I. Write short notes on: Carlyle, and Lamb.
Suggested Reference Books[SRB]
1. The Oxford Companion to English Literature
2. any standard book on the history of English literature
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica
ⅡQuestions on content:
1. What, according to the writer, makes good conversation? What spoils it?
2. Why does the writer like "bar conversation" so much?
3. Does a good conversation need a focal subject to talk about?
4. Why did the people talk about Australia? Why did the conversation turn to Norman England?
5. How does the use of words show class distinction?
6. Can you guess the writer's views on bilingual education? (para 11)
7. Why was the term "Queen's English" used in 1593 and "the King's English” in 1602?
8. When was "the King's English" regarded as a form of racial discrimination in England?
9. What is the attitude of the writer towards" the King's English" ?
10. What does the writer mean when he says, "the King's English, like the Anglo-French of the Normang, is a class representation of reality" ? (para 16)
Ⅲ Questions on appreciation:
1. In what way is "pub talk" connected with "the King's English"? Is the title of the piece well "chosen?
2. Point out the literary and historical allusions used in this piece and comment on their use.
3. What is the function of para 5? Is the change from "pub talk" to "the King's English" too abrupt?
4. Do the simple idiomatic expressions like "to be on the rocks, out of bed on the wrong side, etc., " go well with the copious literary and historical allusions the writer uses? Give your reasons.
5. Does the writer reveal his political inclination in this piece of writing? How?
IV. Paraphrase:
1. And it is an activity only of humans. (para 1)
2. Conversation is not for making a point. (para 2)
3. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose. (para 2)
4. Bar friends are not deeply involved in each other's lives. (para 3)
5. it could still go ignorantly on (para 6)
6. There are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef (boeuf). (para 9)
7. The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their French against his own language. (para11)
8. English had come royally into its own. (para 13)
9. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the lower classes. (para 15)
10. The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there. (para 15)
11. There is always a great danger that "words will harden into things for us. " (para 16)
12. Even with the most educated and the most literate, the King's English slips and slides in conversation. (para 18)
V. Translate paras 9--11 into Chinese.
Ⅵ Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized idiomatic phrases:
1. their marriage may be on the rocks (para 3)
2. they got out of bed on the wrong side (para 3)
3. the conversation was on wings (para 8)
4. the Norman lords of course turned up their noses at it (para 10)
5. we ought to think ourselves back into the shoes of the Saxon peasant (para 11)
6. English had come royally into its own. (para 13)
7. we sit up at the vividness of the phrase (para 18)
Ⅶ. Discriminate the following groups of synonyms:
1. ignorant, illiterate, uneducated, unlearned
2. jeer, scoff, sneer, gibe, flout
[SRB]
1. Webster' s New World Dictionary of the American Language
2. Webster' s New Dictionary of Synonyms
3. Reader' s Digest, Use the Right Word
Ⅷ Give ten synonymous and/or related words of the word conversation (meaning 'communication'). Give words of the same part of speech.
[SRB]
1. Roget ' s International Thesaurus
2. Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus
Ⅸ. Give ten antonymous and/or contrasted words of the word intricate. Give words of the same part of speech.
[SRB]
1. Roget's International Thesaurus
2. Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus
X. Look up the dictionary, find out from what languages the following words are borrowed, and then put them into Chinese:
1. buffet 8. soireé 15. attaehé
2. cuisine 9. cloisonné 16. liaison
3. lemonade 10. omelette 17. déjàvu
4. liqueur 11. restaurateur 18. encore
5. déjeuner 12. repertoire 19. discothèque
6. menu 13. coup d'état 20. chandelier
7. salon 14. corps de ballet
Ⅺ. The following sentences all contain metaphors or similes. Explain their meaning in plain, non-figurative language:
1.no one has any idea where it will go as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows.
2.they got out of bed on the wrong side is simply not a concern.
3.They are like the musketeers of Dumas who, although they lived side by side with each other, did not delve into each other's lives or the recesses of their thoughts and feelings.
4.suddenly the alchemy of conversation took place
5.The glow of the conversation burst into flames.
6.we ought to think ourselves back into the shoes of the Saxon peasant.
7.The Elizabethans blew on it as on a dandelion clock, and its seeds multiplied, and floated to the ends of the earth.
8.I have an unending love affair with dictionaries
9. Otherwise one will bind the conversation, one will not let it flow freely here and there.
10. We would never have gone to Australia, or leaped back in time to the Norman Conquest.
Ⅻ. Study the model given below. Then read the next two paragraphs and show how coherence and unity is improved by the use, of transitional devices.
Model: But this is only one aspect of the problem. Another, no less essential, is the wider gap between generations since the rate of social development has speeded up. The tastes and habits of young people today differ markedly from those of the young people of the thirties, let alone of the twenties. Still influenced by the tastes and habits of their own youth, the "fathers" are inclined to think these habits and tastes are absolutes and to deny their children the right to independent creativity which they demanded from their own parents. Hence the artificial conflicts, in which a dance or the width of trousers is elevated to the dignity of crucial issues. The writer uses the following transitional devices:
1) Transitional words and expressions
but another still hence
2) Pronoun reference
those their these they
3) Repetition of important words
tastes and habits young people
1. And since we (teenagers) are so new, many people have some very wrong ideas about us. For instance, the newspapers are always carrying advice-columns telling our mothers how to handle us, their "bewildered maladjusted offspring, " and the movies portray us as half-witted bops (hoodlums-ed. ); and in the current best sellers, authors recall their own confused, unhappy youth. On the other hand, speakers tell us that these teen-years are the happiest and freest of our lives, or hand us the "leaders of tomorrow, forge on the future" line. The general opinion is that teen-agers are either car-stealing, dope-taking delinquents, or immature, weepy adolescents with nothing on our minds but boys (or girls as the case may be ). Most adults have one or two attitudes toward the handling of teens--some say that only a sound beating will keep us in line; others treat us as mentally unbalanced creatures on the brink of insanity, who must be pampered and shielded at any cost.
2. As of today, I am fed up with the food served in the campus dining hall. My disenchantment started in September---the day I bit into a hamburger to find myself staring at a long strand of grey hair that trailed out of the meat, through the mayonnaise, and over the edge of the bun. After that, I was not much surprised by the little things I came across in October and November: bugs in the salad and bobby pin in the meatloaf, for example. Then in December the food was worse--and a little dirtier. For Christmas dinner, for in- stance, the cook gave me a thin slice of rolled turkey, straight out of the can, and dished up a cock-roach in my pudding. Even that was excusable (nobody is perfect), but what happened today is not" I had already eaten most of my clam chowder before I found it, at the bottom of the bowl, nestled among the diced potatoes and the chopped onions: one band-aid, slightly used.
Ⅻ. Topics for oral work:
1. In your opinion, what makes or spoils a good conversation?
2. Is spoken English different from written English? In what ways are they different?
ⅩⅣ. Write a short composition describing some of the peculiarities of spoken English
Pub Talk and the King's English 课后练习题/EXERCISES 3
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