UNIT 1
PASSAGE A
Polar Differences Between Chinese and American Cultures
Americans wear black for mourning. Chinese wear white. Westerners think of dragons as monsters. Chinese honor them as representations of God. The polarities between Chinese civilization and the West often make it seem as though each stands at extreme ends of the earth. Now a University of California, Berkeley, psychologist has discovered deeper polarities between Chinese and American cultures-polarities that go to the heart of how we reason and discover truth.
在丧礼上，美国人穿黑丧服，而中国人穿白。西方人认为龙是怪物，而中国人把龙当成神明。中国与西方的文明差异使它们看起来像分别站在地球的极端。最近加利福尼亚的一所大学的心理学家伯克利发现中国和美国文化差异的更深极性，那是关于内心深处的如何理性和发现真理的极性。
His findings go far toward explaining many of the differences between Chinese and American cultures, when compared to each other. More importantly, the research opens the door for the peoples of the East and the West to learn from each other in basic ways. The Chinese would learn much from Western meth
ods for determining scientific truth, said Kaiping Peng, a former Beijing scholar, who is now a UC Berkeley assistant professor of psychology, and Americans could profit from Chinese ways of accepting contradictions in social and personal life.
他的研究结果对于解释许多中美文化对比的差异有很大的贡献。更重要的是，这项研究为东西方民族相互学习的基本途径开启了大门。“中国人从西方方法中学到许多关于如何确定科学真理的知识，”前北京的学者，现为伯克利大学的心理学助理教授的彭开平说，“同时美国人可以从中国式的接受社会和个人生活的矛盾中得到启示。”
“Americans have a terrible need to find out who is right in an argument,” said Peng. “The problem is that at the interpersonal level, you really don’t need to find the truth, or maybe there isn’t any.” Chinese people, said Peng, are far more content to think that both sides have good and bad points, because they have a holistic understanding that life is full of contradiction. They do far less blaming of the individual than Americans do, he added.
“美国人迫切地要出谁是一场辩论中正确的人，”彭说。“但问题是在人际关系方面，你真的不需要到确切的真相，或者根本就没有所谓的真相。”彭说，“中国人对一件事物有一个较为全面的了解，认为生命是充满了矛盾的，因此认为凡事都有好坏两面。他们一般会比美国人更少去指责一个个体的错误。”他补充说。
In studies of interpersonal argument, for example, when subjects were asked to deal with contradictory information resulting from conflict between a mother and a daughter or a student and a school, Peng found that Americans were “non-compromising, blaming one side—usually the mother—for the causes of the problems, demanding changes from one side to find a solution, and offering no middle ground” in dealing with the conflict.
在研究人际关系的争论中，例如，当受试者被要求处理母女或学生与学校之间的矛盾时，彭发现，美国人是“毫不妥协地指责其中一方——通常母亲被认为是问题的引起者，他们只从其中一方寻解决方法，而不是在两者的中间地带寻”来解决矛盾。
By contrast, the Chinese were able to find fault on both sides and look for solutions that moved both sides to the middle.
相反的是，中国人会认为双方都有过错而从两方之间寻解决方案，使双方都向中间靠。
“It can hardly be right to move to the middle when you have just read evidence for a less reasonable view. Y et that is what the Chinese subjects did,” said Peng.
“当你只知道一点真相，缺少合理的看法时，是很难以从中间去判断对错的，然而这就是中国人的做法。”彭说。
He believes that this practice of finding the middle way has made it difficult for the Chinese to seek scientific truth through aggressive argumentation, the classic Western Method for forging a path through contradictory information, which results in identifying right and w rong answers.
他认为这种从中庸寻答案的方式使得中国人很难通过积极热烈的讨论这种方法寻科学真理，而西方经典方法是将信息分为对立的两面，这使得他们的到得答案是确切的，毫不模棱两可的。
Dialectical thinking also has a Western version, which Americans often consider the highest form of reasoning, said Peng. This type of reasoning allows people to go from thesis to antithesis, to synthesis.
辩证的思维也有属于西方的方式，这就是美国人经常用到的最高形式的推理，彭说，这种方式使得人们能够从一个论题思考到它的对立面，然后综合起来分析。
To compare, Chinese people do not attempt to work through contradictions, following a cultural tradition which holds that reality is “multi-layered, unpredictable, and contradictory,” and is in an unending state of change, Peng said.
