Viewing vs. Reading
The pace of reading, clearly, depends entirely upon the reader. He may read as slowly or as rapidly as he can or wishes to read. If he does not understand something, he may stop and reread it, or go in search of elucidation before continuing. The reader can accelerate his pace when the material is easy or less than interesting, and slow down when it is difficult or absorbing. If what he reads is moving, he can put down the book for a few moments and cope with his emotions without fear of losing anything①.
The pace of the television experience cannot be controlled by the viewer; only its beginning and end are within his control as he clicks the knob on and off. He cannot slow down a delightful program or speed up a dreary one. He cannot “turn back” if a word or phrase is not understood. The program moves inexorably forward, and what is lost or misunderstood remains so.
Nor can the television viewer readily transform the material he receives into a form that might suit his particular emotional needs, as he invariably does with material he reads. The images move too quickly. He cannot use his own imagination to invest the people and events portrayed on television with the personal meanings that would help him understand and resolve relationships and conflicts in his own life; he is under the power of the imagination of the show’s creators. In the television experience the eyes and ears are overwhelmed with the immediacy of sights and sounds.
If someone enters the room while one is watching television — a friend, a relative, a child, someone, perhaps, one has not seen for some time — one must continue to watch or one will lose the thread②. The greetings must wait, for the television program will not. A book, of course, can be set aside, with a little regret, perhaps, but with no sense of permanent loss.
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行文點(diǎn)評(píng)
本文結(jié)構(gòu)屬于comparison and contrast,把兩類事物進(jìn)行對(duì)照比較。comparison and contrast不要求作者有鮮明的立場(chǎng)，即支持哪一方，或反對(duì)哪一方，只要清楚明白地說(shuō)出兩者之間的異同就可以了，這是它與議論文(argument)不同的一點(diǎn)。
縱觀全文，可以明顯看出，作者偏向于閱讀，所以在對(duì)比過(guò)程中作者肯定了閱讀的優(yōu)點(diǎn)。在第一段中clearly的插入，使句式新穎。文章的前兩段從速度方面將viewing與reading兩者進(jìn)行了對(duì)比。句首The pace of...排比句的應(yīng)用形成了段落間的并列，使文章結(jié)構(gòu)嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)。這兩段都是首句提出主題，然后圍繞這句話再展開(kāi)具體的論述。第三段作者旨在說(shuō)明看電視限制了人們的想象空間。在第四段中作者通過(guò)生活中一個(gè)非常普遍的例子論證了前文談到的觀點(diǎn)，其中插入語(yǔ)的運(yùn)用增加了文章句式的變化。
