National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Faculty of English Studies

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE:

SELF STUDY MATERIAL

Course coordinators:

Associate Professors E. Ifantidou, B. Mitsikopoulou, A. Tzanne

ATHENS

CONTENTS

PART A: ACADEMIC READINGS 1 PART B: ACADEMIC WRITING TASKS 13 PART C: GENERAL READINGS 31 PART D: GRAMMAR TASKS 52 PART E: EXTRACTS FROM “ABOUT LANGUAGE” 117

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PART A: ACADEMIC READINGS

1.1 A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING DYSLEXIA The text that follows is from a report on dyslexia. Read it and do the tasks that follow.

(I)__________________ The present report is written for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teachers who are not dyslexia specialists. It is designed to be of use for teachers in discrete Skills for Life provision and for those who support the development of literacy, language and numeracy in learners on other programmes. (1)______________________________ _______________. (II)__________________ The word 'dyslexia' comes from the Greek 'dys-', meaning difficulty with, and '-lexia', meaning words or language. There are many reasons why people find it difficult to learn to read, write, or spell. For many such people, those difficulties can be explained by the normal range of opportunity and experience. For others, however, those difficulties do not seem so easily explainable. Such learners may be what is termed ‘dyslexic’. (2)_____________________________________________________. Dyslexia affects information processing (receiving, holding, retrieving and structuring information) and the speed of processing information. It therefore has an impact on skills such as reading, writing, using symbols and carrying out calculations. However, dyslexia is an umbrella term as there are many differing definitions in literature. (III)__________________ All teachers need an awareness of the indicators of dyslexia and dyscalculia and need to know how to respond when they recognise them. (3)________________________ ___________________. As many as a further 6% of the population may be affected to a lesser extent – but some suggest that the percentage may be higher. Most literacy, language and numeracy teachers will have some dyslexic learners in their groups and the Disability Discrimination Act requires all teachers to be prepared to respond to their needs. (IV)__________________ This section is written for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teachers who are not dyslexia specialists. It provides an overview of current theories of dyslexia. Some theoretical background will enable tutors to understand the nature of the difficulties faced by dyslexic learners and how these might influence approaches to teaching and learning. This section also provides a basis for further study and professional development. There are many different theories of dyslexia. Individual researchers pursue particular avenues of exploration. It is important to remember that research is ongoing and that our knowledge is still partial. (4)_________________________________________. Teaching and learning approaches have often been developed from observation and

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experimentation by practitioners themselves; the links between theory and practice are not straightforward. (V)__________________ This section provides information on the range of different approaches and programmes used by dyslexia specialists in post-16 education and training. Although dyslexic learners are often taught in ways that are different from the ways in which non-dyslexic learners are taught, this does not have to be so. Many of the methods might be, and indeed sometimes are, used successfully with non-dyslexic learners. Many specialists have developed their own ways of working with adult learners, drawing eclectically from a number of different approaches or sources. Others follow specific programmes, with or without their own adaptations. It is important to remember that no one method appears to be effective with all dyslexic learners, although all methods seem to work for some learners. Some of these approaches – multisensory techniques, for example – are well established and widely used. Other approaches or programmes are newer or less widespread. (5)____________________ ___________________. There is no generally accepted classification system for the approaches and programmes, but they are presented here in six broad groupings: structured cumulative, person-centred, physiological approaches, approaches using technology and approaches used in mathematics and in higher education. Adapted from: Department for Children School and Families (2003-2004) A Framework for Understanding Dyslexia available from: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/understandingdyslexia/# Task 1 Read the text and choose a suitable heading for each of the sections of the text. There are more headings than you need. Ignore the gaps for the present. Theories of dyslexia Approaches and programmes used by specialists References Introduction Resources Raising awareness Definition of dyslexia Practical Guide Task 2 The following sentences have been removed from the text. Read the text again and choose from the sentences A-F the one which fits each gap. There is an extra sentence you do not need to use.

A. We understand dyslexia to be a specific difficulty, typically characterised by an unusual balance of skills.

B. It provides general information on dyslexia and dyscalculia to help teachers understand and respond to the needs of their learners.

C. They may be relatively untried and untested and some have been criticised by other specialists.

D. About 4% of the population are thought to be affected to a significant extent by dyslexia.

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E. However, teachers are recommended to refer to Access for All as perhaps the best source of practical teaching suggestions to help dyslexic learners that is currently available.

F. It might be assumed that dyslexia theories have led to the development of associated teaching and learning approaches, but this is not always so.

Task 3 Find words in the text which mean: Paragraph 1

a. the ability to read and write: _________________ b. the ability to do arithmetic: _________________ c. difficulty in learning or comprehending mathematics: _________________

Paragraph 2 d. get information back from your memory or from a computer:

_________________ e. extent or scope: _________________

Paragraph 3 f. a signal for attracting attention: _________________ g. a formal decision, law, or the like : _________________

Paragraph 4 h. a general understanding or description of a situation as a whole:

_________________ i. something that is not complete or whole : _________________

Paragraph 5 j. approach that emphasizes the use of vision, hearing, and touch to provide

additional information to help shape a child's speech production: _________________

k. in a way that does not follow any one system, but selects and uses the best elements of all systems: _________________

Task 4 Underline the correct synonyms for the following words as used in the text: 1. discrete (par. 1): different, ambiguous, distinct, combined 2. impact (par. 2): effect, contact, clash, consequences 3. awareness (par. 3) : knowledge, experience, accuracy, consciousness, keenness,

realization 4. respond (par. 3): answer, react, address, pursue, reply 5. current (par. 4): fashionable, contemporary, up-to-date, actual 6. approach (par.5): method, proposition, program, access Task 5 Provide one derivative for the following words:

1. provision (par. 1): ______________________ 2. literature (par. 2): ______________________ 3. awareness (par. 3) : ______________________ 4. respond (par. 3): ______________________ 5. basis (par. 4): ______________________ 6. specific (par. 5): ______________________

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1.2. DISCOURSE AND MANIPULATION

Read the text on ‘Discourse and manipulation’ that follows and do the tasks. Manipulation as intended in this work is a communicative and interactional practice, in which a manipulator exercises control over other people, usually against their will or against their best interests. In everyday usage, the concept of manipulation has negative associations – manipulation is bad – because such a practice violates social norms. Manipulation not only involves power, but specifically abuse of power, that is, domination. That is, manipulation implies the exercise of a form of illegitimate influence by means of discourse: manipulators make other people believe or do things that are in the interest of the manipulator, and against the best interests of the manipulated (of the many studies on discourse and legitimation, see, e.g., Chouliaraki, 2005; Martín Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997). In a broader, semiotic sense of manipulation, such illegitimate influence may also be exercised with pictures, photos, movies or other media (Van Leeuwen, 2005). Indeed, many forms of contemporary communicative manipulation, e.g. by the mass media, are multimodal, as is typically the case in advertising (Day, 1999; Messaris, 1997). Without the negative associations, manipulation could be a form of (legitimate) persuasion (see, e.g., Dillard and Pfau, 2002; O’Keefe, 2002). The crucial difference in this case is that in persuasion the interlocutors are free to believe or act as they please, depending on whether or not they accept the arguments of the persuader, whereas in manipulation recipients are typically assigned a more passive role: they are victims of manipulation. This negative consequence of manipulative discourse typically occurs when the recipients are unable to understand the real intentions or to see the full consequences of the beliefs or actions advocated by the manipulator. This may be the case especially when the recipients lack the specific knowledge that might be used to resist manipulation (Wodak, 1987). A well-known example is governmental and/or media discourse about immigration and immigrants, so that ordinary citizens blame the bad state of the economy, such as unemployment, on immigrants and not on government policies (Van Dijk, 1993). Obviously, the boundary between (illegitimate) manipulation and (legitimate) persuasion is fuzzy, and context dependent: some recipients may be manipulated by a message that is unable to manipulate others. Also the same recipients may be more or less manipulable in different circumstances, states of mind, and so on. Many forms of commercial, political or religious persuasion may formally be ethically legitimate but people may still feel manipulated by it, or critical analysts may judge such communication to be manipulating people. Provisionally, then, I shall assume that the crucial criteria are that people are being acted upon against their fully conscious will and interests, and that manipulation is in the best interests of the manipulator. Adapted from Teun A. van Dijk (2006) “Discourse and manipulation”. Discourse & Society 17: 359.

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Task 1 Read the text and find examples of the following:

a. a sentence definition: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ b. an extended definition: ______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ c. elaboration : ______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ d. exemplification: ___________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ e. subordinate clause: _________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ f. concession: ________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ g. in-text documentation: ______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ h. cautious language: _________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ i. impersonal language: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Task 2 Complete the following definition of ‘multimodal’ (par. 3) using one word in each gap. The ________ ________ used to ________ to a myriad of functions and conditions in

________ two or more different methods, processes or forms of delivery are used. On the

Web, it ________ to asking for something one way and receiving the answer another;

________ ________ requesting information via speech and receiving the answer on

screen. Multimodal technology ________ users to utilise multiple forms of input and

output – ________ voice, keypads and stylus – interchangeably in the same interaction.

Task 3 Use the prompts given to write definitions of the following words from the text: 1. norms (par. 1): behaviour or belief / considered typical / community ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. legitimation (par. 2): act / render someone or something legitimate / Social Sciences /

process / act or ideology become legitimate ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. semiotic (par 3): relate / study signs and symbols / include / study /how meaning

constructed and understood ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. interlocutor (par 3): person / take part / conversation / also / interviewer or

facilitator of communication / oral interview ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Task 4 Rewrite the following sentences from the text using the word given. Make any necessary changes. 1. Manipulation as intended in this work is a communicative and interactional practice,

in which a manipulator exercises control over other people. (exercised) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2. Manipulation not only involves power, but specifically abuse of power, that is, domination. (Not only)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Manipulators make other people believe or do things that are in the interest of the

manipulator. (are) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Such illegitimate influence may also be exercised with pictures, photos, movies or

other media. (likely) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5. Without the negative associations, manipulation could be a form of legitimate

persuasion. (If) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Task 5 The following nouns are all from the text above. Write the verb they derive from in the space provided. NOUN VERB NOUN VERB 1. manipulation manipulate 9. arguments 2. practice 10. recipients 3. concept 11. intentions 4. associations 12. immigration 5. abuse 13. analysts 6. domination 14. communication 7. influence 15. legitimation 8. persuasion 16. unemployment Task 6 Now write the noun(s) that derive(s) from the following verbs. VERB NOUN VERB NOUN 1. violate violation 8. accept 2. involve 9. assign 3. imply 10. occur 4. believe 11. resist 5. act 12. blame 6. please 13. judge 7. depend 14. assume

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1.3. MUSIC AND LANGUAGE LEARNING Read the text that follows and do the tasks.

Title: (1) Research has shown that a foetus perceives acoustic signals in the womb. Not only does it hear its mother’s heartbeats, but it also receives sensory information coming from outside the uterus. Taking into account neurophysiological and psychological references (Tomatis as cited by Hannaford 1995:36 & Hepper as cited by Odam 1995:14), we could argue that the sound-learning process and its auditory memory have started before birth, which would mean that sound perception and its analysis are among the earliest processes to develop. Mehler and Dupoux (1992) proved that four-day-old newborns were capable of distinguishing the typical melody of their language, but not the words, because when they were exposed to French-sounding sentences but with made-up words, they also recognized it as their language. (2) Discourse intonation, the ordering of pitched sounds made by a human voice, is the first thing we learn when we are acquiring our mother tongue. Later on, it is through interaction that a child picks up not only the musicality of the language, but also the necessary communication skills. In the earliest stage, it is usually the adult who behaves as a model accommodating her/his speech style to the child’s needs, but interacting with older children (brothers or sisters) also seems to be profitable. (3) The role of ‘motherese’ appears to be fundamental in the child’s process of acquiring a language, not only because of the affective aspects that it offers, as Wallon (1975) points out, but also because of the particular features of this speech. From the very first moment, mothers tend to consider their babies as perfectly prepared to understand them (Snow 1977). Mother talk, also called parental or caretaker talk, is highly repetitive, and full of simple syntactic structures. Slowing down their speech production, mothers give an exaggerated intonation to their utterances, pausing more notarily than in adult-to-adult speech between phrases and clauses. (4) Our direct observation of the discourse of EFL teachers (Fonseca 1997) also reflects this hyperbolic melodic contour, but it only seems to be present when s/he is introducing a new structure and having students repeat or when s/he is acting as a linguistic model while correcting students’ pronunciation. (5) In the use of modified intonation, both mothers and language teachers are acting instinctively. They are unaware of the fact that they are ‘singing’ at that moment. In both cases, they are expecting some type of repetition. In the same way that babies answer their mothers totally, EFL students, when asked to repeat, give back the same melody, even if they are unable to pronounce the words correctly. In pairwork activity afterwards, where students have to use the structure just taught, they do not generally use that

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exaggerated pronunciation because they have interpreted it as a pedagogical tool to help them to pronounce better. Fonseca Mora, Carmen (2000) “Foreing language acquisition and melody singing” ELT Journal 54 (2): 146-152. Task 1 Read the text and choose the most appropriate title for it. Write the title in the box above the text: A. Music and language in the foreign language classroom B. Children’s sound perception when learning a language C. Implications of intuitive melodic approach in L1 & L2 acquisition D. Melodic contours in the foreign language classroom Task 2 The following paragraph has been removed from the text. Put it back in the correct place. Circle the correct paragraph and justify your choice.

The missing paragraph should go after paragraph 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 because ____________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There is also a special use of melodie contours at school. Children are still involved in the L1 acquisition process at the age of three. Feu and Piniero (1997) studied teacher talk and also observed the use of exaggerated intonation patterns by a Spanish teacher in the classroom when trying to elicit information from a three-year-old group. This emphatic intonation came about again when the teacher was explaining how to do a new or more complicated task. Task 3 Find words that mean: Paragraph 1 a. an animal or human being in its later stages of development before it is born:

______________________ b. the part inside the body where a baby grows before it is born (two different words) :

______________________ & ______________________ c. related to hearing: ______________________ Paragraph 2 d. communication, contact: ______________________ e. adjust :______________________ Paragraph 3 f. basic, essential: ______________________ g. relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions; emotional:

______________________ h. the things that somebody says: ______________________ Paragraph 4 i. any unit of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence used to communicate

thoughts: ______________________ j. general shape or outline: ______________________

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Paragraph 5 k. to construe or understand in a particular way: ______________________ Task 4 Find more formal words for the following:

a. made up (par. 1): ______________________ b. pick up (par. 2): ______________________ c. slow down (par. 3): ______________________ d. come about (missing paragraph): ______________________

1.4. THE LANGUAGE OF PAIN Read the extract from a book on the language of pain and do the tasks that follow.

What is language for pain?

Verbal avowals1 and descriptions of pain represent its linguistic dimension, whereby it may be communicated. On the one hand, the sufferer attempts to put his pain into words so that another person might understand it, i.e. he seeks to assign2 visibility to his otherwise invisible, interior3 experience, and on the other, the listener tries to ‘decode’ it. In essence4, it is the distinction between the ‘private’ and ‘public’ aspect5 of pain which introduces the relation of language to pain. Kugelman (1999: 1668-1669) argues that pain, being invisible, is not independent of the sufferer’s persuasive abilities and of its expression through which it gains visibility. This leads to the assumption that pain which is not verbally expressed remains private and as such cannot be treated as part of social reality. Moreover, we should not disregard that there are cases of language impairment6 (e.g. as a result of advanced age, dementia7, illness, etc.) where verbal expression is restricted or impossible. In addition, we should not assume that that there is no suffering when patients are silent, given that their silence may sometimes be induced8 by cultural and spiritual beliefs. Adapted from: Laskaratou, C. (2007) The Language of Pain. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company Task 1 Circle the correct meaning for the numbered words from the text 1.

a. a statement asserting the existence or the truth of something b. a public and official announcement

2. a. say that something has this value or function b. set aside for a particular purpose

3. a. self-produced b. pertaining to that which is within

4. a. additionally b. in reality

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5. a. part, feature b. difference, divergence

6. a. damage that results in a reduction of strength or quality b. something that offends or displeases

7. a. loss of intellectual capacity and personality integration, due to the loss of or

damage to neurons in the brain. b. extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness.

8. a. give life to; make alive b. bring about, produce, or cause

Task 2 Match the words from the text with their synonyms. 1. avowal a. aspect 2. belief b. depict 3. decode c. acknowledgement 4. dimension d. decrypt 5. expression e. guide 6. independent f. unconstrained 7. lead e g. verbalization 8. represent h. provided 9. spiritual i. doctrine 10. given j. religious Task 3 Match the words from the text with their antonyms. 1. assumption a. exterior 2. attempt b. consider 3. disregard c. unconvincing 4. gain h d. certainty 5. induce e. secular 6. interior f. prevent 7. persuasive g. accomplish 8. private h. lose 9. restricted i. unlimited 10. spiritual j. public Task 4 Paraphrase the following sentences from the text. Underlined parts show you where you could use synonyms. You can use the technique indicated in the parenthesis. In some cases sentences have been started for you 1. Verbal avowals and descriptions of pain represent its linguistic dimension, whereby it may be communicated. (synonyms, change of syntax, different preposition)

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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2. In essence, it is the distinction between the ‘private’ and ‘public’ aspect of pain which

introduces the relation of language to pain. (synonyms, change of word class, change of syntax)

What___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3. Pain, being invisible, is not independent of the sufferer’s persuasive abilities and of its

expression through which it gains visibility. This leads to the assumption that pain which is not verbally expressed remains private and as such cannot be treated as part of social reality. (synonyms, change of syntax, use your own words)

Since___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4. In addition, we should not assume that that there is no suffering when patients are

silent, given that their silence may sometimes be induced by cultural and spiritual beliefs. (synonyms, active to passive, passive to active)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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PART B: ACADEMIC WRITING TASKS

2.1 MAINTAIN A FORMAL ACADEMIC STYLE Choose a verb from the list that reduces the informality of each sentence. Note that you may need to add tense to the verb from the list. assist reduce create investigate raise establish increase determine fluctuate eliminate

1. Expert Systems can help out the user in the diagnosis of problems. _______________________________________________________________

2. This program was set up to improve access to medical care. _______________________________________________________________

3. Research expenditures have gone up to nearly $350 million. _______________________________________________________________

4. The use of optical character readers (OCRs) should cut down the number of

problems with the U.S. mail service. _______________________________________________________________

5. Researchers have found out that this drug has serious side effects.

_______________________________________________________________ 6. Building a nuclear power plant will not get rid of the energy problem completely.

_______________________________________________________________ 7. Researchers have been looking into this problem for 15 years now.

_______________________________________________________________ 8. This issue was brought up during the investigation.

_______________________________________________________________ 9. Engineers can come up with better designs using CAD.

_______________________________________________________________ 10. The emission levels have been going up and down.

_______________________________________________________________

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2.2 FORMAL VERBS Reduce the informality of each sentence by substituting a single verb for the one in italics.

