Lali Tavadze

COMMUNICATION
THEORY AND PRACTICE

Publishing House
,,Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University’’
Batumi 2017

1
UDC(uak) 005.57+316.77
T-25

The material given in the book can be used by the English Philology
students and aims to practise and develop English speaking and communication
skills. The book consists of three parts including the theory and practice
focusing on mastering the skills leading to effective communication.

Editor: Full professor Tamar Siradze

Reviewers: Full professor IrineGoshkheteliani
Assistant professor TheaShavladze

წიგნში მოცემული მასალა განკუთვნილიაინგლისური ფილო-

ლოგიის სტუდენტებისათვის და ენის შემსწავლელთათვის და
მიზნად ისახავს ინგლისურ ენაზე საუბრის უნარის გამომუშავებასა
და დახვეწას ზეპირი კომუნიკაციის სხვადასხვა მოდელის
სწავლების გათვალისწინებით. წიგნი შედგება სამი ნაწილისაგან
სადაც თეორიასთან ერთად დიდი ყურადღება ექცევა იმ უნარ-
ჩვევების გამომუშავებას, რომელიც ეფექტური კომუნიკაციის
გარანტია.

რედაქტორი: სრული პროფესორი თამარ სირაძე

რეცენზენტები: სრული პროფესორი ირინე გოშხეთელიანი
ასისტენტ პროფესორი თეა შავლაძე

ISBN 978-9941-462-44-3
© `baTumis SoTa rusTavelis saxelmwifo universiteti~ - 2017
CONTENTS

2
Part One 5
Chapter 1 – Introduction to communication theory 6
Chapter 2 – What is effective communication? 12
Chapter 3 – What is theory? 16
Chapter 4 – The nature of communication 24
Chapter 5 – Conversation skills. Effective communication 28
Chapter 6 – What is meaning 36
Chapter 7 – Words together. Collocations. Lexical chunks 42
Chapter 8 –Rules of conversation 46
Chapter 9 – Text and discourse. Conversational discourse 52
Chapter 10 – Explaining theories of cognition and intrapersonal
Communication 59
Chapter 11 – Uncertainty reduction theory 63
Chapter 12 – Explaining theories of interpersonal communication 67
Chapter 13 – Nonverbal communication. Body language 74
Chapter 14 – Proxemics 80
Chapter 15 – Barriers to communication 84

Part Two. Activities 88

1. Friends and relationships 89
2. Jobs and occupations 93
3. Who gets the heart? 98
4. Role-play 103
5. Seasons 110
6. Business life 115
7. Words together 124
8. Superstitions 127
9. Media opinions 133
10. Changes 140
11. Appearance 146
12. Men and women 151
13. Taboo conversation topics 158
14. Entertainment 162
15. Just for fun 166

Part Three. Situational Conversation Practice

3
 (additional material) 170
1. Situation: Introductions and opening conversations 171
2. Situation: Special greetings 176
3. Situation: Meeting old friends 180
4. Situation: Saying goodbye 189
5. Situation: Saying thank you 193
6. Situation: Asking people to repeat 197
7. Situation: Giving complements 200
8. Situation: Apologizing 203
9. Situation: The weather 206
10. Situation: Making a telephone call 210
11. Situation: Asking for directions 213
12. Situation: On a bus 216
13. Situation: At a drugstore 219
14. Situation: At the dentist’s office 222
15. Situation: At a bank 225

4
PART ONE

5
 Chapter 1

Introduction to communication theory

Unfortunately, much of popular culture tends to minimize the
challenges associated with the communication process: we all do it, all
of the time. Yet, one need only peruse the content of talk shows,
personal ads, advice columns, and organizational performance reviews
to recognize that communication skills can make or break an
individual’s personal and professional lives. Companies want to hire and
promote people with excellent communication skills. Divorces occur
because spouses believe they “no longer communicate”. Communication
is perceived as a magical elixir, one that can ensure a happy long-term
relationship and can guarantee organizational success. Clearly, popular
culture holds paradoxical views about communication: it is easy to do
yet powerful in its effects, simultaneously simple and magical.
The reality is even more complex. “Good” communication means
different things to different people in different situations. Accordingly,
simply adopting a set of particular skills is not going to guarantee
success. Those who are genuinely good communicators are those who
understand the underlying principles behind communication are able to
enact, appropriately and effectively, particular communication skills as
the situation warrants. We focus on communication theories that can be
applied in your personal and professional lives. Understanding the
theories _ including their underlying assumptions and the predictions
that they make _ can make you a more competent communicator.

