ЛИНГВОСТРАНОВЕДЕНИЕ США

Учебное пособие

Изд-во АлтГТУ

Барнаул 2011

ББК К795

Лингвострановедение США:

Учебное пособие. Автор А.В.Кремнева

– Барнаул: Изд-во АлтГТУ, 2010.- 242 с.

Учебное пособие предназначено для использования на занятиях по курсу «Лингвострановедение» и содержит материалы страноведческого характера, которые знакомят студентов с географией, историей, экономикой, государственным устройством и культурой США. Пособие состоит из 16 разделов, каждый из которых содержит основные тексты, снабженные заданиями для проверки понимания прочитанного, а также развития навыков говорения и аудирования. К учебному пособию прилагается CD, что позволяет выполнить целый ряд заданий, направленных на развитие навыков аудирования.

Пособие предназначено для студентов старших курсов языковых специальностей, оно также может быть использовано аспирантами и широким кругом лиц, изучающих историю и культуру США. Структура и содержание учебного пособия соответствуют образовательному стандарту высшего профессионального образования по курсу «Лингвострановедение».

Рецензенты:

доктор филологических наук, профессор АлтГПА Л.А.Козлова

кандидат исторических наук, профессор АлтГТУ В.В.Дмитриев

Contents

UNIT 1

Part I Geography………………………………………………………………………5

Part II American Regionalism……………………………………………………….14

UNIT 2

Part I First Explorers from Europe…………………………………………………..23

Part II Early British Settlements……………………………………………………..27

Part III Puritan New England ……………………………………………………….30

UNIT 3 Colonial Period……………………………………………………………..41

UNIT 4 The Independence War……………………………………………………..50

UNIT 5

Part I The Westward Movement……………………………………………………..62

Part II A Divided Nation ……………………………………………………………66

UNIT 6

Part I The Civil War…………………………………………………………………72

Part II American Reconstruction………………………………………………….…77

UNIT 7

Part I Miners, Railroads and Cattlemen……………………………………………...83

Part II The Age of Big Business……………………………………………………..87

UNIT 8

Part I The American Empire…………………………………………………………98

Part II America in World War I…………………………………………………….102

Part III America in the 1920s………………………………………………………106

UNIT 9

Part I The Great Depression and the New Deal…………………………………….111

Part II America in World War II……………………………………………...……116

UNIT 10

Part I The Cold War……………………………………………………………...…125

Part II The New Frontier and the Civil Conflict……………………………………128

Part III The Vietnam War…………………………………………………………..134

UNIT 11

Part I America in the 1970s…………………...……………………………………145

Part II New Federalism……………………………………………………………..150

America in the 1990s……………………………………………………………….156

UNIT 12

Part I Government………………………………………………………………….161

Part II Political Parties and Elections………………………………………………177

UNIT 13 The Native American………………………………………………….…188

UNIT 14 Mass Media………………………………………………………………200

UNIT 15

Part I The System of Education…………………………………………………….214

Part II College and University……………………………………………………...223

UNIT 16 Sports and Games………………………………………………………...232

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….……241

Unit 1 part I geography

Introduction

The United States of America occupies part of North America, borded by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, and washed by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. This area contains 48 of the 50 American states, and is known as the coterminous United States. The other two states are Alaska at the northwestern tip of North America, and the island group of Hawaii in the central Pacific. Other outlying territories include Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands of the United States in the Caribbean, the Guam, the American Samoa and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

In area, the United States is the forth-largest country in the world (behind Russia, Canada and China). In terms of economic, political and cultural influence it is one of the leading nations in the world. It owes its success to its plentiful natural resources, a rich cultural mix, and a strong sense of national identity. The dominant characteristic of the landscape of the United States is great diversity. The diversity stems from the fact that the country is so large and has so many kinds of land, climate and people. It stretches 2,575 kilometers from north to south, and 4,500 kilometers from east to west. It covers 9,372,614 square kilometers. The deep-green mountain forests are drenched with 250 centimeters of rain each year. At the other extreme, the deserts of the southwest receive less than 13 centimeters annually. A traveler from almost any other country can find parts of the United States that remind him of home. There are pine forests dotted with lakes, and mountain peaks covered with snow. There are meadows with brooks and trees, and sea cliffs, and wide grassy plains, and broad spreads of grapevines, and sandy beaches. The climate is similarly diverse, ranging from Arctic in northern Alaska to subtropical in the southeast; the warmest areas include both the arid heat of the Arizona deserts and the everglades of Florida.

