Unit
Unit 14
14
UNDER
UNDER THE
THE SIGN
SIGN OF
OF
MICKEY
MICKEY MOUSE
MOUSE &
& CO.
CO.
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
Watch the video and answer the following questions.
1. What are they doing in this scene?
They are celebrating Mickey’s birthday.
2. What does Mickey mean when he says “I do not
deserve it”?
He is implying the gift is so nice and trying to
be polite.
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
Mickey Mouse
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
Minnie: It’s coming. Shh ... Hide.
Mickey: Hi, Minnie, how about a little …
Minnie: You clown.
All:
Happy birthday! Oh, you pal!
Mickey: Hey, thanks! Thanks!
Minnie: Go pick the cake. Mickey! Ah! An electric organ!
Mickey: For me? Oh, I don’t deserve it.
Donald Duck: Deserve a lot! How about a little play, Mickey?
Minnie: Oh, Mickey!
All:
[laugh]
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
American popular culture is the attitudes and
perspectives shared by the majority of the U.S. citizens,
which expresses itself through a number of media,
including movies, music, sports and cultural icons.
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
 Movies e.g. Hollywood, Broadway
 Music e.g. hip-hop, Rap, jazz, blues, country, R&B
 Sports e.g. NBA
 Cultural icons e.g. Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny
Audiovisual supplement
Cultural information
 American Brands: Coca-Cola, IBM, Johnson & Johnson,
Microsoft, Wal-Mart Stores, etc.
 American movies’ ticket office in China: American
movies Avatar and Alice in Wonderland ranked the first
and the second in China’s ticket office list of 2010.
Structural analysis
Rhetorical features
American culture has been infiltrating nations all
over the world over the past two decades, marginalizing
traditional cultures throughout the world and bringing
about the kind of global “fun” culture that Disney is
famous for. In this text, Todd Gitlin reveals the trend
that American culture is becoming dominant and enjoys
worldwide popularity, and accounts for this cultural
phenomenon.
The text can be divided into the following three parts:
Part I (Paragraph 1): This is the introduction where the
author advances his idea that American culture is
dominant over the “global village”.
Structural analysis
Rhetorical features
Part II (Paragraphs 2 — 5): This part presents evidence of
the universal popularity that American culture
enjoys, and explores what underlies the cultural
phenomenon. This part can be further divided into
two sub-sections. Paragraphs 2 — 4 as a sub-section
give testimony to the idea that American pop
culture is recognized worldwide, while Paragraph 5
explains why it is so.
Part III (Paragraph 6): The author concludes his argument
with a thought-provoking restatement of his point.
Structural analysis
Rhetorical features
Contrast is a prominent feature of the text. It is
realized by parallel structures, where there is semantic
disparity. For instance, in Paragraph 1, “in mansions on the
hill” is in contrast to “in huts”. In Paragraph 4,
Grandfather is dressed in “traditional Tungusian clothing”.
Grandson has on his head “a reversed baseball cap”.
Contrast is also manifested through lexical opposition, as
exemplified in “They are both local and cosmopolitan”,
where “local” is opposite to “cosmopolitan”. There are
other examples like dispatch－collect, well known－rarely
acknowledged, love－hate, antagonism－dependency,
monocultures－cultural bilingualism.
Read the text and find other structural and lexical
manifestations of contrast.
Detailed reading
UNDER THE SIGN OF MICKEY MOUSE & CO.
Todd Gitlin
1
Everywhere, the media flow defies national boundaries.
This is one of its obvious, but at the same time amazing,
features. A global torrent is not, of course, the master
metaphor to which we have grown accustomed. We’re
more accustomed to Marshall McLuhan’s global village.
Those who resort to this metaphor casually often forget
that if the world is a global village, some live in mansions
on the hill, others in huts. Some dispatch images and
sounds around town at the touch of a button; others collect
them at the touch of their buttons. Yet McLuhan’s image
reveals an indispensable half-truth. If there is a village, it
speaks American. It wears jeans, drinks Coke, eats at the
golden arches, walks on swooshed shoes, plays electric
guitars, recognizes Mickey Mouse, James Dean, E.T., Bart
Simpson, R2-D2, and Pamela Anderson.
Detailed reading
2
At the entrance to the champagne cellar of PiperHeidsieck in Reims, in eastern France, a plaque declares
that the cellar was dedicated by Marie Antoinette. The
tour is narrated in six languages, and at the end you walk
back upstairs into a museum featuring photographs of
famous people drinking champagne. And who are they?
Perhaps members of today’s royal houses, presidents or
prime ministers, economic titans or Nobel Prize winners?
Of course not. They are movie stars, almost all of them
American － Marilyn Monroe to Clint Eastwood. The
symmetry of the exhibition is obvious, the premise
unmistakable: Hollywood stars, champions of consumption,
are the royalty of this century, more popular by far than
poor doomed Marie.
Detailed reading
3
Hollywood is the global cultural capital － capital in
both senses. The United States presides over a sort of World
Bank of styles and symbols, an International Cultural Fund
of images, sounds, and celebrities. The goods may be
distributed by American-, Canadian-, European-, Japanese-,
or Australian-owned multinational corporations, but their
styles, themes, and images do not detectably change when
a new board of directors takes over. Entertainment is one of
America’s top exports. In 1999, in fact, film, television,
music, radio, advertising, print publishing, and computer
software together were the top export, almost $80 billion
worth, and while software alone accounted for $50 billion
of the total, some of that category also qualifies as
entertainment － video games and pornography, for
example.
Detailed reading
Hardly anyone is exempt from the force of American
images and sounds. French resentment of Mickey Mouse,
Bruce Willis, and the reset of American civilization is well
known. Less well known, and rarely acknowledged by the
French, is the fact that Terminator 2 sold 5 million tickets
in France during the month it opened － with no
submachine guns at the heads of the customers. The same
culture minister, Jack Lang, who in 1982 achieved a
moment of predictable notoriety in the United States for
declaring that Dallas amounted to cultural imperialism, also
conferred France’s highest honor in the arts on Elizabeth
Taylor and Sylvester Stallone. The point is not hypocrisy
pure and simple but something deeper, something obscured
by a single-minded emphasis on American power:
dependency.
Detailed reading
American popular culture is the nemesis that hundreds
of millions － perhaps billions － of people love, and love to
hate. The antagonism and the dependency are inseparable,
for the media flood － essentially American in its origin, but
virtually unlimited in its reach － represents, like it or not,
a common imagination.
