III. Oxford Accent

Last October freshmen have gone down.** When they return in October, they will be second year men and women. Academically, they will be approaching middle age. How much of a stamp Oxford put on them already?*** Have they started to acquire an Oxford accent?

The Oxford accent exists, but it defies definition.**** It is not, as the French think, the kind of English which is spoken within a twenty mile radius of the city. Indeed, it is not an accent at all, but a manner of speaking. In particular it is a manner of pausing in your speech, of pausing not at the end of sentences, where you might be interrupted, but in the middle of sentences. Nobody, it is to be hoped, will be so rude to interrupt you when you are in the middle of a sentence. So pause there, to decide what your next sentence is going to be. Then, having decided, move quickly forward to it without a moment's pause at the full stop. Yes, jumping your full stops***** – that is the Oxford accent. Do it well, and you will be able to talk forever. Nobody will have the chance of breaking in and stealing the conversation from you.******

The Oxford accent, so called, is also a matter of redefining the other person's statement on your own terms.******* Wait for him to say whatever he has to say. Then start yourself: "What you really mean is..." Nothing could be ruder.

And for Americans in general it is a matter of employing, all unconsciously, a new vocabulary, of doing by instinct what on your arrival, you were shocked to hear other Americans doing.

Assignments:

1. Read extract number I and speak on:

a) the way the author presents the work of the lecturers in Oxford;

b) the tutorial system of education in British Universities.

2. Say what the "Term Collections" procedure is organized for.

3. Discuss the problem of an Oxford accent with your groupmates.

________________________

* and he is tackling it in quite the right spirit – и он делает это верно

** to go down – уйти из института

*** to put a stamp on smb – наложить на кого-л. отпечаток

**** to defy definition – не иметь определения

***** jumping your full stops – пропуски точек

****** Nobody will have the chance of breaking in and stealing the conversation from you. – Никто не сможет прервать вас или перехватить у вас инициативу в разговоре.

******* is also a matter of redefining the other person's statement on your own terms – это также истолкование чьего-то утверждения по-своему

A Reporter's Account

(by Daniel 'Lang)

Susan Cook Russo was twenty-one when she came East to fill her first teaching job. Just graduated from Michigan State College magna cum laude,* she was eager to embark on a career of teaching art to high-school students. The time was late August of 1969 and the place Rochester, New York, for which Mrs Russo and her husband, John, who was also a teacher, had chosen to leave to Midwest. The two, who had been married only a few months, were from East Lansing, Michigan, where they had been classmates in high school and college. John Russo had a job awaiting him in the science department of a public high school** in Rochester. The post that Mrs Russo had found was at the James E. Sperry High School, in Henrietta, a fast-growing middle-class suburb five miles from Rochester. The principal there, Donald A. Loughlin, had seen Mrs Russo in May, shortly before her commencement, and had given her a careful hearing.*** It had gone well. Mrs Russo had formidable credentials to offer,**** among them her outstanding academic record and glowing letters of reference.***** Her mother was a professor of art education. Besides these assets, Mrs Russo had worked her way through college,* as a waitress, a tutor, and a librarian and she had won several scholarships. Recalling the interview nearly three years later, when I talked to him, Lough-lin told me, "She made an excellent impression." He said it with stern reluctance, for by the spring of 1970, after Mrs Russo had been on his staff for eight months, Loughlin and she wished that they had never met. By then, like other Americans, they had discovered that they had irreconceilable conceptions of patriotism, the principal being adamant that the school pay daily homage to the flag, the new teacher rejecting the Pledge of Allegiance** as a sham, her opposition based on our war in Indo-China and on wide-spread poverty at home. _____________________

* magna cum laude (Lat.) – с отличием

** a public high school – бесплатная школа, подведомственная правительственным властям, включающая 9–12 или 10–12 годы обучения

*** had given her a careful hearing – обстоятельно проверил ее

**** Mrs Russo had formidable credentials to offer– у нее были достаточные полномочия

***** outstanding academic record and glowing letters of reference – очень хорошие знания и прекрасные рекомендации

By the spring of 1970 the differences between the principal and the new instructor were hardly a private quarrel. There were press reports about the disagreement. The community's taxpayers spoke up, most of them in favour of the school principal.*** By the time Mrs Russo's first year as a teacher was at an end, she had been fired. Mrs Russo's reaction was quick. She appealed to the courts. The first decision by a Judge went against Mrs Russo. She didn't stop at that, but she made no progress as a teacher and her future was an impenetrable fog. John Russo told me, "We came East for new experiences, but not for the one that has befalled Susan. It's getting to be like a nightmare from which there is not waking up!"

Assignments:

1. Tell the class what you know about the types of schools in the USA.

2. Give your opinion of Susan Russo.

3. Say a few words about an English or American book in which school life is described.

_______________________

* Mrs Russo had worked her way through college – учась в колледже,

миссис Руссо работала

** Pledge of Allegiance – торжественная клятва быть верным и преданным Соединенным Штатам (процедура, которой придерживаются все школы Нью-Йорка с начала нашего века). Клятва начинается следующими словами: "I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the country for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

*** The community's taxpayers spoke up, most of them in favour of the school principal. – Выступили налогоплательщики, большинство из которых стояло на стороне директора школы.