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C a p p e l e n D a m m s t i d s s k r i f t f o r e n g e l s k l æ r e r e
nr02-2012
Illu
st
ra
sjo
n: I
ng
er D
ale
WT
innhold
The Winner
by Robert Mikkelsen,
Høgskolen i Østfold03
10
18
The Games are over;
long live the Games!
by Richard Hugh Peel
Read It!
by David O’Gorman
07
“Vote for my husband!”
by Therese Holm,
Sandefjord vgs
Vocabulary Work:
Collocations and the
Corpus
by Hilde Hasselgård,
Universitetet i Oslo
14
['mæg@'zi:n]CAPPELEN DAMM VIDEREGÅENDE
Cappelen Damm
Akersgata 47/49
0055 Oslo
Telefon: 21 61 66 54 / 55
E-post: [email protected]
Ansvarlig redaktør:
Birger Nicolaysen
Redaksjon:
Kirsten Aadahl
Produksjon: AIT Oslo AS
Denne og alle tidligere utgaver av bladet er tilgjengelig i
bla-i-bok-format på nettet. Se f. eks. lærersidene på passage.
cappelendamm.no eller access.cappelendamm.no. Der
fi nner du også en oversikt over innholdet i alle utgavene.
Leder
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Denne utgaven av fagbladet står i ettertankens
tegn. Vi innleder med Robert Mikkelsens analyse
av den spennende amerikanske valgkampen
og resultatet av denne. Mange av dere har
forhåpentligvis hatt nytte av Roberts «Election
Watch» på nettstedet til Access to English:
Social Studies denne høsten, og som vanlig vil
også artikkelen hans i dette bladet legges ut på
nettstedet som en «Access Update»-ressurs for
lærere og elever.
Et annerledes og spennende perspektiv
på amerikansk politikk tas opp i Therese
Holms artikkel «Vote for my husband!» – en
sammenlikning av Michelle Obama og Ann
Romneys taler til The National Conventions.
De to kvinnene er i samme situasjon: De skal
promotere sin ektemann slik at han får fl est
mulig stemmer i presidentvalget. Hvilke emner
tar de opp, og hvilke retoriske virkemidler bruker
de?
I året vi snart har tilbakelagt har også
Storbritannia, den andre tradisjonelle
stormakten innenfor den engelskspråklige
verden, vært i medienes søkelys. Richard
Peel ser tilbake på sommerens store
idrettsbegivenhet, de olympiske leker i London,
og gir oss noen svar på hvorfor disse lekene
skapte så mye begeistring og blir sett på som en
stor suksess.
Politikk og samfunnsliv dekkes regelmessig
i dette fagbladet, men vi glemmer ikke det
språklige aspektet ved engelskfaget. Ikke minst
er vokabulartrening viktig, og Hilde Hasselgård
gir oss et innblikk i «collocations» og noen gode
råd om hvordan man kan jobbe med dette temaet.
Vi avslutter med nok et tilbakeblikk, denne
gang på en bok som har blitt en liten klassiker
innenfor sjangeren humoristisk reiseskildring,
nemlig Bill Brysons Notes from a Small Island.
David O’Gorman har humret seg gjennom et
gjensyn med boka, og han spør seg om den
fortsatt kan gi oss innsikt i det britiske
samfunnet nesten 20 år etter at den først kom ut.
God lesning!
WinnerTheThe
President Barack Obama
hugs his daughters
Malia (R) and Sasha
as First Lady Michelle
Obama looks on during
his election night
victory rally in Chicago,
November 7, 2012
(©NTB scanpix)
by Robert Mikkelsen
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On the evening of November 6, 2012,
Barack Hussein Obama once again
stepped out onto a stage in Chicago to
give his victory speech as the winner of
the offi ce of the President of the United
States of America. He had again beaten
the odds against him, just as he had
four years earlier. Not only had he won,
but his victory had been unexpectedly
large. The media and the nation had
expected a much closer race. In the
end he was elected with 334 electoral
votes to Mitt Romney’s 206, many
more than the 270 he had needed (see
Access to English: Social Studies, p.
207, “The Electoral College”). In some
ways, however, these impressive fi gu-
res masked a much tougher and closer
fi ght for the White House than during
his fi rst campaign in 2008. There were
many diffi cult obstacles to be overcome
before he could stand on that stage
once more.
Obstacles to Victory
First of all, Obama could no longer
run as the unknown outsider. Four
years before he had cast himself as
the candidate of hope and change. He
had promised to shake up the esta-
blishment in Washington and bring new
political unity after years of bitter
divisions between Republicans and
Democrats. By 2012, he was himself
at the very center of the Washington
establishment and those divisions
were, if anything, even deeper. Although
he could blame this on the Republicans’
unwavering opposition to his policies,
there was no denying that the unity
he had wished to create had failed to
appear.
Second, the terrifi c enthusiasm and
optimism Obama had created among his
supporters in 2008 had been dampened
by four years of practical governing
and compromise. Many who had voted
for him had hoped that he would quickly
end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
close the hated prison camp at Guan-
tanamo Bay, pass legislation to help
the poor and generally clean up the
mess in which they believed the
Republicans under George W. Bush had
left the country. Instead, the with-
drawal from Iraq took years, the war in
Afghanistan went on, Guantanamo Bay
remained open and the number of peo-
ple living in poverty actually went up.
Many disillusioned Democratic voters
did not show up at the polls for the
Congressional elections of 2010. As a
result, the Republicans gained a strong
majority in the House of Representative
which they immediately used to attack
the President’s policies even more
aggressively (see Access Update: “The
Perfect Slosh”).
But by far the most serious obstacle
to Obama’s reelection was the deep
eco nomic crisis that he had inherited
when coming into offi ce. In 2007 the
country had been plunged into the
steepest economic downturn since the
Great Depression of the 1930s. The
banking system collapsed. Credit dried
up. People lost their homes and jobs.
Middle class voters who had supported
Obama were hit hard. The poor were
hit even harder. By 2009 the unemploy-
ment rate soared to more than 10%
and stubbornly remained above 8%
for years (see Access Update: “Where
Did All The Money Go?”). Only one
President in history – Franklin Delano
Roosevelt – had ever been re-elected
in the middle of such hard times.
Americans vote their pocketbooks.
The Path to Victory
In order to win, Obama and his elec-
tion team had to overcome these
obstacles. For starters, in place of the
calls for “hope” and “change” used so
successfully as an outsider in 2008, the
White House settled on the campaign
slogan of “Forward!” This succinctly
expressed the idea of continuing along
the path Obama had put the country.
The argument was that the policies
were working. The wars were winding
down. The economy was gradually
improving. The poor had been helped by
health care legislation that gave more
than 20 million Americans coverage for
the fi rst time (See Access Update: “In
Need of Treatment – American Health
Care Reform”). Yes, it would take time
and effort to pull America out of the
deep hole in which the Republicans
had left the country, but Obama was on
the right path. “Have patience. We are
moving forward,” was the message.
Second, Obama’s campaign head-
quarters set about to try to syste-
matically recreate the coalition of
voters that had brought them to power
four years before. This had consisted of
a large majority of voters in minority
groups like Blacks, Latinos (of Latin
American heritage) and Asians, as
well as most women and a healthy
proportion of well educated White Non-
Latinos voters (of European heritage).
The big question was, could it be put
together again or was it a one-time-
phenomenon created by Obama’s
charismatic leadership in 2008?
In place of the spontaneous enthusiasm
of that election, the White House team
turned to hard work on the ground. In
key “swing states” that might have
voted for either candidate, they set
up two or three times the number of
campaign offi ces on the local level as
their Republican opponents. Each offi ce
was staffed by an “Obama for America”
volunteer who acted as a coordinator
for calls, for visits, for knocking on
doors, for driving people to the polling
stations, etc. More than 125 million
voters were contacted directly – and
not just any old voters. They were
picked out by carefully sifting through
mountains of data that had been
compiled for years by Obama’s experts.
As one reporter put it, “The power of
this operation stunned [the Republi-
cans] on election night, when they saw
voters they never even knew existed
turn out in places like Osceola County,
Florida.”
