英语论文-The best way to teach English.doc

i language and culture: words and meaning 贵德县民族寄宿制学校 梁静 the importance of language the importance of language to the study of intercultural communication is clearly captured by filmmaker federico fellinis simple sentence: “a different view of life.” his observation takes on added significance when you realize the one of the major characteristics identifying you as human is your ability to use language. as cartmill point out, “people can talk. other animal cant.” yet language is more than just a skill; it has evolved a rich and expressive versatility that was recognized by paul tillich when he observed that “language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone and the word “solitude” to express the joy of being along” or by the athenian poet aristophanes, who glorified the beauty of words when he remarked “by words the mind winged.” your ability to use words is indeed a remarkable gift. over countless thousands of years, homo sapiens has evolved the brain capacity and anatomy necessary to produce and receive sounds; in a much shorter span of time, it has created cultural systems in which those sounds have taken on meaning by representing things, feelings, and ideas. yet there seems to be some evidence of a genetic basis tied to the use of language. the recently discovered foxp2 gene, although not believe to have caused speech, seems to enhance the speech by permitting humans to speak more ii clearly, contributing to the development of superior language abilities. this combination of evolution and culture has led to the development of a four-part process that enables you to share your internal states with other human beings. in short, you can receive, store, manipulate, and generate symbols to represent your personalized realities. but, to a large degree, your language behavior is mediated by your culture. that is to say, while how you use language is highly individualistic, many of the forms of language that you use, and the purposes to which you choose to apply language, are subject to your cultural background. everything you know and feel is inside your body and can only be shared by language. most of this internal state is an electrochemical mlange residing in your brain. your beliefs, values, attitudes, word views, emotions, and myriad other aspects of yourself and personality are locked up inside. you can convey some aspects of yourself nonverbally through facial expression, gestures, or touching. to state that language is important is merely to acknowledge the obvious, yet the significant influence language has on human behavior is frequently overlooked. the ability to speak and write is often taken for granted. it is through your use of sounds and symbols that you are able give life to your ideas-as henry ward beecher once wrote, “thought is the blossom; language the opening bud; action the fruit behind it.” or as cartmill has observed: iii language lets us get vast numbers of big, smart fellow primates all working together on a single task-building the great wall of china or fighting world war ii or flying to the moo. it lets us construct and communicate the gorgeous fantasies of literature and the profound fables of myth. it lets us cheat death by pouring out our knowledge, dreams, and memories into younger peoples minds. and it does powerful things for us inside our own minds because we do a lot of thinking by talking silently to ourselves. without language, we would be only a sort of upright chimpanzee with funny feet and clever hands. with it, we are the self-possessed masters of the planet. language and culture language has such a commanding influence within a culture that edwards believes language and culture hold the power to maintain national or cultural identity. for him, language is more important in ethnic and nationalist sentiment because of its powerful and visible symbolism of national identity may be seen in the history of the basques, an ethnic group in the north of spain. according to crystal, the spanish government from 1937 to the mid-1950s made an active attempt to destroy the basque culture and forbid the use of the basque language. basque could not be used in baptism ceremonies. all basque names in official documents were translated into spanish, and inscriptions on public building and tombstones were removed. because of this relationship between language and culture identity, steps are often taken to limit or prohibit the influence of foreign language. costa rica, for instance, recently enacted a new law that restricts the use of foreign languages and imposes fines on those who break it. under the law, companies that advertise in a foreign language also must include a spanish translation in larger letters. likewise, iran has banned companies iv from using western names. and france has a list of thirty-five hundred foreign words that cannot be used in schools, bureaucracies, or companies. verbal processes as we have already indicated, it is impossible to separate language from culture. in its most basic sense, rubin says, language “is a set of characters or elements and rules for their use in relation to one another.” these characters or elements are symbols that are culturally diverse. that is, they differ from one culture to another. you may readily discover this when you study another language. not only are the (1) words and sounds for those symbols different, but also so are the (2) rules for using those symbols and sounds. culture and the use of language chaika believes that human language seems to be the only communication system that uses meaningless elements to create meaningful structures. yet, as arensberg and niehoff observe, “nothing more clearly distinguishes one culture from another than its language.” a comedic example of this culture diversity may be seen from the various ways in which a sing announces a broken vending machine. in the united kingdom, the sign might read “please