英语国家社会与文化(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：梅仁毅主编

出版社：外语教学与研究出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

英语国家社会与文化试读：

学习语言必须与了解、学习文化相结合。母语的学习如此，外语学习更是如此。我们常说要用对方（指母语国家人群）听得懂的方式进行表达，也就是说在进行交流时，要用符合对方文化习惯的方式进行表达。这就要求外语学习者了解、学习对方的政治、历史、社会和文化。给学习英语的学生提供一些所学语言国家的基本材料与信息，使学生有一定的了解，这就是编写此书的目的。

此书编写遵循以下原则：

1．突出重点，不求面面俱到，但力求包含近期的变化与信息；

2．历史、政治、社会、文化是侧重点。自然地貌、风土人情，虽有触及，但非重点，也不需死记硬背；

3．在练习题的编写上，抓住重点，把握概貌，不要求学生记住所有的人名、地名、日期等细节；

4．帮助学生把内容与语言结合起来，通过语言掌握内容，通过对内容的分析、讨论、表达提高语言的运用能力。为此，在编写时，我们力求语言简单易懂。我们希望通过这样的写法传达一个信息：学生通过自己掌握的英语，足以表达很多内容，从而增强学习的信心和运用语言的主动性。

此书包含了美国、英国、加拿大、澳大利亚、爱尔兰、新西兰六国。爱尔兰、新西兰两国是一般介绍英语国家概况的书籍所未收入的。我们认为这两国各有特征，不应排除。但在使用时，在时间安排上，仍应有所侧重。美国是当今世界上唯一的超级大国，自应给予重视。英国、加拿大、澳大利亚也应有所侧重。同时，建议教师根据学生的实际水平和需要，有选择地使用本书的练习题，以巩固课堂教学的效果，不必要求学生每题都做。

本书是一项集体劳动的成果。其中，滕继萌负责撰写美国部分，程静英负责撰写英国部分，龚雁负责撰写加拿大部分，李又文负责撰写澳大利亚部分，爱尔兰专家Jerusha McCormack和王展鹏负责撰写爱尔兰部分（罗来明参与编写了部分注释），戴宁负责撰写新西兰部分。梅仁毅负责对全文进行审校和定稿。

时代在发展，形势在变化，尽管我们努力包含最新信息，但出版的程序与时间仍可能使内容有所落后。希望教师们在使用此书时能注意补充最新的、重要的发展，但必须少而精。这样就能激发学生关注变化、积极探索的主动性。通过阅读与上课，如能使大部分学生产生兴趣，主动探索，这将是我们最大的收获。梅仁毅北京外国语大学教授2010年7月The United States

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from".—Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.—Adlai StevensonChapter 1Land and History

美国全称美利坚合众国，位于北美大陆的中部，东临大西洋，西临太平洋，幅员辽阔，地理位置优越，加之科技发达，国富民强，早已成为当今世界上的超级大国。但是，美国又是一个全新的国家，美利坚民族更是个全新的民族，他们从其他国家和地区移居到美国，并最终把自己“熔炼”成美国人。美国的历史就是一部世界移民史。然而，美国是由哪些人缔造的？美国的历史到底有多长？研究美国的学者在不断探索和研究这个国家，英语学习者更是需要了解这些问题的答案。在这一章中，我们将同大家一起深入美国社会历史的方方面面，探究她的过去和现在，了解她诞生的历程和塑造她不凡现实的伟大人物。I. Geography

Stretching 4,500 kilometres from east to west and 2,500 kilometres from north to south, the main land mass of the United States offers almost every variety of climate and physical feature. Including the states of Alaska and Hawaii, the country covers an area of more than nine million square kilometres, Hawaii lying in the Pacific 3,200 kilometres away from the mainland, and Alaska 3,170 kilometres to the northwest. To understand some of its differences, let's divide the United States into six regions. Each region is distinctive from the others economically, geographically, and, in some ways, culturally.

1. The Northeast

New York City is the largest city in the Northeast and the financial centre of the United States. It was the welcoming port for most of the immigrants who saw, as they sailed into its harbour, the immense Statue of Liberty holding high her torch of freedom. There is another major seaport in the Northeast: Boston. Boston, 719 kilometres from Washington, D.C., is the heart of New EnglandStates. Along this narrow coastal strip from Washington, D.C. to Boston, more than 20 per cent of the population live in less than 2 per cent of the country's land area. Washington, D.C., at the southern end of this string of cities, has little industry and no skyscrapers.Map of the United States

Look inland to Detroit, 1,000 kilometres northwest of New York City. Detroit was the birthplace of mass production of motor cars and today it is the headquarters of the country's car manufacturers. On to Chicago, the second largest city in the US stretching for 47 kilometres around the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. Chicago is a railway centre. It serves the Midwest but is included in the Northeast regional division, because it is part of the network of northern industrial and shipping centres.