Finally, shortly after suffering defeat
in the Congressional Elections in
2010, the President made a strategic
decision. He resolved to turn his 2012
reelection campaign into a battle
of values and visions, rather than a
referendum on how good he was at
handling the economy. He wanted to
make voters realize that there was a
stark choice to be made between his
vision of the country and that of the
Republicans. His basic point was that
he and his fellow Democrats believed
that government could be a positive
force for the good of the nation, helping
people and providing a basis for
businesses and individuals to reach
their goals.
In contrast, Republicans were
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portrayed as believing that government
was at best a necessary evil to be kept
as small as possible so indi viduals
could reach their goals with a minimum
of state interference. Mitt Romney
added to this contrast. When he became
the Republicans’ presidential candida-
te, he repeatedly claimed that Obama
wished to make the United States
into a European-style state under the
control of an over-powerful central
government that would limit and stifl e
individual freedom.
Whatever one thinks of this ideo logical
confl ict, shifting the focus from the
weak economy to issues of political
principle turned out to be to the
advantage of Obama.
The Victory Itself
1) The Size
On November 6th Americans chose
between these leaders and these very
different visions of government. You
know the results, but let’s look more
closely at the numbers behind Obama’s
victory. First, although it was a solid
win, it was not as large or as clear a
victory as that of 2008. In that year
he had won 365 electoral votes com-
pared to 334 in 2012. There was an
even greater drop in his majority of the
popular vote which fell from almost 10
million in 2008 to only a little over 3
million in 2012. In part this refl ected
the fact that fewer people went to vote
in 2012, but that in itself is a sign of
less interest among American voters
than in 2008.
On the other hand, this election did
not turn out to be the cliff-hanger the
experts had predicted on the basis of
pre-election polls. A majority of voters
in the nation made it quite clear whom
they wanted as president and what view
of government they supported. But who
exactly made up that majority?
2) The Coalition
According to exit polls (people asked
after voting), Obama’s campaign team
did succeed in recreating the coalition
that had brought him to power in 2008.
Here are the numbers to back that up:
A quick look at these fi gures makes
it clear that while Mitt Romney won
the majority of white male voters over
the age 45, Obama won a majority of
virtually everyone else in the country.
This refl ects a basic and long term
demographic shift in the population
of the United States. Not only did
Barack Obama become the fi rst black
president of the United States in 2008,
he also became the fi rst minority
president. And he was reelected with
that same minority support. It was
large majorities among Blacks, Latinos,
Asians, as well as women and the
young, which put him over the top.
This promises a bright future for the
Democratic Party because it is just
Barack Obama Mitt Romney
By Race
White 39 59
Black 93 7
Latino 71 27
Asian 73 26
By Gender
Men 45 52
Women 55 44
By Age
18–29 60 37
30–44 52 45
45–64 47 51
65 and older 44 56
Voter preference in 2012 (percentages)
Republican presidential candidate
Mitt Romney concedes defeat
November 7, 2012 in Boston, telling
supporters that he has called
US President Barack Obama to
congratulate him on his victory
(©NTB scanpix)
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these minority groups with large
numbers of young people which are
growing the quickest. For example,
in 2012 for the fi rst time in American
history the majority of children
(50.4%) under the age of one were
from minority backgrounds. At the
same time, the number of Americans
who are of white European heritage is
actually shrinking. By 2042 they will
no longer be a majority in the country.
This is known as the “browning out” of
America. Obama’s Democratic coalition
seems to be the wave of the future.
The Impact of the Election
Ironically, however, as important as
the reelection of President Obama
may be for the future of politics in
America, it has not changed the short-
term political situation on the ground.
That is because the Republicans kept
control of the House of Representatives
in the election. This means that, if
they wish, they can continue to block
Obama’s policies as they have for the
past two years. In that case we will
get what is called political “gridlock”
– things will stand still as each side
blames the other for not being willing
to make necessary compromises. This
could theoretically last until the new
Congressional elections in 2014.
On the other hand, years of Republican
political opposition did not succeed in
getting the Democrats out of the White
House. On the contrary, it seems to
have split the country even more deeply
and left the Republicans on what might
be the wrong side of that divide. They
will now have to ask themselves if
they can afford to say no to the new
majority which has backed Obama. In
the long run, the voters who support
the Republicans are getting fewer in
number. Perhaps it is time for them
to think about making compromises
and mending bridges. After all, that’s
politics.
task
s
Discussion
1 Why can it be an advantage to be an “outsider”
in American politics? Do you think it could be as
much of an advantage in Norwegian politics? How
are the two different?
2 Politics is often called “The art of the possible”
– that is, getting some of what you can rather
than all of what you want. Do you agree? Why
might this cause people to feel disillusioned or
disappointed in politics?
Language
Repetition and rhythm are important parts of
rhetoric. How does President Obama make use of
them in the following excerpt from his victory speech
in Chicago on November 6, 2012 (see Access to
English: Social Studies, p. 415)?
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve
made and continue to fi ght for new jobs and new
opportunity and new security for the middle class. I
believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the
idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t
matter who you are or where you come from or what
you look like or who you love. It doesn’t matter
whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or
Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able,
disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in
America if you’re willing to try.
I believe we can seize this future together because
we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re
not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater
than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we
remain more than a collection of red states and blue
states. We are and forever will be the United States
of America.
Working with Statistics
Look at the table for “Voter preference in 2012” on
page 5 and answer the following questions:
1 Which groups gave a majority of their votes to
Obama?
2 Which groups gave a majority of their votes to
Romney?
3 Which individual group gave the greatest
percentage of its votes to one candidate?
4 According to this information, who would you
expect the following to vote for?
– a Latino woman
– a white man
– a man under 45
– a black man
– a woman over 65
– an Asian man
– a man over 45
Access Updates: see “News Archive” at
http://access-socialstudies.cappelendamm.no
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Collocations and the Corpus
Vocabulary Work:
Collocations have been described as an important part of native
speaker competence, and as both indispensable and problematic for
learners of a foreign language. But what are collocations? How can
we identify them? And what can we do with them?
A simple defi nition of “collocation”
is “two or more words that tend to
occur in the vicinity of each other”.
Collocations were fi rst described by
the British linguist J.R. Firth, who
famously wrote that “you shall know a
word by the company it keeps” (Firth,
1957). Knowing a word thus includes
knowing the expressions it commonly
occurs in as well as the meanings that
a word acquires by being associated
with others. Firth’s example is silly
ass (referring to the animal by that
name!), which is meant to illustrate
not only that the two words often go
together, but that the close association
between these two words will colour
the meaning of ass even when it occurs
on its own.
In the context of teaching and learning
a foreign language, both of these
aspects of collocation are relevant.
Knowing the most common contexts of
a word is part of knowing the meaning
of a word. To use another example, the
word middle is most commonly found
in the phrase in the middle of. Thus,
if someone is asked to explain what
middle means, it is likely that this
expression will come up. Furthermore,
this particular expression is quite fi xed
as regards the choice of prepositions
and the article: it is not correct to
by Hilde Hasselgård
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Hilde Hasselgård is a professor of
English language at the University
of Oslo. Most of her work is within
grammar and text linguistics and
the comparison of Norwegian and
English structures. Hasselgård has
co-authored an English-Norwegian
dictionary as well as several text
books for the university level and
upper secondary school.
A big or a serious problem? Adjective + noun combinationsIt used to be the case that big was
reserved for physical size and could not
modify abstract nouns such as problem.
However, nowadays the meaning of big seems to have become more general, and
the phrase big problem is not uncommon.
The choice of relatively synonymous
adjectives to modify nouns is sometimes
unpredictable. A familiar example is the
different adjectives commonly used to
describe good-looking men and women,
such as handsome man and pretty woman,
but usually not handsome woman or
pretty man. Strong and powerful may be
equally good – and also synonymous – in
front of a noun such as engine, but in
front of a noun such as woman or man,
they mean different things. In yet other
contexts only one of them is possible
(or normal), as in front of coffee or tea,
where only strong works. Other pairs
of adjectives that are only sometimes
synonyms are high/tall, little/small,
strange/funny, clever/smart. In fact, very
few “synonymous” adjectives can be used
in all the same contexts with the same
meaning. (See sample exercise 2.)