understand this machine does not take 10p coins.” in the united states, the translation would probably be “no 10p coins.” although the rules and uses of a foreign language often appear arbitrary and nonsensical to nonnative speakers, to v native speakers, the rules make perfect sense and seem more logical than those of other languages. for you to understand the wide range of diversity between cultures in how they actually use language, we will examine characteristics of language that include rules for (1) directness, (2) the maintenance of social customs and relationships, (3) expression of emotion, and (4) the value of “talk.” language diversity in the united states language diversity has become a prominent issue in the united states. millions of people in the united states speak a language other than english at home. areas of florida, california, and the southwest are heavily spanish speaking situation creating in english teaching 贵德县民族寄宿制学校 陶朝霞 summary creating real life in english teaching may make the boring knowledge lively and interesting, it also fully mobilize students activity, interest and get good results in teaching. key words situation creating body language multimedia vi to bring the real life situation, using real items in our daily english teaching and exert our imagination absolutely is an important methodology for the english learners and foreign study to manipulate newly understood language. what they have learn creating real life situation means the teachers create the proper scene for teaching, using real items, the multimedia, let the students make dialogues by using what they have learned. by these tools we can make vivid color pictures, can add voice and flash effect, so that students can study english positively, strengthen students communicative competence. the aim of teaching method is that the students can understand what the teachers said by using visual aids and the body language to create such atmosphere that we can learn english everywhere ,use english everywhere. for example: we can vii make english column in our classroom, put up english slogans, draw some english flash cards, buy some english magazines. we also can hold english corner outdoors. in such case, it will give a quick response when training students listening comprehension and speaking ,while will avoid such phenomenon that the students feel english so boring that they do not want to learn. according to my experience, i can give several views for us to discuss. 1. body language and gesture for beginners, at first, it is very dif ficult to understand what the teacher said. the teacher can do some actions while explain the words .for instance, smiling, showing angry look, opening the door and cleaning the windows, etc. the students concentrate on the actions and listen carefully, then will give a quick response by the indication of the teachers gesture viii or body language. 2. objects and flashcards think of a common objects with which everyone in the class is familiar (for example,pens,books,bags) ask the class to tell what it is in chinese while showing them, then teach them in english and repeat them together for several times. according to the shape, color, and size, we ask students to describe things. the advantage of doing this orally is that the students are not feeling inhibited from adding .sometimes a lake of resource by turned to your linguistic advantage .drawing flash cards will show the vivid description, and strongly stimulate students intuition, which will be curious to learn and use language. 3. performance with prop english ,as a language ,is for communication .the students must be ix required to open their mouth to speak english.the students desire to give performance,the teacher can set all kinds of situations and give stimulation and true to life interaction.the teacher will let students prepare a dialogue for police man and a student can bring the policemans hat and wear it while doing dialogue,which will attract their attention. the students will practice the role playing wonderfully when they act the dialogue on their own initiative. 4.multimedia and auto visual system with the cal developing ,there are many soft wares for us to teach language.the teacher use the audio- visual system,to put the students into english world and let them know about geography ,customs, traditions, social habits ,values,beliefs and language of society. one advantage is that the studentshorizon field will be widened ,the x other is that that will avoid culture shock for communication .creating real life situation is a very good method for us to attempt to teach language,which will bring the students to use their minds and learn english ,give them good atmosphere to speak english and stimulate their interests and motivation. bibliography 1.dai weidong:a concise on linguistics for students of english 1989. 2.linguistics and applied linguistics,shanghai foreign education press. discussion on english voice 贵德县民族寄宿制学校 赵燕霞 i.i.introduction english voice belongs to grammar category. it is a form of verbs between subject and verb. traditionally, the voice of english grammar is divided into active voice and passive voice. when the subject is the executor of the behavior, the form xi of predicate is active voice. when the subject is the taker of the behavior, the form of predicate is passive. many grammarians think that there are relations of transformation between active voice and passive voice. in practice, the transformation between the active form and the passive form is complicated. there are many differences between active voice and passive voice, so the transformation between the active voice and the passive voice is constrained by lexical, semantic and situation. 1.1. usually, the active voice can be transformed into passive voice. for examples: a number of workers have challenged this view. this view has been challenged by a number of workers. a grenade killed his best friend. his best friend was killed by a grenade. 