Detailed reading
4
How shall we understand the Hong Kong T-shirt that
says “I Feel Coke”? Or the little Japanese girl who asks an
American visitor in all innocence, “Is there really a
Disneyland in America?” (She knows the one in Tokyo.) Or
the experience of a German television reporter sent to
Siberia to film indigenous life, who after flying out of
Moscow and then travelling for days by boat, bus, and jeep,
arrives near the Arctic Sea where live a tribe of Tungusians
known to ethnologists for their bearskin rituals. In the
community store sits a grandfather with his grandchild on
his knee. Grandfather is dressed in traditional Tungusian
clothing. Grandson has on his head a reversed baseball cap.
Detailed reading
5
American popular culture is the closest approximation
today to a global lingua franca, drawing the urban and
young in particular into a common cultural zone where they
share some dreams of freedom, wealth, comfort, innocence,
and power － and perhaps most of all, youth as a state of
mind. In general, despite the rhetoric of “identity,” young
people do not live in monocultures. They are not monocular.
They are both local and cosmopolitan. Cultural bilingualism
is routine. Just as their “cultures” are neither hard-wired
nor uniform, so there is no simple way in which they are
“Americanized”, though there are American tags on their
experience － low-cost links to status and fun.
Detailed reading
Everywhere, fun lovers, efficiency seekers, Americaphiles,
and Americaphobes alike pass through the portals of Disney
and the arches of McDonald’s wearing Levi’s jeans and Gap
jackets. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, John Wayne,
Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson,
Madonna, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, the multi-color
chorus of Coca-Cola, and the next flavor of the month or
the universe are the icons of a curious sort of one-world
sensibility, a global semiculture. America’s bid for global
unification surpasses in reach that of the Roman, the
British, the Catholic or Islam; though without either an
army or a God, it requires less. The Tungusian boy with the
reversed cap on his head does not automatically think of it
as “American,” let alone side with the U.S. Army.
Detailed reading
6
The misleadingly easy answer to the question of how
American images and sounds became omnipresent is:
American imperialism. But the images are not even faintly
force-led by American corporate, political, or military
power.
The empire strikes from inside the spectator as
well as from outside. This is a conundrum that deserves to
be approached with respect if we are to grasp the fact that
Mickey Mouse and Coke are everywhere recognized and
often enough enjoyed. In the peculiar unification at work
throughout the world, there is surely a supply side, but
there is not only a supply side. Some things are true even if
multinational corporations claim so: there is demand.
Detailed reading
What unifies the nations into a “global village”?
(Paragraph 1)
It is the media flow that unifies the nations into a
“global village”, as it defies national boundaries. When
national boundaries are no longer a barrier of
communication and when communication is so easy and
fast on the Internet, people all over the world feel as if
they were living in the same one village.
Detailed reading
How do you understand “the symmetry of the
exhibition”? (Paragraphs 2)
“The symmetry of the exhibition” means the balance,
or the approximate balance between two sides: on the
one hand is Marie Antoinette, the dedicator of the
cellar and Queen of France to Louis XVI, and on the
other are American pop stars. The former was royalty
in history while the latter are royalty of the modern
era, in the metaphorical sense.
Detailed reading
What underlies French hypocrisy as shown in Paragraph 3?
(Paragraphs 3)
French hypocrisy as manifested by the two facts
related in Paragraph 3 is only superficial. There is
something deeper. What lies behind is the paradox: the
antagonism and the dependency are inseparable.
People everywhere consciously resist the invasion of
American culture for the maintenance of their native
cultures, but subconsciously enjoy and even rely on
American culture.
Detailed reading
Why does American culture become a kind of lingua
franca? (Paragraphs 2—6)
Part of the reason that American culture becomes a
kind of lingua franca, i.e. it is universally recognized,
is that it meets a psychological need in the growth of
the young. Another part of the reason is America’s
attempt to popularize their culture in the world for
economic, ideological and other purposes. In short,
American culture as a kind of lingua franca is the result
of America’s striking “from inside the spectator as well
as from outside.”
Detailed reading
Group discussions
How do you understand the questions the author raised
in Paragraph 4 ?
Detailed reading
defy: v.
offer effective resistance to sth. or sb.
e.g. defy public opinion
a political move that defies explanation
The baby boy defied all the odds and survived.
Translation:
他不顾一切困难坚持干下去。
He was going ahead defying all difficulties.
________________________________________________
这扇门怎么样都打不开。
The door defied all attempts to open it.
_________________________________________________
Detailed reading
amazing: a.
very surprising, esp. in a way that makes you feel pleasure
or admiration
e.g. an amazing achievement/discovery/success/
performance
It’s amazing how quickly people adapt.
Derivation:
amazingly ad.
e.g. Amazingly, no one noticed.
The meal was amazingly cheap.
Detailed reading
torrent: n.
a rushing, violent or abundant stream of anything
e.g. The rain was coming down in torrents.
a torrent of abuse/criticism/words
Derivation:
torrential a.
e.g. torrential applause
a torrential flow of words
Translation:
没等散会，暴雨就倾泻而下。
Before the meeting could end, torrential rain
__________________________________________________
began to pour.
_________________
Detailed reading
accustomed: a.
familiar with sth. and accepting is as normal or usual
Collocations:
be/become/get accustomed to sth. / doing sth.
e.g. My eyes slowly grew accustomed to the dark.
She was a person accustomed to having eight hours’
sleep a night.
Synonyms: habituated, adapted
Antonym: unaccustomed
Detailed reading
resort: v.
turn to sth. for assistance or as the means to an end
Collocation:
resort to sth.
e.g. They felt obliged to resort to violence.
We may have to resort to using untrained staff.
Detailed reading
dispatch: v.
send off or away with promptness or speed
e.g. The government was preparing to dispatch 6,000
soldiers to search the island.
The victory inspired him to dispatch a gleeful
telegram to the President.
Phrase:
with dispatch: quickly and efficiently (dispatch as a
noun)
e.g. He carries out his duties with dispatch.
Detailed reading
indispensable: a.
essential; too important to be without
e.g. Cars have become an indispensable part of our lives.
Collocations:
indispensable to sb. / sth.
e.g. She made herself indispensable to the department.
indispensable for sth. / doing sth.
e.g. A good dictionary is indispensable for learning a
foreign language.
Antonym: dispensable
e.g. They looked on music and art lessons as
dispensable.
Detailed reading
swoosh: v.
make a brushing sound
e.g. Cars and trucks swooshed past.
The basketball swooshed through the net.