Arts and crafts – or the order of nounsMany common phrases consist of two
nouns co-ordinated by and, for example
bacon and eggs. It can be argued that
the order of the factors does not change
the product. Eggs and bacon means the
same thing, but it sounds odd, the same
way as “bacon og egg” sounds odd in
Norwegian. A phrase where the order does
change the product is bed and breakfast,
which obviously refers to a place where
you can stay the night and get a morning
meal. Breakfast and bed, however, does
not refer to a unifi ed concept, but to two
discrete entities, the same way as tonic
and gin is not a drink, and chips and fi sh
is not a dish. Other common phrases in
which the order of the nouns is relatively
fi xed are: food and drink, fruits and
vegetables, goods and services, hands and
feet, health and safety, hearts and minds,
pen and paper, research and development,
salt and pepper, shapes and sizes, theory
and practice. In a few cases, one order
suggests a technical term (health and
safety, research and development) while
the reverse order would only refer to two
concepts. In others, such as fruits and
vegetables, the reverse order is simply
an unusual way to refer to the same two
concepts. (See sample exercise 3.)
How can we identify collocations?Since collocations are often a bit
unpredictable and notoriously hard to
pick up for foreign speakers of a language,
we need good methods to identify the
correct or common patterns. Native
speakers learn collocations the same way
they learn language in general, namely
by means of massive input. In foreign
language learning, the input is far less
massive, and intuition much less reliable.
Therefore it is often helpful to consult
dictionaries or corpora to get at the
company that a word keeps.
DictionariesModern dictionaries often give examples
to show how a word is typically used. For
instance the Cambridge Online Dictionary
gives the following contexts for the
adjective serious:
a serious illness; There were no
reports of serious injuries; The new tax
regulations have landed some of the
smaller companies in serious trouble;
Drugs have become a serious problem in
a lot of schools; This is a very serious
offence; He’s been taken to hospital
where his condition is described as
serious but stable.
These are good clues to common
collocations of serious. Dictionaries also
usually give information on prepositions
that follow adjectives and verbs, as in the
Macmillan Dictionary entry for different,
where we fi nd different from, different
to and different in with examples to
illustrate their use.
CorporaWhile a dictionary illustrates word
patterns that have been selected by a
lexicographer, a corpus gives access
to huge quantities of language data,
thus allowing users to draw their own
conclusions about language use. A
corpus is a large, structured database
of texts that has been compiled for use
in linguistic research. Many corpora are
publicly available. A valuable resource
is found at http://corpus.byu.edu, where
corpora of both British and American
English can be accessed. Users need to
register after a few searches, but this
is free of charge and does not generate
spam email. The corpus we have used
here for exemplifi cation is the Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA),
which is huge and keeps being added to.
At the time of writing (October 2012) it
totals 450 million words of running text.
There are helpful instructions on how to
use the corpus on the corpus page itself,
but here are some basic steps to get
started:
Go to http://corpus.byu.edu and
select the Corpus of Contemporary
American English. Log in (or register
as a user).
Type a word or phrase in the box
after WORD(S).
Click on the Search button. The word/
phrase will appear in the window
to the right with a number next to
it, which represents the number of
times the word/phrase occurs in the
corpus. By clicking on the word(s),
say *on the middle of (in contrast to
Norwegian i midten/på midten) or *in a
middle of.
The importance of collocations for
language learning and language
production is evident from John Sinclair’s
claim that “words appear to be chosen
in pairs or groups” (1991). Words are
not seen as independent items, but as
part of prefabricated units. Words are
not combined in arbitrary ways; most
language choices are routinized rather
than creative. This makes for fl uent
and idiomatic language production and
greatly eases language interpretation.
The problem for foreign language
learners is that languages have different
routines; typical word combinations
in one language are not necessarily
transferrable to another.
Collocations, idioms and fi xed expressionsCollocations represent typical, common
ways of expressing oneself. This is in
contrast to what is known as “idioms”,
which are typically non-literal, highly
specialized phrases such as blow the
whistle (meaning “raise an alarm”), at
the drop of a hat (“immediately”), and hit
the sack (“go to bed”). Idioms may need
to be taught because their meaning is not
transparent, but they are usually not very
frequently used.
So is a collocation the same thing
as a fi xed expression? The answer is
“not entirely”. Collocations need not
be entirely fi xed. For example, the
expression make a decision can be varied
in different ways: by varying the form
of the noun or the verb (make decisions,
making/made a decision), by using the
defi nite article (make the decision) or
by inserting an adjective before the noun
(make the wrong decision). In this case
the “fi xed” components of the collocation
are the lexemes make and decision.
We can of course also take decisions.
However, a search in the huge Corpus
of Contemporary American English (see
below) shows that make is over 40 times
more frequent than take in the vicinity
of decision. This shows make to be a
stronger collocate of decision.
An important principle of collocation is
that words acquire meaning from their
context. Although make and take may be
synonyms in the expressions make/take a
decision, they are not in the expressions
make an order and take an order. On the
contrary, they refer to the complementary
tasks of for instance a customer making
an order and a shop assistant taking it.
In most other contexts the meanings of
make and take are not even related, for
instance make some money vs. take some
money. (See sample exercise 1.)
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we get to the sentences in the corpus
that contain the word(s).
We can search for a phrase with an
unspecifi ed item by using an asterisk
(*) as a “wildcard”, i.e. instead of
the missing word. The search result
will be a list of all the alternative
expressions found with their
frequencies. (See the example of a
piece of * below.)
We can search for all infl ectional
forms of a word by putting it in
square brackets. For example,
a search for [make] will return
make, makes, made, making, with
frequencies for each form.
On the search page of the COCA corpus
there is a button saying “Collocates”.
This option is interesting for fi nding out
about the company of words. Searching
for the word string and clicking the
Collocates button, we get a list of
words that occur up to four words before
or after string in the corpus. The fi ve
most frequent ones are quartet, theory,
together, beans and tied. These give
evidence of at least four different
meanings of string, which can be further
explored.
We can also fi nd collocations in the
corpus by searching for a part of them,
for example a piece of *. (The asterisk
stands for an unspecifi ed word.) The ten
most frequent nouns to follow a piece
of turn out to be paper, cake, music,
land, wood, bread, meat, furniture, fruit,
and legislation. This information can
be useful for learning expressions with
a piece of but also for more advanced
purposes, such as studying the meaning
of a piece of in the different collocations.
For example piece can be translated
by the Norwegian stykke in some of the
expressions, but not in all. A piece of
cake (unlike a piece of bread) can have a
literal or a metaphorical meaning, as we
can see from the corpus examples.
Another reason why a large corpus is so
useful in working with collocations is
that frequency matters. In the example
of make or take a decision, we found that
one was hugely more frequent than the
other. The sheer frequency of make a
decision tells us that this alternative is
favoured; it is the most idiomatic choice.
In a teaching context this information is
of course extremely helpful.
The sample exercises in this article
can thus be most easily solved by
using a corpus to test out the different
combinations. The majority solution
usually wins. Alternatively, we can study
corpus examples to identify meaning
differences, as in the case of a piece of
cake.
Concluding remarksThe observation that “words appear to be
chosen in pairs or groups” is crucial for
the way we deal with vocabulary learning:
it makes mastery of collocations
vital to both the production and the
interpretation of language. In our fi rst
language, we acquire the collocational
patterns of words naturally. In a second
or foreign language, the procedure often
has to be a more conscious effort. Both
dictionaries and corpora are of great
assistance in making that effort.
Sample exercise 2: The two adjectives given at the beginning of each line below
mean approximately the same thing. Which one is the best
combination with each of the nouns that follow them? If
both can be used, do the combinations mean the same thing?
(Example: strong/powerful – woman. Both strong woman and
powerful woman are OK, but do not mean the same thing: a
strong woman is physically strong while a powerful woman
has power over other people.)
1. High/tall – boy, tree, mountain, price, voice, door,
building
2. Clever/smart – girl, idea, solution, hands, phone, move
3. Kind/friendly – man, permission, smile, offer, heart, word
4. Strange/funny – character, joke, animal, town, idea, movie
5. Serious/severe – illness, problem, expression, injury,
pressure, penalty, crime, answer
Sample exercise 1:MAKE, TAKE or both?
