高级英语上课件Lesson9
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Lesson Nine The trouble with Television
一、Words and expressions
1. absorb –absorbable v.—adj.
v.
take in 吸收
absorb heat 吸热
Plants
absorb oxygen. 植物吸收氧气。
absorb knowledge 吸收知识
absorbing 吸引人的 attractive
absorptionn.
吸收，专心致志
2. allot vt. 分配，分派(-tt-)
allot sth. to sb. 把——分配给某人
Who will she
allot the easy job to? 她把轻活分给谁了？
allotmentn. 分配，拨款
3. apt adj. –aptlyadv.
apt 适当的，恰当的 suitable, appropriate
an
apt quotation 恰当的引用
Ⅰ. be apt at doing sth.
= be good at sth.
He is very apt at
programming a computer. 他善于编电脑程序
Ⅱ. be apt
to do sth. = have a tendency to do sth.
易于做什么事情，有做某事的倾
向性
My pen is rather
apt to leak. 我的钢笔爱漏水。
aptly: suitably,
appropriately
4. august adj. 常作定语，令人敬畏的，威严的
full of respect, awe, majestic and imposing
5. bequeath: v. bequeath sth. to sb.
把某物遗赠给某人
He bequeathed 1000 pounds to
charity. 他把1000英镑遗赠给慈善事业。
bequestn. 遗赠，遗产，遗物
6. coherent—coherenceadj.—n. 有条理的，前后一致的
coherent analysis, argument, description
The government lacks a coherent economic
policy. 政府的经济政策缺乏一致性。
7. condense: se sth.
tointo sth. 把——浓缩成——，凝结
简缩，摘要condense a long
report into a brief summary
condensation n.
8. civilize—decivilize
9. dismiss:
v. Ⅰ. 解雇，免除 Ⅱ. 对某事不予理会
dismiss a
suggestion
Ⅲ. reject 驳回 dismiss a casean
appeal 驳回一个诉案上诉
dismissal n. dismissible
adj.
10. divert:
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v.Ⅰ. divert sb. from sth.
to sth. 转移某人的注意力
divert one's attention,
energies 转移某人的注意力，精力
Ⅱ. entertain, amuse 消遣或娱乐
divertingadj. 消遣的，娱乐的 divertingly ion n.
11. gratify v. esp. passive 常用于被动语态
be
gratified atbywith sth. = be satisfied
gratify one's curiosity 满足某人的好奇心
gratification n. gratifying gratifying to
do
gratifyingly adv.
12.
illiterate—illiteracy adj.—n.
13.
imperative: adj. 紧急的，必须服从的
It is imperative
that we make a quick decision. 我们要尽快做出决定。
imperative 作“必须服从的、必要的”时用虚拟语气，should可省略。
n. 必要的事，必须履行的责任
Survival is our first
imperative. 当务之急的事是生存。
a moral imperative
道德上的责任
14. effect—efficient—effective
inefficient
15. inherent: adj. 内在的，固有的，与生俱来的
be inherent in .
an inherent distrust of
strangers 对陌生人天生的不信任
inherently adv.
16.
miracle = wonder 奇迹，美妙
miraculous = wonderful
17. perpetual: adj. 永久的，永恒的，不间断的，连续的，反复的
permanent, continuous, repeated, continual,
incessant
perpetually adv.
18. pervade
–invade—evade
v. 弥漫，渗透 spread
The smell
pervades the house.
Her work is pervaded by
nostalgia for the past.
她的作品充满了怀旧之情。
pervasion ive adj. = pervading 无处不在的，遍布的
19. scrape—scrap v. —n.
20. a series of
= a chain of
serial adj.n.
21. usurp:
篡夺，夺取
usurp the throne 篡夺王位
usurpation n.
usurper
二、Text
Title: A prominent
anchorman warns of TV's adverse effect on
America's culture
by Robert MacNeil
prominent: 突出的，杰出的 projecting, distinguished,
outstanding, well-known
prominent cheek-
bones 突出的颧骨 hollowed
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play a prominent
part in the public life 在公共事务中起突出作用
杰出的政治人物
a prominent political figure
adv.
prominently n. prominence
近来崭露头角的青年作家 a
young writer who has recently come tointo
prominence
warn sb. of sth. = admonish
adverse: adj. 相反的，不利的，敌对的，有害的
contrary,
hostile, opposing, harmful
the adverse
effects of drugs 药品的副作用
adverse weather
conditions, circumstances 不利的天气，逆境
adversely
adv.
