the light at the end of the chunnel 郧阳师专英语系综合英语教研室

The Light at the End of the Chunnel

Background knowledge The English Channel: commonly called the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean separating the southern coast of England from the northern coast of France, and connecting the Atlantic in the west with the North Sea on the east via the Strait of Dover. It is 34 to 240 km. (21-150 miles) wide and 560km. (350 miles) long. The Channel is at its narrowest between Dover in England and Cape Gris-Nez, near Calais, in France, it being 34 km. (21 miles) wide. Its average depth decreases from 120 to 45 meters (400-150 feet).

Background knowledge From earliest times, the Channel served as a route for, and a barrier to, invaders to Britain from the Continent. It was crossed by Julius Caesars legion in 55 B.C. and Norman forces in 1066. However, when Napoleon and Hitler threatened to cross it, they failed. Therefore, the Channel has chiefly served as a physical barrier to the invasion of Britain. Transportation across the Channel used to be supplied by ferry boat service only.

Background knowledge The long-lasting Anglo-French conflict In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, France, conquered England and became King William I of England. After the Norman Conquest, French manners and culture predominated among the English nobles. In 1154 King Henry II recovered the English throne. Thereafter the holdings of English kings in France were greatly increased. At one time, France assisted Scotland, over which the English kings attempted to dominate. These sources of friction led to intermittent fighting between the two countries from 1294 to 1337.

Background knowledge In 1337, Edward III of England (1327-1377) took the title of King of France. This step began the Hundred Years War which continued on and off until 1453. Early in the conflict the English crushed the French, but by the end of Edwards reign the French had reconquered almost all the territory Edward had won. Fighting between the two countries continued in the fourteenth and the fifteenth century. During King Henry VIIIs reign (1509-1547), England again invaded France and expanded it holdings around Calais.

Background knowledge From 1689 to 1815 there was a series of conflicts between Britain and France for domination of the North American continent. The principal objective of the British government was to drive the French out of North America once and for all. The maritime and colonial struggle between Britain and France for world empire and trade, which began in 1689, lasted until the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It was about this time that the long duel between Britain and France was over.

Background knowledge The Channel Tunnel Project The Channel Tunnel Project is the scheme for an under- ocean tunnel linking Britain and France, which has been discussed on governmental levels for almost 200 years. The first proposal for a Channel Tunnel came in 1802 from a French engineer. Napoleon showed interest, but the renewal of the war suspended the question, which, however, was taken up again and again throughout the nineteenth century. The proponents of the project were generally French, with the British government holding off for security reasons.

Background knowledge In the early 1880s, digging actually began near Folkestone, Kent, England, and Sangate, France. A pilot tunnel 2000 yards long was bored from the English side before a rage from the press over the alleged threat to Britain s security caused the British government to cancel the project.

Background knowledge The defence considerations remained decisive until the 1950s, when the missile age made it appear obsolete. The Channel Tunnel Study Group was formed and it published in 1960 a proposal for a rail tunnel from Folkstone to Calais. In 1964 the two governments agreed to proceed with a rail tunnel. After frequent extensions of the estimated completion date, with costs constantly rising, the British government cancelled the project early in 1975, leaving two and a half kilometers of preliminary digging on both sides of the Channel. In 1978 the matter of a Channel crossing was again raised.

Background knowledge At long last, construction began again in December 1978, and after sever years of unremitting toil, the Chunnel was completed at the cost of 13.5 billion dollars.

Types of the text The text is a feature report which introduces one of the significant transport construction projects in the modern history of European architecture. This report includes different opinions toward the Chunnel, the opinions of the local residents of both sides of the English Channel, as well as the comments of the construction tunnellers.

Structure of the text The text consists of two parts: Part I describes the attitudes of the English and the French people towards the Chunnel; Part II describes briefly the breakthrough ceremony for the south running tunnel.

Style of the text The text follows the organization of a typical journalistic feature report: a) A short opening paragraph sets the scene, in which the thesis is stated in the second sentence: For the first time since the ice age, England was about to be linked to France. b) Immediately following the opening paragraph is the unbiased presentation of the opinions of both English and French local residents across the English Channel.

Style of the text c) The text then proceeds with the reporting of the officially scheduled Chunnel inauguration to show the determination and initiative endeavour of the British and French Governments to connect Britain with the rest of Europe, in order to emphasize the significance of the project. d) After the intentional delay to create suspense, the author introduces the tunnel proper and the historical contributions and benefits of this tunnel thoroughfare.

Style of the text e) Much of the report, then, is devoted to the real-time account of the exciting work at the breakthrough site of the Chunnel, an account based on the author s personal experience and first-hand information. F) The report ends up with revealing the business worries on the part of the Chunnel authorities, who were concerned with, but not without hope, the business of the tunnel transport: promotion work was expected to facilitate the effective use of the Chunnel on the part of the French population.

