Т.В. Артеменко, Е.В. Кривощекова, Е.В. Кравченко, Н.Е. Николаева - Reader in Language and Culture (1098538), страница 2
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Finally, the US is a dynamic culture, at the forefront of medical andtechnological advances, which constantly require new words and ways ofdescribing things. So what are the principal differences between British andAmerican English?In general, the two versions of English are very similar. Of course,there are some words that only exist either in America or Britain. Forexample, the British say “biscuit” and the Americans say “cookie”; andthere are even some words that can cause real confusion. For example, theAmerican word “pants”, which has a very different meaning in BritishEnglish. There are also differences in the grammar, and pronunciation, withmany vowel sounds that are pronounced completely differently.
However,most of these differences are minor and do not interfere withcommunication. All right, mate? Or should I say, OK, buddy?Comprehension questions:1. Why do new words come from America all the time?2. Give examples of the principal differences between British andAmerican English.693. How do you feel about American invasion on all fronts - cultural,financial and economic?COMMAND OF WORDSThe man or woman who seeks to put his ideas across to others by means1of words must make every effort consciously to widen his stock of words.Paradoxically enough, the man with the widest command of words is he whocan express his thoughts most briefly; for from his well-stocked mind he canselect at a moment's notice just that one word which will exactly hit off hismeaning. No fumbling, no beating about the bush for him — always exactly theone right word in the right place.We can increase our vocabulary in various ways. The best way is by wide2and constant reading.
Unconsciously we assimilate new words, gathering theirmeaning from the context. But this process can be speeded up by deliberateeffort; looking up in a dictionary and noting each new word as we come acrossit in reading, in conversation, or while watching television. Never let a newword pass you by. Have a dictionary always at hand and use it.Browse in the dictionary, too, now and then, turning the pages at randomand gathering anything of interest that catches your eye. You will find there is a3vast deal of interest to be found in words — their origin and history, thechanges they have gone through, and so on. Kipling used to take a dictionaryaway with him for holiday reading.But it is not sufficient to know a large number of words in a vague andgeneral way. Words are precision instruments to be used with exactness.
Ifwords are used loosely one's meaning is not conveyed clearly to the reader andso what is written fails of its purpose. English is one of the richest languages inthe world, with a word for every idea and shade of meaning the human mind410can conceive. But if you throw words about recklessly you not only blunt yourown meaning, but you are also helping to spoil the priceless heritage of theEnglish language.Notice that we have to consider not only the meaning of a word but alsoits usage. That is why the Oxford English Dictionary adds to its definition ofeach word a phrase or two using the word correctly.
You will find that many5apparent synonyms (words of similar meaning) are not always inter-changeable;we use one or other according to the setting. Thus "friendly" and "amicable"both have the same meaning but their usage is very different, as you will see ifyou try to put each into a sentence.Finally, you must master the art of using words with the maximum ofeffect. Here brevity is most important.
As a general rule, what is said mostbriefly is said most effectively.6Of course, brevity is not the whole of the story. It will not do to use justany words so long as you use only a few of them. Words must be selected,weighed, set one against the other. Some words have richer and deeper7associations than others. Compare "house" and "home"; "maternal" and"motherly"; "infant" and "baby"; "affection" and''" love", and so on.
You canevoke or conjure up all that store of latent emotion by the use of a word in justthe right place, especially if it is allowed to stand out without being smotheredunder a heap of dead words with little meaning left in them.Merely knowing words in your head is not enough. It is not until youhave actually used a word that you really make it your own. Words by themselves, although interesting enough at times as museum pieces, are dead. Theycome to life only when they are set with others the task of expressing livingthoughts and ideas. So whenever you learn a new word, seek the firstopportunity to make use of it in speech or writing — not dragging it in by headand ears to show it off, but placing it naturally into a fitting context.
The word isthen yours, part of your active vocabulary.811Comprehension questions:1. How does a man with the widest command of words express his ideas?2. How can we increase our vocabulary?3. Why should we consider not only the meaning of a word but also itsusage?4. What is the only way to make a word your own? Do you agree with theauthor?BY WORD OF MOUTHHave you ever thought how many words you produce and receive (hear1or read) every day? What are the shares of spoken and written words in thelanguage surrounding us? On average, if you aren't a bookworm spendingmost of your time reading, your total exposure to language can be presented inthe following way:Linguists and other academics have been studying languages for2thousands of years.
But they have usually studied only the written form of eachlanguage because it remained static on the page and it was possible to study thewritten language of the past.In 1992 the British government started a project to collect a corpus of3100 million words of British English. For the first time in the history ofdictionaries it was decided to cover both spoken and written language.Longman, as one of the participants in the British National Corpus (BNC)project was given the responsibility of collecting the 10 million word corpus ofSpoken English.Half of this total (5 million words) was collected from what were called'context-governed situations' — radio phone-ins, parliamentary debates,businessmeetings,conferences,collegeseminars,broadcastsportscommentaries, all 'more structured' situations in which the speakers were 'on412their best behaviour'.
This type of spoken English is sometimes called'considered speech' - spoken language which has been at least partially plannedbefore being uttered. In fact, in some cases, the words had been written andwere read aloud by the speaker.The other half of the BNC corpus of Spoken English contains five5million words of recorded conversations involving nearly 2000 differentindividual speakers.To make this part of the spoken corpus as representative as possible6Longman employed a market research company to select about 200 individuals— men and women, old and young, rich and poor, from the north, from themidlands and from the south.
The number of individuals in each grouprepresented the British population of native speakers.The individuals were given cassette recorders and a set of cassettes.7Over a period of up to two weeks, they recorded all their conversations, inshops, at the office, on buses, at the dinner table and even in bed! (Of coursepermission was obtained from all participants.)These cassettes were sent back to Longman and were transcribed by8teams of expert audiotypists. Each speaker was identified by age, sex, originand social class.One of the first unexpected things discovered about spoken languagecame from comparing the frequency of words in the spoken and writtencorpuses. Some words seemed to be much more frequent in speech than inwriting.
One of these words was 'mean'. It occurs about 2700 times per millionwords in spoken English but only about 450 times per million words in writing. Further analysis of the spoken corpus showed that 'mean' appeared mostfrequently in semi-fixed phrases like I mean... Do you know what I mean?.. Iknow what you mean…See what I mean?.. How do you mean?... These semimixed phrases in fact were used as if they were individual words. Theybecame known as lexical units which are a particular characteristic of spokenlanguage and never were described by dictionaries before Longman Dictionary913of Contemporary English.The word 'absolutely' occurs very frequently in speech because it is used10to agree with another person.
It is one of the 1000 most frequent words inspoken English.Sometimes we find a curious difference of frequency in spoken and11written English in words which are very similar in meaning. The word'roughly' (meaning more or less) is more frequent in spoken English whereas'approximately' is more frequent in written English.Would you like to try and make your own guess? All the followingquestions are based on the results of the Spoken Corpus research and refer tothe real language used currently by the British native speakers of English.1.
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