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Advanced English, Book Two, Unit FourPre-readingWhile-readingPost-readingPre-reading QuestionsBackgroundinformationVocabularyPhrasesTextExercisesQuestions and Discussions1) What are some of the features of political speech? 2 )What do you know about the qualifications for presidential candidates?3) Do you know about John F. Kennedy? 4) Do you know John F. Kennedys famous and ever-lasting Inaugural address? If so, can you cite some examples from his speech? BackBackground informationThe presidential election system in America Inauguration day and presidential oath HOMEJohn F. Kennedy The Cold War Arms race Biblical allusion and biblical style By law any natural-born American citizen of and over 35 years of age can run for the Presidency. But in fact only the candidates nominated by the two major parties, the republican and the Democratic, have the chances to win a Presidential election. The choosing of a candidate for the Presidency is extremely important for both parties. To do this, each party holds its national convention every four years, in the summer before the general election. The convention is an assembly of party bosses and activists. Several months before the convention, all the aspirants for nomination begin their personal campaigns within the party. His purpose is to have his supporters chosen as delegates to the convention. The more supporters he has, the bigger is the chance for him to be nominated for the candidacy. This process is called the primary election. To win a Presidential election, a candidate has to spend many millions of dollars which comes from its personal collection, partys help and grant from the Government. He has to travel all over the country, making countless speeches and shaking hands with countless voters. He has to face his rival in debates on television. He has to make the best use of his glib tongue and arouse public confidence in him. In 1980, George Bush, to gain his publicity, raced through the streets. On his clothes were printed “George Bush fro the Presidency”. A candidate must also try to profit from his rivals disadvantage, making harsh attacks on his policies and exposing his personal flaw. This may become very disgusting sometimes. When Lincoln ran for the Presidency, his mother, for example, was abused of immortality. A presidential candidate also tires to collect information about his rivals so as to employ the most profitable tactics. The case in point was Nixons Watergate break-in. The general election , held on the second Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each election year. In the case that no candidate wins the majority of electoral votes, the election is decided by the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives votes by state. Thus every state in the House of Representative gets one vote. After that, the President elect will happily prepare his inaugural address for the inauguration ceremony taking place before the U.S. Capitol Building on January 20, following the November general election. He will be busy framing his administration and getting ready to move into the White House. But he must also remember that 3 years later, or in the fourth year of his first term, he will have to go through the whole process all over again if he wants to be re-elected. The White House is not a place for a President to stay permanently. He can never live in it for more than 8 years. His salary now is $200,000 a year, and he also gets an extra$50,000; but he must pay income tax on the whole amount. He gets up to $100,00, tax-free, for travel and entertaining. His total pay is far less than a successful scientist, a big manager, a professional athlete or a film star. The founding fathers set up in the Constitution a rather bare-bones（梗概） presidential election system. They merely provided that the chief executive should be chosen by electors, whose number from each state should equal that states combined representation in the U.S. House and Senate. Each individual elector would vote by ballot for two persons, with the person various vice presidential choices. No story has ever emerged that an elector voted for Washington for vice president and someone else for president, though had one done so we could not have known the difference without an explanation. With his self-imposed two term limitation, Washington removed himself from the 1796 presidential contest. When he left, political unanimity（一致） went with him. Political parties stepped into the forefront in a race between Federalist John Adams and Republican Thomas Jefferson. BackInauguration day and presidential oath The first one on April 30, 1789, George Washington. Since 1937, Inauguration Day has been changed to Jan, 20. On this day every four years the newly elected president of the United states faces the people for the first time. Takes the presidential oath of office and delivers his inaugural address. The solemn presidential oath: traditionally administered by the Chief Justice, is prescribed in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution of the United States. The oath runs as follows:“ I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.” On January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is sworn in as 35th President of the United States. The ceremonies at the inauguration began with a Marine Band rendition of America the Beautiful; contralto Marion Anderson sang the Star Spangled Banner; New England poet Robert Frost recited his poem The Gift Outright; Bostons Cardinal Cushing delivered a 20 minute invocation.President Kennedys inaugural address was both eloquent and memorable. He stood before the capitol, handsome and youthful at age 43, calling for a fresh spirit in national life: Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. He was the youngest man to ever assume that office by election.Back Born: May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts Died: November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas Nickname: JFK Married: Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (1929-1994), on September 12, 1953 Religion: Roman Catholic Education: Graduated from Harvard College (1940) Political Party: Democrat He first ran for Congress as a Democrat, then as Senate. Kennedy missed being nominated for vice-president by a few votes in 1956. But he gained an introduction to millions of Americans who watched the Chicago democratic Convention of television when he decided to run for president in 1960, his name was