1. The implementation of computer-integrated-manufacturing (CIM) has brought about some serious problems. _______________________________________________________________

2. The process should be done over until the desired results are achieved.

_______________________________________________________________ 3. Plans are being made to come up with a database containing detailed

environmental information for the region. _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________

4. Subtle changes in the earth’s crust were picked up by these new devices.

_______________________________________________________________ 5. Proposals to construct new nuclear reactors have met with great resistance from

environmentalists. _______________________________________________________________

2.3 FORMAL STYLE Read the table below and then revise the sentences that follow to reduce informality.

Formal Grammar & Style Recommendations

• Avoid contractions, e.g. won’t will not • Use the more appropriate formal negative forms,

e.g. not … any no not…much little not … many few

• Limit the use of “run on” expressions, such as “and so forth” and “etc.” • Avoid addressing the reader as “you” • Limit the use of direct questions • Place adverbs within the verb

e.g. Then the solution can be discarded The solution can then be discarded

1. If you fail the exam, you can’t enter the university. _______________________________________________________________

2. OK, what are the causes of deformation? Many possibilities exist.

_______________________________________________________________

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3. You can clearly see the differences between these two processes. _______________________________________________________________

4. A small bit of ammonium dichromate is added to the gelatin solution gradually.

_______________________________________________________________ 5. These special tax laws have been enacted in six states: Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, etc.

_______________________________________________________________ 6. The subjects didn’t have much difficulty with the task.

_______________________________________________________________

2.4 TEXT ORGANISATION Read the problem-solution text that follows and label its four parts with headings from the box. Sentence numbers have been added for ease of reference. Identification of a problem Evaluation of the solution Description of a solution Description of a situation

1Madagascar has one of the world’s oldest systems of natural reserves. 2This system, established during the early 1900s, was designed to protect lemurs and other animal species unique to the island. 3However, due to severe economic hardship, this island country lacks the funds to properly manage the reserves; as a result, many species risk extinction. 4One recent solution to this problem has been offered by the international community. 5If Madagascar begins to better protect its reserves, its foreign debt will be reduced. 6This incentive should lead to some level of improvement. 2.5 LINKING WORDS AND PHRASES Supply linking words or phrases that enhance the flow of the text below. Look carefully at the punctuation to help you make an appropriate choice. Many modern artists are using computers in their work because these machines enable the artist to be more creative. Some artists believe computers will gain in popularity; ___________________, others feel they will have at best a fleeting presence in the art world. The computer is not a conventional art tool exactly like a brush, pencil or hammer; ___________________, it is a tool that provides greater flexibility. ___________________ the use of computers for artistic purposes seems somewhat unusual, researchers believe their use will indeed become more widespread in the next century. Changes can be made quickly and easily when artists use computers. ___________________, copying portions of a painting, drawing or musical composition can be done with a keystroke, ___________________ saving the artist considerable time.

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___________________ some initial resistance, the artistic community is beginning to realize that technology can indeed play a role in creativity. 2.6 THIS + SUMMARY WORD Example ESL lecturers know that students need to understand the differences between formal and informal language. However, this understanding cannot usually be acquired quickly. The phrase in italics contains a summary noun that refers back to the idea in the previous sentence. Phrases such as the one above summarize what has already been said and help the writer maintain the flow of the text. Read the Madagascar text and underline the summary words used in the text. 1Madagascar has one of the world’s oldest systems of natural reserves. 2This system, established during the early 1900s, was designed to protect lemurs and other animal species unique to the island. 3However, due to severe economic hardship, this island country lacks the funds to properly manage the reserves; as a result, many species risk extinction. 4One recent solution to this problem has been offered by the international community. 5If Madagascar begins to better protect its reserves, its foreign debt will be reduced. 6This incentive should lead to some level of improvement. 2.7 SUMMARY WORDS Choose a summary word from the list to complete each sentence. Number improvement Trend Fall support increase Amount assurance Risk Drop proposals measures

1. In the United States, the levels of lead, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide fell between 1978 and 1987. Despite this ___________, the air is still contaminated by many carcinogens.

2. Ozone levels in the United States increased 5% from 1986-87, another 15% from 1987-88, and an additional 10% from 1988-90. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials are concerned that if this ___________ continues, serious environmental damage may occur.

3. The EPA has revealed that 20 of the 320 known toxic chemicals in the air probably cause more than 2,000 cases of cancer annually. While this ___________ may not seem high, it is still a cause for concern.

4. The EPA states that individuals living near chemical plants have a higher than normal chance of developing cancer. This ___________ has been substantiated by numerous studies.

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5. The Chemical Manufacturers Association has decided it will more strongly support the pollution control efforts of the EPA. This ___________ was a major factor in the drafting of new regulations.

6. Lawmakers in southern California are proposing banning the sale of new charcoal grills, requiring sophisticated pollution control devices, and demanding that by the next century 40% of all cars and buses run on clean fuel, such as methanol. These ___________ may indeed become law in the near future.

2.8 SUMMARY WORDS AS COHESIVE DEVICES Provide summary words to improve the flow of the text.

A 1986 study of 7,000 recovering alcoholics showed that 3% were under age 20 and 18% were between 21 and 30. Moreover, the study revealed that the average age of alcoholics seems to be falling. This ___________ worries health officials. In the past, alcohol addiction was considered a social problem closely related to criminal or immoral behavior. However, today this ___________ is no longer widely held. Many alcoholics have lived through difficult childhoods, divorces, and professional disappointment. Even so, these ___________ are not good predictors of who will become an alcoholic. In a recent study, children of alcoholics were found to be four times as likely as children of nonalcoholics to be alcoholics – even when raised by non-alcoholic parents. This ___________ has led researchers to believe there is a genetic link in alcoholism. 2.9 SENTENCE DEFINITIONS Insert the article a or an where necessary in the following definitions.

1. Helium is gas which consists of two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons. 2. Labor union is organization of workers formed to improve their economic status

and working conditions. 3. White dwarf is star that is unusually faint given its extreme temperature. 4. Rice is cereal grain that usually requires subtropical climate and abundance of

moisture for growth. 5. Transduction is technique in which genes are inserted into host cell by means of

viral infection. 6. Heat is form of energy which can be transmitted through solid and liquid media by

conduction.

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2.10 REVISE SENTENCE DEFINITIONS FOR CLARITY Edit the following by reducing the relative clauses where possible.

1. Aluminum is a lightweight metal that is often used for high-tension power transmission. ______________________________________________________

2. Heat is a form of energy which can be transmitted through solid and liquid media

by conduction. ______________________________________________________

3. A brake is a device that is capable of slowing the motion of a mechanism.

______________________________________________________ 4. A dome is generally a hemispherical roof which is on top of a circular, square, or

other-shaped space. ______________________________________________________

5. Snow is a form of precipitation which results from the sublimation of water vapor

into solid crystals at temperatures below 0o C. ______________________________________________________

6. An antigen is a substance which causes the formation of antibodies, the body’s

natural response to foreign substances. ______________________________________________________

7. A piccolo is a small flute that is pitched an octave higher than a standard flute.

______________________________________________________ 8. An oocyte is a cell which undergoes meiosis to produce an ovum or egg.

______________________________________________________ 9. A catalyst is a substance that can speed up the rate of a chemical reaction without

changing its own structure. ______________________________________________________

10. A black hole is a celestial body which has approximately the same mass as the sun

and a gravitational radius of about 3 km. ______________________________________________________

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2.11 PREPOSITIONS IN DEFINITION SENTENCES Complete the following definitions by inserting an appropriate preposition.

1. A thermometer is an instrument __________ which temperature can be measured. 2. Photosynthesis is a process __________ which sunlight is used to manufacture

carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide. 3. A credit bureau is an organization __________ which businesses can apply for

financial information on potential customers. 4. An anhybride is a compound __________ which the elements of water have been

removed. 5. An eclipse is a celestial event __________ which one body, such as a star, is

covered by another, such as a planet. 6. An axis is an imaginary line __________ which a body is said to rotate.

2.12 DEFINE A TERM Read the examples and then choose a word or phrase that assigns the following terms or phrases to precise class. Use your dictionary if necessary. Examples “A microphone is an object …” is less precise than “A microphone is an instrument…” “A vowel is a sound…” is less precise than “A vowel is a speech sound…” Class

1. a consonant ____________________

2. an ellipse ____________________

3. an amplifier ____________________

4. neon ____________________

5. a parasite ____________________

6. a psychologist ____________________

7. lysine ____________________

8. mitosis ____________________

9. oxidation ____________________

10. a myth ____________________

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2.13 PROVIDE ONE-SENTENCE DEFINITIONS Write a one-sentence definition for the following. Make sure you provide enough specific detail to distinguish your term from other members in its class. a computer virus: ……….………………………………………………………………………………… a conductor: ……….………………………………………………………………………………… a language: ……….………………………………………………………………………………… linguistics: ……….………………………………………………………………………………… 2.14 EXTENDED DEFINITIONS Read the following extended definition and answer the questions that follow. 1Navigation is a process by which means of transport can be guided to their destination when the route has few or no landmarks. 2Some of the earliest navigators were sailors, who steered their ships first by the stars, then with a compass, and later with more complicated instruments that measured the position of the sun. 3We are reminded of this by the fact that the word navigation comes from the Latin word for “ship.” 4However, the history and importance of navigation changed radically in the 20th century with the development of aircraft and missiles, which fly in three dimensions. 5Today, both ships and aircraft rely heavily on computerized navigational systems that can provide a continuous, immediate, and accurate report of position.

1. What type of information is included in each of the sentences in the definitions? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. How is the text organized? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. What tenses are used for which sentences? Why? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Sentence 3 begins with we. Is this appropriate? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2.15 PUT TOGETHER AN EXTENDED DEFINITION Here are the sentences of a general-to-specific text on an unusual but interesting topic. Read them and try to put them back in the correct order. Write 1 next to the first sentence, 2 next to the second, and so on. …… a. The term itself comes from the ancient Greek word palindromos meaning “running back again”. …… b. Another good and more recent example is “If I had a Hi-Fi”. …… c. Some very common English words are palindromous, such as pop, dad, and noon. …… d. A palindrome is a word or phrase that results in the same sequence of letters no matter whether it is read from left to right or from right to left. …… e. One of the classic long palindromes is “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.” …… f. Long palindromes are very hard to construct, and some word puzzlers spend immense amounts of time trying to produce good examples. 2.16 CONTRASTIVE DEFINITIONS A contrastive definition is a definition of two (or more) related terms with a view to identifying their differences and similarities (e.g. an optical and an electron microscope or pollution and adulteration etc). In writing a contrastive definition, you may need to use a structure of the type: “The former deals with …, while the latter is concerned with …” to make clear the distinction between the two. Using the information given in Table 1 and Table 2 provide your own contrastive definition of the terms. Table 1 Vowels Consonants Common in all languages Common in all languages Produced by allowing unobstructed flow of air through the mouth

Produced by obstructing the flow of air through the mouth

No points of articulation or contact-position of tongue

Many points of articulation-lips, tongue and teeth, tongue and palate, etc.

Lip rounding important Lip rounding rarely important Voiced Voiced or voiceless Can easily be produced alone and can even constitute an entire word, e.g. eye

Many are difficult to produce without an accompanying vowel

Can carry pitch and loudness Cannot carry pitch and loudness

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Table 2 Fission Fusion Releases energy stored in nucleus of an atom

Releases energy stored in nucleus of an atom

Occurs with heavy nuclei Occurs with light nuclei Neutrons bombard nuclei of atoms, splitting the nuclei apart

Energy released even greater than that released in fission

Splitting releases energy Two nuclei combine at high temperatures Can occur in a nuclear reactor to generate electricity

One nucleus is formed along with a neutron, releasing energy

Could also occur spontaneously Occurs in the sun and stars Does not require extreme temperatures Requires temperatures of 1,000,000o C Fuel is usually uranium, which is expensive and difficult to extract

Fuel is hydrogen, an abundant element

2.17 COMPARATIVE DEFINITIONS Comparative definitions are typically introductory sections of assignments. They can be used to display your knowledge of the complexities surrounding key terms in your field of study. There are basically two approaches to this type of task. One is to present a historical account of how a concept has changed over time. The other is to present an overview of how various experts today view a concept differently. Good comparative definitions often contain elements of each approach. Read the following definition and answer the questions that follow.

Problems in Defining Humor Generally speaking, humor is a quality in an event or expression of ideas which often evokes a physical response of laughter in a person. It is an evasive quality that over the centuries has been the subject of numerous theories attempting to describe its origins. There are essentially three main theories of humor, each of which has a number of variants: the superiority theory, the incongruity theory, and the relief theory. The superiority theory, which dates back to Aristotle, through Thomas Hobbes (1651) and Albert Rapp (1951), describes all humor as derisive. In other words, people laugh at the misfortunes of others or themselves. Humor is, therefore, a form of ridicule that involves the process of judging or degrading something or someone thought to be inferior. The incongruity theory, on the other hand, maintains that humor originates from disharmony or inappropriateness. Koestler (1964), for example, argues that humor involves coexisting incompatible events. In other words, when two opposite or opposing ideas or events exist at the same time, humor exists. Finally, the relief theory rejects the notion that either superiority or incongruity are the bases for humor. Rather, proponents of this theory believe that humor is a form of release from psychological tension. Humor provides relief from anxiety, hostility, aggression, and sexual tension. Humor gratifies repressed feelings that operate on an unconscious level. Earlier psychologists, such as Freud, Dewey, and Kline, were strong proponents of this theory.

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More modern theories of humor are essentially variations of one of these three traditional ones. For instance, Duncan (1985), in his superiority theory, states that humor is linked to social status. Deckers and Buttram (1990) expand incongruity theory to include elements of schema theory. In their view, distinctions between and within schemata are necessary for an understanding of humor. While each of these theories can explain some aspect of humor, none can successfully be applied to all instances of humor.

1. In which sentences are the competing theories introduced? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What verb tense is used to introduce the definitions of the various researchers?

Why do you suppose this is? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Underline the sentence connectors in the text. Why were they used? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. What do you think might follow this discussion of humor theories? A presentation

of the author’s own definition of humor? An analysis of one event using the different theories? Something else?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Do you think the whole text is a GS text, part of it, or none of it? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Does the text mention a modern version of the relief theory? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. Do you think that the author of the text (Chris) has positioned herself as neutral, or

do you think she has a preference? If you think she has a preference, what do you think it is? Why do you think so?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2.18 DEFINITIONS AND GENERALISATIONS Below you will find three pairs of sentences, each consisting of a definition and a generalisation. When would it be better to begin a text with the first sentence in each pair rather than the second? a.1. Russian is the first language of about 150 million inhabitants of the former Soviet Union. 2. Russian is a language belonging to the West Slavic subgroup of the Indo- European language family. b. 1. AIDS has emerged as a devastating infectious disease for which there is presently no cure. 2. AIDS is a disease caused by a virus that attacks the immune system. c. 1. A catalyst is a substance which increases the rate of a chemical reaction. 2. Catalyst technology has progressed quickly as researchers better understand the complex interactions of molecules. 2.19 PROCEDURES AND PROCESSES Write a short process description combining the following nine sentences in an appropriate way. Use first, then, next, finally, etc. as you wish.

1. A specimen is collected. 2. The specimen is labeled. 3. The specimen is analyzed. 4. The results are recorded. 5. A report form is completed. 6. The report is dispatched. 7. The report is read. 8. The report is acted upon. 9. The report is filed. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2.20 COMBINE SENTENCES Read the example sentences and combine the ideas presented in each set of sentences, using an –ing clause of result. Examples A. A current is sent through the material. As a result, the electrons are polarized. A current is sent through the material, polarizing the electrons. B. The magma flows into the pores of the rocks; as a result, the rocks rupture. The magma flows into the pores of the rocks, thereby causing them to rupture. C. When the piston is drawn upward, the air below rises. This causes the pressure to

fall. When the piston is drawn upward, the air below rises, thus causing the pressure to fall.

1. Sustainable development would require industry to reduce pollution output and resource use; as a result, technical innovation will be stimulated.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. The male E. inconstans performs an elaborate dance; the result is that the female

is attracted. (E. inconstans is a small fish common in the waters of the Great Lakes region and Canada.)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. The computer viruses infect executable files; as a consequence, the host computer

is damaged when the executable is run. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. The carcinogenic substances are extracted from the soil; hence, the soil is left

uncontaminated. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Countries sign treaties on the use of “free resources”, such as air and ocean fish.

Serious ownership questions arise; therefore, it is difficult to enforce any agreement.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2.21 INDIRECT STATEMENTS The verb to be is missing from the following statements. Insert it in the correct position for each. As you do so, note the typical language of indirect questions.

1. The question remains whether it possible to teach people to become effective

instructors.

2. Current studies provide little information on how this policy being implemented in

rural areas.

3. We need to know what students required to do when they write term papers.

4. There is some question as to whether the acquired skill then transferred to other

contexts.

5. It has not been determined how these policies likely to affect small businesses.

6. It might also be of interest to investigate to what extent persistence a major factor

in graduate student success.

7. Another issue raised by this study is whether and to what extent the economy

subject to political developments elsewhere.

8. Without further research, conflicting opinions about which of the strategies the

optimal one will continue.

2.22 PROBLEM-SOLUTION Read the following short problem-solution texts. What differences do you detect between a and b? (Think of such matters as length, audience, amount of background knowledge assumed, amount of detail in each part of the problem-solution text, use of examples, etc.). Which text do you prefer? Why? a. All people need to eat, and they eat a variety of foods – rice, fruits, vegetables, and meat. However, the problem is that sometimes people can become ill after eating spoiled or contaminated food. Each year millions of people become sick or even die. Meat can be particularly dangerous because it is difficult to determine whether it has been contaminated by simply looking at it. Fruit and vegetables at least have obvious signs of spoilage. One solution to this problem is to slow the process of spoilage by irradiation. Irradiated food lasts longer, tastes better, and in some cases may be cheaper. Since irradiated foods are completely safe, consumers now need to be convinced to buy them.

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b. Each year millions of people suffer from foodborne illnesses. Some health problems and even death can result from eating either spoiled fruits and vegetables or contaminated meat. Although in many countries strict governmental guidelines must be followed by meat producers, experts estimate that in the United States, for example, more than half the poultry sold is contaminated with salmonella. Some pork may harbor trinchinella. For the last three decades, much research in food science has focused on whether it might be possible to eliminate potentially harmful bacteria before meat is sent to market. Many possibilities have been investigated, but one of the most promising is irradiation. Irradiation is a process that kills many harmful bacteria that cause spoilage, without affecting the food itself. As a result, irradiated food does not spoil as quickly as unirradiated food and also tastes better for a longer period of time. Food safety specialists agree that if irradiation were used, there would be a dramatic decrease in the rate of foodborne illnesses and deaths from eating contaminated food. Food costs might even be lower because the costs of spoilage would be reduced. While irradiation is being used on a relatively small scale, there is some public concern over its safety. It remains to be seen whether this revolutionary process can be implemented on a wide-scale basis. 2.23 DATA COMMENTARY Working with a partner, put the following sentence variations in order from 1 (strongest claim) to 6 (weakest claim). Some disagreement is reasonable. Deregulation of the US banking industry __________ the 1989-91 banking crisis. ___ a. contributed to

___ b. caused

___ c. may have contributed to

___ d. was probably a major cause of

___ e. was one of the causes of

___ f. might have been a small factor in

2.24 PREPOSITIONS IN DATA COMMENTARY Fill in the blank with an appropriate preposition.

1. As can be seen ___________ figure 4, earnings have decreased.

2. As revealed ___________ figure 2, the lightweight materials outperformed

traditional metals.

