高级综合英语教程1

Unit 6

I. Background to Text 1

Family is considered to be the “cell” of society. It is a group of people related to each other by blood or by marriage. There are extended families—a large group of relations living together or in close contact with each other. In such a family, usually several generations live under the same roof, including grandparents. On the other hand, there are “nuclear” families, consisting of parents and children.

In some societies an extended family consists of a large group of people of different generations closely or distantly related, depending on each other for economic support and security. In others, even nuclear families can be very large with many children.

In different countries, there are different policies for family size, and people take different attitude towards it. For instance, in some developed countries, people tend to marry late and have fewer children. Some governments have to give incentives to encourage births. However, in some developing countries, where people tend to have more children and population is growing so fast that it hinders the economic development and keeps the living standard low, governments are forced to formulate policies to limit family size.

Of course, people still do not agree as to the matter of family size because there are a lot of factors involved such as economy, religion, cultural tradition, education and even politics. There are indeed advantages and disadvantages to have a number of brothers or sisters. This text is a narration of the experience by a young woman who was brought up with six other brothers or sisters. In her opinion, having a big family is a bad thing, for there is always competition among the brothers and sisters for things. They fight for better beds, for better places to watch TV, for own favourite TV programmes and for parents‟ care. They have no privacy, no peace and quiet because of too many friends (each has friends of their own) and pets and so on. For parents,

having a large family means a heavy burden. Children pose a big pressure for food and clothes, and there is endless housework to do: cleaning and tidying the house; cooking, shipping and washing. What is more, parents often have to deprive themselves of food and clothes as well as of their own free time to provide a decent life for children.

II. Detailed study of the text

1. sibling n.: a brother or sister

2. Large families have been getting a bad press recently. (L.1)

There has been more and more written in newspapers or talked about on radio or TV about the negative things of large families nowadays.

3. …must all be living on state handouts. (L.2)

…are almost certainly living on government‟s security benefits

handout n.: money, food etc. given out to people who need it 4. The children out of control, unloved and unwashed. (L.3)

The children are badly-behaved, they do not have much of parents‟ care and appear dirty and untidy.

out of control: no longer subject to proper direction or restraint;

not under control; not properly directed, managed, trained, disciplined, etc.

5. …play truant from school… (L.4)

…stay away from school with leave or explanation…

6. …none of us from multiple births… (L.7)

…none of us are twains or triples…

7. …queues for the bathroom were always a nightmare… (L.9)

…waiting for the bathroom was always a terrible experience…8. Big families used to be the norm, not the exception. (L.10)

Big families were very common in the past, not unusual cases. 9. …when having a large family was an insurance against an

uncertain future. (L.12)

…at that time, having more children meant that they would have people to rely on for a living when they got old…

10. It was common not to make it to adulthood… (L.13)

It was common for children to die young before they grew up…