Themes for proficiency - Carol Robinson

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a9 CECTIONA LANGUAGE 4 SOCIETY kêu Unit 1 Language and Social Status

THIS EVENIMe

on the basis of automatic monkey-like codes of signals

Chimpanzees are known to shape sticks and straws to size, for fighting leopards and for luring termites out of their nests,

respectively `

But about:300,000—400,000 years ago, man achieved control of fire, gathered on lavafields or from lightning brush fires and carefully kept burning, and some time between then and the last Ice Age he discovered how to /ight fires himself These tremendous advances gave him a new control over his

10

environment, notably in defence against predators and protection 25 from the cold; the world human population increased considerably, and spread out over the continents, invading temperate and even colder regions for the first time Now there were many more small Cartoon Answer the questions as fully as you can groups, and more likelihood of their meeting frequently Moreover,

3 How can he tell the difference between the two clients? between groups, and this incentive to borrow and copy each -

4 Why is the waiter accepting one booking but refusing the other? other’s tools, a new development began The old automatic signal

5 What does this cartoon tell you about langiage and social status codes would not work defween groups The automatic noises and

— intelligible and intelligent between groups with different The differences between human language and animal calls and codes are of cultures In this way man was stimulated to break the link between central interest to linguists Similarly, how and when human language signal and automatic mood, and begin the logical combination of

40

developed and whether animals such as chimpanzees and porillas can develop a more elaborate system of communication are issues at present being researched, but as yet little understood The general assumption is that animals are less capable of using a language system than we are, and

so language ability is one of the factors determining man’s status in relation to animals This assumption is implicit in the following extract from C and W M S Russell's article ‘Language anid animal signals’

(Cinguistics at Large, ed N Minnis, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 197 1), which is

4 typical example of the arguments put forward on this subject

Suppose that true language did originate in or just before the last Ice Age: we have still to consider what stimulated this momentous development Now we have seen that monkey bands are regulated

by automatic codes of signals, and that these signal codes vary between bands of the same species This creates no new problems 2

of communication, for when monkey bands meet they do not normally mix, interacting orily hy a set of como; thị y ` a \ § eat sinnals, i

then ka¿eEs ee °

Practice 1A

Reading Comprehension

signals, or true language

Ị 1 ‘We have still to consider what stimulated this momentous development.’?3 What is the link between this sentence, the rest of the first paragraph, and the second paragraph?

2 The first paragraph from ‘Now we have ”} to the end, could be divided into two parts Give one word for the topic of the first part, and one word for the topic of the second

3 Explain the meaning of ‘Monkey bands are regulated by automatic codes of signals.’*4

4 What is the important difference between different monkey bands of the same species?

5 “What point is the author making with the sentence beginning

“When bands of howler monkeys ”?*!!

6 Explain what you understand by the notion of ‘durable tools".!4

7 Did the manufacture of durable tools have an effect on man’s signal systems? Support your answer with evidence from the

text

8- What is the point of the referetice to chimipanzees in the | last

ˆ- - senteiice Of the fifst paragraph?

*-9 Rewrite this last seritence’ §ơ the word ‘respectively’ is no

` -Joniger necessary ~ - *

* 10 What does ‘these tremendous advarices*234 jeler to?

11 What effect do ‘these advances’ have?

12 Which two factofs contributed to a riew development?

13 Why dịd the áutornatlẻ signal codes become inadequate?

‘14 Explaiti in your: ‘words thẻ evelopment outlined in the last two sentences Of thé extinct, |.’

‘15 This extract is part of ‘lecture: Quiote two exainples from the text which suggest’ it was ofiginally written to be spoken

Briefly explain, youir choice! :

tùHhrfiárize atid agree or disagree

» with the afgument put forward i in the text; Give your reasons

‘Cleatly language does not drily allferentiate man from animals, however

The language spoken i in each Society is a reflection of its own particular

”_ culture, The type of: language spokeri by each individual within 4 society is

4 symbdl of his personality, background and ‘status People, therefore, classify each other according to:the way they speak, as is well illustrated in the following extracts from Tbe Collector by John Fowles {Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1963) Ih this ñovél, ä young man Obsessed with a girl much higher

up in, the social Scale; kidnaps arid i iniprisons her The first extract describes the thoughts a the man, Frederick, and the second those of the

gi, Miranda

Note that ‘D and M's dias! nieans ‘bieay ind Mummy* 's class’and that Caliban is Miranda's tiame fot Fredefick.:In Shiakespeare’s The Tempest, Mirarida is the cast- away herd Hes C Caliban the island’s monster

Reading 2 She often went on about how she hated class distinction; but she never took me in, It’s thé way people speak that gives them away, not what they say You only had to sée her dainty ways to see

how she was brought up She wasn't la-di da, like many, but it was there all the same Yoii-cétild see: it Whieri she got sarcastic and 5 impatient with me becatse i’t-explain myself or I did things wrong Stop-thinking about-<class, she say Like a tich mani telling a poor mari to:stop thifiking about i money

I don’t hold it against hier, she probably said and did Some of the shocking things she, did 1 to show mie she wasn’t really refined, but 10 she was When she was angry shé could get fight up on her high horse and come it over me with: the best of them

There was always class between +t us What ifritates me most about him is his way of speaking Cliché after cliché after cliché, and all

so old-fashioned, as'if he’s spént all hig life with peoplé over fifty 15

At lunch-time today he said,-I called.in with regard to those records they’ve placed ori order I said, Why doi’ t you just say, ‘I asked about those récords you ordéted?” |

Practice 2A Reading Comprehension

na

He said, I know my English isn’t correct, but I try to make it correct } didn’t argue That sums him up He’s got to be correct, he’s got to do whatever was ‘right’ and ‘nice’ before either of us was born

20

I know it’s pathetic, | know he’s a victim of a miserable Nonconformist suburban world and a miserable social class, the horrid timid copycatting genteel! in-between class, I used to think D 25 and M’s class the worst All golf and gin and bridge and cars and the right accent and the right money and having been to the right school and hating the arts Well, that is foul But Caliban`s England is fouler

1 According to Frederick

a he knew the girl was really a snob because she didn’t fall for him

it was the pirl’s accent that showed she was upper class

his inability to express himself brought out the girl’s class

she made it plain he was her social inferior

she ganged up with her social equals against him

she would go off riding and leave him

it was an old-fashioned remark

it was grammatically incorrect

The man’s obsession with being ‘correct’ sums him up in the girl’s eyes because

it is the right thing to be

it is a nice thing to be

regards speaking the right sort of language as a virtue

prefers the lower middle class to the upper middle

prefers the upper middle class to the lower middle - - regards aping the middle class as worse than belonging to it

Mrs Grayson

Mary

If people can measure each other’s speech the way Frederick and Miranda

do, they must be measuring against some implicitly acknowledged

standard In British English this standard accent is known as R.P., or

Received Pronunciation, This coupled with the sort of English described in

grammar books is the accepted norm Its use, however, is restricted both

geographically and socially; it is most widely used among the middle

classes in the south of England Its speakers, therefore, carry both a

geographical and a social label, as do the speakers of all its variants,

although the more socially mobile someone is the more complex his accent

becomes, and so the more difficult he is to label Attitudes towards this

vary, from the parents who train their children not to speak with a local

accent so that ‘they will have a better chance in life’, to the liberal, trendy

young manager who adopts a local accent as a form of inverted snobbery

Both these stances are extreme, but, nevertheless, the relationship between

language and social status is a potentially explosive subject in British

society

The following two readings present contrasting attitudes to the problem of

accent The first is an excerpt from Jeremy Seabrook’s City Close-Up,

(Allen Lane; The Penguin Press, 1971) a portrait of the Lancashire town

of Blackburn drawn through taped interviews with local people Mrs

Grayson and Mary, recorded here, are the wife and daughter 6f a local

businessman

Reading 3

What were you saying earlier about the Lancashire accent?

The accent? Well, I don’t think that the Lancashire accent is very

attractive In fact, when I hear this played back, I shall probably

drop I think the ideal accent is absolute English, spoken without

any accent at all Affected, it’s even worse than a regional accent 5

It would be nice to have pure English, I think this would be the

ideal of everybody But certainly I would not think the worse of

anyone with a regional accent I think that is snobbery But I

think, for professional reasons, it might be wise not to have an

accent I think the Lancashire accent is no worse than 10

Birmingham, but it seems to be made the butt by comedians

and by a lot of Southern people, as being dead funny, which makes

it really far worse possibly than it is

I think they just put you down as being common, you know,

because everybody who talks like that has their tea at the table 15

with the milk bottle on the table and the sugar bag, and everybody

goes to work in cloth caps, and well, if you’re not living like that

you resent it a bit, as I do When I went down to Jim’s at

Christmas, they had some friends in, and I don’t know what the

subject was, but they were talking, and having a bet on, and one of 2°

the blokes said, ‘Well, 1 expect she'll be Labour, won’t she,

because she comes from Lancashire.’ You resent it Because you

have a Northern accent they put you down as being common, they

don’t credit you with any intelligence

Practice 3A Composition

Practice 3B Oral

Practice 4A Literary Comprehension

23

Assume that this interview was part of a journalist's investigation into people's feelings about accent, and that the Grayson’s views are typical of their class Write a short article for the local newspaper, beginning like this:

We in Lancashire are renowned for our regional pride, but how do

we feel about our regional accent?

D H Lawrence, himself of Nottinghamshire mining stock, Presents the

other side of the coin in his sardonic poem The Oxford Voice (The

Complete Poems of D H Lawrence, William Heinemann) Identify the probable speech situation of Reading 3, and then read aloud Mrs Grayson’s speech

Reading 4 When you hear it languishing and hooing and cooing and sidling through the front teeth, the oxford voice

or worse still the would-be oxford voice you don't even laugh any more, you can’t

For every blooming bird is an oxford cuckoo nowadays, you can’t sit on a bus nor in the tube

but it breathes gently and languishingly in the back of your neck

i i { 10

And oh, so seductively superior, so seductively self-effacingly

deprecatingly superior —

We wouldn’t insist on it for a moment but we are

we are you admit we are superior, —

1 Describe in your own words the sound effects mentioned in

«What does the poet think is worse than ‘the oxford voice’? What force does the line ‘For every blooming bird is an oxford cuckoo nowadays’ have?

4 Why do you think the poet mentions buses and tubes?

5 What do ‘self-cffacingly’ and ‘deprecatingly'!)!? mean, and what phrase in the last five lines re-inforces them?

6 Who is imagined as speaking the last five lines? What does the rhythm of these lines remind you of? -

7 Why does the word “oxiord” not start with a capital letter?

8 What does the Oxford accent represent for D H Lawrence?

wr

For a native speaker of British English, then, the varicty of language facial expressions The gesture we call ‘beckoning’ means a

spoken is enough to identify a lot about a person, quite regardless of the summons in Britain, a dismissal in ftaly, a deadly insult in

views expressed Accent in particular is a striking feature of local linguistic Malawi, Describe an incident where such variations, either in

variations, and particularly of dialects which offer, of course, more language or non linguistic features, lead to confusion

complex departures from the standard than mere differences of accent: they have their own grammatical variants and vocabulary too The following The relationship between linguistic skills and class distinction makes

extract from Arnold Wesker's play Roots (The Wesker Trilogy, Jonathan language « powerful social weapon which the inarticuktte can often only Cape Led., £960) is set in Norfolk, when the central character returns match in primitive ways Let us close this unit with an illustration of this

briefly to her native county The Trilogy is concerned with an : In the following extract from Tom Stoppard's play Professional Fout (Faber

examination of working class problems, and the playwright is faithful to : and Faber, 1978), McKendrick, a rather drunk lecturer in philosophy, is

some members of the England team (One of the English players, Broadbent, has that afternoon given away a penalty goal as a result of a

articulacy to put down a member of another, less articulate, class Perh

1 The conversation most probably takes place ‡ McKendrick’s behaviour could be considered a social ‘foul” far more

i damaging than the one committed by Broadbent on the football pitch

i McKendrick Here’s a question for anthropologists Name me a tribe which

d only reads comics when she visits the other two - Who are these primitives who pile all their responses into the

5 immediate sensation, unaware or uncaring of the long undulations

zg Day signature tune.) \t’s the yob-of-the-month competition, entries

a The Manchester Guardian is a boring paper t on a postcard please But the question is — is it because they're !8

4A Hhamle Ỳ Ệ Ai Kewlik Anderson 1 one of life's col brio Clap; clap He clapy tn a Wolf bredisort of way diel puts on a well bred rine Well player, vit

which distinguish one social or regional group from another But you would be quite wrong Ị -et mẹ refer you to ayy pical rugby Compare the situation in your country with any other societies team of Welsh miners AA Score 1s acknowledged with pride but with which you are familiar Briefly note common features and ; with restraint, the scarer himscif composing his features into an

Ỹ opponents” misfortune — my God, it does the heart good, doesn't 25

2 Language can convey subtle and sophisticated aspects of McKendrick takes this as an intellectual objection

emotion and human relationships, as can gestures, posture and McKendrick You think it’s the adulation, perhaps? To Crisp Is it the wn

Ỹ

adulation, Tommy, which has corrupted you?

