(2015) Коллоквиум 2 (1157972), страница 6
Текст из файла (страница 6)
It is normal for Americans to speak loudly, joke and laugh in public.
Like the British, Americans have love for the intricate practical joke, the pun, and the understated quip (clever remark).
4. What can you say about American social life?
The lives of most Americans revolve around their homes and houses. Home ownership is one of the definitions of success in the USA. Generally people are judged by the house they live in, not only by its size and architecture but also the type of neighborhood and the distance from different amenities.
One of the features of American life is volunteer work. According to the statistical Gallup polls, about 84 million Americans both adults and teenagers donated part of their time as volunteers. Some of this work is done through volunteer organizations and clubs; some is on a personal basis.
5. Why are Americans so much involved in volunteer work?
One of the features of American life is volunteer work. According to the statistical Gallup polls, about 84 million Americans both adults and teenagers donated part of their time as volunteers. Some of this work is done through volunteer organizations and clubs; some is on a personal basis. Teenagers, for example, often volunteer to work in hospitals – so-called “candy- stripers”, from their striped uniforms.
6. Why do so many American parents think that part-time jobs are “good for their kids”?
This also effects customer-employee relations: the kid who just packed your groceries or filled your tank could be your neighbor’s son or daughter. In general, Americans feel that young people should appreciate the value of work and learn how to stand on their own feet.
7. What is the impact of cars on the US economics?
As the automobile plays such a large part in American life, it has a great impact on American economy. Now the manufacture of automobiles in America is becoming more and more international. Japanese companies like Honda and Toyota do not just sell cars in America; they have their own plants where they build them. The major American automobile companies, such as Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler have also formed various kinds of partnerships with Japanese and German manufacturers.
8. What are the main demands for an immigrant to be naturalized and become an American citizen?
Immigrants who apply after five years of residence to be naturalized and become American citizens must prove that they know the national symbols and support the Constitution of the USA.
Discussion problems:
1.The American Frontier and American character;
2.Compare typical English and American characters. Which traits are in common and which are different?
3.American houses and homes;
4. American society and cars
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?
In 1863 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was organized. The creation of the Academy originated from the immediate practical problems of the time of the Civil War. It also reflected the fact that at that time the US was beginning to emerge as a technological country. The Academy created departments related to scientific and technological problems (the Geological Survey, the National Bureau of Standards, the US Weather Bureau, the Patent Office, etc.). The need for scientific instruction led to the organization of scientific schools and centers of learning and research (at Yale and Harvard Universities).In 1861 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was founded.
The challenges of World War I had a far-reaching effect on the development of science in the USA. During the war and after it American universities produced the great number of well-trained scientists and engineers. With the introduction of graduate schools into American education scientific research began to play a major role in many universities. American industry began to have a scientific foundation; several of the larger industries established research laboratories of international level. The Federal Government also developed a number of scientific agencies.
It has a great number of programs that include the participation in international scientific undertakings, the development of relationships with other academies, cooperation in worldwide scientific project. Although it does not maintain direct research programs of its own, as, for example, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Academy plays its leading role in various advisory governmental committees and determining scientific policy matters in general.
2. Which non-profit scientific institutions do you know in the USA? What is “Think Tanks”?
Oak Bridge National Laboratory- is an American multiprogram science and technology national laboratory.
National Research Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory- Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, its mission has greatly expanded.
Its foci are now:Nuclear and high-energy physics
Physics and chemistry of materials
Scientific organizations formally classified as “independent research institutes “but nicknamed as “Think Tanks” or “Brain Factories” were organized. The main aims of TT or BF, attached to the Federal government and its Agencies by annual contracts, are long-range analysis and ideas necessary for policy-making, problem solving and decision-making. The largest of the “Think tanks” is the RAND Corporation (Research and Development). RAND employs a lot of prominent scholars: mathematicians, chemists, physicists, social scientists, computer experts and others. The most important researches carried out by RAND are connected with military tasks.
3. Which role did the World Wars play in the development of American science?+
The challenges of World War I had a far-reaching effect on the development of science in the USA. During the war and after it American universities produced the great number of well-trained scientists and engineers. With the introduction of graduate schools into American education scientific research began to play a major role in many universities. American industry began to have a scientific foundation; several of the larger industries established research laboratories of international level. The Federal Government also developed a number of scientific agencies.
During World War II a lot of leading European scientists, many of them of Jewish descent, fled to America from the regimes of their countries. One of the first to do so was Albert Einstein. After him a good percentage of Germany’s theoretical physics community left for the US as well This circumstance gave American science in general and the American academy in particular a mighty boost.
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? Дописать ещё немного лауреатов американцев
Американцы
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist.
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of thesuperfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model.
John Forbes Nash, Jr. was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential equations. Nash's work has provided insight into the factors that govern chance and decision making inside complex systems found in daily life. He shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.
William Faulkner (1897-1962), known for his novels about people living in the South “ The Sound and the Fury”(1929),”As I lay Dying”(1930),”Intruder in that Dust”(1948), received the Nobel prize in 1949.
Русские-Американцы:
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad in 1940, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled ("strongly advised" to emigrate) from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. He taught thereafter at universities including those at Yale, Cambridge and Michigan.
Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity". He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991.
Wassily Wassilyevich Leontief was an American economist notable for his research on how changes in one economic sector may have an effect on other sectors. Leontief won the Nobel Committee's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973, and three of his doctoral students have also been awarded the prize (Paul Samuelson 1970, Robert Solow 1987, Vernon L. Smith 2002).
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist. His first nine novels were in Russian, and he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose.
Simon Smith Kuznets was an American economist, statistician, demographer, and economic historian who won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development".
6. What do you know about NASA activities?+
In 1958 the Federal Independent Agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in the USA. NASA was headed by Famous German rocket specialist Werner von Braun and absorbed into itself the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and lots of other organizations. It keeps three major research laboratories and some smaller test facilities (with the annual budget of 100 million dollars and 8000 employees). Eventually NASA created other Centers and a number of affiliates including the Space Center in Huston, where the forming and training of the space crews is carried out.
The main achievement of NASA during its early years involved the human exploration of the Moon in 1969.
During the 1980s and the 1990s, the USA launched several spaceships to investigate distant planets: Jupiter, Venus and Mercury.
By the 1980s NASA had created the nation’ space transportation system of the future – the Space Shuttle that was a reusable manned spacecraft taking off like a rocket and landing like an airplane.
7. Tell about the space age in the USA and Russia. Give the examples of space cooperation of our two countries. +
The world’s first artificial satellite SPUTNIC 1 was launched in the Soviet Union in October 1957. The space race began and in 1958 the Federal Independent Agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in the USA. NASA was headed by Famous German rocket specialist Werner von Braun and absorbed into itself the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and lots of other organizations. It keeps three major research laboratories and some smaller test facilities (with the annual budget of 100 million dollars and 8000 employees). Eventually NASA created other Centers and a number of affiliates including the Space Center in Huston, where the forming and training of the space crews is carried out.
When in 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned to the earth he pronounced a well-known challenge: “Now let the other countries try to catch us”. Several weeks later President Kennedy appealed to Congress: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth”.
After that NASA began to conduct space missions. On May 5th, 1961 Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American to fly into space, and on February 20th, 1962 John H. Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth.
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