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issue 207,BT+ 高频
Issue207: 558 words 45 minutes
Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are.
The issue about whether rituals and ceremonies help define a culture is complex and controversial. The speaker asserts so so这里是指代前面那句?如果是这样那就有歧义了, for the reason that without rituals and ceremonies, societies or groups of people have less sense of identification. In my view, I agree with the speaker insofar as that rituals and ceremonies indeed help define a culture, and 不用and however, there are still other ways to helping to define a culture. Here, I will present several important reasons.
To begin with, the major reason for my agreement with the speaker is that rituals and ceremonies give people a sense of identity. Human actions and words are reflection of their underling beliefs and ideas, and therefore, by observing certain rituals and ceremonies, people can see their underling beliefs and ideas, which cannot be observed from appearance. On the societal sociallevel, for supporting examples, one only needs to make a comparison between western countries and eastern countries. In western countries, people 指明是信徒更好 go to church daily, and when there are important events in their lives such as wedding and funeral, they perform such ceremonies at church. The paramount role of church in daily lives of western people is a reflection of their religious beliefs, and attending church strengthens their identities as westerners. On the other hand, in eastern countries, such as China, people observe用遵守、观察?什么意思 Spring Festival, which is memory of agricultural harvest, instead of Christmas Day to celebrate new years. When considering that China is a agricultural nation, we have good reasons to claim that Spring Festival help define identity of Chinese. 我在想,如果把例子改成在美国唐人街的中国人庆祝春节会不会更apt?毕竟这更需要identification
Moreover, without daily rituals and ceremonies or diminishing attendance of such activities, sense of individual identity is declining. Minorities in the United States serve as apt examples to illustrate the point. Working, studying and living in alien countries, those minorities find it is hard to maintain their cultural traditions and their sense of cultural identification is gradually diminishing. For example, American Africans, who were brought to America by Europeans, now give up their rituals and religious ceremonies that their African ancestors observed for thousands of years. In order to earn their lives, most of them choose English as their major language and they lose the ability of speaking and using traditional African languages. Since language is obsolete in their lives, then all the cultural legacy and rituals are all lost. 讲到语言有点偏了
However, we should not be frustrated by such loss of old rituals and ceremonies. Firstly, when old ones perish, new ones emerge, and in some cases there are progresses. Still take the foregoing African Americans as examples. Although they lost their traditional rituals and ceremonies originated from Africa, they are fortunately enough to live in one of the most democratic and free nation in the world, and they enjoy wide human rights and civil liberties. 这句论述是不是要说明失去一些特性,但是却更好地融入了整体社会?Moreover, there are still other ways to identify their origin. For example, American Africans can refer to their history of migration to America; they can easily recall their identities as an African.
To sum up, based on the foregoing analyses and discussions, I can safely draw a conclusion that rituals and ceremonies help to define a culture and diminishing rituals and ceremonies means diminishing sense of identity. However, we should not be frustrated by such fact, because loss of rituals and ceremonies does not necessarily mean significant losses, and other ways such as history can still remind us our identities. |
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