Lesson 105 Part I

Lesson 105

Part Ⅰ Warming-up Exercises

Numbers: Circulation of Some of the Major British and American Newspapers

Training Focus:

Identifying numbers with six to seven digits

Directions: This drill is for practice in recognizing numbers. Listen carefully. Write down the numbers as rapidly as you can.

Key:

1. The Daily Telegraph in Britain has a daily circulation of 1,445,833 copies.

2. The Financial Times is famous for its business and stock exchange news and has a small but steady circulation of 197, 698 copies daily.

3. The Guardian is a daily newspaper published in Britain and sells 375, 179 copies every day.

4. The Times is the most influencial national newspaper in Britain with a daily circulation of 315,179 copies.

5. The Daily Mirror, a popular paper in Britain, has a daily circulation of 3,650,636 copies.

6. The Sun, another popular daily in Britain, sells 3,837,215 copies every day.

7. The  Observer is one of the “quality”Sunday newspapers in Britain and sells 1,017,631 copies every Sunday.

8. The Sunday Times, another national Sunday paper in Britain has a circulation of 1,418,516 copies.

9. The New York Times in America is more than a hundred years old and  has a daily circulation of 914,938 copies.

10. The wall Street fournal, published by Dow-Jones & Company, Inc. is a financial daily in America and it sells 1,798,416 copies daily.

11. The  Washington Post, a daily newspaper published in Washington D. C. has a circulation of 601,417 copies.

12. The Los Angeles Times  is a national  daily published in California. It reached  1,024,322 copies in circulation.

13. The Chicago Tribune sells 789,767 copies daily.

14. The Boston Globe, a leading newspaper in the eastern part of the U.S. has a circulation of 350,848 copies per day.

15. The Christian Science Monitor, one of the specialized newspapers of interpretation in the U.S. sells 172,470 copies daily.

Lesson 105 Part Ⅱ Different Means Of Communication

Lesson 105

PartⅡ Different Means Of Communication

Ex.

Directions: Complete the outline with the information you get from the tape.

Key: Ⅰ． Four general categories of the means of communication ---- speech, writing, printing and electronic communication

Ⅱ． Speech / One million years ago, possibly by imitation of natural sounds

Ⅲ. Writing A. speech 1. The speaker not have to be present 2. Knowledge of one generation, accumulated, passed on to the next B. writing 1. Picture writing 2. symbols 3. the alphabet

IV. Printing A. in China B. metal / 16th

V. Electronic Means of Communication A. 1. Those which require a wire connection 2. Those which do not require a wire connection B. 2. Telephone 3. Wireless-radio communication 4. Television.

Tapescript:

Different Means Of Communication (5′35″)

Today we are going to discuss communication. Now, we are going to concentrate on the means of communication, and we are going to consider them in four general categories. These categories are: speech, writing, printing and electronic communication. I will take each of them in turn and discuss them briefly.

The oldest of these forms of communication is undoubtedly speech. It is believed that speech originated perhaps one million years ago, possibly by imitation of natural sounds. Certainly there are many such words as bang, or buzz which are imitative in function.

The next big step forward in communication was the invention of writing. It had two major advantages over speech. Firstly, the speaker himself did not have to be present in order to communicate. And secondly, the knowledge of one generation could be accumulated and passed on to the next.

Now, the first kind of writing was picture writing, where the scribe drew a picture of what he wanted to represent. These can be seen in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Now, we spell that, h-i-e-r-o-g-l-y-p-h-i-c-s, hieroglyphics. Or in some modern Chinese ideographs, and that's spelt, i-d-e-o-g-r-a-p-h-s, ideographs. OK? Having to draw everything you want to communicate, is of course, very limiting. Many of these drawings took on other meanings, and some cases came to represent sounds. Now the use of symbols to represent sounds was a great breakthrough. It led to the use of syllabaries, now that's spelt, s-y-l-l-a-b-a-r-i-e-s, syllabaries, ---- that is systems where each symbol stood for a syllable; vowels were not indicated. Now then, later came the invention of the alphabet: that is to say the representationof each sound by a different symbol. In spite of its advantage writing was, and is, a slow and cumbersome process and so the ability to write remained the privilege of a few until the invention of printing. Now this originated in China, where blocks of wood were carved into the shape of letters covered in ink, and pressed onto paper. The Arabs brought the secret of printing to Europe around the tenth century. But it was not until the sixteenth century that European printers started to use the much more useful metal type. They also adapted the wine-press used for crushing grapes, and used it for pressing their new metal type onto paper. So the number of books vastly multiplied with tremendous consequences for the development of science and indeed all aspects of human culture.

The most recent development has been the use of electronic means of communication. Now these can be subdivided into those which require a wire or cable connection for transferring messages (such as the telephone) and those which do not (such as radio and television). The pioneer in this area was Samuel B. Morse, that's M-o-r-s-e, Morse, who devised a method of sending messages by using short and long signals (dots and dashes). This system is still known today as the Morse Code. The invention of the telephone made the learning of a special code unnecessary: people could speak to one another quite naturally. The invention of wireless-radio communication by Marconi in 1896 meant that messages could be sent over long distances without the necessity of using wires or cables, and the first transatlantic wireless message was made in December 1901. Work started on the development of television in the nineteentwenties, and the BBC made their first regular transmissions in 1929. But it is only in the last twenty years or so that television has become as popular as radio in many countries.

Lesson 105 Part Ⅲ The Functions Of A Newspaper

Lesson 105

PartⅢ The Functions Of A Newspaper

Ex.

Directions: Make notes for the dialogue and retell the major points of the two speakers' views and opinions. Complete the summary with the information you get from the tape.

Key: 1． a． inform as accurately as possible

b． instruct by its articles

c． entertain by various means

2． entertainment

3． The Times / entertaining people

4． for the sake of the news

Tapescript:

The Functions Of A Newspaper (1′12″)

Peter and Shala are talking about the triple world of the press, as a medium of information, instruction and entertainment.

Shala: You've got so many different newspapers in Britain. What are they all trying to do?

Peter: To provide a service and cater for different tastes. It's a competitive business like any other.

Shala: But what sort of service does your press provide, apart from giving the news? Sometimes in a rather sensational form, if you don't mind my saying so?

Peter: Well, the purpose of any newspaper is first of all to inform as accurately as possible; secondly, to instruct by means of its articles, and, thirdly of course to entertain by various means. And that in fact is what most of our papers try to do.

Shala: But in your popular papers, the emphasis is on entertainment, isn't it?

Peter: Yes, it is. But even quality papers like The Times realise the importance of entertaining its readers. That's why they feature articles on sports, bridge and so on, and why they go in for pictures and even cartoons.

Shala: And I suppose they have sections on cookery and fashion to attract women readers.

Peter: Yes, of course. You see, at one time papers were published only for the sake of the news. But those days have long since passed.