JUST MORGAN by Susan BethPfeffer



Н. А. Постоловская

Interpretation Through Self-Access

 

 

 

IFL

Екатеринбург 2010


Министерство образования и науки РФ

Государственное образовательное учреждение

высшего профессионального образования

«Уральский государственный педагогический университет»

Институт иностранных языков

Кафедра английского языка

 

Постоловская Н. А.

 

Interpretation Through Self-Access

 

Екатеринбург 2010


УДК 42(075-8)

ББШ 143.21-921

П63

Постоловская Н. А.

Interpretation through self-access = дидактический материал для самостоятельной подготовки [Текст]: учебное пособие / Н. А. Постоловская; Урал. гос. пед. ун-т – Екатеринбург 2010 – 28 с.

Пособие содержит пояснительный материал, примеры вариантов интерпретации текста и задания для самостоятельной работы.

Пособие предназначено для студентов 5 курса заочного и дневного отделения (специальность 050303 иностранный язык – английский) и может быть использовано как для самостоятельной, так и для аудиторной работы.

 

УДК 42(075.8)

ББ.Ш143.21-921

 

Учебное издание

Постоловская Наталья Алексеевна

Interpetation Through Self-Access

Интерпретация текста. Дидактический материал для самостоятельной подготовки

Учебное пособие

 

Макет: Муханова Ю. В.

Подписано в печать:  Формат 60х84/16.

Бумага для множительных аппаратов. Печать на ризографе.

Усл. печ. л.     Тираж      экз. Заказ         

Оригинал-макет отпечатан в отделе множительной техники Уральского государственного педагогического университета.

620017, Екатеринбург, просп. Космонавтов, 26

E-mail: uspu@uspu.ru

 

 

© ГОУ ВПО «Уральский государственный

педагогический университет», 2010

© Постоловская Н. А., 2010


CONTENTS

Пояснительная записка……………………………………………………………………..5

I. Paragraph analysis. Explanatory notes…..…………………………………6

A sample of analysis (from “A Private View)…………………………………………..6

“Just Morgan” (text and tasks)…………………………………………………………….11

“The Captain and the Enemy” (Text and tasks)……………………………………..12

II. Lexical field analysis. Explanatory notes……………………………… .15

“A Private View” (text)………………………………………………………………………..17

A sample of analysis of this text…………………………………………………………..18

Tasks to the text…………………………………………………………………………………19

“Second Skin” (text)…………………………………………………………………………..20

A sample of analysis of this text…………………………………………………………..21

Tasks to the text…………………………………………………………………………………22

III. Comments. Explanatory notes……………………………..………………..22

A sample of comments (“A private View)……………………………………………..24

“A Kiss Before Dying” (text)………………………………………………………………..26

A sample of comments with a task……………………………………………………….27


Пояснительная записка

Данное пособие является результатом многолетней работы над анализом текста, а точнее, над некоторыми вариантами анализа. Цель работы: не дать идеальный анализ текста (которого не существует) и не показать возможность преподавателя, а научить каждого студента дать удовлетворительный вариант интерпретации незнакомого текста, располагая ограниченным временем.

Внимание было уделено только трём вариантам анализа, хотя их, конечно, существует гораздо больше. Часть, посвящённая анализу отдельного параграфа, представлена наиболее подробно и может быть использована студентами заочного отделения, не всегда имеющими возможность посещать аудиторные занятия.

Каждая часть содержит пояснительную записку, пример анализа текста, задания к этому же тексту и дополнительный текст для самостоятельного анализа, что будет одним из составляющих отчёта студента для получения оценки / зачёта.

Материал пособия может быть своего рода планом работы для преподавателя, начинающего заниматься данным аспктом.

При работе были использованы:

Е. Г. Сошальская, В. И. Прохорова. Stylistic Analyses. – М.: ВШ, 1976.

И. В. Арнольд. Стилистика современного английского языка. – Л.: Просвещение, 1973.

И. В. Арнольд, Н. Я. Дьяконова. Analytical Reading. – Л.: Просвещение, 1979.

Peter Verdork. Stylistics. – Oxford, 2002

Н. А. Постоловская. Анализ текста. – Екатеринбург, 2001.


