现代大学英语ppt课件book4

Lesson 10 The Telephone by Anwar F. Accawi I. Discussions for General Comprehension 1. Work on the questions on P.307; 2. Why does the author say so much about how the local people kept time in the small Lebanon village? Im sleepy, eh II. Introductions 1. About the author (see P.300) 2. About the Text The telephone is one of the most wonderful inventions of all times. With the arrival of more sophisticated means of telecommunications, it still remains an important instrument in our daily life. The text describes, from a little boys perspective, how the telephone affected peoples way of life in a Lebanese mountain village. The essay raises the question of what attitude we should adopt toward new things, whether we should welcome them or boycott them. The question is not so easy to answer, but the writers conclusion seems to be that whether you like it or not, you cannot stop a good thing coming into peoples lives. Like globalization, any invention is a double-edged sword. The coming of the telephone left Magdaluna desolate (negative effect), but it broke the seclusion of the village. We cannot resist a good thing because it might have some negative effects, just as we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water. . The narrative is set in a village in Lebanon. It provides us with some cultural background of the Arab world, which is strategically important because of its geographical position and its rich oil reserves (though not in Lebanon). In the new century, the world is becoming a global village. It is important for students of English to learn about other cultures so that they can communicate effectively with people from different ethnic backgrounds. The students also have much to learn from the structural organization and narrative techniques of the essay. The text can be conveniently divided into two parts. The introduction, which extends over the first ten paragraphs, making up more than one-third, provides background information: very detailed description of the villagers way of life before the telephone came. The second part is about how the telephone was installed, what changes it brought about in the village. The transition between sections and paragraphs is smooth. The most striking narrative technique is the use of figure of speech with a local flavor. For example: We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. the two important-looking men from the telephone company, who proceeded with utmost gravity, like priests at Communion, to wire up the telephone. I wriggled my way through the dense forest of legs to get a firsthand look at the action. Her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted from having so little to do. they were ready to toss back and forth, like a ball, the latest rumors going around the village. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self, desolate and forsaken, like the tombs, a place to get away from. III. Detailed Discussion of the Text 1. When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rocky mountains east of Sidon Magdaluna: a village that lies in the Lebanon Mountains running parallel to the Mediterranean coastline. A narrow plain lies along the Mediterranean coastline. In some places the plain is just wide enough for a road. east (west, etc) of: at a distance to the east (west, etc), e.g. The Map of Lebanon The Site of an Old Castle National Flag National Emblem Beirut at Night Fishing Along the Coast of Beirut Lebanese Old Man Lebanese Lady He was born in a small town about 100 kilometers southwest of Hangzhou. The Browns live 150 miles west of London. Sidon: a city on Lebanons southern coast, approximately 25 miles south of Beirut. It is one of the countrys largest ports and one of the oldest cities in the Middle East. In 1985, the city had approximately 100,000 residents. 2. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. to keep track (of): to keep oneself informed about a person, situation, etc, e.g. They try hard to keep track of all the new developments in the IT industry. The boy has kept track of his favorite sports stars. Cf. to lose track (of): to fail to remain informed: He loses track of time whenever he surfs the Net. During WWII, the Chinese couple lost track of their son who was studying in Britain. 3. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. The sun was the only clock or watch we needed at that time. need: a strong feeling that you want sb/sth or must have sth, e.g. There was a time in the country when youd be considered a jerk if you passed by somebody in need. (Book l, Lesson 12, para. 1) to have no need of: to not need, e.g. We have no need of this old desktop now that weve bought an up-to- date one. Cf. need: a situation when sth is necessary or must be done, e.g. As the helicopter arrived, Katie knew that her desperate need to direct her own rescue was over. Theres no need to apologize. 4. It rose and set, In the remaining part of the paragraph, the writer summarizes what life was like in home village when was a child. The villagers followed the life pattern generation after generation. He uses a series of action verbs to emphasize the unchanging cycle of birth, marriage, toil and death in the small Lebanese village. The paragraph ends with the conclusion that with life as it was, there was no need to keep track of time. 5 . married our cousins Cultural Note: Intermarriage among cousins is very common in Arab countries. The practice has come down from ancient times, when the Arabs were mostly nomadic herdsmen who had no permanent settlements and moved with the animals from place to place. There were very few options open to young people in the choice of spouse. Today, this intermarriage is still common because of economic considerations. For poor families, marriage within an extended family saves the trouble of exchanging dowries. When rich people marry their cousins, they dont worry that someday their money and property will pass to another family/change hands. 6. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. We used natural disasters to keep track of time and of the important events in out lives. This was a natural calendar though it is more accurate to say a divine calendar, for sunrise and sunset, the change of seasons, and earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences were all works of God. 7. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. the heavens were shut for months: it didnt rain for months as if the sky were shut tight heavens: (literary) the sky slowed to a trickle: gradually there was only a small amount of water coming slowly out of the spring to: used for stating what condition or state sb or sth is after a change, e. g. The ancient temple has been restored to its former glory.The disease has reduced the patient to a bag of bones. 8. their napping men and wet grown heels their husbands who were taking a nap and their babies who were breast fed Cultural Note: men in Arab countries, especially in the countryside, usually don, do any housework. As we read on, we find the men in the village spent the evening somewhere drinking, chatting, playing games with each other. 9. Sometimes, amid the long wait and the heat and the flies and the smell of goat dung, tempers flared, and the younger women, anxious about their babies, argued over whose turn it was to fill up her jar. What did the women sometimes argue about? What made them so irritable? It was a nuisance for these women to be away from home the whole morning and afternoon. They became so worried about their babies that they got impatient and argued about who should get their water first. Of course the heat, the flies and the bad smell made them all the more irritable. 