英语修辞写作—语法修辞篇 参考材料 Section 2.docx

Section 2 Semantic Use of Words：Correct and Accurate in MeaningI. Key to the Exercise1. What's the relationship between semantic use of words and word meaning? Does semantic use of words affect the meaning of what you write?Find out the answer from the lecture.2. What are the semantic traits of the italic words in the following dialogues?1) - I like all vegetables. What do you like? (Generic)一 I like only potatoes and tomatoes. (Specific)2) - I guess you are arot/nc/twenty. (Approximity in Meaning)-Yes, you are absolutely right I am twenty-one. (Extremely certain)3) - You say you live near the bank. Then you can get a good job there. (Ambiguous)一 No. I mean I live near the bank of the river that runs across the city. (Clear)4) 一 I know I am quite miserly and stingy. (Derogatory)-No, you are being economical. (Commendatory)5) 一 Your father is a sanitation engineer, isnJt he? (Euphemistic)-Yes, he is a garbage man in our community. (Literal)3. What are the two main categories of correct use of words?Find out the answer from the lecture.4. Are the following uses of words semantically correct?1) She is a southerner. She said she couldnl go without rice. (Correct)2) No one can live without rice. (Incorrect)3) We haven't got any news from him for three years. Last week, he sent me an email (Correct)4) Yesterday we did some running. Today well have some exercise. (Incorrect- "exercise" should be change into “other types of exercise”)5) - Did she walk to the station last night? (Correct)-Yes, she went to the station accompanied by one of her friend. (Incorrect： “went” is not used to the point how she went to the station 一 walk or go by transportation means)6) I was sure that she may not accept this offer. (Incorrect： uwas sure” and some medically relevant information in some cases, as for example “white” as opposed to uAfrican American,5 if the contrast is between Finland and West Africa, but not if it is a contrast between a “white” Mediterranean and an uAsian,5 Indian. There is a confusion here between race and ancestry. Sickle cell anemia is in high frequency not only in West Africans but also in some “white" Middle Eastern and Indian populations. Moreover, a person with, say, one African great-grandparent, but who is identified by herself and others as “white“ has a one in eight chance of inheriting a sickle-cell mutation carried by that ancestor. There are, in addition, a number of other simply inherited hemoglobin abnormalities, the thalassemias, that are in high frequency in some places in the Mediterranean (Sardinia), Arabia and southeast Asia. The highest frequency known for a thalassemia (80%) is in Nepal, but it is rare in most of Asia. The categorization of individuals simply as “white” or “Afro-American” or “Asian” will result in a failure to test for such abnormal hemoglobins because these abnormalities do not characterize the identified “race” of the patient. Even group identities below the level of the conventional races are misleading. Two of my incontrovertibly WASP grandchildren have a single Ashenazi Jewish great-grandparent and so have a one in eight chance of inheriting a Tay-Sachs abnormality carried by that ancestor. For purposes of medical testing we do not want to know whether a person is “Hispanic" but rather whether that person's family came from a Caribbean country such as Cuba, that had a large influx of West African slaves, or one in which there was a great deal of intermixture with native American tribes as in Chile and Mexico, or one in which there was only a negligible population of non-Europeans. Racial identification simply does not do the work needed. What we ought to ask on medical questionnaires is not racial identification, but ancestry. “Do you know of any ancestors who were (Ashkenazi Jews, or from West Africa, from certain regions of the Mediterranean, from Japan)?” Once again, racial categorization is a bad predictor of biology.There has been an interesting dialectic between the notion of human races and the use of race as a general biological category. Historically, the concept of race was imported into biology, and not only the biology of the human species, from social practice. The consciousness that human beings come in distinct varieties led, in the history of biology, to the construction of “race” as a subgrouping within species. For a long time the category “race” was a standard taxonomic level. But the use of “race” in a general biological context then reinforced its application to humans.After all, lots of animal and plant species are divided into races, so why not Homo sapiens? Yet the classification of animal and plant species into named races was at all times an ill-defined and idiosyncratic practice. There was no clear criterion of what constituted a race of animals or plants that could be applied over species in general. The growing realization