下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。
学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。
因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！
1. The Function of Art
Art has an effect on the individual and on a particular culture in a society. Psychologically, art enhances life by adding beauty to our surroundings. It is a source of pleasure and relaxation from the stresses of life. Socially, art plays a number of different roles by virtue of its capacity to embody symbolic significance to its audience.
Art fulfils a number of important social functions. It is used to communicate the various statues people hold. It can play a role in regulating economic activities. And it is almost always a means for expressing important political and religious ideas and for teaching principles that are valued in society. These and other social uses of art function to preserve the established social organization of each society.
Status Indicators
One of the social functions of art is the communication of status differences between individuals. For instance, gender differences in body decorations and dress are typical of cultures throughout the world. Age differences may be similarly indicated. Puberty rituals often include tattooing, scarification of the body in decorative designs, or even filling of the teeth to between children and adults. Social class differences in complex societies also involve aesthetic markers such as the clothing people wear and the kinds of artworks they use as decorations of their homes. According to Sahlins, social and economic class, age, and gender differences are noticeable even in the kinds of fabrics people’s clothing is made from. For instance, silks in most societies are predominantly worn by women, especially those who are part of the upper classes and those who are middle-aged.
Economic Functions
Economic life, by virtue of its practical importance to our survival and to our standard of living, can sometimes be a source of conflict between groups that must carry out exchange with one another. Sometimes art, perhaps because it is valued for its nonutilitarian qualities, can play a role of maintaining harmony in such settings. This was one of the functions of the Kula Ring exchange of ceremonial necklaces and armbands among islanders such as the Trobrianders and Dobuans.
Religious Functions
Much of the dramatic and emotional impact of religion derives from its use of art. Religious rituals everywhere include song and dance performances, and the visual arts function to heighten the emotional component of religious experience in all parts of the world, by portraying important scenes and symbols from religious history and mythology. In some cultures, art and religious ritual are inseparable. For instance, among the Abelam of Papua New Guinea, all art is produced for use in rituals.
Didactic Functions
Art is often employed as a means for teaching important cultural ideas and values. For instance, hymns in Western religious express theological concepts and encourage the support of specific religious values. Daniel Biebuyck has analyzed the use of art to embody moral and ethical principles by the Lega people of Central Africa. Lega ethical ideals are codified in figurines of humans and animals made of ivory, pottery, bone, wood, and wickerwork. The figurines are used in the initiation and training of men into prominent positions within Lega society. Each of these statues is associated with one or more aphorisms, a concise statement that alludes to a general ethical concept. For instance, one figure is a carved stick whose top is slit so as to suggest an open mouth… The object illustrates the saying, “He who does not put off his quarrelsomeness will quarrel with something that has the mouth widely distended.” (In other rites this idea may be rendered by a crocodile figurine with widely distended jaws.) The aphorism alludes to the disastrous effects of quarrelsomeness and meddlesomeness. 感谢您阅读《Society 》一文，出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