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3. As described ___________ the previous page, there are two common types of

abstracts.

4. As stated ___________ Appendix B, per in percent or kilometers per hour is a

Latin preposition that originally meant through or by.

5. As described ___________ the previous unit, passives are common in process

descriptions.

6. As can be seen ___________ a comparison of the two tables, household income is

a more reliable predictor than level of education.

7. As is often the case ___________ materials ___________ this type, small cracks

pose a serious problem.

8. As has been demonstrated ___________ many similar experiments, these

materials have many advantages.

2.25 INTERPRETATION OF DATA The following data commentary is missing references to the nonverbal data in table 9. Edit the commentary by (a) starting with a summary statement and (b) adding a suitable linking as-clause. TABLE 9. Strategies Used by Venezuelan Scientists When Writing in English (N= 67) Strategy Percentage Borrow phrases from English publications 26% Write in Spanish and translate oneself 20% Write in Spanish and employ a translator 18% Write directly in English 15% Outline in Spanish and then write in English 12% Other strategies 9% At least half of the scientists surveyed adopted writing strategies that involved the use of their first language. Moreover, only 15% appear capable of writing directly in English. Overall, the figures would appear to suggest that most Venezuelan scientists have difficulties and frustrations when preparing papers for Anglophone audiences. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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2.26 STRONG – WEAK CLAIMS Underline the verb making the weaker claim.

1. The results indicate/establish that there is a link between smoking and lung cancer.

2. Table 9 suggests/shows that Venezuelan scientists may need help with writing English.

3. The latest series of experiments question/undermine much previous research. 4. The results given in figure 4 validate/support the second hypothesis. 5. The quantities displayed in the table have been assumed/shown to be about 98%

accurate. 6. The test results create/suggest a basis for product modification. 7. Changes in ambient temperature may have influenced/distorted the test results. 8. In their earlier work, they failed/neglected to take ambient temperature into

account. 9. As can be seen from table 3, the new tax laws have encouraged/stimulated

industrial investment. 10. Figure 12 depicts/clarifies the genetic relationship.

2.27 QUALIFICATIONS Read the analysis of an example of “combined qualifications” and then do the task. Often several types of qualification are combined in order to construct a defensible highlighting statement. Here is an example. We start with a big claim!

The use of seat belts prevents physical injuries in car accidents.

Now see what happens when the following qualifications are added. prevents reduces (weaker verb) reduces may reduce (adding probability) + In some circumstances (weakening the generalization) + certain types of injury (weakening the generalization) + According to simulation studies (adding distance) So we now have:

According to simulation studies, in some circumstances the use of seat belts may reduce certain types of injury in car accidents.

This sentence is a nice example of the writer being “confidently uncertain”. (Of course, you also need to beware of excessive qualification since this may result in your saying almost nothing.)

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Work in similar lines with the following sentences by turning them to academically defensible statements.

1. Economic sanctions are ineffective.

2. Passive smoking causes cancer.

3. Recycling is the best solution to the waste disposal problem.

4. Physical exercise lessens the severity of depression.

5. Great novels do not make great films.

6. Private schools provide a better education than do public schools.

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PART C: GENERAL READINGS

3.1 TEXT 1 I. READING 1) The text below is a newspaper article on recent scientific research. Read it

carefully and provide a title for this article.

It could be this week, it could be next. Any day now, we will hear of what will probably be the most significant scientific discovery of our lifetime. The publicly funded international Human Genome Project is promising a “working draft” of the human genome, while the US private company, Celera, is racing to beat them with what it calls its “First Assembly”.

Don’t hold your breath. In the long run, these discoveries may promise to transform our understanding of how our bodies work, offer cures for all types of genetic diseases and open up a frightening Pandora’s box of eugenic possibilities. (Do you want your daughter clever or long-legged or both, sir?) But all that still lies a few years off. What we will have, as John Maynard Smith (one of the world’s greatest evolutionary biologists) said recently, will be “like wanting to learn Hungarian and being given lists of all the Hungarian words but without any of them defined”. Not only will we not have a clue as to what any of First Assembly means but neither will the scientists.

And that is just one of the many reasons why the human genome discoveries make people nervous – the sense that we are launching into a huge unknown territory which makes all we have so far discovered look puny in comparison. As geneticist Norton Zinder comments in this week’s lead article in the New Yorker, The Genome Wars, “This is the beginning of the beginning.” There is nothing more frightening than being in Year Zero.

Here we are facing a scientific breakthrough like Newton’s laws of gravity or Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the predominant emotion is fear. And it is not just the usual mixture of conservatives and reactionaries who are edgy. Many scientists are as well, even some of those are the heart of the whole enterprise, the Human Genome Project.

There are very good reasons for this. Graig Venter, who runs the private company, Celera, scares a lot of people. His methods of distributing the information his company discovers only to subscribers who in turn spew out applications for patents on genes, raises the prospect of this new territory being parceled out to US pharmaceutical companies before anyone else has even got a map. What’s more, the brave new world of genetic research could be stillborn, bogged into a quagmire of patent law in which the only beneficiaries will be teams of US corporate lawyers.

To old-fashioned public-spirited scientists, it is deeply repulsive that something as important as the human genome has become the plaything of a flamboyant entrepreneur who wants to use it to become the world’s first biotech billionaire. And that it becomes an object of the vagaries of the stock market speculation; Celera’s energetic PR division ensures a slew of hyperbolic media attention, which has had its share price yo-yoing up and down the Nasdaq- even at one point dragging the whole stock index with it. The result is a stream of abuse between Venter and the scientists in the international Human Genome Project – the British end of which is being carried out in the Sanger Centre,

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Cambridge. As a scientist concludes in the New Yorker: “It happens to be the most important project in science of our time, and it has all the character of a schoolyard brawl.”

Genetic modification may or may not have great advantages for human beings and the environment, but what the past few years has undoubtedly shown is how pernicious the discovery is in the hands of an unscrupulous corporation intent on maximum commercialization. The point is that our capacity at an institutional and governmental level to regulate the exploitation of scientific discovery seems to be woefully inadequate.

To have government as such a weak agent at this historic moment in science, exacerbates our fear about what kind of morality will we develop for this new era. Our generation will face huge moral dilemmas – what’s wrong with cloning? What genetic disorders do we weed out? What kind of eugenics is acceptable? – and we are without any of the old moral compasses. There is a paradox here, about the huge power we have developed –the computer revealed last week with a capacity millions times that of a PC – and a sense of impotence over knowing how or what to control of our discoveries.

Beyond all these understandable, rational reasons for anxiety over the human genome project, lies an instinctive fear. We don’t much like the idea that in 15 or so years, all the biological make-up of our bodies could be carried on a smart card: will we be reduced to a computer print-out. It’s a shock to human psychology as far-reaching as Galileo’s blow to the medieval mind when he put the sun not the earth at the centre of the universe, or when Darwin told us we were descended from apes. More than 500 or so years of western scientific thought, human egotism and self-importance has been repeatedly punctured: we are not God made masters of creation, but share most of our genes with a vacantly staring cow.

Real and reasonable some of these anxieties may be. We must think what we want from the human genome project, scientifically and morally, and press government to regulate it to those ends. Citizenship will require some moral philosophy over the next decades. But we also need some sense of bravery to carry us into this new era, so that our anxieties don’t blind us to the hope the human genome project could bring. 2) Look at the text again and find the words with the following meaning. (a) stuck, unable to make progress (5th para) (b) divided into parts (5th para) (c) showy (6th para) (d) repelling, arousing aversion or disgust (6th para) (e) noisy quarrel or fight (6th para) (f) strange, unusual acts for which there seems to be no good reason (6th para) (g) harmful, injurious (7th para) (h) irritate someone, aggravate (8th para) (i) state of being unable to act, lacking sufficient strength (8th para)

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3) The following three extracts have been removed from the article. Identify their exact place in the text by mentioning the number of the paragraph which precedes each one of them (e.g. extract Z comes after paragraph 3).

A. Perhaps all such scientific discoveries are marked by territorialism, money –making ambitions and squabbles, but these are writ-large in billions of dollars and they coincide with a period of growing distrust of scientists and what happens to their discoveries.

B. Part of this lies in the globalisation of scientific research. The British government can do little to stop GM developments in the US and, as we have painfully discovered over the GM contaminated rape seed case, we can’t isolate ourselves from it either. Part of this weak regulation also lies in the commercialisation of scientific research in this country and elsewhere, as successive governments have encouraged university laboratories into cosy relationships with the private sector, opting out of both funding research and directing it. C. One of the most painful moments in my journalistic career was when I sat in the home of a Muslim woman whose husband had left her. In her lap lay an adorable sleeping child, dressed in pink satin; on the walls were photos of another child – who had died of an incurable genetic disorder. She told me, with the terrible clarity of someone in a state of traumatised shock, that the child in her lap was unlikely to live much longer and her husband had divorced her because she was the carrier. If genetic research can alleviate such suffering, then there is reason to celebrate the announcement of the first drafts of the human genome.

4) Provide short answers for the following questions (about 70 words each) taking into account the information provided in the text.

a) What is the author’s view on the way Celera operates? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

b) What, according to the text, should be the role of the government? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

c) “We are without any of the old moral compasses”: which are these old moral

compasses and why can’t we use them today? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5) According to the text, there are “rational reasons for anxiety over the human genome

project”. In about 100 words summarize these reasons.

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II. READING AND WRITING The following is the beginning of an article entitled “Ethical gray areas” from The Guardian (Monday June 26, 2000). Read it carefully and continue the newspaper article by writing two short paragraphs (of about 50-70 words each) discussing the effects genetic discrimination may have on adoption and on military service.

In his book, Remaking Eden, the Princeton University biologist Lee Silver foresees a world 350 years from now where pressure from wealthy parents has leveraged gene and cloning technology to the point where society is divided into two classes: 90% “Naturals” and 10% “Gene-enriched”, the latter forming a “modern-day hereditary class of genetic aristocrats” so different from their Natural counterparts they are effectively another species.

Whatever ethical guidelines governments try to impose on industries, insurers and others who seek to benefit from the mapping of the human genome, the emergence of a “genetic underclass” may be inevitable. For some commentators, like US biologist Jeremy Rifkin, it paves the way for “the wholesale alteration of the human species and the birth of a commercially driven eugenics civilization”.

The first signs are already being seen with genetic discrimination taking place in some workplaces. It is now reaching into the areas of adoption and military service. The fear is that people with genetic flaws may be denied insurance, access to schooling or jobs.

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III. WRITING

Although the genes provide the building blocks for each individual, it is the inheritance, the physical and cultural environment, and the process of learning that result in the uniqueness of each individual human. “So those who are afraid of cloning Hitlers or excited to clone Einstein should calm down. I would say the time and the environment produced Hitler, not his DNA”. (Robert Mckinnel, Cloning: A Biologist Reports)

In about 250 words write a letter to the newspaper Editor to be included in the column “The ethics of genetics: our readers’ views” discussing the above statement.

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3.2 TEXT 2

I. READING

1. The text below is an article by Julia Scheeres that appeared in the Wired Magazine on 27/11/01. Read it carefully and provide a title for it.

London police are planning to register children who exhibit criminal potential in an effort to prevent them from developing into full-fledged lawbreakers. Kids who tag buildings with graffiti, skip school, or even talk back to adults run the risk of being entered into a database program that will be used to monitor their behavior as they grow up, according to police sources. Law enforcement officials say the measure is needed to combat rampant juvenile crime, but critics condemn it as an extreme form of police profiling.

The plan was unveiled earlier this month in a speech by Ian Blair, London's deputy police commissioner, to the Youth Justice Board, the government agency that supervises Great Britain's juvenile justice system. Teachers, social workers, health care professionals, law enforcement agents and other authorities who have contact with troublemakers will contribute information to the database program, which will be rolled out in 11 London boroughs before being implemented nationally, according to a copy of the speech. Special squads formed by police and community workers will supervise the actions and behavior of children included in the registry. "With partners in those boroughs, we intend to create an intelligence nexus, which will hold sensitive information about large numbers of children, many of whom have not yet and probably will not actually drift into active criminality. This is pretty revolutionary stuff," Blair said. The deputy police commissioner said the registry was needed to combat a jump in juvenile delinquency. While most crime indicators have dropped in Great Britain, street crimes committed by children have skyrocketed, according to government data. Between 50 and 75 percent of the muggings that occurred on London's streets in the first nine months of this year were perpetrated by minors, studies show. Local authorities will use the database to identify underlying causes of children's bad behavior and recommend therapy or substance abuse treatment programs. "In this process, we have every intention of using intensive surveillance and supervision programs," Blair said. Asked for a comment on the program, a spokeswoman from the Youth Justice Board e-mailed the following statement to Wired News: "The Youth Justice Board is supportive of the idea of increasing information sharing in respect of young people at risk of becoming involved in criminality, and we will be joining with the Met Police to look at ways this can be achieved." A Metropolitan Police spokesman refused to discuss further details of the plan, saying it was still in an exploratory stage. Privacy concerns aren't expected to derail the effort. In his speech, Blair said that Section 115 of the country's Crime and Disorder Act, which allows for disclosure of private information to investigate crimes, may override the Data Protection Act, which regulates information-sharing among government agencies. But the director of

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Privacy International, Simon Davies, said the registries were tantamount to police "profiling gone mad." “I shudder to think of the action that could be taken by authorities with such a database,” Davies said. “All I can see coming out of this is greater criminalization of children and heightened discrimination against certain racial groups.” 2. Find the words in the text which have the following meaning paragraphs 1-2 a) introduced to the public b) fully developed c) put into practice d) widespread and growing in an uncontrolled way paragraphs 3-7 e) a series of connections within a situation or system f) criminal behaviour g) get into a situation in a way that is not planned or controlled h) committed i) careful watching of someone, especially by an organisation paragraphs 8-9 j) very bad, totally unacceptable k) prevent from continuing as planned l) gain importance over something/someone 3. Read the text again and find any words that are used to refer to (i) children (and people of a young age, in general): (ii) crime: ………………………………………………………………………………. (iii) the police: …………………………………………………………………………. 4. Rewrite the false statements below so that the information they convey is true according to the text (a) It is unanimously agreed that the proposed database program for registering children with a criminal potential is necessary for combating rampant juvenile crime.

………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………. (b) Implementation of the program will be confined to 11 London boroughs.

………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………………………….

(c) Children are responsible for an insignificant number of street crimes committed in London.

………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………………………….

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(d) Concern for privacy is expected to prevail over Section 115 of the country’s Crime and Disorder Act. ………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………. 5. Read the above article on planning to register children who exhibit criminal potential and keep notes of the arguments for and against this plan. Then, using your notes, in 80-100 words summarise the different views expressed in the text. Make sure you submit both your notes and the summary. II. WRITING

Taking into account the following extract, write a short article of about 250 words on the notion of privacy and the dangers its invasion entails.

The real problem, says Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired Magazine, is that although we say we value our privacy, what we really want is something very different: “We think that privacy is about information, but it’s not – it’s about relationships.” The way Kelly sees it, there was no privacy in the traditional village or small town; everyone knew everyone else’s secrets. And that was comfortable. I knew about you, and you knew about me. “There was a symmetry to the knowledge,” he says. “What’s gone out of whack is we don’t know who knows about us anymore. Privacy has become asymmetrical.” And he continues, “The answer to the whole privacy question is more knowledge. More knowledge about who’s watching you. More knowledge about the information that flows between us – particularly the meta information about who knows what and where it’s going.”

In your article, you may also wish to take into account the negative effects Davies predicts at the end of the article presented in Part A, when he says “All I can see coming out of this is greater criminalization of children and heightened discrimination against certain racial groups.”

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3.3 TEXT 3 I. READING 1. The text below is an article by Polly Curtis, appearing in the Guardian on 31/10/2002. Its seven paragraphs have been carefully planned to address seven questions, originally appearing as headings. Provide headings for the 7 paragraphs of the text (A-G) by choosing from the header-questions (i)-(x) that appear below. A If the government legislates for top-up fees - or differential fees as they are more diplomatically known - universities would, by law, be able to set their own level of tuition fees. At the moment, all universities, apart from Buckingham, the only privately-funded university, charge £1,050 a year to undergraduates - the rate set by the government. The new proposals would mean that universities could charge nearer the real cost of studying, thought to be an average of £5,000 in the UK. But depending on the institution, department and course, it could be much more. More loans would be available to allow students to pay fees up front. B The Russell Group - the UK's "ivy league" of elite universities. These include Oxbridge, Warwick, Manchester, Leeds, Imperial College, Birmingham and Nottingham. Imperial's rector, Sir Richard Sykes, has made public his wish to introduce fees up to £15,000 a year. Warwick and Birmingham are also reported to be looking into it. Warwick is believed to be considering a £6,000 price tag for its degrees. C Universities claim they are seriously underfunded. Public funding has dropped significantly over the last 20 years, to the point where universities are spending all money on frontline work - the immediate teaching and research. Non-essential work, such as building maintenance, has been put on the backburner. Universities claim that nearly £10bn is needed to rescue the sector from its current funding abyss. Most universities want to see the extra money come out of the public purse. But some believe the extent of the problems would mean an extra penny in the pound for income tax. Although the government promised more money for capital investment for sciences in the summer's comprehensive spending review, universities still don't know how much they will get for teaching. The fear is that it will not be enough to sustain the current rate of growth, or that expected to meet the government's 50% participation pledge and its drive to recruit more students from poorer backgrounds. Top-up fees could be the only source of money to sustain that growth. D The students say they won't, but if top-up fees are introduced, some form of maintenance grant would be re-introduced for those from the poorest backgrounds. Student groups warn that this could create a two-tiered system of education. E Students weren't happy in 1997 when the maintenance grant was abolished and tuition fees introduced. Back then it was unthinkable among students that top-up fees could follow. Now that they are very much on the agenda, students are stepping up their battle. Mandy Telford, president of the National Union of Students, last week warned the new education secretary, Charles Clarke, that he "certainly had his hands full". She told him: "These increased fees would result in an elitist system where a student's wealth, rather than intellect, would determine their success." Parents, increasingly expected to foot the bill, will be worried, and this could be reason behind the government's reticence to go public with its plans. Much has been made of the

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middle-classes being "squeezed out" of the best universities by those who could afford it, and those who were exempt from paying. F There are two: an across the board rise in tuition fees or the introduction of a graduate tax. Scotland already has a graduate tax, which students start paying back after they reach a certain threshold of pay. Mr Clarke is said to be considering a 3p in the pound graduate tax, which wouldn't kick in until a graduate starts earning £30,000. This would signal the government's commitment to ensuring key skill workers, such as teachers and nurses, could afford the proper training. It will also prove that a degree really does pay off. The problem with this option is that the returns on a graduate tax would take a minimum of four years to kick in and universities are unlikely to want to wait that long. G It's all in the thrice-delayed student finance strategy document. It is now expected in January, a year after its original release date. Top-up fees could not be introduced for at least another three years, because of Labour's manifesto commitment not to introduce them in a second term of office.

