- •In the World of English
- •In the World of English
- •1) What is language? Think of as many notions associated with language as you can to complete the spidergram.
- •3) Now read the definitions of language from the encyclopedia and dictionaries, compare them with your own definition. Which one is better? Why?
- •3. Amazing facts about English
- •1) Read the following facts about English. Which one is the most amazing? Why?
- •2) Could you think of some other amazing facts about English? Your language? Share your suggestions with the class.
- •3) Follow-up
- •2) These are some of the sentences that you will hear in the lecture. Read them paying attention to the italicized words and expressions.
- •3. Now follow the Topic Outline while the speaker gives a brief overview of what will be discussed in the commentary. Lecture outline - a topic outline
- •I. Animal and Human Communication Systems
- •II. The Origin of Language
- •III. Statistics on Modern Languages
- •8. Recount the information you heard in the lecture to a partner. Use your notes and the outline to help you.
- •9. Discuss the following with the class. Use the language of agreement / disagreement and persuading from Reference Section at the back of the book to organize your discussion.
- •1. Before you read, discuss the following questions with your partner.
- •2. Read the text below and write out the major stages in the development of English spelling and factors which influenced its change.
- •3. Discuss the following questions with your class.
- •4. Do you know how English in America developed? What factors influenced its development? Discuss with your class.
- •5.Now read the text below and make notes concerning major stages in the development of American English. Language change and the development of american english
- •6. Put the sentences below in chronological order. Use transitional words or phrases if needed between the sentences to form a paragraph.
- •7. Work with your partner, refer to your notes and summarise the information given in the text. You may use the paragraph from the previous exercise as an example.
- •8. Read the text once again and decide if the statements below are true or false according to the article. Correct the false statements.
- •9. Discuss the following questions with your class.
- •1. Before you listen discuss the questions below with your partner.
- •2. You will hear an interview with a journalist Robert MacNeil who wrote a book"Do You Speak American?". As you listen make brief notes on the answers to the following questions:
- •3. Look at these extracts from the report. Complete as many of the sentences as you can before you listen again.
- •4. With a partner reproduce the interview using the questions and responses given below (aa - Avi Arditti):
- •5. Discuss with your groupmates.
- •1. Read the famous words by George Bernard Shaw. Do you agree with his opinion?
- •4. Language Focus
- •2) Here are some more examples of differences between American and British vocabulary. Can you match the American word on the left with its British equivalent on the right?
- •3) With a partner in two minutes write down as many other examples of American vocabulary that is different from British vocabulary as you can.
- •3. Work with a partner. Reproduce the interview using the questions and responses given below (aa - Avi Arditti; rs - Rosanne Skirble):
- •4. Discuss the following questions with your groupmates.
- •Rendering 1. Британский или американский
- •Британский или американский
- •Englishes of the World
- •In groups of four match the explanations (1-9) to the words, phrases and figures. Then answer Questions 10-17.
- •1. What do the following countries have in common? Is it an advantage for these countries? Why? Why not? Discuss with your partner.
- •3. Language facts
- •2) Could you continue the list of language facts? Share your suggestions with the class.
- •Discuss with your partner.
- •2. You are going to listen to the lecture about historic struggle and conflict between Ireland's two languages: Irish and English. Before you listen, preview the content of the lecture.
- •3. Before you listen, preview the vocabulary you will hear in the lecture.
- •1) Fill in the blanks with the appropriate vocabulary items.
- •2) These are some of the sentences that you will hear in the lecture. Read them paying attention to the italicized words and expressions.
- •Languages in Conflict: Irish and English
- •5. Now listen to the lecture again and take your own notes.
- •9. Recount the information you heard in the lecture to a partner. Use your notes and the outline to help you.
- •10. Discuss the following with the class.
- •1. On May 23-25, 2001 Moscow State University hosted an international conference "Global English for Global Understanding". Could you explain its title. What problems were on the agenda?
- •3. Now read the whole article, underline the main idea in each paragraph (if possible). Make an outline of the article. Global understanding for global english
- •1.Read the title of the article. What is it about? What is a democratic linguistic order? Read the introductory part of the article quickly and check.
- •2.Now read the whole article, underline the main idea in each paragraph (if possible). Make an outline of the article. Envisioning a democratic linguistic order
- •Introduction
- •The Structure of the Hegemony of English
- •Language as Environment, not Commodity
- •Democracy Among All Languages
- •Conclusion
- •2. Would you agree or disagree with the following quotations? Why? Why not?
