuss their jobs, recreational interests, houses, or family matters. Men are likely to talk about sports or cars. Housewives, whose numbers are steadily decreasing in American society, are likely to talk about their children, if they have any, or about household matters or personal care.。