相比之下，中国人不喜欢试图通过矛盾来解决事情，而是遵从文化的传统，那就是所谓的现实是“多层次
的，不可预测的，矛盾的”，而且一直处于一个永不停止的变化的状态，彭说。Peng believes that more dialectical thinking among Americans would make American public life less contentious. “We could stop blaming each other, poor people, and immigrants, and talk about what we can do as a society to become more accepting of differences,” he said. The Chinese, on the other hand, “could learn from the Western tradition to think more about action, truth, and the right thing to do. This would make them more scientific,” said Peng.
彭认为美国人的辩证思维使得美国的社会生活更少争议。“我们能够停止指责对方，停止指责贫穷的人们，移民，而是去谈论作为社会一份子的我们能够怎么做来使这个社会更具有包容性。”彭说，“另一方面，中国人可以从西方传统中学会更注重行动，真理，做正确的事。
这将会使他们更加具有科学理性。”
The psychologist said that many people ask him which way is the best —the imperfect Chinese way or the imperfect Ameri can way. “I always say that life is full of contradictions,” said Peng. “The best way is to use both—one style for science and the other for relationships. Maybe that will be the real benefit of multiculturalism.”
less is more 翻译
彭说，很多人问他究竟哪条路是最好的——不完美的中国方式还是不完美的美国方式。“我只会告诉他，
生活是充满矛盾的，”彭说，“最好的方法就是两种都用上——综合科学和人际关系。或许这就是文化多元的真正好处。”
Preview:
1.“Polarities” means a state in which beliefs or behaviors are opposite or contradictory to each
other. The passage is most likely to deal with the differences in reasoning and discovering truth between the Chinese and Westerners.
2.He thinks that each has its advantages and disadvantages and that the best way is to use both. Exercises:
I.
1-5. AACBC
II.
1. who is right
2. good and bad
3. far less
4. one
5. the middle
6. By contrast
PASSAGE B
Do American and British People Speak the Same Language?
It was said by Sir George Bernard Shaw that “England and America are two countries separated by the same language”. My first personal experience of this was when I worked as a camp counselor for two months in 2000 in a summer camp run by the Boy Scouts of America, as part of an international leader exchange scheme. Before I went, all the participants in the scheme were given a short list of words that are in common use in the UK but would either confuse or even offend Americans. I remembered the words and thought, “I’ll cope.”.
萧伯纳爵士曾说过“英国和美国是两个被同一种语言所分隔的国家”。我第一次有这种个人的体验是在2000年我执行一个国际领导人交换项目的时候，那时候我以一个辅导员的身份参加了由美国童子军组成为期2个月的夏令营。在我去之前，这个项目的每一个参与者都得到了一份简短的清单，是一些英国常用的但是却容易被混淆甚至会冒犯美国人的词语。我记住了所有的词，我认为我会处理好的。
When I finally arrived in the States three months later, I realized that perhaps a lifetime of watching American television was not adequate preparation for appreciating and coping with the differences between American and British speech. In the first hour of arriving at the camp I was exposed to High School American English, Black American English, and the American English spoken by Joe Public, all very different from each other. Needless to say, I did cope in the end. The Americans I met were very welcoming and helpful, and I found they were patient with me when I made a social mistake by using an inappropriate word or phrase.
在我到达美国的三个月后，我发现也许看一辈子的美国电视也无法充分地了解区分和处理美国与英国语言的差异。在到达夏令营的头一个小时里，我充分地体会到美国高中英语，美国黑人英语和美国平民英语之间的差异很大。不用说，最后我终于都应付过去了。我遇到的美国人都很热情且乐于助人，而且我发现当我用了一个不恰当的词或者短语而发下一个社会性的错误时，他们仍然很有耐心地对我。
Upon my return I began to wonder whether anyone had recorded the differences between American and British English. I found several books on the subject but often these were written in a dry way. I felt that I could do better and use my sense of humour and personal experiences to help people from both sides of Atlantic to communicate more effectively when they meet.