Questions How did the English and the French people look at the Chunnel, joyously or resentfully? Why do you think so? How do you visualize the breakthrough ceremony? Exercise your imagination.

Detailed Study of the Story Part I Paragraph 17 Question 1: What did an English couple say about the French people, and what did a Frenchman say about the English people? Why do you think they showed a mutual feeling of dislike?

An English retired civil servant said that hed rather have England become the 51 st state of the U.S.A. than have his country linked to France. He added that the French didnt care for anybody. His wife said that France was an awful place and that the French people drank wine all the time. She disliked French food and preferred to have English sauce with her food. In the meantime, a French farmer complained about English ketchup and about their not having any good wine. The British and the French disliked each other because there had been long years of conflict between the two countries.

Detailed Study of the Story 1. not two miles from the soon-to-be-opened English Channel Tunnel, Compound adjectives 1) the soon-to-be-opened English Channel Tunnel (lines 1- 2) means that is to be opened soon e.g. an easy-to-perform trick a difficult-to-use camera the soon-to-be-completed Metro 2) Gull-wing means like the wings of the gull. e.g. a baby-food store a mountain-top hut city-reconstruction discussions

3) Cross-Channel-link means building a link that crosses the Channel. e.g. a keep-fit-class schedule a cross-border-raid threat 4) 31-mile-long e.g. a ten-year-old boy a three-inch-thick book a 3-hour-long journey

stiff upper lips trembled: ( keep/carry/ have) a stiff upper lip: (show)the ability to appear calm and unworried when in pain, trouble, etc e.g. The prisoners tried hard to keep a stiff upper lip in spite of the hardships of the prison. WWWWe managed to keep a stiff upper lip when the company announced that they would close down our office. OOOOne failure means nothing. You've got to keep a stiff upper lip. metonymy MMMMetonymy: Its substituting the name of one thing for that of another with which its closely associated. Thus the crown can stand for a king, and the White House for the American government, the bottle for wine or alcohol, and the bar for the legal profession. When metonymy is well used, brevity and vividness may be achieved:

metonymy synecdoche antonomasia city crown doll 1 Baldy, standing almost directly opposite White Jerkin, stooped to study the characters written on his jerkin. 3 His wife spent all her life on the stage.(= theatrical profession) =

4 Paper and ink cut the throats of men, and the sound of a breath many shake the world.(=written words;speech) = = 5 The pen is mightier than the sword. = 6 His joke set the whole table in a roar.

Synecdoche When a part is substituted for the whole or the whole is substituted for a part, synecdoche is applied: 1 Many hands make light work. synecdoche---- 2 He had to earn his daily bread by doing odd jobs. 3 Some mute inglorious Shelly here may rest. antonomasia----

3. An ice age is any point of several periods when glaciers, especially in the form of great ice sheets, covered more of the earths surface than they do today. . Each ice age lasted at least three million years, most of the earlier ones lasted more than 10 million years. Today we live in a warm period during or just after the Quaternary ice age which was in the Pleistocene Epoch beginning 2.5 million years ago. Its believed that all of the early development of humans came during this last ice age and civilization has come into existence as its result. For the first time since the world began to exist clearly this is an exaggeration.

4444. Id rather England become the 51st state. (Grammar) e.g. Id rather you stayed with us over the weekend. HHHHed rather John hadnt called on him 5555. a retired civil servant with a complexion the color of ruby port. C C C Civil servant: a person employed in the civil service or the government departments. P ara: a retired government official whose face is red colored, typical of a person living by the sea. A completion the color of ruby port

6. He nodded toward the steel gray Channel out the window, his pale blue eyes filled with foreboding. He noddedhis pale blue eyes filled with forebodinga nominative absolute construction e.g. The work done, we left the office with a light heart. The last bus having gone, we had to walk home. It being a holiday, the park was crowded with people. absolute construction

1111 IIII heard that she got injured in the accidentmy heart full of worry HHHHe stood silent in the moon-lighthis door open

2222 WWWWinter comingit gets colder and colder TTTThe rain having stopped he went out for a walk 3333 MMMMore time givenwe should have done it much better TTTThe boy stood therehis right hand raised

4444 HHHHere are the first two volumesthe third one to come out next month TTTThe two boys said good-bye to each otherone to go homethe other to go to his friend's 5555 TTTThe huntsman entered the forestgun in hand gun in hand with a gun in his handa gun in hand gun in his hand

6 Nobody in the thief took a lot of things away Lunch over he left the house But he was thinking 7 He fought the wolf a stick his only weapon

8 with with Holms and Watson sat with the light on for half an hour He used to sleep with the door open With a boy leading the way they started towards the village With the work done he went home

7777, as the gull-wing eyebrows shot upward. P ara: when he raised his eyebrows suddenly which were as thick as the wings of a seagull. gull-wing eyebrows 8888. the entente was scarcely more cordiale E ntente and cordiale are both French words meaning understanding and friendly respectively.