Paragraph Analysis. Explanatory Notes.

Interpreting the text from various points of view undoubtedly helps a student, and any person in general, to deeper, more clearly understand it. This is acknowledged by every scholar concerned with the subject [1, 2]. This is that interpretation gives a person, enriches him, no doubt.

Interpretation as a subject of the program approaches this from another point: what should a student able to present, to prove to the listeners. In the opinion of more practically oriented teachers it is the following:

1) ability to use the language one has studied for 5 years in a more difficult situation than conversation, that is not for reproducing once remembered facts, but show the ability to create a new material being encumbered by the time limit (the preparation at any exam is not very long);

2) ability to show that theoretical courses are remembered and can be applied to a previously unknown text.

There exist various approached to text interpretation (analysis) but some considerations are common: any analysis is subjective, depending on the thesaurus, age of the person and time, and no analysis may be considered either complete (it is a so-called open multitude) or ideal.

In the process of working it was found that the optimal variant of the analysis at the exam is the analysis of a separate paragraph. But that type of analysis includes several stages: 1) the summary; 2) justification of the choice of the part for analysis; 3) analysis proper including quoting and discussing each sentence; 4) conclusion, connected with the beginning of the summary and point 2, that is showing the value of the extracted information for text assessment; 5) personal impression is also welcome. And this is the shortest type of analysis – in our opinion – and most concrete.

Paragraph analysis may be found in the works of some scholars [1], but there it is a purely stylistic analysis. The approach of other scholars [2, 4] is based on involving the significance of every language phenomena and elements of pragmatics and socio-linguistics.

The author of the given sample of the teaching experience will make an attempt to present a text analysis according to the variant paragraph analysis.

A Sample of Analysis.

The text (2 pages) is the initial portion of the novel “A Private view” by Anita Brookner (London, 1994). In most cases this is the only information a student gets. But he is free and welcome to come out with his suppositions. Having read the two pages attentively the following might be said:

“A. Brookner, judging by the time and place of publication, is a modern British authoress (“Anita” can hardly be a man), not young, since she is really interested in fortunes of two elderly sufficiently successful clerks. One can suppose that only a mature person may be sympathetic not only to a beautiful young girl in love. But this is only an opinion. The characters are sixtyish (think of the usual time of retirement for men), one of them died of cancer just on the eve of long looked-for happy leisure-time leaving the only friend with money (his legacy) but alone. From the text one learns of the last days of the unfortunate one and the fortunate one trying (in vain) to get rid of his money, though both started their life poor.

The text consists of 4 paragraphs. The first, the biggest may be viewed upon as an exposition. It allows to get acquainted not only with the place (Italy, Niece), time (after the friend’s death), the main character (a retired clerk, maybe previously connected with finance or law) and with the attitude of the authoress toward him – a restrained, not demonstrative sympathy. The latter, besides, reminds one of Galsworthy.

The text is narrative, third person narration. The author’s language is sometimes imperceptibly merged with the unuttered represented speech of the character. But to draw a distinct border-line between them is difficult: as it was supposed the age of the author and the character might be more or less the same and the character is evidently sufficiently well-educated (judging by the vocabulary). But this is a questionable, a moot point.

Passing over to the paragraph analysis proper, it should be remarked that the first sentence – occupying the initial strong position – sets pace, determines the mood, on the one hand, and determines the message/content, on the other.

“George Bland, in the sun, reflected that now was the moment to take stock.”

It is a complex sentence with an object clause. It is rather laconic for a complex sentence, and this fact allows to suppose that the information is of some importance. Both clauses seem neutral. The structure of the principal clause which may be supposed to convey the essence of the message, is peculiar: the detached construction “in the sun” is evidently an elliptical participle construction giving some secondary, additional information. It carries the first hint at some incongruity of the situation: instead of “enjoying, basking, lying etc.” it is followed by the verb that, so-to-say, does not require sunshine. The subordinate clause intensifies a business-like attitude in G.B. Thus the possible conclusion is that G.B. did not experience the emotion of an ordinary Britisher – enjoying sunshine, so infrequent at home.

The next sentence supplies quite a lot of details and is, as it may be expected, much longer.