回国之后，我开始怀疑是否有人记录了美国英语和英国英语之间的差异。我发现有几本书是关于这一方面的，但是通常它们是被用一种死板而干巴巴的方式阐述出来的。我认为我能够做得更好，利用我的幽默和个人经历来帮助大西洋两岸的人们，让他们能在相遇的时候更有效的沟通。
My research into the subject led me to several conclusions. Firstly, American English and British English are converging thanks to increased travel across the Atlantic and the media. The movement of slang words is mostly eastwards, though a few words from the UK have been adopted by Ivy League fraternities. This trend is a recent one dating from the emergence of Hollywood as the important film making centre in the world and also from the Second World War when large numbers of American GIs were stationed in the UK. This trend was consolidated by the invention of television. Before then, it was thought that American English and British English would diverge as the two languages evolved. Words and expressions returned from the America and joined the mother tongue, but very few people in Britain realize how many of the words they use are of American origin. Often this introduction of Ame
rican words has encountered a linguistic snobbery by the British, which showed the cultural snobbery that bedeviled Anglo-American relationships for a long time. This is not, thankfully, the case now.
我对于这个问题的研究带给我几个结论。首先，大西洋两岸日益频繁的旅游来往和媒体的传播促进了美国英语和英国英语的相互融合。尽管有些英国词语被美国常春藤联盟学院采纳了，但俚语的传播趋势总的来说是从西往东的。这是一个近代趋势，要追溯到重要的世界电影制作工厂——好莱坞的出现，还有世界二战大量的美国士兵驻扎在英国的时候。电视的发明是的这个趋势得到了强化。在这之前，美国英语和英国英语被认为最终会分叉演化为两种语言。这些来自美国的词语传到英国并且融进了当地的语言中，但是极少数的英国人能够意识到他们所使用的词语中有多少是源自于美国的。通常这些引进的美国词语会遭到英国人的语言鄙视，正因如此，这种文化势利使得英美关系长时期受到挫伤。但值得庆幸的是，这不再是现在的情况了。
Secondly, there are some generalizations that can be made about American and British English which reveal the nature of the two nations and their peoples. British speech tends to be less general, and directed more at a subgroup of the population. This has become a kind of code, in which few words are spoken because each carries a wealth of shared ideas and attitudes. In other words, the British care much about their social status within society and speak and act to fit into the social class they aspire to. This is particularly obvious when talking to someone from “the middle class” who points out t
hat he is “upper middle class” rather than “middle class” or “lower middle class”. John Major, the former UK Prime Minister, may have said that we are now living in a “classless society”, but the class still exists. At that moment both he and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, were talking about capturing the “middle England, middle class vote” as
the key to winning the next general election.
其次，英美两国的语言能被概括起来反映两个国家的社会类型和人民。英国语言不会很普遍，它更倾向于小体传播，这形成了一种规则——一些词语里蕴含了一种以共同的观念和态度为载体的财富。换句话说，英国人十分在乎他们的社会地位，因此会尽量在言行举止间往他们向往那个社会阶级靠拢——这在当你和一个来自“中产阶级”但更乐意说明自己是“上层中产阶级”而不是“普通中产阶级”或“下层中产阶级”的人交谈时表现的尤为明显。英国前首相约翰梅杰也许会说我们正生活在一个“没有阶级之分”的社会中，但阶级主义仍然存在着。他在和反对党领袖托尼布莱尔曾经谈到获得英国中产阶级的选票是赢得下一次大选的关键。
American speech tends to be influenced by the overheated language of much of the media, which is designed to attach an impression of exciting activity to passive, if sometimes insignificant events. Y et, curiously, really violent activity and life-changing events are hidden in bland tones that serve to hide th
e reality. British people tend towards understatement whereas Americans towards hyperbole. A Briton might respond to a suggestion with a word such as “Terrific” only if he is expressing enthusiasm, whereas an American might use the word merely to express polite agreement.
美国语言往往受到媒体过热的言语影响，这些媒体目的在于将一件无意义的事件描述得给人留下很有趣的印象。然而，奇怪的是，一些真正的暴力活动和改变生活的事件却被平淡的语调隐藏了事实。英国人倾向于轻描淡写而美国人倾向于夸张描述。一个英国人在被问起意见时会用一个词比如“了不起”来表达他的热情，而美国人使用这个词可能仅仅出于礼貌。Preview:
1.The author probably thinks that American and British people do not speak the same language.
At the very beginning, the author puts forward Sir Seorge Bernard Shaw’s view that “England and America are two countries separated by the same language”.
2.
1). T
2). T
3). F
Exercises:
I.
1.  C
2.  B
3.  C
4.  A
5.  C
Ⅱ.
1.differences
2.proper American
3.beyond
4.better;easy;troubles/problems/difficulties
5.care about
PASSAGE C
Student Lifestyles
the lifestyles of students everywhere have many similarities. In both Japan and North America,

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