新编英语教程7课文讲解综合英语7.doc

A New English Course (Level 7)Unit OneText IEnglish and American Concepts of SpaceI. About the Author --- Edward Twitchell Hall (1914 ---), U.S. anthropologist, author, and teacher, received his Ph.D. degree in anthropology from Columbia University. He has taught at various institutions, such as Harvard Business School, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University. His works include: The Silent Language (1959), a study of nonverbal communication, and The Hidden Dimension (1966), a study of “social and personal space and man’s perception of it.” The present text, a selection from The Hidden Dimension, gives a contrast between English and American concepts of personal space.About the author:Down the drainEdward T.Hall’s The Hidden Dimension, perhaps the scariest book (even scarier than 1984) I ever read. Scary, because it isn’t fiction, but a rather elaborate essay on anthropology and proxemic behavior. If Hall’s right, things as disregard for other cultures, mindless urban development and demographic growth have generated a behavioral sink in which stress, crime, intolerance and physical and psychic disease grow everyday, and to make things worse, our governments take measures that only accelerate the process. We are all going down the drain.Put Ed Hall’s Insights to Work in Your WorldEd Hall is one of the preeminent cultural anthropologists of all times. His works, studies, and insights into the rich modern anthropology reflect a life long passion he developed as a teenager in the 1930’s Southwest U.S. assigned to work on white-managed WPA crews alongside Navajo workers whose cultural bearings and world views were vastly different than his own people’s views. Hidden Dimensions examines the cultural contexts of space, how people define their personal and community spaces as part of their cultural norms.How far apart or close do people of a similar culture feel comfortable standing or sitting next to one another and in what circumstances? When do you feel someone is “in your space”? This personal comfort zone differs culture to culture. Yours may be different than mine. Hall develops these “proxemics” (proximity) in this book by observing and visiting with peoples from around the globe, and shares the wisdom gained with you so that you might expand your own world views and spatial orientations when mixing with foreign cultures to your own.Well worth the sheckles to add this great work to your life’s library. Collect all of Hall’s works.Best of the BestA fabulous writing on how human beings react to and make use of special distance from a physical and psychological viewpoint, i.e. the study of proxemics. The type of book that should be reissued without fail by the publisher, though it is old, since it is a classic in its field. Actual numerical distances and their effect / use / experience by humans are explained as well as much about eyesight and its abilities. Hall also explains how different Euro cultures (German, French, and others) plus how Americans use space differently. I’m seldom this positive about any book but must give this one a highest rating.II. Organization and Development Like most writings of an academic nature, this article is neatly-structured. Its thesis is clearly stated in the first paragraph and is developed in the rest of the article by contrast. Can you identify the sentence in the first paragraph that states the thesis?The sentence in the 1st paragraph that states the thesis:If there ever were two cultures in which differences of the proxemic details are marked it is in the educated English and the middle-class Americans.The contrasts Hall has made are frequently marked by words or phrases generally known as sentence adverbials or connectives. Locate such items throughout the writing and try to tell what contrast they introduce.Words or phrases used to indicate contrasts:Paragraph 1 “whereas” --- contrasting space for Americans with the social system for the English as a factor determining a person’s social status “however” --- contrasting the importance of one’s address in the United States with that of the position in the social system into which a person is born in BritainParagraph 3 “on the other hand” --- contrasting what is said in the 2nd paragraph with what is said in the 3rd, i.e. the American’s sense of space that can be called his own with the Englishman’s sense of shared spaceParagraph 5 “on the other hand” --- contrasting the different ways in which Americans and the English behave when seeking seclusionThe contrast Hall has made serves to explain the apparent clash between the English and Americans, i.e. why they behave differently when they have the same need to satisfy.III. Notes 1. In what sense does Hall use the word “separated” in the first sentence?Made cul。