評論
打印
Part 1 Traditional & Modern Family 傳統(tǒng)與現(xiàn)代家庭
A great many people, when they speak of home, tend to appreciate it with a certain atmosphere, certain physical surroundings, and certain emotional attitudes with themselves. This sentimentality toward home is something that has come down to us from the past. Many modern people do not have it, and I think it is a good thing that they do not.
In the old days, life was difficult. Enemies could attack you and kill or rob you, and you had little protection against them. People did not live in well-built houses where doors could be locked. They did not have the protection of an organized police force or telephones which could summon the police instantly. How did this influence the way people felt about home?
Small family groups clung tightly together for protection against beasts and against other men. Only the braves went beyond the small family area. Even in the Middle Ages only the most daring went to lands beyond the sea. The human pursuit of security conditioned men to love their homes. I am sure that this feeling must have been very strong among the early settlers of the United States who were obliged, by famine and oppression, to take the plunge and go to the new land where they knew no one and where they were subject to Indian attack. We can see this even today in the attitudes of minority groups who, because of a feeling of insecurity, still preserve cohesive family ties.
Thanks to modern transportation and well-organized societies, thousands of people willingly and eagerly leave the surroundings where they were born, and the oftener they do so, the less sentiment they are likely to have for those surroundings. How has the meaning of this word “home” been altered by such activity? What does home mean to those people or to families who often move about, living first in one hotel and then another? I believe that for them home means a place where they can have privacy. For them, the atmosphere and surroundings of the place where their parents live have no sentimental attachment.
Families are important to people all over the world although the structure of family is different from one country to another or from the modern family to the traditional one.
Firstly, Let's see what similarities there are between the traditional & modern family. We can say both of them are nuclear families (with parents & their children as only members), & the role of the father in both types is to provide for his family while the mother takes care of the childre's physical & emotional needs.
Secondly, the differences between the two are also clear. For example, the traditional husband was the head of the household while today's husband & wife share the role; And modern woman works outside the home even after she has children, namely, she's doing two jobs instead of one, so preschool children may go to a child care center or to a baby-sitter regularly (since the mother works).
No matter it is traditional or modern, every family has the sense as following: families offer us a feeling of belonging, of love & security.
家庭是社會的細胞，是組成社會的基本單位。自從家庭誕生以來，人們生活在不同的家庭之中，休養(yǎng)生息，繁衍后代，享受著天倫之樂。
美國作家愛默生曾經(jīng)說過："家庭是這樣一個地方，在一日之中，人們的胃口得到三餐的滿足，而人們的心靈卻得到千百次的滿足。"
許多人在談到家的時候往往將它和某種氛圍、某種自然環(huán)境以及某些自我情感聯(lián)系在一起。這種對家庭的依戀之情古來有之，代代相傳。而許多現(xiàn)代人不再有這種情感了。
在遙遠的古代，人們的生活十分艱難。那時候，小型家庭群體緊密團結(jié)，聚在一起，共同抵御野獸和敵人。只有最勇敢的人才敢離開小小的家族管轄區(qū)。甚至在中世紀也只有最勇敢的人才敢飄洋過海。人類對安全的追求決定了人們對家庭的熱愛。
現(xiàn)在由于現(xiàn)代化交通設施的出現(xiàn)和社會組織秩序的完善，成千上萬的人們愿意并且渴望離開他們的出生地。而且他們離家外出越頻繁，他們對出生地的情感可能就越淡。現(xiàn)代人的家庭觀念已經(jīng)慢慢淡化了。這可能也是現(xiàn)代化社會發(fā)展的必然趨勢吧。
但是無論人們的家庭觀念如何變化，家始終是我們最溫馨的港灣。在《The Wizard of Oz》，也就是童話小說《綠野仙蹤》中小女孩Dorothy不是說過嘛，There's no place like home，沒有地方可以像家一樣給我們歸屬感和安全感。
在英語中，home, family和house都可以譯為“家”，但是三個詞的側(cè)重點有所不同。 house側(cè)重于“地點、住房”。一提起house很容易使人聯(lián)想起房屋中的家具、設備、裝飾等，如：we have a computer in the house(我們家里有一臺電腦)。
family 側(cè)重于指家庭成員的全體，它強調(diào)的是人。family 看作一個整體時，意思是“家庭”，后面跟單數(shù)動詞，如把family 看作為“家庭成員”時，應按復數(shù)對待。后面的動詞應是復數(shù)形式。如：My family are all tall 我們?nèi)胰硕己芨摺?home 在三個詞中最具有感情色彩，它不僅包括家人共同生活的場所，還包括“天倫之樂”“家庭團聚”的意思，如：It's time to go home 現(xiàn)在該回家了。
我們剛剛說了family這個詞在字典里的解釋。那你知道family還可以怎樣解釋嗎？family的拼寫大家都知道是f-a-m-i-l-y, 那么以這幾個字母開頭，就有F - father A - and M - mother I - I L - love Y - you，也就是爸爸媽媽我愛你們的意思了，倒是跟family這個詞的意義很貼合。
husband和wife也可以按照這樣的模式解釋，比如，wife就是W - washing； I - ironing ；F - food ；E – entertaining，幾個詞就概括了一個妻子的功能。husband就可以解釋成 H——housing 有房子；U——understanding 有心靈相通；S——sharing 有分享的喜悅；B——buying 有錢買想要的東西；A——and； 還有N——never 絕對不D——demanding 要求太高。
wife還可以有另一種解釋，W----witch 一個美女；I----intelligent 聰明伶俐；F----faithful 忠實；E----everyday 在每一天。
