Pattern 2. Lady Diana, the Princess of Wales.

 

1. Your task: You are the Round Table Speaker. Think of no less than 20 notions or questions to the audience. Be ready to lead the table. Be ready to fulfill the pauses. Be ready to prepare the introductory and final short speeches;

2. Your task: You are a journalist. You have to write a praise or a defeated article. Be ready to ask at least 10 questions to the auditory. You have to compound a statistics of people who adore the movie and of those who dislike it. You are not to show your personal attitude. You are to find out the people opinion only. (Be ready to produce your article with a title.);

3. Your task: You are a counter. You have to decide who won in today′ s Round Table. Be ready to name at least 5 candidates who prepared the best “opinion report”. You are to decide who will have a credit plus (take sheets of paper in order to fix down everything you guess worth fixing);

4. Your task: You are a defender of Windsor House Family. Try to explain their behavior corresponding Princess Diana′ s life. You know that Diana′ s admires all over the world accuse them in snobbism and consider their attitude towards her rather cool and distant. Try to protect them in the eyes of Diana′ s fans. (discuss your report with the defender of Princess Diana);

5. Your task: You are a protector of Princess Diana. Find out all the information possible about her way of life and her own views and thought about that Royal House where she used to live as Prince Charles′ s wife. Try to explain her behavior and her unwilling to be a member of the Windsor Family. (discuss your report with the defender of Windsor Family);

6. Your task: Diana and her royal duties. Did she fit?

7. Your task: The biography of Lady D. Find out as much information as you can about her childhood;

8. Your task: The biography of Lady D. Find out the information about her years before marriage;

9. Your task: Diana′ s sacrifice in favor of poor and sick children;

10. Your task: Diana and her suns: William and Hurry;

11. Your task: Diana and the way of showing herself;

12. Your task: Diana′ s life after divorce;

13. Your task: Diana′ s life as the Princess of Wales, wife of Prince Charles;

14. Your task: Diana′ s social life;

15. Your task: Show your attitude towards Diana′ s some frank interviews where she naked a dozen of Windsor Family peculiarities and established her own point of view at some facts concerning their relationships with Elizabeth II.;

16. Your task: Try to investigate the mystery of Diana′ s tragic death in Paris. Show your own point of view concerning the real facts of her death. Do you really believe it to be a sudden occasion?

17. Your task: Try to think about Diana′ s lover, the sun of millionaire Mohamed Al Faied, Doddy. Do you believe him to be really in love with her, or you think he wanted to be presented as her fiancé and was planning to promote a sort of PR action with the help of her?

18. Your task: Try to think about the future life of Diana. If everything had finished another way, would she ever be happy living constantly under cameras and thousands eyes looking at her? Would she be happy without her suns used to be 24 hours near her?

19. Your task: Try to find as much information as you possibly can about Camilla Parker Bowls, the present loving eye of Prince Charles. Compare Diana and Camilla. Coincide your own information and that you caught in the movie.

Pattern 3. The Queen.

 

1. Comment on the title of the billboard (mind the underlined phrase);

2. Queen Mother and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: relationships, dialogues, appearance, influence, hereditariness;

3. Why you think they still appeared in front of the British people (comment on the picture);

4. Prince Charles and Tony Blair: what united them? (comment on the picture) (tactile language, explain it);

5. The relationships inside the family: boys and their father after the tragedy (comment on the picture);

6. The queen at work. What are her usual duties?

7. Describe the persona of Prince Charles. What kind of a man he is. His position in the film. His position in the real life. Any differences?

8. Is it permitted for the queen to cry? What was the reason? Comment on the picture;

9. The family together in the church. Faces. Were they united? Was it a real tragedy for them? Why they went to the church?

10. The rituals in the family. What do you think about the institution of monarchy in UK? Is it an outdated one? What is the future? What is the position of Tony Blair in the film, and any preceding or consequent Prime Minister?

