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The use of deferential language is symbolic of the Confucian ideal of the woman, which dominates conservative gender norms in Japan. This ideal presents a woman who withdraws quietly to the background, subordinating her life and needs to those of her family and its male head. She is a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother, master of the domestic arts. The typical refined Japanese woman excels in modesty and delicacy; she “treads softly in the word,” elevating feminine beauty and grace to an art form.
Nowadays, it is commonly observed that young women are not conforming to the feminine linguistic ideal. They are using fewer of the very deferential “women's” forms, and even using the few strong forms that are known as “men's.” This, of course, attracts considerable attention and has led to an outcry in the Japanese media against the defeminization of women's language. Indeed, we didn't hear about “men's language” until people began to respond to girls' appropriation of forms normally reserved for boys and men. There is considerable sentiment about the “corruption” of women's language—which of course is viewed as part of the loss of feminine ideals and morality—and this sentiment is crystallized by nationwide opinion polls that are regularly carried out by the media.
Yoshiko Matsumoto has argued that young women probably never used as many of the highly deferential forms as older women. This highly polite style is no doubt something that young women have been expected to “grow into”—after all, it is a sign not simply of femininity, but of maturity and refinement, and its use could be taken to indicate a change in the nature of one's social relations as well. One might well imagine little girls using exceedingly polite forms when playing house or imitating older women—in a fashion analogous to little girls' use of a high-pitched voice to do “teacher talk” or “mother talk” in role play.
The fact that young Japanese women are using less deferential language is a sure sign of change—of social change and of linguistic change. But it is most certainly not a sign of the “masculinization” of girls. In some instances, it may be a sign that girls are making the same claim to authority as boys and men, but that is very different from saying that they are trying to be “masculine.” Katsue Reynolds has argued that girls nowadays are using more assertive language strategies in order to be able to compete with boys in schools and out. Social change also brings not simply different positions for women and girls, but different relations to life stages, and adolescent girls are participating in new subcultural forms. Thus what may, to an older speaker, seem like “masculine” speech may seem to an adolescent like “liberated” or “hip” speech.
1. The first paragraph describes in detail ______.
A. the standards set for contemporary Japanese women
B. the Confucian influence on gender norms in Japan
C. the stereotyped role of women in Japanese families
D. the norms for traditional Japanese women to follow
2. What change has been observed in today's young Japanese women?
A. They pay less attention to their linguistic behavior.
B. They use fewer of the deferential linguistic forms.
C. They confuse male and female forms of language.
D. They hate very strong linguistic expressions.
3. How do the Japanese media react to women's appropriation of men's language forms?
A. They call for a campaign to stop the defeminization.
B. They see it as an expression of women's sentiment.
C. They accept it as a modern trend.
D. They express strong disapproval.
4. According to Yoshiko Matsumoto, Japanese young women's linguistic behavior ______.
A. may lead to changes in social relations
B. has been true of all past generations
C. is viewed as a sign of their maturity
D. is a result of rapid social progress
5. Katsue Reynolds believes that the use of assertive language by young Japanese women is ______.
A. a sign of their defeminization and maturation
B. an indication of their defiance against social change
C. one of their strategies to compete in a male-dominated society
D. an inevitable trend of linguistic development in Japan
The University in Transformation , edited by Australian futurists Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley, presents some 20 highly varied outlooks on tomorrow's universities by writers representing both Western and non-Western perspectives. Their essays raise a broad range of issues, questioning nearly every key assumption we have about higher education today.
The most widely discussed alternative to the traditional campus is the Internet University—a voluntary community to scholars/teachers physically scattered throughout a country or around the world but all linked in cyberspace. A computerized university could have many advantages, such as easy scheduling, efficient delivery of lectures to thousands or even millions of students at once, and ready access for students everywhere to the resources of all the world's great libraries.
Yet the Internet University poses dangers, too. For example, a line of franchised courseware, produced by a few superstar teachers, marketed under the brand name of a famous institution, and heavily advertised, might eventually come to dominate the global education market, warns sociology professor Peter Manicas of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Besides enforcing a rigidly standardized curriculum, such a “college education in a box” could undersell the offerings of many traditional brick and mortar institutions, effectively driving them out of business and throwing thousands of career academics out of work, note Australian communications professors David Rooney and Greg Hearn.
On the other hand, while global connectivity seems highly likely to play some significant role in future higher education, that does not mean greater uniformity in course content—or other dangers—will necessarily follow. Counter-movements are also at work.
Many in academia, including scholars contributing to this volume, are questioning the fundamental mission of university education. What if, for instance, instead of receiving primarily technical training and building their individual careers, university students and professors could focus their learning and research efforts on existing problems in their local communities and the world? Feminist scholar Ivana Milojevic dares to dream what a university might become “if we believed that child-care workers and teachers in early childhood education should be one of the highest (rather than lowest) paid professionals?”
