(2015) Коллоквиум 2 (1157972), страница 5
Текст из файла (страница 5)
1. What do you know about NAS activity? What are the similar and different features in the work of the US National Academy of sciences and the Russian one?
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private non-profit organization in the United States. It was founded in 1863 as a result of an Act of Congress that was approved by Abraham Lincoln.
As of 2013, the National Academy of Sciences includes about 2,200 members and 400 foreign associates. It employed about 1,100 staff in 2005. The current members annually elect new members for life. Nearly 200 members have won a Nobel Prize.
Headquartered in Moscow, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) is considered to be a non-profit, civil, self-governed organization, too; however, it is not private, but chartered by the Government of Russia.
2. Which non-profit scientific institutions do you know in the USA? What is “Think Tanks”?
The large and important subset of non-profit scientific institutions consists of Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs), for example:
Aerospace FFRDC, National Cybersecurity FFRDC, Berkeley National Laboratory, Linkoln National Laboratory. They are “think tanks”, too.
A think tank or policy institute, research institute, etc. is an organization that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most policy institutes are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax exempt status. Other think tanks are funded by governments, advocacy groups, or businesses, or derive revenue from consulting or research work related to their projects.
3. Which role did the World Wars play in the development of American science?
WWI.
From the inventors’ side - Tomas Edison created Naval Discussion board which came up with thousands of solutions to military problems.
From the academic schientists’ side - newly established National Research Council was kept even after the war.
WWII.
Physicists successfully pursuaded the military community in the high potentioal and
necessity of the nuclear weapons development. Ergo, little military labs were multiplied and unified by the heavily funded Manhattan project on nuclear weapons.
4. What part did the US universities occupy in the development of research?
A great part of Research and Development is done at the US universities. The organization of research in universities is carried out in two forms: on the basis of grants and contracts. Universities conduct research not only in their laboratories, but also in laboratories belonging to different government departments. The largest Federal research centers are managed under contracts of University administration. An example is the Laboratory Lincoln at the Massachusetts Institute of technology. Thanks to the cooperation of University research with industry there is the rapid growth of scientific and industrial complexes. Among such complexes the most important are: the Cambridge-Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Princeton and Houston.
5. Which names of American Nobel prize winners do you know? Do you know any Russians among them?
Robert J. Shiller, Lars Peter Hansen, Eugene F. Fama (Economics, 2013).
Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (theoretical physicist, 2003)
In the mid-1950s the US government gave huge investments to the science sector, which attracted scientists from all over the world to work there. The research facilities in the US were second to none, and scientists were drawn to the USA for this reason alone. That led to the situation that since 1950, Americans have won approximately half of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences (so far over 781). It is also worth mentioning that among the American Nobel Prize winners there are not a few Russian former compatriots (over 60), who moved to the USA during different periods of time and under different circumstances. Undoubtedly, they have left a considerable “Russian” trace both in American and the world science. Alexander Seversky (1894-1974) was a designer of military aircraft. Among his ideas were the autopilot system disprove in the air. Another aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky, Stephan Timoshenko (1878-1972) - scientist-metallurgist, the largest specialist in the world of resistance materials. Nobel laureate economist Leontief, the inventor of television Zworykin, the great ophthalmologist Elena Fedorovich, Nina Fedorova - geneticist, academician of the National Academy of Sciences, physicist George Gamow, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, Abraham Maslof, a psychologist, Pitirim Sorokin, a sociologist, and many others.
6. What do you know about NASA activities?
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.
The main achievement of NASA during its early years involved the human exploration of the Moon.
On July 16, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the moon in Apollo 11, leaving behind a plaque that read: “Here Men from Planet Earth First Set Foot upon the Moon. We Came in Peace for All Mankind”. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, said Neil Armstrong on returning to the earth.
7. Tell about the space age in the USA and Russia. Give the examples of space cooperation of our two countries.
In 1975, NASA began to cooperate with the Soviet Union to achieve the first international human spaceflight, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). The two spacecrafts were launched within 7.5 hours, docked three hours after and 3 American astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, Vance Brand, Donald Slaytor and 2 Soviet Cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valerii Kubasov met and shook hands in orbit. After that various US space shuttles docked with the Soviet Mir nine times, and 52 American astronauts as well as astronauts from Europe and Japan, visited the station for research and training.
1. What kind of words did the English settlers borrow from other languages? First in importance came the words derived from the languages of various Indian tribes. The English immigrants met in America with the nature, plants and animals unlike anything they had seen before in Europe. The landscape was completely different from the neatly tailored English countryside. Words had to be provided for all aspects of their new life: names of rivers, mountains, lakes, plants and animal world, for implements and food. The Indian languages gave the colonists a lot of such words and thousands of geographical names all over the USA. The names Palmyra, Washington, Alabama, Alaska, Chicago, Idaho, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Manhattan (island of hills) and many others are of the Indian origin. Such words as canoe, moccasin, wigwam, toboggan, tomahawk, squaw, raccoon, opossum, skunk, moose, caribou, totem, etc. were also borrowed from the Indians.
