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　　Test Two

　　SECTION A

　　MINI-LECTURE

　　In this section, you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening,take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture. When the lecture is over,you’ll be given two minutes to check your notes, and another 10 minutes to complete the gap-filling task. Now listen to the mini-lecture.

　　In this lecture, we’ll discuss English vocabulary. First, let’s define the term “vocabulary”. What is vocabulary? It usually refers to a complete inventory of the words in a language. But it may also refer to the words and phrases used in the variants of a language, such as dialect, register, terminology, etc. The vocabulary can be divided into active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. The active vocabulary refers to lexical items which a person uses. The passive vocabulary refers to the words which he understands. The English vocabulary is characterized by a mixture of native words and borrowed words. First, about the native words. Most of the native words are of Anglo-Saxon origin. They form the basic word stock of the English language. In the native stock, we find words denoting the commonest things necessary for life, such as those words denoting natural phenomena,divisions of the year, parts of the body, animals, foodstuffs, trees, fruits, human activity. And also other words denoting the most indispensable things. The native stock also includes auxiliary and modal verbs, pronouns, most numerals, prepositions and conjunctions. Though they are small in number, these words play no small part in linguistic performance and communication. Next, we come to borrowed words. Borrowed words are also known as loan-words. They refer to linguistic forms taken over by one language or dialect from another. The English vocabulary has replenished itself by continually taking over words from other languages over the centuries. The adoption of foreign words into the English language began even before the English came to England. We know that the Angles and Saxons formed a part of the Germanic people. Long before the Anglo-Saxons came to England, the Germanic people had been in contact with the civilization of Rome. Thus, Words of Latin origin denoting objects belonging to the Roman civilization gradually found their way into the English language. For example, wine, butter, cheese, inch, mile, mint, etc. When the English, or the Anglo-Saxons, were settled in England, they continued to borrow words from Latin, especially after Roman Christianity was introduced into the island in the sixth and seventh centuries. A considerable number of Latin words were adopted into the English language. These words chiefly signify things connected with religion or the services of the church, such as bishop, candle, creed, monk, priest, and a great many others. The English vocabulary also owes a great deal to the Danes and Northmen. From these settlers, English adopted a surprising number of words of Scandinavian origin that belong to the core-vocabulary today. Such as they, them, their, both, ill, die, egg, knife, low, skill, take, till, though, want, etc. The Norman Conquest in 1066 introduced a large number of French words into the English vocabulary. French adoptions were found in almost every section of the vocabulary. For example, in the section of law, there are such words as justice, evidence, pardon; in the section of warfare, there are conquer, victory; in religion, there are grace, repent, sacrifice; in architecture, there are castle, pillar, tower; in finance, there are pay, rent, ransom; in rank, there are prince, princess; in clothing, there are collar, mantlet; in food, there are dinner, feast, sauce, etc. In the first 43 lines of the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, there are 39 words of French origin. We can see the English vocabulary takes in so many words from French. And in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Renaissance swept Europe. It was a revival of art and literature based on ancient Greek learning. The Renaissance opened up a new source for the English vocabulary to enrich itself. And English borrowed many words from Greek through the medium of Latin, such as crisis, topic, coma, etc. a wide range of learned affixes are also from Greek, such as bio-, geo-, hydro-, auto-, homo-, para-, -ism, -logy, -graph, -meter, -gram and many others. From the sixteenth century forward, there was a great increase in the number of languages, and English borrowed many words from these languages. French continued to provide a considerable number of new words, for example, trophy, vase, moustache, unique, soup. English borrowed a lot of words from Italian in the field of art, music and literature, for example, model, sonnet, opera, quartet, etc. there was also a Spanish element in English, for example, potato, cargo, parade, cigar. Besides, German, Portuguese and Dutch were also fertile sources of loan words, for example, dock, zinc and plunder are from German; cobra, buffalo and pagoda are from Portuguese; tackle, buoy and skipper are from Dutch. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a growth of international trade and the urge to colonize the known world, English made a number of direct adoptions from languages spoken outside Europe. Some examples are: sultan and ghoul from Arabic, lichi and typhoon from Chinese, shah and shawl from Persian, yoghurt from Turkish, czar from Russian. Since the end of the Second World War, still more loan words have been incorporated into the English vocabulary For example, cuisine from French, sushi from Japanese, mao tai from Chinese, and many others. In the twentieth century, it should be observed that English has created many words out of Latin and Greek elements, especially in the field of science and technology, such as antibiotic, astronaut, auto-visual, autolysis, etc. Although all these Latin and Greek derived words are distinctly learned or technical, they do not seem and, in this respect, they are very different from the recent loanwords from living languages, such as cappuccino, angst, and sputnik. Thus, for the Modern English period a distinction must be made between the adoptions from living languages and the formations derived from the two classical languages. That’s the end of today’s lecture. Next time we’ll concentrate on English word formation. Thank you for your attention!

　　Section B

　　INTERVIEW

　　In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following 5 questions. Now listen to the interview.

　　Interviewer(M): Mrs. Hobson, would you please describe some of the things you do with aggressive children in this special school?