(i) What are top-up fees? (ii) So when might we find out? (iii)Graduate tax or student loan? (iv) How might higher fees encourage poorer students to go to university? (v) Which universities might introduce them? (vi) Are there any alternatives? (vii) What do universities think about top-up fees? (viii) So how are students - and parents - responding to such plans? (ix) Why might universities want them? (x) Is higher-education under-funded?

2. Find the expressions in the text which have the following meaning PARAGRAPHS A-B a) universities of high academic and social status b) added (to an amount of money) to bring up to required level c) in advance d) label PARAGRAPHS C-D e) money promised to be paid f) left to be dealt with later (as less urgent or important) g) very important h) chosen to join in PARAGRAPHS E-G i) increase j) not telling people about things k) pay for l) begin to take effect m) affecting everything n) limit o) period of time

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3. Scan the text and find words or phrases referring to finance and education (at least 5 words/phrases for each topic). 4. Related articles appeared in different issues of the Guardian. Read their titles (below) and pick out those which seem to oppose top-up fees. Rewrite the underlined titles in plain English, paraphrasing the idiomatic expressions involved.

Funding ‘should be tailored to universities’ strengths’ Straw's son leads Oxford top-up revolt UEA students make a noise against fees Kinnock weighs in against top-up fees Top-up fees plan could bypass Commons Imperial denies plans to charge £10,500 Top-up fees would hit poorer students, Cambridge warns Moves towards university privatisation 'unstoppable' Ministers 'should not be bullied' into top-up fees Leak reveals university plan to levy £10,500 fees Student finance proposals sound 'death knell' for participation MPs call for rise in interest rates on student loans MPs demand more help for poorer students Anger as top-up fees resurface Students must pay more - MPs Chancellor at odds with Blair over top-up fees

5. As you read the article, make two lists of notes on (i) arguments for and (ii) arguments against the plan for top-up fees. Based on your notes, summarize the opposing views expressed in the text (80-100 words). Submit both your notes and the summary.

II. WRITING Taking into account the following extract, write a short article of about 250 words, taking a stance towards the issue of top-up fees, their necessity, effects, alternatives.

"The public are increasingly against top-up fees and the government will be faced with a

backbench rebellion if they try and go ahead. We're increasingly winning the battle on top-up

fees, but there's been a shift towards the graduate tax. We're starting to shift our campaign to

meet that threat. Our placards next week will now say no to top-up fees and no to the graduate

tax. A third placard will call for a return to grants." (Chris Weavers, vice-president, the

National Union of Students)

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3.4 TEXT 4 I. READING 1. The text below is an article by John Vidal, appearing in The Observer on 23/11/2003. Read it carefully and provide a lead for the article (remember that a lead is a short paragraph placed after the title and before the main article providing the gist of the article in a couple of sentences). 'The stakes could not be higher...' A. 'The stakes could not be higher...' This is a song sung every day by young children at Kabulonga girls' school in Lusaka, Zambia: 'HIV and the Aids is real. Really, really, really, don't be silly, HIV and the Aids is real.' Like everyone else in the country, the kids know that the pandemic sweeping Africa now affects every part of their lives. It is affecting their families: it's hard to find anyone in Zambia who hasn't been personally touched. Some 650,000 children have been orphaned or left with one parent and three-quarters of all families are thought to be caring for at least one extra child. Their education is affected because some of their teachers have the disease and no longer come to school. More than 1,000 teachers die from Aids in Zambia every year. B. It is affecting their communities and their future: life expectancy in Zambia, potentially one of the richest countries in Africa with massive mineral deposits, is now just 33 years - the lowest in the world. The UNAids organisation estimates that 21 per cent of adults in Zambia are now infected with HIV. And it is now affecting the very existence of their nation, depressing the economy, robbing the future of talent and hope, increasing poverty and hunger, human rights abuses and inequality. The Zambian Ministry of Health has said that it expects that half the population will die of Aids. In the meantime, already weakened social services are collapsing, leaving the country perilously close to being unable to function. What is happening in Zambia is being repeated across sub-Saharan Africa, the worst affected region in the world with 29.4 million people currently living with HIV/Aids, including approximately 3.5 million people newly infected in 2002. Fifteen million people have now died from the disease on the continent, yet barely 60,000 are receiving any antiretroviral therapy, and drugs for tuberculosis and other infections are similarly scarce. C. The numbers affected are unimaginable. Latest figures from UNAids suggest that 2.4 million Africans died of Aids in 2002. Some 10 million young people between the ages 15-24, and almost 3 million children under 15, are now living with HIV. Meanwhile, more than 20 per cent of the adult population of seven countries - Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe - are HIV-infected, and more than 10 per cent in 12 others. In some countries, Aids is expected to claim the lives of around a third of today's 15-year-olds unless actions are taken to slow the epidemic. D. If the situation is bad now, the next decade will be far worse in southern African countries. HIV infection there - already ranging from 5.5 per cent to 38.8 per cent - is only the first wave. In the absence of effective treatment, the second wave of Aids follows lethally behind it. E. But there are some rays of hope and evidence that the growing number of awareness and prevention programmes are bearing fruit. The epidemics, says UNAids

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tentatively, seems to be starting to stabilise in Kenya, Malawi, Senegal and Zimbabawe, as beefed-up national programmes, a reduction in the stigma attached to people with the disease and better political leadership pay off. F. In east Africa, HIV prevalence is slowly declining, according to the World Health Organisatuion. In Zambia, some data suggests a drop in prevalence in the 15-24 age group. In South Africa, prevalence rates among pregnant women under 20 fell to 15.4 per cent in 2001, down from 21 per cent in 1998. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, infection levels among young women going to antenatal clinics dropped from 24.2 per cent in 1995 to 15.1 per cent in 2001. Recent infections in some parts of Uganda are declining and condom use by single women doubled between 1995 and 2001. The personal tragedies are mirrored increasingly by the epidemic's impact on national development. By 2010, says the UN, South Africa's GDP is expected to be 17 per cent lower than what it would have been without the epidemic. Human losses at all levels of society, they say, are arresting and reversing the development effort, leaving countries more vulnerable to other crises. In the hardest-hit countries, already fragile health services are being robbed of skilled staff at the moment they are most needed. In South Africa, an estimated 17 per cent of primary health care workers are HIV infected. G. But, says the UN, Aids has, at last, reached the top of the sub-Saharan African agenda. More and more political leaders and civil society groups are ringing the alarm bells and schools, workplaces and churches are changing their behaviour. Botswana, Nigeria and Uganda are among a handful of countries now increasing public health interventions. H. Moreover, in some countries, people are no longer accepting the lack of action. The pan-African Aids/HIV treatment movement is growing rapidly, pressurising governments, and arguing that not having access to antiretroviral treatments is a crime against humanity, a holocaust against the poor. 2. Find the words or expressions in the text which have the following meaning: PARAGRAPHS A-B a) causing to become less b) disease affecting many people over a wide area c) dangerously d) moving quickly PARAGRAPHS C-E e) remain the same f) not definitely g) increased and strengthened PARAGRAPHS F-H h) a small number of i) stopping from continuing j) common condition

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3. Rewrite the following utterances changing the underlying expressions with other words/expressions having the same meaning with the one used in the article. You may need to make changes in the sentence structure. (a) The stakes could not be higher (para. A) (b) aids is expected to claim the lives of around a third of today's 15-year-olds (para. C) (c) the growing number of awareness and prevention programmes are bearing fruit (para. E) (d) personal tragedies are mirrored increasingly (para. F) (e) actions are taken to slow the epidemic. (para. C) 4. Read the article again and make two lists of notes on reasons why we can be (a) pessimistic or (b) optimistic about the situation in Africa concerning Aids. Using the notes, write a paragraph summarizing these reasons (80-100). Submit both your notes and the summary. II. WRITING Below are two extracts from another article on Aids, which appeared in The Observer on November 23, 2003. Taking them into account, write an essay of approximately 350 words in which you discuss the issues touched upon in the extracts, including your own view on the consequences of the uncontrollable spread of the disease in the developing world.

… Professor Alan Whiteside, director of the department of health economics and HIV/Aids research division at the University of Natal in South Africa, believes that Aids is exposing the widening gap in wealth between the developed and the developing world.

… When the stigma against Aids was so virulent in South Africa that a young woman was knifed to death after stating on a radio broadcast that she was HIV positive, TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) members boldly wore T-shirts emblazoned with 'HIV Positive' in bright purple lettering. Membership of the TAC spread across the country and when the revered Nelson Mandela donned an 'HIV Positive' T-shirt it was symbolic of the great strides made to get the public to accept that the best way to battle Aids is through education and treatment.

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3.5 TEXT 5 I. READING 1. In the seven editorials below, two opposing attitudes are expressed towards a specific issue concerning British (school) education.

1. State what the issue is and specify the two opposing views expressed.

2. Distinguish two groups of editorials: those which favour view X (to be specified by you) from those which oppose it.

3. Identify TWO editorials which seem to adopt a more moderate or compromising position.

'Far too many children are failing' Charles Clarke takes up excluded pupils and takes on Prince Charles From The Guardian Saturday November 20, 2004 Times Editorial, November 19

"There was much in Charles Clarke's speech to new headteachers on Thursday that they will rightly welcome. The section of the education secretary's speech, which will cause most controversy, concerns what to do about those students expelled from school for disciplinary offences. He believes, and has the statistics to support his claim, that all too often such pupils are directed to relatively unpopular schools, further undermining their academic reputation.

"He would prefer that groups of schools band together and agree that they all - including oversubscribed comprehensives and the remaining grammar schools - would assume responsibility for three or four students excluded from other schools ...

"The de facto creation of sink schools is undesirable. The suggestion, however, that schools which normally select on the basis of academic ability should be obliged to accept those who not only fail to meet that standard but have been difficult elsewhere is bizarre and will cause a great deal of understandable concern."

Daily Telegraph Editorial, November 19

"Mr Clarke's scheme to deposit 'excluded' pupils from failing schools in successful schools is a disaster. Parents pay taxes so that their own children can receive a good education; implicit in that contract is the understanding that this education will not be sabotaged. It is not the responsibility of successful schools to offer a new home to uneducatable children, any more than it is to babysit 'latchkey kids' ...

"Mr Clarke also had the nerve on Thursday to accuse the Prince of Wales of being 'old-fashioned and out of time'. But the truth is that it is the education secretary, not

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the prince, who is stuck in the past. The proposal to dump feral children in flourishing schools reeks of the naive egalitarianism of the 1960s; and it will wreak havoc with people's lives." Evening Standard Editorial, London, November 19 "Prince Charles's view in an internal memo that today's schools encourage unrealistic ambitions without providing the necessary skills has been widely interpreted as dismissing people for having ideas beyond their station ... "Some of what he says, however controversial, has a ring of truth. The government has failed to meet its own targets for pupil achievement in both primary and secondary schools, and it is clear that far too many children are failing. For all the government's ambitions, social mobility in Britain is less now than it was a decade ago. Labour's reforms to secondary schools especially have yet to deliver a system that allows every child's potential to develop. Whatever the excesses of Prince Charles's private views, that is a failing Mr Clarke cannot ignore." Daily Mail, Editorial, November 19 "Mr Clarke presides over thousands of 'bog-standard comprehensives' - Alastair Campbell's phrase - from which it is virtually impossible even for gifted pupils to get to a first-class university. Meanwhile, the few remaining grammar schools are threatened … "Mr Clarke paints Prince Charles as an out-of-touch fuddy-duddy who would deprive ordinary children of the opportunities they deserve. But it is the government, like its predecessors, that is guilty of denying many children the chances to fulfil their, and their parents', aspirations. Rather than admit its failures, the government pretends it is possible for any child to touch the stars." Daily Mirror Editorial, November 19 "What is so objectionable about Prince Charles' remarks on education is his sneering at 'the learning culture'. He seems to think there is something wrong with people trying to better themselves. That is what the education system is there for. To raise the standards of future generations for their sake and the country's. For the future monarch to dismiss it contemptuously is absurd." Independent Editorial, November 19 "The prince revealed a cast of mind that is hopelessly outmoded. It was not so much that the prince had voiced frustration with people who, in his view, 'think they can all be pop stars, high court judges without putting in the necessary work or having

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natural ability', it was the clear implication that most people have no right to aspire to something better ... "The same hidebound, class-bound view seems implicit in many of Prince Charles's public attitudes. The sad truth appears to be that the man destined to become our next monarch still hankers after a time when everyone knew and accepted their station in life." Sun Editorial, November 19 "All the prince had done was air his opinion that political correctness in our schools is making children think they can succeed in life without talent or hard work. "He's right. Look at school sports days where competition is banned to avoid having winners or losers. But Mr Clarke hit back with both barrels, calling the prince old-fashioned, patronising and out of touch. If we're talking privilege, Mr Clarke (Highgate school and King's College, Cambridge) can match the prince (Gordonstoun and Trinity College, Cambridge) any day." 2. Paraphrase appropriately the following linguistic expressions underlined in the texts:

1. oversubscribed comprehensives 2. sink schools 3. feral children 4. reeks of naïve egalitarianism 5. ‘bog-standard comprehensives’ 6. sneering at 7. hidebound view 8. hankers after 9. hit back with both barrels 10. patronizing

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II. LANGUAGE IN USE 1. Read the seven editorials carefully and single out ONE editorial using formal language/style and another ONE using informal language/style.

a. Identify at least 5 linguistic features (pertaining to vocabulary, grammar/syntax patterns) creating the formal and informal language/styles respectively.

b. Write a short paragraph (100-150 words) elaborating on which editorial (of the two you have selected for this task) appealed to you (in terms of language, stylistic merit, attitude expressed, persuasion effect etc.), and why.

2. “If we're talking privilege, Mr Clarke (Highgate school and King's College, Cambridge) can match the prince (Gordonstoun and Trinity College, Cambridge) any day”. What is the implied meaning communicated by the last sentence of the Sun editorial? (approximately 80 words)

III. WRITING “It is not the responsibility of successful schools to offer a new home to uneducatable children, any more than it is to babysit 'latchkey kids'* ...” In no more than 350 words, discuss in essay form the view expressed by the Daily Telegraph commentator, providing arguments in support of your view. You may specifically comment on the use of the term ‘uneducatable’ (what is the literal meaning of the word, and what are the implications conveyed by using it in this context?), or on the soundness of the parallel drawn between ‘schools taking responsibility of pupils with a right to education’ and ‘schools-babysitters taking responsibility of ‘latchkey’ kids’. *disapproving term referring to the fact that children have to let themselves into their home when returning from school because their parents are out at work.

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3.6 TEXT 6 I. READING The text below is a news analysis by James Glanz that appeared in The New York Times – Kathimerini on 2/12/05. Read it carefully and do the three tasks that follow. Leaving Iraq But Keeping U.S. Pride Untarnished The story of how a superpower looks for a dignified way out of a messy and often unpopular foreign conflict has become a historical genre of sorts. As the pressure for the United States to leave Iraq increases, that genre is receiving new and urgent attention. And even in the shadow of the bleak news emerging from Iraq, historians and political experts are finding imperfect historical analogies that seem to offer a slight hope that the United States can leave Iraq in the near future in a way that will not be remembered as a national embarrassment. Most of the recent parallels do not seem to offer much encouragement for a confounded superpower that wants to retain its pride as it ends its losses and returns home. Among them are the wrenching French pullout from Algeria, the ill-fated French and American adventures in Vietnam, the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan and the disastrous American interventions in Beirut and Somalia. Still, there are a few stories of inconclusive wars that left the United States in a more dignified position, including South Korea and the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. But even those stand in contrast to the happier legacy of total victory during World War II. Maybe not surprisingly, Vietnam is the focus of some of the most interesting revisionism, including some of it immediately relevant to Iraq, where the intensive effort to train Iraqi security forces to defend their own country closely mirrors the “Vietnamization” program in South Vietnam. If Congress had not voted to kill the financing for South Vietnam and its armed forces in 1975, argues Melvin R. Laird in a widely read article in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Saigon might never have fallen. “Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975,” wrote Mr Laird, who was President Nixon’s defense secretary from 1969 to 1973, when the United States pulled its hundreds of thousands of troops out of Vietnam. From this Vietnam scenario, Mr Laird does not believe that all is lost in Iraq. “There is a dignified way out, and I think that’s the Iraqization of the forces over there,” Mr Laird said, “and I think we’re on the right track on that.” Many analysts have disputed Mr Laird’s contention, claiming that large swaths of the Iraqi security forces are so inept they may never be capable of defending their own country against the insurgents without the support of American military. Nevertheless, President Bush asserted November 30 that Iraqi troops are increasingly taking the lead in battle, even as he refused to set a timetable for withdrawing American troops. William Stueck, a history professor at the University of Georgia who has written books on Korea, agrees with Mr Laird’s analysis. Korea reveals how easy it is to dismiss the effectiveness of local security forces prematurely, Mr Stueck said. In 1951, General Matthew Ridgway felt deep frustration when Chinese offensives broke through parts of the line defended by poorly led South Korean troops. But by the summer of 1952, with intensive training, the South Koreans were fighting more

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effectively, Mr Stueck said. “Now, they needed backup” by Americans, he said. By 1972, he said, South Korean troops were responsible for 70 percent of the front line. Of course, there are enormous differences between Iraq and Korea. Korean society was not riven by factions, as Iraq’s is, and the United States was defending an existing government rather than trying to create one. Another intriguing if imperfect lesson can be found in Algeria, said Matthew Connelly, a Columbia University historian. There, by March 1962, the French had pulled out after 130 years of occupation. That long colonial occupation, and the million European settlers who lived there before the bloody exodus, are major differences with Iraq, Mr Connelly noted. But there were also striking parallels: the insurgency, which styled its cause as an international jihad, broke down in civil war as the French pulled out; the French, for their part said theirs was a fight to protect Western civilization against radical Islam. Like President Bush in Iraq, President Charles de Gaulle probably thought he could settle Algeria in his favor by military means, Dr Connelly said. In the short run, that turned out to be a grave miscalculation. Over the long run, though, history treated de Gaulle kindly for reversing course and agreeing to withdraw, Mr Connelly said. “De Gaulle loses the war but he wins in the realm of history: he gave Algeria its independence,” he said. “How you frame defeat, that can sometimes give you a victory”.

1. The following paragraph has been removed from the original text. Identify its place in the text (e.g. after paragraph 6) and justify your decision in terms of textual cohesion and coherence. Refer to specific lexical and grammatical features. The highly qualified optimism of these experts about what may still happen in Iraq has been born of many factors, including greatly reduced expectations. Alongside the dampening of hopes, there has also been a fair amount of historical revisionism regarding the darker tales of conflicts past: a sense that if the superpowers had taken different decisions, things could have turned out more palatably, and that they still might in Iraq. 2. In no more that 35 words, present the main idea of the text using your own words. 3. Using your own words briefly explain the meaning of the following lexical items (underlined in the text:)

1. untarnished 2. confounded 3. wrenching 4. inconclusive 5. contention 6. inept 7. riven by factions 8. insurgency

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4. In no more than 50 words, explain the term ‘Vietnamization’ (paragraph 3) and its relevance to the current situation in Iraq. II. LANGUAGE IN USE 1. What is the position of the author of the above news analysis in relation to the presence of American troops in Iraq? Decide on one of the following alternatives.

