IV. Is English Appropriate for a Global Language?

Some have also argued that there are other intrinsic features of the English language that set it apart, and make it an appropriate choice as a global language and it may be worthwhile investigating some of these claims:

· The richness and depth of English's vocabulary sets it apart from other languages. The 1989 revised "Oxford English Dictionary" lists 615,000 words in 20 volumes, officially the world’s largest dictionary. If technical and scientific words were to be included, the total would rise to well over a million. By some estimates, the English lexicon is currently increasing by over 8,500 words a year, although other estimates put this as high as 15,000 to 20,000. It is estimated that about 200,000 English words are in common use, as compared to 184,000 in German, and mere 100,000 in French. The availability of large numbers of synonyms allows shades of distinction that are just not available to non-English speakers and, although other languages have books of synonyms, none has anything on quite the scale of "Roget’s Thesaurus". Add to this the wealth of English idioms and phrases, and the available material with which to express meaning is truly prodigious, whether the intention is poetry, business or just everyday conversation.

· It is a very flexible language. One example of this is in respect of word order and the ability to phrase sentences as active or passive (e.g. I kicked the ball, or the ball was kicked by me). Another is in the ability to use the same word as both a noun and a verb (such as drink, fight, silence, etc.). New words can easily be created by the addition of prefixes or suffixes (e.g. brightness, fixation, unintelligible, etc.), or by compounding or fusing existing words together (e.g. airport, seashore, footwear, etc.). Just how far English’s much-vaunted flexibility should go (or should be allowed to go) is a hotly-debated topic, though. For example, should common but incorrect usages (e.g. disinterested to mean uninterested; infer to mean imply; forego to mean forgo; flout to mean flaunt; fortuitous to mean fortunate; etc.) be accepted as part of the natural evolution of the language, or reviled as inexcusable sloppiness which should be summarily nipped in the bud?

· Its grammar is generally simpler than most languages. It dispenses completely with noun genders (hence, no dithering between le plumeorla plume, or between el mano or la mano), and often dispenses with the article completely (e.g. It is time to go to bed). The distinction between familiar and formal addresses were abandoned centuries ago (the single English word you has seven distinct choices in German: du, dich, dir, Sie, Ihnen, Ihr and euch). Case forms for nouns are almost non-existent (with the exception of some personal pronouns like I/me/mine, he/him/his, etc), as compared to Finnish, for example, which has fifteen forms for every noun, or Russian which has 12. In German, each verb has 16 different forms (Latin has a possible 120!), while English only retains 5 at most (e.g. ride, rides, rode, riding, ridden) and often only requires 3 (e.g. hit, hits, hitting).

· Some would also claim that it is also a relatively simple language in terms of spelling and pronunciation, although this claim is perhaps more contentious. While it does not require mastery of the subtle tonal variations of Cantonese, nor the bewildering consonant clusters of Welsh or Gaelic, it does have more than its fair share of apparently random spellings, silent letters and phonetic inconsistencies (consider, for example, the pronunciation of the “ou” in thou, though, thought, through, thorough, tough, plough and hiccough, or the “ea” in head, heard, bean, beau and beauty). There are somewhere between 44 and 52 unique sounds used in English pronunciation (depending on the authority consulted), almost equally divided between vowel sounds and consonants, as compared to 26 in Italian, for example, or just 13 in Hawaiian. This includes some sounds which are notoriously difficult for foreigners to pronounce (such as “th”, which also comes in two varieties, as in thought and though, or in mouth as a noun and mouth as a verb), and some sounds which have a huge variety of possible spellings (such as the sound “sh”, which can be written as in shoe, sugar, passion, ambitious, ocean, champagne, etc, or the long “o” which can be spelled as in go, show, beau, sew, doe, though, depot, etc). In its defense, though, its consonants at least are fairly regular in pronunciation, and it is blessedly free of the accents and diacritical marks which festoon many other languages. Also, its borrowings of foreign words tend to preserve the original spelling (rather than attempting to spell them phonetically). It has been estimated that 84% of English spellings conform to general patterns or rules, while only 3% are completely unpredictable (3% of a very large vocabulary is, however, still quite a large number, and this includes such extraordinary examples as colonel, ache, eight, etc.). Arguably, some of the inconsistencies do help to distinguish between homophones like fissure and fisher; seas and seize; air and heir; aloud and allowed; weather and whether; chants and chance; flu, flue and flew; reign, rein and rain; etc.

· Some argue that the cosmopolitan character of English (from its adoption of thousands of words from other languages with which it came into contact) gives it a feeling of familiarity and welcoming compared to many other languages (such as French, for example, which has tried its best to keep out other languages).