2. The Central Basin

The gently sloping prairie land of the Central Basin was once the frontier to those who crossed the Appalachian Mountains. In Illinois there is a rich grassland. The fertile soil and long hot summers with enough rain are a farmer's dream. Farther north in Wisconsin and Minnesota, it is cooler and moister.

3. The Southeast

Now look back across the Appalachian Mountains, south from Washington, D.C., into the Southeast. From Virginia to Texas where there are mighty rivers, such as the Mississippi River, Missouri River, Columbia River, and Ohio River, that used to flood huge areas, which are being tamed with dikes and dams.New York CityChicagoLos Angeles

4. The Great Plains

The Great Plains is where the rain gives out, about halfway across Texas and Oklahoma. From here an imaginary line runs north and south almost through the middle of the US. It is called the 50-centimetre rainfall line. Farmers called it the "disaster line" because those who have tried to farm to the west, where rainfall drops below 50 centimetres a year, have suffered ruin in years of drought.

The weather in the Great Plains is harsh. The heat of the summer is scorching, and the winter is freezing. The wind blows fiercely, with few hills or forests to stop it, from Montana on the Canadian border to the state of Texas on the Mexican border. Water is precious. Its scarcity drove the settlers on across the plains as far as they could go. Only the Native Americans knew how to survive here. They captured the wild horses, descended from those that escaped from Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and hunted buffaloes that provided them with most of their food, clothing and tools.

5. The Mountains and Deserts

Like the Great Plains, the Mountains and Deserts region did not attract settlers at first. It was a fearful area, to be crossed as quickly as possible to reach the Pacific coast. The Rocky Mountains are the long backbone of this part of the North American continent—over 4,200 metres high and 560 kilometres wide in Utah and Colorado. Because of its unusual and varied natural beauty, much of this mountain and desert region has been preserved unspoiled in national parks—such as Yellowstone in Wyoming. There are few towns and they are far apart. The most successful settlers here were a group of Mormons, who settled in the desert by an enormous salty inland sea and in 1847 established the Salt Lake City.

6. The Coastal Valleys

In the Coastal Valleys there is rich soil, abundant water and mild climate, which makes this one of the richest farm areas in the US. All three Pacific coast states—Washington, California and Oregon—face the Orient across the Pacific Ocean. Los Angeles is one of the world's largest metropolitan areas: 117,000 hectares. And nearby Hollywood is where motion pictures and many television shows are made. There are three major ports in the region, including the ports of San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, with San Francisco Bay being one of the world's finest land-locked harbours.II. The Population and Immigration

The first American settlers, beginning more than 20,000 years ago, were tribal people wandering from continent to continent: hunters and families following animal herds from Asia to America, across a land bridge where the Bering Straitis today. When Christopher Columbus"discovered" the New World in 1492, about 1.5 million Native Americans lived in what is now continental United States. Mistaking the place for the Indies, Columbus called the Native Americans "Indians". The continent was, incidentally, named after a later Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who, arriving in Brazil in 1499, believed the place was a new land. He promoted himself so well that he got his name attached to the new continent.An Indian American singer

During the next 200 years, people from several European countries crossed the Atlantic Ocean to explore America, and set up trading posts and colonies. Native Americans suffered greatly from the European exploration and colonization.

The English were the dominant ethnic group among early settlers, and English became the prevalent American language. But people of other nationalities were not long in following. In 1776 Thomas Paine, a spokesman for the revolutionary cause in the colonies and himself a native of England, wrote that "Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America." These words described the settlers who came not only from Great Britain, but also from other European countries, including Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Germany, and Sweden. Nonetheless, in 1780 three out of every four Americans were of English or Irish descent.

Between 1840 and 1860, the United States received a great wave of immigrants. In Europe as a whole, famine, poor harvests, rising population and political unrest caused an estimated five million people to leave their homelands each year. During the late 19th century, so many people were entering the United States that the government operated a special port of entry on Ellis Island in the Harbour of New York City. It is now preserved as part of Statue of Liberty National Monument.

Among the flood of immigrants to North America, one group came unwillingly. These were Africans, 500,000 of whom were brought over as slaves between 1619 and 1808, when importing slaves into the United States became illegal. The practice of owning slaves continued, especially in the South, where many labourers were needed to work the fields. The process of ending slavery began in April 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War between the free states of the North and the slave states of the South. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincolnissued the Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery in those southern slave states. Slavery was abolished throughout the United States with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the country's Constitution in 1865.

Even after the end of slavery, American blacks were hampered by segregation and inferior education. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, African Americans, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used boycotts, marches, and other forms of nonviolent protest to demand equal treatment under the law and an end to racial prejudice. In 1964, the US Congress passed laws prohibiting discrimination in voting, education, employment, housing, and public accommodations.