(If both are possible, do they mean the same?)
Sample exercise 3:Connect the two nouns in each pair with and in the order that is most natural or common. Example: services / goods goods and
services.
knees weaknesses life soul cons costs
hands strengths death heart pros bene ts
__________ a risk
__________ a comment
__________ my day
__________ a close look
__________ the point
__________ a suggestion
__________ a break
__________ a chance
__________ a seat
__________ a left turn
ReferencesFirth, J.R. 1957. A synopsis of
linguistic theory. Studies in
linguistic analysis, 1-31. Reprinted
in F.R. Palmer (ed.). 1968. Selected
Papers of J.R. Firth 1952-59.
London: Longman, 168-205.
Nesselhauf, Nadja. 2003. The Use of
Collocations by Advanced Learners
of English and Some Implications
for Teaching. Applied Linguistics
24 (2): 223-242.
Sinclair, John. 1991. Corpus –
Concordance – Collocation. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
DictionariesCambridge Dictionaries Online:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Macmillan Dictionary:
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/
Relevant URLsAdvanced collocations:
http://www.englishclub.com/
vocabulary/collocations-advanced.htm
A guide to learning English,
Collocation:
http://esl.fi s.edu/grammar/easy/
colloc.htm
Corpus of Contemporary American
English (and other corpora):
http://corpus.byu.edu
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In the preparations for a presidential
election the presidential candidates
give many speeches in which they
explain their visions and the plans
they wish to implement should they
be elected President of the USA. Other
party members, previous presidents
and current celebrities will also speak
out to support their candidate. In this
year’s presidential campaign, however,
the speeches of two women attracted
more attention than many of the other
speeches combined.
In August and September of 2012
Michelle Obama and Ann Romney
addressed, respectively, the
Democratic and the Republican
National Conventions. Each woman had
the same goal: To obtain more votes
for their husband in the presidential
election in November. So, what do
you say to get more voters on your
husband’s side? In this article we shall
compare and contrast the speeches
the two women made to see how they
argue to convince the audience to give
their vote to either Barack Obama
The ultimate nightmare: You
are standing before a podium
looking out on to a sea of
people. A microphone in front
of you picks up your every word,
camera lenses are pointing
towards you from every angle,
ready to capture every gesture
you make. Millions of viewers
are watching you, waiting for
you to convince them to vote
for your husband as the next
American president. How can
you persuade them?
Allusion: Quoting directly from another known source, for example
the Bible or another famous speech (“I have a dream …”).
Alliteration: The repetition of a consonant sound in two or more
neighbouring words. For example: “dignity and decency”, “a
desperate decade of decline”.
Antithesis: Explaining what you do NOT want to do, often followed
by what you do want to do. For example: “I do not want to wait until
everyone is ready – the change must come now”.
False dilemmas: When the speaker offers a limited number of
options, while in reality more options are available. For example:
“Either we cut the social programs or we live with a huge defi cit,
and we cannot live with a huge defi cit!”
Hypophora: When the speaker poses a question and answers it
herself. For example: “What is the solution? The solution is to
create more jobs!”
Juxtaposition: When two contrasting elements are put together for
rhetorical effect. For example: “heaven and hell”, “through fi re and
ice”, “young and old”, “weak and strong”.
Parallelism: Repeating parts of a sentence within the same
sentence for rhetorical effect. For example: “If anyone wonders why
you should leave your sofa, why you should go to the polling station
and why you should vote …”
Repetition: Repeating parts of or an entire sentence.
Rhetorical question: A statement formulated as a question which
does not require an answer. For example: “Are those the values that
made our country great?”
Tricolon: The use of three successive sentences, each about the
same in length, but increasing in power. For example: “We will fi ght!
We will kill! We will win!”
Varied sentence length: Using sentences of different length to
emphasize a point in the shorter sentence. For example: “This man
is the hardest working man you will ever meet, with a dedication
towards his work like no one else I have ever known. This is the man
you need.”
In addition to this, we often identify three ways of arguing in a non-
fi ction text: Ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos: When you argue using authority and credibility.
Pathos: When you argue using feelings and moral certitude.
Logos: When you argue using logic and reason.
TERMINOLOGY: RHETORICAL DEVICES
“Vote for my
by Therese Holm,
Sandefjord vgs
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or Mitt Romney. But fi rst, let us look
at some terminology and rhetorical
devices that are useful when analysing
speeches (see box, p. 10).
Before you read on, take some time
to read the transcripts of the two
speeches, or watch them on YouTube.
(Search for “Transcript/Video of Ann
Romney’s speech at the Republican
National Convention”, or “Transcript/
Video of Michelle Obama’s speech at
the Democratic National Convention”.)
Being able to correctly identify the
rhetorical devices used is of course
essential when it comes to analysing a
speech. Just as important is being able
to explain why the speaker has chosen
to use the rhetorical devices, and what
effect they have on the text. Moreover,
it is necessary to look at how the
speaker argues for her cause – and how
the speaker tries to get her message
across. Let us have a look at how Ann
Romney and Michelle Obama try to
convince the viewers to give their vote
to their respective husbands.
“I want to talk to you about love”
Ann Romney starts her speech with
an antithesis by telling the audience
what she is not going to talk about:
“I want to talk to you tonight not
about politics and not about party”.
This makes Romney’s agenda rather
different from the other speeches at
the national convention, which usually
only revolve around politics and party.
She continues: “Tonight I want to
talk to you about love”, a sentence
which signals that the tone of this
speech will be different and probably
more personal than other speeches
the audience has heard during the
convention.
Michelle Obama chooses to start her
speech by reminding the audience of
her authority, using ethos when she
says: “Over the past few years as First
Lady, I have had the extraordinary
privilege of traveling all across this
country”. She then quickly resorts to
pathos, when she says that everywhere
she has been she has “seen the very
best of the American spirit”, and
continues by giving examples of this
spirit through a series of tricolons,
starting with the words “I have seen
it in …”. This structure is rather
similar to Romney’s speech, where
her approach is similar to a tricolon,
starting with the words “I want to talk
to you about …”. Both women thus
choose to start their speech by talking
about their feelings, but while Obama
gives examples of her admiration for
the American spirit, Romney focuses
more on the “one great thing that
unites us” – love.
“They are here among us tonight”
The love that Romney talks about
extends not only to the man she “met at
a dance many years ago” or the love “we
have for our children and our children’s
children”, it extends to “those
Americans, our brothers and sisters,
who are going through diffi cult times”.
She then continues to explain who
“those Americans” are, and that “They
are here among us tonight; they are here
in neighbourhoods across Tampa and all
across the USA”. This juxtaposition of
“us” and “them” is interesting to note
– one could ask whether the people in
the audience at the convention feel that
they belong in either category?
When Obama gave her speech, some
days later, she made a point out of
stating that for Barack Obama, no
such juxtaposition exists: “there is no
such thing as ‘us’ and ‘them’”. She then
continues: “he doesn’t care whether
husband!”
Ann Romney (L) speaking at the Republican National
Convention (RNC) at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in
Tampa, Florida, on August 28, 2012, and Michelle Obama
(R) delivering a speech at the Time Warner Cable Arena in
Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 4, 2012 on the fi rst
day of the Democratic National Convention (©NTB scanpix)
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you’re a Democrat, a Republican or
none of the above … he knows that we
all love our country […] he’s always
looking for the very best in everyone
he meets”. While Romney expresses
her sympathy for “those Americans”
who are going through diffi cult times,
placing herself outside that category,
Obama talks about the people she meets
every day, saying that “they make me
proud… every day they remind me how
blessed we are to live in the greatest
nation on earth”. It seems that Romney
wishes to express her sympathy for
Americans going through a tough period;
while Obama focuses on how proud
Americans make her. And it is perhaps
not surprising that the two speakers
argue differently, given their positions.
Obama, having been First Lady for
four years, wants to express that her
husband, the president, cares for the
well-being of all Americans. He is,
after all, everyone’s president, not just
working for those who voted for him in
the last election. Romney, on the other
hand, wants to point out that things
have not been easy for people during
this last presidential period, partly
because of the political decisions that
have been made.
