Transcript Document

Lesson 11
The Future of the English
Pre-Text Questions
What is the writing mainly about?
What kind of writing is this one?
part an exposition and part an argument
What are the differences between exposition and
argument?
How many subcategories can argument fall into?
formal and informal
What is the controversial topic of this writing?
The English are different.
John Boynton Priestley
Detailed Study of the Text
To describe the English people in political terms
that are generally used all over the world such as
being politically left, centre or right, will result in
a waste of time and effort.
How can we understand and translate this
Englishness ?
instinctive feeling
natural or inborn feeling
rational thought thought arrived at after reasoning
neo-or-potential Fascists
have more than their share
have comparatively more than other countries (esp.
when considering the small size of the country and
the population)
the English people may hotly argue and abuse and
quarrel with each other but there still exists a lot
of natural sympathetic feeling for each other
Not everybody may have or be able to display this
instinctive fellow-feeling.
shop steward
a union member elected to represent coworkers
in dealings with management
what the wealthy employers would really like to
do is to whip all the workers whom they consider
to be lazy and troublesome people
there are not many snarling shop stewards in the
workshop, nor are there many cruel wealthy
employers on the board of managers
cancer
something destructive and malignant in their
character
inheritance
qualities that go together with Englishness and
which have been handed down generation after
generation
The contemporary world demands that everything
be done on a big scale and the English do not like
or trust bigness.
What’s the difference between rational
and
reasonable ?
consistent with or based on reason
being within the bounds of common sense
often the product of cold logical thinking but not
sensible
admass
section of the public that is thought to be easily
influenced by advertising and the media
Admass
the art of advertising or way of persuading people
to buy stuff which they may not need
battle
conflict between Admass and Englishness
At least on the surface, when Englishness is put
against the power and success of Admass,
Englishness seems to put up a rather poor weak
performance.
Englishness
Admass
a faint pencil sketch
a poster in full colour
build into construct/include as an integral part of
The new policy intends to build stability into the
economy.
while Englishness is not hostile to change,…sake
Englishness is not against change, but it believes
that changing just for changing and for no other
useful purpose could be very wrong and harmful
To put cars … before houses…imbecility.
To regard cars and motorways as more important
than houses seems to Englishness a public
stupidity.
I must admit…Admass could be winning.
I must further say that while Englishness can go
on fighting, there is a great possibility of Admass
winning.
Train themselves out of it
deliberately and intentionally throw away their
Englishness
moral capital
a reservoir of strong moral and ethical principles
It must have some moral capital…for an overdraft.
Englishness draws its strength from a reservoir of
strong moral and ethical principles, and soon it
may be asking for strength which this reservoir of
principles cannot supply.
catch a deception; tricky condition
Where’s this ‘Good life’ in sweating…caper?
How can there be a “Good Life” when one has to
work extremely raising the productivity of every
man every hour?
Did the author make his point clear at this point?
How can we translate the word pretending here?
certainly not where there is a genuine…on hand
certainly not in places where workers still take
real pride, though this may seem rather old
-fashioned, in the work they are doing
industrial action
a general strike
an ideology legitimizing direct industrial action
by the workers
bloody-mindedness the aggressive obstinacy
What did the author determine as the innermost
cause for all this chaos?
it
the awareness of this conflict
huge organizations powerful trade unions
syndicalism
a theory and movement of trade unionism in
which all means of production and distribution
would be brought under the control of federations
of labor unions by the use of direct action, such
as general strikes
they were in the van
they were the leaders of the movement
they are like a hippopotamus blundering in and
out of a pets’ tea party
count
any of the charges in an indictment, each
of which gives a reason and is sufficient
for prosecution; any of a group of offences
of which a person is accused
two counts of forgery and one of fraud
These people probably believe, as I do, that the
“Good Life” promised by Admass is false and
dishonest in all respects.
Tory
runaway or fugitive
conservative politicians
member of a former British political party,
traditionally in opposition to the Whig Party.
director
sb. who administers or directs
a commercial
They can be found too—though there are not many
of them now because these kind of people are
dying out—among the curt, bad-tempered,
extremely conservative politicians who refuse to
accept high posts in big commercial enterprises.
swing
conform
to cause to come about successfully;
manage with the desired results
act in accordance with current
customs or modes
Hippy California
Madison Avenue
the road to Katmandu
a group of cattle or other domestic
animals of a single kind kept together
herd
for a specific purpose
they have not been trained by hard and cruel
circumstances to practice self-control and
behave in an orderly way
he will not even find much satisfaction in his
untidy and disordered life where he manages to
live as a parasite by sponging on people. This
kind of life does not help a person to build up
any self-respect.
fall between two stools
fail to be either of two satisfactory alternatives
vandalism
willful or malicious destruction of public or
private property
showing inability to look ahead into
myopic
the future
What is your understanding of the word fair in
the brackets?
But those roots must be needing nourishment.
But they need new moral sustenance to keep
them flourishing.
What features does east wind have?
dry, cold, harsh
Englishness cannot flourish on narrow logical
reasoning, the latest financial figures of profit
and loss, nor a constant appeal to self-interest.
In what sense does Priestley put politician and
statesman in sharp contrast?