Listen to the recording, transcribe the poem, indicate intonation, read, learn the poem by heart and recite it in class.

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Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

I wondered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high over vales and hills.

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay;

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced but they

Out-did the sparking waves in glee.

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company;

I gazed and gazed but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my coach I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

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Self-study texts

Listen to the recording. Prepare to read the speech aloud by marking pauses, intonation etc.

The Gettysburg Address

This speech was made by Abraham Lincoln, in November 1863 during the American Civil War, to consecrate the battlefield at Gettysburg as a national cemetery.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they have the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Why twenty-one?

Although this text is from a written article, it could very well be part of a formal opening speech in a debate on the motion: 'Young people should have the vote at eighteen'. It was written before the law was changed in Britain lowering the minimum voting age from twenty-one to eighteen and before the abolition of capital punishment.

I am led to wonder why in England and in many other countries of the West the twenty-first birthday forms the frontier between legal infancy and responsibility. Why should the number twenty-one possess a significance so mystical? Is it because twenty-one is a multiple of that occult number seven? Is it because it represents a generation plus one year? Enquiries of eminent legal authorities have been met only with embarrassed ignorance.

It seems mad enough that from the age of eighteen onwards boys can swing for the murder of a policeman, but are still not entitled to vote or to be sued in the courts for debt.

In France, before the Revolution, the Kings attained their majority, 1 fancy, at the age of fifteen - Louis XV, if I remember rightly, celebrated his fifteenth birthday by ending the regency of the due de Bourbon under which he had increasingly chafed; and the luckless Kings of the Arab world - where the assassin's bomb or bullet lifts babies to the throne more often than not - also, I believe, regard fifteen as the natural age when regal powers are assumed.

During the recent General Election, the Labour Party suggested that the qualifying age for voters should be lowered below twenty-one to eighteen.

There is in theory at least a strong case for intelligence tests before a citizen is entitled to cast a vote. There might also be something to be said for raising the minimum voting age to twenty-five or even thirty. But if you accept the assumption that anyone of twenty-one is fit to decide how the country shall be governed, then, why not eighteen? If by that age a young creature has not got his wits about him, he never will.

Task on the text

Prepare a public speech using the intonation style and clichés of the text.

Academicic style

Phonostylistic characteristics

Timbre of the voice	Authoritative, imposing, instructive
Loudness	Increased
Levels and range	Remarkably varied
Pauses	Rather long between, especially between the phonopassages; occasional use of breath-taking pauses
Speed, tempo	Normal, slow on the most important parts of the lecture
Rhythm	Properly organized, especially while giving the rules etc.
Types of Heads	Frequent use of Falling and Stepping Heads
Terminal tones	Compound terminal tones (High Fall + Low Rise; Fall-Rise); high categoric falls

Advantages of Phonetics

The first and most evident advantage of phonetics is the independence it gives us. In the first place, it makes us independent of residence abroad. Even if the learner intends to go to the country where the language is spoken, it is a great advantage to him to start with a thorough practical knowledge of the sounds in which he is to practice himself.

Secondly, phonetics makes us independent of native teachers. It is certain that a phonetically trained Englishman who has a clear knowledge of the relations between French and English sounds can teach French sounds to English people better than an unphonetic Frenchman – still more, an unphonetic Belgian, Swiss, or Pole – who is unable to communicate his pronunciation to his pupils, and perhaps speaks a vulgar, or dialectal form of French himself.

Again, phonetics enables an intelligent adult to get a sound elementary knowledge of the sounds of a foreign language without any help from outside – that is, if he has an adequate phonetic analysis and transcription to work with.

But the gain of a phonetic grasp of a language extends far beyond such special considerations. A secure grasp of the sounds of a language is a great strengthening of the mastery of its forms and meanings. A minute discrimination of similar sounds in closely allied languages is the surest safeguard against otherwise inevitable confusions.

Hence also the literary and aesthetic use of phonetics. Phonetics alone can breathe life into the dead mass of letters which constitute a written language, it alone can bring the rustic dialogues of our novels before every intelligent reader as living realities, and make us realize that leaving power and beauty of the ancient classical languages in prose and verse.

Phonetics is not merely an indirect strengthener of grammatical associations, it is an essential part of grammar itself.

A knowledge of sentence-stress and intonation is not only an essential part of elocution and correct pronunciation, but is also an integral part of the syntax of many languages.

In short, there is no branch of the study of language which can afford to dispense with phonetics.

(Henry Sweet. The Sounds of English. 1908)

Narration-speculation

Theatre

I must talk about why people don't go to the theatre in England today, in our time, and I would say first of all it's to do with the rise of other media, particularly film, particularly the cinema, and even more importantly, radio and television, particularly television. So it's a matter of competition, to some extent. I think that's probably the largest, the main reason why people don't go to the theatre very much, is that there's an easy alternative.

And in the past, particularly, although things are changing somewhat now, it was, it was quite a business to go to the theatre. And also there was a sense, there's a sense, it's been understood in Britain that theatre is for a minority part of the population. A certain class of people go to the theatre: middle class, upper middle class, and above. And when England was more class-conscious you could talk about classes like that. And the working class didn't go to the theatre: it wasn't their thing. So that's a change and a difference that we can observe as compared with Shakespeare's day, where we know that the so-called working class would go to the theatre then.

So to some extent there's a class aspect to the whole thing, why people don't go to the theatre. I think putting aside, if one puts aside historical reasons, I think those are the main things, really, it's a question of theatre having developed as a speciality, a leisure activity for a certain class of people. And then the rivalry of the other media coming in, particularly in the twentieth century. And those two factors together lead us to this very small percentage of people that actually go to the theatre.

And I think of those people that go to the theatre, there is - one of the problems of theatre is that it's a very sort of delicate medium, in the sense that if one goes to the theatre and one sees something that one doesn't like, it can be an acutely painful experience, in fact. And it's very easy to put people off theatre. You can go to the theatre maybe for the first time, see something awful, and never want to go to the theatre again.

It's the same experience that people sometimes have of Shakespeare for the first time. When they come across Shakespeare at school, it's presented to them badly or they're too young to appreciate it, it's a bore, it's a drag, it's a grind, and all they want to do is to get away from Shakespeare for the rest of their lives, which they invariably do. So Shakespeare is intimately connected with theatre, of course. He's at the very heart of our idea in England of what theatre is, and so there's a whole wedge of the population alienated from - just from education itself, through the education process.

That's, on the other hand, if you go to the theatre and see something that is a positive experience, then the chances are you'll be a convert to the theatre, and the chances are it'll be something you'll see from time to time throughout your life.

Now the revolution that's happened in our time in the theatre is that theatre has become rooted in reality, and begins to present all forms of everyday life to people. And so that, I think, that's widened the theatre audience as well. Theatre has become realistic; theatre has become relevant. And this happened in the fifties, with Look Back in Anger, Pinter, The Birthday Party, plays like that. So there's been a big change.

Poetry

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