新东方新概念英语四册课堂笔记 Lesson55:Patterns of Culture

L55 Patterns of Culture

Custom has not been commonly regarded as a subject of any great moment.

The inner workings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation, but custom have a way of thinking, is behaviour at its most commonplace.

As a matter of fact, it is the other way around.

Traditional custom, taken the world over, is a mass of detailed behaviour more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions, no matter how aberrant.

Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter.

The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant role that custom plays in experience and in belief, and the very great varieties it may manifest.

No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes.

He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.

Even in his philosophical probings he cannot go behind these stereotypes; his very concepts of the true and the false will still have reference to his particular traditional customs.

John Dewey has said in all seriousness that the part played by custom in shaping the behaviour of the individual as over against any way in which he can affect traditional custom, is as the proportion of the total vocabulary of his mother tongue over against those words of his own baby talk that are taken up into the vernacular of his family.

When one seriously studies the social orders that have had the opportunity to develop autonomously, the figure becomes no more than an exact and matter-off-fact observation.

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.

From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour.

By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.

Every child that is born into his group will share them with him, and no child born into one on the opposite side of the globe can ever achieve the thousandth part.

There is no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand than this of the role of custom.

Until we are intelligent as to its laws and varieties, the main complicating facts of human life must remain unintelligible.

The study of custom can be profitable only after certain preliminary propositions have been accepted, and some of these propositions have been violently opposed.

In the first place any scientific study requires that there be no preferential weighting of one or another of the items in the series it selects for its consideration.

In all the less controversial fields like the study of cacti or termites or the nature of nebulae, the necessary method of study is to group the relevant material and to take note of all possible variant forms and conditions.

In this way we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects, let us say.

It is only in the study of man himself that the major social sciences have substituted the study of one local variation, that of Western civilization.

Anthropology was by definition impossible as long as these distinctions between ourselves and the primitive, ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people's minds.

It was necessary first to arrive at that degree, of sophistication where we no longer set our own belief over against our neighbour's superstition.

It was necessary to recognize that these institutions which are based on the same premises, let us say the supernatural, must be considered together, our own among the rest.

New words and expressions

a way of thinking 一种想法

commonplace a.平凡的 口头语common

the other way around相反

aberrant a.脱离常轨的，异常的；（医）变异，失常

ab-表示"偏离，脱离或离开" = irregular

normal正常——abnormal不正常；use用——abuse滥用；

（近）eccentric怪异的；straying偏离的：a stray dog野狗；go astray步入歧途

trivial a.微不足道的，琐碎的triviality细节，琐事（见lesson12）

frist rate第一流 A-one第一等的，第一流的；topflight最棒的； second to none首屈一指；second to 次于

predominant a.占优势的，起支配作用的 predominace n.

dominate统治地位

pre-前面的 = superior,preponderate

paramount绝对重要； principal主要的；校长

manifest vt.清楚地表现 illustrate vi.举例说明；图解；加插图于；阐明vi.举例

portray绘画

pristine a.原始的（太古年代）(lesson27) （近）primitive原始的（一般）；ancient古代的；prehistoric史前的

stereotype n.陈规(lesson5)break through打破

over against和……相比 = be compared with

vernacular n.方言 （和外语相比较）母语，mother tongue的变体 （近）dialect方言（在一国内）

accent口音 vary from person to person因人而异

accommodation n.适应 v.

accommodate容纳 He accommodates himself to sth.

accommodation to对……适应 = adapt to, adjustment to 区别adoption采取，收养

incumbent a.义不容辞的，有责任的 结构：It is incumbent on sb.to do…

responsible有责任的 responsible for为……负责

proposition n.主张 来源：propose向……提议

Man proposes,God disposes.谋事在人，成事在天。

（近）tender投标，建议

unintelligible a.难理解的 intelligible可理解的

区别：intellectual 知识分子；intelligent聪明的

read—readable—unreadable;

comprehension—comprehensible—incomprehensible;

discern—discernable—undiscernable

preferential a.优先的 来源：prefer favorable有利的

prefer green tea to black tea./I prefer to green tea rather than black tea.

black coffee = sugar free coffee现在国外最流行的：decaf coffee

controversial a.引起争论的 controversy n.论争（lesson39）

cactus n.仙人掌 复数形式：cacti拉丁变形

abacus算盘—abaci(pl.); alumnus校友—alumni(pl.)

termite n.白蚁

group vt.把……分类

variant a.不同的 variation n.变化；变奏曲

易混：various各种各样的；variety多样性

barbarian n.野蛮人 = savage,vandal

pagan n.异教徒 相信不只有一个神的人或非基督教徒者

区别heretic异教徒 信邪教的人

hold sway over支配，掌握 Superstition holds sway over my brain/mind.

wield挥，统治，支配（lesson40）

sway（左右）摇；shake（上下）摇；swing（绕圈）摇

premise n.前提 大/小前提：major/minor premise

Only on the premise of equality,can we further negotiate.

institution n.惯例，风俗 长期的习惯，不一定要遵守（社会风俗）

custom不同部落，种族 When in Rome,do as the Romans do.

tradition有历史遗传（可指家庭习俗）

supernatural a.超自然的

Notes on the text

The basic background about this author:

Ruth Benedict (female)

She is a famous anthropologist.

"Cultural relativism"文化相关论

subject ( = topic,theme)

great moment = significance重要性

The inner workings of our own brains…倒装句式

正常：we feel the…workings to be… 宾语前置，强调宾语

workings运作（可数名词）