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Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации

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Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования

«Калмыцкий государственный университет»

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК

ЯЗЫК. ФОЛЬКЛОР. ЛИТЕРАТУРА

Практикум по чтению для студентов филологического факультета

Часть 1

Элиста 2011

Составитель канд. филол. наук, доц. Н.А. Акименко

Английский язык: Язык. Фольклор. Литература: Практикум по чтению для студентов филологического факультета. Ч. 1 / Калм. ун-т; Сост. Н.А. Аки- менко. – Элиста. 2011. – 26 с.

В методическую разработку включены оригинальные спецтексты по лин- гвистике в целях обучения лексике профессиональной направленности. В раз- работку также входят проверочные вопросы на знание имен собственных, реа- лий, топонимов, фразеологизмов, лексики британского и американского вари- антов английского языка.

Работа предназначена для студентов направления подготовки «Филоло- гия».

Утверждено учебно-методическим советом гуманитарного факультета.

Рецензент канд. филол. наук, доцент КГУ Н.Ю. Микитенко

Подписано в печать 21.12.11. Формат 60х84/16. Печать офсетная. Бумага тип. № 1. Усл. п. л. 1,62.

Тираж 100 экз. Заказ 1603.

Издательство Калмыцкого университета. 358000 Элиста, ул. Пушкина, 11

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Text 1. Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context. The first is the study of language structure, or grammar.

This focuses on the system of rules followed by the speakers (or hearers) of a language. It encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived. The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. This subfield encompasses semantics (how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning is inferred from context).

Language in its broader context includes evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at language processing in the brain; language acquisition, how children or adults acquire language; and discourse analysis, which involves the structure of texts and conversations.

Although linguistics is the scientific study of language, a number of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to language and intersect with it. Semiotics, for example, is the general study of signs and symbols both within language and without. Literary theorists study the use of language in literature. Linguistics additionally draws on and informs work from such diverse fields as psychology, speech-language pathology, informatics, computer science, philosophy, biology, human anatomy, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, and acoustics.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: scientific study of smth., language meaning, to focuse on smth., syntax, phonology, Phonetics, a related branch, to be produced and perceived, to employ logical structures and real-world references, to manage and resolve ambiguity,the subfield, semantics, pragmatics, evolutionary linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, the representation and function of language in the mind, language acquisition,

3. Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: научное изу-

чение, заключать в себя (касаться), образование и производство слов, фразы, предложения, система звуков, свойства звуков речи, значение, передавать, об- рабатывать и устанавливать значение, выводить из контекста, происхождение языка, исследовать языковые изменения, овладевать языком, относиться к

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языку и пересекаться с ним, изучение знаков и символов, разнообразные об- ласти науки.

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

Text 2. Origin of Language

Human culture depends on the ability to speak. But presumably there was a time when the ancestors of modern man had not yet developed language. There has been much speculation on the matter in the past, and the origin of language has been sought in such things as imitation of the noises of animals, or in reflex exclamations of pain or pleasure, or in unintentional grunts under the stress of physical work, or in play-activity consisting of the babbling of meaningless sounds, or even in the imitation of bodily gestures by the vocal organs. But there is no evidence for any of these speculations, and linguists have therefore for the most part not concerned themselves with the problem. Historical knowledge about existing languages goes back only a few thousand years. All languages today are highly complex and are adequate to express all the facets of the speakers’ culture, and all languages can be expanded and modified to meet changing circumstances. There are no languages which could justifiably be called primitive. There are also no normal human beings without language; nor are there other animals that can talk.

The existence of language can be dated back perhaps a million years or more, in terms of the age of the artifacts found with fossil man. The only way of deducing the formative stages of language is from the features all language systems have in common, namely that system which, though subject to constant historical variation, remains statistically stable through selection. It is probable that the human brain evolved, as a consequence of upright posture and binocular vision, in such a way as to enable hominid creatures to associate definite meanings with remembered utterances. A rudimentary language came into being and demonstrated its own usefulness to its possessors, who thus successfully established themselves as the human (that is, talking) species – Homo sapiens. Linguistic symbolism became dominant over all other symbolic behaviour and finally its accepted basis.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: the ability to speak, presumably, developed language, speculation on the matter, reflex exclamations of pain or pleasure, unintentional grunts, play-activity, to concern oneself with the problem, existing languages, to be highly complex and adequate to express all the facets of the speakers’ culture, to be expanded and modified to meet changing circumstances, fossil man, to deduce the formative stages of language, to remain statistically stable, to associate definite meanings with remembered utterances, to become dominant, symbolic behaviour.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: происхожде-

ние языка, зависеть от, предки современного человека, имитация звуков жи-

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вотных, бормотание бессмысленных звуков, органы речи, справедливо быть названным примитивным, датироваться (относиться к определенному време- ни), подверженный постоянным историческим изменениям, человеческий мозг, развиваться (эволюционировать), рудиментарный (элементарный).

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

Text 3. Historical Development of Languages

The evolution of the languages that are now spoken can be only reconstructed in theory. For existing languages can be compared, and if systematic similarities are found they can be used to reconstruct some of the older stages of languages. More specifically, the languages concerned often make related groups. The branch of linguistics that concerns itself with these matters is called historical (or comparative) linguistics.

