Unit 4 Cultural Encounters
Text I Cultural Encounters Susan Bassnett1
1 We live in an age of easy access to the rest of the world. Cheap flights mean that millions of people are able to visit places their parents could only dream about, while the Internet
enables us to communicate with the remotest places and the traditional postal services are now referred to almost mockingly as “snail mail2.” When students go off backpacking3, they can email their parents from Internet cafes4 in the Himalayas5 or from a desert oasis. And as for mobile phones — the clicking of text messaging6 at any hour of the day or night has become familiar to us all. Everyone, it seems, provided, of course, they can afford to do so, need never be out of touch.
2 Significantly also, this great global communications revolution is also linked to the expansion of English, which has now become the leading international language. Conferences and business meetings around the globe are held in English, regardless of
whether anyone present is a native English speaker. English has simply become the language that facilitates communication, and for many people learning English is an essential stepping stone on the road to success.7 3 So why, you may wonder, would anyone have misgivings about all these wonderful
developments, and why does the rise of English as a global language cause feelings of
uneasiness for some of us? For there are indeed problems with the communications revolution, problems that are not only economic. Most fundamental is the profound relationship between language and culture that lies at the heart of society and one that we overlook at our peril.8 Questions:
1. What do cheap flights and the Internet mean to people today? (Paragraph 1)
Cheap flights mean that millions of people can afford to visit places their parents could only dream about, while the Internet means that numerous people are able to communicate with the remotest places with great ease.
2. Exemplify and explain that English has become the most important international language. (Paragraph 2)
Conferences and business meetings around the globe are held in English, regardless of whether anyone present is a native English speaker. English has simply become the language that
facilitates communication, and for many people learning English is an essential stepping stone on the road to success.
Words and Expressions
1. access n. entrance; way in; means of entering or the right to use or look at something Derivation: accessible a.
2. communicate vi. share or exchange feelings, opinions, or information, etc. Derivation: communication n. communicative a.
3. remote a. distant in space or time Derivation: remoteness n.
Comparison: distant, far, remote distant very far away esp. in distance
far describe something that is not near, or the part of something that is most distant from the centre or from you
remote describe an area, house or village that is a long way from any towns or cities
4. mockingly ad. in a way in which sb. or sth. is made fun of
5. regardless of without taking account of or worrying about
6. facilitate vt. help; make easy or easier Derivation: facilitation n. facilitative a.
7. stepping stone any of a row of large stones with a level top, which one walks on to cross a river
or stream; figuratively, a way of improvement or gaining success
8. have misgivings not be sure
9. fundamental a. basic Derivation: fundamentally ad.
10. profound a. intense; deep; very strongly felt Derivation: profoundly ad.
11. at one’s peril (used when advising sb. not to do sth.) with the near certainty of meeting great
danger Sentences
1. We live in an age of easy access to the rest of the world. (Paragraph 1) Translation: 我们生活在一个可以轻松到达世界其它角落的时代。
2. … for many people learning English is an essential stepping stone on the road to success. (Paragraph 2)
Explanation: … for many people the acquisition of English is basically a spring board towards their lifetime achievements.
3. Most fundamental is the profound relationship between language and culture that lies at the heart of society and one that we overlook at our peril. (Paragraph 3)
Paraphrase: There is a basic relationship between language and culture which is an essential part of society and one that it is dangerous if we ignore.
Translation: 最根本的是语言与文化之间的深远关系，它存在于社会的中心，忽视它必然会造成危险。
4 Different cultures are not simply groups of people who label the world differently;
languages give us the means to shape our views of the world and languages are different from one another. We express what we see and feel through language, and
because languages are so clearly culture-related,4 often we find that what we can say in one language cannot be expressed at all in another. The English word “homesickness” translates into Italian as “nostalgia,” but English has had to borrow that same word to describe a different state of mind, something that is not quite homesickness and involves a kind of longing. Homesickness and nostalgia put together are almost, but not quite, the Portuguese “saudade,” an untranslatable word that describes a state of mind that is not despair, angst (English borrowed that from German), sadness or regret, but hovers somewhere in and around all those words. 5 The early Bible translators hit the problem of untranslatability head-on. How do you
translate the image of the Lamb of God for a culture in which sheep do not exist? What
exactly was the fruit that Eve11 picked in the Garden of Eden? What was the creature that swallowed Jonah, given that whales are not given to swimming in warm, southern seas?5 Faced with unsurmountable linguistic problems, translators negotiated the boundaries between languages and came up with a compromise.6
6 Compromising is something that speakers of more than one language understand. When there are no words in another language for what you want to say, you make adjustments and try to approximate.7 English and Welsh speakers make adjustments regarding the color spectrum in the grey / green / blue / brown range, since English has four words and Welsh has three. And even where words do exist, compromises still need to be made. The word “democracy” means completely different things in different contexts, and even a word like “bread” which refers to a staple food item made of flour means totally different things to different people. The flat breads of Central Asia are a long way away from Mother’s Pride white sliced toasties, yet the word “bread” has to serve for both. 7 Inevitably, the spread of English means that millions of people are adding another
language to their own and are learning how to negotiate cultural and linguistic differences. This is an essential skill in today’s hybrid world, particularly now when the need for
international understanding has rarely been so important. But even as more people become multilingual, so native English speakers are losing out, for they are becoming ever more monolingual, and hence increasingly unaware of the differences between cultures that
languages reveal. Communicating in another language involves not only linguistic skills, but the ability to think differently, to enter into another culture’s mentality and shape language accordingly.8 Millions of people are discovering how to bridge cultures, while the
English-speaking world becomes ever more complacent and cuts down on foreign language learning programs in the mistaken belief that it is enough to know English. Questions:
1. Supply specific examples to prove that language and culture are closely related to (but delicately different from) each other. (Paragraph 4)
a drop in the ocean 沧海一粟 to laugh one’s head off 笑掉大牙 to shed crocodile tears 猫哭老鼠 to spend money like water 挥金如土
to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth 生长在富贵人家
2. Explain and illustrate what “compromising” and “the spread of English” mean. (Paragraph 7) Compromising is something that speakers of more than one language understand. When there are no words in another language for what you want to say, you make adjustments and try to approximate. the spread of English means that millions of people are adding another language to their own and are learning how to negotiate cultural and linguistic differences.
In today’s China, the mastery of English has become an important skill which is of great use and value in all walks of life.
Words and Expressions
12. label v. fix or tie on sth. a piece of paper or other material that gives information about it; use a
word or phrase to describe sb. or sth. n. a piece of paper or other material, fixed to sth., which gives information about what it is, where
it is to go, who owns it, etc.
13. longing n. strong wish; a strong feeling of wanting sth.
14. despair n. complete loss of hope or confidence; sth. that causes this feeling Synonym: desperation n.
15. hover vi. be in an uncertain state; stay around one place, esp. in a way that annoys other people
16. head-on ad. & a. with the heads or front parts meeting, usu. violently
17. not be given to not usually do sth.
18. unsurmountable a. too large or too difficult to be dealt with Synonym:
insurmountable, insuperable Antonym: surmountable
19. negotiate vt. discuss sth. in order to reach an agreement, esp. in business or politics Derivation: negotiation n.
negotiable a. (not used before a noun)
20. come up with produce; think of a plan, reply, etc.
21. compromise v. & n. settle an argument or difference of opinion by each side agreeing to some of
the demands of the other; an agreement reached in this way that is acceptable to both sides
Collocation:
compromise on / with