Консультации по английской грамматике В помощь учителю иностранного языка (стр. 7 из 10)
2. When a relative arrives, he or she (he/she) will be let in and his or her (his/her) arrival will be welcome by everyone.
3. When a relative arrives, they will be let in and their arrival will be welcome by everyone.
The use of "he" in the first sentence is considered sexist; the use of "he and she," etc. is a bit awkward, especially in speech; in the third case "they" is used with a singular meaning which is incorrect, but still quite common, especially in informal English.
The language reflects the situation in society. Societal change and language change go hand in hand. This explains the possibility of one sentence and the impossibility of the other one:
I pronounce you man and wife (not: man and woman, husband and wife, woman and husband), the pronouncement gives a picture of woman as man's possession.
Mary is a divorcee (not: John is a divorce).
Mrs John Smith (not: Mr Mary Smith).
She is John's widow (not: He is Mary's widower).
They indulged in wife swapping (not: They indulged in husband swapping).
"Man" was originally fully generic (Man breakfasts his young;
One man, one vote) but over years it stopped being felt as such and this masculine bias can sound odd to a speaker of English.
"Lady" is used out of exaggerated politeness since a woman of high station and breeding was traditionally meant. Some people dislike to use "lady" because of its connection with class distinctions. To some people "lady" is synonymous with good manners. "Female" is used in an official, scientific or clinical contexts for a person, plant, animal that bears young.
Traditional social roles were formerly expressed by compound nouns with -man or -woman as the second component of the noun. A neutral form for both sexes is preferred by most people now as they object to terms that show the sex of the person who is doing the work.
Traditional male Traditional female Non-sexist neutral
chairman chairwoman chair (person)
barman barmaid bartender
businessman businesswoman businessperson/executive
fireman — fire fighter
headmaster headmistress head (teacher)
postman postwoman postie/postal worker
salesman saleswoman salesperson/sales representative
spokesman spokeswoman spokesperson
steward stewardess/air flight attendant
hostess
bachelor1 spinster1 unmarried/single man/woman
fiance fiancee partner
mankind — human beings
man and wife — man and woman,
husband and wife
all men everywhere — all people everywhere
boys and girls (as — people
an address in a class)
1May have negative associations.
Some words will still be used in the traditional way, such as "fisherwoman" was never thought of.
Look at this rather sexist advertisement for an airline. Change the wording to make it neutral.
Now! Eagle Airlines offers even more to the businessman
who needs comfort.
Let us fly you to your destination in first-class comfort, looked after by the best-trained air hostesses in the world. Any businessman knows that he must arrive fresh and ready for work no matter how long the journey.With Eagle Diplomat-Class you can do just that. And, what's more, your wife can travel with you on all intercontinental flights for only 25% of the normal fare! Your secretary can book you on any flights 24 hours a day on 0557-465769. All she has to do is lift the phone.
Key: Now! Eagle Airlines offers even more to the business
traveller who needs comfort.
Let us fly you to your destination in first-class comfort, looked after by the best-trained cabin attendants (or cabin staff) in the world. Any business person knows that they must arrive fresh and ready for work no matter how long the journey.With Eagle Diplomat-Class you can do just that. And, what's more, your partner/spouse can travel with you on all intercontinental flights for only 25% of the normal fare! Your secretary can book you on any flights 24 hours a day on 0557-465769. All he or she has to do is lift the phone.
These words include some that many people consider sexist. Put the words into appropriate pairs with their neutral alternatives:
cabin attendant spinster
man-hours human beings
unmanned single woman
air hostess mankind
unstaffed person-hours
Key: air hostess — cabin attendant, man-hours — person-hours, unmanned — unstaffed, spinster — single woman, mankind — human beings.
Make this letter neutral.
