Vocabulary to the text:

knowledge-intensive	такий, що характеризується великою кількістю інформації
misguided	помилковий; той, що вводить в оману
irrelevant [ɪ'relɪv(ə)nt]	недоречний
suffocate ['sʌfəkeɪt]	душити
tube	телевізор
browse	проглядати інформацію (в Інтернеті)
information anxiety	стрес, втома від інформації
cutting-edge	надсучасний
Wi-Fi	безпроводовий доступ до Інтернету
log in, to	заходити до системи, реєструватися
breadbasket	житниця
informaholic	людина, яка залежить від постійного отримання
whiz-kid	вундеркінд
to spur	підщтовхнути
spade	лопата
scythe [saɪð]	коса
lawn mower ['lɔnməuə]	газонокосарка
Large Hadron Collider	Великий Адронний Колайдер
AI	штучний інтелект
to tread the path	йти шляхом

1. Questions to the text:

1. What is a difference between knowledge and information?

2. What channels does information come into our minds through?

3. How do people react to information?

4. How has information-intensive reality re-shaped the world around?

5. Can information be addictive?

6. How can information help you get on with your life?

7. Does the scientific progress have a chance to influence the physiological development of the human being?

8. What are the worst-case and best-case scenarios of the new world, changed by information, scientific progress and new discoveries?

2. Write short answers to questions in task I (2-5 sentences to each point).

3. Additional questions and discussion:

1. Which information in your life may be considered junk?

2. Would you describe yourself as an Internet-addict?

3. How much time do you spend surfing the web?

4. Which sources of online information do you usually rely upon?

5. What are the risks of the accessibility of information online?

6. How do you see the future of online delivery of information?

4. Compose and write a plan of the text.

5. Retell the text, using new vocabulary.

6. Write a report about the present rate of scientific progress in comparison with the Ancient Times, the Middle Ages and the 18-19 centuries.

7. Write a report about any social network

Topic 12. Professional skills, ambitions and inspirations of a language-learner.

"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language.

Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

--George Carlin

Academic studies and the professional orientation of future linguists and interpreters at the institutions of higher learning are primarily concerned with actually teaching a language or several languages to a student. Regardless of specialization, one cannot become a successful interpreter or a language teacher without mastering the precious gift of Language, given to us arguably by evolution of the primitive ape into a modern man. Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called linguistics. And the respective field concerned with communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text is called translation science.

Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000 BC) into Southwest Asian languages of the second millennium BC. Translators always risk inappropriate spillover of source-language idiom and usage into the target-language translation. On the other hand, spillovers have imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched the target languages. Indeed, translators have helped substantially to shape the languages into which they have translated.

Due to the demands of business documentation consequent to the Industrial Revolution that began in the mid-18th century, some translation specialties have become formalized, with dedicated schools and professional associations.

Because of the laboriousness of translation, since the 1940s engineers have sought to automate translation (machine translation) or to mechanically aid the human translator (computer-assisted translation). The rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services. By now, it would be fair to say that a perfect machine translation tool hasn’t been created yet, though some of them may be successfully used to translate technical texts. The best expert in translation and interpretation is still a human being. On the other hand, useful translation tools like Trados or electronic dictionaries like Abbyy Lingvo facilitate the process of translation to a great extent.

The jobs of a theoretical linguist and a language teacher (which are not synonymic, obviously) are a little different. Whereas a translator needs to know special techniques, applications, norms and standards of inter-language communication, philologists and teachers have no such need, though of course they resort to translation practice on the everyday basis. Besides being a skilled language expert a professional educator needs to have a set of other, none the less important skills. And methodology of language teaching is hardly the least important of them. Theoretical linguists may be perceived as “office scientists”, who have no other need besides being knowledgeable and proficient in the theoretical development of linguistic schools and paradigms.

In practice, however, a person who has something to do with foreign languages does have to combine the scientific set of skills with communicative and applied ones. A translator needs to communicate with customers, while a professor may be teaching his students to translate texts with automated translation tools. Moreover, any language learner needs to possess two things, which turn the process of language learning into an exciting and thrilling experience. One thing is talent and another one is love. Of course, you may learn a foreign language without talent and without love for it but this will be a thorny path. And only a person, who is in love with the language may succeed in mastering its sophisticated pathways.

Finally, we need to keep in mind that all languages undergo constant changes by borrowing loanwords, by using its own resources to name the changing reality, by applying new meanings to already existing lingual forms. To become a successful language expert we really should keep up with those changes, reproduce them and know how to use them in the proper context and meaning. Therefore, it should be noted that the greatest ambition and inspiration, and skill of every language learner is to stay atop of the wave, the wave of lingual changes in the enormous ocean of words and grammatical structures.