Co-editor Jennifer Gidley shows how tomorrow's university faculty, instead of giving lectures and conducting independent research, may take on three new roles. Some would act as brokers, assembling customized degree-credit programmes for individual students by mixing and matching the best course offerings available from institutions all around the world. A second group, mentors, would function much like today's faculty advisers, but are likely to be working with many more students outside their own academic specialty. This would require them to constantly be learning from their students as well as instructing them. A third new role for faculty, and in Gidley's view the most challenging and rewarding of all, would be as meaning-makers: charismatic sages and practitioners leading groups of students/colleagues in collaborative efforts to find spiritual as well as rational and technological solutions to specific real-world problems.
Moreover, there seems little reason to suppose that any one form of university must necessarily drive out all other options. Students may be “enrolled” in courses offered at virtual campuses on the Internet, between—or even during—sessions at a real-world problem-focused institution.
1. When the author discusses the Internet University, ______.
A. he is in favour of it
B. his view is balanced
C. he is slightly critical of it
D. he is strongly critical of it
2. Which of the following is NOT seen as a potential danger of the Internet University?
A. Internet-based courses may be less costly than traditional ones.
B. Teachers in traditional institutions may lose their jobs.
C. Internet-based courseware may lack variety in course content.
D. The Internet University may produce superstar teachers.
3. According to the author, what is the fundamental mission of traditional university education?
A. Knowledge learning and career building.
B. Learning how to solve existing social problems.
C. Researching into solutions to current world problems.
D. Combining research efforts of teachers and students in learning.
4. Judging from the three new roles envisioned for tomorrow's university faculty, university teachers ______.
A. are required to conduct more independent research
B. are required to offer more course to their students
C. are supposed to assume more demanding duties
D. are supposed to supervise more students in their specialty
5. Which category of writing does the passage belong to?
A. Narration.
B. Description.
C. Persuasion.
D. Exposition.
Although there are body languages that can cross cultural boundaries, culture is still a significant factor in all body languages. This is particularly true of personal space needs. For example, Dr. Edward Hall has shown that in Japan crowding together is a sign of warm and pleasant intimacy. In certain situations, Hall believes that the Japanese prefer crowding.
Donald Keene, who wrote Living Japan , notes the fact that in the Japanese language there is no word for privacy. Still this does not mean there is no concept of the need to be apart from others. To the Japanese, privacy exists in terms of his house. He considers this area as his own, and he dislikes invasion of it. The fact that he crowds together with others does not contradict his needs for living space.
Dr. Hall sees this as a reflection of the Japanese concept of space. Westerners, he believed, see space as the distance between objects; to them space is empty. The Japanese, on the other hand, see space as having as much meaning as their flower arrangement and art, and the shape of their gardens as well, where units of space balance the areas containing flowers or plants.
Like the Japanese, the Arabs too prefer to be close to one another. But while in public they are crowded together, in privacy, they prefer a great deal of space. The traditional or wealthy Arab house is large and empty, with family often crowded together in one small area of it. The Arabs do not like to be alone, and even in their spacious houses they will huddle together. The difference between the Arab huddling and the Japanese crowding is a deep thing. The Arabs like to touch his companion. The Japanese, in their closeness, preserve a formality and a cool dignity. They manage to touch and still keep rigid boundaries. The Arabs push these boundaries aside.
Along with this closeness, there is a pushing and shoving in the Arab world that many Westerners find uncomfortable, even unpleasant. To an American, for example, there are personal boundaries even in a public place. When he is waiting in line, he believes that his place there is his alone, and may not be invaded by another. The Arab has no concept of privacy in a public place, and if he can push his way into a line, he feels perfectly within his rights to do so. To an American, the body is sacred; he dislikes being touched by a stranger, and will apologize if he touches another accidentally. To an Arab, bodily contact is accepted.
Hall points out that an Arab needs at times to be alone, no matter how close he wishes to be, physically, to his fellow men. To be alone, he simply cuts off the lines of communication. He retreats into himself, mentally and spiritually, and this withdrawal is respected by his companions. If an American were with an Arab who withdrew in this way, he would regard it as impolite, as lack of respect, even as an insult.