“I’m not sure if men really
understand this, but … ”
Romney again turns to ethos when, like
Obama, she says that she has been
“all across the country for the past
year and a half”. But instead of being
impressed with the American people, as
Obama was, Romney has “heard these
stories of how hard it is to get ahead
now”. And according to Romney, one
group of the population has struggled
more than others: women. If we listen
carefully, she says, we could hear a
“great collective sigh late at night,
coming from Americans who are not
sure how they will make it through
another day”. She continues: “And if
you listen carefully, you’ll hear the
women sighing a little bit more than
the men”, before asking the rhetorical
question: “It‘s how it is, isn’t it?” For a
second you may be tempted to believe
that she is addressing all women of
the nation, but in her next sentences
she clarifi es this: “It’s the moms of
this nation […] who really hold this
country together”, before adding another
rhetorical question: “You know it’s true,
don’t you?” The four last years may
have been hard for many Americans, but
according to Romney, the moms have had
to struggle the most. Appealing to the
moms with pathos through a series of
repetitive sentences starting with “You
know”, she ends up singing the moms’
praise. Not only are the moms “the best
of America” and “the hope of America”,
she also uses a kind of false dilemma
when she says “There would not be an
America without you”.
Having sung the moms’ praise, Romney
wants to include all American women
in her next sentence. She does this by
creating a verbal barrier between men
and women through this antithesis: “I’m
not sure if men really understand this,
but I don’t think there’s a woman in
America who really expects her life to
be easy”. This is an interesting sentence
to interpret, as a number of questions
arise: Does Romney think that American
men expect their lives to be easy? Is
that why men cannot understand how
the women feel? Or is she trying to
provoke the men listening to her speech
by teasing them and challenging them?
Is she trying to be coquettish towards
the men and at the same time make the
women who do not have children feel
included? It is not entirely clear from
the context what she is trying to do here.
“A kindred spirit”
Both Obama and Romney want the
audience to get to know their husbands
better. Therefore they spend a large
part of the speech talking about their
own and their husbands’ backgrounds,
their values and what they stand
for. Using pathos, a vivid language
and numerous sensory details, the
speakers share information about their
husbands through a narrative which
takes the listeners back to when the
presidential candidates fi rst met their
future wives. “He was tall, laughed
a lot, was nervous”, Ann Romney
remembers. “He was a guy whose
proudest possession was a coffee table
he’d found in a dumpster”, Michelle
Obama reminiscences. Both speakers
emphasize the beauty in not having a
lot, but having love for one another.
Romney’s remarks about being “very
young, both still in college” when
they got married, and then having to
eat “lots of pasta and tuna fi sh” –
presumably because it is a cheap meal
– echoes Obama’s tricolonic statement
about being “so young, so in love and so
in debt”.
Midway through the speeches, both
women start to talk about their own and
their husbands’ families, again using
the narrative style, and emphasize
how important the families have been
for them. “I am the granddaughter of a
Welsh coal miner”, Romney says, “who
was determined that his kids get out
of the mines”. “My father was a pump
operator at the city water plant, and he
was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis
when I was young”, Obama tells the
audience. “Mitt’s dad never graduated
from college. Instead he became a
carpenter”, Romney continues. “Barack
was raised by a single mother who
struggled to pay the bills, and by
grandparents who stepped in when
she needed help”, Obama says. Why
all this talk about family background,
one may wonder. Part of the reason
could be to show the audience and the
listeners that even though the two men
in question now are in positions of
power, it was not always so – hard work
has paved the way. “Mitt Romney was
not handed success”, his wife says, “He
built it”. Similarly, Michelle Obama
points out that “for Barack, success
isn’t about how much money you make,
it’s about the difference you make in
people’s lives”.
Mitt Romney (L) embracing his wife Ann and President Barack Obama (R) embracing First Lady Michelle
Obama at the conclusion of the fi nal presidential debate, October 22, 2012 (©NTB scanpix)
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Another reason for the narrative about
family background, is that it helps
explain how the two men were taught
the values they carry with them today.
These values are clearly stated through
the use of alliteration – “family, faith
and love of one’s fellow man”, says
Romney, “dignity and decency”, says
Obama.
Finally, it gives the audience some
images they are likely to remember
after the speech is over. Romney’s
pasta and tuna fi sh and Obama’s rusty
car and too small shoes serve the same
purpose: They show the audience that
the presidential candidates are “real”
people who have worked hard to get
to where they are, and that they still
remember where they came from.
“No one will work harder”
Towards the end of the speeches, after
having used the narrative style for some
time, both speakers change tactics
and employ a number of repetitions to
enhance their message. Obama does this
when she lists several decisions her
husband has made in the past four years,
using “That’s why…” as the repeating
phrase. She does the same a bit later in
the speech, when she explains her love
for her husband. “I love that...” she says,
repeating the phrase three times. And
at the end of the speech, she repeats the
phrase “if I / we want” within the same
sentence, thus creating parallelism.
Romney is also fond of repetitions,
and several places in the speech she
repeats a phrase three times over. “No
one will…” she says, hammering the
message into the audience in short
sentences. A bit later she assures the
listeners that “This man will not fail.
This man will not let us down. This man
will lift up America”. Since the fi rst
two sentences here are examples of
antithesis, the third becomes even more
powerful, when she says what this man
will do, rather than what he will not
do. Towards the very end of her speech,
Romney’s sentences become shorter and
more concentrated: “This is our country.
This is our future. These are our children
and grandchildren. You can trust Mitt.
He loves America”. These sentences are
a strong contrast to the narrative style
she uses when she talks about their
families and backgrounds – and serve a
different purpose, of course. While the
talk about family background creates
an image of her husband that the voters
can relate to, the last part of the speech
is more about selling the political
message “vote for my husband”.
“My most important title is still
mom-in-chief”
There are many similarities between the
two speeches we have examined here.
The goal, the content, the structure,
the way the two speakers talk about
their backgrounds with much pathos,
even the values they say their husbands
represent, seem to be the same. But
one woman is trying to get her husband
elected, while the other is trying to
get her husband re-elected. Therefore
Michelle Obama has to focus more on the
positive changes she feels her husband
has contributed to in the past four
years, while Ann Romney has to point
out that the past four years have been
hard for many voters with a Democrat
in the White House. Romney is trying to
connect with the moms of America by
spending a fair bit of her speech singing
their praises. Obama, as First Lady, has
to address all Americans in her speech –
and chooses to do so by focusing on how
proud she is of the American spirit. But
she also emphasizes what an honour and
a privilege it is to serve as First Lady
– even if being a mom is still her most
important job.
task
s
DISCUSS:
1 Which catch phrases and sentences do you think the
audience will remember after having heard the two
speeches?
2 Only Romney uses rhetorical questions and
hypophora. What effect does this have on her
speech?
3 How do you think people would have reacted if Mitt
Romney had said “I’m not sure if women really
understand this, but …”?
4 “I want to talk about love”, Romney said. In which
ways was her speech about love? Did she end up
talking a bit about politics after all?
5 Michelle Obama also expresses a lot of love in her
speech – what does she express her love for?
FURTHER ANALYSIS:
1 The two women use both their husbands’ fi rst names
(“Mitt” and “Barack”) and their full names when
they talk about them. Find two examples of both
and discuss when they use just “Mitt” and “Barack”
and when they use the full name – and why you
think they do this.
2 Both Romney and Obama make direct and indirect
references to “The American Dream” in their
speeches. According to what they say, how has the
American Dream been present and important both in
their own and in their husbands’ lives?
It is not really surprising that Romney
has a biblical allusion in her speech
(“Give and it shall be given unto
you”), while Obama mentions “a young
preacher [who] could lift us to the
mountaintop with his righteous dream”.
Nor is it surprising that both women
express very clearly what their role is:
“I say all of this tonight not just as a
First Lady … and not just as a wife”,
Obama says, and continues:
“My most important title is still
mom-in-chief”. “I can only stand
here tonight, as a wife, a mother, a
grandmother, an American”, Romney
says. Since her children are grown up
and have children of their own, it is
perhaps only natural that Romney feels
that being a wife is her main role, while
Obama, who has two young daughters,
feels that being a mom is her number
one priority.