What is communication?
Communication is simply the act of transferring information from
one place to another.Although this is a simple definition, when we think
about how we may communicate the subject becomes a lot more

6
complex. There are various categories of communication and more than
one may occur at any time.
The different categories of communication are:
 Spoken or Verbal Communication: face-to-face, telephone,
radio or television and other media.
 Non-Verbal Communication:body language, gestures, how we
dress or act - even our scent.
 Written Communication: letters, e-mails, books, magazines,
the Internet or via other media.
 Visualizations: graphs and charts, maps, logos and other vi-
sualizations can communicate messages.

A gentleman orders a coffee in a crowded cafe. The young woman

in a line behind him shoots a withering look at the rambunctious toddler
tugging on her coat. From the radio blares an advertisement for a one-
day sale at the mall. At a nearby table, a deaf couple signs to each other,
while a teenager in the corner busily texts a friend on his cell phone.
These situations all have one thing in common. They all involve
communication.

Communication is the act of conveying information for the purpose

of creating a shared understanding. It is something that humans do every
day. The word “communication” comes from the Latin “communis,”
meaning “to share,” and includes verbal, non-verbal and electronic
means of human interaction. Scholars who study communication analyze
the development of communication skills in humans and theorize about
how communication can be made more effective.
Humans convey information through a variety of methods: spea-
king, telephones, email, blogs, TV, art, hand gestures, facial expressions,
body language and even social contexts. Communication can occur
instantaneously in closed, intimate settings or over great periods of time
in large public forums, like the Internet. However, all forms of
communication require the same basic elements: a speaker or sender of

7
information, a message, and an audience or recipient. The sender and
recipient must also share a common language or means of understanding
each other for communication to be successful. As such, a study of
communication often examines the development and structure of
language, including the mathematical languages used in computer
programming.
The act of communication draws on several interpersonal and
intrapersonal skills. These include speaking, listening, observing, ques-
tioning, processing, analyzing and evaluating. Recipients of a message
must be able to identify the sender’s intent, take into account the
message’s context, resolve any misunderstandings, accurately decode the
information and decide how to act on it. Such skills are essential to
learning, forming healthy relationships, creating a sense of community
and achieving success in the workplace.
As a field of study, communication spans a broad, rich array of
subjects, including sociology, psychology, philosophy, political science,
linguistics, history, literature, criticism and rhetoric. Although much of
the field’s subject matter is theoretical in nature, communication studies
have proven applicable to business, film, theater, composition, adver-
tising, education, foreign policy and computer science.
In today’s globalized, media-driven world, communication studies
have become more relevant and exciting than ever. Web developers seek
new, inventive ways to draw Internet users to their websites. Public
policy writers debate society’s most pressing issues. Through linguistics,
computer scientists are developing programming languages that may
someday allow humans to interact directly with computers. Students
who earn degrees in communication often hold highly influential
positions as journalists, editors, university professors, public relations
officers, marketing consultants, speech writers, filmmakers, motivational
speakers and political campaign managers. To communicate is to shape
the world.
This text is concerned with the communication theory, so it is im-
portant to be clear about the term communication. If we use thedefine-

8
tion, it is as follows: two-way process of reaching mutual understanding,
in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information,
news, ideas and feelings, but also create and share meaning. In general,
communication is a means of connecting people or places. In business, it
is a key function of management – an organization cannot operate
without communication between levels, departments and employees.
The everyday view of communication is quite different from the view of
communication taken by communication scholars. In the business world,
for example, a popular view is that communication is synonymous with
information. Thus, the communication process is the flow of information
from one person to another (Axley, 1984). Communication is viewed as
simply one activity among many others, such as planning, controlling
and managing (Deetz, 1994). It is what we do in organizations.
Communication scholars, on the other hand, define communication
as the process by which people interactively create, sustain and manage
meaning (Conrad & Poole, 1998). As such, communication both reflects
the world and helps to create it. Communication is not simply one more
thing that happens in personal and professional life; it is the very means
by which we produce our personal relationships and professional
experiences _ it is how we plan, control, manage, persuade, understand,
lead, love and so on. All of the theories presented in this book relate to
the various ways in which human interaction is developed, experienced
and understood.