26 Section I : 1.1 Language and Social Status 27

Do s he flaming on about? 2 Anthropologists usually study simple, unindustrialized societies

Crisp No, I want to know what he’s saying about me He's giving me : A variables B varieties C variations D variants E vari mations

Li ee - 1 Whatis the point of the ‘question for anthropologists"! which A cuddled down to B slipped up C sidled through to D cuddted

Literary Comprehension MecKendrick poses? What is anthropological about the up E sidted up to ° l

: 3 What is McKendrick getting at when he i and child-care facilities

a 0uuotseae a cricket and rugby? getting at when he is talking about : A desirous B inspiring C have-been D desiring E would-be

So 0 OS a ở 4 What can we deduce the social status of Anderson to be, and y - 5 She’ s rather bitter and sarcastic, but when you consider what ost ite casti ider wha

: 6 My boss is ever so sweet and nice when it suits her, but if you

6 Comment on the language used in the sentence beginning ‘A score is acknowledged with pride °.226

7 What points in McKendrick’s speeches do you think the footballers Broadbent and Crisp react against? What does Crisp’s own speech*! 312 show about him?

cross her she soon gets on her

A cat's whiskers B tall order C dirty dog D low ehb ;rI ¿tt

7 It’s very easy for the under-cducated and vulnerable to bé

by slick-talking salesmen

A putup B taken out C takenin D tikcn away E pat aside

ist, his brother's pop

A otherwise B but rather C except D so FE but also

10 Mercedes is so that, in such a large class, I expect you've barely had time to notice her

A self-critical, B self-absorbed C selfish D egotistical

E self-effacing

’ Further Reading

1 May Hobbs, Born to Struggle, Quartet Books Inc., 1973:

autobiography by the woman who organized exploited night cleaners in London offices into unions, Written in ‘spoken’

colloquial style, with an appendix partly in dialogue form,

2 Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, Penguin Books, 1969:

a ‘classic’ which explores language and class

3 John Osborne, Look Back in Anger, Faber and Faber Ltd.,

1978: the play which started the revolution in twentieth-

century drama, with its central character a representative of

Ệ

Ệ

Ệ

play, with its heroine Eliza Doolittle, is probably the best- id A parrot B doginthemanger C mocking bird D copy-cat

5 Angus Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, Penguin Books, 1961: a 12 is she in London than she rings up her old friend Yvonne

i 13 Since her promotion her speech has become very A assoon B while C only © nosooner E rarely

A low B affected C colourful D stressed FE accented

14 Some people regard double-barreled names, such as

a novel with a huge cast from all social classes, by a novelist with an ear for dialogue

Language Review

8 y sentences the one which most appropriately completes that 15 Although she was dying to rip open the present; she exercised

a 1 Negotiations ended with the of further disruption A moderation B control € restraint 1 authority E measure

A demand B snarl C threat D oath E note

Even supposing language did originate in the kee © Age, we oie account for this develonmem _, „ , ‘ Only by a set of threat signals | bands, „

When two bands of howler monkeys set up a howl, the be

Chimpanzces shape sưaws termites out of theïr nests

Tntelfigence and íriendliness are the qualities : đolphins are

Tt’s not but how you say it that matters in England

I certainly the worse of someone with a regional accent

Because you have a Northern accent they as being common,

lí you think the Northern accent is hard to understand, you'll find the Scottish accent

I would never insist a tie if he didn't want to

You might think that, but quite wrong, The rugby player who scores has an expressionless face he suspected of exulting in his opponents’ misfortune

{ want to know saying about me

Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence before it

Pop stars are corrupted: by the adulation of their fans

hs the way their {ns , <A,

No real sportsman wants to be suspected of crowing over his opponents’ misfortune

Exulting nụ

I think the ideal accent is to have no accent at all

The best way Being affected is even worse than having a regional accent

I resented it when they assumed T was stupid on account of

my Lancashire accent,

Their assumption ”

There was probably little contact between these small groups

The discovery of how to light fires gave man a new control over his environment

Man was alc, a This system of communication -_ aoe MÌNH groups,

There are no problems of communication between members of the same social class

{fone thinks solely in terms of total numbers of speakers, it must

be conceded that some authorities place Chinese, the various Indic languages, and Russian ahead of English; others only Chinese

Both Chinese and Indic, however, are terms covering a large number of mutually unintelligible dialects, and though the numbers of speakers of these languages may seem impressive, communication within the languages is much more restricted than

in English Total numbers, moreover, constitute but one phase of

the matter The factor of geographical distribution is equally, possibly even more, significant English is spoken as a first or native language on at least four continents of the world; Russian

on two, Chinese and the Indic languages on one English is without question the closest approach to a work! language today

It gocs without saying that no two persons ever have an identical command of their common language Certainly they have not

i precisely the same vocabulary There are at least minor differences

5 in pronunciation; indeed the same individual will not pronounce

Pith ra nse he qui fal yon Where is this celebration of the Chi í § Hs vo an nonin ay al HN me a anton’ ự

A we term style All of this is implicit in the well-known phrase,

Màu ‘when living hese men are celebrating the Chinese New a “Style is the man.’ No two men are identical, no two styles are the

4 How important the right to 3 sme he nid calendar? same If this be true of but two persons, the potential af difference

Every language evolves to meet the needs of its speakers If its speakers i “ ing Comprehension more people speak Chinese dialects than English

b more people speak English as an auxiliary language than as a are all restricted to one area and all live the same type of existence, ‘

necessary If, on the other hand, it is widely spoken and is used by groups ¢ about one seventh of the world’s population speaks Russian

of people in more complex societies, then it evolves; or in other words the : d more people speak English in the UK than in Ireland

speakers extend it, to meet all ements as many varieties of the same

English language from this point of view in the folowing exact bern ° Ẻ 2 The extract implies that

American English (Oxford University Press, 1958) 5 r aa Jittle less than half the native English speakers in the world

live in the United States

b_ The 55 million inhabitants of the British {ses speak tike the

30 million inhabitants of the ex-British dominions and

language? Exact information on this point is not available, but an ề € about one tenth of the total English-speaking world population estimate of 230 million cannot be very wide of the mark Of these, " lives in ex-British dominions and colonies -

145 million live in the United States, a little less than 55 miltion ị d to suppose 230 million people speak English as a native

in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and something like 30 million * : language woukl certainly be an under-estimate

difficult to arrive at a figure representing those who speak English asa second or auxiliary language A reasonably conservative conclusion would thus Place the total number of speakers of Chinese and Indic languages are mutually unintelligible

English between 300 million and 325 million, about one-seventh 0 : b Chinese ïs too complex to be a world language

of the world’s population,

C1 cp co ie a Ss a sO sl ee ee —

sidewalk which says ‘Jackpot’, indicating that somewhere within a „

Russian is only spoken on two continents

customer has struck the full count

there are more native speakers of English than of any other

language

The policeman, who wears gold-framed eycghisses, waves us on,

According to the author the fact that the same individual will carrying a three-months-old baby on her arm and a suitcase not pronounce his vowels and consonants identically every

Driver's voice: ‘Straight on one block and then two leít.`

The woman: ‘Thank you kindly It’s awfully confusin’ here.”

Driver’s voice: ‘It sure is, ma'am.’

She steps back to the sidewalk There is a rural pathos in her eyes

an uprooted quality in the intense mistrust with which she walks , She is thin, and her polka-dot dress is too large She i clutching the baby and the suitcase as though she were continuously counting them

everyone has their own literary style

mutual intelligibility is a myth

people’s vocabularies vary

no two people speak the same language in exactly the same

way

5 According to the author, style is

4 _ significant when comparing only two people

b a question of grammatical and syntactic correctness

c the particular way an individual uses language Practice 2A 1 What variety of English is this and so where is ‘Reno’? List

2 Give the British English equivalents for the words and phrases you have listed

3 What contrasts are made in lines 4-21 and to what effect?

4 What does ‘There is a rural pathos in her eyes”2? evoke about the woman and the society she comes from?

5 What is the effect of the present tenses used throughout this

6 Comment on the following aspects of life in Reno: town planning, architecture, entertainment, advertising, the importance of money

Thus the many varieties of English could be divided into three main

categories: national, group and individual Let us consider national

varieties first The following extract (rom The Misfits by Arthur Miller

(Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd., 1961) is particularly rich in words

specific to one of these varieties The Misfits is a story conceived as a film

and, as the author puts it, ‘every word is there for the purpose of telling

the camera what to see.’ As you read, decide which society and type of

many varieties of that country's main language In Britain, for example,

ic and immigrant

There is a permanent steel arch across Main Street bearing a neon

sign which reads WELCOME TO RENO THE BIGGEST LITTLE

CITY IN THE WORLD : there are minority groups speaking Welsh, G:

languages such as Hindi, and, as illustrated in the previous unit, everyone

has a more or less regional accent of some type, while a few people speak

It is a quict little town We can see through our windshield almost

! € bự Main street, a doren blocks away Everything is 3 t dialect How jealously minority groups guard their right to communicate sharp to the eye at this altitude, the sky is immaculate, and the Ỹ in a second language or dialect is a measure of their desire for social and morning jazz, coming from the dashboard is perky It is a clean Ệ political independence, and so a study of the linguistic make-up of any

town The great gambling palaces are modernistic, battleship grey, nation can tell us a great deal about the pol pirations of its minority and all their neon signs are lit in the sunshine The traffic light : groups This link between language and politics is examined further in the changes and our vehicle moves cautiously ahead But a block on 4g £ following extract from Language Conflicts and Political Community by

we are halted by a policeman who steps off the sidewalk, stops a R F Inglehart and M Woodward (1967)

sound pretentious and ace difficult to read

feature ‘Horse Betting’, athers ‘Casino’, and others ‘Wedding :

Rings’ In this momentary halt a loud buzzing draws our attention,

A gambling emporium on the left, glistening inside, is broadcasting

the buzzing noise into the street and flashing a sign over the

To the extent that the regime is ‘iegitimate’, we would further specify that the people have internalized a common set of rules, 3 Given the predominantly achievement-oriented norms which seem

to be a necessary concomitant of industrial society, these rules must apply equally to the entire population — or precisely those criteria (e.g: language) which are a basis for blocking individual social mobility, can become the basis for cleavage which threatens 1°

the disintegration of the political community

Among post-tribal multilingual populations where the masses are illiterate, generally unaware of national events, and have low expectations of social and economic mobility, the problem is largely irrelevant — even if such populations have a linguistically-distinct 15 élite group In contrast, when the general population of a society is going through the early stages of social mobilization, language group conflicts seem particularly likely to occur; they may develop animosities which take on a life of their own and persist beyond the situation which gave rise to them The degree to which this 20 happens may be significantly affected by the type of policy which the government adopts during the transitional period

The likelihood that linguistic division will lead to political conflict

is particularly great when the language cleavages are linked with the presence of a dominant group which blocks the social mobility 22

of members of a subordinate group, partly, at least, on the basis of language factors Where a dominant group holds the positions of power at the head of the major bureaucracies in a modern society, and gives preference in recruitment to those who speak the dominant language, any submerged group has the options of 30 assimilation, non-mobility or group-resistance If an individual is overwhelmed numerically or psychologically by the dominant language, if his group is proportionately too small to maintain a self-contained community within the society, assimilation usually occurs In contrast, if one is part of a numerous or geographically- 33 concentrated minority group, assimilation is more difficult and is more likely to seem unreasonable If the group is numerous and mobilized, political resistance is likely

1 A political community is defined as a group of people who have three things in common: what are they?

2 What is important about the rules?**

3 If this important element is missing, what might happen?

4 Give another word or paraphrase for

as

What problem is irrclevant to the first type?

What is likely to happen to the second?

What has a significant effect on the extent of the problem?

Give another word or paraphrase for

a social mobilization.'”

b language group conflicts

10 The authors use the term ‘language cleavages’.?? Which other phrase has a similar meaning in the first sentence of the third paragraph?

11 The authors use the term ‘dominant group’ Which other hierarchical terms do they use??? *7

12 When will language create political conflict?

13 What course is open to weaker groups?

14 What is ‘assimilation’** and when does it occur?

15 When does group resistance occur?

16

To what extent do you think political considerations affect language, and vice versa? Prepare yourself to discuss language controversies which exist in your own countries, or in communities with which you are familiar

George Orwell, the British writer, was very interested in both politics and language, and in his novel Nixeteen Kighty-Four (Martin Secker and

Warburg Ltd., 1949) one of the central themes is the manipulation of language by politicians in an attempt to shape the thinking of the people,

as can be seen in the following extract

Reading 4

‘How is the dictionary getting on?" said Winston, raising his voice

to overcome the noise

‘Slowly,’ said Syme ‘Im on the adjectives It’s fascinating.’ He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting

“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said ‘We're

getting the language into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else When we've finished with

it, people like you will have to learn it all over again You think, 7 dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words But not a bit

of it! We're destroying words ~ scores of them, hundreds of them, every day We're cutting the language down to the bone

The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050,"

10

5

36 Section 1

He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy 20

‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds

of nouns that can be got rid of as well It isn’t only the synonyms;

there are also the antonyms After all, what justification is there , for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A 5 word contains its opposite in itself Take ‘good’, for instance If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like

‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good’, what sense is there in having a whole 3°

string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning; or

‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still Of course

we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else, In the end the whole notion of goodness 3°

and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality, only one word, Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B’s ideal originally, of course,’ he added as an afterthought

A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm

“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,’ he said

almost sadly ‘Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally They're good enough, but they’re translations 45

In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller

Winston did know that, of course He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak Syme bit off another fragment

of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on: `

‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcriine literally 53

impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it

Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and ail its subsiduary meanings rubbed out and forgotten Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point But the process will still be 2 continuing long after you and I are dead, Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller

Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-

sate TEE:

By 2050 — earlier, probably ~ all real knowledge of Oldspeak

" (6) have disappeared The whole literature of the past will have (7) destroyed Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron ~ they "It exist (8) in Newspeak versions, not merely changed (9) something different, but (10) changed into something contradictory of what they (L1) to be Even the literature of the Party will change (12) the slogans will change, How (13) you have a slogan’ (14), ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept

of freedom has been (15)? The whole: .(16) of thought will

be different In fact there will Ae (17) thought, (18) we understand it now, Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing

to think Orthodoxy is unconsciousness

In Nineteen Fighty-Four, Orwell's own styte is realistic, It is only in

Newspeak that he voices his fears about the possible uses to which language could be put Other writers attempt to innovate in their own style, using conventional language to develop new literary genres or even using literature to develop a new variety of English A good example of

the former is the following extract from To the Lighthouse by Virginia

Woolf (The Hogarth Press, 1943), in which she puts conventional language to a new use — to express the normally silent workings of the

mind — in one of the carliest ‘stream of consciousness’ novels

Reading 5 Where are the events of this extract set?