The love and respect both women
feel for their respective husbands is
apparent throughout the speech and
culminates in their fi nal sentences:
“We must once again come together
and stand together for the man we can
trust to keep moving this great country
forward”, Obama says. “You can trust
Mitt”, Romney assures the audience;
“He loves America. He will take us
to a better place, just as he took me
home safely from that dance. Give him
that chance”. Both speakers choose
to end the speech using a metaphor
for movement: they both insist that
their husband, if elected, will move the
country forward or take the voters to a
better place. Interestingly, the speaker
promoting the re-election of her
husband used the word “change” in the
presidential campaign four years ago.
Now she asks the listeners to stand
together with her. Romney asks, not for
change, but for a chance.
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By Richard Hugh Peel
Let’s take these things backwards. Yes,
it rained a bit. No, transport worked very
well – in fact, as the Guardian chortled,
even Prime Minister David Cameron
travelled on the Underground. Yes,
there were empty seats at some venues
early on, but all in all these games were
extraordinary for the huge crowds at all
events. Most things were ready, with
one exception – there was a colossal
scare in the weeks leading up to the
Opening Ceremony when it was obvious
that the company with responsibility
We all noticed it, didn’t we: the reports in the weeks leading
up to the 2012 Olympics that no one in London was really
interested, and that some things were not ready, and that ticket
sales favoured business rather than ordinary folks, and that
the transport system (London’s Underground not being exactly
famous for its effi ciency) was bound to collapse, and that it
would rain all the time and that …?
for security was a shambles. The army
had to be called in. This was probably
the biggest “scandal” of these Games.
As for Londoners not being interested
– the response to this scepticism was
given by the sheer numbers who had
bought tickets for the Games and by the
enthusiasm and skills of the thousands
of volunteers involved.
As Michael Butcher, seasoned athletics
correspondent, reminded me when I
spoke with him about the London Games,
“There are always these stories about
apathy and anti-social ticket sales
before every Olympics, and there are
always empty seats in the early days, so
this was nothing new. The astonishing
thing about London was the size of the
crowds. I went to the very fi rst morning
of the athletics events, when there
were no fi nals on the programme, only
preliminary heats, and, being used
to the fairly lack-lustre interest in
athletics in London, I was expecting the
usual fi rst-day one-third full stadium.
But it was packed, absolutely packed!”
Everyone I have talked to about the
Olympics, people who saw far more than
I had any hope of seeing, talked about
the crowds – their enthusiasm, their
good-naturedness, and, most of all, their
noise.
Michael Butcher again: “I have never
known anything like it. Well, at Sydney
when Cathy Freeman won the 400 metres
the noise was deafening, but in London
the noise was more intense. The canopy
over the stands sort of held the noise
in. I have only twice been ‘shocked’ by a
volume of noise from a crowd of people
in my life. The fi rst time was when I
was 11 years old and went to support my
Nevertheless, the construction of
London’s venues and facilities was
achieved within its budget, and without
a single fatal accident, and there
were never any worries about it being
completed on time. For television
viewers, of course, the big architectural
aspect was fairly unimportant;
television brings an intimacy not
readily available to the person in a
stand or stadium, although modern
technology manages to some extent to
combine the two, with large screens and
small smart phones offering close-up
images.
The sports competitions run themselves,
within the context of the venues that
have been constructed for them and
the atmosphere created by spectators
and by the competitors themselves.
There were, however, four major events
that were conceived and executed
wholly by the organizers: the two
opening ceremonies and the two closing
ceremonies. Of these, it is probably the
opening ceremony on 27th July that will
be most remembered, and it is worth
lingering on this as it gave a unique
insight into how the British (or some
British) see their history, society and
culture.
It was the brainchild of Danny Boyle,
director of Oscar-winning “Slumdog
Millionaire”. He had been told by
Sebastian Coe (chairman of the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic
and Paralympic Games) not to try to
copy the sheer size of the opening
ceremony at Beijing – no point trying to
compete with the Chinese at what they
do better than anyone (mass displays
and fi reworks) – and not to let any
politicians tell him what to put in or
what not to put in. Well, he and his team
decided to put on a show that mirrored
aspects of British history and life. It
was quite a show!
Starting with a sort of imagined idyllic
version of Britain’s pre-industrial
rural past – the “green and pleasant
land” of Blake’s Jerusalem – Boyle’s
ceremony portrayed the impact of
the industrial revolution in forming a
new society, and focused on the brave
efforts of movements like the trades
unions and Suffragettes to correct
injustices. The scene changes were
breathtaking, with green hills and
fi elds being removed and replaced by
mills, mines and factories, complete
with huge chimneystacks. Here we were
teased a little – having marvelled at the
ingenuity and vitality of the industrial
home team Wolverhampton Wanderers
for the fi rst time. The racket when they
eventually scored a goal jolted me – I
can still remember having to put my
hands over my ears! The same thing
happened in London. When Mo Farah
won the 5,000 metres the noise was so
intense that the sound waves caused the
photo-fi nish camera to shake, distorting
the image that was recorded on the line.
This has never happened before.”
One nice thing about these Olympics
was that sports which are practically
non-existent in Britain attracted huge
crowds and generated exceptional
enthusiasm: handball, for example.
Watch out, Norwegians! But perhaps
the best thing of all was that the
Paralympics also attracted massive
crowds, and a huge television audience,
achieving a profi le they have never
achieved before.
Everyone remembers one defi ning
moment from each Olympiad, and it is
likely to refl ect the particular sport you
are most interested in and the country
you come from. Each Olympiad also
generates an abiding image of a more
general nature. In Beijing in 2008 it was
probably the graceful architecture of
the main stadium and the design of the
Olympic Park. “London,” says Butcher,
“had nothing to compare with that. The
Beijing stadium was a marvel. London’s
main stadium looked as if it had been
built with Meccano and the Park was
obviously designed to cater for whatever
it will be used for after the Games. The
exception was the cycling Velodrome – a
work of art.” Or, in the jargon preferred
by the offi cial Games website: “a
sustainable and iconic venue”.
A giant hospital bed during the Opening Ceremony at the Olympic Stadium, London (©NTB scanpix)
Great Britain’s Mo Farah (left) celebrating his victory in the men’s 5000 metres with Jamaica’s Usain Bolt
at the Olympic Stadium, London (©NTB scanpix) 01
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revolution, we were invited to salute
people who made sacrifi ces in order
to mend the injustices caused by that
very revolution. But there was nothing
pompous or preachy about it.
In particular Boyle highlighted the
contribution of the National Health
Service to forging modern British
society, using one of London’s most
famous hospitals, Great Ormond Street
– a children’s hospital – as an emblem
for the NHS. The volunteers acting the
parts of nurses were real NHS nurses,
and some of the patients were real
patients – here, as elsewhere, the
mixture of make-believe and reality
was captivating. In another sequence,
we saw the arrival of immigrants from
the Caribbean in the fi fties, and, later
on, family life in the 1970s and 1980s
was portrayed as very defi nitely multi-
racial.
All this was too much for some right-
wingers in the UK, but they seemed
to overlook the fact that Boyle also
paid tribute, for example, to the
extraordinary brilliance of the great
engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and
to the sacrifi ce of the armed forces in
two world wars. He slowed everything
down for the fl ag-raising ceremony, and
focused boldly on the Queen, resorting
to an extreme form of interplay
between virtual and real performance in
introducing her to the stadium. Anyway
these snippets of criticism were
forgotten in the general enthusiasm for
this three-hour extravaganza.
It was, of course, occasionally tongue-
in-cheek, with scope for some favourite
comic fi gures like Mr Bean, but also
very serious a lot of the time. The
ceremony was full of colour and energy,
and the timing extraordinary. Snippets
of social and cultural history criss-
crossed and almost defi ed our ability
to take them all in – in the stadium
different things were seen by different
sections of the crowd; on TV the change
from scene to scene was often so fast
it baffl ed a lot of non-British viewers.
One German newspaper headline said,
“We didn’t know what it was, but it was
magnifi cent.” Boyle himself said about
the ceremony, “I hope it will reveal how
peculiar and contrary we are – and how
there’s also, I hope, a warmth about
us.”
