The Dialogue Country life

J=Joel, A=Andy

J So, Andy, tell me, why did you leave London? You had a good job.

A Yes, but I’ve got a better job here.

J And you have a nice flat in London?

A Well, I’ve got a nicer place here. It’s a cottage!

J Really? How many bedrooms has it got?

A Three. And it’s got a garden. It’s bigger than my flat in London and it’s cheaper.

J But you haven’t got any friends here!

A I’ve got a lot of new friends here. People are much friendlier than in London.

J But the country’s so boring!

A No, it isn’t. I’ve got a surfboard now and I go surfing at weekends. Appleton has got a cinema, restaurants, pubs and a nightclubs.

J OK. OK. Everything is better! Can I come next weekend?

A Of course you can!

(taken from “New Headway Elementary. Third Edition”)

Vocabulary

a surfboard – лодка для занятий серфингом

Appleton – Аплтон, город в США, штат Висконсин

Stylistic Analysis of the dialogue “Country life”

Compositional features. This dialogue belongs to a familiar colloquial style. The friends talk on the phone about the changes in Andy’s life.

Paying attention to lexical features, we would like to mention about extensive use of intensifies and gap fillers (really, OK, Yes,), wide range of formal and informal words (job, cottage and etc.), use of the same word in different meanings (a nice flat, a nice job), and use of socially accepted phrases (Can I come next weekend?). The community of situation, the familiarity with the sphere facilitate the tasks of each communicant: the speaker does not bother about searching for a word that would exactly characterize the thing spoken about.

Morphological features. We can find use of regular morphological features: present tenses (Why did you leave London? You had a better job).

Syntactical features. Simple short sentences (It’s a cottage) are the tendency to economize on lingual means.

We see the main stylistic linguistics features of familiar colloquial style: explication (use of intensifies and gap fillers), implication (use of the same word in different meanings) and socially accepted clichés used in the literary colloquial style.

Informal language

1. A Let’s have a break, shall we?

B All right / I see. I’m dying for a cuppa.

2. A My old man isn’t at work today.

B Why? What’s he on about? / What’s up with him?

A He was walking to work yesterday when this guy in a car knocked him over.

B Really? / Yuk! Is he OK?

A Well, / Right, He was very lucky. He just got a few cuts and grazes.

3. A Can I have one of your fags?

B Sure. / Damn. Help yourself. I’ve got loads.

A Oh! / Ta! Do you want one?

B No. I’ve just put one out.

d) A Gimme your homework so I can copy it.

B What a pity! / No way! You can do it yourself.

5. A Did you manage to fix the telly?

B Kind of. /All right. The picture’s OK, but the sound isn’t quite right.

A What’s on tonight?

B Dunno. Look in the paper.

f) A What’s that stuff called that you use to clean between your teeth?

B What do you mean?

A You see! / You know! It’s like string. White.

B Oh! / Wow! You mean dental floss.

A That’s it!

(taken from “New Headway Intermediate”)

Tasks

1. Choose the informal words that fit best in the dialogues.

2. Translate from Russian into English:

1) Хорошо. Умираю, хочу чайку.

2) Что с ним?

3) Этот парень на машине сбил его.

4) Ужас!

5) Тьфу!

6) Как жаль!

7) Круто!

8)Ну, у него всего лишь порезы и царапины.

9) Не угостишь сигареткой?

10) Да! Угощайся! У меня их много.

11) Дай списать домашнее задание! – Никоим образом! Сделай сам!

12) Ты наладил телик? – Вроде того.

13 Что там показывают? – Без понятия. Посмотри в газете.

14) – Как называется та штука, которой ты чистишь промежутки между зубами?

– О чем ты?

– Ты знаешь! Это похоже на нить. Белую...