Translation:
飞机的推进器卷起一阵呼啸的强风。
The propellers of the plane swooshed a gale.
_________________________________________________
Detailed reading
narrate: v.
give a continuous account of sth.
e.g. She entertained them by narrating her adventures
in Africa.
Derivations:
narration: n.
e.g. The richness of his novel comes from his narration
of it.
narrative: a.
e.g. narrative fiction/ structure
narrator: n.
e.g. So he listens and waits for the narrator to explain
more.
Detailed reading
celebrity: n.
A celebrity is someone who has become famous for sth.,
esp. for sth. connected with acting or show business.
e.g. a global/local celebrity
TV celebrities
Translation:
这场讲座由一位体育名人主讲。
The lecture will be given by a sports celebrity.
____________________________________________________
他是小镇上最出名的人物。
He is the most well-known celebrity in the town.
______________________________________________________
Detailed reading
distribute: v.
pass out or deliver
Collocation:
distribute sth. (to/among sb./sth.)
e.g. The organization distributed food and blankets to
the earthquake victims.
The money was distributed among schools in the
area.
Translation:
本报免费发送。
The newspaper is distributed free.
____________________________________________________
这些传单将由数百名中学生散发。
The
leaflets were to be distributed by hundreds
_____________________________________________________
of
high school students.
__________________________
Detailed reading
Derivation:
distribution: n.
e.g. the unfair distribution of wealth
They studied the geographical distribution of the
disease.
Detailed reading
exempt: a.
not subject to an obligation, liability, etc.
Collocation:
exempt from sth.
e.g. The interest on the money is exempt from tax.
Some students are exempt from certain exams.
Word formation:
-exempt: in compounds, forming adjectives
e.g. tax-exempt donations to charity
Detailed reading
resentment: n.
a feeling of displeasure or indignation at sb. or sth.
regarded as the cause of injury or insult
e.g. She could not conceal the deep resentment she felt
at the way she had been treated.
They had to suppress all their natural resentments.
Collocations: feel/harbour/bear resentment
towards/against sb.
Synonyms:
hatred, hostility, enmity, malice
Detailed reading
notoriety: n.
fame for being bad in some way
Collocations: notoriety for/as sth.
e.g. She achieved notoriety for her affair with the
senator.
He gained a certain notoriety as a gambler.
Derivation: notorious: a.
e.g. a notorious criminal
The country is notorious for its appalling prison
conditions.
Synonyms:infamy, discredit
Detailed reading
confer: v.
give sb. an award, a university degree or a particular
honour or right
Collocation: confer sth. on/upon sb.
e.g. An honorary degree was conferred on him by Oxford
University in 1995.
The Queen conferred knighthood on the brave
soldier.
Synonyms: bestow, grant, award, honour
Detailed reading
nemesis: n.
(pl. nemeses) an unconquerable opponent or rival
e.g. Injury, consistently his nemesis, struck him down
during the match.
The basketball team met its nemesis.
Every civilization seems to have its nemesis.
Etymology:
The word originates from Greek Mythology. Nemesis is
a goddess who is usually portrayed as the agent of
divine punishment for wrongdoing or presumption.
Detailed reading
indigenous: a.
characteristic of a particular region or country
e.g. countries with rich indigenous cultural traditions
The elephant is indigenous to India.
Translation:
大熊猫产于中国。
Giant pandas are indigenous to China.
____________________________________________________
袋鼠原产于澳大利亚。
The kangaroo is indigenous to Australia.
____________________________________________________
Synonyms: native, aboriginal, local
Detailed reading
reverse: v.
bring back to or into; turn in the opposite direction
e.g. The government has failed to reverse the economic
decline.
He took the chair, reversed it, and drew it towards
the fire.
Phrases: in reverse: in the opposite order or
way; backwards
e.g. The password is my phone number in reverse.
go/put sth. into reverse: start to happen or to
make sth. happen in the opposite way
e.g. In the 1980s, the economic growth went
into reverse.
Detailed reading
monocular: a.
having only one eye
e.g. He had only monocular vision.
a monocular microscope
Derivations: monocularity: n.
monocularly: ad.
Detailed reading
cosmopolitan: a.
belonging to all the world
e.g. I was very much struck by London － the fact that it’s
so cosmopolitan.
a cosmopolitan city/resort
Translation:
音乐是最具有世界性的艺术之一。
Music is one of the most cosmopolitan of the arts.
_______________________________________________________
这个俱乐部具有国际氛围。
_______________________________________________
The club has a cosmopolitan atmosphere.
Detailed reading
portal: a.
(formal or literary) a door, gate or entrance, esp. one of
imposing size and appearance
e.g. the main portal of the cathedral
villas with huge marble portals
the portal of knowledge
Detailed reading
icon: n.
symbol
e.g. Click on the printer icon with the mouse.
a feminist icon
Madonna and other pop icons of the 1980s
Synonym: idol, symbol, model
Detailed reading
omnipresent: a.
present everywhere at the same time
e.g. These days the media are omnipresent.
the omnipresent threat of natural disasters
Word formation: omni-: all
e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, omnivorous
Detailed reading
Everywhere, the media flow defies national boundaries.
(Paragraph 1)
Paraphrase:
Throughout the world, the modern electronic media flow
across national boundaries. / Throughout the world, the
media flow is not barred by national boundaries.
Detailed reading
Just as their “cultures” are neither hard-wired nor
uniform, so there is no simple way in which they are
“Americanized”, though there are American tags on
their experience － low-cost links to status and fun.
(Paragraph 5)
Paraphrase:
For young people, cultures are not innate or unvarying.
They don’t simply become Americanized although they
may have contact with American fun culture at little cost.
Detailed reading
The empire strikes from inside the spectator as well as
from outside. (Paragraph 6)
Paraphrase:
American pop culture not only impacts on the more
material side of young people’s lives but also touches
their hearts with great force.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Word derivation
Phrase practice
Synonym / Antonym
Writing
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Fill in the blank in each sentence with a word or
phrase from the text in its appropriate form.
are accustomed to
1) She belongs to that kind of people who _____________________
having their own way.
accounts for 35% of the company’s
2) The Japanese market ______________
revenue.
preside over the economic crisis at
3) Who happened to ______________
the time?