What is competent communication?

Because we believe that one of the goals of studying communica-
tion theory is to make you a better communicator, we should articulate
more clearly the nature of communication competence. Research
indicates that communication competence is most often understood as
achieving a successful balance between effectiveness and appropriate-
ness (Spitzberg&Cupach, 1989). Effectiveness is the extent to which you
achieve your goals in an interaction. Did you get the raise? Were you
able to convince a subordinate that timeliness is important? Did you

9
persuade your spouse to clean the bathroom? Appropriateness refers to
fulfilling social expectations for a particular situation. Did you asserti-
vely ask for the raise or was it a meek enquiry? Were you insistent or
wishy-washy when discussing your employee’s tardiness? There are
many cases in which a person is effective without being appropriate;
consider a job applicant who lies on a resume to get a job for which he
or she is unqualified. That person might be very effective in getting the
job, but is such deceit appropriate? On the other hand, many times
people are appropriate to the point of failing to achieve their goals. For
example, a person, who doesn’t wish to take on an additional task at
work, but says nothing because he or she fears causing conflict, might be
sacrificing effectiveness for appropriateness. The key is that when faced
with communicative decisions, the competent communicator considers
how to be both effective and appropriate. We believe that the theories
described in this book will help you achieve your communication goals
by providing indication of both what should be done as well as how you
should do it.
It sounds so simple: say what you mean. But all too often, what we
try to communicate gets lost in translation despite our best intentions.
We say one thing, the other person hears something else, and misun-
derstandings, frustration, and conflicts ensue.
Fortunately, you can learn how to communicate more clearly and
effectively. Whether you’re trying to improve communication with your
spouse, kids, boss, or coworkers, you can improve the communication
skills that enable you to effectively connect with others, build trust and
respect, and feel heard and understood.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed the idea and concepts of
communication as the two-way process of reaching mutual
understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode)
information, news, ideas and feelings, but also create and share meaning.
Different categories of communication were addressed. We defined

10
competent communication that is most often understood as achieving a
successful balance between effectiveness and appropriateness and finally
we discussed the idea of the competent communicator who considers
how to be both effective and appropriate when faced with
communicative decisions.

11
 Chapter 2

What is effective communication?

Communication is about more than just exchanging information. It
is about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the informa-
tion. Effective communication is also a two-way street. It is not only
how you convey a message so that it is received and understood by
someone in exactly the way you intended, it is also how you listen to
gain the full meaning of what is being said and to make the other person
feel heard and understood.
More than just the words you use, effective communication combi-
nes a set of skills including nonverbal communication, engaged liste-
ning, managing stress in the moment, the ability to communicate
assertively, and the capacity to recognize and understand your own
emotions and those of the person you are communicating with.
Effective communication is the glue that helps you deepen your
connections to others and improve teamwork, decision making, and

12
problem solving. It enables you to communicate even negative or
difficult messages without creating conflict or destroying trust.
While effective communication is a learned skill, it is more
effective when it is spontaneous rather than formulaic. A speech that is
read, for example, rarely has the same impact as a speech that is
delivered (or appears to be delivered) spontaneously. Of course, it takes
time and effort to develop these skills and become an effective
communicator. The more effort and practice you put in, the more
instinctive and spontaneous your communication skills will become.

