EL1102 exam: November 1997

National University of Singapore Department of English Language and Literature Semester 1 Examinations for Arts & Social Sciences 1 Semester 1 Examinations for Bachelor of Science 1 1997/98 EL1102: Studying English in Context October/November 1997 Time Allowed: 3 hours

This paper contains TEN (10) questions and comprises SIX (6) printed pages. Check that your paper is complete.
There are THREE SECTIONS (A, B and C) in this question paper.
Answer FOUR (4) questions: choose at least ONE (1) question from EACH SECTION.
Each question is worth 25 marks. Try to spend roughly the same amount of time for each question: about 45 minutes.

SECTION A (SHORT ANSWERS: 25 marks)

1. Provide short, encyclopaedic entries to all the terms below. Your entries should attempt to say what the terms mean or refer to, and suggest why they are significant or useful or necessary. Please use complete sentences in your entries, each of which should be about 50 words in length.

the Viking settlement in Britain
the mathetic function of English
convergence
creoles
flouting a maxim
Hymes’s SPEAKING model*
accent
nominalisation

*Note: This stands for Situation, Participants, Ends, Act sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms and Genre

SECTION B (REWRITING AND ANALYSIS: 25 marks each)

2. It has been said that the aim of informal conversation is to build up a relationship, so people try not to be distant or cold. Because there very often is very little planning time, conversation might also appear disorganised, and clauses might be joined loosely using parataxis, the lexis tends to be common, core ones, and the subject matter can shift very quickly.

Below is a transcript of some comments made by David Crystal, a fairly seasoned British broadcaster and writer as well as academic. In what way does his speech look like conversation, and in what way doesn’t it look like conversation? You might find it helpful to ‘translate’ one or two sentences so that they are completely conversational and/or completely like a written, academic text. You might also want to discuss why he talks like this in a radio programme.

‘If you compare, for example, the British Oxford English Dictionary and the American Webster’s Third International Dictionary, they both consist of about half a million words, but something like half the words in the Oxford Dictionary are not in the Webster’s, and half the words in the Webster’s are not in the Oxford. Add the two together, plus a lot more besides, and you’ve got at least a million words in English and many, many more. If you go around the English-speaking world, you find that the main feature that identifies Australian versus Canadian versus Indian versus South African versus Jamaican is the distinctive home-grown vocabulary and idiom that identifies these cultures. This is the characteristic of English right from the outset. English seems to open its arms wide and say to any language that it comes into contact with, "I love your vocabulary! Gimme, gimme, gimme!" ’ (David Crystal in a radio programme)

3. Examine the following portion of the story of the Prodigal Son in Old English (OE). Glosses in italics have been added above the OE text. Some words have been further explained in square brackets, and additional words have been added in round brackets to clarify the meaning.

Provide a translation of the passage in contemporary English. (Feel free to add in as many details as necessary.)
How is the OE version different from your new version. Comment on the lexis, grammar and organisation. Suggest reasons for the presence of these features in OE and in contemporary English.

And he arose then and came to his father. and then yet that he was far (from) his father.
And he aras þa and com to his fæder. and þa gyt þa he wæs feorr his fæder.

he him saw and became with mild-heartedness [compassion] stirred and
he hinne geseah and wearð mid mildheortnesse astyred and

back (to)    him    ran and    him   clasped [embraced] and kissed him.   then said      his   son
ongean hine arn and hine beclypte and cyste hine. ða cwæð his sunu.

father. I sinned on [against] heaven and before thee [you].
fæder. ic syngode on heofon and beforen ðe.

4. In the poem in the box below, the poet D H Lawrence nostalgically tells us of how hearing of a song sung on a piano transports him back to a time when his mother used to sing to him as a child, leaving the present singer entirely irrelevant.

Using the core/periphery distinction you are familiar with, discuss the ways in which the choices and combinations of words in the poem help Lawrence achieve exactly the effects he appears to be aiming at.
Provide a rewritten prose version of selected portions of the poem which will substitute matching non-core words for core words in the poem, and vice versa. Use this version to support your discussion in (a), showing how such rewriting interferes with the achievement of the effects which appear to be aimed at.

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down a vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato.* The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in a flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

* An Italian borrowing into musical terminology, meaning ‘with strong feeling’.

5. The boxed passage below, which may be taken to be a fairly representative example of academic writing, is taken from a UN report produced in 1951. One possible way of interpreting what the passage is saying is as follows: if poor countries want to progress, they must change themselves culturally and otherwise along lines determined by ideas of development which have emerged in rich and powerful countries, even though many people who do not play along will suffer; if these people and countries do not play along, it is their own fault. (Some would argue that this position ignores completely the role that the richer countries and the economic systems that they have developed have played in making and keeping the other countries poor.)

Provide a brief rewritten version of the passage in which you set its argument down in everyday conversation among friends.
Show how academic writing typically works by discussing the linguistic differences between the two versions of the passage you now have. In doing so, also compare and contrast the two passages in terms of ‘neutrality’ or ‘objectivity’ of presentation.

There is a sense in which rapid economic progress is impossible without painful adjustments. Ancient philosophies have to be scrapped; old social institutions have to disintegrate; bonds of caste, creed and race have to burst; and large numbers of persons who cannot keep up with progress have to have their expectations of a comfortable life frustrated. Very few communities are willing to pay the full price of economic progress.

SECTION C (ESSAYS: 25 marks each)

6. ‘English quite obviously is the richest language in the world today because it has never succumbed to the purist like the French have purists — they’re the worst enemies of language. English is a bastard language. That’s why it’s virile. It’s healthy. It’s absorbed every language that it has come into contact with.’ (Kushwant Singh, Indian writer and former newspaper editor, in a radio programme.)

What does Kushwant Singh mean when he describes the English language as a ‘bastard language’? You may focus on any aspect of its ‘bastard’ status (eg just one period of history, or just lexis or grammar) and show this has affected the language.

7. ‘We seem to be moving … towards a social and linguistic situation in which nobody says or writes or probably knows anything more than an approximation to what he or she means.’ (Kingsley Amis, British novelist)

Amis seems to be bemoaning the way the English language has been changing in recent years. What are some of the reasons for change? Do you agree with Amis that linguistic change leads to imprecision?

8. Standard languages and language planning are often discussed in terms of ideal or objective criteria and considerations.

How, if at all, might a study of the history of standard English lead you to question this approach?

9. In 1779, Noah Webster, the famous American dictionary maker declared: ‘As an independent nation, our honour requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, should no longer be our standard.’ Early in the next century, the same Webster said of English in America: ‘The body of the language is the same as in England and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness.’

What does this contradiction tell you about how it might be useful to approach the study of the development of American English?

10. Briefly examining specific linguistic and social features of Singapore English, discuss why it might not be satisfactory to characterise it as a deviant, non-native variety of English.

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