This exercise is meant to develop your ability to read and narrate a text with proper intonation.

a) Listen to the text. Write it down. Mark the stresses and tunes. Practise reading the text.

b) Listen carefully to the narration of the story. Observe the peculiarities in intonation-group division, pitch, stress and tempo. Note the use of temporizers. Retell the story according to the model you have listened to.

13.Read and retell any extract from "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jer­ome.

SECTION THREE

Temporizers

Temporizers. Emphatic Stress

EXERCISES

l. Listen carefully to the following conversational situations. Concentrate your attention on the intonation of the replies.

Verbal Context                                              

And what do you think of London, Mrs. Thompson?

There's apple tart and cream, or chocolate trifle.

 (While shopping.)

I've been told that there are no winter sports in England.

How many rooms are there in the house?

Will you have anything to drink, sir?

What about you, darling?

Would you like to stay up on deck or go down below?

 Is it possible to see anything of London in one or two days?

Do you think I shall have time for that?

Do you want it short or just trimmed?

What would you say are the most popular games in England today?

 

 

Drill

Er — I beg your pardon, I didn't quite catch what yoü said.

Now, let's see, what else did I want.

Well, you see, the English winter isn't very severe as a rule, and we don't often have the chance of skiing, skating or tobogganing.

Let me see, one, two, three...

Well, I'm rather thirsty.

Well, I don't care for beer.

Oh, I don't know.

Well, yes, but, of course, not half enough.

Well, you might, but if I were you, I should leave that for some other day.

Er — not too short.

Well, I suppose football.

Listen to the replies and repeat them in the intervals. Have a pause after the temporizers. Pronounce them on the low level and with the Low Rise.

Listen to the Verbal Context and reply in the intervals.

In order to fix the intonation of the temporizers in your mind, ear and speech habits repeat the replies yourself until they sound perfectly natural to you.

Listen to a fellow-student reading the replies. Tell him what his errors in intonation are.

Read the drill sentences according to the model. Observe the intonation of the temporizers.

Don't waste potatoes. Just scrape them doing.

Hurry up, or we might be late.

She always wants to be on the safe side.

Shall we put up at this hotel?

I like my native town like nothing else on earth. Don't you find it fascinating?

I heard James got settled at last. Do you know his new address?

Do you feel well enough to do the job?

Are you going to report me?

Don't you think she is charming?

Have you by any chance caught a glimpse of this stranger?

Did he look in good health and spirits?

 

I — er — well, that's what I'm doing

N-no, we have plenty of time.

Y-yes, but who doesn't.

Er — we may, but we'd better find another one.

Well — er — yes, it's rather nice.

Let me see. Yes, I've got it.

Well, you know, not quite.

Er — to tell you quite frankly, yes, I am.

Oh, er — n-no, I think she is rather intrusive.

Y-yes, I think I have.

Well, rather, but a shade un­easy.

 

 

 

Make up short dialogues using the temporizers to gain the time to think over what to say next.

This exercise is meant to develop your ability to read and narrate a text with proper intonation.

Listen to the following texts. Write them down. Mark the stresses and tunes. Practise reading them.

Listen carefully to the narration of the texts. Observe the peculiarities in intonation-group division, pitch, stress and tempo. Note the use of temporizers. Retell the texts according to the models you have listened to.

Thumbing a Lift

To hitchhike successfully in any country you must be able to do two things: attract attention and at the same time convince the driver at a glance that you do not intend to rob or murder him. To fulfil the first requirement you must have some mark to distinguish you at once from all other hitchhikers. A serviceman, for instance, should wear his uniform, a student his scarf. In a foreign country an unmistakable indication of your own nationality will also arrest the driver's attention.

When I hitchhiked 9,500 miles across the United States and back recently I wore a well-tailored suit, a bowler hat and a trench- coat, and carried a pencil-thin rolled black umbrella. My suitcase was decorated with British flags. Having plenty of luggage, more­over, I was not likely to be suspected of being a dangerous lunatic. I then had to get across to the driver the idea that I was a bona fide traveller, and needed to get somewhere cheaply.