4) We were jailed for a week － well, confined to quarters,
amounted to the same thing.
but it _______________
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
be accustomed to: If you are accustomed to sth., you are
familiar with it and accept it as normal
or usual.
e.g. 我不习惯被人打扰。
I am not accustomed to being interrupted.
e.g. 学生们很快就习惯了大学的生活。
Students are quickly accustomed to the
college life.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
account for: to be a particular amount or part of sth.
e.g. 但是今天这样的应用只不过占因特网流量的很小一
部分。
But today such applications account for only a
small fraction of internet traffic.
e.g. 但美国国债仍然只占美国家庭总资产额的1%。
But the U.S. Treasuries still account for only 1%
of total household assets.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
preside over: lead or be in charge of a meeting,
ceremony, etc.
e.g. 他们问我是否会主持委员会会议。
They asked me if I would preside over the
committee meeting.
e.g. 该党执政时期，国家经历了历史上最严重的经济
衰退。
The party presided over one of the worst
economic declines in the country’s history.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
amount to: be equal to or the same as sth.
e.g. 她的答复等于完全拒绝。
Her answer amounted to a complete refusal.
e.g. 他们的行为已构成违约。
Their actions amount to a breach of contract.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
1) detect v. → detection n. → detectable a.
e.g. 这些检查旨在早期查出疾病。
The tests are designed to detect the disease
early.
然而许多问题却未被察觉。
Many problems, however, escape detection.
这种噪音人的耳朵几乎是察觉不到的。
The noise is barely detectable by the human
ear.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
2) resent v. → resentment n. → resentful a.
e.g. 他十分厌恶被别人当孩子对待。
He bitterly resents being treated like a child.
他因为自己悲惨的童年而对父母怀恨在心。
He harbours a deep resentment against his
parents for his miserable childhood.
她被运动队淘汰了，对此她愤愤不平。
She was resentful at having been left out of the
team.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
3) defy v. →defiance n. → defiant a.
e.g. 如果你不服从法律，你就可能坐牢。
If you defy the law, you may find yourself in
prison.
尽管国际上明令禁止，核试验又在进行了。
Nuclear testing was resumed in defiance of an
international ban.
恐怖主义者向政府发出了挑战书。
The terrorists sent a defiant message to the
government.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
4) notoriety n. → notorious a. → notoriously ad.
e.g. 他最近卑鄙的所作所为使他臭名昭著。
He achieved a certain notoriety after his recent
mean acts.
尽管此人之傲慢远近闻名，我觉得我还是可以和他
打交道的。
Despite his notorious arrogance, I felt I could
do business with him.
山地气候难以预料是人所共知的。
Mountain weather is notoriously difficult to
predict.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
5) antagonism n. → antagonist n. → antagonistic a.
e.g. 他对宿敌的仇恨仍然十分强烈。
The antagonism he felt towards his old enemy
was still very strong.
克林顿是个强劲的对手。
Clinton was a formidable antagonist.
他对媒体，特别是报纸，公开表示敌意。
He is openly antagonistic to the media, particularly
newspaper.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
6) bilingual a. → bilingualism n.
e.g. 他们需要谙熟两种语言的秘书。
They need bilingual secretaries.
双语制是很有远见的教育政策。
Bilingualism is a farsighted educational policy.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
7) amaze v. → amazement n. → amazing a.
e.g. 有些人为了钱什么都会干得出来，这一直令我惊愕不已。
It never ceases to amaze me what some people
will do for money.
使我大为惊奇的是，他能把这首诗从头至尾背诵出来。
To my amazement, he was able to recite the
whole poem from memory.
有这么多人来参加这些会议真是匪夷所思。
It’s amazing that so many people come to
these meetings.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
8) reverse v. → reversal n. → reversible a.
e.g. 各个项目的次序颠倒过来了。
The order of the items had been reversed.
总统将对他政策的急剧逆转作出解释。
The President would explain his sharp reversal
of policy.
私有化趋势可逆转吗？
Is the trend towards privatization reversible?
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
1. This is one of its obvious, but at the same time amazing,
features.
Synonym: striking, astonishing, remarkable
2. Yet McLuhan’s image reveals an indispensable half-truth.
Synonym: essential, necessary, fundamental,
key, crucial
3. The symmetry of the exhibition is obvious, the premise
unmistakable.
Synonym:
balance, harmony, regularity, evenness,
correspondence
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
4. The United States presides over a sort of World Bank of
styles and symbols, an International Cultural Fund of
images, sounds, and celebrities.
Synonym: star, personality, personage, VIP,
somebody
5. Hardly anyone is exempt from the force of American
images and sounds.
Antonym: liable, subject, susceptible
6. The point is not hypocrisy pure and simple but
something deeper.
Antonym: sincerity, honesty, truthfulness,
frankness, earnest
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
7. They are both local and cosmopolitan.
Synonym: universal, global, worldly
8. America’s bid for global unification surpasses in reach
that of the Romans, the British, the Catholic or Islam.
Synonym: attempt, endeavor
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Bare infinitive vs. full infinitive
Pre- and post-positioned adjectives
Tense
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Bare infinitive vs. full infinitive
In English, a verb’s infinitive is its unmarked form, such
as be, do, have, or sit, often introduced by the particle to.
When this particle is absent, the infinitive is said to be a
bare infinitive; when it is present, it is generally considered
to be a part of the infinitive, then known as the full
infinitive (or to-infinitive).
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
The bare infinitive is not used in as many contexts as
the full infinitive, but some of these are quite common:
●
●
The bare infinitive is used as the main verb after the
dummy auxiliary verb do, or most modal auxiliary verbs
(such as will, can, or should). So, “I will/do/can/etc.
see it.”
Several common verbs of perception, including see,
watch, hear, feel, and sense take a direct object and a
bare infinitive, where the bare infinitive indicates an
action taken by the main verb’s direct object. So, “I
saw/watched/heard/etc. it happen.”
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
●
Similarly with several common verbs of permission or
causation, including make, bid, let, and have. So, “I
made/bade/let/had him do it.” However, make takes a
to-infinitive in the passive voice: “I was made to do it.”
●
After the had better expression. So, “You had
better leave now.”
●
With the verb help. So, “He helped them find it.” The
use of the to-infinitive with the verb help is also common.
The bare infinitive is the dictionary form of a verb, and
is generally the form of a verb that receives a definition;
however, the definition itself generally uses a toinfinitive. So, “The word ‘amble’ means ‘to walk slowly.’”
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
The full infinitive (or to-infinitive) is used in a great many
different contexts:
●
It can be used like a noun phrase, expressing its action
or state in an abstract, general way. So, “To err is
human”; “To know me is to love me”. However, a
gerund is often preferred for this — “Being is doing”
would be more natural than the abstract and
philosophical sounding “To be is to do.”
