Осознанное чтение тексты и задания = Mindful Reading texts and tasks. Учебное пособие = Textbook

PART 1. FICTION VS NON-FICTION

3.What features best characterize the given text? (e.g. objective, subjective, precise, coherent, logical, emotional (if you characterize the text as emotional, make sure to ‘label’ emotions it stirs), fact-based, opinion-based, etc)

4.Characterize the linguistic features of the text, its lexical and syntactical peculiarities.

5.Can you identify any stylistic devices used in the text and comment on their effects?

Section 5: August

Text 1.5A

August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. August is the last summer month in the Northern Hemisphere and the last winter month in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern HemisphereAugustisthehottestmonthsomanycountriesinEuropesee August as a holiday period. In the original ten-month Roman calendar, the month went by the name of Sextilis, meaning “the sixth month” in Latin. In 8 BC, it was renamed in honor of Emperor Augustus. According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. Back in the days of the Anglo-Saxons, the month was called Weod Monath, which quite literally meant “weed month” – in this month weeds and other plants grow the fastest. The two zodiac signs which represent August are Leo and Virgo.

Text 1.5B

August must be shed slowly, like pear liquor. Pour into a small glass, drink a drop, and look through the glass at the sun. August nights should be diluted with candle lights, milk poured into a cup for a brownie, purring a cat and the chatter of grasshoppers. August days should be laid between the pages of books, like bookmarks, in order to then shake out their heat in the dank November of taking this book from the shelf. And I conjure you, well, do not shout at all corners,

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С. Ю. СТЕПАНОВА. ОСОЗНАННОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ: ТЕКСТЫ И ЗАДАНИЯ ● MINDFUL READING: TEXTS AND TASKS

“Oh, here is August, here is autumn.” Well, where are you in a hurry? Stop the clock. Drink a Drop.

(attributed to Ray Bradbury)

Tasks: Follow the pattern

1.Identify the subject matter of each text and specify its status (fiction or non-fiction, type of the text, functional style).

2.What is its primary function?

3.What features best characterize the given text? (e.g. objective, subjective, precise, coherent, logical, emotional (if you characterize the text as emotional,make sure to‘label’emotions it stirs), fact-based, opinion-based, etc)

4.Characterize the linguistic features of the text, its lexical and syntactical peculiarities.

5.Can you identify any stylistic devices used in the text and comment on their effects? What image appeals to you in Text 1.5B?

Hints and tips: Visuals may be helpful

What do both texts have in common? What makes them different? Compare and contrast these texts; specify at least three features which they share. You can use a Venn diagram to visualize differences and similarities of the texts. With this in mind, draw two identical overlapping circles. What does the overlapping section contain? What are the unique qualities of each text, presented in the outer circles?

Section 6: Rain

Text 1.6A

Rain is liquid precipitation: water falling from the sky. Raindrops fall to Earth when clouds become saturated, or filled, with water droplets. Millions of water droplets bump into each other as they gather in a cloud. When a small water droplet bumps into a bigger one, it condenses, or combines, with the larger one. As this continues

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PART 1. FICTION VS NON-FICTION

to happen, the droplet gets heavier and heavier. When the water droplet becomes too heavy to continue floating around in the cloud, it falls to the ground. Human life depends on rain. Rain is the source of freshwater for many cultures where rivers, lakes, or aquifers are not easily accessible. Rain makes modern life possible by providing water for agriculture, industry, hygiene, and electrical energy. Governments, groups, and individuals collect rain for personal and public use.

(https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/rain/)

Text 1.6 B

Rain

I opened my eyes

And looked up at the rain, And it dripped in my head And flowed into my brain,

And all that I hear as I lie in my bed

Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head. I step very softly,

I walk very slow,

I can’t do a handstand – I might overflow,

So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said –

I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.

(by Shel Silverstein)

Tasks: Follow the pattern

1.Identify the subject matter of each text and specify its status (fiction or non-fiction, type of the text, functional style).

2.What is its primary function?

3.What features best characterize the given text? (e.g. objective, subjective, precise, coherent, logical, emotional (if you characterize the text as emotional,make sure to‘label’emotions it stirs), fact-based, opinion-based, etc)

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С. Ю. СТЕПАНОВА. ОСОЗНАННОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ: ТЕКСТЫ И ЗАДАНИЯ ● MINDFUL READING: TEXTS AND TASKS

4.Characterize the linguistic features of the text, its lexical and syntactical peculiarities.