(a) The author appears to support the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. (b) The author appears to object to the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. (c) The author appears to maintain a neutralistic stance concerning the withdrawal

of American troops from Iraq.

Justify your answer by discussing the linguistic features of the text that informed your decision. 2. Rewrite the false statements below so that the information they convey is true according to the text.

a) Similarly to the legacy of victory in World War II, the American adventures in Vietnam are downright discouraging for the superpower that wants to return home but also retain its pride.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

b) Scrutinizing past conflicts has led analysts to conclude that even if America withdraws its troops, it is highly unlikely that the situation in Iraq will improve.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3. Using informal language and style, rewrite paragraph 4 of the news analysis (“Many analysts have disputed … for withdrawing American troops”) in order for it to appear in the popular magazine The World Today. III. WRITING “How you frame defeat, that can sometimes give you a victory.” In the light of the news analysis presented in Part 1, discuss this statement in essay form, providing arguments to either support or oppose to the view it expresses (250-300 words). You may treat the statement literally (in relation to war) and/or metaphorically (in relation to everyday life and its troubles).

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PART D: GRAMMAR TASKS

4.1 IDENTIFY INDEPENDENT CLAUSES (1) A sentence contains at least one independent or main clause (a group of words that can stand alone as an independent unit). It may also contain a dependent or subordinate clause, which cannot stand alone. Underline the independent clause in each of the following sentences. Some sentences may consist of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). In this case, also circle the conjunction. 1. The stock market finally rose but investors remained nervous for quite some

time.

2. Even though citizens’ groups invest time and money on campaigns before the

elections, many voters still avoid participating in the general elections.

3. Vitamin C is good for colds and Vitamin E keeps the skin in good condition.

4. Expect Martin Scorcheze’s new film to cause controversy—the theme is bold

and provocative.

5. We expected chaos; we found catastrophe.

6. Ordinary books are still more convenient than most computerized texts because

they employ a technology that doesn’t go out of date—paper.

7. In the 18th century, wool cloth was slightly easier to produce than linen. After

the sheep were sheared, the fleece was picked through and dirt was removed.

8. Painters such as Renoir and Monet, who wanted art to depict life, painted

common scenes and ordinary people.

9. In colonial America most people did not own many garments and wash day

came only once or twice a year.

10. The ice in a skating rink does not melt because the temperature beneath it is

kept very low.

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4.2 IDENTIFY INDEPENDENT CLAUSES (2) Underline the independent clauses in the following text, including any modifying elements that are not set off by punctuation. If a sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), circle the conjunction. The first sentence has been done as an example.

When the Prime Minister agreed to debate the leader of the Labour Party in a

series of national telecasts, the Minister of Finance and his associates were certain that

the Prime Minister would enhance his advantage. The Prime Minister had used the

medium to good effect in 2002, and he could now count on a phenomenally large

audience. After the 1990s, the number of British families who watched political

debates on TV had risen considerably. Millions of British —estimates ran as high as

45 million—tuned in to watch the first contest.

The outcome was a major surprise. While the Prime Minister seemed

constantly on the defensive, obsessed with scoring debater’s points against his rival,

the Labour leader ignored the Prime Minister and spoke directly to the nation,

enunciating his major theme of national purpose: “I think it’s time Britain started

moving again.” While the Labour leader appeared calm and self-possessed, the Prime

Minister seemed tense and haggard (TV cameras were unkind to his features).

Although three more debates followed, they were largely unilluminating

encounters in which various issues were so fuzzed over that neither man’s position

was distinct; it was the first debate that made its mark and, many thought, determined

the outcome of the election. Almost all observers agreed that the Labour Party leader

had scored a clear triumph; at the very least, he had drawn even with the Prime

Minister and could no longer be dismissed as a callow upstart.

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4.3 RECOGNISE SUBJECTS AND VERBS Read the following sentences carefully. In each sentence circle the verb and underline the subject (simple or compound):

Simple subject e.g. The eloquent speaker addressed the audience

Compound subject e.g. The eloquent speaker and the senator welcomed their distinguished guests

1. Most people brush their teeth daily.

2. The original toothbrushes were simply twigs with one soft, shredded edge.

3. People rubbed these “chew sticks” against their teeth.

4. The first genuine toothbrushes originated in China 500 years ago.

5. The bristles came from hogs.

6. During this time, few Europeans brushed their teeth regularly.

7. The discovery of nylon led to a big change in the toothbrush industry and made

tooth care easier.

8. Nylon was tough and resisted the growth of germs.

9. In the 1950s a new, softer version of the nylon toothbrush was developed.

10. With this development, dental care improved worldwide.

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4.4 USE COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS TO JOIN INDEPENDENT CLAUSES One way to join independent clauses is by using coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, and so). Punctuation note: Commas ordinarily precede coordinating conjunctions which join independent clauses as shown in the examples: Examples: 1) Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling is among the greatest works

of Renaissance art, so conservators approached the task of cleaning it with great caution.

2) In England, the Conservative Party has always adhered to its

political agenda, and this has caused great conflict among its followers.

Join the following independent clauses using coordinating conjunctions. Be sure to punctuate the sentences properly. 1. We can rarely predict the precise consequences of what we do. We are blessed (or cursed) with the intellectual capacity to anticipate the outcome of our actions. 2. Very commonly we are faced with a choice between several courses of action. This state of affairs accounts for a great deal of our worrying. 3. We often anticipate dreadful things to happen to us. Sometimes we develop severe anxiety over the predicament of our relatives and loved ones. 4. Such worries have a rational basis. We are curiously irrational in the way we pursue them. 5. It is difficult to decide at what point worrying ceases to be ‘normal’. It is clearly reasonable to worry.

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6. We can manage perfectly well without traveling in planes or lifts. An evening out isn’t spoiled by our obsession to check and triple-check the front-door lock. 7. We are not responsible for our psychological response to tense situations. We are not to blame for our extreme reactions. 8. In its extreme form, anxiety may be experienced as a generalized ‘free-floating’ state. It may be more specifically focused in the form of fear of spiders, closed spaces or extreme heights. 9. By worrying we may be able to stave off a possible breakdown. It is an internal monologue allowing us to solve problems at a time of crisis. 10. In everyday life, anxiety improves performance of a wide variety of tasks. According to scientists, it is sometimes highly constructive to be anxious.

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4.5 USE CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS TO JOIN INDEPENDENT CLAUSES Correlatives are conjunctions that work in pairs, expressions such as if…then, either…or, just as…so, and not only…but also. Like coordinating conjunctions, correlatives can be used to form compound sentences which require readers to examine concepts and ideas expressed in sentences side by side. Examples:1) Just as Napoleon faced defeat in Russia, so Hitler saw his dreams of

European conquest evaporate at the siege of Leningrad.

2) Not only are small businesses suffering the effects of recession worldwide, but also minor entrepreneurs are often discouraged from applying for long-term bank loans.

Note: Use an inverted verb form after the conjunction not only. Put the independent clauses in each of the following sentences in the correct order using the correlative conjunctions given in the parentheses. Remember to punctuate appropriately. 1. the Conservative Party will raise its popularity among working classes the government agrees to reduce taxation rates the following year (if…then) 2. does technology help disabled people its use also enables them to feel secure and self-reliant. (not only…but also) 3. reading literature enriches one’s vocabulary doing grammar exercises heightens one’s perception of the correct use of language. (just as…so) 4. peace in the world will never be secured European leaders and their allies will agree to disarm nuclear weapons (either…or)

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4.6 JOIN INDEPENDENT CLAUSES USING SEMICOLONS, COLONS AND DASHES

SEMICOLON: We use semicolon to join independent clauses which are roughly balanced in importance and closely associated in meaning.

Example: The eyes of the nation were suddenly on the House of Commons; the nine MPs could not ignore the weight of public opinion.

COLON: We use colon to introduce a list, to introduce an extract or quotation which follows an introductory sentence, to suggest that the second independent clause explains, exemplifies, or expands on the first.

Example: There was a lesson in the indictment: even small offences have consequences.

DASH: We use dash to emphasize a point or to set off an explanatory comment.

Example: The Westminster Cathedral was restored in the twentieth century—its side entrances had suffered severe damage in World War II.

The following extracts have been adapted from “The Green In Between” by Deborah Light (Australian Geographic, September 2007). The article is about “nature strips” of land which run outside the rows of houses in the Australian mainland and serve to separate them from the road and the vastness of the jungle. The environmental issue raised is whether or not to maintain these strips where house owners plant flowers as water shortage becomes increasingly upsetting to Australians. The first line serves as the introductory sentence of the article. Use semicolon, colon or dash to link the following independent clauses. Along the neat, green nature strips of my childhood, our bit was an unkempt anomaly. 1. It had little to do with nature, beyond outbreaks of dandelions, and its forlorn state was due to lack of means. A lawnmower meant luxury. 2. These stories interest University of Tasmania Environmental Studies Lecturer, Dr Aidan Davidson. His job is to look after nature strips and to police what should grow on them.

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3. According to Dr Davidson, the function of nature strips was to have utilities underneath and power lines overhead. But for people living with them it wasn’t always clear. 4. In this way, funny things happen you don’t tend to record. They become a hang-out for pets, refuges for children, places for conversation. 5. Dr Davidson believes middle space is important for people. It represents the living transition between the safety of the home and the dangerous, no-go zone of the road. 6. Australians have long been ambivalent about the care of nature strips. They are unsure about their purpose. 7. Some remarkable changes are underway with regard to the preservation of these pocket-sized public spaces. Water recycling projects, expanded streetscapes and habitat corridors are only a few suggestions. 8. There are schemes for nature strip plantings more appropriate to dry climates. These include mini parks, conservation forests, even orchards.

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4.7 USE ADVERB CONJUNCTIONS WITH SEMICOLONS TO JOIN INDEPENDENT CLAUSES

Words such as consequently, however, moreover, nevertheless, similarly and therefore are called conjunctive adverbs. Used after a semicolon, they serve to join independent clauses illuminating their relationship and holding our attention. Example: a) The members of the Environmental Committee appreciated the state

developer’s proposal; however, they remained steadfast in their decision.

b) The muffler was leaking dangerous fumes; moreover, the brake linings

were growing thin. Note: The comma that typically follows these conjunctive adverbs also serves to emphasize the second clause. Note however, that it is the semicolon, not the adverb, that links the independent clauses. That function of the semicolon becomes more evident if the adverb is moved:

Example: The members of the Environmental Committee appreciated the state

developer’s proposal; they remained steadfast in their decision, however. This extract below refers to Andrew McAuley who ventured to cross the Tasman Sea by kayak (adapted from Australian Geographic, July-September 2007, p.87). Use semicolon and the conjunctive adverb in parenthesis in order to link the following independent clauses after you put them in the correct order (if necessary). 1 He was outspoken about safety and responsible risk-taking. Climbers and kayakers knew their leader Andrew to be painstakingly thorough about planning and preparation. (moreover) 2. He resigned before the great Tasmanian challenge His employers were great supporters of Andrew’s adventures. (however) 3. Andrew planned to go ahead with the Tasman crossing . He had to make a living out of what he knew best. (consequently)

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4. The adventurous Kayaker made a book contract for the Tasmanian trip. He exploited his knowledge about unexplored routes to Antarctica. (similarly) 5. His son Finlay has developed a fascination with superheroes. Andrew’s drive to pursue adventure didn’t seem to run in the family. (nevertheless) 6. Andrew’s wife, Vicky, knows her husband’s adventures involve a supernatural element. Her son’s attachment to superheroes does not astonish her. (therefore) 7. He has gradually developed a plan, seeing the limits, calculating the distance. Andrew has worked on the Tasmanian kayak crossing meticulously. (moreover) 8. He soon developed astonishing efficiency in kayaking. Andrew had been an accomplished mountaineer for fifteen years. (nevertheless) 9. He remained restless. In 2005 he was named Australian Geographic Society Adventurer of the Year. (however) 10. He followed his nomination with a three man, 1000 km sea kayaking expedition along the Antarctic Peninsula in 2006.

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His wife Vicky fretted privately with every new challenge. (consequently) 4.8 IDENTIFY SENTENCE CLARITY Underline the subjects and verbs in the following sentences; then decide which sentence in each pair has a clearer main idea—a stronger alignment between meaning and grammatically important words. Tick the sentence you have chosen as in the example:

a) There was agreement by the test participants to answer all questions. b) The test participants agreed to answer all questions. √

1. (a) Our expectation was to finalize the contract in three months.

(b) We expected to finalize the contract in three months.

2. (a) A report from the Environment Committee received study by the Prime

Minister.

(b) The Prime Minister studied a report from the Environment Committee. 3. (a) After receiving complaints from several people, the police investigated the

case of stealing copyrighted electronic material.

(b) An investigation of the case of stealing copyrighted electronic material was

initiated after the police received complaints from several people.

4. (a) The Member of Parliament voted against the bill because he believed that

the Dairy industry was burdened by unnecessary government regulation.

(b) The reason for the MP’s negative vote in regard to the bill was his belief

that the dairy industry was already burdened with unnecessary government

regulation.

5. (a) The hiring of unskilled workers to fill the vacant positions necessitates an

investigation by the agency.

(b) The agency must find out why unskilled workers were hired to fill the

vacant positions.

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4.9 REVISE SENTENCES TO ALIGN MEANING WITH SUBJECTS AND VERBS Sentences can be revised in more than one ways but it is important that all pronouns agree with their antecedents in person, number and gender. Verbs and other words can be changed too in order to achieve maximum sentence clarity. In the following sets of sentences tick the one you think has been revised in order to convey the main idea of the sentence more clearly. Example: The use of computers is now increasing in many professional fields. Today, more and more professionals use computers. √

1a) A government warning was issued in order to prevent news leaks at the

Ministry of Justice.

1b) The government issued a warning in order to prevent news leaks at the

Ministry of Justice.

2a) Humans are sometimes attacked and eaten by lions that are too old to attack

their usual prey.

2b) Lions that are too old to attack and eat their usual prey, sometimes attack

humans.

3a) The main type of music played by the group is hard rock.

3b) The group mainly plays hard rock music.

4a) The change to a later time for our second meeting was thought to be

necessary because the first meeting, which was held early, was poorly

attended.

4b) We thought it was necessary to change our second meeting to a later time

because the first meeting, which was held early, was poorly attended.

5a) The thing that should be of primary concern to instructors is that students are

sometimes unable to comprehend the new information presented to them

during the courses.

5b) Instructors should be primarily concerned with the fact that students are

sometimes unable to comprehend the new information presented to them

during the courses.

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6a) I finally reached an understanding of the point being made by the lecturer.

6b) I finally understood the point being made by the lecturer.

7a) People had discovered how to make tools thousands of years ago.

7b) The discovery of how to make tools occurred thousands of years ago in human

history.

8a) Departmental policy is revised at the director’s level.

8b) Revisions of departmental policy occur at the director’s level.

9a) A need exists for the university to make improvements in the quality of food

in the dormitories.

9b) The University needs to make improvements in the quality of food in the

dormitories.

10a) An investigation into the relationships within a large herd of giraffes was

conducted by scientists in order to arrive at a safe conclusion regarding the

strength of bonds between female giraffes and their calves.

10b) The scientists conducted an investigation into the relationships within a large

herd of giraffes in order to arrive at a safe conclusion regarding the strength of

bonds between female giraffes and their calves.

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4.10 IDENTIFY ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VERBS Study the following sets of sentences and then answer the questions about them by ticking Yes or No. Passive Bicycling tours of Canada are often taken by young travelers. Active Young travelers often take bicycling tours of Canada. Active William Harvey studied the human circulatory system. Passive The human circulatory system was studied by William Harvey. Yes No The active voice emphasizes the doer of the action. Active constructions have a more direct and dramatic effect.

Active constructions use more words than passive constructions.

We use the passive voice when the doer of the action is unknown or unimportant.

We use the passive voice to focus attention on the action itself.

Most sentences in the passive voice cannot easily be turned into the active voice.

It is easier to use the active voice than the passive voice.

The passive voice is used in more formal situations.

Now, underline the entire main verb in the following sentences and then tick the corresponding box to determine whether it is active or passive. The first one has been done for you. Active Passive 1. According to scientists, a permanent base on the moon must be

built. 2. Such a moon base is required to support space exploration. 3. Materials to build space stations can be mined on the moon. 4. One plan calls for an active moon base by 2010. 5. Moon dust will be used to cover people and machinery. 6. Such shelters are needed for protection from rays coming from outer space. 7. Moon dust could be baked to form building blocks and cement. 8. All this sounds very difficult, of course. 9. Ideally, the moon base could become self-sufficient. 10. Some say this might never be accomplished.

√

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4.11 ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VERB FORMS For each of the following sentences, indicate whether the writer has used an active verb form (A) or a passive verb form (P). Then, re-write each sentence, converting active verbs to passive and vice versa. Example: It is pointed out in the article that textbooks help teachers organize their

courses. (P). In the article, the author points out that textbooks help

teachers organize their courses. 1. Homemade teaching materials are preferred by the majority of teachers. 2. The author of the article argues that several instructors actually tend to eliminate textbooks altogether. 3. Because homemade teaching materials are bulky, they often cause storage problems. 4. Some teachers often think textbooks are more accessible and easier to use than home-made materials. 5. Although textbooks have limitations, many objectives can be achieved by teachers who use them. 6. Extra-curricular activities should be embedded into FL teaching and textbooks, according to the author of the article. 7. In this way students understand better the relationship between the foreign language and reality. 8. As far as writing is concerned, students encounter several diverse problems. 9. This diversity encourages the use of additional material to supplement the textbook. 10. Teachers should thus employ activities which are both instructive and rewarding.

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4.12 REVISE SENTENCES TO ELIMINATE PASSIVE VOICE CONSTRUCTIONS Rewrite the following sentences in order to turn them into active voice. If you consider the passive form preferable in one of the sentences, just put a check (√) on the left margin. Be prepared to justify your choice. Example: The polar bear was once honored by the Eskimos as a wise creature.

Eskimos once honored the polar bear as a wise creature. 1. Wildebeests are killed by lions more often than any other prey. 2. A pride of lions is formed by one or more family groups. 3. Cooperation is often used by pride members when they hunt. 4. Prey is sometimes chased by one lion towards another waiting in ambush. 5. In the past, it was often thought that lions killed freely and easily. 6. It has been observed, however, that occasionally lions have been killed by their intended victim. 7. Once a lion had been killed and devoured by a crocodile. 8. More experiments will be conducted by scientists observing wildlife. 9. Animal life must be carefully studied and monitored. 10. Important conclusions regarding animal habits can be drawn from such studies.

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4.13 REVISE SENTENCES TO ELIMINATE DEFERRED SUBJECTS The expressions it is, it was, there is, there was, are sometimes used in sentences in order to substitute for the sentence subject which is then deferred or stated later in the sentence. Study the following sentences carefully and then tick Yes / No in the corresponding box.

a. It is usually the case that children learn to use computers faster than adults do.

b. Children learn to use computers faster than adults do. Yes No Sentence a is more complex than sentence b In sentence a the expression it is cannot be omitted In sentence b the meaning is more clear Sentence b is preferable to sentence a Revise the following sentences in order to eliminate deferred subjects. 1. There were barely twenty years between the two world wars. 2. Some say that it is the television that is to blame for poor reading skills today. 3. It is one of her points in the essay that there are not many similarities between the two novels by Jane Austen. 4. It was one of his arguments that Russia would again grow as a world power. 5. There was a lot of noise caused by the schoolboys’ party last night.