●
It can be used like an adjective or adverb, expressing
purpose or intent. So, “The letter says I’m to wait
outside”, or “He is the man to talk to”, or “[In order] to
meditate, one must free one’s mind.”
Vocabulary
●
●
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
In either of the above uses, it can often be given a
subject using the preposition for: “For him to fail now
would be a great disappointment”; “[In order] for you
to get there on time, you’ll need to leave now.” The
former sentence could also be written, “His failing now
would be a great disappointment.”
It can be used after many intransitive verbs; in this case,
it generally has the subject of the main verb as its
implicit subject. So, “I agreed to leave” or “He failed to
make his case.” (This may be considered a special case
of the noun-like use above.) With some verbs the
infinitive may carry a significantly different meaning
from a gerund: compare I stopped to talk to her with I
stopped talking to her, or I forgot to buy the bread with
I forgot buying the bread.
Vocabulary
●
●
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
It can be used after the direct objects of many
transitive verbs; in this case, it generally has the direct
object of the main verb as its implicit subject. So, “I
convinced him to leave with me”, or “He asked her to
make his case on his behalf.” However, in some cases,
the subject of the main clause is also subject of the
infinitival clause, as in “John promises Mary to cook”,
where the cook is John (the subject of the main
sentence), and not Mary (the object).
As a special case of the above, it can often be used
after an intransitive verb, together with a subject using
the preposition for: “I arranged for him to accompany
me”, or “I waited for summer to arrive.”
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Practice:
Insert to, if necessary, in the following sentences.
1. Mary was made___
to sing one song after another.
The passive form of make, see or hear is followed by a
full infinitive.
2. We may just as well _____
/ stay at home.
3. Sooner than _____
/ travel by airbus, I’d prefer a week
on a big liner.
When sooner than is put at the beginning of a sentence,
a bare infinitive should be used.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
to wait.
4. There is no choice but ___
If there is a pro-form do before the preposition but,
either the full infinitive or the bare infinitive can be
used, but if there is no such pro-form, a full infinitive
should be used.
5. Don’t let _____
/ slip such a good opportunity.
6. Would you rather
_____
/
stay here or go with me?
7. He was seen ___
to enter the room.
to travel hopefully than ___
8. It is better ___
to arrive.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Practice:
Explain the difference between the underlined parts
in each pair.
1) A. Tom Jackson is responsible for the project.
B. Tom Jackson is a responsible man.
A. in charge of
B. trustworthy
2) A. Their house was pink in the sunset.
B. The Browns live in that pink house.
A. The house takes on the colour of pink because of
the reflection of the sunlight.
B. The house is painted in pink.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
3) A. Mother cast a concerned look at the son.
B: All persons concerned will meet at the dean’s office.
A. worried
B. related
4) A. Is that a navigable river?
B. Is that river navigable at present?
A. permanent feature
B. temporary feature
5) A. Which is the furthest star visible from the Earth?
B. How many visible stars are there in the sky?
A. a star that can be seen
B. a category of stars that is identified as
observable by people
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
6) A. The members present vetoed the proposal.
B. The present members vetoed the proposal.
A. those members who were there at the meeting
B. those who are members now
7) A. After the introduction we started the meeting proper.
B. Snowdon’s not very high, but it’s a proper mountain,
not a hill.
A. itself
B. real, genuine
8) A. The issues involved are rather complicated.
B. Most readers don’t like his involved style.
A. closely connected in relationships and
activities with others
B. complicated
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Tense is a set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time
(and sometimes also the continuance or completeness) of
the action in relation to the time of the utterance.
Complete the following sentences with the proper forms
of the verbs given.
1. If the cat hides in the tree, the dog ______________
will not find
(not find) it.
2. The students would have solved the problem if they
__________
had used (use) their textbooks.
3. The dress which ______________
was reduced (reduce) in the sale
had been tried (try) on by so many people that it
________________
distinctly ___________
was soiled (soil).
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
has not fallen (not fall) since
4. Surprisingly, the pound _______________
the dollar _______________
was devalued (devalue) last month.
have tried (try) to get
5. I am not surprised squatters____________
has been standing / has stood
into that house; it ____________________________________
(stand) empty for over two years now.
6. If you go on spending at this rate, all your
will have been spent (spend) by the end
inheritance _______________________
of this year.
listening (listen) to see if anyone
7. He tensed himself, __________
______________
had followed (follow) him.
spent (spend) a tense week ________
waiting (wait) for the
8. I _______
results of the tests.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Translate the following sentences into English.
1. 国会有责任确保在诉诸武力之前已经用尽所有的和平手段。
(resort to)
When you resort to sth., you make use of it as a
means of achieving sth.
Congress has the responsibility to ensure that all
peaceful options are exhausted before resorting to
war.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
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Writing
Practice：
他们觉得有必要诉诸暴力。
They felt obliged to resort to violence.
由于动物蛋白价格昂贵，穷苦世界的人民只好全靠植物
蛋白为生了。
Owing to the cost of animal protein, the poor
world is forced to resort almost entirely to plant
protein.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
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Writing
2. 我们10点钟下班，由夜班接手。 (take over)
If you take over sth., you begin to have control of or
responsibility for it, esp. in place of sb. else.
We stop work at 10 o’clock, and then the night shift
takes over.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Practice：
机器人将要在哪些领域替代人的工作呢？
In what field will robots take over human tasks?
政府于1948年接管了铁路。
The government took over the railways in 1948.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
3. 他不用服国家兵役，因为他从事的是免于征兵的
（reserved）职业。(exempt from)
If sth. is exempt from sth. else, it is free from the
obligation, duty or payment the latter requires.
He was exempt from national service because he was
in a reserved occupation.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Practice：
住这些房子可免付租金。
These houses are exempt from paying rates.
他们努力想免除他的责任。
They made efforts to exempt him from responsibility.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
4.那样的房子我都租不起，更不用说买了。(let alone)
Let alone is used after a statement to emphasize
that because the first thing is not true or possible,
the next thing cannot be true or possible either.
I can’t afford to rent a house like that, let alone buy
it.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Practice：
连我们都没有足够的空间，更不用说客人了。
There isn’t enough room for us, let alone any guests.
她连自行车都不会骑，更别说开车了。
She can’t ride a bicycle, let alone drive a car.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Dictation
Cloze
Oral activities
Writing
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Dictation
You will hear a passage read three times. At the first
reading, you should listen carefully for its general idea.
