08年新东方大学英语六级讲义与笔记:阅读部分(五)-大学英语六级考试-优易学

08年新东方大学英语六级讲义与笔记:阅读部分(五)

来源：优易学 2011-1-25 19:46:38 【优易学：中国教育考试门户网】资料下载外语书店

Material culture refers to the touchable, material "things"-physical objects that can be seen, held, felt, used-that a culture produces. Examining a culture's tools and technology can tell us about the group's history and way of life. Similarly, research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture. The most vivid body of "things" in it, of course, are musical instruments. We cannot hear for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when the phonograph was invented, so we rely on instruments for important information about music-cultures it the remote past and their development. Here we have two kinds of evidence: instruments well preserved and instruments pictures in art. Through the study of instruments, as well preserved Paintings, written documents, and so on, we can explore the movement of music from the Neat East to China over a thousand years ago, or we can outline the spread of Near eastern influence to Europe that results in the development of most of the instruments on the symphony orchestra.
Sheet music or printed music, too, is material culture. Scholars once defined folk music-cultures as those in with people learn and sing music by ear rather than from print, but research show mutual influence among oral and written sources during the past few centuries in Europe, Britain, and America, printed versions limit variety because they tend to standardize any song, yet they stimulate people to create new and different songs. Besides, the ability to read music notation has a far-reaching effect on musicians and, when it becomes widespread, on the music-culture as a whole.
One more important part of music's material culture should be singled out the influence of the electronic media-radio, record player, tape recorder, television, and videocassette, with the future promising talking and singing computers and other developments. This all part of the "information revolution," a twentieth century phenomenon as important as the industrial revolution was in the nineteenth. These electronic media are not just limited to modem nations; they have affected music-cultures all over the globe.

25. What is the passage mainly about?
A) different ways of treating socio-cultural elements in the three new English dictionaries.
B) A comparison of people's opinions on the cultural content in the three new English dictionaries.
C) The advantages of the BBC dictionary over Oxford and Longman.
D) The user-friendliness of the three new English dictionaries.

Three English dictionaries published recently all lay claim to possessing a "new" feature. The BBC English Dictionary contains background information on l, 000 people and places prominent in the news since 1988; the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: Encyclopedic Edition is the OALD plus encyclopedic entries; the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture is the LME plus cultural information.
    The key fact is that all three dictionaries can be seen to have a distinctly "cultural" as well as language learning content. That being said, the way in which they approach the cultural element is not identical, making direct comparisons between the three difficult.
    While there is some common ground between the encyclopedic and cultural entries for the Oxford and Longman dictionaries, there is a clear difference. Oxford lays claim to being encyclopedic on content whereas Longman distinctly concentrates on the language and culture of the English-speaking world. The Oxford dictionary can therefore stand more vigorous scrutiny for cultural bias than the Longman publication because the latter does not hesitate about viewing the rest of the world from the cultural perspectives of the English-speaking world. The cultural objectives of the BBC dictionary are in turn more distinct still. Based on an analysis of over 70 million words recorded from the BBC World Service and National Public Radio of Washington over a period of four years, their 1,000 brief encyclopedic entries are based on people and places that have featured in the news recently. The intended user they have in mind is a regular listener to the World Service who will have a reasonable standard of English and a developed skill in listening comprehension.
    In reality, though, the BBC dictionary will be purchased by a far wider range of language learners, as will the other two dictionaries. We will be faced with a situation where many of the users of these dictionaries will at the very least have distinct socio-cultural perspectives and may have world views which are totally opposed and even hostile to those of the West. Advanced learners from this kind of background will not only evaluate a dictionary on how user-friendly it is but will also have definite views about the scope and appropriateness of the various sociocultural entries.