The Manager
Frinstowe Engineering Ltd
7/11/97
Dear Sir,
I am a spinster aged 22 and am seeking employment. I saw your advertisement for part-time workers in the Globe last week. However, your 24-hour answering service seemed to be unmanned when I tried it. Could you please send me application forms by post? Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Sally Hewings (Miss)
Key: The Manager
Frinstowe Engineering Ltd
7/11/97
Dear Sir,
I am aged 22, single, and am seeking employment. I saw your advertisement for part-time workers in the Globe last week. However, your 24-hour answering service seemed to be unstaffed when I tried it. Could you please send me application forms by post? Thank you. Yours sincerely,
Sally Hewings (Ms)
Russian gender differs from English gender.
All Russian nouns are referred to the masculine, feminine or neuter genders; person nouns — due to the natural sex distinctions of creatures they express, non-person nouns — because of the form of the noun ending in -a, a consonant, -o, -e, etc.
There are nouns of the common gender in the Russian language, such as брюзга, задира, невежа, недотрога, ровня, etc. There are also nouns of the masculine gender which are widely used to denote both males and females: судья Иванова, врач Петрова, доктор, доцент, педагог, профессор, мастер, etc. Some of them have the corresponding feminine noun: профессорша, докторша, врачиха, but they are used to denote the wife of the person of the profession or are used in the colloquial style.
Russian adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs in the past tense agree with the noun in gender.
m м ж ж ж
Он купил своей второй маме цветы.
ж ж м м
Она застала своего брата в библиотеке.
English adjectives do not change to show gender, possessive pronouns, however, must show the sex of the person they stand for, never the gender of the noun they modify.
m f
Ralph brought his mother some roses ("his" refers in gender to Ralph not to "mother").
f m
Lucy found her brother in the library ("her" refers in gender to Lucy, not to "brother").
To bring in the topic of gender into the classroom arrange a talk about boys and girls. Show pictures or bring samples of toys. For whom are these toys designed?
Discuss basic differences between boys and girls. Are these differences something we are born with or are they bred by society?
How do your mum and dad and your school treat the two sexes? Do you like the treatment?
Do boys and girls differ in their perception of the world? How do boys and girls treat each other?
Write adjectives on the board and ask the class to use them describing the classmates or their photos (in which case there'll be more interest). You may also ask the students to think of adjectives you associate with boys, girls or both. These can be: quiet, thoughtful, noisy, ambitious, gentle, kind, cruel, fast, sympathetic, clever, strong, nice, talkative, better-behaved, hard-working, etc.
Discuss recommendations to the teacher on how to get on with boys and with girls and how to counter sexism in the classroom.
Prepositions are one of the four formal parts of speech (also conjunctions, articles, particles). They are formal parts of speech because of their peculiar meaning, unchangeability, ability to perform specific functions in the sentence, inability to construe sentences without notional parts of speech (except elliptical ones).
There are over one hundred prepositions in English. This is a very small number compared with the vast number of nouns, adjectives and verbs in the English vocabulary. Most sentences that people produce contain at least one preposition; indeed, three out of ten most frequent English words are prepositions: "of," "to" and "in." This means that the number of times you need to use a particular preposition is much higher than an ordinary word such as a noun, an adjective, or a verb.
Prepositions provide information about place and time, or in a more abstract way, about relationship between people or things. In some cases the meaning of a sentence can still be understood even if the prepositions are taken out:
We'll concern ourselves ... the systematic uses ... some ... the more frequent English prepositions.
In other cases the prepositions provide essential information:
He put it back ... the table.
In this example the missing preposition could be "on," "behind," "next to," "under," "into," "above," or several other prepositions and the choice here is important for the meaning of the sentence.
Prepositions have a peculiar lexical meaning; they denote concrete instances of concrete or abstract notions. The following two poems vividly illustrate some peculiarities of prepositional meaning.
The Naughty Preposition
I lately lost a preposition;
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair.
And angrily I cried: "Perdition!
Up from out of in under there!"
Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor;
And yet I wondered: "What should he come
Up from out of in under for?"
Morris Bishop
Who's In?
"The door is shut fast
And everyone's out."