What impressions do you gain of the three people introduced? Whose impressions are they?

"Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow.’ said Mrs Ramsay ‘But

you'll have to be up with the lark,” she added

To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had locked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night's darkness and a day's sail, within touch, Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects,

`

with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since

to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of !9 sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator as his mother spoke with heavenly bliss It was fringed with joy The 5

wheelbarrow, the lawn-méwer, the sound of poplar trees, leaves

whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses Tustling — all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his 2°

high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide his scissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affairs 25

“But’, said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, ‘it won't be fine.’

Flad there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would

have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it Such were the extremes of

emotion that Mr Ramsay excited in his children’s breasts by his

mere presence; standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the

blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was (James 3 thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of judgement What he said was true It was always true He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altercd a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all his own children, who, sprung from his loins, an should be aware from childhood that life is difficult; facts

uncomprising; and the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail barks founder in darkness (here Mr Ramsay would straighten his back and narrow his little blte eyes upon the horizon), one that needs, above all, 4 courage, truth, and the power to endure

30

1 What can we gather might happen ‘tomorrow’?

2 What impression do we have of the physical appearance of James and his father? Give a word or short phrase which in your opinion best illustrates their temperaments

3 What does the author mean by the following?

a that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that.?#

b imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench.?*

© some secret conceit at his own accuracy of judgement **7

Practice 5D Composition

39

a James Ramsay endow ‘the picture of the refrigerator heavenly bliss’?!

b Mrs Ramsay visualize her son’s future career?

c Mr Ramsay grin sarcastically?

5 Look at lines 6-15 Si

a What is the effect of the two subordinate clauses beginning

‘since’ on the main clause of the sentence? oo,

b What effect does the short sentence ‘It was fringed with joy have on the long preceding sentence?

with

6 Look at lines 15-18 from ‘The wheelbarrow’ to ‘rustling’

Why does the author fist these objects, and how do they relate

to James’s ‘secret language’?

7 Look at line 26 Consider the preceding narrative paragraph and describe how Virginia Woolf makes Mr Ramsay’s pronouncement? seem so crushing

8 What is the major change of mood in the extract? What methods does the author use to achieve this effect?

9 What is the grammatical context of ‘facts uncompromising’ ?*! 2

10 What does ‘one’? relate to grammatically?

Adapt the extract from To the Lighthouse for a film script Try to

be as faithful as you can to the feeling of the original Indicate

1 the location of the scene, giving details of the set

2 the action

Films based on a book are common in the contemporary cinema

Discuss any films and their related books that you have seen and/or read What are the problems of filming a famous book? Do you think there are any outstanding advantages and/or

b why and how you would like to film a favourite book

2 Take a commonplace event in which casual remarks are passed, such as a family breakfast Invent two utterances from the conversation (like Mr and Mrs Ramsay's in Reading 5) and write two paragraphs to link the remarks and to show what is really going on in the speaker's (and/or listener's) minds,

So Virginia Woolf puts conventional language to a new use The

Amcrican, Gore Vidal, goes further and defies conventions to create a new variety of written English, as illustrated in the following extract from

Myra Breckinridge (Granada Publishing I.td,, 1970) The speaker is Buck Loner, aging ex-film star and the Principal of an Academy of !rama and

Madelling just outside Hollywood Myra Breckinridpe is a teacher there:

she considers she has legal rights to the ownership of the Academy

because she claims she is Buck Loner’s late nephew's widow

Reading 6

1 Myra Breckinridge is discouraging to her students and consequently unpopular,

b encouraging to her students but unpopular

c discouraging to her students but popular

d- encouraging to her students and popular,

2 According to Buck Loner, his Academy's role is to

a make students realistic about their talent

b point out students’ weak points

c develop students” star quality,

d help students to build up their capital

3 [fa man has terminal cancer

a Buck thinks there is no reason to upset him by talking about

it

Myra thinks he should be told in private

c Myra thinks he should be allowed to die as soon as possible

d- Buck thinks he shouldn't be told until after his operation

4 Buck

a sacked Myra, threatened to sack Myra

c was threatened with the sack by Myra

d— told Myra not to speak to him

5 When Buck insulted Myra, she

a kissed him

b slapped him,

¢ pulled him down

d- punched him,

Qn the opposite page is the text of part of Reading 6

1 Why do you think there is no punctuation?

2 Punctuate the extract

Buck Loner Reports — Recording Disc No 721 — 18 February Dont know when T have ever come across @ woman as awful as Myra Breckinridge she is wreaking total havoc with the program telling the students they have no talent and no chance of stardom which is downright mean not to mention bad for business so | had *

a talk with her in the back of the auditorium where she was holding her Empathy class which for reasons not clear to me is double the size of any of the other classes the kids are fascinated by her hecause of what she says and she is a sharptongued bitch no doubt of that theres seldom a class of hers where somebody dont nin out crying to beat the hand but they come back for more which is downright unhealthy as 1 told her in ne uncertain terms you are undermining all of our work here at the Academy which is

to build np capital ¢ confidence exclamation point paragraph well she just gave me that high and mighty stare of hers and said you think lying to people is good for them and think telling somebody whos got cancer that he is all right and doesnt need an operation is the right thing to do of course not T said but if he has had the operation and is a terminal case | think you must keep him as happy as possible and in a good frame of mind under the circumstances well she said in a voice so loud that the students on the stage who were pretending to be billboards coukd hear her at least you admit that these cretins are terminal cases and that its curtains for the lot of them no it is not I said wanting to crack her one against the side of her head just to take that smirk off her face

no they are carefully selected as possible candidates for future stardom every last one of them well then she interrupts with a single swear word delivered in a hiss chat [ swear sent shivers down my spine like some mean okd rattler out there in the sagebrush just waiting to sink his fangs into your leg well I was not about to be put down in my own Academy ant so I said getting real tough you dont talk to me that way and get away with

it you consider yourself warned of else TH have you out of here so fast you won't know what hit you

‘Thus English, as all languages, is constantly evolving, The many varieties

that exist are constantly heing modified, as some items became archaic,

some more frequent, and some are introduced for the first time New varieties crop up, as new groups need to innovate in order to communicate

effectively, and ather established varieties hecome less widely used, In the light of this evolution and of the links berween language nd social class, it

is hardly surprising that the British are almost as conscious of haw something is said or written as they are of the message itself

2 George Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’ in Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Penguin Books, 1962: a general discussion of English in decline, with a particular focus on political jargon

3 Amos Tutuola, The Palmwine Drinkard, Faber and Faber

Ltd., 1962: a novel in West African English

4 J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Penguin Books, 1958:

the ‘classic’ novel of North American adolescence , ‘

5 Michael Swan, Spectrum, Cambridge University Press, 1978:

a collection of writings from different sources ,

Language Review Choose from the five words ot phrases given after the following sentences the one which most appropriately completes that sentence,

1 No-one knows precisely how much he earns a month, but

£2,500 can’t be of the mark,

A wide B far C broad D distant E long

2 The Minister would not accept that his handling of the situation had been incompetent, but he did that his Department had been ‘remiss’

A assent B permit C accede D concede E concur

3 Our great-grandparents would find the speed with which

we can travel round the world

A rash B suspicious C staggering D incredulous

5 Bad living conditions social and welfare problems

A give rise to B giveinto C take the rise out of D give up

E rise through

6 He thumbed through the rose to see if there was anything

he fancied for his south-facing wall

A brochure B catalogue C leaflet D booklet E pamphlet

7 Tobe , I think you made the wrong decision

A artless B earnest C naive D disingenuous E candid

8 I could tell someone had tried to steal my car because the lock had been

A tampereit with B picked out C meddied 1D bungled

A foundered B smashed C sank D dashed & plunged

LO His constant over-spending is wreaking with our finances

A mischief B ruin C havoc ID vengeance F chaos

11 We all know her father’s a judge, but that's no excuse for her being so with the people in the village

A upand coming B down and out C high and mighty

J) high and dry E out and out

12 ‘There's no need for you tơ like that, Toby, just because your sister’s been told off for once."

‘A smoulder B smug C smirk D shirk E spark ‘

13 If T come up with a bright suggestion my teacher invariably

A sets me down 13 sends me down C depresses me

D lowers me E puts me down

14 After her husband`s death she sold the house and contents,

lock, stock and

A trigger B kitchen sink C stop-cock D barrel E key

15 He's thoroughly crooked — if he doesn’t watch his he'll

be in trouble

A bank-balance B footing C way D batance FE step

For cach of the sentences below, write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, but using the words given in capital letters: these words must not be altered in any way

1 Some people guess fifty million, others anything up toa hundred and twenty-five million

Language group conflicts may persist beyond the situation]

which gave rise to them

ORIGINATED

Ifa group id so small that it cannot, maintain a self-contained

unit within the society, it may be assimilated

TOO

It is highly likely; that language conflict will lead to political conflict if one linguistic group blocks the social mobility of another

A very small linguistic group is usually assimilated, in contrast

tơ a geographically-concentrated group, which may resist assimilation

WHILE

each of the blanks with a suitable word or phrase

He had brightened up immediately at Newspeak

Many words in a language die out when the objects which they describe

Has it ever half the people in the world have never seen snow?

If you’ ve finished clearing out the box-room there’s a lot of rubbish in the shed of as well

The process of finding alternatives to fossil fuel Jong after you and J are dead

We can go tomorrow, but you up early

Had there been an axe handy, James it

James doesn’t know Mr Ramsay said was true

Mc Ramsay never modified the truth for anyone, all his own children

1 don’t know across anyone as awful as Myra

Her homework is full of mistakes, not almost illegible

I can’t stand him, but his concerts are always packed, for reasons me

There's seldom a class of hers where somebody crying

There is a sinister quality in her voice which my spine

Section 2 Family Life

Photograph

Oral

Answer the questions as fully as you can

1 What aspects of this photograph strike you as unusual?

2 What kind of landscape is this wedding taking place in?

3 How do the bride and groom seem to feel about their wedding?

4 How important is marriage as a social institution?

5 What should the role of married women be in society?

The controversy surrounding the relationships between and roles of men

and women is, perhaps, one of the features of the second half of the

twentieth century in Western societies In the United States of America for example, both sexes are, more or less aggressively, demanding freedom from the constraints of traditional attitudes towards the roles of the sexes

and marriage The impact of this can be seen in the rising divorce rate

falling birth cate and the increasing number of couples living together , without a marriage licence The popular.ar; ts against marriage.are exemplified in the following extract from Invitation to Sociology by

American, Peter Berger

prosore i GuaeeSei sĩ

Our lives are not only dominated by the inanities of our contemporaries but also by those of men who have been dead for generations This is important to stress because it shows us that even in the areas where society apparently allows us some choice the powerful hand of the past narrows down this choice even 5 further Let us take for example, a scene in which a pair of lovers are sitting in the moonlight Let us further imagine that this moonlight session turns out to be the decisive one, in which a proposal of marriage is made and accepted They who are dead have long ago written the script for almost every move that is 10 made The notion that sexual attraction can be translated into

Maing the imagination ion of

The idea that aman should fixate his ist : ermanently and exclusively on one single wormtinn~ | Bo, dứ - weet re

“with whom he i is to share a hed, bathroom and the boredom of a “pe: 4 bà obaset thousand;| ry eyed) breakfasts, was produced by misanthropic ~~

kXe@Øc0iag oa ‘theologians some time before that And the a assumption that the

‘ of ay, _ initiative in the establishment of this wondrous arrangement * fhenebo a Ss 248" should be in the hands of the male, with the female graciously beeause q PEDAL YD succumbing to the impetuous or onslaught of his wooing, gocs back 6c Ot gerne us right to prehistoric times when savage warriors first descended on

some peaceful matriarchal hamlet and drageed away; its screaming

love Hing or jor Outs

up her name and he his solvency, but this love must be manufactured at sty or the marriage will seem insincere to all concerned

“place i in this ceremonial sequence Neither of them has invented this game or any part of it They have only decided that it is with each other, rather than with other possible partners, that they will play it Family, friends, clergy, salesmen of jewelry and of life insurance, florists and interior decorators ensure that the remainder 45 ¡

of the game will also be played by the established rules Nor, indeed, do all these guardians of tradition have to exert much pressure on the principal players, since the expectations of their social world have long ago been built into their own projections of the future ~ they want precisely that which society expects of them,

su

Practice 1A 1 Berger mentions two important influences which affect the Reading Comprehension way we behave What are they?

2 What is the point of Berger’s example, ‘a scene

a proposal of marriage is made and accepted.’ ?*”

3 In the first paragraph the author mentions a ‘notion’, an

‘idea’, and an ‘assumption’ Which three groups, respectively, does he claim are responsible for them?

4 In your own words, explain the notion, the idea and the assumption

in which

Summary

Practice 1B Oral

Focus questions

48 Section 2

5 ‘a monogamous marriage’ is mentioned in line 29, Which phrase in the previous paragraph defined this?