widely known. Many thought that his religion and his youthful appearance would handicap him. He faced the religion issue frankly. He decided his firm belief in the separation of Church and state. Kennedys four television debates with Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon (37th), were a highlight of the 1960 campaign. He was assassinated in November 1963, when journeyed to Texas for a speech-making tour. He was shot in the neck and head by a 24-year-old man. He died half hour later. Within two hours, vice-president Johnson took the oath as president. A state funeral was held for him. Campaign speech July, 1960, John F. Kennedy accepts the democratic nomination for the office of president of the Unites States of America. And I can assure all of you here, you have repose in the company of me, that Ill be worthy of your trust, we will carry the fight for the people. And we shall win.” For those under age 45 or so, November 22 is probably just another day.On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassins bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die.His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country. As President, he set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II.John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) John F. Kennedy was a war hero, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a U.S. senator for most of the 1950s. in November 1960, at the age of 43, John F. he became theyoungest man ever elected president of the United States. on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Tex., the fourth United States president to die by an assassins bullet. BackThe Cold WarThe Yalta conference is often cited as the beginning of the Cold War. This meeting of the Big Three at the former palace of Czar Nicholas on the Crimean southern shore of the Black Sea took place February 4-11, 1945. Stalins army had reached the Oder River and was poised for the final attack on Berlin, but Stalin on Feb. 3 had ordered Zhukov to pause while the conference was in session. His occupation of Poland was complete, and he possessed command of the largest army in Europe, 12 million soldiers in 300 divisions. Eisenhowers 4 million men in 85 divisions were still west of the Rhine. Johnny CarsonThe Cold WarStrategic bombing had devastated German cities, and the last untouched major city in Germany would be destroyed Feb. 13 when Churchill sent his bombers over Dresden. Roosevelt appeared weak and tired in photos of the Yalta conference, and he would present his Yalta report to Congress March 1 sitting down. In two months, he would be dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The Cold WarBackHis physician, Dr. Howard Bruenn, has written that although FDR suffered from high blood pressure, there was no evidence that his health impaired his judgement at Yalta. Critics would accuse Roosevelt of a sell-out at Yalta, of giving away Eastern Europe to Stalin, of secret deals with a ruthless dictator. Bert Andrews in the New York Herald Examiner wrote about 4 secret deals: Russias demand for $20 billion in reparations from Germany, for Poland to the Curzon line, for 3 seats in the United Nations, for territory in the Far East including Outer Mongolia, south Sakhalin Island, the Kuriles. Stalin did not hold free elections in Eastern Europe and the American press turned increasingly hostile to Russia. However, as Robert Dallek has pointed out in Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, FDR was hoping the future United Nations organization would be the place to deal with Stalin, not at Yalta. He told Adolf Berle I didnt say the result was good. I said it was the best I could do. Both Roosevelt and Churchill recognized the reality of Soviet power in 1945. An arms race is a competition between two or more countries for military supremacy. Each party competes to produce superior numbers of weapons or superior military technology in a technological escalation. Historical examples of arms races abound. One significant recent example was the race to develop more and better nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The term arms race is used generically to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors. Evolutionary arms races are common occurrences .Back Allusions in writing are references to well-known persons, things, or events that writers assume are familiar to their readers. This assumption is based on the knowledge or belief that their readers share with them a common historical, cultural and literary heritage, which enables the readers to identify the allusions and to understand their significance. What are the chief sources of English allusions? As one would expect, they would come mostly from sources that are either familiar to the majority of the people of whatever age or background, on the one hand, or familiar to most educated people on the other. These sources, therefore, range from nursery rhymes, fairy tales, legends, Greek mythology and Bible stories at one end, and the works of great writers like Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy at the other. In addition to these, there are the allusions to current figures or events that signifying something to the public mind. The Bible is a rich source of allusions, both from the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many are well-known. Those that are not can be easily looked up in the Bible. Below are some of the most common ones: The Old testament The New Testament Adam and Eve The Garden of Eden - Paradise The tree of knowledge of good and evil Cain (murderer of his brother Abel) Noah and his Ark The deluge of 40 days and 40 nights The Tower of Babel, where people spoke in different tongues and no one could understand each other The Exodus: mass migration (of Israelites from Egypt) Moses and the Ten Commandments Solomon: a wise man, who can judge between right and wrong, true and false Job: a man of great patience. Job survived all the trials God subjected him to by enduring them patiently. Jeremiah: a prophet who is pessimistic about the times, and foretells doom for the future The Nativity, or birth of Christ The Magi,(three wise men who went to worship the newly-born Christ at Bethlehem Judas: the disciple who betrayed Christ to his enemies for 30 pieces of silver Allusions from Christs The lost sheep: one who has strayed from faith The eleventh hour: just before a deadline( said of those who repent at the last moment) The good Samaritian: one who helps others in distress In