But people don't know
What they're talking about!
Says the fly on the wall,
And the flame on the coals,
And the dog on his rug,
And the mice in their holes
And the kitten curled up,
And the spiders that spin —
"What, everyone's out?
Why, everyone's in!"
Elizabeth Fleming
In order to produce acceptable and natural English, you need to be able to select the right preposition. English prepositions are unpredictable and specifically used. The Russian learners of the English language find it difficult to use the correct preposition because the same relations in the Russian language will often be signalled by an inflection of a noun and because sometimes a preposition different from the expected one is used (характерный для — characteristic of, сердитый на— angry with, etc.).
Structurally prepositions can be simple, or one-component prepositions; compound, incorporating two prepositions in one;
phrase, or two or more-component prepositions; there are also prepositions that co-occur. Some prepositions are incorporated in the verb.
Simple Compound Phrasal Co-occurrence
about inside according to from ... to
above into apart from from ... until/till
across onto because of out of... into
after without in case of off (of) ... on (to;
before in favour of
between in front of
during in want of
in instead of
over with regard to
past
Below are some verbs in whose structure a preposition is incorporated:
outdo overdo underestimate
outrun overrate underrate
outlast overeat underline
outgrow overcome underscore
Some prepositions can be homonymous with words of other parts of speech. Compare: She waited for me outside the house. — She waited for me outside. He climbed upthe ladder. — We had to go up. It happened before their arrival. — It happened before they arrived.
Prepositions can be modified by other words: almostat the end,
all over the floor, rightin front of me, justoff the motorway, halfwayup the hill, directlyafter your lesson.
The nine most frequently used prepositions in English (in alphabetical order) are: at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with.
Prepositions occur in the following position in a sentence:
Noun
Noun Pronoun
Adjective Preposition Gerund
Verb Infinitival or Gerundial Phrase
Noun clause
Prepositions follow their objects in:
who-questions: Who did you go there with?
infinitive phrases: She is nice to speak to.
passive structures: A doctor was sent for.
relative clauses: That's the book I told you about.
Prepositions can be grouped due to their common meaning and can be studied through comparison and specific linguistic structures in which they are used.
As a rule the following groups of prepositions are singled out:
prepositions of place and direction, prepositions of time, prepositions of cause and purpose, other groups of prepositions. The use of prepositions is studied in idiomatic phrases, in passive structures, in various functions in a sentence, through comparison with similar structures, e.g. N's N.
Charts summarizing several meanings of the same prepositions may be beneficial for teaching purposes.
Meanings related to the concepts of space, time, degree.
For systematization of prepositions of direction and position the following indications can be used:
Such visual symbols, when used to reinforce semantic concepts, can be effective in teaching purposes.
Spacial meanings are one-dimensional (point, intersection) — at the corner, two-dimensional (line, surface) — on the sidewalk, three-dimensional (area, volume) —in the house.
Temporal meanings can be presented as circumferences:
Prepositions mark the slightest subleties in the meaning.
Paper is made of wood. (the source is not visibly obvious)
The table is made out of wood. (the source is obvious)
He planted beans in his yard. (somewhere in the yard)
He planted his yard with beans. (all over the yard)
She took the groceries out of the bag. (one by one, no rush rs
implied)
She emptied the bag of groceries. (quickly, all at once)
In case of emergency, dial 999.
The teacher said the essays were mostly very good, but in the
case of Jane's and Tom's, there was still much room for improvement. Many crops and trees have already died from want of rain. I'm badly in want of a pair of new shoes.
Prepositions of place: position and movement
in/inside/outside, up/down, at, from, to, on, on top of, under(neath), over/above, under/below, through, in/into, out of, away from, towards, off, on/onto, next to, by/beside, close to/ near, etc.
The type of exercise suggested in "The Children's Response. TPR and Beyond" by Caroline Linse is very good for practising prepositions of place.
Fish in a Fish Bowl
1. Pick up a black crayon.
2. Draw a fish bowl.