5.Can you identify any stylistic devices used in the text and comment on their effects? Consider the word ‘slishity-slosh’ in Text 1.6B, what do you call this lexical innovation?

Section 7: Insomnia

Text 1.7A

I had to sleep. I had to. I’d had… I counted on my fingers, unable to do the maths in my head. What, less than four hours’ sleep in the last three days.

I could taste sleep. I could feel it, just out of my reach. I had to sleep. I had to. I was going to go crazy if I didn’t sleep.

The tears were coming again – I didn’t even know what they were. Tears of frustration? Rage, at myself, at the burglar? Or just exhaustion?

I only knew that I couldn’t sleep – that it was dangling like an unkept promise just inches away from me. I felt like I was running towards a mirage, that kept receding, slipping away faster and faster the more desperately I ran. Or that it was like a fish in water, something I had to catch and hold, but kept slipping through my fingers.

Oh God, I wanted to sleep…

(taken from The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware)

Text 1.7B

Symptoms of Insomnia

Both short-term and chronic insomnia share certain symptoms. One aspect of those symptoms relates to nighttime sleep, when a person must experience at least one of these types of sleep issues:

•Trouble falling asleep

•Trouble staying asleep throughout the night

•Unwanted early morning waking

•Resisting sleep at one’s bedtime (for children and teens)

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PART 1. FICTION VS NON-FICTION

•Difficulty sleeping without a caregiver’s help (for children and teens)

In addition, a person must have at least one of several daytime symptoms related to their sleeping problems:

•Fatigue

•Impaired attention or memory

•Trouble with work, school, or social performance

•Irritability or disturbed mood

•Sleepiness

•Behavioral issues, like hyperactivity or aggressiveness

•Decreased motivation

•Increased accidents or mistakes

•Worries about or discontent with one’s sleep

(https://www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia)

Tasks: Follow the pattern

1.Identify the subject matter of each text and specify its status (fiction or non-fiction, type of the text, functional style).

2.What is its primary function?

3.What features best characterize the given text? (e.g. objective, subjective, precise, coherent, logical, emotional (if you characterize the text as emotional, make sure to ‘label’ emotions it stirs), fact-based, opinion-based, etc)

4.Characterize the linguistic features of the text, its lexical and syntactical peculiarities.

5.Can you identify any stylistic devices used in the text and comment on their effects? Consider the use of graphics in Text 1.7A. What do you call the structures with ‘like’ in Text 1.7A? What are their stylistic effects?

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Section 8: November

Text 1.8A

November

No sun – no moon! No morn – no noon!

No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day – No sky – no earthly view –

No distance looking blue –

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member –

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!

(by Thomas Hood)

Text 1.8B

November

Here’s November,

The year’s sad daughter, A loverless maid,

A lamb for the slaughter, An empty mirror,

A sunless morn,

A withered wreath, The husk of the corn, A night that falls Without a tomorrow, Here’s November, The month of sorrow.

(by E. Farjeon)

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PART 1. FICTION VS NON-FICTION

Text 1.8C

November

The stripped and shapely Maple grieves

The ghosts of her Departed leaves. The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds are flown. And yet the world, In its distress, Displays a certain Loveliness

(by J. Updike)

Beyond the text

The phrase ‘a lamb to the slaughter’ comes from the Bible. Its meaning is to behave without protesting, without concern for what is to come, because a person does not realize that he / she is in danger. In Old English this month was called ‘month of sacrifice’, literally, ‘bloodmonth’ because that was the time when the Early Saxons prepared for winter sacrificing animals and storing them for food.

Tasks

1)What emotions is each text likely to arouse?

2)What text appeals to you most? Why? State at least two reasons.

3)Characterize linguostylistic features of any poem in line with the effects achieved.

Follow Up

1)Write down the informative text describing November (200 words). Make sure your choice of vocabulary and syntax is consistent with the aim of your writing.

