Only a few nations do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.(Bhutan,Cuba,Iran,North Korea, Somalia (no widely recognized government), Sudan, Republic of China (Taiwan), Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara)
The United States is a founder of NATO, the world's largest military alliance
The countries considered the United States' closest allies are the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan.
the efforts of the U.S. government to halt imports of illicit drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
Monroe Doctrine, a policy of keeping European powers out of the Americas.(from he history).
36. The US economy
The first ingredient of a nation's economic system is its natural resources. The United States is rich in mineral resources and fertile farm soil
These extensive waterways have helped shape the country's economic growth over the years and helped bind America's 50 individual states together in a single economic unit.
The second ingredient is labor, which converts natural resources into goods. Although the US has experienced some periods of high unemployment and other times when labor was in short supply, immigrants tended to come when jobs were plentiful. The quality of available labor: strong emphasis on education, including technical and vocational training contributed to America's economic success, as did a willingness to experiment and to change. Labor mobility.
The traditional managerial structure in America is based on a top-down chain of command; authority flows from the chief executive in the boardroom
American businesses are seeking more flexible organization structures, especially in high-technology industries
Federal and state governments have developed detailed rules and regulations to ensure the safety and soundness of this financial system and to foster the free flow of information so investors can make well-informed decisions.
mixed economy because privately owned businesses and government both play important roles.
The American free enterprise system emphasizes private ownership. Americans generally agree that some services are better performed by public rather than private enterprise: administration of justice, education (although there are many private schools and training centers), the road system, social statistical reporting, and national defense.
The US banking system
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. The Federal Reserve System is composed of a central Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. and twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation. The main tasks of the Federal Reserve are:
Supervise and Regulate banks
Implement Monetary Policy by buying and selling U.S. Treasury Bonds
Maintain a strong payments system
o Fed cannot issue U.S. Treasury Bonds
Economic education
Community outreach
Economic research
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The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, established by the Congress, are organized much like private corporations. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The Federal Reserve System was created via the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Federal The Federal Reserve is subject to laws such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. Congress gave the Federal Reserve the autonomy to carry out its responsibilities insulated from political pressure. Each of the Federal Reserve's three parts the Board of Governors, the regional Reserve banks and the Federal Open Market Committee operates independently of the federal government. U.S. dollar banknotes have been printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for the Federal Reserve since 1914. 3 main mechanism for manipulating money supply: 1. it can buy or sell treasury securities-selling means reducing the monetary base (take money out of circulation), purchasing increases monetary base. 2. the discount rate can be changed. 3. can adjust the reserve requirement(only infrequently).
The US Population
over 310 million ..more than tripled during the 20th century
with California and Texas currently the most populous states
UN Human Development Index the United States is always in the top ten
two children
surplus of births over deaths
one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world
American babies are healthier than ever before in this countrys history and 99.3 percent will survive to their first birthday
the American population is younger than in other developed nations.
Because the U.S. population is young, education costs are higher
The states that attract newcomers, such as Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas, tend to have the highest proportion of young people and the smallest proportion of older people
Nearly 5 percent of the earths inhabitants live in the United States.
The most densely populated state is New Jersey (372 /sq.km).White 77.11%,
39 I mmigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behavior. The leading emigrating countries to the United States - Mexico, India, the Philippines, and China.
The cheap airline travel post-1960 facilitated travel to the United States, but migration remains difficult, expensive, and dangerous for those who cross the United StatesMexico border illegally. The number of foreign nationals who became legal permanent residents (LPRs) of the U.S. in 2009 as a result of family reunification (66%) outpaced those who became LPRs on the basis of employment skills (13%) and humanitarian reasons (17%).
Recent debates on immigration have called for increasing enforcement of existing laws with regard to illegal immigration to the United States, building a barrier along some or all of the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) U.S.-Mexico border, or creating a new guest worker program. As of April 2010, few of these proposals had become law, though a partial border fence was approved and subsequently canceled.
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40. American beliefs & values: American patriotism. American attitude to work. American family. Privacy. American individualism & pragmatism. The American Dream.
Americans value
the ideals of individual liberty, individualism, self-sufficiency, altruism, equality, Judeo-Christian morals, free markets, a republican form of government, democracy, populism, pluralism, feminism, and patriotism.
Individual Freedom: individual rights are guaranteed in the United States Constitution. It is part of the American dream to be your own boss, and being an entrepreneur.
