The Marriages That Britain Splits Up

I. Read text 10 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

How Children Fail

Most children in school fail. Close to forty per cent of those who begin high school drop out before they finish. For college, the figure is one in three. Many others complete their schooling only because we have agreed to push them out of schools, whether they know anything or not. If we ‘raise our standards’ much higher, our classrooms will bulge with kids who can’t pass the test to get into the next class (1). The most alarming thing here is that they fail to develop more than a tiny part of the tremendous capacity for learning (2), understanding, and creating with which they were born. Why do they fail?

They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused. They are afraid, above all else, of failing or disappointing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud. They are bored because the things they are told to do in school are dull and make narrow demands on the wide spectrum of their intelligence, capabilities, and talents. They are confused because most words that pour over them in school make little or no sense, contradict other things they have been told and hardly ever have any relation to what they really know. How does this mass failure take place? What really goes on in the classroom? Why don’t kids make use of more of their capacity?

This book is the rough and partial record of a search for answers to these questions. It began as a series of memos written to my colleague and friend Bill Hull, whose fifth-grade class I observed and taught in during the day. Later, these memos were sent to other interested teachers and parents. They have not been much rewritten, but they have been edited and rearranged under four major topics: Strategy; Fear and Failure; Real Learning; and How Schools Fail.

Strategy deals with the ways in which children try to meet, or dodge (5), the demands that adults make on them in school. Fear and Failure deals (3) with the interaction of fear and failure, and the effect of this on strategy and learning. Real Learning deals with the difference between what children are expected to know, and what they really know. How Schools Fail analyses the ways in which schools foster bad strategies, raise children’s fears, produce learning which is usually fragmentary, short-lived (4), and generally fail to meet the real needs of children. These four topics are clearly not exclusive. They tend to overlap and blend into each other. They are, at most, different ways of looking at and thinking (2a) about the thinking (2b) and behaviour of children. The children, who deserve better lives and better schooling.

(From How children fail by John Holt. The preface)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):

I. Read text 11 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

Lie detector

A new form of lie detector that works by voice analysis and can be used without a subject’s knowledge has been introduced (2) in Britain. The unit is already widely employed by the police and private industry in the US, and some of its applications there raise serious worries. The Dektor psychological stress analyser (PSE) is used by private industry for pre-employment screening, investigating thefts, and even periodic staff checks. Although at least 600 of the devices are used in the US, there are apparently only three in Britain.

In addition to the normally understood voice generation mechanisms - vibrations of the vocal chords and resonance of cavities inside the head - there is a third component caused by vibration of the muscles inside the mouth and throat. Normally - not under stress - these voluntary muscles vibrate at 8-12 Hz, and this adds a clearly noticeable frequency-modulated component to the voice. The PSE (4) works by analysing this infrasonic FM component enabling to pick out a word or phrase that caused stress.

Dektor emphasises that the device shows only stress, not dishonesty. Three steps are suggested to overcome this difficulty. First, the subject is supposed to see a full list of the questions in advance. Second, there are ‘neutral’ questions and one to which the subject is specifically asked to lie. Third, if an individual shows stress on a vital question (such as "Have you stolen more than £100 in the last six months?"), then additional questions must be asked to ensure that this does not possibly reflect an earlier theft (1).

In the US, the device is used for pre-employment interviews, with questions such as ‘Have you used marihuana?’ and for monthly checks with branch managers. The potential application of the PSE in Britain is extremely disquieting (5), especially as there seems no law to prevent its use. The most serious problem is that its primary application will be in situations where people may not object - such as pre-employment interviews. But it can also be used to probe a whole range of personal issues totally unrelated to job - union and political affiliations, for example. And, of course, the PSE can be used without the subject even knowing (3); its inventors analysed the televised Watergate hearings and told the press who they thought was lying. Finally, the device is not foolproof but depends on the skill of the investigator, who receives only a one-week course from Dektor. Sounds encouraging, doesn’t it?

(Article by Joseph Hanlon in New Scientist)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):

I. Read text 12 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

Hypnosis

There are many methods of producing hypnosis. Perhaps the most common one is when a hypnotist tries to obtain his subject’s co-operation by pointing out to him the advantages of the hypnosis: the help in curing a nervous illness, for instance.

Next, the subject is asked to lie down on a couch, with external stimulation reduced to a minimum (3) by excluding all disruptive noises. It is helpful to concentrate the subject’s attention on some small bright object dangled just above eye-level, which leads quickly to a fatigue of the eye-muscles (1). The hypnotist now begins to talk to the subject in a soft tone of voice, repeating endlessly suggestions to the effect that the subject is feeling drowsy. In a susceptible (5) subject, a light trance is induced after a few minutes, and the hypnotist begins to deepen this trance and to test the reactions of the subject. Thus, he will ask the subject to clasp his hands together, and tell him that it is impossible for him to separate his hands again. The subject, try (2) as he may, finds, to his astonishment, that he cannot pull his hands apart.

Having induced a deep hypnotic trance in our subject, what types of phenomena can be elicited? The first and most obvious one is a tremendous increase in the subject’s suggestibility. He will take up any suggestion the hypnotist puts forward. Suggest to him that he is a dog, and he will go down on all fours and rush around the room barking and yelping. This tremendous increase in suggestibility is often exploited on the stage to induce people to do foolish and ridiculous acts. Such practices are not to be encouraged because they go counter to the ideal of human dignity and are not the kind of way in which hypnosis ought to be used.

