MODERN UNIVERSITIES

With the advance of industrialization in the nineteenth cen­tury and the growth of manufacture the government needed tech­nicians and scientists. The older universities did not produce them. Therefore, the government organized science classes in in­dustrial centres and they developed into either technical colleges or the “Modern Universities”, e.g. London, Durham, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, etc.

Every university is autonomous and responsible only to its governing body. The regulations differ from university to university. While there are similarities between them, they all differ considerably from Oxford or Cambridge, where there is a number of separate colleges, each with their own regulations and courses of study. The new, so-called “redbrick” universities which have various faculties, e. g. Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, etc., differ from university to university. In each faculty there may be a number of departments dealing with separate subjects.

The University of Stirling is the first new university built in Scotland. There are more eight new universities that appeared in Britain after the war.

The University of Sussex at Brighton is probably the best known modern one. The University of York, in contrast, is conser­vative and adopted many of the traditions of older universities.

Among professional educationalists the new Universities pro­vide an opportunity for a wide experiment in teaching methods, and an outlet for the energies and enthusiasms of young and revolutionary teachers: Sussex, East Anglia, and Essex experi­ment with multi-subject schools of studies instead of the tradi­tional single-subject departments. At Sussex, for example, all students take a preliminary course in philosophy and history as well as their major subject. York, on the other hand, believes that most students will still want single-subject courses, but it intro­duces a completely new way of studying music at the university.

They also experiment with the social side of university life. At Sussex, for instance, tutors follow students at meals and live in a common room with the students. At most of the universities the students are themselves largely responsible for discipline.

The British government does not think to build more new universities. There is a tendency to expand the older ones and make colleges of technology into universities. An old university can take 3,000 more students by adding staff and laboratories whereas a completely new university for 3,000 students costs up to 15 million pounds. Even at Stirling where the Government al­ready owns the site, the buildings alone cost about 8 million pounds, not including halls of residence. There are thir­teen subject departments not to mention the cost of building libraries and buying other equipment. One must mention that many educationalists say that it is better to enlarge the older universities.

We know that the entrance examinations at British universi­ties are very strict. However, at the University of Sussex and some others one can see some relaxation at entrance exams, for the British government needs a large number of capable scien­tists.

UNIT 10

TAPESCRIPT 10A

New Orleans

New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, is the largest city in Louisiana and second most important seaport after New York City. At different times in its history, the area was occupied by the Spanish and the French.

There is still a French-speaking community – the Cajuns. They are descended from French Canadians who went from another French colony called Acadia to Louisiana in the eighteenth century. They became known as Acadians, and the word was shortened to Cajuns.

The music and food of the area is a combination of many influences. Jazz originated in New Orleans as a blend of French and Spanish music, blues, brass-band music, and African slave songs. Cajun music is played on a guitar, accordion, and washboard, and blends French dance tunes, Caribbean music, and the blues.

A typical Louisiana dish, jambalaya, is made of rice and shrimp or chicken, something like a Spanish paella but spicier. Gumbo, a soup or stew, takes its name from a West African word for okra, one of its ingredients.

TAPESCRIPT 10B

American English

Nearly 265 million people live in the USA and speak English. There are more native speakers of English there than any other country.

American English is very flexible and has absorbed many words from the languages of immigrants. Words like liaison and rendezvous (from French), and rodeo and tornado (from Spanish) came into the language because France and Spain once controlled parts of North America. Dutch and German settlers gave words such as waffle and cookies, and hamburger and noodles to American English.

The first English speakers to arrive met Native Americans who spoke many different languages. To trade with them, the Europeans learned words from the local languages, and some of these words became part of American English. Native Americans also worked as guides, leading the European traders around the country. The Europeans learned the Native American names for the places they were passing through. Over half the states now have Native American names.

American English has different dialects. People in the southern states speak with a drawl – they tend to speak slowly and lengthen the last sound of each word. They use expressions like “Howdy, y'all” for “Hello, everybody”. Ex-president Clinton, from Arkansas, has a southern accent.

In New York City, especially in the boroughs outside Manhattan, many people have a way of speaking English that is called New Yorkese. Speakers of New Yorkese often speak very fast. They tend not to pronounce the "r" in words that end in “er”. A word like “water” sounds like “wata”.

Teenagers often like to use a lot of slang, along with expressions such as “like” and “you know”, which can make their way of talking seem vague. The words they choose are strongly influenced by popular music and fashion.

Today, there are some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling between American and British English. Sometimes, the difference in spelling is because Americans wanted to make things simpler, so that a word would be spelled the way it is pronounced. As far back as the 1780s, Noah Webster, founder of one of the most famous American English dictionaries, decided to eliminate from a word any letters that were not pronounced.

UNIT 11

TAPESCRIPT 11A

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 863