Boyle himself has paid tribute to the
volunteers he used – almost 20,000
of them – and if there was one group
of people who gave to these Games a
special fl avor, it was them. “Games
Makers” they were called. Over 70,000
people were taken on as Games
Makers – and there were over 240,000
applicants. They performed a host of
duties, some relatively “simple” like
raking the sand in beach volleyball
stadium (such duties were done by a
group of 2000 or so 16-18-year olds),
others more demanding, like acting in
the opening and closing ceremonies,
hosting athletes, etc.
Aftermath
What of the future? Are the Olympic
Games just a wonderful party (or
tedious bore, depending on your point
of view) every four years, or can they
generate something more permanent?
Inte
rvie
w:
A Games Maker at the Games!
Dave Galloway
Dave Galloway teaches at Pocklington
School, a few miles east of York. He
spent most of his summer holiday this
year as a Games Maker.
- Dave, you were one of the famous
volunteers, or Games Makers, at the
London Olympics. First of all, what sort
of time scale are we talking about?
How long were you involved?
- Well, to be a Games Maker you had to
be ready to devote up to six weeks of
your time to the Games. I applied as a
linguist, which meant I would probably
be working directly with a team all the
time that team was in London. After my
selection I was told I’d be an assistant
to a team, and had to be ready for a
fi ve-week stint. I was assistant to the
Swaziland Olympic team, and they were
in London for about four weeks.
- Did you get any pay?
- There was no pay or pocket-money, and
you had to cover your own expenses,
including accommodation. I live in
Yorkshire, so I obviously had to fi nd
accommodation, which I did online and
ended up in Clapton, for £100 a week,
which was not too bad. Some Games
Makers had to pay up to £25 a day! Quite
a lot camped, which was cheaper, of
course. So it was fi ve weeks out of my
summer. I have a very long-suffering
wife!
- And you must be a very keen sports
fan!
- Well, yes, I am. I have always loved
the Olympics. I have also been active in
sports myself, particularly ball games
like rugby and tennis, and, in recent
years, golf. So I jumped at the chance of
taking part in the London Olympics!
- Everyone who was at the Games in any
capacity talks about the tremendous
atmosphere there. Do you agree that it
was something special?
- Yes I do. I didn’t deal directly with the
public, but wherever I went people could
see from my clothes I was a Games
Maker, and I got lots of questions, and
everyone was very, very friendly. I was
in the Olympic park quite a lot and
there was a terrifi c atmosphere, and
never any panic although there were
thousands of people.
- I’ve read that there was quite a tough
selection process for Games Makers.
- Well, I applied early in 2011, and
had an interview, and, as I’ve said,
told them I could offer languages,
especially German. Then I had six
training sessions in London – all at
my own expense! At the end of May this
year I was informed that I’d be working
with the team from Swaziland – whose
members, incidentally, didn’t speak
German at all! The team consisted of
three athletes and fi ve coaches and
offi cials. They were great. We all got on
very well.
- Any medals?
- No medals, no, but they were all very
happy with their performances. In the
swimming we had Luke Hall in the 50
metres freestyle. He broke the national
record in his heat but failed to qualify.
In athletics Phumlile Ndzinisa, only 18
years old, ran in the 400 metres – she
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Obviously for athletes in every Olympic
sport they generate enthusiasm and
new goals and new friendships, but what
about at a national or international
level?
Some people see the Olympics in terms
of their wider values and aims. In his
speech to the Labour Party conference
in September this year, Ed Milliband
underscored his main point that the
Labour party stood for “One Britain” by
using the Olympics as a metaphor for
inclusiveness: “… just think about the
Olympics and Paralympic games. It was
a triumph for Britain. And why did we
succeed? We succeeded because of our
outstanding athletes, from Zara Phillips
the grand-daughter of a parachuting
Queen, to a boy born in Somalia, called
Mo Farah. Mo Farah. A true Brit. And a
true hero for our country.”
He will not be the only person to use
the Games to underscore a point. That’s
fair enough. But some observers go
further, and claim that the success
of these Games could spill over
into actual political results. The
mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was
in the limelight and is a colourful
personality, and some see the publicity
he received as strengthening his
chances of replacing David Cameron
as leader of the Conservative party,
not that he has said he wants the job.
A few commentators claimed that the
“British” patriotism aroused by the
success of Team GB could undermine
support for Scottish independence. At
best, predictions like this are long
shots, and probably just hot air in
the summer season. As with all good
parties, Monday comes around and life
goes on as before.
One or two facts of life were underlined.
Britain’s medal rush obviously refl ects
the pluralism of modern Britain: more
than one-third of Britain’s Olympic
medal winners were born abroad, or
had a foreign parent or grandparent,
including two of Britain’s most high-
profi le winners who won gold medals
within 45 minutes of each other on
that extraordinary night of athletics
on 4th August, Jessica Ennis who has
a Jamaican father, and Mo Farah, who
came to England from Somalia when he
was eight, hardly speaking a word of
English. In fact, my favourite story from
the London Olympics originates in the
press conference when Farah, after his
victory in the 10,000 metres, was asked
by a journalist if a tiny part of him
would rather have been representing
Somalia. His answer: “Not at all, mate.
This is my country and since I was eight
years old this is where I grew up. This
facts
ran in heavy rain and almost broke
the national record, while Sibusiso
Matsenjwa beat the national record in
the 200 metres, but didn’t qualify for
the next round. So they all did well and
were happy. They’d had a training camp
in Tavistock in Devon before the Games
started, and got really well integrated.
They got to know a lot of local people,
and the nice thing was that they invited
some of the locals from Tavistock to
the stadium for the actual Games. This
was typical for the spirit of the Games.
I remember Sibsiso enjoying himself
in the Village after his event, getting
photographed with Usain Bolt, both of
them very relaxed.
- What about you – did you have any free
time?
- This was one of the great things. We
had our accreditation, and if we weren’t
required by our team we could get into
the different venues. I watched quite
a bit of volleyball, for example. And I
was in the main stadium for some of the
great nights of athletics. But even the
morning sessions were wonderful – I
was there on 3rd August when Phumlile
was competing in the fi rst round of
the 400 metres. It was raining. The
stadium was packed! Mind you, it was
the fi rst day of the Women’s Heptathlon,
and Jessica Ennis was opening her
campaign!
- What was your best moment?
- Oh, it has to be the night Mo Farah
won the 5000 metres, shortly before
the Jamaicans won the 4 x 100 relay
in a world record. The noise was
unbelievable. And there you had Mo
Farah and Usain Bolt side by side, each
assuming the other’s victory salute.
- But I must tell you about another
terrifi c moment that came during
the dress rehearsal for the opening
ceremony. I was among a whole crowd
of Games Makers who stood in for the
athletes. In my case, that day, I was
pretending to be one of the Djibouti
team. Even during the dress rehearsal
the atmosphere was great. And it was
quite like the real thing, with full
security checks and so on. For the
opening night itself, my job was to
make sure the athletes from Swaziland
were at the right place at the right time
so they could march into the stadium.
Everything was worked out to the
smallest detail. While we were walking
towards the stadium entrance with our
athletes, the volunteers who had been
participating in the actual opening
ceremony were coming out of it – 20,000
of them. You can imagine. Twenty
thousand leaving the stadium, and all
the athletes entering.
- And let me tell you now about a detail
which tells you what these games
were all about. As the three Swaziland
athletes were walking towards the
stadium, they and all the other athletes
and their assistants passed hundreds
and hundreds of children, waving fl ags,
and there, among them all, we saw the
Swaziland fl ag being waved by a bunch
of kids. This is the sort of small thing
that makes the Games a memory for life
for the athletes.
- Thank you, Dave.
Team GB is in fact a misnomer,
since the British team is from
the whole of the United Kingdom,
while “Great Britain” strictly
speaking excludes Northern
Ireland. The trouble is that “UK”
has never been used in a sporting
context, while “Team GB and
NI” or “Team GB and Northern
Ireland” were considered
too cumbersome. Hence the
inaccurate but easy-off-the-
tongue name Team GB.