- •3. Skim the text and decide whether its author would agree or disagree with the quotations above.
- •Silent witnesses
- •5. Paraphrase the following extracts from the article and explain what the author means. What is your opinion?
- •6. In pairs discuss the main points the writer makes. Then summarise the article.
- •7. Work in a small group. Discuss the questions below. Then share your ideas with the class.
- •1. You are going to read the three articles about three different languages. Before you read comment on the language facts given below.
- •2. Now look quickly at the articles and decide what languages they are about. What do two of the languages have in common? Try not to take more than one minute.
- •3. Answer questions 1-8 by referring to the three newspaper articles about different languages.
- •4. Which of the following categories of text type would you say the articles belong to?
- •3. Now listen to the interview and answer the questions below.
- •1. Divide into two teams, and debate the problem of the English language globalization.
- •Глобализация и развитие языков
- •1. Look at the picture below. What is its message?
- •3. Now compare your list with those of other students.
- •4. Compare your notes with those written by a partner. Do your partner's notes make you want to add anything to your own or to change anything in your own?
- •5. Listen again to the lecture and decide whether the following statements about it are true or false.
- •1. Researchers who study gender and communication have realized that women and men communicate in different ways.
- •2. The lecturer will talk about how children learn the communication patterns of their gender and about some false stereotypes people have of men’s and women’s communication patterns.
- •3. Now listen to the lecture again and take notes.
- •4. Check your notes to be sure that they are complete. Check if you can:
- •5. Recount the information you heard in the lecture to a partner. Use your notes and the outline to help you.
- •6. In a group of two or four discuss the questions below. At the end of the discussion, a representative from the group should summarise the group’s discussion for the class.
- •1. The following two passages are from the book You Just Don’t Understand by Deborah Tannen. Before you read these passages, answer the questions below.
- •2. Now read and find out whether your suggestions were correct. His Politeness Is Her Powerlessness
- •It's Different Coming From a Man
- •3. Work with your partner. Discuss the questions below. Then share your ideas with the class.
- •Rendering1. Мужское и женское в языке
- •Мужское и женское в языке
- •1. Paraphrase the quotations below. Which one do you agree with? Why?
- •2. Euphemistically Speaking
- •2) Do the quiz below. Then compare your answers with a partner. Quiz: Euphemistically Speaking
- •3) Work with your partner and discuss the following questions.
- •4) Here are some more examples of euphemisms.
- •3. Look at two web pages from an on-line translator below. What do they illustrate? Does political correctness pose any difficulties for translators and interpreters?
- •4. What is political correctness? Does the term ‘political correctness’ overlap with ‘euphemism’? What is the difference?
- •2) Is it a good idea to rewrite famous works of literature to make them more politically correct? Discuss with your class.
- •1. You are going to read an article The World of doublespeak by William Lutz.
- •2. Read the article and write out the examples of doublespeak and their meanings.
- •The world of doublespeak
- •3. Check your answers.
- •3. Now read the article and check your answers. Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer
- •(From William Lutz, Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer http://www.Dt.Org/html/ Doublespeak.Html)
- •4. Work with your partner, discuss the following questions, then share your ideas with the class.
- •1. Before you listen think of some political speech you know (e.G. M.L. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech) and try to answer the following questions.
- •6. In pairs discuss the following questions.
- •In this project you are going to analyse the language politicians use.
- •1. Before you listen discuss the questions in pairs.
- •3. Reproduce the interview using the questions and responses given below (aa - Avi Arditti; rs - Rosanne Skirble):
- •4. In class discuss the following questions.
- •Политическая корректность, или языковой такт
- •«Черный человек». Политкорректность в русском языке
- •3. Do you know any funny stories / anecdotes about translators / interpreters? Share them with the class.
- •Deadlines
- •To make a long story short...
- •1. You are going to read the text under the title ‘Ambassadors of the Word’. Who could be called an ambassador of the word? Why? Discuss with your partner.
- •2. Look through the text quickly and check your suggestions. Ambassadors of the Word
- •3. Now read the text more carefully and from the ideas and opinions expressed in the article, decide which of the sentences are likely to be true (t) or false (f).
- •4. Match the words in column 1 with the meanings in column 2.
- •5. Comment on the following quotations. Which do you agree with? Why?
- •6. Work in pairs, discuss the following questions. Then, share your ideas with the class.
