Sample Answer How Europeans See Russia and More

By Anna Shirokova

The Moscow News

The annual EU Film festival started in Moscow on Monday. Sean Carroll, Head of Press and Information at the Delegation of the European Commission to Russia, was quoted as saying that the festival is positive evidence of cultural dialogue widening between Europe and Russia. Mr. Carroll also underscored that it is especially important on the threshold of the summit of the heads of the EU states and Russia that will be held in Moscow on May 10 where cultural issues will also be raised.

This is the seventh EU Film Festival in Moscow and the first one which features only documentaries. Devoted to non-feature European cinema, the festival will feature 39 films deriving from 23 EU Member States. Both experienced renowned directors’ and novices’ works are participating.

Some films deal with Russia and its history. Austrians present On the Seven Seas film, for example, that tells the story of the legendary “Kiev” aircraft-carrier, the biggest Soviet ship of the Gold War period. Belgium offers a biographical movie about Yevgeniy Khaldei, well-know Soviet photographer, that very one who shot “Reichstag capture”, the photo which had become the symbol of the WWII end. Later he was a photo reporter to Nuremberg during the anti-fascist lawsuit scrutiny. Khaldei also is the author of the most famous Stalin portraits.

(taken from “The Moscow News”)

Vocabulary

to be quoted – быть цитируемым

to underscore – подчеркивать

threshold – преддверие

to derive from – происходить из

renowned directors – известные режиссеры

novices – послушники

to participate – принимать участие

aircraft-carrier – самолет с ручным управлением

anti-fascist lawsuit scrutiny – внимательное исследование по антифашистскому судебному разбирательству

Stylistic Analysis of the Newspaper Article

“ How Europeans See Russia and More” ,

By Anna Shirokova

Compositional features. This text is devoted to the annual European film festival held in Moscow. Also the European’s opinions and feelings about this event are presented.

Lexical features. The set phrases (threshold of the summit of the heads, cultural issues), socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations (WWII, EU) and international words (Cold War), terminological varieties (documentaries, a biographical movie, shot,), toponyms (Moscow, Europe, Russia, Belgium), proper names (Sean Carrol, Yevgeniy Khaldei, Stalin), figures (23) and dates (May 10) are used to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about.

Morphological features. Lack of time urge the writer to economize on lingual means: omissions of auxiliary verb “do” in the headline (“How Europeans See Russia and More”) and non-finite verb forms, such as gerund (as saying), participle (widening, devoted to, deriving from).

Syntactical features. In the content full sentences (Some films deal with Russia and its history.), and inversion (Devoted to non-feature European cinema, the festival will feature 39 films deriving from 23 EU Member States. Both experienced renowned directors’ and novices’ works are participating.) are used to draw the readers’ attention to the issue.

We see coherent and logical syntactical structure, with the expanded system of connectives and careful paragraphing. The article is characterized by brevity of expression: set phrases, socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations. The writer tends to draw the reader’s attention by use of the inversion.