“Nice, a town which he had not visited since his first holiday abroad, some forty years earlier, spread its noise and its light and its air about him, making him feel cautious; he was not up to this, he reckoned, having become unused to leisure.”

One sees the juxtaposition of two bits of information – Nice and G.B.’s life. These cause opposing emotions – either of the character or of the author. The Italian town is not presented as anything desirable: the choice of homogeneous objects “noise, …” which become contextual synonyms – speak for it. Moreover they are intensified by anaphoric parallelism, and the repetition of the possessive pronoun “its” makes the emotion obvious – it is rejection, hostility mingled with contempt for a world of famous Italian beauty. The attitude to G.B. is different. If in his youth (40 years earlier) G.B. had his holiday abroad (possibly thanks to his parents) later he had become not only unused to having a rest, but also somewhat afraid of it. The adjective “cautious” may have various interpretations. The choice of the word “reckoned” and the combination “was not up to this” stresses it. Attention should be paid to the morphological aspect of the participle “unused” (for further consideration).

One can also trace a connection with the first sentence due to the words dealing with time: “now” vs. “forty years earlier”, which will continue through the paragraph and the whole text, and will stress another apposition (now – then).

The next sentence continues to detalize the fact of not enjoying leisure.

“He had been here for four days and had found nothing to do, although there was much to occupy his thoughts, most of them, indeed all of them, proving unwelcome.”

The sentence is linked with the previous ones through the synonym to the word “leisure” – “nothing to do” and through developing the theme of thought: “reflected”, “reckoned”, “thoughts”. The significance of the sentence is mostly emotive, since not much new information is added. The emotional character becomes evident due to a climatic repetition “most of them, indeed all of them” intensified by the epiphora in its background function and the intensifier “indeed”. Attention should be paid to the word in the final strong position – “unwelcome”. It might be considered a typical, for an elderly Britisher, desire not to be too categorical, a habitual modesty of expression. Juxtapose it with “unused” in the previous sentence. Past Perfect at the beginning stresses the finality of decision for which four days were enough. The theme is further enriched.

The next sentence is again more emotional than informative.

“Nice had been an unwise choice, though in truth hardly a choice at all; it had been more of a flight from those same thoughts, which faithfully continued to attend him here.”

The new information concerns a very urgent desire to get rid of the unwelcome thoughts. The urgency is emotionally stressed: the word “flight”; another case of repetition (simple lexical in this case) of the word “choice”, the subordinate clause of concession (though…), the synonymous pronouns “those same” and the end of the sentence which might be considered a case of personifying the thoughts (though the traditional capitalization of the personified element is missing – possible this is a modern tendency). The attribute of the predicative “unwise” continues the line of “un“- words, intensifying the effect of modesty of expression.

The following very complicated structurally and very long sentence is mostly informative and very emotional at the same time.

“He had sought a restorative, conventional enough, after the death of an old friend, Michael Putnam, who had inconveniently succumbed to cancer just when they were enabled, by process of evolution, or by that of virtue rewarded, more prosaically by the fact of their simultaneous retirement, to take their ease, to explore the world together, as had been their intention.”

The explanation of the preceding is given, the reason of unwelcome thoughts, inability to enjoy life. Another emotional aspect becomes obvious – bitter irony the target of which is G.B. himself. The sentence might be considered the character’s inner speech. The modesty of expression is felt in the periphrasis; the homogeneous prepositional objects (by…) are presented as parallel periphrases which sound as bitter jokes at one’s hopes to enjoy leisure (take their ease) at last.

The final sentence of the paragraph, unlike the previous ones, evidently belongs to the author’s narrative, the more so that the second clause of the compound sentence presents a philosophical digression (attention should be paid to the shift from Past and Past Perfect to the Present).

“They had waited for too long and the result was this hiatus, and the reflection that time and patience may bring poor rewards, that time itself, if not confronted at the appropriate juncture, can play sly tricks, and, more significantly, that those who do not act are not infrequently acted upon.”