At the second reading, you are required to write down
the exact words you have just heard (with proper
punctuation). At the third reading, you should check
what you have written down.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
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Writing
Dictation
All of the customs, beliefs, values, knowledge, and
skills / that guide a people’s behavior along shared paths /
are part of their culture. / Culture can be divided / into
material aspects and nonmaterial aspects. / People
throughout the world / have different cultures. / Thus
their standards for behavior often differ. / We tend to
assume / that certain behaviors have pretty much the
same meaning around the world, / and we anticipate /
that other people will act as we do. / But this is clearly
not the case. / When we are thrust into a different culture,
/ we may find ourselves in situations / for which we are
unprepared. / Not surprisingly, / interaction among
peoples of different cultures / is often filled with
uncertainties and even difficulties.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Cloze
Symbols do not necessarily look, sound, or otherwise
resemble what they stand (1) ____
for . In some cultures
black is the color of mourning; in (2) others
_______ white or red
suggests grief. Those colors, like all symbols, (3) ________
derive
their meanings from tradition and consensus, not from any
qualities inherent in the colors (4) themselves
____________ .
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
___ the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5) on
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
________ this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) culture
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
This sentence lacks a word, meaning “to symbolize”
together with stand.
Symbols do not necessarily look, sound, or otherwise
resemble what they stand (1) ____
for . In some cultures
black is the color of mourning; in (2) others
_______ white or red
suggests grief. Those colors, like all symbols, (3) ________
derive
their meanings from tradition and consensus, not from any
qualities inherent in the colors (4) ____________
themselves .
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Judging from the semicolon and in some cultures, we
come to know that the two clauses of this sentence are
contrastive.
Symbols do not necessarily look, sound, or otherwise
resemble what they stand (1) ____
for . In some cultures
black is the color of mourning; in (2) others
_______ white or red
suggests grief. Those colors, like all symbols, (3) ________
derive
their meanings from tradition and consensus, not from any
qualities inherent in the colors (4) ____________
themselves .
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Judging from the context, here lacks a verb which can
constitute a phrase with from meaning “to come out of”.
Symbols do not necessarily look, sound, or otherwise
resemble what they stand (1) ____
for . In some cultures
black is the color of mourning; in (2) others
_______ white or red
suggests grief. Those colors, like all symbols, (3) ________
derive
their meanings from tradition and consensus, not from any
qualities inherent in the colors (4) ____________
themselves .
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Inherent here means “existing as an essential
constituent or characteristic in the nature of sth.”.
Symbols do not necessarily look, sound, or otherwise
resemble what they stand (1) ____
for . In some cultures
black is the color of mourning; in (2) others
_______ white or red
suggests grief. Those colors, like all symbols, (3) ________
derive
their meanings from tradition and consensus, not from any
qualities inherent in the colors (4) ____________
themselves .
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
In this sentence, we need a functional word that goes
together with agree.
___
on the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
________ this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) culture
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
way the wearer
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
According to the sentence structure and its meaning, we
only have two choices － left and right. Based on our
general knowledge, it should be the “left” hand.
___
on the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
________ this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) culture
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
The whole passage talks about culture. Here the author is
citing an example which exists in a specific cultural
background.
___
on the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
________ this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) culture
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
It can be inferred from the context that wearing a ring
indicates that the girl is married.
___
on the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
________ this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) culture
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
This sentence further illustrates the first sentence of the
second paragraph People in a society must agree on the
meanings of symbols if they are to be understood.
Therefore, such a phenomenon should be understood to
“mean” some special meaning.
___
on the meanings of
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
culture this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) ________
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Judging from the context and the logic of the passage, the
sentence lacks its subject which is modified by the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage.
Moreover, if we interpret something, we explain it in one
“way” or another.
___ the meanings of
on
People in a society must agree (5)
symbols if they are to be understood. A gold band worn on
left hand tells us that he
the third finger of someone’s (6) ____
culture this is a
or she is married only because in our (7) ________
marriage . Of course,
commonly recognized symbol for (8) __________
even though a wedding band is commonly understood to (9)
_______
mean the wearer is married, the (10) _____
way the wearer
and each of us interprets the condition of marriage has
become quite flexible.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Having a dialog
Having a discussion
Writing
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
1. Having a dialogue
Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was a very successful
singer with millions of fans. Have a dialogue with a
classmate about him. The following questions can be
asked:
1) When and where was he born?
2) What was his family background?
3) What was he famous for?
4) Why did he remain popular after his sudden death in
2009?
5) Do you think he can be regarded as a symbol of
American culture?
Words and phrases for reference: “King of Pop”,
popular music, lifelong achievement, dispute,
scandal, global influence, death, etc.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Having a discussion
Have you ever seen a Hollywood movie or simply an
American movie? If yes, discuss in a group what it is about,
what impresses you most and why you like it or dislike it.
Aspects you may consider:
a. theme
b. genre
c. social background when the film is produced
d. actor/actress
e. cost
…
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Writing :
Music can be roughly divided into two types:
classical and popular. It is obvious that young people in
China today like popular music much more.
Write an essay with the title “Why Popular Music?” In
the first part, say something general about the fact that
popular music is much more preferred than classical
music among Chinese youth. In the second part, explain
what attracts young people so much to popular music.
And in the third part, draw a conclusion.
Vocabulary
Grammar
Translation
Integrated skills
Oral activities
Writing
Viewpoints and information for reference:
Why Popular Music?
more related to people’s everyday life
brief and less complicated to understand
More personal feelings are poured out in pop music
than in classical music.
Pop music which evolved out of rock and roll was
introduced in the mid 1950’s. It is usually
understood to be commercially recorded music that
is often oriented towards a youth market.
Since 1950, pop music has been identified as the
music that is accessible to the wildest audience and
is often mostly played on the radio.
Text II
Memorable quotes
Lead-in questions
Text
Questions for discussion
Text II
Memorable quotes
Lead-in questions
1) If someone who is completely ignorant of China asked
you to introduce it, which aspects will you choose? You
may discuss with your classmates.
Aspects for reference:
location, history, traditions, economic
development, current events, folk life, etc.
2) How would you comment on the current Sino-American
relations?
a. cooperative and beneficial
b. stressful and conflicting
c. complicated and tangled
Text II
Memorable quotes
INTO THE UNKNOWN
Michael Elliott
1
A few years ago, I read a terrific collection of essays －
It Must Be Beautiful － on the great scientific equations of
modern times. I loved it, but as I meandered through the
book, I was struck by an unexpected poignancy. The first
essays, by and large, described breakthroughs that had
taken place in the laboratories of Europe. The second half
was quite different. Some time in the 1920s,
the balance
of scientific discovery shifted inexorably to the U.S. A small
book of essays held within it proof of a profound historical
change.
