标准美语发音的13个秘诀 CD 1 Track 40

 

Set Phrases                                          CD 1 Track 40 

A Cultural Indoctrinati on to American Norms 

When I learned the alphabet as a child, I heard it before I saw it. I  heard that the last four letters were dubba-you, ex, why, zee. I thought that  dubbayou was a long, strange name for a letter, but I didn't question it any  more than I did aitch.  It was just a name. Many years later,  it struck me that it was a  double U. Of course, a W is really UU. I had such a funny feeling, though, when I realized that something I had  taken for granted for so many years had a background meaning that I had completel y overlooked. This "funn y feelin g" is exactl y what most native s peakers  get when a two-word phrase is  stressed on the wrong word. When two individual words go through the cultural process of becoming a se t phrase, the original sense of  each word is more or less forgotten and the new meaning completely  takes over. When we hear the word  pain killer¹,  we think  anesthetic.  If, however, someone says  pain killer,  it brings up the strength and almost unrelated meaning of  kill.  

When you have a two-word phrase, you have to either stress on the first word, or on the second word. If you st ress both or neither, it's not clear what you are trying to say. Stress on the first word is more noticeable and one of the  most important concepts of intonation² that you are going to study. At first glance, it doesn't seem significant, but the more you look at this concept, the more you are going to realize  that it reflects how we Americans think, what concepts we have adopted as our own, an d what things we consider important.  

Set phrases are our "cultural icons," or word images;  they are indicators³ of a  determined use that  we have internalized. These set phrases, with stress on the first word, have been taken into everyday English from descriptive phrases, with  stress on the second word. As soon as a descriptive phrase becomes a set phras e, the emphasis shifts from the  second word to the  first. The original sense of each word is more or less forgotten and the new meaning takes over.  

Set phrases indicate that we have internalized this phrase as an  image,  that we all agree on a concrete idea that this phrase represents. A  hundred years or so ago, when Levi Strauss first came out with his denim⁵ pants,  they were described as  blue  jeans.  Now that we all agree on the image, however, they are  blue  jeans.  

A more recent example would  be the descriptive phrase,  He 's a real party animal. This slang expression refers to someone who has a great time at a party. When it first became popular, the people using it needed to explain (with their intonation)  that he was an  animal at a  party.  As time passed, the expression became cliche⁶  and we changed the intonation to  He's a real  partyanima l  because "everyone knew" what it meant. 

Cliches are hard to recognize in a new language because what may be an old and tiredexpression to a native speaker  may be fresh and exciting to a newcomer. One way to look at English from the inside out, rather than always  looking from the outside  in, is to get a feel for what Americans have already accepted and intern⁴ alized. This starts ou t as a purely⁷ language phenomenon, but you will notice that as you pr ogress and undergo the relentless⁸ cultural indoctrination of standard intonation patterns, you will find yourse lf expressing yourself with the language cues and signals that will ma rk you as an insider—not an outsider. 

When the interpreter was translating for the former Russian President Gorbachev about his trip to San Francisco in 1990, his pronunciation was  good, but he placed himself on the outside by repeatedly saying,  cable  car.  The phrase  cable car  is an image, an established entity⁹, and it was very noticeable to hear it stressed on th e second word as a mere¹⁰ description.  

An important point that  I would like to make is that the "r ules" you are given here are not meant to be memorized. This discussion is only an  introduction to give you a starting point in understanding this phenomenon and in  recognizing what to listen for. Read it over; think about it; then listen, try it out, listen some more, and try it out again.  

As you become familiar with int onation, you will become more comfortable with American norms, thus the cultural orientation¹¹, or even cultural indoctrination,  aspect of the following examples. 

Note When you get the impression that a two-word description could be hy phenated or even made into one word, it is a signal that it  could be a set phrase—for example,  flash  light,  flash-light, flash light. Also, stress the first word with Street (Main Street) and nationalities of food and people ( Mexican food,  Chinese girls).  

1 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

2 intonation   

n.语调，声调；发声

参考例句：

• The teacher checks for pronunciation and intonation.老师在检查发音和语调。
• Questions are spoken with a rising intonation.疑问句是以升调说出来的。

3 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

4 intern   

v.拘禁，软禁；n.实习生

参考例句：

• I worked as an intern in that firm last summer.去年夏天我在那家商行实习。
• The intern bandaged the cut as the nurse looked on.这位实习生在护士的照看下给病人包扎伤口。

5 denim   

n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤

参考例句：

• She wore pale blue denim shorts and a white denim work shirt.她穿着一条淡蓝色的斜纹粗棉布短裤，一件白粗布工作服上衣。
• Dennis was dressed in denim jeans.丹尼斯穿了一条牛仔裤。

6 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

7 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

8 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

9 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

10 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

11 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。