Besides the Indian influences, American English reflects the other non-English cultures, which the colonists and frontier men met in their conquest of the continent. As we know, in the expansion of their territory, the English-speaking colonists came into contact with the French and Spanish. Some of the borrowings from these languages proved to be very productive in American English. Words like liaison, rendezvous, silhouette, prairie, chowder and rapids came from French. Creole, mulatto, canyon, ranch, sombrero, rodeo, mosquito, lasso cafeteria, hammock, stampede, vigilantes were acquired from Spanish. Opera, pizza, dominoes are of Italian origin.
The Dutch settlers also contributed some words to American English. Among the widely used words of the Dutch origin are Yankee, boss, roster, cookie, Santa Claus.
The words of German origin found their way into the American vocabulary as well: frankfurter, hamburger, semester, and seminar are among them.
The black slaves from Africa brought to North America not only their culture, songs and music but also words: jazz, hippies are probably African in origin.
2. What importance did the founders of American nation attach to the power of the language? For Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and the other leaders of the American Revolution, American English was one of the weapons for independence, for forming national consciousness. After the Revolution the problem of having a national language acquired great political significance. The extent to which the English language became a political problem is illustrated by the curious procession, in New York on July 23, 1788, which coincided with the ratification of the new American Constitution. An association of young men, called the Philological Society, carried the coat of arms and a book inscribed “Federal Language”, emphasizing the strong desire of many Americans to break with the classical British English.
3. When was the phrase “the American language” used for the first time? The American Revolution is regarded as the turning-point in establishing this new kind of English, the American English, due to the rebels who wanted to announce their separation from the old country.Their longing for a nationality of their own lead to the fact that in 1782 the citizens of the new republic were proudly christened Americans and in 1802 the United States Congress recorded the first use of the phrase "the American language".
4. Who was the first to think of reforming the chaotic English spelling? English was fortunate that its standard orthography was framed in the fifteenth and sixteenth century by the Tudor chancery, and fixed in semi-permanent form when William Caxton set up a printing press and began printing books in London. Spellings were free, though a consensus was shaping, and not fixed into a canonical form until the appearance of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755, but the general rules of the system were put in place at that time. During this time, English was enduring a sweeping sound shift involving its vowel sounds, a process known as the Great Vowel Shift.
5.What measures were suggested to promote American English?
6. What was the aim of this political action?
7. Why is Webster called the champion of American English? Noah Webster is considered the father of “American English” and was the author of the first comprehensive American dictionary.
8. What did Webster do to develop American English? Noah Webster was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His blue-backed speller books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read, secularizing their education. According to Ellis (1979) he gave Americans "a secular catechism to the nation-state."
Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
He was one of the Founding Fathers of the nation.
1 .Why is it so difficult to make generalizations about American character?
It is very difficult to make generalizations about American characters or lifestyles, as the diversity of patterns of American life is really great. Very many things account for this: ethnic and social background, immigration date of their forbears, religion and other factors.77% of the USA population lives in urban areas, 23% - in rural areas. The population of the USA represents cultures from around the world. The largest minority group consists of Afro-Americans who make up about 12% of the population. Spanish-speaking people from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and other Hispanic countries form another group, which equals 6% of the population. Native Americans are less than one half of I% of the total. Minorities of Asian descent include Chinese, Japanese, Indochinese and others.
2. What is the main idea of the “Melting pot”?
The key words and phrases: “Melting Pot”, to be enrolled in, high and higher education, liberal arts colleges, curriculum, extra-curricular activities, vocational courses, per capita, transcript.
One of the fundamental parts of the American “Melting Pot or “Americanization” is its education.
For many immigrants America seemed to be the only place to fulfill their dreams. Before the late 1960s, immigrants were expected to become part of the mainstream of American culture – the idea of “the melting pot”.
3. What are the most distinctive American characteristics from your point of view?
The willingness to experiment and invent led to another American trait, a “can-do” spirit, and a sense of optimism that “every problem has a solution”.
Emphasis on individual personality rather than collective identity or responsibility is one of the most important features of the American character.
Another distinctive American characteristic is pragmatism. This means that emphasis on achievement and success is understood first of all as material prosperity.
Americans are fond of common sense; they are not particularly interested in theory, abstract reasoning, or philosophy. If something works, do it; if it does not, try to do something else.
Generally speaking, Americans are open and friendly people
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