Language practice

Exercise 3. a) Give the meanings of the words and phrases below, comment on their register and expressiveness and suggest synonyms of various degrees of formality. Think up Russian equivalents for them:

nary / to be at pains to do sth. // to be high/low on sth. // no mean achievement / per capita / conundrum / an ignoble scramble / to die hard / tax-sheltering, n / to sit well with smb. / to pinch sth. (fig.).

b) Find words and word-combinations in the text that can be used as synonyms for the ones below, comment on their difference, stylistic and otherwise. Think up appropriate contexts with them:

conceited / weak, not well thought-out / exact / inaccessible / newspaper / experienced / trivial; childish / shrewd / to succeed / major, adj / advice / joke, n / ambiguous / brainwashing.

Exercise 4. Identify the cultural information, things, stereotypes and topics in the text and comment on them.

Exercise 5. Phrasal Verbs Practice.

Write out all the sentences with phrasal verbs and their derivatives, look them up in a recent dictionary and write out more sentences with them. Translate the sentences in writing, possibly with a number of options for different speech situations.

Exercise 6. What other language from the text would you like to select for intensive study and why?

Exercise 7. Make up a list of topical vocabulary on the subject for the upper-intermediate learners, explain and practise it with your classmates.

Exercise 8. Complete and extend the chart.

a) THE BRITISH NATIONAL PRESS (newspapers)

Name	Format	Reporting	Politics	Register	Target readership	Ads
The Times …	Daily n/p	Analytical	R/c	Formal	Professional people, intellectuals	Airlines, charities, computers, property, shares, securities

The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Daily Star, The Sunday Sport

b) THE BRITISH NATIONAL PRESS (magazines)

Name	Reader ship	Interest	Contents	Reporting	Register	Ads
The Economist ...	Middle class	General	Business, politics	Analytical	Formal	Airlines, computers, securities

The Sunday Times Magazine, New Society, Private Eye, Punch, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Magazine, Harper’s and Queen, Field, Lady, New Scientist, Observer Magazine, You, The Daily Mail Magazine, Woman’s Own, Viz, The Listener, In Britain.

Do the magazine’s contents reflect their readership’s lifestyle?

Do all women’s magazines carry cooking sections?

Are the recipes in different magazines different or the same?

Can ads in magazines be seen as equally revealing social markers?

Are there magazines without any commercial ads in Britain?

c) Do similar charts on American and your country’s press. Which of the parameters do you find more relevant? Can you think up more effective parameters to classify the national press?

d) Use classifications above to scale the national press along one of parameters, e.g.:

British newspapers – a style and register scale

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