英语国家社会与文化入门(第三版)下册名词解释.doc

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1、Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more.-author-date英语国家社会与文化入门(第三版)下册名词解释英语国家社会与文化入门(第三版)下册名词解释1、the first English permanent settlement was organized in 1607 by the London Company with a charter from the English KJing. The colonists set

2、tled in Virginia and survived by imposing strict discipline on themselves and by transplanting tobacco into the colony of Virginia .In 1619, the settlers elected their delegates and set up the House of Burgesses,and the same time they bought and enslavedblack servants.These two events greatly influe

3、nced the political and social debelopment of the Unite States later2、 Puritans were those who followed the doctrine of John Calvin and wanted to purify the Chuurch of England.They believe that human beings were predestined by God before they were born.Some were Gods chosen people while others were d

4、amned to hell .No church nor good works could save people.The sign of being Gods elect was the success in his oork or the prosperity in his calling.They also argued that everyone must read the Bible in order to find Gods will and establish a direct contact with God. These beliefs had great impact on

5、 American culture.3、George Washington was one of the founding fathers of the American Republic.He was the Commander-in-chief of the Continental Aemy in the War of Independence against the British colonial rule and the first President of the US4、Benjamin Franklin was one of thefounding fathers of the

6、 United States of America.He participated in writing the declaration of independence and making the US Constitution5、The Declaration of Independence was mainly drafted by Tomas Jefferson and adopted by the Congress on July 4,1776,when the people of 13 English colonies in North America were fighting

7、for their freedom and independence from the British colonial rule. The document declared that all men were equal and that they were entitled to have some unalineable rights such as life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness.It also explained the philosophy of government:the power of government came f

8、rom the consent of the governed and the purpose of governments were to secure the rights mentioned above.The theory of politics and the guiding principles of the Amenrican Revolution mainly came from John Locke6The Articles of Confederation :After the War of Independence was won, the new nation of t

9、he United States was organized under the agreement of the Articles of Confederation with a weak national government called the Congress. Each state had its own government, made its own laws and handled its internal affairs. The states did not cooperate with the Congress and with each other. The Cong

10、ress had no power to force any state to contribute money to the national government and the Congress could not tax any citizen either. As a result, the Articles of Confederation failed.7Federal system :A federal system is one in which power is shared between a central authority and its constituent p

11、arts, with some rights reserved to each. 8.the making of the U.S Constitution The Articles of Confederation failed. The Congress decided to hold a constitutional convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. The delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island refused to participated) gathered in Philad

12、elphia in 1787 and end up in writing a new constitution and set a federal system with a strong central government. The Constitution provided that an election of the president would be called for, federal laws would be made only by a Congress made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate and

13、 a Supreme Court would be set up. This new Constitution was finally approved by the majority of the citizens in over 9 of the 13 states and was officially put into effect in 1787 .9.The executive branch is the president, who is elected to a four-year term. A president can be elected to only two term

14、s according to an amendment passed in 1951. The president can appoint federal judges as vacancies occur. He is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The president has otherbroad authorities in running the government departments and handling foreign relations.10. The Bill of Rights consists of

15、the first 10 amendments which were added to the Constitution in 1791. The Bill of Rights was passed to guarantee freedom and individual rights such as freedom of speech, the right to assemble in public places, the right to own weapons and so on.11. Eli Whitney is an American inventor who invented th

16、e cotton gin, which made removing the seeds from the bolls of cotton much easier. He also began manufacturing rifles with machinery, using interchangeable part. This contributed to the American systemof mass production.12. Samuel Slater In 1793, Samuel Slater built the first factory in the U.S - a c

17、otton cloth factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He built the factory from memory, because it was a crime to carry factory plant out of England. The success of his factory started a process of change that turned the northeastern region of the United States into an important manufacturing center and h

18、elped the nation become a major cotton producer.13. Homeland security is short for the United States Department of Homeland Security(abbreviated as DHS). It is found on March 1,2003, and is a Cabinet department of the United States federal government with the primary responsibilities of protecting t

19、he territory of the US from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters. With more than 200, 000 employees, DHS is the third largest Cabinet department, after the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Other agencies with significant homeland security responsibilities include the Dep

20、artment of Health and Human Services, and Energy.14. Corporation is a form of business organization. Compared with the sole proprietorship and the partnership, the corporation may survive the death of its founder or founders. Because it could draw on a pool of investor, it is a much more efficient t

21、ool for raising the large amounts of capital needed by expanding business. And it enjoys limited liability, so inventors only risk the amount of their investment and not their entire assets.15. Service industries industries that sell a service rather than make a product，which now dominate the econom

22、y. Service industries range from banking to telecommunications to he provision of meals in restaurants. As more and more people are employed in service industries in the US, it is sometimes said the US has moved into a “post-industrial era”16. Stock When starting or expanding business, corporations

23、need to borrow money. They may issue stocks for people to buy. When people buy stock, they become part owner of the company. If the company makes a profit, they receive a share of it. Likewise, if the company loses money, the stockholders will not make a profit or the value of their shares will drop

24、-they lose money. Therefore buying stock is a risk.17. Agribusiness Because American agriculture is big business, people coined the term “agribusiness” to reflect the large-scale nature of agricultural enterprises in the modern US economy. The term covers the entire complex of farm-related business,

25、 from the individual farmer to the multinational maker of farm chemicals.It also includes farmer cooperatives, rural banks, shippers of farm products, commodity dealers, firms that manufacture farm equipment, food-processing industries, grocery chains and many other businesses.18. Migrant workers Ma

26、ny big farms hire temporary workers only for a specific chore-such as picking crops. Many of these seasonal workers travel from farm to farm, staying only until the crops are picked. They are known as migrant workers.19. Religious liberty The Declaration of Independence guaranteed the basic right of

