Instructions to Candidates
SECTION A (SHORT ANSWERS: 25 MARKS)
Question 1
Provide short, encyclopaedic entries to all the
terms below. Your entries should
Question 2
Examine the following passage from J D Salinger’s The
Catcher in the Rye (1951). The story is told from the point of view
of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield. Here, he describes his reaction to obscene
graffiti in his sister Phoebe’s school.
| Somebody’s written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them – all cock-eyed, naturally – what it meant …. I figured it was some perverty bum1 that’d sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak2 or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself catching him at it, and how I’d smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and goddam dead and bloody. But I knew, too, I wouldn’t have the guts to do it. I knew that. That made me even more depressed. I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with my hand, if you want to know the truth. I was afraid some teacher would catch me rubbing it off and would think I’d written it. But I rubbed it out anyway, finally. |
Question 3
The boxed passage below is from The Merchant of Venice
(1600) by Shakespeare. Antonio has borrowed a great deal of money from
the Jewish money lender, Shylock, who hates the Christian Antonio and has
made him sign a bond that allows him to claim a pound of Antonio’s flesh,
should he fail to return the money on time. In the passage, Salerio, a
close friend of Antonio, asks Shylock what he could possibly gain by claiming
a pound of flesh from Antonio. What follows is an impassioned reply from
Shylock in defence of his claim.
Read the passage and answer the questions (a) and
(b) set down below it.
| Salerio:
Why, I am sure if he forfeit thou wilt not take his flesh. What’s that
good for?
Shylock: To bait fish withal.3 If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation,4 thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason? – I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance5 be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.6 |
(a) Making use of the core-periphery distinction introduced in the lectures, discuss the ways in which the choices and combinations of words in the passage help the writer achieve exactly the effects he appears to be aiming at.
(b) To support your discussion, rewrite appropriate
portions of the passage substituting core words with matching non-core
words and vice versa, and show how such writing interferes with the achievement
of the effects aimed at. (Concentrate on lines: 2–5, 5–9 and 11–14).
Question 4
The boxed passage below is taken from an academic text:
the book, Linguistic Imperialism (1992) by Robert Phillipson.
In it, Phillipson considers the role of English in Third-World countries
and analyses factors that have led to its global dominance.
Read the passage and answer the questions (a) and (b) set down below it.
| Hegemony7 is not a simple matter of manipulation or indoctrination. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not all its own. The reality of any hegemony, in the extended political and cultural sense, is that, while by definition it is always dominant, it is never either total or exclusive. Hegemony does not imply a conspiracy theory, but a competing and complementary set of values and practices, with those in power better able to legitimate themselves and to convert their ideas into material power. |
(a) Provide a rewritten version of the passage which attempts to express what it says in the everyday conversational English you might use with friends in places like the canteen.
(b) Discuss the differences between the lexical, grammatical and other devices used by the two versions you now have of the passage. In doing so, show how the devices of the original passage help to present its writer’s viewpoint as neutral and objective, while the devices of your rewritten version help to reveal it clearly as just another opinion.
What does all this tell you about how academic writing typically works?
Question 5
‘I find the whole fuss about accents unnecessary. We
should focus on what people say instead of how they say it’ (Dr Tony Hung
in the [Singapore] Sunday Times, 11/8/96). Do you agree with Hung’s
view expressed about accents of English? Why then are some English speakers
(whether in or outside Singapore) so conscious about accents?
Question 6
Discuss the view that New Varieties of English (eg
Singapore English) can be likened to battlegrounds upon which one set of
norms are continually being challenged by another set of counter-norms.
Would you consider this a lamentable situation? Why, or why not? Provide
good arguments and effective data in support of your position.
Question 7
‘Whether we like it or not, change in language is inevitable.’
Why is this so? Discuss this in relation to any aspect of change in English
as a result of either the Viking settlement in Britain or
the Norman conquest or the spread of English in North America.
Question 8
Critically examine the role and status of Standard English
with reference to the social, economic, historical and ideological forces
that led to its emergence. Show how these factors, more than purely linguistic
considerations, have played a role in according Standard English its current
dominant position.