Text II
Memorable quotes
2
I found myself thinking of that while reading a new
book by
Martin Jacques, a British journalist turned
academic. Jacques’ tome is called When China Rules the
World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a
New Global Order, and his thesis, which he advances with a
depth of argument often missing in similar works, is made
plain enough by his title. The most likely scenario for the
future, Jacques writes, is that “China continues to grow
stronger and ultimately emerges over the next half-century,
or rather less in many respects, as the world’s leading
power.” His book is an examination of how and why that
will happen, and what it will mean.
Text II
Memorable quotes
3
Jacques is right that China’s continued development
will be one of the forces that shape the century. It is
equally true, as he argues, that China will not be just any
old superpower. It has its own distinctive combination of
attributes: a huge population, a sense of its identity as a
civilization as well as a nation state, a long-standing
influence on the nations and cultures that border it, and a
diaspora that impacts not just its region but the world.
China’s habits of
governance, Jacques argues, are not
those of the Western world; its values (let us say harmony
Text II
Memorable quotes
and stability) are not those of the West. The roles of both
the state and the extended family as social mechanisms in
China differ from those in modern Western societies. All
of this, Jacques argues, means that the 21st century will
be one of “contested modernities.” Until around 1970,
he says, modernity was, with the exception of Japan, “an
exclusively Western phenomenon.” But as China assumes
a bigger role in global economics and politics, that is
changing.
Text II
Memorable quotes
4
I agree with much of this. We have learned in the last
20 years that there are many ways of being modern, and
that Western liberal democracy is but one of them. But that
little collection of essays on the great equations reminds us
that a society’s characteristics today will not necessarily
shape what it will look like tomorrow. History rarely runs in
straight and predictable lines. At the end of the 19th
century, Germany － or perhaps more accurately, Germanic
central Europe － was a technological and scientific powerhouse, its universities nurturing geniuses like
Einstein,
Heisenberg and
Schrodinger, whose discoveries
changed the way we thought of everything. Then came the
carnage of World War I, the rise of
fascism, the mass
murder of European Jews and the flight of those who could
escape it, often to the U.S. All of this contributed to a shift
of the center of scientific progress away from Europe.
Text II
Memorable quotes
Some aspects of the great European disaster might have
been foreseeable in 1909, but none with any certainty.
There are too many futures for them all to be known.
Text II
Memorable quotes
5
This is particularly
apposite in the case of China, a
country with not only many possible futures, but (as it were)
many pasts. There is a crude but commonly held thumbnail
sketch of modern Chinese history that goes something like
this: Two centuries ago, European powers tried to open
a
hermetic society to trade; they failed until the Opium Wars
forced the issue; China then entered an era of foreign
domination and internal chaos, which ended with the
imposition of political stability by the Communist Party in
1949; in 1978, after another round of internal unrest, China
chose to modernize its economy and adopted market
mechanisms to do so, with astonishing success.
Text II
Memorable quotes
6
This isn’t
baloney, but it is hardly the whole
story － as you would discover if, instead of being
mesmerized by the sight of Pudong, you were to turn
around and look at the solid, early 20th century buildings
of the Bund, just behind you. Modernity did not come to
China because Deng Xiaoping said it should. As
Rana
Mitter of Oxford University argues, there had been
modernizing streams in Chinese society long before 1978,
and had one of them taken a different course, our view of
what China represents for the future would be
unrecognizable from the standard text.
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7
Chinese elites, we often forget, have had economic
and cultural links with Europe for 300 years; by the 18th
century, the Chinese were producing porcelain for the
European market and avidly studying European art and
architecture. In particular, says Mitter, the first half of the
20th century － that period when Shanghai was at its peak,
but which is routinely dismissed in the thumbnail history －
is “really important; the questions about their society that
Chinese are asking now are very similar to the ones that
they asked in the 1920s and 1930s.”
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8
How China develops internally, and how it changes
the wider world, will depend on an infinite number of
contingencies. A crucially important one, obviously, will be
how China and the U.S., the dominant global power, get
along. As
Barack Obama said on July 27, “the
relationship between the United States and China will
shape the 21st century.”
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9 There is a lively debate in both countries as to what
that relationship will look like. As Obama said, “Some in
China think that America will try to contain China’s
ambitions; some in America think that there is something
to fear in a rising China.” Part of the difficulty in
predicting the future is that China is not the only Asian
power with which the U.S has to deal. For decades,
Washington is going to have to play a demanding
diplomatic game in which it maintains good relations with
China, with India, and with its old ally Japan.
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10
This will not be easy. Somehow, U.S. diplomats must
help convince all three Asian nations that they can rise
together, rather than descend into bitter rivalry. Japan will
need special attention; its politics are becoming worryingly
sclerotic, and it is beginning to feel overshadowed by
China. Tokyo may soon need reassurance that Washington
still takes the alliance seriously. But for all the difficulties
ahead, the accompanying charts should give a glimpse of
hope. The U.S. and the three Asian giants are becoming
ever more closely interconnected － and not just
economically. We have become familiar with the way in
which trade flows between China and the U.S. have grown
exponentially. But there are now some 70,000 Chinese
students at universities in the U.S., and an ever growing
number of American business leaders and young people
who consider a spell in China an important rite of passage.
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11
History, as always, acts as a useful
damper on
overconfidence. Whole shelves of studies have been
written on the mutual familiarity of German and British
elites in the decades before World War I － which did
nothing to prevent the two nations going at each other like
frenzied dogs. The point is simple: China may amaze us
today, it could help usher in a period in which more of
humankind has more material benefits, enjoyed in peace,
than has ever been known before. We can only watch, and
wonder.
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About the text ― This text is taken from Time, Vol. 174,
No. 5, 2009.
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Martin Jacques ― Martin Jacques, born in October 1945,
was editor of the CPGB’s journal, Marxism Today from
1977 until its closure in 1991, a publication which was
politically quite mainstream in its final years. Jacques
was a co-founder of the think-tank Demos. He was a
columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times and
deputy editor of The Independent. Currently, he is a
columnist for The Guardian and New Statesman. In 2009,
his book about Asian modernity and the rise of China
entitled When China Rules the World: The Rise of the
Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World was
published.
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Albert Einstein (Paragraph 4) ― Albert Einstein (1879 ― 1955)
was a theoretical physicist best known for his theories of
special relativity and general relativity. He received the
1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical
Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect.” Einstein published more than 300
scientific and over 150 non-scientific works. He is often
regarded as the father of modern physics.