· Despite a tendency towards jargon, English is generally reasonably concise compared to many languages, as can be seen in the length of translations (a notable exception is Hebrew translations, which are usually shorter than their English equivalents by up to a third). It is also less prone to misunderstandings due to cultural subtleties than, say, Japanese, which is almost impossible to simultaneously translate for that reason.

· The absence of coding for social differences (common in many other languages which distinguish between formal and informal verb forms and sometimes other more complex social distinctions) may make English seem more democratic and remove some of the potential stress associated with language-generated social blunders.

· The extent and quality of English literature throughout history marks it as a language of culture and class. As a result, it carries with it a certain legitimacy, substance and gravitas that few other languages can match.

VI. Network Topology

Networks can be arranged in different geometric patterns. This arrangement is called network topology. There are common topologies:

1. Bus: an arrangement of computer systems in a straight line, connected to a central cable, known as a bus. A bus network is cheap and easy to install, and is best suited to small networks. However, this type of topology is not used very often in LAN implementations today because it is relatively difficult to add new users or more existing users. It is usually difficult to troubleshoot problems and errors in a bus-based LAN unless it is a very small network. If any fault in backbone can stops all transmission.

2. Ring: a circular arrangement. Ring networks are more expensive and difficult to set up, break in a single ring can break entire network; but they can cover large distances, they are easy for reconfigure and fault identification. Ring topologies are found in some office buildings or school campuses. Today high speed LANs made this topology less popular.

3. Double ring: a topology built on two rings. The first ring is the main path for data transmission. Second is the backup path, the primary backup.

4. Star: a topology where a local area network designed in the shape of a star, where all the users are connected to one central switch or hub (a device in a network that allows data to be transferred and shared between other points in the networks). Star networks are easier to manage than a ring topology, less expensive then mesh topology, it’s easy to install and configure. Star topology has a feature such as robustness (if one link fails; only that links is affected. All other links remain active). But this topology is slower because every message must pass through a hub. And that’s why there is no independence (the whole network depends on the hub).

5. Mesh: this type of network topology is the most reliable of all the networks topologies and it also usually the most expensive. In a mesh topology each part of the network is connected to every other part of the network by its own cable.

Advantages:

· The topology uses the dedicated links so each link can only carry its own data load. So traffic problem can be avoided.

· It is robust. If anyone link get damaged it cannot affect others.

· It gives privacy and security. The message travels along a dedicated link.

· Fault identification and fault isolation are easy.

Disadvantages:

· The amount of cabling and the number of I/O ports required are very large. Since every device is connected to each devices through dedicated links.

· The sheer bulk of wiring is larger than the available space.

· Hardware required to be connected each device is highly expensive.

6. Tree: a topology that is one of the most common network setups that it is similar to a bus topology and a star topology. A tree topology connects multiple star networks to other star networks.

7. Fat tree: in the contrast to the classical topology tree in which all communications between nodes are the same, communication in a thickened tree becomes wider (thick, productive throughput) with each level as you get closer to the root of the tree.

8. Hybrid: a network which contains all type of physical structure and connected under a single backbone channel.

9. Grid: a topology with the concept of the theory of computer networking.

10. Mixed: a topology that uses in large networks with arbitrary connections between computers.

Appendix 2

List of Abbreviations

AI Artificial Intelligence

ASDL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

ATM Automatic Teller Machine

BAN Body Area Network

CAN Campus Area Network

CCTV Closed-Circuit TV

CD Compact Disk

CPU Central Processing Unit

DAB Digital Audio Broadcasting

DAW Digital Audio Workstation

DNA Delivery Network Accelerator

DSL Digital Subscriber Line

DTP Desktop Publishing

DV Digital Video (camera)

DVD Digital Video Disk

E-commerce Electronic Commerce

FTP File Transfer Protocol

GPRS General Packet Radio Service

GPU Graphics Processing Unit

GPS Global Positioning System

GSM Global System for Mobile communication

HAN Home Area Network

HD High Definition

HMD Head-Mounted Display

HTML Hyper Text Markup Language

ICT Information Communication Technology

ID Identification

IRC Internet Relay Chat

ISP Internet Service Provider

IT Information Technology

Jpeg Joint Photographic Experts Group

LAN Local Area Network

LBS Location-Based Services

LCD Liquid Crystal Display

LED Light Emitting Diode (TV)

LMS Learning Management System

LTE Long Term Evolution

MAN Metropolitan Area Network

MP3 Media Player 3 (player)

MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group

MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching

MSP Managed Service Provider

OS Operating System

OSS Open Source Software

PA Personal Assistant

PABX Private Branch Exchange

PAN Personal Area Network

PBX Private Branch Exchange

PC Personal Computer

PDA Personal Digital Assistant

PIN Personal Identification Number

Ping Packet Internet Groper (test)