1. What's the main idea of this passage?
A. Arabs and Japanese have different ideas of privacy.
B. Body languages reflect cultural concepts.
C. Cultural differences between the West and the East.
D. People in different cultures have different concepts of space.
2. According to Dr. Edward Hall, ______.
A. the Japanese prefer crowding to privacy most of the time
B. space doesn't mean emptiness in the eyes of the Japanese
C. the Japanese dislikes invasion of privacy in his house
D. the American requires more space than the Japanese
3. The Arabs and the Japanese differ in that ______.
A. the Japanese keep their closeness within limits while the Arabs don't
B. the Arabs like to touch their companions but the Japanese don't
C. the Arabs require more space in privacy than the Japanese
D. the Japanese do not mind being alone while the Arabs do
4. It can be inferred from the passage that ______.
A. the Arabs reject any irritating bodily contact
B. the Arabs avoid any bodily contact with strangers
C. even impolite bodily contact is acceptable by the Arabs
D. bodily contact is a way to show friendliness by the Arabs
5. When an Arab wants to be alone, he ______.
A. cuts off the lines of communication
B. still stays with his companion
C. tells others directly
D. doesn't talk as much as usual
Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: “that really shocked us,”“we had no idea how bad it was,” and “reality is well ahead of the climate models.” Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws : annoying signs of something that you really, really wish would go away.
Let me explain the phrases above. The “shock” came when the International Polar Year, a global organization studying the Arctic, froze a small vessel into the sea ice off eastern Siberia in September 2006. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen had done the same thing a century before, and his Fram, carried by the drifting ice, arrived eastern Greenland 34 months later. IPY scientists thought their Tara would take 24 to 36 months. But it reached Greenland in just 14 months, stark evidence that the sea ice found a more open, ice-free, and thus faster path westward thanks to Arctic melting.
The loss of Arctic sea ice is well ahead of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast, largely because emissions of carbon dioxide have topped what the panel—which foolishly expected nations to care enough about global warming to do something about it—predicted. “The models just aren't keeping up with the reality of CO 2 emissions”, says the IPY's David Carlson. Although policy-makers hoped climate models would prove to be alarmist, the opposite is true, particular in the Arctic.
The IPCC may also have been too cautious on Greenland, assuming that the melting of its glaciers would contribute little to sea-level rise. Some studies found that Greenland's glacial streams were surging and surface ice was changing into liquid lakes, but others made a strong case that those surges and melts were short-term aberrations, not long-term trends. It seemed to be stuck. More reliable data, however, such as satellite measurements of Greenland's mass, show that it is losing about 52 cubic miles per year and that the melting is accelerating. So while the IPCC predicted that sea level would rise 16 inches this century, “now a more likely figure is one meter (39 inches) at the least,” says Carlson. “Chest high instead of knee high.” Hence the “no idea how bad it was.”
The frozen north had another surprise in store. Scientists have long known that permafrost, if it melted, would release carbon, aggravating global warming, which would melt more permafrost, which would add more to global warming, on and on in a feedback loop. But estimates of how much carbon is locked into Arctic permafrost were, it turns out, woefully off. “It is about three times as much as was thought, about 1.6 trillion metric tons, which has surprised a lot of people,” says Edward Schuur of the University of Florida. That 1.6 trillion tons is about twice the amount now in the atmosphere. And Schuur's measurements of how quickly CO 2 can come out of permafrost, reported in May, were also a surprise: 1 billion to 2 billion tons per year. Cars and light trucks in the US emit about 300 million tons per year.
In an insightful observation in The Guardian this month, Jim Watson of the University of Sussex wrote that “a new kind of climate skeptic is becoming more common”: someone who doubts not the science but the policy response. For instance, the G8, led by Europe, has vowed to take steps to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing CO 2 emissions. We are now at 0.8 degree. But the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere is already enough to raise 2 degrees. The only reason it hasn't is that the atmosphere is full of crap (dust and aerosols that contribute to asthma, emphysema, and other diseases) that acts as a global coolant. As that pollution is reduced for health reasons, we are going to blast right through 2 degrees, which is enough to aggravate droughts and storms, wreak havoc on agriculture, and produce a planet warmer than it's been in millions of years. The 2 degree promise is an illusion.
1. The thing “that really shocked us” in the text is that ______.
A. a small vessel was frozen into the sea ice off eastern Siberia in 2006
B. the International Polar Year met with the same situation with Fridtj of Nansen
C. it took Fridtj Nansen and his Fram 36 months to float to Greenland
D. it took the International Polar Year's vessel 14 months to reach Greenland
2. The main reason of the loss of Arctic sea ice ahead of what the IPCC forecast is that the climate models ______.
A. were proven to be alarmists
B. lacked supporting theories
C. failed to keep up with the actual CO2 emissions
D. neglected the effort on dealing with global warming
3. According to David Carlson, which one is true about the sea-level rise of Greenland?
A. It would be 39 inches higher than the original seal-level.
B. It would be 16 inches higher than the original sea-level.
C. It is a short-term phenomenon rather than a long-term one.
D. It has little to do with the melting of the sea ice.
4. What is the relationship between the melting of Arctic permafrost and global warming?
A. The former is the effect of the latter.
B. The former is the cause of the latter.
C. The two interact as both cause and effect.
D. The two have little to do with each other.
5. Jim Watson's attitude towards the international effort on dealing with global warming is ______.
A. trustful
B. doubtful
C. complimentary
D. derogatory