2. Образец текста для чтения и анализа (задание 2 экзаменационного билета):
EU leaders search for Greece rescue as financial markets watch and wait
European Union leaders meet in Brussels today tasked with putting together a rescue package for Greece as the single currency faces the greatest test in its history.
The meeting had originally been set up to discuss the eurozone's economic development over the next decade, but the debt crisis engulfing Greece has left EU leaders racing to deliver a credible solution to the country's problems.
The euro, stock markets across Europe and Greek bonds have rallied sharply in the past 48 hours on hopes that Germany and France will come to Greece's rescue. The euro was trading half a cent higher against the dollar at $1.3750 in early trading in London.
With the spectre of social unrest rising in Greece, investors are sceptical that the country's prime minister, George Papandreou, can deliver the spending cuts required to cut its deficit from 12.7pc of gross domestic product. That scepticism has left the euro almost 5pc lower against the dollar so far this year and sent the cost of borrowing for Greece spiralling.
Analysts say the stakes are high for today's summit, which is due to begin at 10:15am and includes Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank. Press conferences are currently scheduled for 4:45pm and markets around the world will be waiting for eurozone countries to send a convincing signal of financial support1.
Gary Jenkins, head of credit at Evolution Securities, said there would be "blood on the walls" in trading rooms if the EU fails to deliver after its barrage of leaks talking up a bail-out.
Germany and France have set the stage for the meeting by working on options such as loan guarantees as long Mr Papandreou overcomes street protests and makes deeper cuts to the EU’s biggest budget deficit.
Markets are likely to welcome a rescue package that removes the immediate risk of rapid contagion to Spain and Portugal, the other eurozone countries struggling with large deficits, experts say it's a 'double-edged sword for the euro.'
Gregg Gibbs, a strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said that "while a support package for Greece may remove the immediate risk of rapid contagion, it transfers more risk to the core, and will have permanently damaged the credibility of the euro as a better reserve currency than the dollar. It will infect the European Central Bank's monetary policy and generate stress between EU countries." he said.
2.1. План реферирования и анализа текста
(задание 2 экзаменационного билета):
Text Analysis
1. Speak of the author (if his / her name is mentioned) and the title of the text.
2. Define the type of the text and its style (publicistic style, the style of official documents, newspaper style, scientific prose style). In case you deal with a newspaper article define its type: general news / brief news items / feature story / commentary / column / editorial. Speak on the headline and structure of the article.
3. Give a summary of the extract (story) under consideration (the gist, the content of the story in a nutshell). Formulate the main idea conveyed by the author (the main line of the thought, the author's message).
4. Define the prevailing mood (tone, slant) of the extract. It may be lyrical, dramatic, tragic, optimistic / pessimistic, melodramatic, sentimental, unemotional / emotional, pathetic, dry and matter-of-fact, gloomy, bitter, sarcastic, cheerful, etc.
5. Analyse functional stylistic peculiarities of the text: structure, way of introducing information, sentence-patterns and sentence-structure, vocabulary (literary-colloquial stylistic layer; literary-bookish layer: terms, poeticisms, foreign words; non-literary stylistic layer: colloquialisms, slangisms, professionalisms, regional dialectisms etc.), grammatical peculiarities of the text taking into consideration its style, the use of expressive means and stylistic devices (phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic).
6. Sum up your own observations and draw conclusions. Point out the author's language means which make up the essential properties of his individual style.
2.2. A Glossary of Rhetoric Terms with Examples
Alliteration: repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.
*Let us go forth to lead the land we love. J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural
*Veni, vidi, vici. Julius Caesar
Anadiplosis: ("doubling back") the rhetorical repetition of one or several words; specifically, repetition of a word that ends one clause at the beginning of the next.
*Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business. Francis Bacon
Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.
*We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. Winston Churchill.
Antithesis: opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.
*Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
*Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Apostrophe: a sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present.
*For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Archaism: use of an older or obsolete form.
*Pipit sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; T. S. Eliot, "A Cooking Egg"
Assonance: repetition of the same sound in words close to each other.
*Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
Asyndeton: lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.
*We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural
Euphemism: substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.
*When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door – a wife in this situation finds herself staring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it – and outside the door would be a man... come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, "burned beyond recognition," which anyone who had been around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect.