TTTThe meaning of sentence: The understanding on the other side of the Channel was hardly more friendly, in other words, the understanding is just as unfriendly. The use is a reference to a historical event. As was mentioned before, conflicts between Britain and France had been incessant for centuries. At the end of the nineteenth century, Britain and France were again on the verge of war. In 1901, however, things took a turn for the better, as King VII of Great Britain was a Francophile (i.e., a person who is friendly to France). The way was opened for agreements between the two countries, and the Entente Cordiale, a friendly understanding, was arrived at.

allusion AAAAllusion is a short, informal reference to a famous person or event: AAAAngry young man L.A (Leslie Allen Paul) Looking Back in Anger I dont want to the convention to think were just a collection of angry young men.(J.F.Kennedy)

A A A Alice-in-Wonderland Lewis Carroll(Alice in Wonderland) This is an Alice-in Wonderland approach to the problem.

Apple of his eye (Jacob) in the waste howling wilderness he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.(Bible.Deut.32:10) I sacrificed everything to make you happy and safe. I wont talk about your father, but you, you were the apple of my eyes. B

9. a village a beet field away from the French terminal: a village which is only a short distance away from the French terminal. A beet field is a field where beet, a root vegetable, is planted; it can t be very big.

11110. All they eat is ketchup. K etchup: Ketchup is a Chinese word in origin. In the Amoy dialect of southeastern China, koechiap means 'brine of fish.' It was acquired by English, probably via Malay kichap, toward the end of the 17th century, when it was usually spelled catchup (the New Dictionary of the Canting Crew 1690 defines it as 'a high East-India Sauce'). Shortly afterward the spelling catsup came into vogue (Jonathan Swift is the first on record as using it, in 1730), and it remains the main form in American English. But in Britain ketchup has gradually established itself since the early 18th century.

11111. A tiny explosion of air from pursed lips, then the coup de grace. P ursed lips: C oup de grace: (French) a decisive finishing blow

Paragraph 8 12. bye grace of one of the engineering feats of the century, for rich or poorer, better worse, England and France are getting hitched. by grace of: due to, by the favour of. The usual phrase is by the grace of God, meaning owing to the favour shown by God. for richer or poorer, better or worse: Whether one likes it or not; whatever happens.

TTTThe literal meaning of the two phrases is: on terms of accepting all results, or its not certain what the consequences will be, but they will have to be accepted, because the action has been taken. PPPPara: Thanks to one of the remarkable construction achievements of the 20th century, whether one likes it or not, England and France are on the way of getting geographically connected.

11113. Queen Elizabeth of Britain: Elizabeth II (1926- ), queen of the United Kingdom (1952- ) 11114. President Francois Mitterrand: (1916-1996) became President of France in May 1981. 11115. inaugurate: aaaa.When a new leader is inaugurated, they are formally given their new position at an official ceremony. eeee.g.The new president will be inaugurated on January 20. bbbb.When a new building or institution is inaugurated, it is declared open in a formal ceremony. eeee.g.A new center for research on toxic waste was inaugurated today at our university. cccc.It you inaugurate a new system or service, you start it. eeee.g.Pan Am inaugurated the first scheduled international flight.

Question 2 With help of the information given in the notes, explain the following: 1)200 years of failed cross-Channel-link schemes, and 2)1,000 years of historical rift. 1):The Channel Tunnel Project had been discussed between Britain and France on governmental levels for almost two hundred years. It was in 1802 that the first proposal for a Channel Tunnel was put forward the nineteenth century and for the most part of the twentieth century. It did not come to fruition until the last decade of the twentieth century. 2) Beginning with Norman Conquest in 1066 until the early nineteenth century, there had been incessant conflicts between Great Britain and France. All in all there was a rift between the two countries for about one thousand years.(See the details in the notes)

116. sweeping aside 200 years of failed cross-Channel-link schemes, 1000 years of historical rift, and 8000 years of geographic divide: ppara: according to the theory of geological evolution, the ecologically important land bridge across the Strait of Dover was finally submerged about 8000 years ago. (climax)

Paragraph 9 QQQQuestion 3 HHHHow will the Chunnel facilitate the transport between Great Britain and France, or rather, between Great Britain and other European countries? IIIIt will greatly facilitate the transport between Great Britain and France. For example, for a motorist to cross the English Channel, he can use the Chunnel Shuttle Service and cross the Channel in only 35 minutes, as against 90 minutes by ferry before. The through service provided by Eurostar passenger trains takes only 3 hours to travel from London to Paris, and 3 hours 10 minutes from London to Brussels, Belgium.

