Unit 2:Imperial English: the Language of Science.

Language is the dress of thought.  

Samuel Johnson

WARM-UP

1. Can you name

• countries where English is the first and often only language of most people (dark colour)?

• countries where besides English as a native language there is at least one other significant native tongue (lighter colour)?

• countries where English is not native, only official language (the lightest colour)?

English language − around the world

If you have any difficulties, see Appendix 7.

2. Look at the picture and read notes. What question is raised?

3. Do you agree or disagree with the quotations? Discuss them in pairs.

1. "We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them."  Abigail Adams

2. "If you can speak three languages you're trilingual.  If you can speak two languages you're bilingual.  If you can speak only one language you're an American."  Author Unknown

3. "The English language is nobody's special property.  It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself."  Derek Walcott

4. "Words, too, have genuine substance − mass and weight and specific gravity."  Tim O'Brien, Tomcat in Love

5. "Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery."  Mark Amidon

6. "Words want to be free!"  Author Unknown

7. "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."  Oliver Wendell Holmes

4. Discuss the following statements.

• English is a language of wider communication.

• English is the language of science.

• English is the language of business.

READING

5. Underline the stressed sound in each word as in the example. Practise reading.

gradually, monolingual, incompetence, inexorably, immaculate, universal, currency, importance, occasionally, fluctuated, counterpoint, throughout, medium

6. Read the article "Imperial English: the Language of Science" and match the statements to the paragraphs.

1. Meetings were often held in several languages.

2. Unlike Heisenberg, most American science students only speak English.

3. After World War II the USA became the international leader in science and technology.

4. American scientists have not needed to learn other languages for the last few decades.

5. Before World War II scientists had to learn foreign languages in order to understand scientific publications.

7. Answer the following questions.

1. Why did the author give such a title to the text?

2. What languages could Werner Heisenberg speak?

3. Do science students speak other languages (except the native one)? Give your reasons.

4. What languages were important (in order of importance) in the scientific world 200 years before World War II?

5. What languages could N.Bohr speak?

6. How was dominance of languages changed after World War II? Why?

7. What is the role of English in the scientific world now?