6 What is the vital ingredient in marriage?

7 Berger's attitude to marriage is ironical, Quote two examples from the first two paragraphs which support this statement, and explain the reasons for your choice

8 Paragraph three explains the stages in American courtship

Why does Berger use the phrases ‘social ritual’? and

11 ‘Neither of them has invented this game or any part of it.’*??

Quote a sentence from the first two paragraphs which expresses the same idea,

12 The author suggests that ‘our couple’ have a free hand over one move in the game What is it?

13 Who are ‘these guardians of tradition’”, and why don’t they need to pressurize the couple?

of Western marriage, as explained in the first paragraph

Prepare yourself to discuss the typical stages of courtship and marriage in your society Comment in particular on any aspects which vary from the American model outlined by Berger

One of the more curious rituals in the marriage game is engagement

There can be few other activities in life where people find it necessary to Ệ

make public announcements of their private intentions a year or more in

advance In the not-so-distant past, when a man could be sued for *breach

af promise’, formal betrothal carried financial connotations In an age

when many cauples live together before marriage, it is more often a social convenience to quicten the scruples of relatives, Its survival docs, however, owe a great deal, too, to the sentimental literature to which teenage girls are still exposed, in the form of magazines and novelettes Boys, as the following third-leader from The Guardian suggests, are less impressed by

Reading 2 What is the tone of this article?

Who takes the initiative in this betrothal?

the curious fact that 560,000

women in this country believe

sh way

themselves to be engaged, while 5

only 470,000 men are under a similar impression This, says the

report, could be due to wishful

2.4 Men and Women thinking on the part of the girls

Well, yes it could It could also be

due to a number of ather things

The computer could have developed a stutter or got rather

drunk that day Or it could be that

90,000 of our womenfolk are so

fearfully un-British as to become

betrothed to a Jot of foreigners

Furthermore, ve should not ignore the existence of amiable Billy Liar

characters who find themselves

proposing marriage to any girl they

happen to meet on the bus Girls

do tend to react rather seriously to

proposals of marriage, even the

most improbable ones They react

rather seriously to other, allied praposals too, although the report offers no comment on that subject

What it does say, though, is that if

a man and a woman have been going steady for a lengthy period, she becomes inclined tơ nudge him,

saying: ‘Well, what are we going to

49

do about it?’ The resulting evasive,

ambiguous reply might easily

account for many of the deluded

90,000

tụ

Then too, some apparent engagements may be the result

cither of feminine wiles (‘No, “

darling, it wouldn't be right Not until we're married or at least engaged’) or ruthless male

expediency (‘Of course I"ll marry you, | swear I will’), The ploys are

familiar and time-dishonoured and the result in both cases is mutch the same: two girls blissfully thinking themselves engaged and two young men thinking ‘She'll be lucky’ and * blessing the happy fact that a

promise to marry is no fonger

binding in law Of course, it could

be that the whole report is just a lot of nonsense, Statistics are notorious liars On the ather hand

though, so are men

1 The report has revealed the fact that

a more men than women think they are engaged

b 90,000 women are engaged to two men

¢ more women than men think they are engaged

d 90,000 women are engaged to foreigners

2 The discrepancy in the numbers may be the result of

a some men's inability to talk clearly

b a fault in the machine compiling the statistics

¢ some men proposing when drunk

d_ carclessness on the part of the statistician

3 ‘They react rather seriously to other,

means:

2257

lied proposals too

a they take seriously proposals of marriage from foreigners

b they treat sexual advances seriously

cc they are totally opposed to sexual advances

d_ they only react to proposals of marriage from relatives

According to the report, when a couple have been going

around together for some time, the woman

usually relies on the man when she is in doubt

may hint that she is pregnant

may hint that they should get married

gets into the habit of digging the man in the ribs

think the girls are fortunate to get sitch good husbands

don’t intend to marry the girls

think the girls are fortunate to be engaged

The previous article refers to the male's initiative in ‘popping the

question’ But in leap year (when February has 29 days) the roles are

traditionally reversed Listen to this anonymous Victorian poem on the

subject (Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 25th February 1888)

Reading 3 Answer érze or false to the following statements about the poem

Men ought not to make advances to servants

2 It is a custom for girls to prepare cold drinks before proposing

3 ‘Worn out shoes and shower of rice’ refers to traditional aspects of a wedding,

4 Priscilla would like to marry

5 Priscilla is too meticulous to want to marry

G The poet is a woman

7 When Priscilla approaches, the poet passes out

8 The poem shows that it is a long time since the leap year custom was taken seriously

Just as some women and girls are influenced by literature and films to

accept the rituals of engagement and marriage, so many more are pressurized by the media to dress and act as sex objects, Reading 3

suggests that the woman should attract the man indirectly, rather than blatantly going out and getting him This aim is also implicit in the following extract What kind of publication do you think it came from?

Reading 4

Scoop!

One day it did An ordinary kind

of day, it seemed, She was sitting at her desk, correcting some proofs, It '®

Felicity Brown was a junior reporter on a local newspaper It

was mostly routine Flower shows

+.» Bazaars Protest Meetings, was raining, She was bored, Then Har Beth ny aeaiied Oue tủy dt the cditer appeared, Nhi dt Ìng world happen, Her big chance through the office, ‘Get a reporter

And she'd be ready for it down to the Metropole fast Robert

Practice 4A Literary Comprehension

‘ Practice 4B

4 Composition :

said, “to meet a pretty young

reporter for a change.’ She took

cate of her skin with Anne French

deep cleansing milk It kept it

super-clean, super-clear So she

always looked wonderful And Robert Newford wasn’t the only one who noticed

Newford is staying there.” The news editor looked at her He grinned ‘It’s your day,’ he said to her, ‘It'll have to be Felicity,” he said to the editor “There's no-one else here.’ The room spun briefly

Her heart did funny things It can’t

be true, she thought, I must be

dreaming But it was and she

wasn't The editor looked anxious

‘Can you cope?” he said Felicity’s

nerve steadied ‘I can cope’ she

an

33

1 Not all the sentences in the passage are grarnmatically complete What is the effect of ‘Flower shows Bazaars Protest Meetings’, * ‘Her big chance’,* and ‘Shouting through the office”?12 !3

2 Many of the sentences are what is called ‘simple’, e.g ‘She was bored’,!! and ‘The room spun briefly’.?” What is their effect?

Comment on the use of the word ‘it’ in lines 2, 5, 17 and 23

What effect is created by the following?

a ‘An ordinary kind of day, it seemed’*”

b ‘Her heart did funny things’?!

c ‘But it was and she wasn't’??}4

5 Why does the writer say ‘He even talked slowly; she got every word down’? 3! `

6 What is the point of lines 33-8 and how do they relate to the rest of the passage?

7 How does the title relate to the story?

Write a piece similar in intent to Reading 4 for the picture below

If you fait indirectly to attract your mate, there are other alternatives to

fall back on, as shown by the advertisements on the next page

Practice SA Study Skills

Practice 5B Oral: Group Discussion

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Attractive divorced lady, 29, child

614, secks child-loving gentleman,

perhaps Italian, view friendship,

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2 Knights Road, Canterbury

35

Widower, 49, flat owner, Rochester 4°

area, seeks female housekeeper!

companion, no objection to lady pursuing her occupation Box No

1875, Canterbury Journal,

2 Knights Road, Canterbury

Responsible and reliable young,

woman required to assist professional father on occasional weekends Interesting and varied,

Box No 1009, Canterbury

Journal, 2 Knights Road, Canterbury

Lovely, lively long-haired lady, 22, seeks super scintillating

sympathetic sincere young man

Photo appreciated Box No 1268, Canterbury Journal, 2 Knights

‘The advertisers in the personal column are looking for sympathetic,

sincere partners Their assumptions about personal relationships are cosily

optimistic Jill Tweedie, a well-known feminist and journalist, takes a

blacker view, asserting that the male/female relationship has reached an explosive stage in its evolution The following article appeared in The

A little rough stuff Twas brought up in the betief that

inside every male was a scething volcano of sex, a churning stream

of lava kept under control only by

iron discipline on the man’s part

and extreme caution on mine No-

one actually said so, but all their

attitudes screamed it Breasts, they

hinted, were not for the feeding of infants, but dynamite directed against the sorely-tried male and to

show them in any quantity was to

risk driving the decent man mad

te point (and the certain point in

Victorian times was the ankle),

stopped being convenient walking

aids and hecame twin red rags to

Uncovered beyond a certain

the acighbourhood bulls, The implication was that men could not help themselves, that sexually they were at all times

nearly out of control and so it was

my duty, as a woman, to cover

myself and lower my eyes if t wanted to stay out of trouble,

though exactly what trouble they

never bothered to explain The boys I grew up with absorbed this social propaganda eagerly, and as a result, were often brainwashed into

total sexual irresponsibility

Understandably they matured with

few restraints, leaping on women in cars, thrusting themselves from all manner of dark places and, when the protest came, switching over to:

‘What can 1 do? It's bigger than

both of us, you are too beautiful, 1

can't help myself, you drive me wild,” The wretched girl, half

flattered, half frightened, accepts the man’s morality, knowing that

society will take his side, not hers

After all, isn’t she wearing false eyelashes, swooping neckline,

soaring skirts? If unbridled passions

53

are aroused, isn’t it her fault? Isn't

she, in fact, asking for it?

The next step back there in the dark corner — pant pant, grope grape — is rationalization: men’s apparently inalicnable right to believe that women who push them back and say no arc, fundamentally, pulling them forward and saying

yes Women, we are frequently"

told, do not know their own minds

until they are coerced,

And this belief, allied to the myth

of uncontroflable male sexuality

and the convention that a woman's body is not there for herself but for men, leads straight along the primrose path to rape

Unsurprisingly, given these

feclings, the incidence of rape goes

up in this country every year In

Washington, capital of rape, (one

woman every fifteen minutes)

official advice to females is to

submit, Unfortunately violence in many cases is the sine qua non of the act; many women are beaten

up, mutilated and killed affer being

raped, And, in direct contradiction

to the paternal advice not to

struggle, is the widely held opinion that a woman really determined to resist rape will succeed, ‘Rape’,

says one of Britain’s best-known patholo, is impossible without consent, The consent may be through fear, or fatalistic after a

struggle, but the fact is that che

normal man cannot rape a normal

I regret to say, is one of the most

scarlet of red herrings, another careful nail in the coffin ‘it’s all the woman's fault’

34 Section 2 quite simply definable as any

95 coercion, particularly the use, of

threatened use of physical strength, that makes a woman submit to

intercourse against her will That

woman may be a vestal virgin or

100 Satome of the Seven Veils — raped

she is if she didn’t want it But of course, it is deeply ingrained in us that only virgins can be raped; in the words of the old saying, a slice

105 from a cut cake is never missed

And this adage, whether officially

or not, lies at the root of the workings of our rape laws If you can prove a woman promiscuous,

110 give evidence that she has intercourse with the men she chooses, she has stepped outside

the pale and is fair game for any

man,

u5 In fact, the way British law and British prejudice stands at the moment, a woman's only redress in the law courts is her rape by a

perfect stranger In other words,

120 rape between acquaintances cannot happen, just as rape in marriage

has no legat existence

Practice GA

Reading Comprehension

oS

We know of course, that it docs, A 13 Which sentence in the Seventh paragraph explains the meaning

grandmothers were rapect on their 125 14 What is the legal position on rape in British law?

wedding nights and from then on 15 Why does the author believe that British law is wrong?

through endless nights of marital struggle There must be Summary 16 Ina paragraph of between 80-100 words outline the attitudes thousands of households across the and behaviour which, in Jill Tweedie’s opinion, underlie the

country where rape will be 130 public attitude to rape

camouflaged ïn the sacraments of The following reading is an extract from a letter written to The Guardian

martiage Men drunk; men in response to Jill Tweedie’s article Many statements in the letter support obstinate; men indignant will have or elaborate points made in the article This is particularly true of the fifth

intercourse with reluctant wives 135 paragraph, which constitutes Practice 7A

have such over-riding needs, because it is their right, because

140

A girl (how many girls?) was raped last month by more than eighty soldiers and went out of her mind, How many men can truly say that

they see no connection, however

small, between this extreme event 142 and their own occasional

behaviour?

1 The statements ‘men were at all times nearly out of control? 2°3 and ‘it was my duty, as a woman, to cover myself and lower my eyes’2*? epitomize the roles assigned to male and female respectively in this article Find another quotation from the first paragraph to illustrate each of these roles

2 What, according to the author, is the result of these attitudes

9 What is the function of the fifth paragaph?

10 What does Jill Tweedie mean by ‘one of the most scarlet of red herrings’ ?*99°

11 How is the opinion ‘Isn’t she in fact asking for it?’ supported

in the sixth paragraph?

Use of English |

At 4 o'clock in the morning a total stranger broke into my ground floor flat in Brighton (where I lived

alone), tried to kill me by stifling

5 me with a pillow, and then raped

me The gentleman in question, it turned out, was known to the

police for his violence and for what

they called ‘some very odd ideas,

10 Miss’, but which they wouldn't go into

T had of course been attacked by a perfect stranger which spoke in my

favour, but then my position

13 generally was enough to encourage that sort of thing 1 was after all a

hardened hussy of 23 1 was on the pill I had a boyfriend who stayed the night regularly, as welt as other

20 Jate-night visitors I lived atone: ‘a very attractive girl like you, Miss,

darling, I always said you shouldn't

live alone." Dad: (by suggestion

only} ‘If you hadn’t been sleeping

around in the first place this would never have happened.”