terms of paragraphs and forms More short paragraphs More italics, but not all of them for emphasis. With the word Lord, God capitalized In term of grammar Instead of elliptical and complicated sentences, the structures of the sentences are simple and complete The old form of pronouns, such as ye, thou,thee, thy etc The verb form in the second version is in the oldest -est form. eg, shouldest. There is no abbreviation There is no auxiliary in negative form shall is not only used to express future time, but contain some modal meaning. Some inversions are no longer in use in modern English In term of vocabulary There are some archaic words which are not used today. eg subtil-subtle Most of the words are short and small Some words are not old enough, the use of them have altered completely. eg eat of , gave of The did eat in the paragraph is not for emphasizing, but indicating past tense, This is often seen in biblical style. Some words are specifically employed in the Bible BackNew wordsObserve:to notice someone or somethingto obey a law, rule, or customto do something because of your religious beliefsto watch someone or somethingSignify: to represent, mean, or be a sign of somethinge.g. Some tribes use special facial markings to signify status.signify thatHamilton waved his hand to signify that he didnt mind what they decided.signify something (to somebody)He turned away from her slightly to signify his indifferenceHOMENew wordsAlmighty God/Almighty Father : expressions used to talk about God that emphasize His power swear: to promise something I swearto use rude and offensive wordsto say that something is definitely trueto make someone not tell anyone about somethingHOMENew wordsAbolish: to get rid of something that is causing problems to officially end a law, system etc, especially one that has existed for a long timeSlavery was abolished in the US in the 19th century.heritage: the traditional beliefs, values, customs etc of a family, country, or societythe importance of preserving the national heritagebeautiful old buildings which are part of our heritage cultural/architectural/literary etc heritage the cultural heritage of ItalyHOMENew wordsPledge: to make a formal, usually public, promise that you will do somethingsupport/loyalty/solidarity etcpledge sth to sth/sbpledge thatpledge to do sthpledge yourself to (do) sthCommit: to do something that is a crime ; to do something that is bad or wrong; to do something that is illegal ; to learn something so that you can remember it exactly; commit something to memory; to promise something; commit to / committed/ commitment/ commit suicideHOMENew wordsSplit asunder: to be torn violently apart or destroyeda nation torn asunder by internal conflictsTyranny: / tyranny ofcruel or unfair control over other peoplecruel and unfair governmentsomething in your life that limits your freedom to do things the way you want tothe tyranny of the nine-to-five working dayHOMENew wordsConvert:to change something for a particular use or purposeto change what you do or useto persuade someone that something is true, right, or goodto start; to follow a particular religionprey: an animal, bird etc that is hunted and eaten by another animal synonym; predatorHOMENew wordsHostile: to think something is wrongdifficult conditionssomeone you are fighting against, especially in a war not friendlySubversion: secret activities that are intended to damage or destroy the power or influence of a government or established system actions, speeches etc that encourage rebellionHOMENew wordsOutpace: to go faster, do better, or develop more quickly than someone or something elseJob openings were outpacing the supply of qualified workers.Sovereign: having the highest power in a countrysovereign power/controla sovereign country or state is independent and governs itself HOMENew wordsShield: / shield against a large piece of metal or leather that soldiers used in the past to protect themselves when fighting something that protects a person or thing from harm or damageAdversary: / opponentsomeone you are fighting against, especially in a warLike the trained warrior that I was, I knew not to oppose an adversary head-on.HOMENew wordsEngulf: if an unpleasant feeling engulfs you, you feel it very stronglydespair so great it threatened to engulf himto completely surround or cover somethingThe building was engulfed in flames Beyond doubt: if something is beyond doubt, it is completely certainThe prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the crime.be beyond sb/ beyond repair/control/belief etc/ far beyondHOMENew wordsOverburden: give an organization, person, or system more work or problems than they can deal withHealth services have been overburdened and are unable to care for many older people. a manager overburdened with workBelabor: to talk too much about a particular thinglabor/ belabor the pointInvoke: to make a particular idea, image, or feeling appear in peoples minds by describing an event or situation, or by talking about a personHOMENew wordsEradicate: to completely get rid of something such as a disease or a social problemeradicate something from somethingWe can eradicate this disease from the world.an attempt to eradicate inflationHeed: to pay attention to someones advice or warningIf she had only heeded my warnings , none of this would have happened.New wordsBackBeachhead: an area of shore that has been taken from an enemy by force, and from which the army can prepare to attack a country Trumpet: a musical instrumentblow your own trumpet/ horn: to boast about somethingSacrifice: to willingly stop having something you want or doing something you like in order to get something more importantto kill an animal or person and offer them to a god in a religious ceremony self-sacrificePhrases and expressionsHOMEGo forth: going out from a place or point, and moving forwards or outwards Pass away: to die because you are old or illPass byPass onPass off.back and forthbring sth forthhold forthissue forthput forthCast off: to throw awaycast a critical/expert etc eye/ cast a horoscope /cast a look/glance at sb/sth / cast a shadow/cloud over sth / cast a shoecast a spell on/over sb / cast a vote/ballot / cast about/around for sth / cast an eye on/over sth /cast aside inhibitions/doubts etcSubject to: a) if someone or something is subject to something, especially something bad, it is possible or likely that they will be affected by itAll flights are subject to delay. Prices are subject to change .b) i
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