The face of the land

Much of the geography and history of the United States was determined some 10,000 to 25,000 years ago. At that time, the great northern ice cap flowed over the North American Continent and ground into a number of major changes. These ice flows determined the size and drainage of the Great Lakes. They changed the direction of the Missouri River. They pushed soil a huge part of Canada into the United States, thus creating the northern part of the Central Agricultural Basin – one of the richest farming areas in the world.

On the Atlantic shore of the United States, much of the northern coast is rocky and uninviting, but the middle and southern Atlantic coast rises gently from the sea. It starts as low, wet ground and sandy flats, but then becomes a rolling coastal lowland. The Appalachians, which run parallel to the east coast, are old mountains with many coal-rich valleys between them. West of the Appalachians is the Great Central Lowland which resembles the plains of eastern Europe, or Manchuria, or the Great Plains of Australia.

North of the Central Lowland, extending for almost 1,600 kilometers, are the five Great Lakes (Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie), which the United States shares with Canada. The lakes are estimated to contain about half of the world’s fresh water. They are navigable by large ships via connecting canals, and are drained by the St. Lawrence Seaway. Located near the center of the continent, the lakes are stormier than most of the world’s oceans and seas. Commerce on the Great Lakes has played an important role in the prosperous economic development of the Unites States.

West of the Central Lowland are the Great Plains, which cover one-fifth of the United States and extend from Texas in the south over 2,400 kilometers north to Canada. They are stopped by the Rocky Mountains, “the backbone of the continent”, which stretches from northern Mexico to Alaska. The Rockies are considered young mountains: of the same age as the Alps in Europe, the Himalayas in Asia, and the Andes in South America. Like these ranges they are high, rough and irregular in shape.

At first sight, the land west of the Rockies appears to be tumbled masses of mountains. Actually, however, it is made up of quite distinct and separate regions, shaped by different geological events. One region was formed by material which was washed down from the Rockies and pressed into rock. This now encompasses the high Colorado Plateau, extending with a remarkable landscape of mesas, buttes and canyons. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is just one of many national parks in this region. Another region, the Columbia Basin lies to the north. The rocks there are still being formed by a continuing upflow of lava that has buried old mountains and filled valleys. Volcanoes also built the Cascade Mountains. The Cascade Range extends from Washington through Oregon to Lassen Peak in California, and includes a chain of high volcanoes. The Sierra Nevada Range includes Mount Whitney (4418 m), and is cut by spectacular glacial valleys. At the border of the Pacific Ocean lie the Coastal Ranges, relatively low mountains, in a region where occasional earthquakes show that the process of mountain-building has not yet stopped. The highest peak of the USA is Mount McKinley (6193 m) which is located in Alaska.

The rivers

The Unites States is also a land of rivers and lakes. The northern state of Minnesota, for example, is known as the land of 10,000 lakes. One of the world’s greatest continental rivers, the Mississippi river, is the main arm of the great river system draining the area between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. The Mississippi is nicknamed the Nile of America, the Father of Waters as its waters are gathered from two-thirds of the United States. Through its lower course it wanders along, appearing lazy and harmless. But people who know the river are not deceived by its benign appearance, for they have had many struggles with its floods. The Mississippi has made a unique contribution to the history and literature of the United States. Mark Twain celebrated the life on the great river in the books “The Life in the Mississippi”, “Tom Sawyer”, “Huckleberry Finn”. As the central river of the United States the Mississippi has become one of the biggest commercial waterways in the world. Together with the Missouri (its chief western branch) it flows some 6,700 kilometers from its northern source in the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico, which makes one of the world’s longest waterways.

The second longest river in the United States and once the most destructive one is the Missouri. When the first explorers reached the present city of St. Louis, they were amazed by the mighty stream of dirty water pouring down from the west. The French priest, who was leading the expedition, wrote: “I have seen nothing more frightful. A mass of large trees … real floating islands, came rushing… so that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves to pass across”. That was the Missouri river in flood. The Missouri rises high among the snows of the Rocky Mountains and is really two rivers: one of water, and one of small bits of soil, washed off the land. The people who live along the Missouri’s banks say it is “too thin to plow and too thick to drink”. Time after time, the muddy waters of the Missouri flooded, spreading ruin and killing people. In 1944 the US government began a vast project called for a series of man-made lakes and dams to control the river. The Missouri is nicknamed the Big Muddy and where it pours into the Mississippi from the west, it colors its water deep brown with small pieces of soil. Farther downstream, where the clear waters of the principal eastern tributary, the Ohio, join the Mississippi, evidence of the difference between the dry west and rainy east becomes apparent. For kilometers the waters of the two rivers flow on side by side without mixing. Those from the west are brown; they have robbed the soil in areas of sparse vegetation. The waters from the east are clear and blue; they come from hills and valleys where plentiful forest and plant cover has kept the soil from being washed away.