in the middle of the twentieth century that most species had some genetic differentiation from local population to local population led finally to the abandonment in biology of any hope that a uniform criterion of race could be constructed. Yet biologists were loathe to abandon the idea of race entirely. In an attempt to hold on to the concept while make it objective and generalizable, Th. Dobzhansky, the leading biologist in the study of the genetics of natural populations, introduced the ''geographical race,n which he defined as any population that differed genetically in any way from any other population of the species. But as genetics developed and it became possible to characterize the genetic differences between individuals and populations it became apparent, that every population of every species in fact differs genetically to some degree from every other population. Thus, every population is a separate “geographic racen and it was realized that nothing was added by the racial category. The consequence of this realization was the abandonment of “race” as a biological category during the last quarter of the twentieth century, an abandonment that spread into anthropology and human biology. However, that abandonment was never complete in the case of the human species. There has been a constant pressure from social and political practice and the coincidence of racial, cultural and social class divisions reinforcing the social reality of race, to maintain “race” as a human classification. If it were admitted that the category of trace is a purely social construct, however, it would have a weakened legitimacy. Thus, there have been repeated attempts to reassert the objective biological reality of human racial categories despite the evidence to the contrary.3. Supplementary Sample (3)Human Race W川'Split into Two Different Species,By Niall FirthLast updated at 16:18 26 October 2007physical peak by the year 3000.4 The report claims that after they reach their peak around the year 3000 humans will begin to regress45 These humans will be between 6ft and 7ft tall and they will live up to 120 years.6 Thysical features will be driven by indicators5 of health, youth and fertility6 that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates/5 says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic7 surgery and other body modifying8 techniques will effectively homogenise9 our appearance.7 Men will have symmetrical10 facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises11, according to Curry in a report commissioned12 for men's satellite TV channel Bravo.8 Women will all have glossy13 hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert14 breasts, according to Curry.9 Racial differences will be a thing of the past as interbreeding15 produces a single coffee-coloured skin tone16.10 The future for our descendants17 isn't all long life, perfect bodies and chiselled18 features, however.11 While humans will reach their peak in 1000 years5 time, 10,000 years later our reliance on technology will have begun to dramatically change our appearance.Medicine will weaken our immune19 system and we w川 begin to appear more child-like.12 Dr Curry said: "The report suggests that the future of man w川 be a story of the good, the bad and the ugly.13 H G Wells' Science Fiction novel The Time Machine (which was later adapted20 into two films - this picture is from the 2002 version) the human race has evolved into two species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi21.and the frightening, animalistic Morlock22 (as seen in the 1960 film version of the classic book)14 "While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat23 for humanity over the next millennium24, there is the possibility of a monumental25 genetic26 hangover27 over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other.15 uAfter that, things could get ugly, with the possible emergence28 of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots"”16 Dr Curry's theory may strike a chord30 with readers who have read H G Wells5 classic novel The Time Machine, in particular his descriptions of the Eloi and the Morlock races.17 In the 1895 book, the human race has evolved into two distinct31 species, thehighly intelligent and wealthy Eloi and the frightening, animalistic32 Morlock who are destined to work underground to keep the Eloi happy.1. split分，分裂2. elite 精华3. 丑小鬼，小妖精4. regress退行，退化5. indicators指示器，指示物6. fertility 多产7. cosmetic化妆品(的)8. modify 改进9. homogenize均匀化，同一化10. symmetrical 对称的11. penis 阴茎12. commission 委托，代办13. glossy光滑的14. pert凸显的15. interbreeding 杂种繁殖16. skin tone 肤色17. descendant 后代18. chiselled轮廓分明的19. immune免疫的20. adapt 改编21. Eloi时间机器中人物22. Morlock 同上23. habitat居住地，生活环境24. millennium 千禧25. monumental纪念碑的，不朽的26. genetic 遗传的27. hangover残留，遗留28. emergence 出现29. 