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4.14 CLARIFY INDISTINCT SENTENCES Read the following sets of sentences and tick the one you think conveys meaning more clearly: 1a) The doors were closed, the concert had already started. 1b) The doors were closed. The concert had already started. 2a) Veronica was driving too fast, she lost control of the car. 2b) Veronica was driving too fast. She lost control of the car. 3a) A furlong is when you measure 280 yards. 3b) A furlong is 280 yards. 4a) Ducks do not get wet because they have oil glands to waterproof their coats. 4b) The fact that ducks have oil glands to waterproof their coats is the reason ducks

do not get wet. 5a) It had rained last night, therefore the park was muddy. 5b) It had rained last night; therefore the park was muddy. 6a) She made a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace and it looked very pretty. 6b) She made a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace, it looked very pretty. 7a) I don’t agree with Lewis, nevertheless I’m willing to listen to his argument. 7b) I don’t agree with Lewis; nevertheless I’m willing to listen to his argument. 8a) Americans use fireplaces mainly for decoration, however, the British use them for

heat. 8b) Americans use fireplaces mainly for decoration; however, the British use them for

heat. 9a) Bananas are picked while green because if left on the tree to ripen, they rot

before becoming edible. 9b) The reason bananas are picked while green is because if left on the tree to ripen,

they rot before becoming edible. 10a) Beavers spend a great deal of time in the water, but did you know they do not

eat fish? 10b) Did you know that beavers spend a great deal of time in the water but they don’t

eat fish?

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4.15 IDENTIFY SUBORDINATE CLAUSES Read the following sentences carefully and underline all the dependent/ subordinate clauses as in the example: Most people are unaware that the potato originally came from Peru 1. Spanish explorers, who came to America seeking gold, discovered the potato

plant.

2. Because it contains a large number of nutrients, the potato is now grown in

many countries.

3. Since an acre of potatoes produces twice as much food as two acres of grain, it

is an efficient crop.

4. The average annual world crop is 291 million tons even though half of it is

actually fed to farm animals.

5. The potato can survive almost wherever humans can.

6. In the jungles, however, where humidity causes diseases deadly to potato crops,

the potatoes cannot grow.

7. When petrol prices were still very low, automaker Henry Ford predicted that

potatoes would be used to make fuel.

8. Researchers have discovered that one acre of potatoes can produce 1,200

gallons of fuel a year.

9. Currently, the former Soviet Union produces one-third of the word’s potatoes

while the United States produces just five percent.

10. Although consumption rates vary in both countries, potatoes seem to be

everyone’s favourite food.

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4.16 USE SUBORDINATION Choose one appropriate subordinating conjunction in order to combine the following sets of independent clauses as in the example: Example: Parliament Members often support campaigns for a balanced budget. Most

of them protect projects in favor of their own districts. Even though Parliament members often support campaigns for a balanced

budget, most of them protect projects in favor of their own districts.

Subordinating conjunctions After in order that unless Although now that until As once when As if provided whenever As though rather than where Because since whereas Before so that wherever Even if than whether Even though that while If, If only though

1. Japan was a powerful nation early in the 17th century. Its leaders isolated it from the rest of the world. 2. This policy lasted for more than two hundred years. Japan opened itself to trade in 1854. 3. Many Japanese resented the presence of Americans. Some Japanese leaders yielded to military pressure. 4. In 1867 there was a rebellion. The Japanese Emperor was restored to power. 5. The Emperor wanted his nation to stand on an equal footing to the West. He supported major reforms.

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4.17 ACHIEVE SENTENCE CLARITY THROUGH SUBORDINATION Study the following pairs of sentences. Then tick the one you think conveys meaning more clearly and efficiently. 1a) The Morte D’ Arthur includes stories about the Knights of the Round Table. It

was the work of Sir Thomas Malory. 1b) The Morte D’ Arthur, which was the work of Sir Thomas Malory, includes

stories about the Knights of the Round Table. 2a) Since credit is easy to get, many people go into debt. 2b) Credit is easy to get. People go into debt. 3a) The film enjoyed a brisk summer box office. It had won an Academy Award

last March. 3b) The film enjoyed a brisk summer box office because it had won an Academy

Award last month. 4a) John never went on strike. He was a union member for many years. 4b) Even though John was a union member for many years, he never went on strike. 5a) Sheila got up from bed. The alarm bell made a lot of noise. 5b) As the alarm bell made a lot of noise, Sheila got up from bed. 6a) Paul worked as a full-time teacher before he even graduated from the

University. 6b) Paul worked as a full-time teacher. He had not graduated from the University. 7a) Anne pursued graduate studies in Marketing and Business Management. She

had been underpaid for many years. 7b) Anne had been underpaid for many years before she pursued graduate studies in

Marketing and Management. 8a) The weather conditions were terrible. Many people went sailing. 8b) Many people went sailing even if the weather conditions were terrible.

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4.18 REVISE TO ELIMINATE EXCESSIVE SUBORDINATION If you pile more than two or three subordinate clauses into one sentence, the result may be confusing. Excessive use of subordinate conjunctions may obstruct meaning and sentence clarity. Study the following sentences and tick the one(s) you think need to be revised because of excessive subordination. Then try to revise them.

1. Although his book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, which has been a best seller

for over a year, was turned down by 30 publishers while he struggled at two jobs

while he wrote the book, James Finn Garner isn’t resentful, which suggests the

importance of persistence.

2. An assumption that is held by many people in certain cultures, that people who

have college degrees should never had to work with their hands, is often a deterrent to

capable young people in those cultures who seek non-traditional careers.

3. Even though we think of books as portable, bound volumes, the original clay books

of Babylonia and Assyria were collections of inscribed clay tablets stored in labeled

containers too heavy for a person to move.

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4. The Greeks developed papyrus leaflets which were folded and bound in order to

produce the fist modern-looking book.

5. An academic achievement test that was given to 600 sixth-graders from eight

countries resulted in the finding that Greek students scored first in Mathematics,

second in Science and fourth in Geography.

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4.19 USE SUBORDINATION IN A PARAGRAPH Combine the following sentences into a paragraph using subordinating conjunctions. There is no single correct answer so the example below suggests one possible combination. Remember to avoid excessive subordination. Example: This article appeared in Star Dust. Star Dust is a popular youth magazine in

India. It is aimed specifically at a generation of young women. This article appeared in Star Dust, a popular youth magazine in India which is

aimed specifically at a generation of young women. 1. In India, girls from 12-25 admire the ideal of the independent, feminist Western girl. This ideal is looked down upon by traditional families. They hold on to the old ways of the world. 2. Indian girls buy Star Dust. They want to escape into the magical world of freedom. They want to get away from cultural expectations. 3. Star Dust advertises things from the Western world. They function as bridges to the ideal of Europeanised behavior and conduct. 4. Popular advertisements are included in the magazine. Romantic stories are often narrated. Interesting articles about fashion are included, too. This makes the magazine very appealing. 5. Star Dust is quite expensive. Many Indian girls save money to buy it. It is their connection to the other world.

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4.20 JOIN FRAGMENTS AND SUBORDINATE CLAUSES The following items are fragments, i.e. dependent clauses treated as complete sentences. In the space provided, connect each fragment to an independent clause in order to form a complete sentence. Example: As soon as Helen finished the History exam. As soon as Helen finished the History exam, she left school.

Or Helen met Peter as soon as she finished the History exam.

1. After two years of employment.

2. Which caused Mark to have an accident.

3. Before his tax refund arrived.

4. Although many women are now unemployed.

5. If you change your mind.

6. Even though he resigned.

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4.21 ELIMINATE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS Read the following sentences carefully and tick the ones in which you think the meaning is not fragmented. Then try to revise the ones which contain sentence fragments turning them into either dependent or independent clauses. 1. If I see him, I’ll give him your message. 2. The city will build a hospital. Where the park is. 3. The students who registered early. They got the classes they wanted. 4. The college administration voted last week to offer a new program in nursing. 5. The chemistry teacher is looking for a lab assistant. Who is dependable. 6. Students often change their specialization when they start taking courses. 7. The albatross, like most sea-birds, lays one egg a year. Both parents helping to care for the single chick when it hatches in February or March. 8. Along with passbook savings accounts, most banks now offer high-interest certificates of deposit. 9. Mars has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos. Which are both closer to Mars than the Moon to Earth. 10. Many types of fruit thrive in the Greek valleys such as apples, peaches, apricots and cherries.

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4.22 EDIT A TEXT TO ELIMINATE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS Edit the following text in order to eliminate sentence fragments. Make all the necessary changes by underlining each fragment and writing your revisions in the space above the lines. One fragment has been corrected for you as an example. The life of Tommy Sandys is told in two novels: Sentimental Tommy (1896), subtitled “The Story of his Boyhood”, and Tommy and Grizel (1900). The story of Tommy in his twenties. [,Which is the story of Tommy in his twenties]. Tommy

is sentimental for the reasons outlined above: he values emotion for its own sake rather than for its appropriateness for the reality of the situation in hand. On one occasion in his boyhood, Tommy acts as a letter writer for the members of his family. They are unable to write themselves. Forced to take on the emotional conditions of others, Tommy revels in the opportunity to express powerful sentiments. Not really belonging to him. Not having the right to hold them. Tommy displays emotion. Not because he feels that way about the situation at hand—he has no stake in it. His emotion is, rather, purely love of emotion itself. The ethical weakness of sentimentality.

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4.23 EVALUATE INTENTIONAL SENTENCE FRAGMENTS Some of the following extracts contain intentional sentence fragments. Tick the one(s) you think achieve a particular effect and be prepared to briefly comment on it. Underline all fragments, first.

1) After living in Athens for fifteen years, Joan longed to see her hometown again. The courthouse square, the neatly trimmed lawn, the tidy small house in which she had grown up.

2) One of the things that make the French Revolution so confusing to read about is the great number of names that appear on every page, and disappear without a trace. Worse than a Russian novel. And the reason for this is that for almost ten years it produced no great men, except perhaps Robespierre.

3) Archaeologists are interested in the clothing of our ancestors. They have discovered hundreds of sandal designs. Each usually representative of a particular culture at a particular time. However, other types of shoes were also worn.

4) Boots were first used by soldiers. The Assyrians created a calf-high laced leather boot. The sole was reinforced with metal. Enabling the Assyrians to walk and fight in relative comfort.

5) The lunch was a yuppie cardiologist’s dream. Sprouts and lobster with spaghetti.

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4.24 IDENTIFY AND ELIMINATE FUSED SENTENCES Independent clauses are joined by means of punctuation marks (colons, semicolons and dashes) and conjunctive adverbs and semicolons. However, if they are joined together overlooking the punctuation rules, they become “fused”, they run onto each other without proper linkage which results in confusion at grammatical, syntactic and semantic level. Example: Most volcanoes in the world today are active we are not aware of it due to

their geographic location and distance from us. The above is a fused sentence. However, if we use a comma to join the two independent clauses along with the proper antithetical conjunction, then meaning becomes clearer: Most volcanoes in the world today are active, but we are not aware of it due to

their geographic location and distance from us. Identify the fused sentences below. Tick the ones in which you think meaning is clear and do not require any changes. Re-write the fused sentences joining them with the appropriate linking devices (either punctuation or conjunctions and punctuation).

1. At the time Jacques Lacan was writing for the Minotaure he was exasperated with his medical studies he was still interested in the philosophical topics of his day. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. This brought him into contact with Pierre Verret he was a medical student looking for some private coaching to make ends meet. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Lacan wanted to get a certificate in logic from the Sorbonne he asked Verret to instruct him in the broad outlines of the subject. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Verret was keen on instructing Lacan unfortunately he persisted in asking questions out of the blue. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. He was interested in everything he almost conducted the lesson himself. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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6. Lacan never sought any political commitment for himself; however, he did follow the battle over Freud and Marxism that raged in 1933 among the communists and the surrealists. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. In one such meeting a young philosopher called Jean Audard, was fiercely challenged by Georges Politzer the two men came to blows. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Lacan wasn’t present he read Audard’s speech and thought he would like to meet him. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Audard’s text was very original at the time he was opposed by the followers of Marxism. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10. Lacan was right to widen his perspectives he would be confined for ever to an academic understanding of Freud. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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4.25 REPAIR COMMA SPLICE Comma splices occur when independent clauses are linked by commas but the appropriate conjunction which clarifies the relationship between the clauses of the sentence is missing. Alternatively, a semicolon may be used to replace both the comma and the coordinating conjunction. Comma splices may be especially detrimental to the semantic and grammatical value of the sentence. Example: A well-designed biographical note may get you an interview, it cannot get

you a job. The above sentence may be rewritten as follows:

A well-designed biographical note may get you an interview, but it cannot get you a job.

OR A well-designed biographical note may get you an interview ; it cannot

get you a job. The text below has been adapted from an article entitled “The Shipwreck Coast” by Danielle Wood (Australian Geographic (July-September 2007, 87). Read the introductory paragraph first and then revise the sentences which follow in order to eliminate comma splices using one of the ways illustrated in the examples above.

It was 31 May 1878 and the iron clipper Loch Ard, out of Gravesend,

England and bound for the developing metropolis of Melbourne, had been at sea 90 days. Its 54 passengers and crew were abuzz. Their last glimpse of land had been the Cape Verde Islands, off West Africa, and Captain George Gibb had promised them that the next day would bring their first view of Australia, along Victoria’s Oatway Coast. It was cause for celebration. Below deck that evening, the clinking of crystal mixed with an air of high spirits and anticipation. A long journey was nearing its end. 1. The end of voyage party concluded sedately, passengers retired to their bunks. 2. Captain Gibb had calculated his position at 50 nautical miles south of the Victorian Coast, he was uneasy in the heavy mist. 3. The Captain gave orders to shorten sail, Loch Ard stole forward in the hazy darkness.

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4. Suddenly, at 4.00 a.m., Captain Gibb looked past a lifting curtain of sea mist, he caught sight of sea-bitten cliffs, towering and pale, about 1 km from his vessel’s bow. 5. The captain sprang to action, he called all hands on deck and ordered complex settings of sail in a desperate bid to maneuvre his ship back out to sea. 6. Maritime historians describe his actions as exemplary, his seamanship proved no match for the pull of the lee shore. 7. Loch Ard was dragged sternwards towards the dizzying cliffs of Mutton Bird Island, she struck a jutting reef. 8. The deck became a chaos of falling rocks and spars, passengers and crew were swept into the turbulent turf.

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4.26 USE SUBORDINATION TO ELIMINATE COMMA SPLICE Apart from using a semi-colon or a coordinating conjunction, comma splices can be eliminated by subordinating one clause to another. Study the example below and note how meaning is changed, however slightly, by a change in sentence structure: Example: A well-designed biographical note may get you an interview, it cannot

get you a job.

Although a well-designed biographical note may get you an interview, it cannot get you a job.

In the sentences which follow, try to eliminate comma splices by subordinating one clause to the other. Choose the appropriate subordinating conjunction (Sec. B1), one which will not affect the meaning of the sentence. Read the introductory paragraph first.

Most people think of astronomy as the science of the night sky.

When you go back to astronomy’s roots, however, what’s striking is how much the earliest sky watchers learned about the Earth. 1. Modern astronomy encompasses far more than stargazing, information is gleaned from every nook and cranny of the universe by all means at our disposal. 2. The picture created of things ‘out there’ is remarkably concrete and cogent, it encompasses the entire spread of place and time. 3. The ancient Greeks were completely taken in by the flat-Earth illusion, about the sixth century BC Anaximander came up with the surprising idea that Earth is roughly cylindrical in form. 4. In the early 200s BC, the observant Eratosthenes spotted sunlight pouring directly down a vertical well near the Nile, he knew with certainty that it was casting oblique shadows 850 km north in Alexandria.

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5. This observation enabled him to estimate the diameter of the Earth, his value was amazingly close to the 12,756 km found in today’s measurements. 6. For centuries, astronomers fiddled with the idea of a heliocentric universe, it took the remarkable Polish astronomer and mathematician, Nicolaus Coppernicus to finally end these assumptions. 7. Copernicus put forward a mathematical model of Earth, he showed it as an orbiting, spinning third planet from the Sun. 8. Copernicus’ theories were rejected by the majority of his contemporary scientists, they were finally published one year after his death. 9. Much later, Galileo Galilei built on Copernicus’ ideas, he conceived of the Earth as orbiting around the Sun as well as itself. 10. Modern scientists have developed and extended former theories, they rely on them as a sound basis for their experimentation.

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4.27 AVOID MIXED CONSTRUCTIONS A mixed construction occurs when two or more parts of a sentence do not make sense together. In such a construction, a sentence can start by taking one grammatical form and end up having taken quite another, which confuses meaning. Study the examples below: Example 1: Even though my brothers and sisters are scattered all over Europe is not

enough to stop our annual meeting in London. Even though my brothers and sisters are scattered all over Europe, we meet

very year in London. Example 2: The job of business executives carried out risky financial and marketing projects The job of business executives was to carry out risky financial and marketing

projects. Or Business executives carried out risky financial and marketing projects.

The text below has been adapted from an article by Fred Watson entitled “The Lunar Spectrum” (National Geographic, April- June 2008, p. 24). Read the introductory paragraph first and then rewrite the following sentences trying to eliminate mixed constructions and faulty predication.

What color is the moon? Although silvery is an evocative description of its

color, to my eyes, I’m afraid it usually looks plainly and simply white. There are exceptions, of course. When the moon is low in the sky, close to the horizon, it often looks yellowish—and sometimes even orange or red. The reason for this is that light traveling through air undergoes a process of scattering, in which particles (photons) of blue light are catapulted off in random directions more frequently than their red counterparts. 1. A red moon can occur during a total lunar eclipse is the scattering of light by the Earth’s atmosphere. 2. Even though the Moon is deep within the Earth’s shadow during the eclipse scattered red light onto the lunar surface to give the appearance of a ‘blood moon’. 3. Under normal circumstances the moon looks white, a few pale grey markings.

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4. These grey areas reveal themselves to be smooth circular blotches focus binoculars on them. 5. These grey patches have also been known as “maria”, but we now know low-lying volcanic plains. 6. On the airless Moon, they are as dry as dust geologically much younger than the white mountainous regions. 7. Color enhancement techniques can be used to exaggerate slight differences in grey tones a powerful tool for mapping the geology of the lunar surface. 8. With this method, the grayish “maria” transform into delicate shades of blue or brown varying levels of titanium and iron in the basalt that fills them. 9. The highland areas are lighter in color shades of yellow, pink and pale blue. 10. Once again the differences are due to geological composition ageing effects due to the bombardment by subatomic particles from the Sun.

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4.28 IDENTIFY SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT Study the following text carefully and supply the correct form of the verb in brackets. Be prepared to discuss whether subjects and verbs are singular or plural.