*My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should got to praise Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
Irony: expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another.
*Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Litotes: understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. (Sometimes used synonymously with meiosis.)
*A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable.
*War is not healthy for children and other living things.
*One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. (meiosis)
Metaphor: implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it.
*Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth
Metonymy: substitution of one word for another which it suggests.
*He is a man of the cloth.
*The pen is mightier than the sword.
*By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.
Onomatopoeia: use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of sound to sense.
*"Сlunk click, every trip" (click the seatbelt on after clunking the car door closed; UK campaign)
Oxymoron: apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another.
*Festina lente.
*I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet
Paradox: an assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.
*What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw
Paronomasia: use of similar sounding words; often etymological word-play.
*...culled cash, or cold cash, and then it turned into a gold cache. E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate
*The dying Mercutio: Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Personification: attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.
*England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson
Pleonasm: use of superfluous or redundant words, often enriching the thought.
*No one, rich or poor, will be excepted.
*Ears pierced while you wait!
Polysyndeton: the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses.
*I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Bay and she was all right only she was full of water. Hemingway, After the Storm
Simile: an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'.
*My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, Sonnet CXLVII
Synecdoche: understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)
*Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6
*The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of ‘The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals’.)
Tautology: repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or sentence.
*With malice toward none, with charity for all. Lincoln, Second Inaugural
Zeugma: two different words linked to a verb or an adjective which is strictly appropriate to only one of them.
*Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn.
2.3. A List of Useful Words and Expressions
The story / article deals with / is concerned with / describes / examines / reveals / exposes / dwells on / explains / addresses / discusses / presents / covers / outlines / states / offers / considers / looks into / treats
The action takes place in ...
The plot of the story centres round ...
The plot of the story is complicated (intricate, tangled up, trite, commonplace, simple).
The story has a(n) interesting / entertaining / exciting / gripping / amusing / enjoyable / funny / witty / banal / skillfully developed / slow-moving / fast-moving plot.
The gist/core of the problem raised in the text/story/article is ...
The subject taken up in the story/article is ...
The issues/problems of... are the concern of this article.
This problem is the subject of the article.
The problems addressed in the article are acute / urgent / vital / burning.
The main idea/message of the story is ...
... is the main thread of the story.
The idea is conveyed through the presentation of ... (the dialogue of...)
The moral of the story is ...
The central conflict of the story is ...
The story/ article has a deep emotional/intellectual appeal.
The content is an objective/subjective reflection of reality.
The story/ article/ passage deals with the burning problems of life: politics, economics, education, marriage, and so on.
This story/ article/ passage is intended to provoke thought.
This story/ article/ passage gives food for thought.
The story is characterized by gripping narrative and deep emotional impact.
The story is permeated with irony/lofty ideas/strong feelings.
The story is an in-depth study of human nature.
The story reveals human virtues and vices.
The story shows the author's concern with the moral principles.
The author gives an account of...
The author conveys his emotions to the reader using ...
The author brings to the reader's notice ...
The author gives a comprehensive and vivid picture of...
The author remains concentrated on these problems throughout the story.
In this story the author voices dissatisfaction with ...
The author's attention is focused on ...
In this story / article / abstract the author turns to the conflicts of contemporary life.
The reader grasps the idea that ...
... serves to convey to the reader the mood of the narrator / author.
It is ... that falls under the author's observation.
The author's sympathy lies with ...
The author's real central figure seems to be ...
... is given by the author with great force and skill.
... leads to comical effect.
... intensifies the total effect.
... adds much to the revelation of...
... stands in contrast to ...
The compositional arrangement of the text (stylistic devices) help to bring the idea out (to create tense atmosphere, to show the real state of things, to present author’s thoughts clearly, etc.).
The author resorts to high-flown phrases / expressions to show ...
The enumeration shows the author's striving for an exhaustive and fully detailed presentation of the phenomenon dealt with.
The choice of vocabulary and stylistic devices is admirable.
The following stylistic devices contribute to the expressiveness of the passage.
The author makes extensive use of ... to render the story more vivid, convincing, more real and emotional.
All the descriptive attributes used in the passage serve to convey to the reader ...
The description of ...is contrasted to that of...