Structure of the text:
Paragraph
Ⅰ, Ⅱ: the influence of television—dominate
people's life—work on
bachelor's degree,
astronomer or engineer, learning languages,
reading, walking and
writing.
It is
difficult to escape the influence of television.
If you fit the statistical
averages, by the
age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least
20,000 hours of
television. You can add 10,000
hours for each decade you have lived after the age
of
20. The only things Americans do more than
watch television are work and sleep.
fit
适合，适当
be exposed to 暴露于
Calculate for
a moment what could be done with even a part of
those hours. Five
thousand hours, I am told,
are what a typical college undergraduate spends
working on
a bachelor's degree. In 10,000
hours you could have learned enough to become an
astronomer
or engineer. You could have learned
several languages fluently. If it appealed to you,
you could be reading Homer in the original
Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn't,
you could have walked around the world and
written a book about it.
教材P134 2. What
other things could a person possibly have done in
those hours spent
on watching TV?
calculate: count
fluently 流利地
appeal
to 恳求，呼吁；吸引某人；投诉、起诉某人
Paragraph Ⅲ: the
trouble—to discourage concentration, apply no
effort, instant
gratification, divert,
distract
The trouble with television is that
it discourages concentration. Almost anything
interesting and rewarding in life requires
some constructive, consistently applied
effort（付出努力）. The dullest, the least gifted of
us can achieve things that seem
miraculous to
those who never concentrate on anything. But
television encourages us to
apply no effort.
It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us
only to divert, to
make the time pass without
pain.
concentration 注意力
教材P134 3. In
what way does TV discourage concentration?
It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us
only to divert, to make the time
pass without
pain.
Paragraph Ⅳ: narcotic—following its
lead—guided tour—passively surrender
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Television's variety becomes a narcotic, not a
stimulus. Its serial, kaleidoscopic
exposures
force us to follow its lead. The viewer is on a
perpetual guided tour: 30 minutes
at the
museum, 30 at the cathedral, 30 for a drink, then
back on the bus to the next
attraction－except
on television, typically, the spans allotted are
on the order of
minutes or seconds, and the
chosen delights are more often car crashes and
people killing
one another. In short, a lot of
television usurps one of the most precious of all
human
gifts, the ability to focus your
attention yourself, rather than just passively
surrender
it.
on tour 在旅行中
spans
跨度
focus one's attention 集中注意力
surrender 屈服，放弃
Paragraph Ⅴ, Ⅵ, Ⅶ: appeal to
the short attention span—a few moments'
concentration—value: fast ideas
P134 is
the appeal to the short attention span so
important to TV?
Capturing your
attention－and holding it－is the prime motive of
most television
programming.
Capturing
your attention－and holding it－is the prime motive
of most television
programming and enhances
its role as a profitable advertising vehicle.
Programmers live
in constant fear of losing
anyone's attention－anyone's. The surest way to
avoid doing
so is to keep everything brief,
not to strain the attention of anyone but instead
to
provide constant stimulation through
variety, novelty, action and movement. Quite
simply, television operates on the appeal to
the short attention span.
constant 不断的
infear of 害怕
appeal to 吸引
It is
simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be
regarded as a given, as inherent
in the medium
itself; as an imperative, as though General
Sarnoff, or one of the other
august pioneers
of video, had bequeathed to us tablets of stone
commanding that nothing
in television shall
ever require more than a few moments'
concentration.
way out 解决问题的办法
pioneer 先驱
bequeath to us
In its
place that is fine. Who can quarrel with a medium
that so brilliantly packages
escapist
entertainment as a mass-marketing tool? But I see
its values now pervading this
nation and its
life. It has become fashionable to think that,
like fast food, fast ideas
are the way to get
to a fast-moving, impatient public.
in
one's place 各就其位，适当的
Paragraph Ⅷ:
inefficient communication—not absorbable or
understandable, scraps,
boring and dismissable
In the case of news, this practice, in my
view, results in inefficient communication.
I
question how much of television's nightly news
effort is really absorbable and
understandable. Much of it is what has been
aptly described as “machine-gunning with
scraps.” I think the technique fights
coherence. I think it tends to make things
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ultimately boring and dismissable （unless they
are accompanied by horrifying pictures）
because almost anything is boring and
dismissable if you know almost nothing about it.
in the case of 在…情况下，就…来说
fight 破坏
dismissable 不予理睬的
Paragraph Ⅸ:
decivilizing—simplicity—visual
stimulation—precision is
anachronism
教材P134 6. Why does the author say TV is
decivilizing?