1.2. sometimes, the active voice can be transformed into passive voice. for examples: i have a house in the country. a house is had by me in the country. (f) she married a frenchman. a frenchman was married by her. (f) .passive voice we give a simple definition to the passive voice in form, namely, be/get+ -ed. zhang keli and some other grammarians divide the passive voice into three kinds. those are true-passive, pseudo-passive and quasi-passive. 2.1. true-passive 2.1.1. a sentence with executor is called true-passive. the true-passive can be divided into ideality and non-ideality. for examples: the violin was made by my father. sentence (1) is an ideality passive voice. because it has an executor and the executor is a person. it is corresponding to the active voice: “my father made the violin.” coal has been replaced by oil. sentence (2) is a non-ideality passive. because it doesnt directly correspond to an actor. it can be transformed into two actors: “oil has replaced coal.” “people have replaced coal by oil.” 2.1.2.ed in the true-passive is called verbal-participle(动词性分词). the executor of true-passive refers to the person. sometime, the executor is unclear or doesnt be demoted. the executor just can be led by “by” or omitted. for examples: xii his best friend was killed by a grenade. this view has been challenged by a number of workers. the news was confirmed by a telegram. three machines can be controlled by a single operator. the light is refracted by the surface of the glass. 2.2. pseudo-passive another passive form is “pseudo-passive”. it is considered as passive. because the predicate of pseudo-passive is “be+-ed”. it is impossible that pseudo-passive can be transformed into active voice. “be” in pseudo-passives can be replaced by “become, feel, remain and seem”. the past participles can be modified by “very, quite, more and rather.” the participles in pseudo-passive dont have the characteristics of verbal- participle. it just becomes an adjective. for examples: my uncle was (got or seemed) (very) tired. the car was old and ruined. the agentless passive sometimes is regarded as “subject + copula + predicative”. 2.3. quasi-passive 2.3.1. quasi-passive also call semi-passive. it is between true-passive and pseudo- passive. the ed participles in quasi-passives can express the characteristics of verbal-participle and adjectival-participle. this structure can be transformed into active form. it also can be modified by “very, quite more and rather”. “be” in quasi- passive can be replaced by “feel, seem, become and remain”. for examples: i was alarmed by the news. the news alarmed me. i was alarmed by and angry at the news. i was very alarmed by the news. i felt alarmed by the news. she was irritated by these two children. these two children irritated her. she was irritated by and fond of these two children. she was more irritated by this child than by that. she appeared irritated by these two children. 2.3.2. the quasi-agent in quasi-passive can be led by “about, at, over, to, in, with.” for examples: she was worried about her son. her son worried her. betty was surprised at the gifts. the gifts surprised betty. he was overcome with horror. horror overcome him. 2.4. in english some transitive verbs are only used in passive voice, but arent used in xiii active voice. such as: dress, shave, located, situate, satisfy, determine, doom, etc. for examples: our college is situated in the suburbs. the house is located near the lake. she was dressed in red. he was freshly shaved. .active form expresses passive meaning in english, the active form of some transitive verbs usually expresses active meaning. but its model is “v + doing”. 3.1. the following verbs, such as: want, need, require, deserve, etc + doing express passive meaning. for examples: my room wants whitewashing. he deserved punishing. this problem requires discussing. our classroom needs cleaning. 3.2. in the following model “have/getdone”, the active form expresses passive meaning. for examples: i have my hair cut. you have to make yourself understood. dad had me called a doctor. he has his shirts cleaned at the dry-cleaners. 3.3. some transitive verbs like: read, write, open, shut, fill, cook, drive, lock, cut, iron, feel, sell, wash, etc. when they are used as intransitive verbs in sentences, their active form expresses passive meaning. the subjects refer to things. for examples: the stone moved. social customs changed. the door wont shut. there are some other conditions that the active form expresses passive meaning. 3.3.1. when they are used in adverbial which expresses mode of behavior, the active form expresses passive meaning. for examples: the bridge has washed out. television sets sell very well. 3.3.2. when they are used in modals, the active form expresses passive meaning. for examples: xiv the box wont lock. the book would not translate well. 3.4. the continuous tense of verbs can express passive meaning. (1) the potatoes are cooling. (2) the meat is cooking. (3) the film is showing there. (4) the books are printing. .passive form expresses active meaning in english, some transitive verbs are only used in passive voice, but arent used in active voice, such as: dress, shave, locate, situate, excite, satisfy, determine, doom, born, etc. for examples: our college is situated in the suburbs. the house is located near the lake. she dressed in red. he was freshly shaven. he is satisfied with my work. i was so excited that i couldnt say a word. they are determined to fulfill their task ahead of time. the plan was doomed to failure. the flowers are faded i was born in 1980. .voice transformation constraints as we all know, voice transformation can be used to express two forms: active voice: executor + v + o passive voice: taker + be + v-ed (by executor) for examples: john teaches mary. mary is taught by john. in practice, the transformation between the active and the pa