Police questioning followed two main lines Neither was true of my

case but both implied that ultimately it was my fault The first

was that my attacker was a friend

or acquaintance whom I had incited

to violence even if unwittingly The

second was that I] had not shut my

curtains properly at night and had

thus allowed my naked body (i.e

when changing) to inflame the passions of whoever happened to be standing outside Ít was up to me

to prove that } had not been guilty

of such inflammatory behaviour for

if I was, well

0

that's asking for trouble’

Incidentally my parents’ reactions (although they were greatly

25 distressed by the incident) followed

a similar pattern Mum: ‘That's

the trouble with being so attractive, Fill each of the numbered blanks with eve suitable word

Thanks to a patient and sympathetic boyfriend, who helped talk me ++ (I) of) (2) of it, the’: (3) is in the past.” (4) are not

in the : (5) are, (6) you so righly (7) out, the ; (8) causes of the problem: the - (9} myths that women love rough

„+ (10% that rape, or (11) rape, ís an (12) of virility;

- „ „ (13) girls who enjoy (14) are promiscuous and therefore

Practice 7B Composition

?,, (18) and therefore must be (19) for ít; the liạt is endless

And every item “.", (20) the desperate need we have to sort out the mess we have allowed to develop out of the man-woman

relationship, fraught as it is with illusions, dreams, hopes, fantasies,

proverbs, the lot, until the progressive distortions have created a nightmare we cannot take

Write, in dialogue form, the interview which took place between

the police and the writer of this letter after the incident Base your dialogue on the information in paragraphs two and four of the letter, but add anything else you think will make the conversation sound more authentic

This letter expresses ‘the desperate need we have to sort aut

the man-woman relationship.” Discuss ways of improving the attitudes of the sexes to one another in your country

Finally, ít is perhaps interesting to speculate on the future roles of men and women In developed societies, if the advent of the silicon chip icads

to mass unemployment and a revolutionized attitude towards work and

leisure, what will be the effect on, for example, women who at present express their equality with men primarily through their work; if of, coal and gas cun out and alternative energy sources cannot take up the slack in domestic supplies, what effect will this have on the roles of men and

women in domestic life? In developing societies, how wil increasing

exposure to Western society (through the media and travel) and improved technology affect the role of women? One can obviously only guess at the answers, but what do you think or hope will happen?

2 Hannah Gavron, The Captive Wife, Pelican Books, 1968: a

study of the conflict, faced by many women, of wife: and mother-hood versus career

3 Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, Paladin, 1971: a

seminal text of the Women’s Movement in Britain (by an Australian!)

4 Oscar Lewis, Five Families, Basic Books Inc., 1959: case

studies of five Mexican families

5 Harold Pinter, Te Lover, Methuen, 1971: a play about

Language Review Choose from the five words or phrases given alter the following sentences the one which most appropriately compictes that sentence

1 Two of my friends have decided to get married: [ saw the announcement of their in The Times last week

A courtship betrothal C engagement D avowal F pledge

2 As she had been entirely responsible for the accident in which she had been severely disabled she had no legal

A deserts B redress C reform D equity E justice

3 The Prime Minister was constantly made to digress from the main point of her speech hecause of red brought up by her opponents in the audience

A tomatoes B apples C mullet D peppers E herrings

A The rules stated that anyone who had held office for three years was not for re-election

A inetusive B permissible C eligible 9 admissible E legible

5 Shirley's parents did not get on at all wetl with her parents-in- law Her mother’s political views were like as far as her husband’s father was concerned

A aed letter day Ba red flag to a Sc

D a red bull with a flag Fa bull in ac

alist Cased rag toa bull

shop

6 Graham had hardly been in his new job a week before be realized it was less interesting than he had thought: a spurious glamour had disguised much that was

A coutine B ritual C habit D proteol FE traditional

A be equal B cope C measure up D keep FE took after

9 The old gentleman to be an old friend of his grandfather's

A turned over B turned Co turned up D tung oi

E turned in

10 A group of agitators the mob ta break down the Embassy door

A excited B promoted C shouted D desired ff incited

1} The Minister's answer fed to an outcry from the Opposition

A evasive B inalienable C unbridled 10 persuasive

A redress B stack C leeway D spare E elbow-room

14 Her parents tried to a subtle pressure on her to marry someone who could carry on the family business

A bring B employ C take D bear E exert

15 They've been going for so long now that all their friends expect them to marry soon

A dutch B steady C berserk D round E engaged For each of the sentences below, write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, but using the words given in capitals; these words must not be altered in any way

1 You could infer from the article, that|men cannot help their sexual behaviour

1 She thought she had paid the bill, but she hadn’t

2 Official advice is for females to submit to rapists

The assumption is that the initiative in proposing marriage is

in the hands of the male

Photograph Oral

Unit 2 Young and Old

Answer the questions as fully as you can

1 How many generations of this family are there in the photograph?

What kind of life do you imagine this family leads?

What might the role of the grandmother be in this family’s life?

How do societies of this type look after their old people?

How does your society care for children and the elderly?

In societies where people tend to live together in extended family groups

— consisting of grandparents, great uncles and aunts, parents, aunts and

uncles, children and cousins, for example — care of both young and old is

the natural function of the group The State is only needed when the

efficiency of the group breaks down, because of illness or poverty, for

example In Britain, however, people tend to live in nuclear family groups (parents and children only), with the result that the care of the old is a

social problem and the State needs to intervene, What is more, if the

relationship between husband and wife breaks down, the children are

immediately at risk, and State intervention may be necessary for thent tao

Where parents do care for their children, however, they usually take their

sesponsibilitics very seriously The following extract from John W

Aldridge's Ir the Country of the Young (Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1969}

comments on the way American parents look after their young

Reading | Why does the author consider the young took over post-war American society?

For children, of course, we had — were aif we had Nothing else would grow in that atmosphere We produced hordes of them, as if our only relation to Fortune was to provide it with hostages After

a while, inevitably, the children took over everything They took over because there had never been an adult society here

We had nothing to start with except our talent for self-sacrifice, our compulsion to set up housekeeping and live for the future of our chitdren So the children rushed in to fill the vacuum, and with our full cooperation and blessing they began to dictate the terms of our existence

It became impossible for an adult to make a move — if move he wanted to make — without taking them inte account, without considering ¢hem first If he took out the car, they had to go along

If he wanted to read a book or make love, they stomped and stampeded through the house and demanded their rights to his undivided attention They arranged the schedule of meals and determined the hours when they would go to bed at night and, their parents would get up in the morning Educated and intelligent women gave up their lives fetching and carrying for them, ‘playing with them, cleaning up after them, chauffeuring them to and from school, talking about them, worrying over whether they were getting the right food the right vitamins, enough love and attention — and all because there was nothing else We had created a huge corporate enterprise of promiscuous baby-making, and the other functions of life had to be set aside to keep it going Also, it was an expensive enterprise, in hoth money and emotional energy It seemed that everybody one knew was struggling, getting by, making do, doing it themselves, fretting over crab grass and teaky basements and new shoes for the three- year-old and the pediatrician’ bills, There was no money and no

time for adventure, excitement, or diversion The children were

our diversion, and what they diverted us from was the cold fact of our failure to conceive of life on any other terms or to ask for ourselves any larger rewards or richer experiences than those proviced by parenthood

It is scarcely surprising that the offspring of this way of life, the beneficiaries of all this love and attention and self-sacrifice, should have grown up contemptuous of us of convinced that really we were dead all along and only they are alive How could people be anything but dead or stupid or insane who had so little regard for their own needs, who asked so little for themselves? If we gave up our tives for them, it was only reasonable for them to suppose either that we did not value our lives or that they themselves must

be terribly important to have provoked us to such fantastic penerasity

So we taught them by our example and by our obsequious treatment of them to have no consideration or respect for adults and a grotesquely inflated respect for themselves,

2 What importance for the passage as a whole do the words

‘self-sacrifice’ " ‘cooperation’? and ‘dicate’? have?

3 Why is the word ‘then’! in italies in the text?

Focus Questions

2 Seu 2

4 What theme in the passage is picked up by the parenthesis ‘if move he wanted to make’?''!? What other phrases or sentences refer to the same theme?

5 What is the point of referring to ‘educated and intelligent women’ ?'*9

6 In the phrase ‘We had created a huge corporate enterprise of promiscuous baby-making’,2*> what do the terms ‘corporate enterprise’ and ‘promiscuous’ evoke?

7 How is the word ‘expensive’ being used in the phrase

“expensive enterprise’ 26?

8 Comment on the question ‘How could people be anything but dead or stupid or insane who had so little regard for their own needs, who asked so little for themselves?’394t

9 Which sentence, in your opinion, most clearly reveals the writer's attitude to his subject, and why?

This Western preoccupation with the care of the young has come at a time when the birth rate is dropping, life expectancy has risen dramatically, and

so a higher proportion of a society's population than ever before is of post-

tetirement age In fact, old age is often feared in the West, where it can be

a time of loneliness and poverty: families often ignore or cannot meet their responsibilities towards elderly relatives and the State finds their upkeep

too great a financial burden, What is more, the probiem is going to get steadily worse, as seen in the following reading from an article by Peter

Laslett in New Society

Reading 2 How are the terms ‘aged’ and ‘ancient’ used in this article?

What accepted ideas, and what new ideas, is the author concerned with?

We have to realise how old, how very old, we are Nations are classified as ‘aged’ when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged G5 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above G5, all are in Northwestern ° Europe At the beginning of the decade East Germany had 15.6 per cent, Austria, Sweden, West Germany and France had 13.4 per cent or above, and England and Wales 13.3 per cent Scotland

had 12.3 per cent, Northern Ireland 10.8 per cent and the United

States 9.9 per cent We know that we are getting even older, and |”

that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be ~ at least, for any future that concerns us now

To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added, some of them only recently recognised There is the 5 apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio — the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can — is more Practice 2A

Reading Comprehension

advantageous in okler societies like ours than in the younger a0 socicties of the developing workl, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged There is the appreciation of the salient historical truth that the aging of advanced societies has beeri a sudden, a precipitate change

Hf ‘revolution’ is a rapid resettlement of the social structure, and if 3 the age composition of the socicty counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European socicty within the lifetime of everyone over 50 Taken together, these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged These facts and circumstances were well to the fore, earlier this year at a world gathering about aging as a challenge to science and to policy, held at Vichy in France

3u

There is often resistance to the idea that it is because the birthrate fell cartier in Western and Northwestern Europe than elsewhere,

rather than because of any change in the death rate, that we have

grown so old But this is what elementary demography makes clear Long life is altering our society, of course, but in experiential terms We have among us a very much greater experience of continued living than any society that has ever preceded us anywhere, and this will continue But too much of that lengthened experience, even in the wealthy West, will he experience of paverty and neglect, unless we do something about it

Expectation of life is a slippery figure, very easy to get wrong at the highest ages At Vichy the demographers were telling each other that their estimates of how many old there would be and how Jong they will live in countries like England and Wales are due for revision upwards

AS

1 According to the article West Germany and France together have approximately the same percentage of elderly people as England and Wales

b the greater the population growth, the older the population is likely to be

all the really ancient societies are in advanced countries

in aged societies 87% or less of the population are under the age of 65

2 Comparing Britain and Third World countries, the dependency ratio is

better in Britain because it has lots of babies

worse in the Third World because they have tots of old people

worse in Britain because it has lots of old peaple

worse in the Third World because they have lots of babies

64 Section 2

3 The author argues that

a in the world today everyone aged 50 and over has lived through a social revolution

b the sudden aging of advanced societies should have been predicted

¢ the various age-groups present in a society are not necessarily

a significant aspect of that society's structure

dan unprecedentedly rapid increase in a society's age could be said to amount to a revolution

4 According to the article

a many people do not want to accept that if more babies were born in Western and North Western Europe, this would have

an effeet on the swift aging process in those areas

b longevity will inevitably mean greater poverty and neglect, even in the West

¢ — elementary analysis of demographic statistics shows that long life is altering our society by lengthening our experience of

d the increase in the proportion of old to young in Europe is paradoxically unconnected with the decline in the number of people dying

5 The author is suggesting that in Northern Europe

a the older you are now the Jonger you can expect to live

men will have a fife expectancy of 90

women will live more than a third of their lives after the age

of 60

d men have a life expectancy of 75

6 According to the article

a the derographers at Vichy discovered that the miscalculation

of life-expectancy rates is proportionate to age

b although some of the statistical implications of increasing long- life in advanced countries are well-known to demographers, the more revolutionary aspects of the problem have only recently been recognized

c at the Vichy conference it was agreed that the number of old people living in countries like England and Wales ought to be revised upwards

dan international conference was held to discuss the political

* implications of the fall of the birthrate in Western and Northern Europe

So Western society has yet to adapt to the rise in the number of old

people The fall in the birthrate also poses human and social problems

which have recently been in the public eye The following reading from the magazine, Tithits (March 1978), shows a rather bizarre development

of these problems in the United States

Focus Question

Practice 3A Composition Practice 3B Composition

Menace of the baby hunters

that police suspect members of the

and even baby farms is rearing its Mafia will enter the picture, if they 25

head in America The supply of have not already done so."

reluctant mothers wanting to get He says the mothers mainly come

rid of unwanted children is fase from Yugoslavia and other Bast

being outstripped by demand! from European countries and are given a

chiklless couples round trip holiday toa Caribbean 3°

So baby-selling is flourishing - island to have their babies `

and the price can be as high as The pressure from the baby

£10,000 per baby And now ina ix becoming so strong that hizarre development, scientists are leven envisages human

on the verge of making it possible s heing grown in ~ for 1 for girls to hire out their wombs example — cows, ‘A cow would

This coukl be done by make a good temporary mother,”

uansplanting a fertilised embryo he “They have a nine-month from one woman to another, It’s gestation period Hike humans,”

already been done with cows and “Cows don't smoke, cat foolishly, 4” apes or carouse like we do.”