Paragraph 10 HHHHow do you understand the following sentence? 11117.The chunnel rewrites geography, at least in the English psyche. The moat has been breached. Britain no longer is an island. AAAAnswer:

TTTThe English Chunnel had served as a barrier to invasion of Britain for centuries, and invasion by tunnel was at one time the ultimate British nightmare(National Geographic, May 1994,p. 39). As a matter of fact, whenever the idea of a link between the two countries emerged, there also appeared visions of invasion, and proposals for a link simply foundered. But the completion of the Chunnel has now joined Britain to the European continent. In other words, Britain is no longer an island. Thus the geographical condition is completely changed, especially to the British people. PPPPara: As far as the British are concerned, the Chunnel has changed the geographical pattern which long separated Britain from Continental Europe.

Part II PPPParagraph 1 QQQQuestion 5 HHHHow did the author of the article get the opportunity of witnessing the bbbbreakthrough ceremony for the south running tunnel? TTTThe author, Cathy Newman, is a senior staff member of the National Geographic magazine. Being a journalist, she was presumably invited to attend and to cover the breakthrough ceremony, as there were also several dozen other journalists going with her. 11118.Its June 28, 1991, and Im packed into a train PPPPara: the historical present which adds vividness and dramatic and lifelike quality to the description.

PPPParagraph 2 QQQQuestion 6 WWWWhy did one of the visitors say makes you appreciate British Rail? IIIIts because the construction workers train which took them down the tunnel screeched in a dreadful way, whereas the British Rail passenger trains would not make such noise. 11119. The Chunnel is a work in progress. I n progress: being done or made. e.g. An inquiry is in progress. P ara: the Chunnel is under construction. 22220. White dust fills the air. ara: Characteristic of the land on the English side of the English Channel are white cliffs of chalk, therefore the white dust.

PPPParagraph 4 QQQQuestion 7 WWWWhy did the author refer to when she spoke of those vive la difference quirks? SSSShe referred to two distinctive differences between the British and the French ways of doing things. One is that the French gave womens names to the tunnel boring machines(TBM), for example, Catherine, whereas the British only gave the machines numbers, e.g., TBM No6. The other difference is that the French workers wore colorful workclothes while their British counterparts wore something grungy.

22221.vive la difference quirks: the peculiar behaviour that highlights the differences between the two countries. V ive la difference is French meaning Long live the differences. 22222. Chic, well-cut, taupe jumpsuits: fashionable, well-tailored, one-piece garment combining top and trousers in dark brownish gray

PPPParagraph 5-7 QQQQuestion 8 HHHHow deep is the Chunnel under the ocean at the breakthrough site? IIIIts about 180 feet or 54.9 metres deep. 22223. I imagine 180 feet of Channel above my head---- ferries, tankers, a Dover sole or two I I I I imagine 180 feet of Channel above my head: I picture the transport scene of the Channel 180 feet above this tunnel. ferries, tankers, a Dover sole or two: ferries and tankers that sail in the English Channel and one or two flatfish that live in the Strait of Dover.

PPPParagraph 6 22224. The grating of the TBM interrupts my reverie. (Vocabulary) rrrreverie:a kind of short pleasant daydream; a formal word eeee.g. The announcers voice brought him out of his reverie. 22225. a huge wheel with tungsten-tipped teeth--- chews into the last trace of rock separating England from France. personification()TBM aaaa. How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! (John Milton)

Question 9 Describe the breakthrough scene in your own words. There were many people present, the Eurotunnel officials, construction workers, and journalists. When the cutterhead of the tunnel boring machine bit into the last piece of rock separating England from France, there was loud music as well as dazzling lights. A number of Frenchmen were seen coming from the other side, and thunderous applause was heard. The French and British people drank champagne and hugged each other. It was truly a moving sight.

26. Music blares, and lights glare. 27. the flow will be lopsided. (Vocabulary) lopsided: a. Something is lopsided is uneven because one side is lower or heavier than the other. e.g. His suit had shoulders that made him look lopsided. b. If you say that a situation is lopsided, you mean that one element is much stronger, bigger, or more important than another element. e.g. In 1916, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland 222-0. No game since has been that lopsided. (or: lopsided economic relations)

Paragraph 8-14 Question 10 Did the mutual feeling of dislike still exist when the tunnel was completed? No. Both the French and British celebrated the breakthrough, and an Englishman said, I might have opposed it 30 years ago, but now its my tunnel. 28. And there are 56 million more behind them---- referring to the whole population of France para: And soon the whole French population will take the Chunnel transport and come over to visit Britain. 29. Why do the French visit Britain?... Fashion? The implied meaning: French will not visit Britain because there is nothing they admire in Britain. 30. We will work on selling the idea. Para: We will try to make people interested in going across the English Channel by the Chunnel.

the light at the end of the chunnel 郧阳师专英语系综合英语教研室

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