POP Points of Presence

PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

PTT Public Telephone and Telegraph

RAM Random Access Memory

ROM Read only Memory

RW Read-Write

RFID Radio Frequency Identification

SaaS Software as s Service

SAN Storage area Network

SIM-card Subscriber Identification Module

SME Small & Medium Size Enterprises

SMS Short Message Service

TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TFT Thin Film Transistor (screen)

TV Television

VLE Virtual Leaning Environment

VoIP Voice over IP

VPN Virtual Private Network

VR Virtual Reality

VRML Virtual Reality Modelling Language

UMTS Universal Mobile Telecom System

UPS Uninterruptable Power Supply

URL Uniform Resource Locator

USB Universal Serial Bus

WAN Wide Area Network

WAP Wireless Application Protocol

Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity

Wi-Max Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access

WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

WWW World Wide Web

СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

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7. Esteras, S. R. Infotech: Teacher’s book. / S. R. Esteras ; Cambridge University Press, 4^th Edition. 2008. – 168 c.

8. Esteras, S. R., Fabre E. M. Professional English in Use ICT. / S. R. Esteras, E. M. Fabre ; Cambridge University Press. 2007. – 117 c.

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12. Ricca-McCarthy, T. English for Telecoms and Information Technology. / T. Ricca-McCarthy, M. Duckworth ; Oxford University Press. – Oxford. 2013.– 96с.

13. Sauter, M. Communication Systems for the Mobile Information Society. / M. Sauter ; John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2006. – 355 c.

14. http://blocs.xtec.cat/itenglish/

15. http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com

16. http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-english-language/

17. https://lifehacker.ru/2016/05/01/vr-headsets/

18. http://lms.spbgut.ru

19. http://moodle.org,

20. http://nearfieldcommunication.org/payment-systems.html

21. http://vuzyinfo.ru/gosudarstvennye/rejting-samyx-luchshix-vuzov-stolicy-dlya-postupleniya.html

22. http://vuzyinfo.ru/gosudarstvennye/vuzy-sankt-peterburga-zanyavshie-pervye-pozicii-rejtinga-2015-goda.html

23. http://www.blackboard.com

24. http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/computers.html

25. http://www.raexpert.ru/rankings/vuz/vuz_2016/

26. https://www.rsaconference.com/writable/presentations/file_upload/ht-w01-how-secure-are-contact-less-payment-systems_final.pdf

27. http://www.smartcardalliance.org/publications-contactless-payments-what-who-why/

28. http://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings

Сыроватская Елена Федоровна

Галиева Татьяна Ринатовна

ИНОСТРАННЫЙ ЯЗЫК

(АНГЛИЙСКИЙ)

Учебное пособие

По чтению и устной речи

(для 1 семестра)

Редактор И. И. Щенсняк

Компьютерная верстка Н. А. Ефремова

План издания 2016 г., п. 162

Подписано к печати 30.09.2016

Объем 3,75 усл.-печ. л. Тираж 403 экз. Заказ…

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Отпечатано в СПбГУТ

[1]1. English is the official language in many of Britain's former colonies, such as America, Australia and New Zealand. 2. The economic power of Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, and of the US in the 20th century, helped to make English the language of world trade. 3. Entertainment has helped to spread the use of English, because of the worldwide popularity of English-language films, TV programmes and pop music.

[2]http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com

[3]http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-english-language/

[4] It is a software system designed to help teachers in the managements of educational courses for their students by creating a virtual classroom.

[5]https://lifehacker.ru/2016/05/01/vr-headsets/

[6]http://nearfieldcommunication.org/payment-systems.html, https://www.rsaconference.com/writable/presentations/file_upload/ht-w01-how-secure-are-contact-less-payment-systems_final.pdf

http://www.smartcardalliance.org/publications-contactless-payments-what-who-why/

[7]http://www.blackboard.com, http://moodle.org, http://lms.spbgut.ru

[8]http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/computers.html

[9] extensive-hardware-vocabulery.pdf, verbs-related-to-hardware.pdf, where-is-it_prepositions-of-place.pdf

[10] 1. Ethernet is one of the most common cabling systems.

2. Ethernet is one of the most common protocols for LANs.

3. Ethernet is a very high broadband network used by companies in LANs and in WANs.

[11]Read the addition text “Network Topology” (Ex.№6-8)

[12]http://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings

[13]http://www.raexpert.ru/rankings/vuz/vuz_2016/, http://vuzyinfo.ru/gosudarstvennye/rejting-samyx-luchshix-vuzov-stolicy-dlya-postupleniya.html, http://vuzyinfo.ru/gosudarstvennye/vuzy-sankt-peterburga-zanyavshie-pervye-pozicii-rejtinga-2015-goda.html