Education is often regarded as the key to opportunity, including financial security.
a responsibility to improve themselves, to be the best they could be, to develop their talents
The Family
The main purpose is to bring about the happiness of each individual family member. The traditional family values include love and respect for parents, as well as for all members of the family
Privacy.
The notion of individual privacy may make it difficult to make friends
The pragmatism of Americans and their trust in an abundance of resources relates to the American habit of mobility. As a nation of immigrants, Americans have from the beginning shared the assumption that the practical solution to a problem is to move elsewhere and make a fresh start.
American Dream is the faith held by many in the US that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve financial prosperity.
The American Dream is popularized in countless rags-to-riches stories and in the portrayal of the good life in advertising and on TV shows. It teaches Americans to believe that contentment can be reached through the virtues of thrift, hard work, family loyalty, and faith in the free enterprise system.
The American Dream was a driving factor not only in the gold rushes of the mid to late 1800s, but also in the waves of immigration throughout that century and the following.
In modern times, the American Dream is seen as a possible accomplishment, as all children can go to school and get an education. Criticism: for various reasons, it simply is not possible for everyone to become prosperous through determination and hard work alone.
PATRIOTISM
In this century, national pride has become generally stronger than regional pride. Foreign visitors to America are quick to observe the prevalence of patriotic symbols: flags fly in suburban neighborhoods, bumper stickers announce "I'm proud to be American," the national anthem is played at every sporting event. National holidays such as Thanksgiving and Independence Day intensify the sense of national identity. Yet patriotism in America is in some ways distinct from patriotism in other countries. In many nations, patriotism is essentially the love of the land. American patriotism is concentrated instead upon the particular historic event of the nation's creation as a new start and upon the idea of freedom which inspired the nation's beginnings.
American Family. Privacy.
has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. The majority of divorced people eventually remarry.
the average age at which Americans married was 26.8 for men and 25.1 for women
about 95 percent of men and women are married
Children are expected to be out of the house by their mid 20s. a person over 25 living with their parents is viewed negatively by most Americans
41. US culture as melting pot
Popular use of the melting-pot metaphor is believed to have derived from Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, which was first performed in Washington, D.C. in 1908. The play was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, set by Zangwill in New York City. Traditionally, immigration scholars have seen the phenomenon of assimilation as a relentless economic progression. The hard-working new arrivals struggled along with a new language and at low-paying jobs in order for their sons and daughters to climb the economic ladder, each generation advancing a rung. The idea of multiculturalism which often comes along with political correctness is often put forward as an alternative to assimilation. This theory, which contrasts to the melting pot theory, is described as the salad bowl theory, or, as it is known in Canada, the cultural mosaic. In the multicultural approach, each "ingredient" retains its integrity and flavor, while contributing to a successful final product. Whichever theory is right, the democratic government of the United States lets both the multicultural and the melting-pot approaches to be equally represented and excercised in immigrant communities.
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42. The Role of Various Cultural Patterns in the formation of the US Culture.
- political correctness an alternative to assimilation.
- salad bowl theory, or, as it is known in Canada, the cultural mosaic. In the multicultural approach, each "ingredient" retains its integrity and flavor, while contributing to a successful final product.
- hyphenated American is an epithet from the late 19th century to refer to Americans who consider themselves of a distinct cultural origin
- many Americans immigrants or children of immigrants pluralism and led to the formation of the new breed of people
- the major part of the population in the US is becoming bilingual. There are six things that we can see as particularly American: migration, individualism, optimism, religiosity, informality and expansiveness. It needs to be noted, also, that what we admire in ourselves is not always admired elsewhere.Americans are direct, which others often see as rude. We are informal, which others translate as slobbishness. We are optimistic, which can be taken as arrogance. We believe in individualism, which others see as selfishness.
43. Americanization
A special term implies the influence that the United States of America has on the culture of other countries, substituting their culture with American culture. Americanization can also refer to the process of immigrants to the United States becoming American. During the 20th century, mass entertainment extended the reach of American culture, reversing the direction of influence as Europe and the world became consumers of American popular culture. America became the dominant cultural source for entertainment and popular fashion, from the jeans and T-shirts young people wear to the music groups and rock stars they listen to and the movies they see. People all over the world view American television programs. American entertainment is probably one of the strongest means by which American culture influences the world. The US culture was becoming more diverse as immigrants streamed into the country. American writers of German, Irish, Jewish, and Scandinavian ancestry began to find an audience. Globalization and its concerns have become accepted as the central object of the world agenda (English language). Cultural assimilation is an intense process of consistent integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural group, typically immigrants, or other minority groups, are "absorbed" into an established, generally larger community.