Today, African Americans constitute 12.7 per cent of the total US population. In recent decades blacks have made great strides, and the black middle class has grown substantially. In any case, perhaps, the greatest change in the past decades has been in the attitudes of America's white citizens. Younger Americans in particular exhibit a new respect for all races, and there is an increasing acceptance of blacks by whites in all walks of life and social situations.

It is also quite common to walk down the streets of an American city today and hear Spanish spoken. Today, there are about 27 million Spanish-speaking residents, who are now called Hispanics. About 50 per cent of Hispanics in the United States have origins in Mexico.

Today, Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the country. About 10 million people of Asian descent live in the United States. They come from a variety of countries, including China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The steady stream of people coming to America has had a profound effect on the American character. The American people are famous for being independent and optimistic, and freedom-loving. Immigrants also enrich American communities by bringing aspects of their native cultures with them. For example, Chinese Americans celebrate their traditional Spring Festival with street fairs and other festivities. And ethnic restaurants can be found in many American cities.III. History

1. The origin and the colonial periodMonument of Christopher Columbus, Barcelona, Spain

Just when America was discovered by the human race is a large puzzle. But scholars around the world are convinced that the first American settlers arrived in this continent more than 20,000 years ago, from Asia to America, across a narrow land strip where the Bering Strait is today. Later they developed their own cultures and societies on the continent. Some lived in permanent settlements, and others still wandered. In short, there was a great diversity of tribal nations, speaking over five hundred languages. The tribal people were later what we call Indians because Christopher Columbus mistakenly thought he had arrived in the country where the people of India lived. So for at least 150 centuries, the Indians' way of life meant "the American way of life".

It is widely believed that the first Europeans to reach North America were Vikings from Iceland, led by Leif Ericssonabout the year 1000. But the Vikings failed to establish a permanent settlement and soon lost contact with the new continent. In 1492, acting on behalf of the Spanish crown in search of shorter routes between East and West, the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west from Europe and landed on one of Bahaman Islands in the Caribbean Sea.

Among those who were eager to set their feet on the new Continent, the British seemed to gain an upper hand. In fact, the first successful English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. A few years later, English Puritanscame to America in the Mayflower to escape religious persecution. In 1620, the Puritans founded Plymouth Colony which later became Massachusetts.

In New England the Puritans hoped to build a "city upon a hill"—an ideal community. They believed that government should enforce God's morality. In spite of their own quest for religious freedom, the Puritans practiced a form of intolerant moralism. In 1636 an English clergyman named Roger Williamsleft Massachusetts and founded the colony of Rhode Island, based on the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state, two ideals that were later adopted by writers of the US Constitution.

Colonists arrived from other European countries, but the English were far better established in America. By 1733 there were 13 British colonies along the Atlantic Coast, from New Hampshire in the North to Georgia in the South.

2. The War of Independence

England and its colonies were soon in conflict. The mother country imposed new taxes, in part to share the cost of fighting a war against France, and expected Americans to lodge British soldiers in their homes. The colonists resented the taxes and would not allow the soldiers to stay in their homes. The slogan behind which the colonists rallied was "No taxation without representation."

All the taxes, except one on tea, were later removed, but in 1773 a group of patriots responded by staging the Boston Tea Party. Disguised as Indians, they boarded British merchant ships and dumped 342 boxes of tea into Boston harbour. This provoked a harsh reaction from the British Parliament. Colonial leaders convened the First Continental Congress in 1774 to discuss the colonies' opposition to British rule. War broke out on April 19, 1775, when British soldiers confronted colonial rebels in Lexington, Massachusetts. On July 4, 1776, the second Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independencedrafted by some of the country's founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. It announced that the 13 American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural rights, including a right of revolution. The most famous version of the Declaration is now on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

At first the Revolutionary War went badly for the Americans. The American army, led by George Washington, was outnumbered by the British Army. The turning point came in 1777 when American soldiers defeated the British Army at Saratoga, New York. Following the Americans' victory at Saratoga, France and America signed treaties of alliance, and France provided the Americans with troops and warships. The last major battle of the American Revolution took place at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. A combined force of American and French troops surrounded the British and forced their surrender. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, by which England recognized American Independence.

Americans created a government based on the US Constitution.In essence, the Constitution lessened Americans' fear of excessive central power by dividing government into three branches—legislative (Congress), executive (the president and the federal agencies), and judicial(the federal courts)—and by including 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights to safeguard individual liberties.

3. The Civil War

In the first quarter of the 19th century, the young nation was entangled in a contradiction. The one evil social institution that ran counter to the statement in the Declaration of Independence,"all men are created equal," was slavery, which enslaved 1.5 million African-Americans at the time. The question of slavery became the focus of political debates, and two compromises were reached in 1820 and 1850. But the issue of slavery continued.

After Abraham Lincoln, an abolitionist of slavery, was elected president in 1860, 11 states proclaimed they had left the Union and formed an independent nation, the Confederate States of America.

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