But even with careful preparation, you must not assume that the task will be easy. You should be prepared to wait a little, for there are drivers who confess to a fierce prejudice against, not to say ha­tred, of, hitchhikers, and would no more pick up a hiker than march from Aldermaston to London. In America my average wait was half an hour, but I have heard of people waiting all day, they presumably took less pains to make themselves conspicuous.

Nor must you assume that all the drivers who stop for you are nice, normal people. On one occasion I found myself driving with two boys of about nineteen who turned out to be on the run from the police, and were hoping to use me as an alibi. There are also lesser risks: you may find yourself in a car of a fascist fanatic, a Mormon missionary, or just a bad driver. You cannot tell of course, until you are in the car. But you soon learn the art of the quick ex­cuse that gets you out again.

If the hitchhiker in the United States will remember that he is seeking the indulgence of drivers to give him a free ride, and is prepared to give in exchange entertainment and company, and not go to sleep, he will come across the remarkable, almost legendary, hospitality of the Americans of the West. It will also help if he can drive — I think that I drove myself about 4,500 of those 9,500 miles I hitchhiked in the US.

(From "Mozaika", No. 6, 1969)

May Week in Cambridge

The most interesting and bizarre time of the year to visit Cam­bridge is during May Week. This is neither in May, nor a week. For some reason, which nobody now remembers, May Week is the name given to the first two weeks in June, the very end of the Uni­versity year.

The paradox is pleasantly quaint, but also in a way apt. May Week denotes not so much a particular period of time as the gener­al atmosphere of relaxation and unwinding at the end of the year's work. It starts for each undergraduate when he finishes his exami­nations and it continues until he "goes down" at the end of the term.

Everything as far as possible has to happen in the open air — parties, picnics on punts, concerts and plays. May Week seems al­most like a celebration of the coming of the spring, till then ig­nored in favour of sterner matters like examinations, and this spirit of release seems to take over the entire town.

People gravitate towards the river and on to the Backs which are the broad lawns and graceful landscaped gardens behind those colleges which stand next to the river: Queens, King's, Clare, Trinity Hall, Trinity and St. John's. The river banks are lined with strollers and spectators and there is a steady procession of punts up and down the Cam, some drifting slowly and lazily, others poled by energetic young men determined to show off their skill.

Meanwhile the colleges are preparing feverishly for the various events in which May Week culminates. The most important of these are the May Balls for which some girls plot years in advance to get invitations and the May Races.

Rowing plays a very important part in Cambridge life, and no less than 128 crews of eight compete in the "Mays", which are rowed over a period of four days.

Music and drama also have a part to play in the festivity. Nearly every college in the University (and there are over twenty of them) holds a May Week Concert; at Trinity for example, there is a con­cert of Madrigals at which the performers and most of the audience sit in punts at dusk beneath the willows. Many of the colleges present a play in the open air. At Corpus Christy College the set­ting is the medieval courtyard in which Christopher Marlowe lived over 400 years ago, at Queens, a Tudor Court.

At the Art theatre, the "Footlights", a famous University club which specializes in revue, puts on its annual show. There is also a concert in King's College Chapel, but it is almost impossible for the casual visitor to get tickets for this.

The climax of May Week and for many undergraduates the final event of their university life, is the spate of college May Balls when the river is lit up with coloured lights and flaming torches, braziers glow in the gardens, marquees are erected in flood lit courts, ball­room orchestras compete for dancers with string bands and pop groups and punts glide romantically down the river. And in the sil­ver light of dawn couples in evening dress stroll leisurely, perhaps rather dreamily through the Backs and the narrow deserted streets, until it is time to punt upstream through the meadows to breakfast at Granchester or some other equally attractive spot.

(From "Mozaika", No. 6, 1969)