英语国家社会文化之加拿大 文化课后论文

The Society and Culture of Major English

Speaking Countries

Book Report

题目： A Brand New Canada to Me --Multiculturalism

学生姓名：学号：

专业：英语

班级： 10英语（1）班

所在学院：外国语学院

2012 年12月8日

A Brand New Canada to Me

--Multiculturalism

Last week, when we had our listening class, we came into a word--Ottawa, and many of my classmates didn’t know that it is the capital of Canada. Here is the truth that although Canada has the second largest territory in the world with quite abundant natural resources, most people do not pay enough attention to Canada when they’re referring to North America due to its strong neighbor, America.

However, having enjoying many Canadian literatures and movies, I become more and curious of this romantic country, which is known for the romantic snow, beautiful maple leave and delicious maple sugar. And it is a brand new country to me, especially its characteristic social culture.

Canada is a country made up of largely immigrants, amounting to 99% of the population there. And it results in a multicultural society in Canada. People speak both English and French there and they are both the official languages in the country. But you will hear French most of the time and all street signs are in French. In fact, Montreal is the third largest French speaking city in the world.

Navigator Jacques Cartier took the possession of the territory for the king of France in 1534. After that, slowly, people started to go and live in New France.

As Britian took charge of some colonies which were used to belong to French till 1981, there is still tons of British influence in Canadian life and Canada still maintains an important connection to the UK. Canada is a member of British Commonwealth of Nations, and people there even still sing “God Save the Queen”. Many Canadian still follow what happens with the royal family, watch the BBC for world news and they feel closer to the Queen than they do to the US president.

Canada is a young country as Canada first became a political entity in 1867, and didn’t assume its present shape until 1949. (Zhu, 2011:286) As a result, Canada doesn’t have the huge and unique civilization, culture, and the history behind it, but in fact, patchwork quilt of different

nationalities and communities is central to what Canada is, and great efforts were made to protect and promote and celebrate the ways of the different of people who live there. Thus Canada, it is felt, resembles a mosaic of different cultures which overlap but do not overwhelm each other. (Zhu, 2011:313)

In Canada, you can find almost any major ethnic groups in the world. Unlike Americans, who were absorbed into one American identity in the so called “melting pot”, which conveys the idea that immigrants coming to the country and throwing off their old customes, languages and traditions in favour of becoming “Americans”, “Canada government encourages each of its ethnic groups to maintain its cultures and traditions and share them with other groups and it is known as the Canadian Mosaic.” (Lan, 2008:67)

Sharing the longest undefended national border in the world and the free trade agreement NAEATA, Canada and the United States seem to have a good relationship with each other. While it’s the fact that many Americans regard the Canada as a state of the United States and many think that their neighbor has taken too much from their country. However, the Canadians think that they have suffered from a lot from its powerful neighbour as Canada economy is too dependent on the United States, and they think the United States has over-intervented their country. Resentments and contradictions do exist between the two countries.

Canada's anti-American emotion is the sinigificant component of their nationalism, and it begins to rise to the level of national policy to fight against the United States culture erosion and to ensure that the independence of Canada. Consequently, Canada has taken a “Third Option”, geared to developing stronger trading relations with Japan and Europe rather than over-reliant on the United States. (Zhu, 2011:327) Recent years, Canada has made great progress in its cultural development and 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver showed the world this multicultural country and shocked the world by its gorgeous image.

Canada grows under the influence of Britian, France and America, and now the young country trys to show the world a much more characteristic self-image.

As Canada has become a more multicultural, bilingual country, the British influence lessens. For an instance, Canadian English has changed a lot since British brought English into this land. Its spelling is the mixture of American and British English, while its pronunciation is very close to American pronunciation, with some remnants of British pronunciation in certain region.