Investigator Vance Packard ~ the And afterwards, of course, the leading chronicler of the nightmare bovine mum would make good prospect ahead — says of the baby steaks for junior to cut his milk market: “The traffic in babies in tecth on 45

California has become so lucrative

Write a letter to a newspaper commenting on the information in the article

‘For the last twenty-five years the needs, values, tyles and

demands of the young have been the major neurotic concern of nearly the whole of the adult female population.” Discuss in relation to any societies with which you are familiar

One way in which a Government can encourage couples to have children, and thus counter the fall in the birth rate, is to offer them financial

support on the birth of a child Under the British Social Security

parents of children under 16, or under 19 and still at college, are entitled

toa child benefit allowance, The extracts on the next page are from a

leaflet issuedl by the Department of Health and Social Security They

outline the situation for families entering Britain,

som,

Child benefit for People entering Britain

Are you entitled to child benefit?

You can get child benefit if:

® you are responsible for a child under age 16, or under age 19 who is

still at school or college full-time but not if sponsored by an employer;

and

® you (or your husband or wife) and the child are in this country, and

have lived here for more than 182 days in the past 52 weeks

If you have come from an EEC country or a country which has a social security agreement with Great Britain You may be entitled to British child benefit if you are an employed worker

or a dependant, widow or other survivor of such a person and are:

© a national of any of the other EEC countrics (Belgium, Denmark,

France, Federal Republic of Germany, Irish Republic, Italy,

Luxembourg and the Netherlands); or

@ a stateless person or refugee living permanently in the EEC

Hf you are not covered by the EEC Social Security arrangements and you are a national of Belgium or the United Kingdom, any period of residence

in Belgium can help you to qualify for British child benefit If you become entitled to British child benefit as well as Belgian family benefit you can choose which to receive; Where, however, the benefits would be payable to

different people, the administering authorities will decide who should receive the benefit

If you remain insured under the Federal German Social Security scheme, you will normally continue to receive your German family allowances and will not get British child benefit If you are not covered by the EEC Social

Security arrangements, any period of presence in the Federal Republic may

help you to qualify for British child benefit

Hf you have been sent to work in Great Britain by an employer in

Spain and you remain compulsorily insured under the Spanish Social Security scheme, you will continue to receive Spanish Family allowances, whether your family is in Great Britain or Spain

Hf you do not remain compulsorily insured under the Spanish

Scheme (or you stop being so insured) you may be entitled to British child benefit even if your family is living in Spain, provided you are

employed in Great Britain and pay British national insurance (social security) contributions Any periods when you were insured under the

Spanish social security scheme or employed in Spain can help you to qualify for British child benefit If you are entitled to benefit for the same child from both countries, benefit is only payable by the country in which

the child is ordinarily resident

If you are a national of Switzerland or the United Kingdom, any periods of

presence in Switzerland can help you to qualify for British child benefit, which may be payable if:

® you are ordinarily resident in Great Britain; or

® you will be paying British national insurance contributions as an

employed or self-employed person

Practice 4A Study Skills

If you are not, explain why not

1 You have a 19 year-old child who attends college full time

You have a 2 year-old and have lived in Britain for 7 months

3 You have been working in Britain for 9 months and your wife and child are at home in Jordan,

4° You are Italian and have worked in Britain for [8 months

5 You are a refugee visiting Britain, settled permanently in Sweden

6 You are a refugee with 5 children aged 20, 19, 18, 15 and

14 You are all living permanently in Britain, and the 18 year-old is still at school

7 You are from Belgium and have lived in Britain for 3: months

8 You are from West Germany and are covered by the Federal German Social Security scheme

9 You are Spanish, employed by a British firm in Britain, but your children live in Madrid

You are from Scotland and are temporarily working in Switzerland,

11 You are from a non-EEC country not mentioned specifically in the leaffet

No amount of financial aid from the State, however, can case the stresses a

family may face when a child begins to assert his or her independence A

tragic example of this is contained in the following article hy J Lindo from

We are a couple, now comfortably

into middle age, with a teenage family That we are comfortable is due entirely to the sweat of our

5 brows, We have trained and

worked long and hard for the jabs

we now do, but are rewarded, alas,

by swinging taxation And our

eldest daughter can away from this

10 home at sixteen

But that was only part of the iceberg Already at ten or cleven she was watching the 1968 events

on television and saying, “If that is

t5 what happens at university, 1 don't want to go."

At the same time she and all her

contemporaries were bei bombarded by the media into

accepting standards that were never 7°

ours, How ta be more beautiful, desirable, seductive, how to pet your man, how to keep him (the magazines gave ample advice), how

to drink the right things, wear the 25

right underwear, smell the right smell,

Suddenly we were into the full

frontal bit Words of songs hecame

68 Section 2 obligatory bed sessions and

someone declared that doctors

35 could prescribe the pill for

teenagers

Oh yes! We went through all that,

The tawdry magazines, the sexy

books, the truancy from school to

40 mect loafers in the park, the

flirtation with soft drugs (But he fave it me, free’), the beery discas, the clown-faced make-up, the foul-

mouthed language And by fifteen

43 she was on the pill — unknown to

us, of course, Not because she

heeded it - not yet But it was a status symbol, No fifth-former’s handbag was complete without it

30 Our own family doctor wham we trusted with our lives had allowed himself to be conned by a fifteen- year-old She said she had a steady sexual relationship with a boy —

53 and got the pill to go with it

Whereas in reality she had no

boyfriend and no ‘relationship’ ever lasted more than three weeks The

pilt was just in case

60 Nevertheless at sixteen she did notch up eight ‘O° levels, three of

them at grade A, but almost

immediately afterwards disappeared

No advice we had been able to

63 give, no form of appeal, no approach, affection, bribery, later descending into warning and threat,

had been of any avail We were just

old-fashioned, we didn’t know

70 where it was at We merely object

to all-night sex-parties, pot- smoking, coming home drunk, long-haired weirdies turning up sick with drink after the last bus had

75 left, and having to take them home

while they vomited all over the

back seat of the car

So she went t found her bed empty

one morning alter a terrible row

80 the night before After three weeks

of agonized, heart-breaking waiting,

we were rung up by the police late one night They had found her

thumbing a lift on a motorway

Luckily she was not yet seventeen 8 Did you know that after the age of

seventeen the police may find your

missing child but are not obliged to

tell you where he/she is?

Ignominiously but not unkindly 0

brought home, she announced that she was going agin — with or

without our permission, We

decided it should be with, so she was packed off to London with 3

plenty of money and new clothes

She would stay with friends till she

could find 2 job, Conld we have

done anything else? Could you?

In less time than it takes to tell she In0

had been in and out of three johs

and had discovered the delights of Social Security, which she was sharing with a psychotic boy who beat her up periodically After 105 twelve months she was a wraith, and we miraculously inveigled her home to get out of his clutches We found her a flat, realising she could

no longer face living with us, and !10

set her up once again But by now the grateful State had her well and truly in tow She is now twenty

and has never worked since Social Security is a right, a way of life, 115

Why should she work? With only

*O” levels and no training for anything, the only casual jobs available would pay less after tax than the weekly Giro cheque which '20 comes free

The flat we found only lasted a few

weeks before she moved in with

another boy met in a pub and then

another phase began — the brush !22

with the law, the fuzz, the pigs

Living only a stone's throw from the pig-pen, their flat is

aistomatically on the visiting list when there is any trouble They 130 both have a couple of convictions

to their credit She has done a hundred and fifty hours community service and he has done twelve months inside And once on this 135

slippery slope, they can't win,

Practice 5A Reading Comprehension

Summary

Practice 5B Listening Comprehension

3 What does the author mean by ‘the media’? and what does

4 Paragaph four deals with the growing permissiveness of British society Exphtin four aspects of this greater freedom

5 Give five examples of how this permissiveness affected the

6 Why does the author think her daughter had the pill?

7 What docs ‘Our doctor had allowed himself to he

The final part of this article has been recorded:

The young couple -

a want to work but can’t find jobs a

b — might not want to work and couldn't find jobs anyway

c could find jobs if they wanted to

a they couldn’t find jobs if they wanted to

2 The writer feels they Il

a find a good job in the end

b never find a job as fate is against them

c get into trouble if they don't work

d get into trouble if they get a job

3 When the writer got to the flat, she found

d have a search warrant and a policewoman with them Mama Oh yes? Well, it sounds like a very nice idea After

all, you won't want to stay here all your life cooped up with your poor old

, the whole of society is acting as her daughter is Me Oh, don’t be silly

very

Gn toler dialogue from A Summer Birdcage by Margaret Drabble Mama Well, what is it then?

`

parents and adolescent children P oniies 6 Me Well, it’s just that ] can’t stay here all my life, can Í?

of the Oral 5 romment on the situation, characters, rotes and moods in Mamma’s sort, When have I ever tried to keep you at home? Haven’t I just

Me Yes, a friend of mine wants someone to share a flat and | thought

it would be a good opportunity for me to

Mama Weil, that sounds a very good idea Where exactly is this flat?

Me Well, we haven’t exactly got one, but I thought I might go and look — it’s easier if you’re on the spot

Mama Oh yes, I’m sure it is, I hear it’s very difficult to find flats in London these days

Me (my heart sinking as I think of adverts, agencies, Evening Standards, etcetera) Oh no, it’s not at all difficult, people get themselves fixed up in no time

Mama Oh well, I suppose you know better than me What will you live

Me I'll get a job I’it have to sometime, you know Ill write to the Appointments Board

Mama Just any sort of job?

Me Whatever there is

Mama Don't you want a proper career, Sarah? I mean to say, with a degree like yours

Me No, not really, I don’t know what I want to do

Mama Pm hot sure I like the idea of your going off all the way to London without a proper job and with nowhere to live still, it’s your own life, I suppose That’s what I say No-one can accuse me of trying to keep you at home, either of you Who is this friend of

Use of English

sent you off to Oxford, it was always me who said you two must

go - I don’t know what I wouldn’t have given for the oppor- tunities you’ve been given, And your father wasn’t any too keen, believe me In my «ay education was kept for the boys, you know

Well, you hadn’t any boys to educate, had you? You had to make

source of anxiety, retirement The following letter to the Daily Mirror

advice columnist, Marjorie Proops, typifies the personal and social

problems many couples face

Reading 6

Dear Marj,

Jam very worried about my husband’s coming retirement His job

has been his one interest in life and now, at fifty-five, the firm has

asked him to retire early He says he’s been put on the scrap heap and he’s harder to live with daily What am I going to do when he’s under my feet all day? Do you think he might settle down, or should I persuade him to try to get another job?

This is the reply given by Marjorie Proops Fill each of the numbered blanks with ove suitable word

It’s obvious that you both have to (1) to & new life style Not just your husband, but you, too You seem to have : (2), ifany, sympathy Jo (3) a man who feels he’s heen rejected Your main 2 (4)is that he’s going to get under your feet 1 am not surprised, if this has heen your attitude, that his job has been his main interest in life

Review A

Vocabulary

72 Section 2 Fdo not think you'll have much trouble (5) him to look for another job, for [ 2.’ (6) if he'll want to spend all day at home -„†(?) more than you want him `" (8) But T advise you to be very careful how you go 2!) your persuading If you add to his fecling of humiliation and failure by saying you want him out from under your feet, he’s still young’ 0), remember, to get out from under them permanently But if you can try to (11) him, telling him he's a real “> (12) to industry with his skills or

> (17) he would soon feel wanted and valuable He ought to feet

wanted and valuable at home, too, and you’d be a (18) not to

realise what damage you can } (19) to him and to your marriage

by treating him 7, / (20) a nuisance

‘Thus both young and ofd face problems in British society, but it is the old who give, perhaps, the graver cause for concern

Further Reading

1 James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain, Corgi, 1964: a black American conveys the struggles of an adolescent

2 Nance Lui Fyson and Sally Greenhill, Older People

‘Investigating Society: People Talking’, Macmillan, 1979:

words and photos

3 LP Hartley, The Shrimp and the Anemone, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1971: one of the many novels which sensitively evoke the world of childhood

4 Margaret Mead, Growing up in New Guinea, Penguin Books,

1975

5 Peter Townsend, The Fanrily Life of Old People, Pelican Books, 1963: an enquiry based on research done in the East End of London

Language Review Choose from the five words or phrases given after the following sentences the one which most appropriately completes that sentence

1 Henry Ford was a self-made millionaire He made his money not on the stock exchange but by the sweat of his

A brain B body C forehead D brawn E brow

2 Some people criticize family doctors for too many medicines for trivial complaints

A ordering B prescribing C proposing 1 advising

Ever since Geoffrey sent a sizeable cheque to a well-known charity he's been with requests for money from all sides

A assaulted B escalated C plied D overdrawn bombarded

The problem of habitual is an extremely tricky one for school inspectors, teachers and social workers to handle

A truancy B sickness C absentevism =D leave FE attendance

All our efforts to persuade her to come and stay with us were

oÍ no

A influence B avail C effect D purpose E result

Since the car broke down on a lonely country road we had to try to a lift to the nearest telephone

A beckon B flag C signal D thumb E wave Once you give in toa blackmailer's demands it's very difficult

to get out of his -

A grasp B clinches € claws D clutches E grip

I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid F can’t cating water melon

nowadays, because they were almost all I could afford when |

was in the Middle :

A pretend B face C confront D dare E defend When her husband died her children sold the old house and ina small flat of her own

A sether up B put up with her C put her down D set out with her E put her up

A takes the lead B pulls strings C does the trick D rings the changes FE knows the ropes

Being given a knighthood marked a in his career

A millstone B yardstick C milestone 1) signpost E: graveuone

Arid B let C ted D lead & Tid

The recipe said to use butter, but as we'd run aut we had to , with margarine

‘A make do B doaway C doitup D make up to it

Fo make up

Review B For each of the sentences below, write a new sentence as similar as Review C Fill cach of the blanl PF f «chit

Structure possible in meaning to the original sentence, but using the words Structure 1 Educated women lives caring for their child ren sả

in capital letters: these words must not be altered in any way 2 The children were our diversion, and what they diverted

faking i ible girls to hire out

a máking it possible for girls

Boer, vies 2 Nations that have more than 7% of their population over 65 53 ‘The Mafia may well enter the picture, if they so

are classed as ‘aged’ 6 No advice give had been of any avail

tực 3 A very important aspect of any social structure is the age 8 I don't like the idea to London without a proper job

REVISE

` Marjorie Proops is ‘considered to be Britain’s most famous advice columnist

Marjorie Proops oesn’t think ithe writer’s husband will want

to stay at home all day

MADE

Section 3

Community Life

Photograph

Oral |

78 Section 3 Unit 1 Local Government

Answer the questions as fully as you can

1 Describe the man and his cart

2 Where are the children and what are they doing?

3 What do you think are the two local government services shown here?

4 Do local authorities provide any social services in your country?

If so, what are they?