10. We little brown boys who went with our mothers to fetch water loved these fights In the remaining part of the paragraph, the writer, as an adult, recalls and describes humorously the excitement the little boys felt at the chance of seeing the usually unexposed parts of the female body. We smile, as we read this part, at the little boys innocent curiosity about what they normally couldnt see and we find nothing repulsive in the description. Cultural Note: The traditional robe Arab women wear outdoors is a three-piece garment: a long- sleeved black dress reaching to the heels, a large black shawl to hide the hair and to wear over the shoulders and a black, nontransparent veil to cover the face showing only the eyes. In a few Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, women must wear such a garment when they go out. 11. I remember the rush, the excitement, the sun dancing on the dust clouds as a dress tipped and a young white breast was revealed, then quickly hidden. This scene has never been erased from my memory. Some women were fighting furiously creating dust clouds. The sun was moving quickly on the dust when a young womans dress was torn open and her breast exposed. We little boys would rush to steal a glance before it was hidden again. I still remember the excitement I felt at such moments. 12. But, in another way, the year of the drought was also one of the worst of my life, because that was the year that Abu Baja, the retired cook, decided it was time Magdaluna got its own telephone. This is another transitional sentence that begins the main part of the essay: how the telephone changed the way of life of the villagers and marked a turning point in the writers life, All the first 10 paragraphs serve as an introduction: what like before the telephone came along. Note how the writer opens this section. After concluding that the year of the drought will always be one of the best years of his childhood, he goes on to describe the year as one of the worst in his life, of course, from a childs point of view, or in the short run. Surely in the long run, the year of the drought would be one of the most important in his life. to decide: 13. Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one. Magdaluna wouldnt achieve any success without a telephone. to get anywhere/somewhere/nowhere: to make some/no progress or have some/mo success, e.g. Have you got anywhere in your project? Youll surely get somewhere if you persist in it. Cf. not to get sb anywhere: will not help sb to succeed Losing your temper wont get you anywhere with them. 14. A few men like the retired Turkish- army drill sergeant, and the vineyard keeper did all they could to talk Abu Raja out of having a telephone brought to the village. A few men tried hard to persuade Abu Raja to give up the idea of having a telephone installed in the village. (There are always people who are suspicious of and even hostile to new things and try to boycott them, as did the two men mentioned in this sentence.) to talk sb into/out of (doing) sth: to persuade sb to do/not to do sth, e.g. Finally he talked Xiao Chen into accepting the job. If she wants to do something, no one can talk her out of it. 15. Some of the rich villagers walked right into the store and stood at the elbows of the two important-looking men The paragraph tells us how the whole village gathered at the store to watch the installation of the telephone: the rich stood right beside the men from the telephone company, the not-so-poor people stood in the doorway, the poorer villagers stood outside. This shows that the people in the village were status-conscious. at sbs elbow: very close to or beside sb 16. She was a devout Catholic Paragraph 19 centers around Im Kaleem, the village whore: her appearance, her character and the role she played in the village. Elicit from the student what they learn or infer about her from the paragraph. Her appearance: short, middle-aged, black-haired, and speaking in a loud voice which was not very pleasant (Question: Is she a beauty by your standards? Why was it that she attracted the men in the village? What did they seek in her house besides sex? Or wherein did her attraction lie? Why doesnt the writer think, probably in retrospect, that the women objected to their men going to Im Kaleems house?) Cultural Note: The estimated population of Lebanon in 1998 was 3,506,000, of whom 95 percent were Arabs. There are small minorities of Armenians(亚美尼亚人 ) and Kurds(库尔德人 ) . It is estimated that 70 percent of Lebanons population are Muslim while 30 percent are Christian. Maronite (黎. 马龙教派 ) Christians comprise the largest Christian sect. Other Christian sects include Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, Roman Catholic and Protestant. 17. when the loud voices of the men talking, laughing, and arguing could be heard in the street below a reassuring, homey sound. in the street below: the men probably met in an upper room on the second floor. In para.22 we are told that the boy “used to hang around Im Kaleems courtyard, waiting for some man to call down from a window and ask me” a reassuring, homey sound: a sound that makes you feel less worried and that is in a way pleasant and reminds you of home. This noun phrase is in apposition to “the loud voices of the men talking, laughing, and arguing. 18. Her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted from having so little to do. Her house was a place where the village men could find comfort, just as.an oasis is for weary travelers in the desert. The men sought pleasure because life in this mountain village was monotonous and boring. exhausted from having so little to do: exhausted because the men bad so little to do (or recreation). This is a paradox ( a statement consisting of two parts that seem to mean the opposite of each other), which is frequently used in writing to achieve rhetorical effect. 19. And they were always looking up from their games and drinks and talk to glance at the phone in the corner, change their lives and deliver them from their aimless existence. The sentence tells us why the center of the village shifted from Im Kaleems house to the store. On the face of it, the men were now flocked to the store to do the same sort of things. However, while drinking, talking and playing games, from time to time they lifted their heads to look quickly at the phone. The men were no longer contented with their way of life. The new machine had ignited an unspoken hope to escape from their present life, which the writer describes as “aimless existence”. So they were waiting by the telephone, hungry for news from the outside world. their aimless existence: this is the kind of life the writer thought the people in his home village led after he had been living for many years in the United States, where every minute counts, and people are always in a rush, striving for success. Compared to many who are constantly driven to realize their American dream, the old life of the villagers seems aimless. Note the difference between “existence” and “life”: existence: a way of living, especially if this is difficult or boring, e.g. The refugees have a miserable existence. The family depended on what their land could produce for their very existence. 20. The telephone was also bad news for me personal