I believe that TV's appeal to
the short attention span is not only inefficient
communication but decivilizing as well.
Consider the casual assumptions that television
tends to cultivate: that complexity must be
avoided, that visual stimulation is a
substitute for thought, that verbal precision
is an anachronism. It may be old-fashioned,
but I was taught that thought is words,
arranged in grammatically precise ways.
Paragraph Ⅹ, Ⅺ: a crisis of literacy
There
is a crisis of literacy in this country. One study
estimates that some 30 million
adult Americans
are “functionally illiterate” and cannot read or
write well enough
to answer the want ad or
understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.
Literacy may not be an inalienable human
right, but it is one that the highly literate
Founding Fathers might not have found
unreasonable or even unattainable. We are not only
not attaining it as a nation, statistically
speaking, but we are falling further and
further short of attaining it. And, while I
would not be so simplistic as to suggest
that
television is the cause, I believe it contributes
and is an influence.
The last three
paragraphs: call for consideration
Everything about this nation－the structure of the
society, its forms of family
organization, its
economy, its place in the world－has become more
complex, not less.
Yet its domination
communications instrument, its principal form of
national linkage,
is one that sells neat
resolutions to human problems that usually have no
neat
resolutions. It is all symbolized in my
mind by the hugely successful art form that
television has made central to the culture,
the 30-second commercial: the tiny drama
of
the earnest housewife who finds happiness in
choosing the right toothpaste.
neat 未搀水的
When before in human history has so much
humanity collectively surrendered so much
of
its leisure to one toy, one mass diversion? When
before has virtually an entire nation
surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for
selling?
surrender: spend 花费
Some
years ago Yale University law professor Charles L.
Black, Jr., wrote: “…forced
feeding on trivial
fare is not itself a trivial matter.” I think this
society is being
forced-fed with trivial fare,
and I fear that the effects on our habits of mind,
our
language, our tolerance for effort, and
our appetite for complexity are only dimly
perceived. If I am wrong, we will have done no
harm to look at the issue skeptically
and
critically, to consider how we should be resisting
it. I hope you will join with
me in doing so.
feed on 以…为食
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三、Exercises
教材P134
7. Why does the author say that
television cannot provide right solutions to human
problems?
Because the world is
complicated, and television could only provide
easy resolutions.
8. What do you think is
the author's purpose in making this speech?
He hope we can join with him in resisting the
adverse effect of television.
D. Choose the
right word or expression in the brackets to
complete each of the
following sentences:
1. The teacher（allotted, divided） the children
into several small groups for the
trip to the
Place Museum.
divided
2. Around mid-
night, she received a （mysterious,
miraculous）phone call from someone
she did not
know of.
mysterious
3. Do you think
soil samples are（obtainable, absorbable）from the
Mars by an unmanned
aircraft in the near
future?
obtainable
4. She was so dear
to him that he still kept her picture in
a（preeminent, prominent）
position on his desk.
Prominent
preeminent
指卓越的，优秀的；prominent指突出的，如位置等的突出
5. A soft
background music will（enhance, increase）a
delicious meal.
Enhance
enhance
指增强效果，提高质量；increase指数量上的增加
6. He was so
disappointed when the manager said that his plan
was completely
（dismissable, disposable）.
dismissable
7. The baby-sister kept the
kids（accompanied, company）until we got back from
the
theater.
accompanied
8. Will
the financial（reverse, adverse）prevent you from
taking a holiday this summer?
Reverse
adverse adj. 不能用在本句中
F. Translate the
following into English:
人们的注意力跨度很短，因此，为了抓住观众
的注意力，电视必须通过多样化、新奇性和动
作不断地提供刺激。这样做的结果是，新闻过于简短，不能
提供有效的交流；很多新闻节目就像
“机关枪发射碎片”，破坏了思维的连贯性。这种迎合注意力跨度短
的做法，还会降低文化水平。
避免了复杂性，也就牺牲了思考。成年美国人中“功能性文盲”人数不断增
长，他们甚至不知道
如何回答招聘广告或读懂药瓶上的说明，电视对此起码应负一部分责任。
跨度：span
抓住：hold 或capture
通过多样化、新奇性和动作：through variety, novelty, action and
movement
提供刺激：provide stimulation
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结果是：as a result
有效的交流：efficient
communication
机关枪发射碎片：machine-gunning with
scraps
破坏了连贯性：fight coherence
迎合：appeal to
牺牲了思考：surrendering thoughts