11. The every day life of Her Majesty? What are her habits and customs? Describe her day. Comment on the picture;

12. The final episode of the film. Comment on the dialogue. Comment on the picture. Is it a positive one?

Task XXIV. Write a culture-oriented linguistic article. For detailed information on structure and visual design see Attachment I. Here are the possible themes:

ü Cities of England – Manchester, Liverpool, Bath, Windsor;

ü Glasgow – the second capital of Scotland;

ü London – the capital of England;

ü The dark stories of the Tower of London;

ü The Irish Question – symbols, faces, places;

ü The University life of England – two major Universities: Oxford and Cambridge;

A Follow Up

It appears sometimes that foreigners are lost in translation for the meaning of the phrases stands far at first sight. Here are some outrageous phrases foreigners are confused in:

ü Black market

We use this term to describe any illegal trade whereby goods and services are bought and sold at cheaper prices than in legitimate outlets, and also to refer to currency-dealing where black-market exchange rates differ from official ones. A popular explanation of its origin is that it initially referred to the sale of “fire-damaged” goods, although there is not enough evidence to be sure of this;

ü Blue blood

The term blue blood has been widely used in Britain since nineteenth century to refer to a member of the aristocracy. It comes directly from the Spanish sangre azul, meaning, well, blue blood! Families from Castile were very keen to stress their difference from the Moors, who had controlled Spain for years. To prove their breeding, they claimed that their veins were a purer blue than those of inferior, foreign origin. The reason for this, of course, was because their blue blood could be seen through their white skin; the Moors had dark skin, so their veins couldn’t be seen;

ü Brouhaha

A tremendous word meaning, according to the dictionary, “commotion, sensation, hubbub, uproar”. Brouhaha was borrowed in the 19^th century directly from the identical French. Before then, it often appeared in 16^th century French dramas as the Devil cry, announcing his arrival in scenes;

ü Cockles of the heart

Flowers, weddings and presents beneath the tree on Christmas day all warm the cockles of your heart. The expression comes from a corruption of the Latin cochleae cordis, which refers top what we now call the ventricles of the heart. The ventricles are the chambers that pump blood around the body;

ü Coin a phrase

To make a new expression. The phrase is perhaps a little less unusual if you consider that coinen, in Middle English, meant to mint money. To coin a phrase, therefore, is to mint a new phrase;

ü Gibberish

One of the common explanations given for the origin of “gibberish” is that it has its basis in the old word “gibber”, which in turn is connected to “jabbering”, and therefore nonsense. The true origin of the word is found in the name of an 11^th century Arabian alchemist, Geber, who invented bizarre and coded terminology in order to hide the meaning of his work from others.

ü Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo, like hoo-ha, is a wonderfully effective word to sum up a situation of clamor uproar and general commotion. Although it sounds rather like nonsense word that is resonant of fuss and mayhem, both in its spelling and pronunciation, its origin lies in the French burluberlu, a 17^th century word in the meaning of scatter-brained;

ü Jeopardy

To be in jeopardy is to be in danger of injury, loss or death and so on. It derives directly from the French jeu parti, meaning “divided game” and therefore of uncertain, dangerous, outcome;

ü Nightmare

The term derives from Old English and from the word maere, ad evil friend. Night maeres would stalk about at night, causing wickedness and ill will. It was also assumed that they were the cause of terrifying dreams;

ü Pardon my French

Excuse my bad language. France has often been on the receiving end of the UK taboos. The associating of the French language with thing the British have regarded as obscene can also be found in such phrases as “French letter”, for condom and “French kiss”. The French came in for another recent linguistic bashing when moves were made in the USA government cafeterias to rechristen “French fries” and” French toast” as “freedom fries and toasts”, because of disagreement on foreign policy between the two countries;

ü Pidgin English

Pidgin English is though to have originated in China after the British established a trading post in Canton in 1664. However, Portugal established trade in China before the British, so they always neglected the influence on pidgin English. English didn’t fully emerged until the 17^th century. It was developed as a way of accommodating the speakers of two very different languages so that they could do business with each other. So “pidgin English” really means “business English”, and “pidgin” is thought to be a mispronunciation of the English word “business” by the Chinese;

ü Swag

Swag means different things to different people. It can refer to a robber's booty, free products, a prize giveaway or the sum of a traveller's – or a swagman's – worldly goods. Whether or nor we use it to mean “hot” property or giveaways, it always refers to something that has been gained freely. The word is Scandinavian origin, from swagga, meaning “to hang loosely”.

 

! For more information on British non-equivalent and connotative lexis see Attachment, Section 2, Culture-loaded linguistic articles (Articles 3 and 4), Tables (Table № 1)!