【Flyer杀G作文组】1.19-Issue208-By 师大菜菜

师大菜菜UID: 2838404

TOPIC: ISSUE208 - "The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people."
WORDS: 519
TIME: 00:45:25
DATE: 2011/1/19 15:41:55

The speaker claims that we know much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people, for the reason that the way people look, dress and act reveals their attitudes and interests. In general, I concede that observing the appearance and behavior of its people can give us an intuitive impression on a society's ideas and values. However, most of these impressions are superficial and inadequate, so we cannot learn completely about a society only by observing the appearance and behavior of its people.

To begin with, most people intent to dress according their appetites and interests. For example, the fans of football tent to dress a T-shirt with football star. People who are crazy about the Hip-Pop music tent to wear baggy jeans which are the contemporary Hip-Pop fashion. In fact, the dress reflects the life purposes what one pursues. As a society is made up of individuals, its people's life purposes are a very important indication of a society's ideas and values. Therefore, we can tell much about a society's values by observing their appearance and behavior.

What's more, through observation of the behavior of its people, we can learn much about a society's ideas and values. Take the attitudes to praise for example, when being complimented, an English-speaking person would readily accept the compliment by saying something like 'Thank you' to show his appreciation of the praise, while a Chinese speaker would try to deny the truth of the compliment in order to show his/her modesty. This social phenomenon can tell us something about the different cultural values that Chinese advocate collectivism and individuals will be modest toward praise, while in west the society encourage individualism and individuals can show themselves freely.

However, we should realize that what we learn by observing the appearance and behavior of people is intuitive, but without carrying out some surveys and investigations, our understanding of a society cannot be comprehensive and profound. For instance, one cannot understand the American Spirit profoundly by a short time observation of some Americans. In order to study a society's ideas and values, it is necessary to learn its history and read its literary works. Compared to appearance and behavior of people, a society's history expressed more things about its cultural traditions, the democracy and equality of the environment and arts and so forth, and literary works usually record more details about common people's everyday lives. If one have the knowledge about American history, he/she would not confused about the ideas and values of The USA today. Similarly, we can understand the American Spirit profoundly by reading the Hemingway's novel The Old Man and Sea. In brief, observing appearance and behavior of a society's people cannot give us systematic knowledge of the society.

In summary, the way people dress and conduct could reveal the attitudes and interests in some extent. Moreover the observation of people's behavior is also an efficient way to learn much about a society's ideas and values. However, the two approaches are not enough to learn a society completely which need further analysis about the society.

New words:
intuitive impression,
superficial and inadequate
carrying out some surveys and investigations
....
New examples:
People who are crazy about the Hip-Pop music tent to wear baggy jeans
The different attitudes to praise of Chinese and English speakers
Hemingway's novel The Old Man and Sea

写得好纠结呀，万事开头难...
真惭愧，向但我师妹学习，下次要按时交作业