45. British English vs. American English.
number of mother-tongue speakers is now over 300 million, between 500 to 700 million people who use English as a foreign language.
The history of American English counts more than three centuries. The English language first came to North America at the beginning of the 17th century.
The 1 (early) period (beginning of the 17th end of the 18th centuries) formation of American dialects of the English language.
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The 2 period (19th-20th centuries) creation of American variant of the English language. These two periods are almost equal in their duration, but are different in importance.
Very often some words lost their usual meaning in Britain, while in America they continued to be in use. At the end of the 18th century such English archaisms were considered to be Americanisms.
-drivers license (am) driving licence (br)
-gas petrol
-truck lorry
-rent a car hire a car
words which are found in both variants, but which have different meaning in each:
-pavement() in AE means any paved road whereas in BE it means the same as sidewalk in AE
-biscuits in AE mean a sort of baked salty bread whereas in BE they mean the same as cookies in AE.
-pants(am)-trousers (BE); pants in BE mean the same as underwear in AE; shorts in AE mean the same as mens underwear in BE
lexico-semantic differences They differ in affixes while lexical meaning remains the same:
Centre(br) center(am)
differences in pronunciation cigarette, brochure, address, laboratory, garage and so onDifferences in grammar: the use of tenses. British English uses the Present Perfect tense to talk about an event in the recent past and with the words already, just and yet. In American usage, these meanings can be expressed with the Present Perfect (to express a fact) or the Past Simple (to imply an expectation). -"I've just got home."/ "I just got home."
Spelling.
Noah Webster. Websters most successful changes were spellings with or instead of -our (honor, labor for the British honour, labour); with -er instead of -re (center, theater for the British centre, theatre); with an -s instead of a -c (defense, license for the British defence, licence); with a final -ck instead of -que (check, mask for the British cheque, masque); and without a final -k (traffic, public, now also used in British English, for the older traffick, publick). Later spelling reform created a few other differences, such as program for British programme.
46. American Indian Languages and their Influence on the Development of the American English.
One of the strongest forces to shape the language in the New World were Native American languages. It is not precisely known how many different languages there are, but it has been estimated that about 200 distinct Indian tongues are spoken in North America today. At the time of the arrival of the British immigrants in the Americas, the number of these tongues is said to have been twice as large.
Words from American Indian languages became parts of English mostly because in the New World the colonialists encountered things and entities that were unfamiliar to them.
There were many plants and animals in the Americas that were not found in Europe, many of the names for native species were derived from Native American languages
Tupi (a South American language still spoken in Brazil) gives us the names of animals such as tapir, cougar(), and jaguar,
Of course, Native American groups, living in a variety of climates, each developed their own forms of housing appropriate to their physical environments. Among these were the wigwam, the tepee (or tipi, or teepee), the Hogan( -), the wikiup, the kiva, and the igloo( . )
And, of course, place names across America are derived from the languages of those who knew those places first. Massachussets and Kansas are derived from the names of native peoples, as are Dakota and Omaha, and many other state, city and place names. Oklahoma means "red people" in Choctaw, Minnesota means "sky-blue waters" in Dakota, Mississippi river- great river- in Ojibwa
47. Black English Vernacular English.
it was common that the slave-traders brought people of different language backgrounds together in their ships on purpose: when the slaves spoke different languages and could not communicate efficiently, they were less likely to start planning rebellions. The result of this was that several pidgin forms (mixtures of two or more languages) developed. When the slaves arrived in the Caribbean or somewhere along the coast of North America, they continued to use the pidgin among themselves and to communicate with the landowners.
Nowadays, Black English Vernacular has become widely accepted as a rule-governed linguistic system. the use of double negatives (e.g. I ain't afraid of nothin') and the omission of the "-s" in the third person singular form of the present tense (e.g. he walk).
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The use of negative terms to express positive ideas (e.g. "You ugly!", which means just the opposite), which is common especially among young black Americans.
Another device is known as "eye dialect". This refers to changing the spelling of words without changing their sound, in order to characterize a speaker. For example, "was" can be spelled "wuz",
Black English also often simplifies or weakens consonant clusters at the ends of words. This tendency is quite strong; some words are regularly pronounced without the final consonant, such as jus´ and roun´.
The unstressed word-initial syllables themselves may be lost, as in ´bacco (tobacco), ´cept (accept) and ´member (remember).