Languages, like all activities of living beings, are subject to various kinds of pressures arising from changing circumstances. Changes in the cultural system of a people necessarily change part of the language. Old words and expressions go out of use or change their meaning; new words are introduced. In addition, the speakers of a language are always changing. They grow up, grow old and die, and new speakers come along. Each individual changes his ways of speaking during his lifetime; others may imitate him, or he may imitate someone else, and the changes spread. Every new learner of a language is likely to learn it slightly differently; transmission from one generation of speakers to the next is never perfect. As time goes on, a language becomes different from what it has been. The process is slow, but it can be observed by nothing the differences in speech between very old people and young persons in the same community. Specific changes in vocabulary or usage often take place rather suddenly, moreover, and everybody is aware of such changes in his own speech or that of his associates. But system and order always remain, being indispensable to communication.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: to be reconstructed in theory, existing languages, to be compared, systematic similarities, branch of linguistics, to be introduced, ways of speaking, transmission from one generation to the next, to be aware of changes in speech, associates, indispensable to communication.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: эволюция языков, родственные группы, сравнительно-историческое языкознание, слова

ивыражения, выходить из употребления, изменять значение, подражать, изме- нения в словарном составе и употреблении.

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

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Text 4. Practical Application of Language Knowledge

There are about 3,000 known languages in the world (the number varies according to what is counted as a language; dialects that are clearly just that are not included in this number), and each is the vehicle of a culture that is different in at least some ways from any other culture. The learning and teaching of languages, the recording of languages by writing and by other methods and the use of languages in intercultural communication are matters of primary importance.

Languages have had to be taught and learned for centuries. Everywhere, when speakers of different languages have come in contact, somebody had to learn a foreign language. There have always been individuals who found it interesting or profitable to do this. The earliest written records give evidences of such activity and of the attempt to systematize the process. Word lists with translations were compiled and grammatical analyses were attempted. Sanskrit grammarians toward the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. developed a systematic grammar equal in many ways to modern analyses. The ancient Greek developed a grammar that influenced their philosophy; it was passed on to the Romans and thus to the modern western world. Greek slaves were used as language teachers by the Romans. Latin itself was learned by conquered peoples, sometimes in school but more frequently in informal contact with Roman soldiers and officials. After the middle ages much new interest in languages arose, and they were taught in schools and church, following traditional Latin grammar.

Experience in the first half of the 20th century has shown that languages can best be learned through constant direct contact with native speakers. It also became apparent that the effective teaching of languages had to include analysis of language and of the other aspects of culture, including the learner’s culture.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: to be counted as a language, to be included in smth., the recording of languages by writing, matters of primary importance, profitable to do smth., the earliest written records, give evidence, to be compiled, to be attempted, to be equal to smth., modern analyses, to develop grammar, much new interest in languages aroseю.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: диалекты,

варьироваться (изменяться), изучение и преподавание языков, использование языков в межкультурной коммуникации, систематизировать процесс, древние греки, повлиять на что-либо, передавать римлянам, современный западный мир, покоренные народы.

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

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Text 5. Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.

Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language, and comparative linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages and specify the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. To maintain a clear distinction between attested and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts. A number of methods for carrying out language classification have been developed, ranging from simple inspection to computerized hypothesis testing. Such methods have gone through a long process of development.

The fundamental technique of comparative linguistics is to compare phonological systems, morphological systems, syntax and the lexicon of two or more languages using techniques such as the comparative method. In principle, every difference between two related languages should be explicable to a high degree of plausibility, and systematic changes, for example in phonological or morphological systems, are expected to be highly regular (i.e. consistent). In practice, the comparison may be more restricted, e.g. just to the lexicon. In some methods it may be possible to reconstruct an earlier proto-language. Although the proto-languages reconstructed by the comparative method are hypothetical, a reconstruction may have predictive power. The most notable example of this is Saussure's proposal that the IndoEuropean consonant system contained laryngeals, a type of consonant attested in no Indo-European language known at the time. The hypothesis was vindicated with the discovery of Hittite, which proved to have exactly the consonants Saussure had hypothesized in the environments he had predicted.

Where languages are derived from a very distant ancestor, and are thus more distantly related, the comparative method becomes impracticable. In particular, attempting to relate two reconstructed proto-languages by the comparative method has not generally produced results that have met with wide acceptance. The method has also not been very good at unambiguously identifying sub-families and different scholars have produced conflicting results, for example in Indo-European. A number of methods based on statistical analysis of vocabulary have been developed to try and overcome this limitation, such as lexicostatistics and mass comparison. The former uses lexical cognates like the comparative method but the latter uses only lexical similarity. The theoretical basis of such methods is that vocabulary items can be matched without a detailed language reconstruction and that comparing enough vocabulary items will negate individual inaccuracies. Thus they can be used to determine relatedness but not to determine the proto-language.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: comparing languages, to establish historical relatedness, to construct language families, documented languages, to prefix an asterisk, fundamental techniques, to have pre-

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dictive power, laryngeals, consonant, to hypothesize, a distant ancestor, to identify unambiguously, lexical cognates, to negate individual inaccuracies.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: сравнительно-

историческое языкознание, историческое родство (связанность), реконструи- рованные формы, сохранившиеся тексты, сравнивать фонологические системы двух и более языков, объяснимый, высокая степень вероятности, индоевропей- ский язык, доказывать (подтверждать).