As befits a philosophical utterance which is supposed to teach some moral the digression sounds rhythmical due to 3 homogeneous clauses introduced by anaphoric “that”. The first subordinate clause is remarkable thanks to a paradoxical assertion: time and patience are not rewarded. In the second subordinate clause the notion of time is intensified by a personification (note that “time” has already been mentioned in this discussion). In the third clause “time” is implicitly the doer of the action in the passive construction. Returning to the principal clause of this complex sentence attention is attracted by the homogeneous predicatives “hiatus” and “reflection”. The first might be approximately interpreted as a “pause”. In this case the two would be synonymous and connected with the process of thinking. But it (hiatus) might also be understood as “gap”, then it would be connected with G.B.’s life.

The first clause of this long compound sentence is the answer, result of “taking stock” of the beginning. This one allows to consider the paragraph under analysis balanced: since in a balanced paragraph there is a sure connection between the initial and the final sentences, be it repetition, detalization, opposition/denial or, as in this case, an answer to the question implied in “to take stock”. The character of the paragraph once more proves a certain link between the author of the end of the XX c. and those of the beginning (Galsworthy, Mansfield) or even Dickens.

The impression produced by the paragraph is strong. The tragic situation is enhanced by a studied reticence and modesty of expression: by the number of “un”-words concluded by the litotes in the last clause, almost the final strong position and sad irony.

After this has been said a kind of resume if necessary.

1) The material of the analysis presented contains three parts having a different significance: the summary, choice of a paragraph, the interpretation proper and the conclusion. The first and the third are unquestionably recommended for a student, they are indispensable. The second and the longest part is just an example of what could but certainly but should be given at the exam, for instance. As it has been previously indicated not even a very detailed analysis can be considered complete. For instance, this one could be further complemented by the discussion of the Voice opposition in the final sentence. Now what can a student have the time to do? Limit himself with the discussion of one-two points in each sentence or a more detailed discussion of the beginning, skipping over the details of the middle and, again, two-three points commented on in the conclusive sentence, since it is a logical link with the obligatory conclusion.

What points should be discussed and what better not? Beginning with the end: any indication of size, syntactical aspect and enumeration of the recognized phenomena without any connection with the significance for the text and the effect produced. Desirable for commenting are any language facts – grammatical, lexicological, stylistic, phono-stylistic – preceded by stating the above mentioned effect. One should bear in mind that any language fact, so-called “expressive means” [Galperin I. R.] has in the text one of the possible (for this fact) messages. This message, effect should be stated and discussed. Stylistics (stylistic devices) [1] does play its role but any interpretation of the text is not an exercise of discovering and simple mentioning, enumerating Stylistic Devices. Any lucky “discovery” of a stylistic device should – in the analysis – come only after the value of it for the text understanding was made clear.


JUST MORGAN by Susan BethPfeffer

New York, 1970

My parents died in early May of my ninth-grade year at Fairfield. I was called into the headmistress's office that afternoon, without knowing why. Mrs. Baines told me herself, interspersing it with "my poor child" and "my dear Morgan," which struck me as being even odder than the news. I felt nothing at the time, not even fear at what was to become of me; I suppose it was because their deaths were so unexpected. It had been in an accident of some sort, while they were in Rome. Mrs. Baines didn't have all the details, and I never chose to ask anybody, so I still don't know exactly what happened. While I sat there trying to understand everything, with Mrs. Baines offering me smelling salts and some aspirin (I think she was disappointed at my lack of histrionics), my uncle called the school to find out whether I would be able to miss a few days for the funeral. "Certainly, certainly," the headmistress clucked. Their bodies, it seemed, were being flown in, and the funeral would be that Saturday. I asked if it would be all right for me to finish out that week in school before going to New York, and staring at me Mrs. Baines whispered something to my uncle about my being in a state of shock. It was decided therefore that I would leave the next day for New York by train and that either my uncle or his secretary, or both, would be at the station to pick me up. Mrs. Baines assured me that I did not have to return to classes that day; instead, she recommended, I should go back to my room and try to sleep. If I wanted to speak to a minister of my faith, she said, she would call one up. I thanked her, said it wasn't necessary, thanked her again, and walked the distance to my room, with my thoughts alternating between "Dead?" and "What about the history test on Friday?"