The fine, supple hairs of stinging trees………… (be) like miniature

hypodermic needles, which…………………..(penetrate) the victim’s skin and………….(inject) their toxic contents. Even gentle contact with a stinging tree……………. (cause) itching, followed by a severe prickling effect and intense pain that…………. (persist) for days and sometimes weeks. Humans …………… (continue) to feel stinging sensations whenever the hairs -- which are so tiny that they often remain lodged in the skin-- ……………..(be stimulated), either by movement or skin contractions due to changes in temperature. The precise reaction……………. (depend) on how many hairs have pierced the skin, and where. The toxin, along with its chemical type, ………………… (be thought) to mimic the effects of a neurotoxin. If stung, each person……………… (suffer) from sweating and intense pain, dilated blood vessels and swelling of the lymph glands. If inhaled, hairs……………….. (induce) violent fits of sneezing, and even bleeding from the nasal texts. Chemical analysis over the past 50 years…………….. (have yielded) just one pain producing compound, known as moroidin, but it’s believed there is a cocktail of toxins which………………..(be identified), yet. Learning how these compounds…………..(work) could advance our understanding of the mechanisms of pain – indeed moroidin ……………………. (be currently investigated) for potential anti-cancer properties. “Investigating plant venoms like that of the stinging tree…………….(produce) medicinal products of incredible benefit,” said Dr David Caldicott of London University. His research committee…………………. (be dedicated) to investigating as many of these medicinal herbs as possible.

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4.29 EDIT A TEXT FOR SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT The text below has been adapted from the Introduction to Vanity Fair by John Carey (London: Penguin Classics, 2003). Read it and edit it in order to eliminate errors in subject-verb agreement.

Vanity Fair is a landmark in the development of European realism and

function as a reaction against the ostentation and hero-worship of high romanticism. It

may be that without the inspiration of Thackeray’s novel, Tolstoy would never have

written his own realistic masterpiece. Yet War and Peace retain an attachment to

military heroism and blind patriotism that Vanity Fair has outgrown. Vanity Fair is

also a love-story, with its roots firmly set in Thackeray’s own longing for a younger,

married woman, and this distinguish it from whatever he had written before. Its title

invites comparison with Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The difference between the two

works are glaring, yet Vanity Fair is permeated by a contempt for wordly things—for

titles and nobility and celebrity, for glitter and fame and wealth—which make it as

intense and more knowledgeable than Bunyan’s, and is not counterbalanced, as his is,

by other wordly spiritual fervor. Thackeray shows how envy, hatred, resentment and

self-regard governs human behavior, bringing the ethics of the battlefield into the

drawing room, the servants’ kitchen, the school playground. This affects how we view

Becky Sharp—one of his supreme creations, who embody much of his own wit and

satire. For whereas Becky might appear monstrous in a novel peopled by paragons, in

Vanity Fair she seems not far worse than those she exploits, and she has the excuse, as

they have not, of having to fight for survival. But it is Dobbin who most radically

transform the novel, and whose advent necessitated the drastic rewriting of the early

chapters. Modest, loyal, upright, self-denying, ashamed at others’ shamelessness,

Dobbin, the unheroic hero, become Thackeray’s answer to romantic posturing. He is

something new in English, indeed the world, literature, strikingly unlike the heroes of

classical epic or Renaissance Drama and he shows Thackeray accomplishing one of

the most difficult of literary feats—the creation of a character who is both virtuous

and likeable.

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4.30 UNDERSTAND USE OF PRONOUN CASE The case of a noun or pronoun shows how that word relates to other words in a sentence. For example, we, us and our are three different case of the first person plural pronoun ‘we’. Example: As we walked through the park, a crowd gathered around us to admire our pet monkey. English has three cases: subjective, objective, and possessive. Personal pronouns, the most common type of pronouns, have a full range of cases that show changes in person (first, second, and third person) and number (singular or plural). The case of the pronoun in a sentence depends on its positioning as a subject or object. Even in compound constructions—which involve more than a single subject and/or object—the case of the pronouns is not affected. Study the following sentences and try to identify the correct pronoun case in each one. Also be prepared to justify your answer. 1. He and (I, me) saw the eclipse of the sun.

2. The beauty of the eclipse astounded both him and (I, me).

3. Janet and (he, him) read that the moon has one eightieth the mass of the earth.

4. The instructor told Janet and (he, him) that the moon has one fiftieth the

volume of the earth.

5. The reward must be divided between you and (I, me).

6. Is Peter home yet? Oh, this is (he, him) knocking at the door!

7. Who is there? It is (I, me).

8. The winner of the speed skating event was (she, her).

9. My sister photographs landscapes more than (I, me).

10. The neighbors were annoyed by (his, him) singing in the shower.

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4.31 IDENTIFY CORRECT PRONOUN CASE Underline the correct pronoun case in each of the following sentences. Read the introductory paragraph, first.

“When I was in there, I loved riding my bike, because it made me realize

what I was doing. I was generating electricity underwater and circulating my algae. The floor shook as I pedaled and I couldn’t help but smile.” Although 30 metres from shore and 3 metres underwater, Lloyd was wonderfully attuned to what was happening above the surface. He and his colleague, Jack Benson, were participating in a marine experiment and he had to stay underwater for as long as he could stand it.

1. “Jack and (I, me) decided to participate in the SFP project as divers and marine

biologists,” Lloyd said before taking the big plunge. 2. His partner and (him, he) had been trained for this experiment for two years. 3. Their supervising professor and personal trainer, however, had been skeptical about

(them, their) being so willing to stay underwater for so long. 4. It was obvious to Stephen that Lloyd was able to withstand water pressure longer

than (he, him). 5. Steven was finally dissuaded from taking part and Lloyd realized that the real

guinea pig was going to be (he, him). 6. Being enclosed in the metal box didn’t prevent (his, him) knowing when a guest

was approaching because the 4mm steel walls served as a metal amplifier. 7. As the days wore on, both Lloyd and Steven felt that the experiment would backfire

on (their, them). 8. On the morning of the 12th day of (his, him) staying underwater, Lloyd felt his

blood pressure rise. 9. Soon, his eyes were playing tricks on (he, him) and dizziness was washing over

(his, him) in waves. 10. This caused (he and his partner, him and his partner) to interrupt the experiment

and Lloyd was escorted ashore where he could once again breathe the fresh autumn air.

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4.32 ELIMINATE ERRORS IN THE USE OF WHO AND WHOM Who and whoever function as both relative and interrogative pronouns and change forms in different cases (subjective, objective, and possessive). Within each case, however, they remain the same for all persons as well as for singular or plural number. Whom and whomever function as the objective case of who and whoever respectively, and so their use in the sentence is determined by their position as objects. Example: a) I asked Paul who else attended the conference. b) To whom did Jack admit that he had misunderstood Helen’s intentions? c) You can invite to party whomever you want,” her father told Joan d) Whoever becomes the new headmaster will have to face huge difficulties

with the Ministry of Education as regards the demolition of the old school wing.

Edit the following text for errors in pronoun case, making all the necessary changes.

In France, Merleau Ponty, who Jacques Lacan deeply respected, was the first

to declare, in his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, that a philosophy could

be derived from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics: “The theory of signs, as

developed in linguistics, perhaps implies a conception of historical meaning which

gets beyond the opposition of things versus consciousness…” Lacan had got the

message. He had first linked together the subject, language and speech in his “Rome

Discourse,” on the basis of Heidegger whom had put together a theory of language

and the elementary structures of kinship. Thereafter, he set out, using a logical method

and abandoning all ontology, to formulate a theory concerning the relationship

between the subject and signifier. In order to reinforce the hypothesis about the

subversiveness of Freudianism that he had inherited through his familiarity with the

surrealists, who Lacan absolutely loved to address, and the works of Nietzsche, Lacan

had tried to trace it back to Freud, himself. But how was he to prove this assertion

when evidence was nowhere to be found? Lacan had solved this difficult problem by

going to see Carl, Gustav Jung, in 1954.

The most famous dissident, in all the Freudian saga was then seventy-nine

years old. He sat on his splendid house on the shores of Lake Zurich like some elderly

oriental sage, dispensing treatment, and erudition to the many visitors whom came to

see him from every quarter of the globe. Lacan, knowing how difficult it would be to

approach Jung, had asked his old friend, Roland Cahen to intercede on his behalf.

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Cahen was a psychiatrist and German scholar who had made Jung’s acquaintance in

1936, become his disciple, and undertaken the first French translation of his works. At

the Hôpital Sainte-Anne, after the war, Cahen had been in frequent contact with

Nacht, Lacan, Ey, and Lagache, trying in vain to get them and whoever else he could

persuade, to take account of Jungian theories in their work. At that time, Jung hadn’t

yet started writing his memoirs, his correspondence with Freud had not appeared, and

no one had started researching his life. For anyone whom wanted to understand the

history of the origins of psychoanalysis, Freudian hagiography was still the only

available source. But Jung always seemed negative and disloyal with regard to the

sacrosanct figure of the Viennese master, whom was otherwise always presented as a

hero sans peure and sans reproche. So it was a very good idea on Lacan’s part to get

Jung to testify about his relations with Freud. The meeting took place, but at Roland

Cahen’s distress he couldn’t find out anything about it. Lacan never told him what

happened, and Jung’s own memory of the interview was very fleeting.

(excerpt from Elisabeth Roudinesko, Jacques Lacan. Trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).

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4.33 REVISE SENTENCES FOR PRONOUN AGREEMENT Revise the following sentences, using the directions given in parentheses. Rewrite the sentences making necessary changes for pronoun and subject-verb agreement. Example: A singer—however talented or untalented—is always welcome to compete

in the British National Song Festival held annually in Liverpool. (Change singer to singers)

Singers—however talented or untalented—are always welcome to

compete in the British National Song Festival held annually in Liverpool.

1. Either Dr. Peterson or Dr. Mackenzie must decide whether he wishes to

participate in the Biennial Conference of American Studies held in Dublin next year. (Delete either; change or to and)

2. Charlotte Brontë knew she would have trouble following writing as a

profession, since, in the Victorian Age, women were excluded from professional life anyway. (Change Charlotte Brontë to The Brontë sisters)

3. Reading the proto-feminist text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, written by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792, Mary decided to extend her research into similar texts written at the time. (Change Mary to several students) 4. A person is always transported to nineteenth-century industrial London when he reads Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. (Change A person to People) 5. Feminists support the idea of equal rights between men and women but occasionally they overlook differences of class and race limiting their support to white, middle-class women only. (Change Feminists to Simone de Beauvoir)

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4.34 ELIMINATE AGREEMENT ERRORS WITH INDEFINITE PRONOUNS In the following sentences, pronouns fail to agree in number with the indefinite pronouns that serve as their antecedents. Revise each sentence in the space provided, making pronouns agree with antecedents, while avoiding the use of masculine pronouns to refer to both men and women. Usually, the best solution is to recast the entire sentence to eliminate one of the pronouns. Example: Everyone has a right to their own opinion Everyone has a right to an opinion

1. None of the students volunteered their time for the fundraising event

organized by the Red Cross at the end of the semester. 2. Everybody should be able to run their business without getting high interest

loans from banks. 3. Neither of them has begun their doctoral research yet, despite being funded by

the University.

4. Each researcher is entitled to a period of four years for completing his

dissertation. 5. Someone was granted a prize amounting to £ 2,000 for conducting his really

innovative research on the effect of nuclear reactors on the water supply.

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4.35 ELIMINATE ERRORS IN PRONOUN REFERENCE A pronoun must refer to a clear, explicit and specific antecedent. If pronouns and antecedents have no clear reference, confusion occurs and the text becomes obscure and incoherent. In each of the following sentences, underline the pronoun which lacks a clear, explicit antecedent. Then, in the space provided, re-write the sentence establishing the correct reference between the pronoun and its antecedent(s). Example: Nuclear reactors are thought to be dangerous. In Europe, they are strongly opposed to scientific experimentation with nuclear power because they believe it can have disastrous consequences. Nuclear reactors are thought to be dangerous. Europeans are strongly

opposed to scientific experimentation with nuclear power because they believe it can have disastrous consequences.

1. Scientists often rely on nuclear power in its research because of its many applications and experimental possibilities.

2. Conducting diverse experiments, scientists are able to test several of their

hypotheses about nuclear power and their effects.

3. Several international organizations, however, are dedicated to banishing the

use or misuse of nuclear power worldwide and its efforts have been effective so far.

4. They support that the manipulation of nuclear effects is impossible and

exposes people to a lethal and often veiled danger because of its often inadvertent results.

5. On the other hand, scientists insist that nuclear power can be used to many

good causes even though they admit their risks are comparatively high.

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6. Governments are in favor of nuclear power plants, however. They often

approve of building it, not far from inhabited areas, in stretches of land which would otherwise be rural land.

7. Such schemes are encouraged by the majority of politicians who overlook the

benefit of the people in order to procure profits for them or the companies in which they are share-holders.

8. The immorality of these actions is often indicted by a part of the Press and the

people devoted to saving the planet from the disastrous effects of the nuclear power and their devotees.

9. It seems, however, that nuclear power, apart from its research and scientific

possibilities, it also entails what her very name suggests: the power to control and manipulate.

10. Politicians use this power to its own ends and in multiple ways. Admittedly,

they use it in all its forms and figurations; they even use it despite its consequences or even because of it.

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4.36 EDIT A TEXT FOR PRONOUN AGREEMENT Edit the following text in order to eliminate mistakes in pronoun case, agreement, and reference. Underline all the pronouns which are the wrong case, and have a wrong or unclear reference. Make all the changes necessary in order to establish clear and explicit agreement between pronouns and their antecedents.

Men have walked on the moon, transplanted hearts and invented

machines to think for them. But they cannot cure the common cold. A

spokesman at the world-famous cold research center in Salisbury sounded

understandably bad tempered when I spoke to them about it. They have

been working on the problem for years but the most optimistic he could be

was to hope that they would find a cure within the next ten years. So

what was their advice on coping with a cold meanwhile? “Ignore it,” he

sniffed.

In urban areas we average about three colds a year and they are

caused not by wet feet or sitting in a draught, but by a virus, or rather

many viruses which are always changing, so that a vaccine prepared from

one is useless against the next. But every year the pharmaceutical

companies spend millions of pounds trying to persuade us that its

products will banish the miseries of sneezing, runny noses, sore throats,

headaches and coughs. They admit it can’t cure the cold, but they do

promise to relieve the symptoms.

We looked at ten well-known brands of cold remedies and asked a

doctor to explain, in layman’s terms, exactly what they contain, what

each ingredient is for, and his opinion on its effectiveness. Although none

of the preparations had exactly the same ingredients, it fell into certain

categories.

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Nearly all contained a painkiller, either aspirin or paracetamol.

They help to reduce temperature and relieve general aches and pains.

Aspirin can irritate the stomach, so paracetamol is generally preferred.

Many also contain decongestants, which constrict the blood vessels in the

nose and relieve congestion. But it can raise blood pressure and should be

avoided by people with hypertension or any heart complaint. The

decongestant in Vicks Medinite is known to cause wakefulness, so it is

strange to find them in a night-time remedy. But maybe it is

counterbalanced by the antihistamine which it also contains, like the

other night time preparations.

Antihistamines are used to treat hay fever and other complaints

caused by allergies, but for the common cold all it will provide is sedation.

They shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol.

None of the preparations was harmful, as long as you observed the

warnings on the packets and didn’t take it if you were suffering from

certain conditions, were under other medication or were pregnant. But the

worst thing about it was the cost. Advertising and packaging had grossly

inflated the price of relatively cheap ingredients, and in many cases you

could get the same relief from straightforward paracetamol taken with a

soothing warm drink of lemon and honey.

Maybe the old wives1 had it right all along with their remedy of

“hanging your hat on the bed-post, drinking from a bottle of whisky until

two hats appear, then going to bed and staying there.” That’s probably

what researchers will come up with in ten years’ time.

1 Old wives were traditionally associated with folk wisdom.

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4.37 RECOGNISE PARALLEL ELEMENTS Parallel Structures Study the three examples listed below. Then try to complete the grids that follow filling in the slots with the words in bold. Examples:

1) The venerable mayor spoke clearly, eloquently and persuasively.

2) Praised by critics, embraced by common readers, the novel soon became a best-seller.

3) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Grid 1

clearly, -----------, -----------

Grid 2

Praised by critics, ------------- ------------ -------------,

Grid 3 It was the best of times, --------- ---------- ----------- --------- -------- -------------. Sentences are easier to read when closely related ideas within them also follow similar patterns of language. In the 3rd example, the famous opening clauses from Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities are exactly parallel. In other words, items are parallel when they share common grammatical structures. Read the following sentences carefully and tick the ones you think contain parallel structures underlining the parallel elements at the same time.

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1. Optimism in outlook and egotism in behaviour-those are essential qualities for a leader.

2. The best teachers are patient, erudite and keep an open mind. 3. The lawyers presented their case eloquently and effectively. 4. The school board’s objectives are clear: to hire the best teaching staff, to

create the best classroom facilities and to prepare the students for the next technological advancements.

5. Pope was a poet of the mind; Byron wrote for the heart. 6. The city council is as likely to adopt the measure as opposing it. 7. Smiling takes fewer muscles than frowning. 8. Criminals are imprisoned for two reasons: to punish them and for the

protection of law abiding citizens. 9. When you open a new computer program, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the

interface, frustrated by the vague documentation and not to know what to do next.

10. We spoke not only to the President but also to the Prime Minister of the African country.

In the space provided below revise the sentences with faulty parallelism in order to make them parallel.

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4.38 VARYING SENTENCE LENGTH If you vary your sentence length, you signal distinctions among your ideas so that your readers can understand the focus of your material. Study the following two sentences and tick the one you think presents ideas more effectively:

a) Ants are much like human beings. It is embarrassing. They farm fungi. They raise aphids as livestock. They launch armies into wars. They use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies. They capture slaves.

b) Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm funghi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into wars, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves.

Now revise each of the following sentences in order to emphasize the main idea as in the example provided: Example: Elisabeth Blackwell was a teacher. She was bored with teaching. She wanted to become a doctor. She had trouble qualifying for medical school. Elisabeth Blackwell was bored with teaching and wanted to become a doctor

but she had trouble qualifying for medical school. 1. There was only one way to gain the knowledge she needed. She became a governess for doctors’ families. She used her spare time. She studied medical books. 2. She was turned down by eleven medical schools. She was finally accepted by Geneva Medical College in New York in 1848. The Faculty let the students vote whether or not to accept her. They voted her in as a joke. 3. Blackwell was a good student. She received her degree in 1849. She could not find work in U.S. hospitals. She went to Europe to work.

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4. She returned to New York in 1851. She wanted to open her own practice. Noone would rent her office space. She bought her own house. It became the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. 5. The Infirmary had an all-female staff. It was the first all-female hospital in the world. It offered internships to women medical students. It was the first to do this too.

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4.39 IDENTIFY CORRECT PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION Study the sentences which follow and tick the one which contains correct parallelism. Also, underline the parallel elements. Examples: a) Critics of “plastic money” support that credit cards have become too

easy to get and too painless to use. b) Critics of “plastic money” believe that credit cards have become too

easy to get and are too painless to use. In each of the following sentences, identify and underline the correct parallel elements.