27、 religious freedom and this right was a political necessity. The First Amendment to the U.S Constitution explicitly forbade the federal government to give special favors to any religion or to hinder the free practice,or exercise, of religion. When disputes about the relationship between government a

28、nd religion arise, American courts must settle them. But American institutions presuppose a Supreme being therefore Christianity is often in practice, more favored than other religions.20. The Baptists are the largest Protestant group in America. They believe in adult baptism by immersion, symbolizi

29、ng a mature and responsible conversion experience. They are concentrated particularly in the Southern Bible Belt . White Baptists and black Baptists go separately to their own churches.The Methodists are the second largest Protestant group in the U.S. The Methodist Church has a form of service based

30、 on that of the Church of England.21. The Catholic Church is the largest single religious group in the U.S. More than 25% of all Americans are now of the Roman Catholic faith. The majority of the Catholic are descendants of immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland. They have the main strength in th

31、e east coast. In American history,the Catholics were discriminated against. By 1960,J.F.Kennedys presidential election victory put to rest the Catholic religion as an issue in national politics. Today, the Catholics are active in running their own institutions, and have risen to positions of leaders

32、hip in business, politics and labor.22.the Jewish More liberal Protestant and Jewish clergymen joined non-believers in maintaining that abortion is a basic right for women.23. Religious diversity Frontier America has made the U.S. a fertile ground for the growth of new religious movements. Many reli

33、gious communities and secular utopias, experiments in new forms of social living, were founded in 18th and 19th century America. Many small,sects and cults appear in American society all the time. They have certain tendencies in common. They regard the larger society as hopelessly corrupt. Some of t

34、hem never win a large following, but some others prosper and graduate into the rank of the respectable denominations. Some non-Western religious such as Buddhism, Hindus and Islam are also begging to grow.24. Transcendentalists In his book Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)claimed that by studyi

35、ng and responding to nature individuals could reach a higher spiritual state without formal religion. A circle of intellectuals who were discontented with the New England establishment gathered around Emerson. They accepted Emersons theories about spiritual transcendence. They are known as Transcend

36、entalists.25. The Scarlet Letter 红字 was published in 1850. Set in the Puritan past, this masterpiece is the stark drama of a woman harshly cast out from her community for committing the sin of adultery. In this novel, Hawthorne explored certain moral themes such as guilt, pride and emotional repress

37、ion.26. Herman Melville (赫尔曼?梅尔维尔1819-1891) published Moby Dick 白鲸 . Moby Dick is the name of a big white whale. In this book, the author uses a story of a whaling voyage to explore profound themes such as fate, the nature of evil, and the individuals struggle against the universe.27. Leaves of Gras

38、s 草叶集 is a collection of poems composed by Walt Whitman. It is a ground-breaking book Whitman used free-flowing structures and long irregular lines in his poetry. He ventured beyond traditional forms to meet his need for more space to express the American spirit. In one of the poems “Song of Myself”

39、 he dwelt on himself because he saw himself as a prototype of “The American”.28. Mark Twain(pen name of Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) one of the greatest American writers and the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast. His major work was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884

40、) which has been called the greatest novel in American literature.29. Naturalists(自然主义作家) were novelists who concentrated upon the grim aspects of reality and a deterministic view of life. They were linked with European naturalists such as French novelist Zola. The most representative naturalists in

41、 American literature were Stephen Crane,Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London.30. T.S. Eliot(托?斯?艾略特18881965) published a long poem The Waste Land 荒原 in 1922. Using fragmented, haunting images and a dense structure of symbols, it revealed a pessimistic vision of post-World War I society. With the public

42、ation of “The Waste Land”, Eliot dominated the so-called “Modern” movement in poetry.31. the “Lost Generation” (迷惘的一代)In the aftermath of World War I, many novelists produced a literature of disillusionment. Some lived abroad. They were known as the “Lost Generation”. The two most representative wri

43、ters of the “Lost Generation” were Hemingway and Fitzgerald.32. Elementary School/Grammar school usually grades kindergarten through 8.But in some places,it incklude only K-6.Many Americans refers to elementary grades as “grammer school”. They teach mathematics, language, arts, social studies and so

44、me other subjects33. Higher Education It refers to American education on the college level. It includes 4 categories of institutions. They are the university, the four-year undergraduate institution (the college) the technical training institution and the two-year or community college.Some are suppo

45、rted by public funds and some by private funds. Many universities and colleges have won reputations for providing their students with a higher quality of education. The great majority are generally regarded as quite satisfactory.34. The Servicemens Readjustment Act / GI Bill of Rights (军人重新安置法) was

46、passed in 1944. It was soon popularly called the “GI Bill of Rights”. GI was a nickname for the American soldier. The nickname came from the abbreviation for “Government Issue”- the uniforms and other article “issued” to a soldier. The Act promised financial aid for higher education to members of th

47、e armed forces.35. Affirmative action programs肯定行动计划were first advocated by some colleges in the 1960s. The purpose of the program was to equalize educational opportunities for all groups and to make up for past inequality by giving special reference to members of minorities seeking jobs or admissio

48、n to college.36. Greensboro Sit-in On February 1, 1960, 4 freshmen from a black college in Greensboro, North Carolina (北卡罗莱纳州), sat down at a department lunch counter and ordered coffee. When refused, they continued to sit at the counter, openly defying the segregation law prevailing in the state. T

49、he next day, more students joined them. Thus began the civil rights movement, which spread from the south to the north. Later, this quiet “sit-in” became the major nonviolent direct action tactics to be used by black civil rights activists.37. The Civil Rights Movement One of the most important of all social movement i