Sitting on my bed, torn between the desire to tell my roommate, who was in class, what had happened, and a sense of guilt that all I felt was the desire to tell her, I was hit by the enormity of my parents' death for the first time. I was an orphan. The school had a number of them and they all seemed perfectly normal and happy, so I couldn't see worrying about a life filled with doom and despair. Nor could I really mourn 'my parents' death the way Mrs. Baines had expected me to. For one thing, I scarcely knew them. During the school year I went to Fairfield, and in the summers I was sent to different camps. My encounters with Mother and Father had occurred mostly during winter recesses, when I would fly to wherever they were located that year, or, less frequently, they would fly to America and I would join them in New York. Such visits were more embarrassing than anything else, with my parents showering me with useless gifts and loosely aimed kisses on my cheeks, and me reciprocating with handmade Christmas cards I had knocked off one period in Creative Arts, that generally started off Joyeux Noel and ended up with Love, Morgan since I assumed it was expected of me to say it. They made a great fuss about showing off the cards at all the parties they went to, much to my embarrassment, and those friends of theirs that I met nearly always came up to me saying, "So you're the little girl who made that fine Christmas card for your mommy and daddy." I hated their friends and their parties and the visits, and if I didn't hate them it was only because I saw them so little. Other than that, our exchanges were by mail, or very infrequently by transatlantic phone calls, on ceremonial occasions like my birthday. I didn't think I would miss them very much.

Tasks:

a) Give a summary of the text;

b) Give your reasons for selecting either of the two paragraphs for detailed discussion;

c) Dwell on the significance of the first and final sentences of the text;

d) Point out the ways the presence of the young and adult narrators may be traced in the text (on the lexical level and the assessment of facts);

e) Comment on the first sentence of the first paragraph (strong positions); find another sentence in this paragraph which may lead to the same conclusions (pay attention to the order of the homogenous objects);

f) Find in the text and point out at least 2 points deserving attention in the sentences containing these words:

accident, histrionics, bodies, faith, still, normal, encounter, reciprocating, embarrassment, ceremonial

g) Speak of the effect produced by the most laconic sentence in the text not being given a paragraph prominence;

h) In the conclusive part of the discussion assess the situation from a professional point of view and connect it with your suppositions concerning the authoress.

THE CAPTAIN AND THE ENEMY (by Graham Greene)

London, 1988

Chapter I

I am now in my twenty-second year and yet the only birthday which I can clearly distinguish among all the rest is my twelfth, for it was on that damp and misty day in September I met the Captain for the first time. I can still remember the wetness of the gravel under my gym shoes in the school quad and how the blown leaves made the cloisters by the chapel slippery as I ran recklessly to escape from my enemies between one class and the next. I slithered and came to an abrupt halt while my pursuers went whistling away, because there in the middle of the quad stood our formidable headmaster talking to a tall man in a bowler hat, a rare sight already at that date, so that he looked a little like an actor in costume – an impression not so far wrong, for I never saw him in a bowler hat again. He carried a walking stick over his shoulder at the slope like a soldier with a rifle. I had no idea who he might be, nor, of course, did I know how he had won me the previous night, or so he was to claim, in a backgammon game with my father.

I slid so far that I landed on my knees at the two men's feet, and when I picked myself up the headmaster was glaring at me from under his heavy eyebrows. I heard him say, 'I think this is the one you want – Baxter Three. Are you Baxter Three?'

'Yes, sir,I said.

The man, whom I would never come to know by any more permanent name than the Captain, said, 'What does Three indicate?'

'He is the youngest of three Baxters,' the headmaster said, 'but not one of them is related by blood.'

‘That puts me in a bit of a quandary,' the Captain said. 'For which of them is the Baxter I want? The Christian name, unlikely as it may sound, is Victor. Victor Baxter – the names don't pair very well.'

'We have little occasion here for Christian names. Arc you called Victor Baxter? the headmaster inquired of me sharply.

'Yes, sir,' I said after some hesitation, for I was reluctant to admit to a name which I had tried unsuccessfully to conceal from my fellows. I knew very well that Victor for some obscure reason was one of the unacceptable names, like Vincent or Marmaduke.

'Well then, I suppose that this is the Baxter you want, sir. Your face needs washing, boy.'