It would not be true to say, however, that all suggestions are accepted, even in the very deepest trance. This is particularly true when a suggestion is made which is contrary to the ethical and moral conceptions held by the subject. Once, Charcot, the great French neurologist, whose lectures were attended by Freud, was demonstrating the phenomena of the hypnotic trance on a young girl of eighteen. When she had been hypnotized deeply he was called away, and handed over the demonstration to one of his assistants. This young man, lacking the seriousness of purpose so desirable in students of medicine, suggested to the young lady that she should remove (2a) her clothes. She immediately awakened from her trance, slapped his face, and flounced out of the room, very much to his discomfiture (4).

(Abridged from Sense and Nonsense in Psychology by H. J. Eysenck)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):

I. Read text 13 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

The Marriages That Britain Splits Up

Caroline Pond sets off on Thursday on a 4,500-mile journey to visit her husband, Daniel, and step-children. Against their will, she and Daniel are forced to live in different continents. The reason: Caroline is one of hundreds of British wives who are victims of a law which prevents their foreign husbands joining them in this country. This law makes it almost impossible for a British woman to marry a foreigner - unless she is prepared to live in her husband's native country. The law, however, does not apply to the British male who marries a foreign woman. He is legally entitled to bring her to live with him in this country.

'In the eyes of the law, women are second-class citizens,' Caroline says. 'In this country, we have about as many rights as a dog which belongs to a man.' Caroline, 27, is a lecturer at Oxford University; Daniel is a professor at Michigan University. Before they married, she applied to the Home Office for permission for him to live in Britain. 'It is a waste of time,' she says. 'The answer is always "never".'

For the sake of her career, Caroline wishes to stay in her job, and the couple were hoping (2) to live in her small Victorian house at Oxford. Ideally, while his wife is at the university, Daniel would have liked to come here and write scientific text-books (1). I cannot understand why there is this discrimination against women. After all, I pay the same taxes as a man.'

The discriminatory measure was introduced in 1969 by James Callaghan, then Home Secretary. He described it as an 'administrative measure' to stop abuse of the law which allowed a male Commonwealth citizen to enter this country if he could prove that he was to marry a British girl. Mrs Mary Dines, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of immigrants, says that a wife might succeed in bringing her husband to Britain if she proves she will suffer through political persecution, race, or creed when forced to live in her husband's country. She comments: 'if you can prove you were marrying a Nigerian and will have to live in the bush, you can probably get off; but if you marry someone from, say, Greece or US, you won't stand a chance.'

Moves are now afoot in both Houses of Parliament to end this discrimination. In the Lords, the Labour peer Lord Brockway has tabled (4) a motion on equal immigration rights for women. Mrs Lynda Chalker, a new Conservative M.P., is collecting a dossier of cases - already she has more than 150. She believes that few British women are fully aware of the problems they may encounter (5) if they marry a foreigner and feels that more publicity should be given to the possible consequences. 'We should let the poor girls know (3) what they are letting themselves in for,' she says.

(Report by Wendy Hughes in The Sunday Times)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):

I. Read text 14 and provide its rhetorical analysis focusing on its genre, communicative purpose and the way this purpose is achieved. Translate the suggested passage into Ukrainian. Comment on the techniques you have employed in the process of translation

On Marketing

For me, marketing is about values! And also, about being clear on what we want this noisy world to know about us. Now Apple, fortunately, is one of half-a-dozen best brands around the globe. But even a great brand needs investment and caring if it's going to retain its relevance and vitality. And the Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years. So, we need (2) to bring it back!

The way to do that is NOT to talk about speeds and fees. It’s NOT to talk about bits and mega-hertz. It’s NOT to talk about why we are better than Windows. It's about values in marketing. The best example of all, and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen, is Nike! They sell shoes!!! And yet, when you think of Nike you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads (4), they never talk about the product. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles and why they are better than the Reebok’s ones. What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes. And they honor great athletics. That’s who they are and what they are about!

Apple spends a fortune (5) on advertising! Recently, we just fired our agency and there was a competition with 23 agencies that…you know…in four years let us pick one (3). And we hired the ad agency I was fortunate enough to work with years ago… We started working, and the question we asked was, “our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that we stand for?” We want the globe to know (3a) that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

We have had the opportunity to work with people like that: with software developers, customers etc. And we do believe that people can make this world a better place. And that those people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones that actually do! So, what we’re going to do in our first brand marketing campaign in several years is to get back to that core value! (1)

A lot of things have changed. The market is in a total different place than where it was a decade ago. And Apple is totally different — and Apple’s place in it is totally different. The products, and the distribution strategy, and the manufacturing are totally different. But values and core values — those things shouldn’t change.

So, we wanted to find a way to communicate this - something I am very moved by. It honors those people who have changed the world. And the theme of the campaign is “Think different.” It’s honoring the people who think different and move this world forward. And it is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company. So – I am gonna go ahead and roll it!

(Speech delivered by Steve Jobs)

II. Do the Following Language Focus Tasks (the items for analysis are underlined in the text):