Improving communication skills

 Become an engaged listener
People often focus on what they should say, but effective commu-
nication is less about talking and more about listening. Listening well
means not just understanding the words or the information being
communicated, but also understanding the emotions the speaker is trying
to communicate.
There is a big difference between engaged listening and simply
hearing. When you really listen—when you are engaged with what is
being said—you will hear the subtle intonations in someone’s voice that
tell you how that person is feeling and the emotions they are trying to
communicate. When you are an engaged listener, not only will you
better understand the other person, you will also make that person feel
heard and understood, which can help build a stronger, deeper connec-
tion between you.
By communicating in this way, you will also experience a process
that lowers stress and supports physical and emotional well-being. If the
person you are talking to is calm, for example, listening in an engaged
way will help to calm you, too. Similarly, if the person is agitated, you
can help calm them by listening in an attentive way and making the
person feel understood.

13
 How do you become an engaged listener?
If your goal is to fully understand and connect with the other
person, listening in an engaged way will often come naturally. If it does
not, try the following tips. The more you practice them, the more
satisfying and rewarding your interactions with others will become.
 Focus fully on the speaker, his or her body language, tone of
voice, and other nonverbal cues. Tone of voice conveys
emotion, so if you are thinking about other things, checking text
messages, or doodling, you are almost certain to miss the
nonverbal cues and the emotional content behind the words
being spoken. And if the person talking is similarly distracted,
you will be able to quickly pick up on it. If you find it hard to
concentrate on some speakers, try repeating their words over in
your head—it will reinforce their message and help you stay
focused.
 Favor your right ear. The left side of the brain contains the
primary processing centers for both speech comprehension and
emotions. Since the left side of the brain is connected to the
right side of the body, favoring your right ear can help you
better detect the emotional nuances of what someone is saying.
Try keeping your posture straight, your chin down, and tilting
your right ear towards the speaker—this will make it easier to
pick up on the higher frequencies of human speech that contain
the emotional content of what is being said.
 Avoid interrupting or trying to redirect the conversation to
your concerns,by saying something like, “If you think that is
bad, let me tell you what happened to me.” Listening is not the
same as waiting for your turn to talk. You cannot concentrate on
what someone is saying if you are forming what you are going
to say next. Often, the speaker can read your facial expressions
and know that your mind is elsewhere.
 Show your interest in what is being said. Nod occasionally,
smile at the person, and make sure your posture is open and

14
 inviting. Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal
comments like “yes” or “uh huh.”
 Try to set aside judgment. In order to communicate effectively
with someone, you do not have to like them or agree with their
ideas, values, or opinions. However, you do need to set aside
your judgment and withhold blame and criticism in order to
fully understand a person. The most difficult communication,
when successfully executed, can lead to the most unlikely and
profound connection with someone.
 Provide feedback.If there seems to be a disconnect, reflect
what has been said by paraphrasing. "What I am hearing is," or
"Sounds like you are saying," are great ways to reflect back. Do
not simply repeat what the speaker has said verbatim, though—
you will sound insincere or unintelligent. Instead, express what
the speaker’s words mean to you. Ask questions to clarify
certain points: "What do you mean when you say," or"Is this
what you mean?"

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed effective communication that is more
than just exchanging information. We turned our attention to becoming
an engaged listener and improving communication skills. People often
focus on what they should say, but effective communication is less about
talking and more about listening. Listening well means not just
understanding the words or the information being communicated, but
also understanding the emotions the speaker is trying to communicate.

15
 Chapter 3

What is theory?
The term theory is often intimidating to students. We hope by the
time you finish reading this book that you will find working with theory
to be less daunting than you might have expected. The reality is that you
have been working with theories of communication all of your life, even
if they have not been labeled as such. Theories simply provide an
abstract understanding of the communication process (Miller, 2002). As
an abstract understanding, they move beyond describing a single event
by providing a means by which all such events can be understood. To
illustrate, a theory of customer service can help you understand a poor
customer service you received from your cable company this morning.
Likewise, the same theory can also help you understand a good customer
service encounter you had last week at a favourite restaurant. In a
professional context, a theory can assist your organization in training and
developing customer service personnel.
At their most basic level theories can provide us with a lens by
which to view the world. Think of theories as a pair of glasses.
Corrective lenses allow wearers to observe more clearly, but they also
impact vision in unforeseen ways. For example, they can limit the span
of what you see, especially when you try to look peripherally outside the
range of the frames. Similarly, lenses can also distort the things you see,
making objects appear larger or smaller than they really are. You can
also try on lots of pairs of glasses until you finally pick one pair that
works the best for your lifestyle. Theories operate in a similar fashion. A
theory can illuminate an aspect of your communication so that you
understand the process much more clearly; theory also can hide things
from your understanding or distort the relative importance of things.
We consider a communication theory to any systematic summary
about the nature of the communication process. Certainly, theories can