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

Text 6. Contrastive linguistics

Contrastive linguistics is a practice-oriented linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences and similarities between a pair of languages (hence it is occasionally called "differential linguistics").

While traditional linguistic studies had developed comparative methods (comparative linguistics), chiefly to demonstrate family relations between cognate languages, or to illustrate the historical developments of one or more languages, modern contrastive linguistics intends to show in what ways the two respective languages differ, in order to help in the solution of practical problems. (Sometimes the terms diachronic linguistics and synchronic linguistics are used to refer to these two perspectives.)

Contrastive linguistics, since its inception by Robert Lado in the 1950s, has often been linked to aspects of applied linguistics, e.g., to avoid interference errors in foreign-language learning, as advocated by Di Pietro (1971), to assist interlingual transfer in the process of translating texts from one language into another, as demonstrated by Vinay & Darbelnet (1958) and more recently by Hatim (1997), and to find lexical equivalents in the process of compiling bilingual dictionaries, as illustrated by Heltai (1988) and Hartmann (1991).

Contrastive descriptions can be made at every level of linguistic structure: speech sounds (phonology), written symbols (graphology), word-formation (morphology), word meaning (lexicology), collocation (phraseology), sentence structure (syntax) and complete discourse (textology). Various techniques used in corpus linguistics have been shown to be relevant in intralingual and interlingual contrastive studies, e.g. by 'parallel-text' analysis (Hartmann 1997).

Contrastive linguistic studies can also be applied to the differential description of one or more varieties within a language, such as styles (contrastive rhetoric), dialects, registers or terminologies of technical genres.

1.Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each

part.

2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: contrastive linguistics, differential linguistics, applied linguistics, to avoid interference errors, two perspectives, interlingual transfer, to compile bilingual

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dictionaries, at every level of linguistic structure, various techniques, corpus linguistics, to be relevant, intralingual and interlingual contrastive studies.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: лингвистиче-

ский подход, ориентированный на практику; описывать отличия и сходства между двумя языками, показать историческое развитие языков, начало (начи- нание), диахроническая и синхроническая лингвистика, изучение иностранных языков, процесс перевода текстов с одного языка на другой, находить лексиче- ские эквиваленты, звуки речи, словообразование, структура предложения, со- четание слов, фразеология, текстология, риторика, жанры.

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

Text 7. Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree or in a subsequent modification to species in a phylogenetic tree of evolutionary taxonomy. All the apparently biological terms are used only in the metaphoric sense: No actual biology relationship is implied by the metaphor.

As of early 2009, SIL Ethnologue catalogued 6,909 living human languages. A "living language" is simply one that is in wide use as a primary form of communication by a specific group of living people. The exact number of known living languages will vary from 5,000 to 10,000, depending generally on the precision of one's definition of "language", and in particular on how one classifies dialects. There are also many dead and extinct languages.

Membership of languages in the same language family is established by comparative linguistics. Daughter languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship; the former term is more current in modern times, but the latter is equally as traditional. The evidence of linguistic relationship is observable shared characteristics that are not attributed to borrowing. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language (or reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership in a branch or group within a language family is established by shared innovations; that is, common features of those languages that are not attested in the common ancestor of the entire family. For example, what makes Germanic languages "Germanic" is that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in Proto-Indo-European. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, a descendant of Proto-Indo- European that was the source of all Germanic languages.

1. Read the text. Divide it into logical parts. Find the topic sentence of each part.

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2.Give Russian equivalents to the following English word combinations: protolanguage of the family, the tree model of language origination, historical linguistics, evolutionary taxonomy, living human languages, dead and extinct languages, membership of languages, daughter languages, to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, genealogically related languages, to present shared retentions, convergence.

3.Give English equivalents to the following word combinations: языковая се-

мья, происхождение от общего предка, метафорический смысл, точность оп- ределения, наблюдаемая очевидность, заимствование, общие черты языков, потомок.

4.Make up a plan of the text in the form of questions.

5.Retell the text, using expressions given in Task 3.

Text 8. Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language in the Indo-European family. From the point of view of the spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian and Belarusian, the other two national languages in the East Slavic group. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixture, e.g. Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of the modern Russian language. Also Russian has much in common with Bulgarian in vocabulary and phonetics as a result of interaction between the languages in the 19th–20th centuries, as well as the Church Slavonic influence on the both, although the Bulgarian grammar much differs from the Russian one.

The vocabulary (mainly abstract and literary words), principles of word formations, and, to some extent, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a developed and partly russified form of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic language used by the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with many different meanings.

Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin, Polish, Dutch, German, French, and English, and to a lesser extent the languages to the north and the east: Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Persian, Arabic.

According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 780 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. It is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a "hard target" language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy.

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