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Section 9: Travelling

Beyond the text: Matching

1)sturdy

2)gutter

3)to cajole

4)garish

5)woes

6)itinerary

7)to drift

8)to inflict

9)to constrain

10)to opt for

a)the edge of the road where rain flows away

b)big problems or troubles

c)physically strong and solid

d)to force somebody to experience something unpleasant

e)to move slowly with no control over the direction

f)unpleasantly bright

g)to control and limit somebody

h)to choose one possibility rather than others

i)to persuade somebody to do something they might not want to do

j)a detailed plan or route of a journey

Text 1.9A

Truthfully, I am not the best traveler in the world.

I know this because I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve met people who are great at it. Real naturals. I’ve met travelers who are so physically sturdy they could drink a shoebox of water from a Calcutta gutter and never get sick. People who can pick up new languages where others of us might only pick up infectious diseases. People who know how to stand down a threatening border guard or cajole an uncooperative bureaucrat at the visa office. People who are the right height and complexion that they kind of look halfway

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PART 1. FICTION VS NON-FICTION

normal wherever they go – in Turkey they just might be Turks, in Mexico they are suddenly Mexicans, in Spain they could be mistaken for a Basque, in Northern Africa they can sometimes pass for an Arab…

I don’t have these qualities. First off, I don’t blend. Tall and blond and pink-complexioned, I am less a chameleon than a flamingo. Everywhere I go but Düsseldorf, I stand out garishly. When I was in China, women used to come up to me in the street and point me out to their children as though I were some escaped zoo animal. And their children – who had never seen anything quite like this pink-faced yellow-headed phantom person – would often burst into tears at the sight of me. I really hated that about China.

And, oh, the woes that traveling has inflicted on my digestive tract! In Lebanon I became so explosively ill one night that I could only imagine I’d somehow contracted a Middle Eastern version of the Ebola virus. But I have other bodily weaknesses, too. My back gave out on my first day traveling in Africa, I was the only member of my party to emerge from the jungles of Venezuela with infected spider bites, and I ask you – I beg of you! – who gets sunburned in

Stockholm?

(taken from Eat. Pray. Love by Elizabeth Gilbert)

Text 1.9B

Tourism Typology

Eric Cohen offered his classification of tourist types in the article entitled “Towards a Sociology of International Tourism”, which was published in 1972. Whilst a lot has clearly changed in the tourism industry since then, Cohen’s tourist typology has continued to be used a guide for understanding different types of tourists by academics and tourism industry professionals.

In Cohen’s tourist typology there are two types of tourists: the institutionalized (the organized mass tourists) tourists and the noninstitutionalized tourists (those who travel independently).

Cohen breaks down his tourist typology further, suggesting that there are four main types of tourists:

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С. Ю. СТЕПАНОВА. ОСОЗНАННОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ: ТЕКСТЫ И ЗАДАНИЯ ● MINDFUL READING: TEXTS AND TASKS

•The Drifter

•The Explorer

•The Individual Mass Tourist

•The Organized Mass Tourist

The Drifter is the type of tourist that is least connected with the mass tourism industry. Drifters typically have an authentic and deep immersive experience, opting for staying with members of the local community rather than in hotels. They seek adventure and plan their own itineraries. This type of tourist always opts for novelty over familiarity – you won’t see a Drifter eating in McDonalds or shopping in Zara.

Explorers are similar to Drifters as they also seek novelty; however, Explorers have more interaction with the commodities associated with the tourism industry. For example, an Explorer may travel independently and enjoy an immersive cultural experience, but they may rest their head on a hotel pillow at the end of the day. This type of tourist will generally eat and shop local, but don’t be surprised if they enjoy a Big Mac from time to time.

The Individual Mass Tourist seeks the familiar. This type of tourist wants familiar food, they want to be able to communicate in a familiar language and they want to stay in types of accommodation they are familiar with. However, the Individual Mass Tourist is not constrained by the likes of group tours and activities – yes, they may book their holiday through a travel agency or use a local guide, but they will typically opt for solo travel over group tours.

The last type of tourists outlined in Cohen’s typology is the Organized Mass Tourist. The Organized Mass Tourist seeks the familiar in the same way the Individual Mass Tourist does, however, they tend to do this as part of an organized group. They seek the familiar over novelty every time and they are often found with tour guides and undertaking group tours. The Organized Mass Tourist will generally have an itinerary or a plan and they will stick to it.

(https://tourismteacher.com/cohens-tourist-typology-types-of-tourists/)

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