16
do more than summarize. Other functions of theories are to focus
attention on particular concepts, clarify our observations, predict
communication behavior and generate personal and social change
(Littlejohn, 1999). We do not believe, however, that all of these
functions are necessary for a systematic summary of communication
processes to be considered a theory.
What does this definition mean for people in communication,
business and other professions? It means that any time you say a
communication strategy usually works this way at your workplace, or
that a specific approach is generally effective with your boss, or that
certain types of communication are typical for particular media
organizations, you are in essence providing a theoretical explanation.
Most of us make these types of summary statements on a regular
basis.Table 1.1 presents the overview of three types of theory.

Table 1.1 Three types of theory

Type of theory Example

Commonsense theory  Never date someone you work with _

it will always end badly.
 The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
 The more incompetent you are, the
higher you get promoted.
Working Theory  Audience analysis should be done
prior to presenting the speech.
 To get a press release published, it
should be newsworthy and written in
journalistic style.
Scholarly theory  Effects of violations of expectations
depend on the reward value of the
violator (expectancy violations
theory).

17
  The media do not tell us what to
think but what to think about
(agenda-setting theory).

The first summary statements in the table describe what is known

as common-sense theory, or theory in use. This type of theory is often
created by an individual’s own personal experiences or develop from
helpful hints passed on by family members, friends or colleagues.
Commonsense theories are useful because they are often the basis for
our decisions about how to communicate. Sometimes, however, our
common sense backfires. For example, think about the common
knowledge regarding deception. Most people believe that liars do not
look the person they are deceiving in the eyes, yet research indicates that
this is not the case (DePaulo, Stone & Lassiter, 1985). Let’s face it: if we
engage in deception, we will work very hard at maintaining eye contact
simply because we believe that liars do not make eye contact! In this
case commonsense theory is not supported by research into the
phenomenon.
A second type of theory is known as working theory. These are
generalizations made in particular professions about the best techniques
for doing something. Journalists work using the “inverted pyramid’’ of
story construction (most important information to least important
information). Filmmakers operate using specific camera shots to evoke
particular emotions in the audience, so close-ups are used when a
filmmaker wants the audience to place particular emphasis on the object
in the shot. Giannetti (1982) for example describes a scene in
Hitchcock’s Notorious in which the heroine realizes she is being
poisoned by her coffee, and the audience “sees” this relationship through
a close-up of the coffee cup. Working theories are more systematic than
commonsense theories because they represent agreed-on ways of doing
things for a particular profession. In fact, these working theories may
very well be based on scholarly theories. However, working theories
more closely represent guidelines for behavior rather than systematic

18
representations. These types of theories are typically taught in content-
specific courses (such as public relations, media production or public
speaking).
The type of theory we will be focusing on in this book is known as
scholarlytheory. Students often assume (incorrectly!) that because a
theory is labeled scholarly it is not useful for people in business and the
professions. Instead the term scholarly indicates that the theory has
undergone systematic research. Accordingly, scholarly theories provide
more thorough, accurate and abstract explanations for communication
than do commonsense or working theories. The downside is that
scholarly theories are typically more complex and difficult to understand
than commonsense or working theories. If you are genuinely committed
to improving your understanding of the communication process,
however, scholarly theory will provide a strong foundation for doing so.
The final topic of this chapter is evaluating theory.
Earlier we suggested that all theories have strengths and
weaknesses; they reveal certain aspects of reality and
conceal others. An important task that students and
scholars face is to evaluate the theories that are available
to them. We are not talking about evaluation in terms of
“good” versus “bad,” but evaluating the usefulness of the
theory. Each of you is likely to find some of the theories
presented in this text more useful than others. Such a
determination is likely due at least in part to your own
background and experiences, as well as your profession.
We would like to challenge you to broaden your scope
and consider not just the usefulness of each theory to you
personally, but the usefulness of the theory for people’s
personal and professional lives in general. A number of
published standards can be used to evaluate theories
(e.g., Griffin, 2003; Littlejohn, 2002; West & Turner,
2000). All are appropriate and effective tools for
comparing the relative usefulness of a given theory. The