5 What are the advantages of having some services financed and organized locally rather than by central government?

Central government with its legislative powers, national leaders and

influence abroad often diverts public attention from local government and

the influence of local, or regional, government officials on private lives In Britain, for example, considerable financial and administrative power lies

with local councils, as outlined in the following reading based on Local Government in Britain (H.M.S.O., 1975)

Reading 1 Local government in Britain is the responsibility of elected local authorities, which provide local services under specific powers conferred by Parliament Government on a local basis can be traced back at least 1,000 years, but this concept of a comprehensive system of councils locally elected to manage various >

services provided for the benefit of the community was first incorporated into law in the late nineteenth century The local authorities’ major responsibilities nowadays include education,

housing, the police, environmental health, personal social services, traffic administration, town and country planning, fire services, 10

libraries, and many minor functions

The map shows the 6 metropolitan local authorities, and Greater

London, and the remaining 47 ‘non-metropolitan’ authorities, or

counties Each separate authority has power to levy a ‘rate’ (a form

of local property tax) to pay for the work for which it has responsibility Rates are a local tax paid by the occupiers of non- agricultural land and building in a local authority area as contributions to the cost of local services The amount paid by the individual depends on the value of the property in relation to the

Total expenditure by loca! authorities in England and Wales exceeds £9,000 milfion a year A clear distinction is made between capital expenditure and current expenditure Capital expenditure (about a quarter of the total) is normally financed by borrawing

Current expenditure is financed from three main sources: local rates: Government grants, in the form of a ‘rate support’ grant, and grants towards the cost of specific services; other income, including rents from local authority-owned properties Housing and education, the two major areas for which focal authorities are responsible, will be treated in the following two units of this section,

Each local authority area is divided into two districts ~ 36 in

The

metropolitan counties, 296 in non-metropolitan counties heavily populated metropolitan districts (c.g Birmingham, population 1.1 million) have the resources to undertake provision

of services such as education and personal social services which the majority of non-metropolitan districts could not undertake

County and district councils consist of directly elected councillors

Broadly speaking, county councils have 60-100 members, metropolitan district councils 50-80 members, non-metropolitan district councils 30-60 members The councillors elect annually one of their number as chairman On certain district councils with historical status the chairman is called ‘mayor’ or ‘Lord Mayor’

This has ceremonial significance, but makes no difference to the administrative functions of the area Councillors are voluntary and unpaid, though they claim an attendance allowance of up to £104 day

ae

All county councils are elected at four-yearly intervals The pattern

of election to district councils varies All local elections due in any one year are held on the same day, normally the first Thursday in May The people entitled to vote at local government elections are those who are resident in the local authority area on the qualifying

date, are 18 or over on election day, are British subjects or citizens

of the Irish Republic (this will therefore include Commonwealth citizens e.g Australians) Candidates for councillors must have British nationality and be over 21, and must either have lived or worked in the area for a year Most candidates stand as representatives of one of the national political parties (Labour, SDP,

Conservative or Liberal for the most part), a few as members of

associations representing some local interests (e.g ‘Homes before Roads’, Ecology candidates), or as independents

on

82 Section 3

ceauireents as to the minimum services that a council must provide, but eafter each authority is free to apportion its moncy as it sees fit The

following table, taken from The Layfield Committee Repart an Local

Government Finance (H1.M.S.O London 1976), gives a breakdown of local authority capital expenditure in the financial year 1973-4

Reading 2 Study the table, and then answer the questions in Practice 2A

Capital Expenditure by Local Authorities 1973/74

Analysis by Service, Great Britain

Analysis by ‘Type of Expenditure, England and Wales

Local Government Financial Statistics, Engt England and Wal

Local Financial Returns, Scotland, 1973/74, Hes 1973776

Notes:

(1) Total expenditure figures only are given for Scotland as there are no

comparable figures available for expenditure on assets

(2) The expenditure Figures for England and Wates include expenditure on

capital assets which is allocated by local authorities to their current accounts

in addition to chat recorded in their capital accounts

(3) The housing figures shown as part of the rate fund services are mainly

concerned with improvement grants and loans for house purchase

(4) The ta expen figures for England and Wales are gross expenditure

s such they inchide payments by one authari Gue `

As ch tay nc y uthority to another (such as for

(5) 1973/74 is the dast year for which detailed statistics have been published,

Scotland England and Wales

New Construction Land & Existing Buildings

1 How much was spent on education in Scotland?

2 How much was spent on highways in England and Wales?

3 How much was spent on new educational building in England and Wales?

4 How much was spent on existing sewerage works in England and Wales?

5 How much was spent on road maintenance in Fingland and Wales?

6 What percentage of the total expenditure on highways was spent on new construction?

7 What percentage of the total expenditure on the environment was spent on existing resources?

8 What percentage of the total expenditure on house improvement grants and loans for house purchase was spent `

‘an new construction?

9 How much was spent on building new houses in England and 5?

t percentage of the housing hudget was spent on land and existing buildings?

1 How much was spent on the environment in England, Scotland and Wales?

12 How much was spent on housing, including grants, and loans,

in England, Scotland and Wales?

13 How does the pattern of expenditure in Scotland differ from England and Wales?

14 In which area of rate fund services was the greatest percentage spent on new building?

15 In which area of the rate fund services was the greatest percentage spent on land and existing buildings?

16 Which rate fund service spent more on Jand and existing buildings than on new building?

17 What is the main financial function of capital expenditure, as far as you can tell from this analysis?

18 In which areas do you suppose current expenditure is the preatest?

In recent years there have been & few proven cases of corruption among elected councillors, and a Commission reporting and advising on local

government practices was set Up by the central government That report’s

recommendations still await implementation Political corruption is af course not new, At the beginning of this ccntury Robert Tressel, a house

painter, wrote a novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Lawrence

and Wishart Ltd., 1955) which exposes the corruption of local government

and the exploitation of the electors by Council and employer, In the following extract Tressell draws an ironic picture of the town councillors

— the Brigands of Mugsborough — in full council session

Reading 3

The town of Mugsborough was governed by a set of individuals catled the Municipal Council Most of these ‘representatives of the

fitness to be entrusted with the business of the town

These Brigands did just as they pleased No one ever interfered with them They never consulted the ratepayers in any way Even

at election times they did not trouble to hold meetings: each one of them just issued a kind of manifesto setting forth his many noble 10 qualities and calling upon the people for their votes: and the latter never failed to respond They elected the same old crew time after time

Now and then, when details of some unusually scandalous proceeding of the Council’s leaked out, the townspeople — roused '5 for a brief space from their customary indifference — would discuss the matter in a casual, half-indignant, half-amused, helpless sort of way; but always as if it were something that did not directly concern them It was during some such nine days’ wonder that the title of ‘The Forty Thieves’ was bestowed on the members of the 2”

Council by their semi-imbecile constituents, who, not possessing sufficient intelligence to devise means of punishing the culprits, affected to regard the manoeuvres of the Brigands as a huge joke

There was only one member of the Council who did not belong to the Band — Councillor Weakling, a retired physician; but ” unfortunately he was also a respectable man When he saw

something going forwards that he did not think was right, he protested and voted against it and then — he collapsed! There was nothing of the low agitator about Jim As for the Brigands, they laughed at his protests and his vote did not matter 30 With this one exception, the other members of the band were very

similar in character to Sweater, Rushton, Didlum and Grinder,

They had all joined the Band with the same objects, self- glorification and the advancement of their private interests These were the real reasons why they besought the ratepayers to elect 3

them to the Council, but of course none of them ever admitted

that such was the case No! When these noble-minded altruists offered their services to the town they asked the people to believe that they were actuated by a desire to give their time and abilities for the purpose of furthering the interests of Others, which was 40 much the same as asking them to believe that it is possible for the leopard to change his spots

1 According to the author the members of the Town Council were

typical of the people of Mugsborough

mostly successful businessmen

fit to be entrusted with local administration

charitable or reserved in character

a the councillors didn’t find it a nuisance to hold meetings

b_ the electors often chase elderly sailors as councillors

c the councillors went to people’s houses to get their votes

d the councillors merely distributed pamphiets praising themselves

3 The townspeople failed to do anything about the Council's malpractices because

a being customers at the councillors’ shops, they felt rather helpless, though somewhat put out

they felt that what the councillors got up to was rather funny

it was nothing to do with them a d_— they were too stupid to think of any way of punishing the guilty parties

oc

4 Councillor Weakling provided an ineffective opposition because

a he could not bring himself to make a real fuss -

b being rather weak physically he collapsed after making a

c his vote was not important to the Brigands

dhe had given up being a physician

5 In their election manifestos the councillors

a asked the electors to believe that a leopard can change his

contracts, areas in which the interests of local businessmen are particularly involved, However, in an attempt to curb the less honourable inclinations

of local councillors, the law now requires them to make a declaration of

their interests whenever contracts are being discussed One might hope,

then, that the following scene from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists represents goings-on of a type that have largely disappeared from Britain's council chambers

Reading 4 Owing to the extraordinary apathy of the other inhabitants, the Brigands were able to carry out their depredations undisturbed

Daylight robberies were of frequent occurrence

Ls

86 Section 3

For many years these Brigands had looked with greedy eyes upon

the huge profits of the Gas Company They thought it was a 3

beastly shame that those other bandits should be always raiding the

town and getting clear away with such rich spoils

At length — about two years ago ~ after much study and many

private consultations, a plan of campaign was evolved; a secret

council of war was held, presided over by Mr Sweater, and the

Brigands formed themselves into an association called ‘The

Mugsborough Electric Light Supply and Installation Co Ltd.’, and

bound themselves by a solemn oath to do their best to drive the

Gas Works Bandits out of the town and to capture the spoils at

present enjoyed by the latter for themselves

in

15

There was a large piece of ground, the property of the town, that

was a suitable site for the works; so in their character of directors

of the Electric Light Co they offered to buy this land from the

Municipality — or, in other words, from themselves — for about

half its value

At the meeting of the Town Council when this offer was

considered, all the members present, with the solitary exception of

Dr Weakling, being shareholders in the newly-formed company,

Councillor Rushton moved a resolution in favour of accepting it

He said that every encouragement should be given to the

promoters of the Electric Light Co., those public-spirited citizens

who had come forward and were willing to risk theie capital in an

undertaking that would be a benefit to every class of residents in

the town that they loved so well Applatise There could be no

doubt that the introduction of the electric light would be a great

addition to the attractions of Mugsborough, but there was another

and more urgent reason that disposed him to do whatever he could

to encourage the Company to proceed with this work

Unfortunately, as was usual at that time of the year Mr Rushton's

voice trembled with emotion the town was full of unemployed The >°

Mayor, Alderman Sweater, and all the other Councillors shook

their heads sadly; they were visibly affected There was no doubt

that the starting of that work at that time would be an inestimable

boon to the working-classes As the representative of a working-

class ward he was in favour of accepting the offer of the Company mo

Hear Hear

25

30

Councillor Didium seconded, In his opinion, it would he nothing

short of a crime to oppose anything that would provide work for

the unemployed

Councillor Weakling moved that the offer be refused Shame He 5

admitted that the electric light would be an improvement to the

town, and in view of the existing distress he would be glad to see

the work started, but the price mentioned was altogether too low

It was not more than half the value of the land Derisive laughter

Councillor Grinder said he was astonished at the attitude taken up

by Councillor Weakling In his (Grindet’s) opinion it was disgrace-

Practice 4A Literary Comprehension

3,1 Local Government

ful that a member of the council should deliberately try to wreck a

project which would do so much towards relieving the

unemployed

The Mayor, Alderman Sweater, said that he could not allow the

conded: if there were no

amendment to be discussed until it was seconder he would put the original motion

There was no scconder, hecause everyone except Weakling was in

favour of the resolution, which was carried amid loud cheers, and

the representatives of the ratepayers proceeded to the consideration“

of the next business

Councillor Didhum proposed that the duty on all coal brought into the borough be raised from two shillings to three shillings per ton Councillor Rushton seconded, The largest consumer of coal was the Gas Co and, considering the great profits made by that company, they were quite justified in increasing the duty to the highest figure the Act permitted

°

After a feeble protest from Weakling, who said it would only increase the price of gas and coal without interfering with the

profits of the Gas Co., this was also carried, and after some other

business had been transacted, the Band dispersed

Answer the questions below, which relate to Readings 3 and 4,

1 What qualifications do members of the Town Council have? What are the two derogatory titles which Tressell uses for the Town Council?