The stern morality of the school prevented me from telling the headmaster that it had been quite clean until my enemies had splashed it with ink. I saw the Captain regarding me with brown, friendly and what I came to learn later from hearsay, unreliable eyes. He had such deep black hair that it might well have been dyed and a long thin nose which reminded me of a pair of scissors left partly ajar, as though his nose was preparing to trim the military moustache just below it. I thought that he winked at me, but I could hardly believe it. In my experience grown-ups did not wink, except at each other.

This gentleman is an old boy, Baxter,' the headmaster said, 'a contemporary of your father's he tells me.’

Yes, sir.

'He has asked permission to take you out this afternoon. He has brought me a note from your father, and as today is a half-holiday, I see no reason why I shouldn't give my consent, but you must be back at your house by six. He understands that.'

*Yes, sir.'

*You can go now.'

I turned my back and began to make for the classroom where I was overdue.

'I meant go with this gentleman, Baxter Three. What class do you miss?

Divvers, sir.'

'He means Divinity,' the headmaster told the Captain. He glared at the door across the quad from which wild sounds were emerging, and he swept his black gown back over his shoulder. 'From what I can hear you will miss little by not attending.' He began to make great muffled strides towards the door. His boots – he always wore boots – made no more sound than carpet slippers.

'What's going on in there? the Captain asked.

'I think they are slaying the Amalekitcs,' I said.

'Are you an Amalekite? '

'Yes.'

'Then we'd better be off.'

He was a stranger, but I felt no fear of him at all. Strangers were not dangerous. They had no such power as the headmaster or my fellow pupils. A stranger is not a permanency. One can easily shed a stranger. My mother had died a few years back – I could not even then have said how long before; time treads at quite a different pace when one is a child. I had seen her on her deathbed, pale and calm, like a figure on a tomb, and when she hadn't responded to my formal kiss on her forehead, I realized with no great shock of grief that she had gone to join the angels. At that time, before I went to school, my only fear was of my father who, according to what my mother told me, had long since attached himself to the opposing party up there where she had gone. 'Your father is a devil,' she was very fond of telling me, and her eyes would lose their habitual boredom and light suddenly up for a moment like a gas cooker.

My father, I do remember that, came to the funeral dressed top to toe m black; he had a beard which went well with the suit, and I looked for the tail under his coat, but I couldn't perceive one, although this did little to reassure me. I had not seen him very often before the day of the funeral, nor after, for he seldom came to my home, if you could call the flat in a semidetached house named The Laurels near Richmond Park where I began to live after my mother's death, a home. It was at the buffet party, which followed the funeral that I now believe he plied my mother's sister with sherry until she promised to provide a shelter for me during the school holidays.

My aunt was quite an agreeable but very boring woman and understandably she had never married. She too referred to my father as the Devil on the few occasions when she spoke of him, and I began to feel a distinct respect for him, even though I feared him, for to have a devil in the family was after all a kind of distinction. An angel one had to take on trust, but the Devil in the words of my prayer book 'roamed the world like a raging lion', which made me think that perhaps it was for that reason my father spent so much more time in Africa than in Richmond. Now after so many years have passed I begin to wonder whether he was not quite a good man in his own way, something which I would hesitate to say of the Captain who had won me from him at backgammon, or so he said.

Tasks:

a) Give a summary of the text;

b) Give your reasons for choosing either of the four narrative paragraphs for discussion;

c) Discussing the chosen paragraph show which narrator – the young or the adult – predominates: the vocabulary choice, assessing people, the size of sentences;

d) Find a seemingly illogical structure in the paragraph concerning strangers, fill in a gap in the sentences;

e) Analyse the dialogue part according to the scheme:

1) its being linked with the narration, plot development;

2) the degree the plane of the personages (direct speech) is intertwined with the plane of the author – the author’s commenting on the way phrases sounded, what reactions accompanied them, reactions of the interlocutors to what was said by others, their habits, appearance, the author’s digressions, reminiscences, etc;

3) the way the speech sounds: if it is like-like or not and if it is or it is not appropriate for the personage;

4) the contribution of each participant to the conversation (this should be commented on).


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