This exercise is intended to develop your ability to read aloud scientific prose with correct intonation.

(a) Read the following text silently to make sure that you un­derstand each sentence.

"Sociolinguistics studies the ways in which language in­teracts with society. It is the study of the way in which language's structure changes in response to its different social functions, and the definition of what these functions are. 'Society' here is used in its broadest sense, to cover a spectrum of phenomena to do with race, nationality, more restricted regional, social and political groups, and the in­teractions of individuals within groups. Different labels have sometimes been applied to various parts of this spec­trum. 'Ethno linguistics' is sometimes distinguished from the rest, referring to the linguistic correlates and problems of ethnic groups — illustrated at a practical level by the linguistic consequences of immigration; there is a lan­guage side to race relations, as anyone working in this field is all too readily aware."

(D. Crystal. "Linguistics")

(b) Split up sentences into intonation groups. Single out the
communicative centre and the nuclear word of each into­
nation group. Think of the intonation means they are to
be made prominent with. Mark the stresses and tunes.
Observe the difference in the duration of pauses between
sentences and intonation groups.

(c) Read the texts aloud in class. Let the teacher and fellow-
students listen to you and decide whether your reading is
expressive enough to be easily understood without refer­ence to the printed version.

(d) Make some alterations in the texts, if necessary, and
present them in class as micro-lectures.

Find texts dealing with various arts and sciences and prepare them for being read aloud in class. Ask your fellow-students to retell these texts in a manner appropriate for introducing teaching material.

LABORATORY WORK №13

PUBLICISTIC STYLE

1. This exercise is intended to develop your ability to hear and reproduce the kind of intonation used in publicistic style (ora­tory and speeches).

(a) Listen to the following text carefully, sentence by sen­tence. Pay attention to the way intonation helps the politi­cal speech-maker to ensure the persuasive and emotional appeal and thus to influence the listeners.

"The time has almost come, ladies and gentlemen, when the Government must ask you — the electors of Great Brit­ain — to renew its mandate. It is as a member of the Gov­ernment that I stand before you this evening, and the task I have set myself is to review the many things which the Government has achieved since the last General Election, and to outline the path which we hope to follow in the future, when, as I am confident will be the case, you return us to office with even greater parliamentary majority.

No one will deny that what we have been able to do in the past five years is especially striking in view of the crisis which we inherited from the previous Government. With wages and prices spiralling upwards; with a record trade deficit of hundreds of millions of pounds; and the pound sterling afflicted by the evaporation of international confi­dence, the country was then on the brink of financial disas­ter and economic collapse.

But within a very short time of coming back into power the present Government had taken steps to stabilise the position. No doubt you will remember some of those steps. Many of them were painful at the time. But they were necessary if international confidence was to be restored, and we did not flinch from taking them.

First of all, we applied ourselves to identifying the root causes of our national ailments, examining contemporary evidence and refusing to be slaves to our outmoded doctrinaire beliefs. Secondly we embarked on a reasoned policy to ensure steady economic growth, the modernisation of industry, and a proper balance between public and private expenditure. Thirdly, by refusing to take refuge — as the previous Government had continually done in the preced­ing years — in panic-stricken stop-gap measures, we stim­ulated the return of international confidence.

As a result of those immediate measures, and aided by the tremendous effort which they evoked from the British people who responded as so often before to a firm hand at the helm, as a result of those measures we weathered the storm and moved on into calmer waters and a period of economic expansion and social reorganization."

(D. Davy. "Advanced English Course")

(b)Mark internal boundaries (pausation). Underline the com­municative centre and the nuclear word of each intonation
group. Mark the stresses and tunes. It is not expected that
each student will intone the text in the same way. Your
teacher will help you and all the members of the class to
correct your variant. Make a careful note of your errors
and work to avoid them.

(c)Practise reading each sentence of your corrected variant
after the tape-recorder.

(d)Record your reading. Play the recording back immediately
for your teacher and fellow-students to detect your errors.

(e)Listen to your fellow-student reading the text. Tell him
what his errors in pronunciation are.

(f) Identify and make as full list as possible of publicistic style
peculiarities as they are displayed in the text.

2. This exercise is meant to develop your ability to read texts belonging to publicistic style as well as to speak in a manner appropriate for this style.

(a) Read the following text silently to make sure that you un­derstand each sentence.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth."

("The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln)

(b) Divide the text into paragraphs, if possible. Try to find the main idea in each paragraph. Split up sentences into into­nation groups. Single out the communicative centre and the nuclear word of each intonation group. Think of the intonation means they are to be made prominent with. Mark the stresses and tunes. Observe the difference m the duration of pauses between paragraphs, sentences and in­tonation groups.

(c) Make an oral presentation of this text in class as if you were a political speech-maker or a commentator. To do so you are to avoid the newsreader's neutral position and in­troduce personal attitude. Remember that the success of this kind of public oration depends on the speaker's abili­ty to persuade the listeners of the merits of his case. Bear in mind that the human voice is the most powerful instru­ment of persuasion. Let your teacher and fellow-students listen to you and decide whether your presentation con­forms to the required pattern.

3. Find extracts dealing with various political and social issues of the day and prepare them for oral presentation in class as:

(a)speeches at parliamentary debates, rallies, congresses,
meetings, etc.;

(b)radio or television commentaries.

LABORATORY WORK №14

SIMPLE SENTENCES

Enumeration

1. Listen how the speaker on the tape pronounces the following
sentences with homogeneous parts. Imitate the reading. Practise them. Be sure to form separate intonation groups of ho­mogeneous parts:

This is my family: my wife, my son, my daughter and I. You are learning to speak, to understand, to read and to write English.

2.Listen to your fellow-student reading the sentences with enu­meration. Say what his errors in intonation are.

3.Read the following situations pronouncing enumeration with:

(a) the rising tone; (b) the falling tone; (c) the level tone.

· Ob­serve the difference in meaning.

Now let's see what else did I want? Oh, yes, some silk stockings, shoe-polish, a pair of scissors and some safety-pins. To crown it all I had an accident the other day, hurt my right shoulder, leg and knee, and nearly broke my neck. But in those first few years at Columbia, he had been so busy with research, teaching and the studies.

4. Give examples of statements containing enumeration. Read
the final intonation group with the Low Fall and with the Low
Rise if possible. State the difference in meaning.

Disjunctive Questions