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Notes from a Small Island
by Bill BrysonReviewed by David O’Gorman
Foreigners have been commenting on
Britain and the British for hundreds
of years. Julius Caesar appears to
have been rather intimidated when
he wrote in 54 BC that the Britons
dyed themselves blue “and thereby
have a more terrible appearance in
fi ght”. Caesar’s fellow Roman Tacitus
remarked of the British weather some
150 years later that “The sky is gloomy
with many clouds, and showers are
frequent”, and who in his right mind
would disagree? The French, as might
be expected, have been particularly
harsh in their judgements, Bishop
Bossuet referring in the seventeenth
century to England as “Angleterre
perfi de” and Napoleon to the English
in the nineteenth as “a nation of
shopkeepers”. De Gaulle never became
an Anglophile despite spending most of
World War II in London, and managed to
keep Britain out of the Common Market
for years.
It was in fact the British weather,
which lowered the spirits of Tacitus
and has lowered those of hundreds of
millions of others since him, which
prompted me a few weeks ago to re-
read Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small
Island. I was sheltering from the rain
in a bookshop in Cheltenham,
waiting for a French lady (an
Anglophile and no friend of de
Gaulle) to fi nish shopping, when
I recalled that Bryson, after
living and working in London and
Yorkshire for twenty years, had
started a seven-week farewell
tour of Britain on a rainy evening
in 1992. I found a copy of the book,
ordered another cup of coffee,
and suddenly the boredom and
impatience were no more. Twenty
years after Bryson made his journey,
it is still a mighty good read.
Bryson shares little of
Caesar’s trepidation and none of
Napoleon’s hostility, and his view
of Britain through American eyes
is well-informed (based as it is on
long fi rst-hand experience), incisive,
affectionate and hugely entertaining.
He loves the country dearly, having
lived in it for decades and married one
of its daughters, but as a foreigner he
sees its oddities and shortcomings
more clearly than do the natives. His
route will strike many as strange,
since he visits both well-known places
and some which most of us have never
heard of. Also, he made his journey by
public transport, and his comments
on getting from A to B are a blend
of frustration, perplexity and good
humour. It appears that to get from
Read It!Read It!
is where I started life. This is where I
went to uni. This is where the people I
know are, this is my country and when I
put on my Great Britain vest I’m proud,
very proud, that it’s my country.”
It was always a goal with these
Olympics that they should bring lasting
benefi ts to young people – that east
London should be regenerated, and that
the nation should be inspired to become
fi tter. It was also a specifi c goal that
new facilities should be available to
people with disabilities. At this point
it is impossible to evaluate success
or failure here. In future years such an
one major urban centre in the south of
England to another, one has to go by
way of London, and what would be a 20-
mile journey as the crow fl ies turns out
to cover over 100 miles. That, at least,
is how matters stood twenty years ago.
One advantage of travelling
by train and bus is that one can
eavesdrop on and observe one’s fellow
passengers, and this Bryson does, as
usual, perceptively and with humour.
Nobody and nothing is safe from his
witticisms, but these are seldom
bitter and very often uncritical.
There are, quite simply, things about
the British which he fi nds odd: their
obsession with different motoring
d
g
ok,
y
rney,
f
ew
s j b t i th th f
Britain’s Jessica Ennis
clears a hurdle at the
100-meter hurdles of the
Women’s Heptathlon
(©NTB scanpix)
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routes, their stoical reluctance to
complain (“mustn’t grumble”, they say
so often), their calling each other and
strangers “love” and “dearie”, the fact
that he was offered a return ticket on
British Rail for less than the price of a
single, and our predilection for sitting
on beaches in weather which would
send an Italian or a Spaniard insane,
for instance. He is surprised that the
British can be made happy with so
very little, and that town centres are
deserted after dark, but these are two
of the aspects of life in Britain which
have been changing since 1992, and
which make parts of the book, but not
all of it by any means, rather dated.
It is interesting to note that a poll
conducted in connection with World
Book Day in 2003 showed that British
readers found Bill Bryson’s book the
one which best summed up the identity
of the British and the state of their
nation.
Then there are the unfathomable
ways of seaside landladies like Mrs
Smegma and her counterpane (did you,
like Bryson, have to look the word
up?) and trade union stalwarts like
the intractable Vince at The Times
before Murdoch modernized it. Bryson
does not often spend a lot of time
on individuals, but these two are
priceless.
The hospitality industry comes
in for sharper criticism than other
aspects of life on the small island,
and, understandably for an American,
Bryson is not favourably impressed
by British hotels, pubs, restaurants
and cafeterias. Apart from wondering
innocently how anyone can possibly
enjoy small white biscuits, he fi nds
hotels scruffy and labyrinthine and
seems to prefer Chinese and Indian
restaurants to more traditional
British eateries. This, again, was
understandable in 1992, but the advent
of gastropubs, niche restaurants
(vegetarian and the like) and Jamie-
Oliver-type hostelries, together
with the ever-increasing variety and
popularity of real ales (eat your hearts
out, Norwegians: pilsner pales by
comparison) has changed all that.
Bryson reserves his most scathing
criticism for modern architecture and
town planning, and his book was a
factor in putting a stop to the fl agrant
vandalism of historical buildings by
developers keen to make a fortune by
turning all of Britain’s city centres
into identically tawdry architectural
abominations - without red telephone
boxes. For this alone Notes from a
Small Island deserves a prize.
What the author loves most about
his host country is what millions of
the natives fi nd so attractive: the
countryside and country pursuits such
as village cricket. On the subject of
the countryside, Bryson is fascinated
by the names of many of the villages,
some of which he has invented, and
has fun with the real and imagined
names of country pubs, “the Buggered
Ploughman”, for instance. What he
does not comment on is the baffl ing
pronunciation of some place names,
but even most Brits steer clear of
attempting this unless they are locals.
Notes from a Small Island is a
highly enjoyable and not least an easy
read. The chapters are short and the
pace, as the author moves from one
place to the next, is fast. The analysis
is punctuated by amusing episodes
(the wet evening in Weston-Super-Mare
is side-splitting and most of the others
elicit at least a hearty chuckle) and
interesting characters. One has to
take one’s hat off to Bill Bryson for
undertaking his journey by train and
bus and on foot at a time of year when
downpours and gales are guaranteed,
and, one gathers, on a modest budget
which would have covered his needs
and more on a Greek island-hopping
jaunt but which was suffi cient for bare
necessities only in Britain.
Britain? Not really. It is England
which is the subject of most of the
book, and Wales and Scotland are,
sadly, not given a fair crack of the
whip. And there are areas of England,
like the Midlands, which could have
received more attention. Another
criticism of the book is that it becomes
rather repetitive after the fi rst half,
and the humour is not as spontaneous
as in the earlier chapters. As has
been mentioned earlier, some of the
observations are dated, but this is
in a way positive in that it provides
us with a picture of a past but recent
age at the same time as it gives us
an objective insight into much that is
quintessentially British. Or at least
English.
Lots of things have changed since
Notes from a Small Island made its
appearance, and not all of them for the
better. One wonders what Bill Bryson
would make of Britain in the year of the
Olympics and the Jubilee. With a little
luck, we may soon fi nd out.
Suggestions for further work:
1 Look through fi lm of the opening
ceremony, and make your own
list of the aspects of British
history and contemporary
culture included in Danny
Boyle’s ceremony. Present your
list and discuss any themes the
ceremony seems, in your view,
to highlight. Maybe you think
something that should have been
included has been left out?
evaluation will be possible. Whether or
not any national “feel-good” attitude
of mind lingers into the future will
be less quantifi able. At all events,
Brits in general, and Londoners in
particular, will look back on the Games
as a special time … and sports nerds
will have masses to talk about. On 9th
September, when the Olympic fl ame was
quenched at the closing ceremony of
the Paralympics, the citizens of London,
thousands of athletes and a TV public
around the world could look back on fi ve
weeks of exceptional sport, wonderful
hospitality and an outstandingly
successful Olympiad.
The opening ceremony is available
here until December 31st 2012: http://
tv.nrk.no/serie/ol-i-london-2012/
mspo11270112/27-07-2012
Or try this: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=4As0e4de-rI
2 Sebastian Coe has a sporting career
and a political career behind him.
He is also a friend of Norway.
Find out what you can about him.
What, in your opinion, are his most
signifi cant achievements?
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CORE ENGLISHISBN: 978-82-02-39758-6
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