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Werner Heisenberg (Paragraph 4)― Werner Heisenberg
(1901 ― 1976) was a German theoretical physicist who
made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics
and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle
of quantum theory. In addition, he also made important
contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory,
and particle physics. Along with Max Born and Pascual
Jordan, he set forth the matrix formulation of quantum
mechanics in 1925. He was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize
in Physics.
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Schrödinger (Paragraph 4)― Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander
Schrödinger (1887 ― 1961) was an Austrian theoretical
physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to
quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation,
for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933. In 1935,
after extensive correspondence with personal friend
Albert Einstein, he proposed the Schrödinger’s cat thought
experiment.
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Fascism (Paragraph 4)― Fascism comprises a radical and
authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a
corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists
believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict
whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital,
and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.
Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and
opposition to the government and the fascist movement.
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The Opium Wars (Paragraph 5) ― The Opium Wars, also
known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, were the climax of
trade disputes and diplomatic difficulties between China
in the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire after China
sought to restrict British opium traffickers. It consisted of
the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842 and the Second
Opium War from 1856 to 1860.
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Rana Mitter (Paragraph 6)― Professor Rana Mitter is a
university lecturer in modern Chinese history and politics.
He has published on the political and cultural history of
twentieth-century China, and is currently working on the
connections between war and nationalism in China from
the 1930s to the present. His interests include the
Republican period (1912 ― 1949), the Cold War and SinoJapanese relations.
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Barack Obama (Paragraph 8) ― Barack Hussein Obama II
(born on August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current
President of the United States (as in 2011). He is the
first African American to hold the office, as well as the
first born in Hawaii. Obama previously served as the
junior United States Senator from Illinois from January
2005 until he resigned after his election to the
presidency in November 2008. In 2009, he won the
Nobel Prize for Peace.
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... the balance of scientific discovery shifted inexorably
to the U.S (Paragraph 1) ― ... it was an irreversible trend
that more scientific discoveries were made in U. S. than
in Europe.
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tome (Paragraph 2) — a book, especially a very heavy,
large or learned book
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diaspora (Paragraph 3) — any group that has been
dispersed outside its traditional homeland. By the term
the author implies Chinese emigration to other countries.
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governance (Paragraph 3) — government; exercise of
authority
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apposite (Paragraph 5) — suitable; pertinent
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a hermetic society (Paragraph 5) — China before
1840 is said to be a hermetic society because it had
its gates closed to the outside.
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baloney (Paragraph 6) — (slang) nonsense
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sclerotic (Paragraph 10) — rigid or unchanging
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damper (Paragraph 11) — a person or thing that
damps or depresses
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1. What distinctive combination of attributes does China
have according to Martin Jacques?
Refer to Paragraph 3. A huge population, a sense of its
identity as a civilization as well as a nation state, a
long-standing influence on the nations and cultures
that border it, and a diaspora that impacts not just its
region but the world.
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2. What is changing as China assumes a bigger role in
the global economy and politics?
Refer to Paragraph 3. Until around 1970, modernity
was, with the exception of Japan, “an exclusively
Western phenomenon.” But as China assumes a bigger
role in global economics and politics, the 21st century
will be one of “contested modernities.”
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3. What is your understanding of “History rarely runs in
straight and predictable lines” in Paragraph 4?
Refer to Paragraph 4. A society’s characteristics today
will not necessarily shape what it will look like tomorrow.
There are many factors that are unpredictable in history.
Germanic central Europe at the end of the 19th century
was a technological and scientific power-house, its
universities nurturing geniuses like Einstein, Heisenberg
and Schrodinger, whose discoveries changed the way we
thought of everything. Then came the carnage of World
War I, the rise of fascism, the mass murder of European
Jews and the flight of those who could escape it, often
to the U.S. All of this contributed to a shift of the center
of scientific progress away from Europe. Some aspects of
the great European disaster might have been foreseeable
in 1909, but none with any certainty. There are too many
futures for them all to be known.
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4. What is a crude but commonly held thumbnail sketch
of modern Chinese history?
Refer to Paragraph 5. Two centuries ago, European
powers tried to open a hermetic society to trade; they
failed until the Opium Wars forced the issue; China then
entered an era of foreign domination and internal chaos,
which ended with the imposition of political stability by
the Communist Party in 1949; in 1978, after another
round of internal unrest, China chose to modernize its
economy and adopted market mechanisms to do so,
with astonishing success.
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5. What is the significance of Sino-American relations?
Refer to Paragraph 8. How China develops internally,
and how it changes the wider world, will depend on an
infinite number of contingencies. A crucially important
one will be how China and the U.S., the dominant
global power, get along. As Barack Obama said on July
27, “The relationship between the United States and
China will shape the 21st century.”
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1. Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.
— Albert Camus
2. Preservation of one’s own culture does not require
contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
— Cesar Chavez
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Questions for discussion
1)
No matter how the term “culture” is defined by
scholars or in books, everyone has his or her own
understanding of it. Share with your classmates your
understanding and discuss it.
2)
In this age of globalization, almost all kinds of
cultures can be found around us. Have you ever seen
someone disrespect or even despise other cultures? If yes,
try to describe it to your classmates and discuss the
possible causes for this behavior; if no, discuss with your
classmates how you can behave properly when meeting
someone from a different cultural background.
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Guidance:
1) Culture is such a broad term that people usually focus
on some specific areas of it. Try to name several aspects
of culture according to your understanding of it.
Here are some references: history, architecture,
literature, popular culture, music, media, celebrities, etc.
2) Cross-culture communication is a very difficult task
because cultures are different. Sometimes people may
misbehave unconsciously when meeting a foreign friend.
Thus we should be good observers in life and try to put
ourselves in others’ shoes.
e.g. Feminism has spread to most western countries. If
you encounter a woman who has been influenced by it,
you may not hurry to be a gentleman in front of her, for
she may think that you are not polite or considerate.
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Albert Camus (7 November 1913 ― 4
January 1960) was a French Algerian
author, philosopher and journalist. He
was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for
Literature “for his important literary
production, which with clear-sighted
earnestness illuminates the problems
of the human conscience in our
times”.
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César Estrada Chávez (March 31,
1927 ― April 23, 1993) was a Mexican
American farm worker, labor leader,
and civil rights activist who, with
Dolores Huerta, co-founded the
National Farm Workers Association,
which later became the United Farm
Workers (UFW).
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