Black slaves had no social status whatsoever in 18th century America. Therefore, it is easy to see why the languages used by African-Americans had comparatively little influence on the vocabulary of American English.
48. GERMAN INFLUENCES
The German element in the vocabulary of American English is the first. Most German borrowings came into English during the
a considerable portion of this contact centered on the dining room table and the bar!
,frankfurter (a smoked sausage made of beef and pork put into a casing),hamburger
SPANISH INFLUENCE
plants, animals, ranch life, food and drink, people, building, mining, clothing
marijuana tequila creoleSome Spanish borrowings are well-known only in a certain area. For example frijole is known along the Mexican border
Creole meant a person usually born of Spanish ancestry. When the French took control over Louisiana after the Spaniards the word creole was used to refer to a person born in Louisiana but
of French origin.
In Spanish the words ending with -eria like cafeteria are very common
Place names of Spanish origin can mainly be found in Florida and the Southwest. About a fifth of those in California are somehow connected with saints´ names. Examples of these are San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara.
American English has borrowed more words from Spanish than from any other language. The Spanish influence on American life and language will continue. Many of America´s nearest neighbors like Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico are Spanish-speaking
FRENCH CONTRIBUTIONS
There are thousands of words that have a French origin, and many of them came into the English language before the Norman Conquest of England.
It is important to note that, of all the various languages which contributed to American English in these early days, French was the ONLY one that had a generally acknowledged prestige value. It was important in New England because it was the language that Calvin had used. And it was highly regarded there as a necessary part of any aristocratic family's social - if not intellectual - attributes.
Here are some French borrowings:
Exploration and travel: The term "batteau", also spelled bateau underwent specialization and came to mean a specific type of boat that was light and had a flat bottom
Food:"A la mode", meaning with ice cream on top
In French, un bureau
Chiefly in British English, a bureau can mean a writing table or desk, with drawers for papers.
A cent is
from the French "cent
Place Names: French place names are found predominantly in three states, those of Maine, Vermont and Louisiana.
dressing is a salad dressing made of vinegar, oil, and various seasonings
French
French fries are strips of potato that have been French fried in deep, deep fat.
French toast is sliced bread dipped in a batter of egg and milk and then fried.
ITALIAN INFLUENCES
The Italians gave us architectural and artistic words such as fresco, profile, impasto, model, studio, torso and bust.
Italy gave Americans laundries, cafeterias, and saloons, as well as banks, cashiers, credit and debt, but the best Italian contributions are found on a menu zucchini, ravioli, pasta, macaroni, and vermicelli (even if it does mean little worms).
graffiti
paparazz
fia
o.
sc
YIDDISH BORROWINGS
Among the three Jewish languages (Yiddish, Hebrew, Dzhudezmo) that have had any influence in the United States, Yiddish is the one with the most native speakers nowadays
Words borrowed or derived from Yiddish include:
chairlady - a female chairman lox - smoked salmonThe use of 'already' for 'now' at the end of a sentence:
Let's go, already!
Answering a question with a question:
"How is it going?" "How should it go?"
Declarative form in questions: This is America?
Double negative: He don't know nothin'.
SLAVIC / RUSSIAN BORROWINGS
There are also a lot of Slavic immigrants in industrial towns.
Russian words are used here to exemplify terms that have come into the English language because optional terms simply did not exist:
mammoth sable samovar polka robot troika Bolshevik commissar sputnik
50. Racism and Civil Rights Movement in the United States
African Americans bear the brunt of the oldest and most deeply rooted of American prejudices.
Racial discrimination grew out of the practice of enslavement. European newcomers could find common ground with the majority of Americans by joining in the denigration of African Americans. Poorer whites or socially marginal whites could feel superior by virtue of their skin color, even if they were not economically successful Racism helped to create a sense of unity among white Americans by defining who was a full citizen. Racism also united African Americans through shared experiences of discrimination and suffering. Freedom in the wake of the Civil War was a first step in eradicating this prejudice. The civil rights era of the mid-20th century.Some people use violence against African Americans, the federal government, and others who challenge their restrictive views.
Americans tend to think in terms of a biracial, separated society, even though whites and blacks have jointly built the United States, and even though the family histories of whites, blacks, and other races are often intermixed.
The most prominent advocate and activist of African American civil rights was Reverend Martin Luther King, nonviolence
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Act had an immediate impact. Within months of its passage on August 6, 1965, one quarter of a million new black voters had been registered, one third by federal examiners. Mississippi had the highest black voter turnout74%and led the nation in the number of black leaders elected.