3 Give two examples from the first two paragraphs of phrases or sentences about the Council which are used ironically, and comment on the author's meaning

4 What is the attitude of the electorate towards the Council?

5 How does the author feel about the townspeople? Which words and phrases in particular show his attitude?

6 What, according to Tressell, are the councillors’ declared

motives for seeking election, and how are they at variance with their real motives?

7 What is the plan of campaign evolved by the councillors in relation to the Gas and Electric Light Companies?

8 What are the two motions passed by the Council?

9 By detailed reference to the text, show how the Council meeting precisely illustrates the gap between the councillors’ real and declared motives,

Give, in their original form, the three short speeches made by Councillors Weakling and Grinder and the Mayor '*

11 Comment briefly on

a the Councillors’ names,

b the way the atmosphere of a council meeting is depicted

c the author's attitude to local government

1(

Wood (Oxford University Press, 1974), discusses the controversy over

whether such industries should be locatly or nationally administered

Fill each of the numbered blanks with one suitable word

The second type of controversy arises over the question who should provide a service about which there is general agreement that it should be publicly owned Gas, electricity and water || , (1) the problem, '”* (2) the one hand it is argued that each “? (3)

needs to be administered over areas defined by reference to its

¥ (A) geographic or technical nature, (the course of a river, for (5)) and its catchment %*S (6) and that national administration enables !":'! (7) to be taken of economies of scale, allows resources

to be more fa" (8) moved between areas and leads to the equitable spread of 227 (@® between consumers,” : 10) of where they live

„ (11) this it is often 75'/(12) that +“ 3) a service is the responsibility of an elected local authority, (14) will it be responsive to democratic contro! nor properly integrated with kindred local services, and ° obs (15), that small-scale enterprises are

Even the Brigands of Mugsborough are answerable to the electorate, particularly if they stand for re-election Candidates tatk at public meetings,

produce election manifestos and, with their Party members, go canvassing, that is to say go from door to door talking to prospective voters Reading

3 is the election manifesto for the three Conservative candidates in an Oxford ward, or area, in a recent local election

Reading 5 See opposite page

One of you has to stand as your class representative on a school/college committee concerned with student welfare and leisure activites Discuss the personal qualities necessary and choose your candidate,

a When you have chosen the most suitable candidate, write his/her biography, along the lines of the election address

on the opposite page

b Consider the things your candidate has done for your class,

college, and/or the things he or she would like to change

Write a brief manifesto along the lines of A better Oxford

1ás tepresented Wolvercote Ward

an Oxford City Council since 1976

He serves on the Housing and

Planning Committees, is Vice:

Chairman of Oxford Housing Aid

Centre, Member of Oxford

Polytechnic Housing Association,

Governor of Summertawn Middle

School, and member of Walvercote

Commoners Committee for the last Born in Oxford, he has

s lived in the City and in Wolvercote for the past 20 years,

He has worked all his life at Morris Motors and Pressed Stcel where he

Sportsman and member of many

local clubs, including North Oxford Golf Club He is a long standing

member of the Oxford Ratepayers

Association

Dear Voter,

Since all three of us were elected in

1976, we have served the interests

of everyone in the Wolvercote

Ward to the best of our ability We

hope you will re-elect us to represent you again on 3rd May

Traffic, Road Safety and

Parking: At our suggestion, every

household in the area of the

Sunimertown Parking Review was

consulted by letter Now the

proposals are being put forward for public comment and further consultation New proposals are being considered for the Summertown lay-by We are continuing to press for the

Ann Spokes Member of Oxtord City Councit since 1957 Lord Mayor

1976 1977 Chaimuam

Committee Chairman County Council Public Protection Committee Works for Age

Concern, Oxtord Chairman, Social

Services Committee, Association of County Councils; Graduate af St

Aanne’s Coll Oxford an

active part in local organisations, including Wolvercote with

Summertown Church Council, Wolvercote Women's Institute and Wolvescate Horticultural Society

Manager, Wolvercote School,

Governor Bishop Kirk Schoo! and

Oxford High School for Girls

Member North Oxford Association

and North Oxford Tennis Club

Has a reputation for petting things done

Wolvercote bus turning bay, but

whilst money is scarce we have to

compete with many other schemes,

Housing the Elderly: At last,

after strong presstire from us, some

honsing, specially designed for elderly people, is to go ahead at the

corner of Woodstock Road and First Turn

The Environment: We made

strong representations to the

Ministry of Transport opposing any

motorway Sinks across the North Oxford Golf Course We will resist

any move to close Walvercte Bathing Place

is Vice Chairman of Personnel

Committee and member of Highways and Traflic, and

Eavironmenial Heat! tl Control

Commitizes She is manager of Walvercate School and a member of

the North Oxford Adult Education Committee She is Chairman of Summertown ‘Traders Association and Executive member of the Osford Chamber of Commerce She

has a particular interest in old people and is a trastee of the Old

Age Pensioners’ Club, She is

manageress of a news-agency and working in the Ward, and is well able to look after the problems

of her constituents,

It you have any questions please get

in touch with us We all live in the

Ward and our addresses are printed

above, You have THREE VOTES and we

hope you will use them to vote [or

us elected, we pledge ourselves

to serve the interests of all thase

who live in Wolvercote Wari

Yours sincerely, Richard Dore, Ann Spokes, Queenie Whorley

Interviewer Councillor Interviewer Councillor

Interviewer

90 Section 3 Write one of the following essays

1 ‘Anybody who wants to stand as a local councillor is obviously unsuitable.” How far do you think that altruism is a major motive in people’s desire to take part in community activities?

2 Describe the aims and activities of a community group of which you have been or would like to be a member

Now listen to some’ of the arguments the candidates in the manifesto would have to face as they went from door to door

Note down the jobs that this councillor does

Reading 6

Write down the missing words

Well, one things very slowly of course, but { think I have made great efforts and been successful , achieving equality of educational {of improving social services, and ; ; all the great planning thing I was involved in keeping Jericho here in Oxford as a community and not ©; it t6 be broken up and its people sent out to live in the’ of the city

‘And this was actually going against the national | ".!?

It was very much going against the national trend, but now of course it’s recognized both :: and internationally as a piece

of how inner urban areas should be developed

And not just `” slum cléarance?

governments, Olive Gibbs, thank you very much indeed Now back to the studio

1 Kathleen Allsop, Local and Central Government, Hutchinson,

1978: a simple and concise account of government administration at local and national level, compiled for young adults, in British schools It includes a ‘typical’ day in the lives

Review A Vocabulary

2 John Braine, Life at the Top, Penguin Books: a popular novel about a young man who marries into money and discovers its power in many places, including local government

3 Margaret Drabble, The lee Age, Penguin Books, 1979: a

“state of the nation’ navel in which the author analyses contemporary attitudes, including a portrait of property speculators and their relationship with local government officials

Language Review Choose from the five words or phrases given after the following sentences the one which most appropriately completes that sentence,

1 He isa member of the local sports club

A long-lasting B longterm € longswinded 1D longsuffering

E long-standing

2 ‘The motion was by L1 votes to 7, with 3 abstentions

A carried B taken C permitted D legalized F proposed

3 A meeting will be to discuss the matter further

A run B had C occurred D held FE made

4 Considering how few services we get, the rates we pay are

A aflash in the pan B down to earth C out of this workd

D daylight robbery E peanuts

5 Proposals are being for public comment

A advised B drawn out C supposed D put forward

7 Councillors are meant to the interests of their electors

A serve B abet C deny D ignore E hold

8 The news of the deal soon , despite official silence

A overflowed B oozed out C wept D leaked out

A astab in the back B a nine days’ wonder C a shot in the dark

D aportina storm E a storm in a teacup

11 Councillor Abrahams 2 resolution in favour of accepting the offer

A moved 8 proposed C put TD made E took

Review B

Structure

15 The manifesto is a for the town’s future

A white paper B green belt C blue film D green light

4 The local government system was first incorporated into law

in the late nineteenth centu

The late nineteenth centvry , Sasi

5 One of the local authority’s responsibilities is town planning

The local authority

Local authorities distinguish _

8 Finance for current expenditure comes from three main

sources

Current xpenditurc is ẨNNNNRNRRNNENNWn-Ph

9 Large metropolitan districts provide services like education

Educational #

10 After strong pressure from Labour councillors, the Council agreed to reconsider the road plan

11 Contact the Social Services department}if you have any further problems

Get

12 The meeting was presided over by the Mayor

The Mayor was , AT?

12 The motion was carried, with only protest from the 14 Councillor Williamson proposed that the cost of boat rides be

E a feebl

A sparing B declining C shrinking D relieving E battering Directly-elected councillors | ;

14 The President himself to expanding solar energy projects

A vowed B supported C swore D pledged E undertook Review C Fill each of the blanks with alsuitable word or phrase

Structure 1 Local government in Brilain Tu elceted local authorities

3A clear đïstinction capital and current expenditure

4 The term ‘mayor’ has ceremonial significance but the administrative functions of the area

5 Candidates must be 21 and worked or lived in the area for

6 197314 i is the last year statistics-have heen published

7 ' aman had succeeded in accumulating money meant he could be entrusted with the business of the town

8 Now and then the townspeople would discuss this, but always something that did not really concern them

9 They asked people to believe by & a desire to devote their time and abilities to the town

10 extraordinary apathy of the townsfolk, the Brigands carried out their depredations undisturbed

11 They offered to buy this land from the Municipality — or,

1, 7, from themselves for about half its value

12 He said every encouragement to the promoters of this project in future _

13 Unfortunately, usual at that time of year, the town was full of unemployed

14 It was disgraceful that someone should attempt to wreck a project towards relieving the unemployed,

15 Since she was elected in! 1980, she the interests of her ward as best she can

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Summary

Another landlady

Cathy Landlady

Cathy

7 epain any two of the reasons given for homelessness in lines

8 Explain ‘squatters’.?”

9 What is the difference between a drifter and a vagrant?27*

10 What does ‘potentially homeless’ mean?*

11 What is ‘rent arrears’ 23%

12 Which of the reasons listed in lines 22-4 follows logically from

‘cases who have reached the stage of notice to quit”32 %2

13 What are ‘servicemen’ ?37

14 For each of the items below give a word from the extract which has the same meaning

a money available for lending with which to buy a house

b money paid to a landlord for accommodation

¢ a quarrel with your husband or wile

d knocking down slums

e people who tive in rented accommodation

15 Summarize the extract from the report in approximately 150 words, beginning ‘Homelessness is increasing .’ -

Official reports are in themselves, however, of no help to the homeless unless local authorities act on their findings In areas where there is a

housing crisis the authorities acé simply not prepared or able to provide enough money for housing to alleviate the problem to any significant extent Housing officials try to help by providing temporary

accommodation, but this obviously does little to ease the personal crisis

that a homeless individual or family faces It can even aggravate it, as shown in the famous B.B.C dramatized documentary Cathy Come Home (Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd., 1966) written by Jeremy Sandford and

based on his experience with the homeless Cathy, her husband and young

children are evicted from sub-standard housing, live in a caravan and then squat in derelict buildings; Cathy and her children are eventually given institutionalized accommodation by the local authority, only to be evicted from this too, upon which her children are taken away from her and put into care, as she can no longer provide for them The following extracts show Cathy looking for private rooms that she could rent and then, much later, going into a local authority hostel for the homeless

Reading 2 Outside Another House

Yes dear, I think we could fit yourself in Don’t have no kids |

suppose?

Well, I have got three

Cathy continues her search, peering among the notice boards,

We hear Cathy's voice

It wasn’t long before | realised something We'd been lucky to get the old place There didn't seem to be anything for us any more

CSj E2 E2 L J L_._Ó

And we bear another voice say : Voice I see they’re putting a car park for thousands of cars on Clapham Common Well, why can’t they put houses there?, They put houses there in the war Do they think that cars is more important than people?

The Street Again Cathy is trudging down the street

Cathy Everywhere it was ‘no children, no children’ If I'd "ve had a couple of elephants they might of said: ‘Fair enough, you can leave them outside in the yard’ But children, they'd say, ‘Sorry, we can’t have nothing like that’ It was as if they thought it was a a0

At Cumberland Lodge, the home for the Homeless Cathy and Reg sit in front of the Official

Official The accommodation we have available is for wives only, we can’t 2 accommodate husbands

Reg Why can’t husbands be accommodated?

Official We used to house husbands at one time but we had to discontinue the practice They used to tear up the sheets

We’ ve got no objection to your coming to see your wife on a weekday evening That is provided that you are gone by eight 30 The front must not be used by you homeless Again there's a good reason It does upset the old people we also accommodate here — and of course this accommodation really was meant for them

Now No alcohol in the building This is one that we are fairly strict about And we do expect inmates to take a regular bath and 3°

get plenty of fresh air

Cathy and Reg look at each other

Official Rent We charge five shillings a night for each adult and three bab for a child Payable in advance

Official We can’t put you up for free, let alone feed you Right Any questions? There are other rules, but you'll find:it easy to pick them up as you go along Now any questions?

Official In lots of places in Britain they don't keep famities together They break them up straight away when they become homeless, put the children in care, etc etc The Welfare Department of this city, in their wisdom -

Reg Can't you give us a flat? Can't you? So we can stay together?

Official The average family on our waiting list has to wait years fora w house [f we re-housed homeless families, then everyone would see it’s an easy way to queue-barge No, we can’t do that for obvious reasons And it must strictly be understood that this is only temporary After three months, make no mistake, we turn you out So keep searching