- •1. You are going to listen to the interview between the journalist and Fiona Guiffs, the translator. What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of this profession? Discuss with your partner.
- •2. Now listen to the interview and complete the chart below.
- •3. Now look at these extracts from the interview. Complete as many of the sentences as you can before you listen again.
- •4. In pairs discuss the following questions.
- •2. Now listen to the interview and make notes on Michael Gove and Professor Tony Briggs’s opinions. Compare your notes with those of your partner.
- •3. Read the following statements and decide whether they are True (t) or False (f). Correct the false ones.
- •6. Discuss the following questions.
- •1. What do you know about computer translation systems? How do they work?
- •2. Now read the text below and find out.
- •In the near future
- •3. Answer the questions below.
- •1. Have you ever used on-line translation services? Was your experience successful?
- •2. What problems could a person face using online translation tools? Read the article and find out. Getting lost in the translation
- •4. Answer the questions below.
- •5. Work in pairs, discuss the following questions. Then share your finding with the class. To organize you discussion use the useful language from Reference Section.
- •2. Now work in your groups and match the words on the left with their definitions on the right. Consult the dictionary if necessary. Add them to the categories you have.
- •3. Provide the Russian equivalents for words and expressions 1-26 from Exerscise 2.
- •Профессия переводчик
- •Нужны ли переводчики?
- •Решение мировой проблемы перевода
- •Переводчик в кармане
- •Inbound text
- •Voice-over, voiceover
- •Useful Language
- •Inviting a response
- •Interrupting
- •Strong agreement / disagreement
- •Persuading
- •Framing an argument
- •Listening 2. Male-Female Conversation as Cross-cultural Communication
- •В мире английского языка
- •In the world of english
5. Paraphrase the following extracts from the article and explain what the author means. What is your opinion?
With the expansion of schools and other homogenising social processes, the pace of this loss has accelerated, and it continues.
Using steel, horses, germs, guns, courts, churches, schools and parliaments, those in the old world hungry for new lands have invaded the territories of the peoples of the new world.
The voices of the tribes of our "new worlds" contain their own way of owning, knowing and caring for their lands.
Their stories are both a form of resistance and a record of what has taken place.
In many countries there are populations, subcultures, that are stigmatised by a dominant group as dark, unclean and dangerous.
6. In pairs discuss the main points the writer makes. Then summarise the article.
7. Work in a small group. Discuss the questions below. Then share your ideas with the class.
Could you give any other reasons for languages dying out?
How can tribal languages be protected? Should it be the concern of a tribe itself or the international community?
Would you agree with the statement that the sooner the world only speaks one language the better? Why? Why not?
What problems can having many languages in one country create? Prove you point of view by giving examples.
READING 4. Language and Culture
1. You are going to read the three articles about three different languages. Before you read comment on the language facts given below.
Many linguists estimate that of the 6,800 languages currently spoken, only about 3,000 will remain viable by the end of the century.
Some 95% of the world's population living today learn one of about 100 languages as a first language, leaving the remaining 6,700 languages spoken by 5% of the population.
2. Now look quickly at the articles and decide what languages they are about. What do two of the languages have in common? Try not to take more than one minute.
Text 1
Francis FAVEREAU is still reeling from the success of his Breton-Erench dictionary. With only 200 copies of an initial printrun of 1,700 left on the shelves, the 1.9 kg tome - the largest of its kind - is fast selling out and publishers Skol Vreizh are gearing up for a second run.
For a language that has long been considered “threatened” – it was banned in public for most of the 19th. century and was given only partial recognition as late as 1951 – the dictionary has been widely welcomed.
First to order copies of Geriadur Meur brezhoneg ar vreman were the region's 22 bilingiial "immersion" schools, where children are taught solely in Breton until the age of eight, after which they learn in both languages.
Now a pocket-size Petit Favereau is being edited for publication at the end of the year. Between 600,000 and 700,000 people out of the region's two million-strong population understand Breton. As many as 200,000 people speak it daily.
According to Favereau: “There is a decline in the number of people speaking Breton in their daily lives because of the demise of traditional speakers, but there is a massive resurgence of Breton sentiment and interest in the language and culture."
Favereau puts this down to an increase in the number of "new Bretons" - people who as children were not taught the language but want their offspring to learn it. Some 80 per cent of Bretons are in favour of the language being taught in all Brittany’s schools. Parents have even gone on a hunger strike in their efforts to get Breton put on the curriculum.