Like the Mississippi, all the rivers east of the Rockies finally reach the Atlantic; all the waters to the west of the Rockies finally arrive at the Pacific. For this reason the crests of the Rocky Mountains are known as the Continental Divide. There are many places in the Rockies where a visitor may throw two snowballs in opposite directions and know that each will feed a different ocean.

The two great rivers of the Pacific side are the Colorado in the south, and the Columbia in the north. In the dry western country both rivers, very different in character, are vital sources of life. The Columbia, wild in prehistoric times, now flows with quiet dignity. But the Colorado is still a river of enormous fury – wild, restless and angry. But even the furious Colorado has been dammed and put to work. All the farms and cities of the southwest corner of the country depend on its waters.

The Rio Grande, about 3,200 kilometers long, is the foremost river of the Southwest. It flows from its sources in the southern Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico and forms a natural boundary between Mexico and the United States, which together have built irrigation and flood control systems of mutual benefit.

Natural resources

The United States is rich in most of the metals and minerals needed to supply its basic industries. The nation produces millions of tons of iron a year. Steel is vital to the manufacture of some 200,000 other products. Three quarters of the iron ore comes from the Lake Superior region of the Great Lakes.

Coal is the second major natural resource found in large quantities in the United States. There are sufficient reserves to last hundreds of years. Most of the coal is used by steam plants to produce electricity. Much coal is also used in chemical industries for the manufacture of plastics and other synthetics.

Oil wells in the United States produce more than 2 million barrels of petroleum a year. The production, processing and marketing of such petroleum products as gasoline and oil make up one of America’s largest industries. The Alaska pipeline stretches for 1,290 kilometers from the northern oil fields to a port on the south coast. Natural gas and manufactured gas furnish more than one-third of the nation’s power. Natural gas is carried by huge pipelines thousands of kilometers from oil and gas fields to heat homes and buildings and to operate industrial plants.

Other basic metals and minerals mined on a large scale in the United States include zinc, copper, silver and phosphate rock which is used for fertilizers. History has glamorized the gold rushes in California and Alaska and the silver finds in Nevada.

Climate

The United States lies in a region of prevailing westerly winds, with the landmass of Canada to the north, a warm shallow sea to the south, and broad oceans to both east and west. In general, however, the sheer size of the North American continent produces a continental climate throughout most of the country, marked by cold winters, warm or hot summers and a broad range of temperatures.

The west coast benefits from its maritime position, which brings much milder winters than elsewhere. Cool, moist winds from the Pacific rise over the Coast Ranges, so that Oregon and Washington have the heaviest rainfall in the country, especially during the fall. Farther south, in California, the summers tend to be hot and very dry. Rainfall is much lower, especially in the Central Valley; agriculture here is dependent on irrigation. In the far south there is little rain. Farther inland much of the remaining moisture falls as rain or snow over the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada.

East of the Rockies the Great Plains are semiarid, but farther east the Central Lowlands receive more in summer from hot, humid air flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. Less beneficial, though, are the weather conditions produced throughout the central United States when humid air from the south meets colder air from the western cordillera. The result may be anything from thunderstorms and tornadoes to hailstorms and blizzards. Not surprisingly, this American heartland suffers the most violent extremes of temperature from season to season and sometimes even from one hour to the next. Spring and fall are pleasant but very short, and winters are longer toward the north.

Areas near to the Gulf of Mexico have much shorter winters, but are liable to hurricanes in the late summer and early fall. Equally vulnerable are the states in the southeast, adjoining Florida, where warm, humid conditions prevail all year round. North of here, the Appalachians receive plentiful rain throughout the year. The Northeast, however, has a largely continental climate, only slightly modified by the nearby ocean. This is because the prevailing westerly winds blow offshore. Low winter temperatures combined with unstable weather conditions lead to some spectacular snowfalls, especially over the mountains and along the coast.