Contributions to culture.

10.3.1. American culture is rich, complex, and unique. It emerged from the short and rapid European conquest of an enormous landmass sparsely settled by diverse indigenous peoples. Although European cultural patterns predominated, especially in language, the arts, and political institutions, peoples from Africa, Asia, and North America also contributed to American culture. All of these groups influenced popular tastes in music, dress, entertainment, and cuisine. As a result, American culture possesses an unusual mixture of patterns and forms forged from among its diverse peoples. One can say that not only the country's ethnic structure, but its culture, too, is a "patchwork quilt".

10.3.2. America is especially rich in its literature. Many of the two centuries' notable figures of American creative writing, such as Fennimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Edgar Poe, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck are well-known all over the world. Another remarkable aspect of US culture is landscape painting which has vividly captured the unique American cultural identity with its emphasis on the natural environment.

Since the beginning of the last century America has produced a number of great musicians whose achievements in the sphere of blues and jazz music spread the American sound worldwide. Among those are Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and dozens of others. A distinctively American classical music came to fruition when such composers as George Gershwin and Aaron Copland incorporated homegrown melodies and rhythms into forms borrowed from Europe. In 1954 a disc jockey started to broadcast black rhythm-and-blues records to the white audience. He called this music rock-and-roll. Rock-n-roll with its famous stars such as Elvis Presley conquered Europe and the rest of the planet.

10.3.3. Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20th century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form – modern dance. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan, who stressed pure, unstructured movement in lieu of the positions of classical ballet. U.S. audiences also were introduced to classical ballet by touring companies of European dancers. The first American ballet troupes were founded in the 1930s, when dancers and choreographers teamed up with choreographers like the Russian-born George Balanchine who established the School of American Ballet, which became the New York City Ballet.

10.3.4. A large part of the American entertainment industry is taken by Hollywood. Though it is not definitely famous for creating real smart and intellectual movies it still helps to recreate the American Dream. Some of the most magical movies ever made are the work of Walt Disney. The first full-length animation was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Disneyland, the huge amusement park Disney created in 1955 in California, has been a major tourist attraction since it first opened. The Disney Studio continued producing movies after the death of its founder.

10.4. The American "melting pot of nations".

10.4.1. The poet Walt Whitman said that the United States " is not merely a nation, but a nation of nations ". The first people came to America from Asia, and they crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska when the sea level dropped. These were the people whom Columbus later called " Indi­ans " because he was sure that he had come to the East Indies. Today there are about 1,5 million Native Americans in the United States, most of them live in the Western states — California, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. About one-third of the Native Americans live in reservations, the land that was given them by the government.

10.4.2. Between 1620 and 1820 very large groups of peo­ple came to the United States not as willing immi­grants, but against their will. These black people were from West Africa. Today about 12 percent of America's population is Afro-American. The dialectal differences allow their language to be called by a different name – Ebonics. In the 1820's many people in Europe, suffering from poverty, war and discrimination began to migrate to the United States. During the first half-century, most immigrants came from the coun­tries of north-western Europe — Germany, the Unit­ed Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. Later, many immi­grants came to the United States from Italy, Greece, Poland and Russia.

10.4.3. There are many Span­ish-speaking people who live in the USA. Some of them had lived in the areas which were under Spanish control, and found themselves living in the United States when these areas became part of the United States (for example California and New Mexico). Many other Hispanics immigrated to the United States from many different coun­tries, mostly from Mex­ico,Puerto Rico and Cuba. Many immi­grants came to the Unit­ed States from different Asian countries (China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, India and others). They have set­tled mostly in California, Hawaii, New York and Texas. New York is particularly famous for its multi-cultural looks. On Manhattan, one can find such diverse ethnic neighborhoods as Chinatown, Little Italy, the Jewish Lower East Side, the Brighton Beach area, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem.

10.4.4. Both British English and American English have a common origin. As the time went some words became out-dated in Britain, while they were still used in American English. The most famous of all American dictionary-makers, Noah Webster was as influential in the history of American English as George Washington in the American Revolution. His monu­mental American Dictionary of the English Language is a real landmark in American history. Webster's influence on American spelling was enor­mous. Webster's dictionaries had a great influence on American speech rhythms and resulted in the remarkable uniformity of much American speech. There are some curious linguistic phenomena observed in American English. One of them is the so-called "political correctness". The term describes language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to racial, cultural, or other identity groups. In the US, the ideas of political correctness are quite popular.

LECTURE 11

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