'haves'&'have-nots'富者，穷者30. chord 一致31. distinct 显著的32. animalistic 兽性(说)的4. Supplementary Sample (4)Why We Use Scientific Names of PlantsNicknames Easier to Pronounce, But ImpreciseBy David Beaulieu, A GuideWhy do we use those hard-to-pronounce scientific names of plants? Is it out of smugness? Wouldn't it be more ''democratic" to use the common monikers (or "nicknames") that everyone can understand, instead of the scientific names of plants?Ironically, that's just the point: Not everyone can understand what particular specimens are being referred to by those charming old nicknames. The latter vary not only from language to language, but even from region to region. Thus we inject too much confusion into the discussion when we forgo using scientific names of plants in favor of their nicknames. In fact, even with n the same region a specimen may well have more than one nickname attributed to it. Or in some cases, none exists at all for a given specimen. Worse yet, two specimens quite unrelated may share the exact same nickname!Scientific Names of Plants to the Rescue!It was to combat such confusion that Swedish naturalist Carolus (Carl) Linnaeus (1707-1778) developed what is known as the binomial system for taxonomy - in other works, the use of scientific names for plants. "Binomiar* means that two words are used for classification purposes, and those two words are in Latin (or Latinized, at least). You may remember from History class that Latin was once the universal language of Western scholars. And it is that very universality that is still relied upon to bring some clarity to the business of plant classification, in the form of scientific names for plants. So if you plug Glechoma hederacea, for instance, into the Google search engine, by about the fourth page of results you'll see that some of the entries are in languages other than English. Thafs universality for you, and thafs the beauty of the scientific names of plants.Speaking of Glechoma hederacea, the weed to which it refers with such clarity provides a wonderful example of the superiority of scientific names of plants over their common counterparts. For Glechoma hederacea has enough nicknames attached to it to make your head spin! One of them is "creeping Charlie." But to get some indication of how confusing it can be to forgo scientific names of plants in favor of nicknames, see my article on creeping Charlie, which also relates some of the history on this storied yet obscure weed.Pronunciation of the Scientific Names of PlantsBut admittedly, the pronunciation of the scientific names of plants is another matter altogether. For the pronunciation of the scientific names of plants can be downright confusing! And the confusion is exacerbated by the fact that, in some cases, there is more than one proper pronunciation for the word. Thus you can go your whole life hearing the certain (and proper) pronunciations of the scientific names of plants, only to encounter other (equally proper) pronunciations that leave you scratching your head.Below I have compiled a list of 10 scientific names of plants with problematic pronunciations. These entries make the list either because they are widely mispronounced, or because they frustrate us with the dual pronunciations to which I just alluded. Not all of the 10 scientific names of plants below are, strictly speaking, Latin; but where they are not, the word does at least derive from the Latin, which is the source of the confusion:Top 10 Difficult-to-Pronounce Scientific Names of Plants1. clematis: CLE-muh-tuhs or cle-MA-tuhs2. Peony: PE-uh-ne or pe-O-ne3. Cotoneaster: cuh-TO-ne-AS-tuhr (although even my dictionary gives some legitimacy to the mispronunciation, CAWT-tuhn-ES-tuhr)4. Poinsettia: poyn-SEH-tuh or poyn-SEH-te-uh (Although we constantly hear the incorrect poynt-SEH-tuh.)5. Chamomile: KAM-uh-mil or KAM-uh-mel6. achillea: A-kuh-LE-a or a-KIH-le-uh7. lamium: LAY-me-uhm8. Lupine: LU-puhn (Although there is a word with the exact same spelling, pronounced LU-pin, which means "pertaining to a wolf; go figure!)9. Forsythia: fohr-SIH-the-a (The plant is not "for Cynthia'* - it's for all of us!) 10. Kalanchoe: My favorite, with its 4 pronunciations, all of which are correct- KA-luhn-KO-e kuh-LANG-ko-e KAL-uhn-cho kuh-LAN-cho5. Supplementary Sample (5)Plant taxonomyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPlant taxonomy is the science that finds, describes, classifies, identifies, and names plants. It thus is one of the main branches of taxonomy.Plant taxonomy is closely allied to plant systematics, and there is no sharp boundary between the two. In practice, "plant systematics" is involved with relationships between plants and their evolution, especially at the higher levels, whereas "plant taxonomy" deals with the actual handling of plant specimens. The precise relationship between taxonomy and systematics, however, has changed along with the goals and methods employed.Plant taxonomy is well k