1) Major Banks and credit companies earn millions of pounds every year from people who indulge in the practice of buying now and pay the bills later.

2) Major Banks and credit companies earn millions of pounds every year from people who indulge in the practice of buying now and paying the bills later.

3) Widely accepted both in Europe and the US, credit cards enable consumers to

travel with comfort, to dine at the best restaurants, and to purchase the most expensive and fashionable items.

4) Widely accepted both in Europe and the US, credit cards enable consumers to travel with comfort, to dine at the best restaurants, purchasing the most expensive and fashionable items.

5) Nowadays credit cards are used not only to purchase overpriced goods but also

to buy essential services. 6) Nowadays credit cards not only are used to purchase overpriced goods but

also to buy essential services. 7) For instance, several hospitals advertise their healthcare facilities inviting

patients to pay using either their Master Card or their Visa. 8) For instance, several hospitals advertise their healthcare facilities inviting

patients to pay using either their Master Card or to pay with their Visa. 9) Naturally, market researchers complain that the ease of using credit cards has

exceeded the ease of using cash. 10) Naturally, market researchers complain that the ease of using credit cards has

exceeded using cash.

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4.40 REVISE FAULTY PARALLELISM The sentences below have been adapted from “Cashing in on plants and animals: Where will the next breakthrough come from?” by Ruth Beran (Australian National Geographic, July-September 2007, p. 30). Read them carefully and underline instances of faulty parallelism. Then, rewrite each sentence in the space provided, using the correct parallel construction. Make only the necessary changes. Read the introductory paragraph, first. Dr Kirsten Benkendorff, senior lecturer in marine biology at Flinders University, Adelaide, is searching for useful compounds in marine mollusks, in particular the anti-cancer, antibiotic and muscle relaxing properties of Dicathis Orbita, a whelk found in temperate sea water.

1) “These whelks seem to use a purple secretion containing muscle-relaxing compounds to sedate their prey and protecting their egg masses from bacterial infection,” Kirsten says.

2) “We are currently investigating whether adult whelks also use these compounds to fight disease, reinforce their immune system and guarding themselves against microbial agents,” she adds.

3) Kirsten says the bioactive compounds she has discovered are hard to copy and extremely difficult to use in the market.

4) Publishing scientific papers and to patent her discovery are now major priorities for her.

5) Among the corporate bioprospectors currently on the hunt for innovative medicine is EcoBiotics, a newly established pharmaceutical company, which is combing tropical rainforests, claimed access to them and forcing its way into large proportions of land.

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6) In the past couple of years, the Federal governments have introduced regulations in order to control bioprospecting, often called biopiracy, and discouraging future attempts to claim stretches of land for profit.

7) Using plants for medical purposes has encouraged companies to indulge in biopiracy without regard for either the environment or indigenous groups occupying the land and share their knowledge of herbs with bioprospectors.

8) Last year, the biotechnology company AMRAD withheld information about an anti-HIV substance found in the Australian smokebush attempting to patent its discovery and naturally claiming huge profits for the medicine to be developed.

9) “Similar cases are far from rare,” says Kirsten, “but legislation needs to be developed to ensure that common knowledge shared by all cannot be exploited or marketed by the few.”

10) Medical research has to become more bio-oriented as the treasures of nature have long been discovered and put to good effect by indigenous people.

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4.41 PUNCTUATE PARALLEL ELEMENTS Parallel elements are separated from one another using commas. Study the following sentences: Examples: a) The history of many former kings of Great Britain is a history of

repeated injuries, usurpation, and bloody rule.

b) In the past, pirates plundered the seas, ravaged the countries’ coasts, burned towns, and destroyed the lives of many people.

The following sentences contain some parallel elements that require punctuation and others that are punctuated unnecessarily. Add commas where appropriate and circle any punctuation that should be omitted.

1) Virtually all milk consumed throughout the world nowadays, is pasteurized homogenized and made to last for a long period of time.

2) During pasteurization, milk is heated to destroy disease causing organisms

bacteria or, other elements which promote souring. 3) Developed and named after Louis Pasteur in the 1860s, the process of

pasteurization helped control the spread of tuberculosis, diphtheria and rheumatic fever caused by germs.

4) Today, pasteurization may seem more a precaution, rather than a necessity,

but even with modern chemical methods, some nonpasteurized milk would undoubtedly become contaminated.

5) Unlike pasteurization, homogenization is not so much a necessity, but rather a

convenience. 6) Whether it is actually necessary or not, homogenization is widely used in

Europe the US and most other countries around the world. 7) Homogenized milk is blended so thoroughly that its cream will not separate

thicken and rise to the top. 8) Long before they knew about the pasteurization and homogenization

processes, people consumed milk; but they also used it to produce cheese yogurt butter and a wide variety of other products.

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4.42 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TENSES WITHIN A SENTENCE Sentences often have more than one verb, and these verbs often refer to actions taking place at different times. Showing the right time relationships—that is, using accurate and consistent tense sequences—is necessary in order to avoid confusion. The tense of a verb in an independent clause determines the possibilities for verb tense in the independent clauses which form part of the specific sentence. Study the following sentences carefully and try to determine whether some of them display mistakes in the sequence of tenses. Tick the ones you think are correct but underline and correct those verbs you think should take a different tense. Be ready to discuss your choices.

1) The film director insists that his film is a tribute to the struggle of factory workers worldwide.

2) Helen avoids eating shellfish because she is allergic to it. 3) I am positive that I deposited the check yesterday morning before I went to

work. 4) They claim that they have visited most Asian countries. 5) The TV is on because I will be watching a film later on tonight. 6) The Book of Lists includes an entry that described fifteen well-known love

offerings. 7) I have had dinner before you so kindly offered to take me out for a pizza. 8) The sprinter knew she had broken the world record. 9) Exploring the East coast of the American Continent, Christopher Columbus

discovered that the world is round. 10) The production of cheap cars has led to a marked increase in buying rates

which, in turn, points to the need for low-price, easily marketable items. 11) The price of sugar had already declined when artificial sweeteners first

appeared. 12) Scientists have repeatedly warned us that the world climate is going to change

dramatically in the next few years. 13) You will surely win the New Author Essay Prize if you remembered to mail

the entry form on the specified date. 14) David Chang will have completed thirty years of active journalism by the time

he retired. 15) Many people admired S. Freud’s insightful accounts of human behavior, but a

number of his own disciples oppose it. 16) Several new disciplines have made their appearance recently mainly because

technology and its applications had advanced so far. 17) In the academic field, students have been trained to respond to a variety of

demanding tasks even though they were not adequately prepared for such practices before they entered the University.

18) Marine biologists have been trying to save endangered species from extinction and alerted people to the risks involved in polluting the seas and coasts with litter or other waste.

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4.43 ESTABLISH VERB SEQUENCE This extract below has been adapted from Keith Johnson, An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (London: Longman, 2001, p. 39). In each of the following sentences, underline and correct the verb/s which do not establish a correct sequence. Write the correct forms in the space provided.

1) Learning a language is like learning any other habit. You didn’t have to think about it because it develops automatically.

2) Of course, to learn a language, you have to hear others speaking it. But

learners develop the language ‘inside themselves’, forming their own views about how it worked and following their own way to comprehension and competence.

3) Amount of practice is not important. Sometimes you can learn a word after

just hearing it once—particularly if you heard it in a context where its use is particularly vivid.

4) Practice makes perfect—so the more you practice, the more thoroughly you learn.

5) You don’t need to worry when making an error. After all, children make lots of errors when learning the L1, and these have disappeared over time.

6) Indeed, errors can be a good thing. As the saying pointed out: “we learn from our mistakes.”

7) Thinking about how language had worked is a very important part of learning

because understanding becomes a useful tool in language acquisition.

8) We acquire languages if we have repeated what other people have said.

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9) In the process of learning a foreign language, the teacher must ensure the

learner made as few mistakes as possible.

10) Correcting mistakes is a vital process in learning mainly because if a mistake

was constantly repeated, it will often become ingrained.

4.44 CHANGE THE GOVERNING TENSE IN A TEXT (PRESENT TO PAST) Grammar Task: Edit the following text so that its governing tense is past rather than present. Make sure that the tense of each verb is correctly related to the tense of the first verb which has been changed for you as an example.

failed Many language learners fail to realize that when they listen to their

first language they do not actually hear every word. They also fail to

appreciate that we integrate linguistic knowledge with our existing

experience and knowledge of such things as topic and culture, and do not

need to hear every word. This means that learners often have unrealistic

expectations and try to understand each word of a listening text. As

Faerch and Casper point out: “such total comprehension…is a

misconception of how normal comprehension works in the native

language.” Learners’ anxiety is often exacerbated by a classroom

procedure which does not contextualize the text or prepare the topic by

activating prior knowledge. This tests listening ability rather than aiming

to teach it. Adults returning to English language learning whose earlier

experiences have been of this nature may well have developed negative

perceptions of their ability as listeners and a major task for the teacher

will be to build confidence. This means recognizing anxiety and taking

care to provide positive classroom experiences. The teacher, for example

needs to make sure that the pace and length of a listening activity is not

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too taxing as the concentration required in trying to comprehend

unfamiliar sounds can be tiring. (adapted from: Tricia Hedge, Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: OUP, 2007, p.237). 4.45 EDIT A TEXT FOR TENSE CONSISTENCY (PAST TO PRESENT) Grammar Task: Edit the following text so that its governing tense is present rather than past. Make sure that the tense of every verb is correctly related to the tense of the first verb which has been done for you. does not The notion of a ‘communicative drill’ did not please everyone.

Harmer (1982) for example argued that the concepts of drilling and

communication were incompatible. The essence of communicative

teaching was message-focus, he claimed, and drills could not of their

nature be message-focused. It was in essence the same kind of argument

that led Prabhu in the direction of developing his procedural syllabus.

Almost all of the discussion in language teaching about the pros

and cons of drilling had been within the behaviorism versus cognitivism

debate. The connection between drilling and behaviorist theory lay on the

assumption of audiolingualism that “foreign language learning was

basically a mechanical process of habit formation,” or the hypothesis that

“the single paramount fact about language learning was that it concerned

not problem solving, but the formation and performance of habits.” The

cognitivist case against language learning as habit formation was based

on examples of children who repeated a wrong sentence several times and

yet, despite such repletion, presumably moved on , when they were ready,

to correct the wrong form. Could then common practice be considered the

solution to the afore mentioned teaching and learning issues? Richard

Ellis was the first to admit that the amount of research done into the value

of practice was small, and could not lead to firm conclusions. (adapted from: Keith Johnson, An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. London: Longman, 2001, pp. 254-256).

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4.46 USE PAST TENSE AND PAST-PARTICIPLE VERB FORMS Past tense and past-participle verb forms are often similar and as a result they can easily be confused. One, therefore, needs to be able to determine which one is appropriate for a specific sentence in order to communicate the right message and avoid misunderstandings. Example: Yesterday I laid on the beach for two hours. (Wrong verb form: lay must be

used instead) Grammar Task: The text below comes from Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. Read it and underline any incorrect past-tense or past-participle verb forms.

The last days of my childhood were also the last days of my village. I belonged to that generation which saw/seen, by chance, the end of a thousand years’ life. The change come/came late to our Cotswold valley2, didn’t really show itself till the late 1920s; I was twelve by then, but during that handful of years I witnessed the whole thing happen. Myself, my family, my generation were/been born in a world of silence; a world of hard work and necessary patience, of backs bent/bend to the ground, hands massaging the crops, of waiting on weather and growth; of villages like ships in the empty landscapes and the long walking distances between them; of white narrow roads, rutted/rut by hooves and cartwheels, innocent of oil or petrol, down which people passed rarely, and almost never for pleasure, and the horse was the fastest thing moving. Man and horse were/been all the power we had—abetted/abet by levers and pulleys. But the horse was king and almost everything grew/grown around him; fodder, smithies, stables, paddocks, distances, and the rhythm of our days. His eight miles an hour was the limit of our movements, as it had been/were since the days of the Romans. That eight miles an hour was life and death, the size of our world, our prison. This was what we were/been born to, and all we knew/known at first. Then, to the scream of the horse, the change began/begun. The brass-lamped motor car came/come coughing up the road, followed by the clamorous charabanc;3 the solid-tyred4 bus climbed the dusty hills and more people came and went/gone. Chickens and dogs were the early sacrifices, falling demented/dement beneath the wheels. The old folk, too, had strokes and seizures, faced by speeds beyond comprehension. Then scarlet motor bikes, the size of five barred gates began to appear in

2 The writer was brought up in a village in the Cotswold hills in Gloucestershire. 3 Charabancs were motor coaches. 4 Solid tyred vehicles appeared before the days of pneumatic tyres.

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the village, on which our youth roared like rockets up the two-minute hills, then spent/spend weeks making repairs and adjustments. These appearances did not immediately alter our lives; the cars were freaks and rarely saw/seen the motor bikes mostly in pieces, we used the charabancs only once a year and our buses at first were experiments. Meanwhile, Lew Ayers, wearing a bowler hat, ran/run his wagonette to Stroud twice a week. The carriage hold/held six, and the fare was two pence, but most people preferred to walk. Mrs. West, from Sheepscombe, ran/run a cart every day, and would carry your parcels for a penny. But most of us still did/done the journey on foot, heads down to the west Welsh winds, ignoring the carters—whom we thought extortionate—and spending a long hard day at our shopping. 4.47 MATCH VERB FORMS TO A GOVERNING TENSE When writing a paragraph or a longer text, it is important to maintain consistency among verb forms. This type of consistency is achieved when the verbs in the text or paragraph are made to agree in tense with the first verb which establishes the governing tense of the paragraph/text. In the following text change each verb in parentheses to its correct form. Make sure that all verbs are consistent with the governing tense established in the first sentence. One verb is done for you as an example.

A few years ago I ..joined.. (join) a class to learn Russian. There ……… (be) about twelve people in the class. Our learning experience .……... (have) much in common. We all ……….. (have) the same teacher, of course, and ……….. (follow) the same textbook. Admittedly, some ……….. (work) outside the class more than others…and yes, remembering back, there ………. (be) a student who ………. (have) a friend of a friend who ……. (be) Russian and she ………….. (manage) a bit of conversational practice outside class. But even in this respect the differences ……….. (be) small—we all ………. (have) full time jobs and ……….. (be) usually unable even to finish the modest pieces of homework that we ………... (be given). Yet, despite these similarities of learning experience, what ……….. (be) really dramatic…….. (be) the very different levels of success reached by individuals in the class. At one extreme ……….. (be) the poor fellow who by the end ………..(can) barely manage a heavily accented Good Morning, and whose progress with the alphabet never really ..……. (get) beyond a heartfelt expression of sheer amazement at how clever Russian children must be to master it. At the other ……….(be) a lady with a clear ‘flair’ for languages who seemed to pick up words and structures on hearing them once only, and

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who…….….(seem) to be moving rapidly towards being able to read War and Peace in the original. Between those two …………(fall) the rest of us, displaying a truly diverse spread of achievement. (adapted from: Keith Johnson, An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. London: Longman, 2001, p. 116). 4.48 CORRECT SHIFTS IN VERB TENSE The following paragraph contains unacceptable shifts in verb tense. Correct any verb that does not follow in the correct sequence from the tense established at the beginning of the text. One verb is corrected for you as an example. Most discussions have limited affective factors to personality

characteristics, attitudes and emotional responses to the language learning

process. The major problem of research in this area was (is) that data

gathered by introspective methods using questionnaires and self-report

often had not seemed to agree with observed behavior. Better instruments

are needed. It was therefore difficult to make generalizations. However,

this in itself is a useful insight for teachers given that sweeping

generalizations about learners were not uncommon in these areas. For

example, there is a widely held view that extrovert learners were likely to

be more successful than introverted learners, possibly because they are

more assertive, more willing to experiment and take risks, and more able

to make the social contracts they needed to practice language. This view,

however, is not conclusively supported by the findings of research.

Furthermore, we need to keep the exigencies of the classroom situation

clearly in mind. It may well be the case that extrovert students benefited

from oral work in small groups where their assertiveness enables them to

dominate and their willingness to take risks facilitates practice, but in a

whole-class mode of learning, the extroverts may be silenced by an

irritated teacher. Perhaps the important implication for the teacher was to

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balance these personality differences by ensuring an equal share of

attention and opportunity to contribute. (adapted from: Tricia Hedge, Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom . Oxford: OUP, 2007, p. 20). 4.49 EDIT A TEXT FOR PARALLELISM AND SHIFTS IN VERB TENSE Edit the following text to eliminate errors in parallel construction and shifts in verb tense. Another cause of the decline in marital happiness is, surprisingly,

children. Children tended to put a damper on marital bliss. Couples who

remain childless report higher levels of marital satisfaction than did those

with children. They are better educated and more likely to live in cities,

and the wives were more committed to their careers. They have more

savings and investments, of course, and are more apt to buy an expensive

home in their fifties. Marital happiness sank with the arrival of the first

baby, plunges even further when the first child reaches school age, and is

dropping further when the child reaches the teenage years. Husbands

began to feel better with their marriages once the children have turned

eighteen, but wives didn’t feel better about their marriages until after the

children leave home. Yet having and to raise children are two of the

major purposes of the family, its raison d’etre. If one of the chief

purposes of the family is to maintain both gender inequality and gender

difference between the parents, then its other chief purpose is ensuring

that those gendered identities are imparted to the next generation. It is in

the family that the seeds of gender difference are planted, that we first

understood that being a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, has different,

and unequal, meanings. (adapted from: Michael Kimmel, The Gendered Society. New York: OUP, 2008, pp. 139-140).

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4.50 EDIT A TEXT FOR USE OF VERB FORMS Grammar Task: The following text has been adapted from A Sort of Life by Graham Greene. Read it and edit for any mistakes in the use of verb forms.

If I had known it, the whole future must have lay all the time along

those Berkhamsted streets. The High street was as wide as many a market

square, but its broad dignity was abuse after the first great war by the

New Cinema under a green Moorish dome, tiny enough but it seem to us

then the height of pretentious luxury and dubious taste. My father, who

was by that time headmaster of Berkhamsted school, once allow his

senior boys to go there for a special performance of the first Tarzan

movie, under the false impression that it was an educational film of

anthropological interest, and ever after he regarded the cinema with a

sense of disillusion and suspicion. The High Street contain at ‘our end’ a

half timbered Tudor photographer’s shop (from the windows the faces of

the locals looked out in wedded groups, bouqueted and bemused like

prize oxen) and the great flinty Norman church where the helmet of some

old Duke of Cornwall hang unremarked on a pillar like a bowler hat in a

hall. Below lie the Grand Junction canal with the slow-moving paint

barges and remote gypsy children, the watercress beds, the hillocks of the

old castle surrounded by a dry moat full of cow-parsley (it had been

build, so they said, by Chaucer, and in the reign of Henry III it was

besieged successfully by the French). The faint agreeable smell of coal

dust blown up from the railway, and everywhere were those curious

individual Berkhamsted faces which I feel I could recognize now

anywhere in the world: pointed faces like the knaves on playing cards,

with a slyness about the eyes, an unsuccessful cunning.

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PART E: EXTRACTS FROM “ABOUT LANGUAGE”