Mounting frustration and anger felt by many Bretons reached a peak last year when the French government joined the British in refusing to sign the European Charter for Regional Languages, thus reaffirming French as France's only legal language.
The massive Yes vote that Bretons bestowed on Europe in the Maastricht referendum bears sharp testimony to the belief that a united Europe will give the region the boost it so desperately needs by providing money for cultural projects. Europe's minority languages will receive an Ecu3.5 million grant from the European Commission this year.
Julie Read, Melanie Wright and Isabel Conway
Text 2
The survival of Frisian, spoken by about 300,000 of Netherlands’ 15 million inhabitants, is under increasing threat because Dutch itself, as a minority European language, may even be fighting for its life.
Yet within the northern province of Friesland there is a strong sense of pride in the language, which underlines the region’s distinct cultural identity.
The Frisians have been vocal in their demands for the retention of their independence and their own language. A well-defined Frisian movement continues to push for state recognition, the money to pursue educational and cultural goals, and a more official status for their language.
They have had mixed success. An important victory in 1980 was the introduction of compulsory Frisian in primary schools.
However, Geske Krol-Benedictus, a leading member of the Frisian National Party, points out: "Often the standard of teaching is poor and it depends completely on the individual commitment of the teacher."
Only five per cent, of secondary level students take Frisian as a subject and few of those who can speak Frisian can read or write it.
Nevertheless, the majority of Frisians want the language to occupy a position equal to that of Dutch in both administrative and judicial matters.
The scant attention the Dutch national media pays to Frisian is a continuing source of irritation. On the infrequent occasions when Frisian is spoken on Dutch television it is accompanied by subtitles. The regional Friesland radio network provides 20 hours’ broadcasting each week and the main newspapers in the province, the Friesch Daglad and the Leeuwarder Courant, publish only a single Frisian paper each week.
Julie Read, Melanie Wright and Isabel Convoy
Text 3
Like it or not, English is the lingua franca of Europe. According to The European Commission, some 84 percent of young people in the EU are currently learning English as a second language. No language – neither French in the Middle Ages, nor Latin before it – has ever been taught so widely in Europe.
It is the world language, the most popular second language in China and Japan and spoken by 760-800 million people around the world. Some 1.2 billion people live in countries where English is the official language.
This often has an adverse effect on native speakers. It makes them more reluctant to learn other languages (and the only way to understand a culture is to speak its language). According to EC figures, Anglophone Ireland has the worst score for language learning in Europe.
This international language cannot accurately be called “English” at all. It ought, rather, to be called world English, international English or Anglo-American. The language is no longer the intellectual property of Britain.
One of its great advantages as a world language is that is that there is no academy to decide what is and what is not "good English". English, like the Common Law, is what it has become — a less formal and a more flexible instrument than either French or German. And it is seen in rich and poor countries alike as the language of modern consumerism. It holds out that (probably illusory) promise of prosperity and material -progress.
If international English has a spiritual home it is in the United States. Opposition to the spread of English is often animated by a certain anti-Americanism, or the kind of narrow-minded, nationalism that is re-emerging in post-communist Europe.
But for most of those who learn it, it is a language of hope - "the true Esperanto" as George Steiner calls it. For young people in Europe there is no chauvinism involved in choosing it as a second language, nor does it follow that a student of English has an interest in British culture. This is not well understood in Britain. The language has become a sign of a cosmopolitan, outward-looking attitude to life, not of the insularity with which Britain is all too often associated.
European English is spoken from Brussels to Bratislava and as a first or second language by more than half the people in the European Community. The percentage of young people learning English as a foreign language at school in the EC countries, apart from Britain and Ireland, is 100 per cent in Denmark, 95 per cent in the Netherlands, 91 per cent in Luxembourg, 90 per cent in France, 84 per cent in Germany, 80 per cent in Belgium, 76 per cent in Greece, 72 per cent in Italy, 65 per cent in Spain and 55 per cent in Portugal.
The EC is debating whether to recognise more languages, such as Welsh, Basque, Catalan or Frisian. Countries like Britain and France are opposing the idea because they say it will mean more bureaucracy.
But what could be more bureaucratic than the present system which equates European languages with their national boundaries? Language is perhaps the greatest barrier to trade and the Single Market. Promoting English within the EC Lingua programme or perhaps some new EC programme would surely be the cheapest, most sensible way of overcoming it.
Jon Packer