　　Mrs. Hobson(W): Well, you must realize that when he comes here he is meeting other aggressive children, and aggressive children all together usually gum each other up.

　　M: Umm.

　　W: And they find that aggressive here doesn't pay off because you can be jolly sure there's one tougher and worse than he is.

　　M: Umm.

　　W: So I usually have ohm... Sometimes have organized fights.

　　M: Organized fights? You actually...

　　W: Yes.

　　M: You actually encourage the children to.

　　W: We have a ring and we have a bell.

　　M: A boxing ring?

　　W: Yes! They must conform, they must keep to the rules, and when they have either lost or won, we discuss what it is to be the winner and what it is like to lose. And we carry on with our discussion and go on to what it is like in life.

　　M: Umm.

　　W: We must win or lose and we must do each very gracefully.

　　M: Would you please describe some children you have had problems with?

　　W: I had one boy who cut off his dog's ears.

　　M: Cut off his dog's ears? Good lord!

　　W: Yes. And put a stone around his neck and drowned him.

　　M: The dog?

　　W: Yes. Then there was another boy that used to attack me.

　　M: Attack you?

　　W: Yes. Umm...with anything at hand. I hid scissors. Umm...he tried to cut my hair once. And...

　　M: When you weren't looking?

　　W: Yes. You have to be strong. And of course...er...

　　M: By strong you mean...

　　W: Physically strong and mentally.

　　M: So that you can shove them away?

　　W: Well, so that you can defend yourself. I always say to them I'm going to win. And once I've established that, we're all right.

　　M: Mrs. Hobson, why do you think some children are aggressive?

　　W: If a child is one of six or seven children in a family, it's pretty sure that he is naughty and aggressive because he is crying out for attention and in this large family he's found that a jolly good way of getting attention is to shout, be naughty. At least mummy turns round and says, "Be quiet, be a good boy, or you'll get this or that."

　　M: So some children are aggressive simply in order...

　　W: To gain attention! Aggressiveness usually is that. It's really the children crying out and saying, "Look at me, please."

　　M: Umm.

　　W: I'm not saying it's the answer in all circumstances but it usually is.

　　M: What are the advantages of your school, as compared with ordinary school?

　　W: The classes are smaller for one thing.

　　M: How small?

　　W: Er...we only have groups up to five or six.

　　M: And in a normal school?

　　W: Oh. that varies of course but it could be thirty to forty.

　　M: Umm.

　　W: Here he does have individual attention every day.

　　M: Do you think the work is important?

　　W: I do. Without our unit or something similar.

　　M: The unit is the school?

　　W: Yes, the whole unit. I think a lot of children would be left and then perhaps at the age of sixteen we would have our juvenile delinquent. I'm not saying we're curing them all, but I think at least with the unit available to these children, they have had a chance to make good.

　　M: Umm.

　　W: I'm not saying it always pays off, but they have had a chance.

　　Section C NEWS BROADCAST

　　In this section, you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 6 to 7 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions. Now listen to the news.

　　Now that the U.S. space shuttle Discovery is back on Earth, future shuttle missions are postponed until the space agency NASA solves the problem of launch debris endangering the orbiters. Whenever missions resume, they will continue building the International Space Station, which the United States operates with Russia and the support of Europe, Canada, and Japan. But there is a legal obstacle that may keep the U.S. astronauts off the Space Station. The issue dates back to 1996, when the two countries agreed that Russia would provide the United States free crew and cargo transportation to the station until next April. This provision proved crucial during the long ban on shuttle flights after the Columbia disaster in 2003, for the United States had no other way to get its astronauts and supplies to the station. Question 8 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news. Malaysian President Abdullah Badawi says the Muslim world should do more to improve the economic standing of all Muslims. He told business leaders gathered in Hong Kong Monday that the Islamic world must do all it can to end poverty among all Muslims. Mr. Abdullah, who currently chairs the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference, says the time has come for the OIC to emphasize the economic development of its members. He says Muslim populations must not only strive for peace, but also for economic vitality. Many of the OIC's members are developing countries in Africa and the Middle East. Malaysia has recently been taking steps to promote Islamic banking and finance. Next week, senior officials from the Islamic Development Bank, the funding agency of the OIC, will meet in Kuala Lumpur to discuss and formulate economic programs for the organization's poorer members. Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions. Now listen to the news.) This is the 59th annual Tony awards ceremony broadcast nationwide from Radio City Music Hall. Monty Python's Spamalot has been a sold-out hit since it opened on Broadway in March. It won the Antoinette Perry Awards, the Tonys, for best musical, and for director and featured actress in the musical category. A new musical, The Light in the Piazza, won the largest number of awards, six. Broadway's top dramatic honors went to the much-acclaimed play, Doubt, A Parable. The story of a nun's suspicion of child abuse at a parochial school won the Pulitzer Prize earlier this year after switching to Broadway from a successful off-Broadway run. Veteran actress Cherry Jones and director Doug Hughes also took home the top honors in the dramatic category. Playwright Edward Albee, the author of Broadway classics, such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Delicate Balance and The Zoo Story, was presented with a special Lifetime Achievement Award.

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