19
following five criteria best capture the way to assess the
relative usefulness of communication theories in the
communication, business, and the related professions.
Note that we are talking about the relative usefulness of
the theory. We are not talking about either–ors—good or
bad, weak or strong. Instead, we hope you look at these
distinctions as continua that range from very useful at
one end to not particularly useful at the other end. A
description of these criteria is given in Table 1.2.

Table 1.4 Criteria for Evaluating Theory

Area of What to Look For
Evaluation
Accuracy Has research supported that the theory
works the way it says it does?

Practicality Have real-world applications been

found for the theory?

Succinctness Has the theory been formulated with

the appropriate number (fewest
possible) of concepts or steps?

Consistency Does the theory demonstrate

consistency within its own premises
and with other theories?

Acuity To what extent does the theory make

clear an otherwise complex
experience?

20
 The first area of focus is accuracy. Simply put, the best theories
correctly summarize the way communication actually works. Recall,
however, that we are referring to scholarly theories. As such, we do not
mean accuracy in terms of whether the theory accurately reflects your
own personal experience (although we would hope that it does!).
Instead, when we use the term accuracy we are suggesting that
systematic research supports the explanations provided by the theory.
Thus, in assessing this quality, you should look at research studies that
have used the theory and see whether the research supports the theory or
fails to find support for it.
A second way to evaluate theories is practicality. The best theories
can be used to address real-world communication problems. Clearly,
there are some profound theories that have changed the way we
understand the world that are not actually used by most people on a daily
basis (Einstein’s theory of relativity, or Darwin’s theory of evolution,
for example). In terms of communication theories, however, theories that
are accurate but cannot be used in everyday life are not as good as
theories that have great practical utility. For example, a theory that can
help a person make better communicative decisions in his or her
interactions with coworkers is better than a theory so abstract that it
cannot be used by an individual in daily communication. Thus, a theory
with more applications is better than a theory without practical uses. In
assessing this criterion, you should look for how the theory has been
used in the research literature, as well as whether the theory has made
the leap to professional practice.
Succinctnessis the third way to evaluate a good business or
professional communication theory. This does not mean that the theory
is easy to understand; because the world is complex, theories trying to
explain the world are often fairly complex as well. What we mean by
simplicity is that the theory is formulated as simply as possible. Theories
that include no more nor no less than necessary to understand a
phenomena thoroughly are just right; they have a useful amount of
simplicity. The best way to think of simplicity is to compare how much

21
of communication is explained by the theory versus how many concepts
are being used to explain it.
The fourth way to evaluate a theory is to consider its
consistency.The most useful theories have both internal and external
consistency.By internal consistency, we mean that the ideas of the
theory are logicallybuilt on one another. A theory that proposes at one
point thatcooperation among team members guarantees success and at a
differentpoint proposes that competition is more effective than
cooperationhas a logical flaw. Similarly, theories that “skip” steps do not
havemuch internal consistency. Atheory predicting that age is related to
theexperience of jealousy and that one’s expression of jealousy affects
thefuture of the relationship, but then fails to tell us how the experience
ofjealousy is related to the expression of jealousy, has a logical gap.
Assuch, it does not have strong internal consistency.
External consistency, on the other hand, refers to the theory’s
consistencywith other widely held theories. If we presume that the
widely held theories are true, then the theory under evaluation that
disagrees with those believed supported theories also presents a logical
problem. As such, the notion of consistency, whether internal or
external, is concerned with the logic of the theory. The most useful
theories are thosethat have a strong logical structure.
The final area for evaluation is acuity. Acuity refers to the ability
of a theory to provide insight into an otherwise intricate issue.Think of
acuity as the “wow” factor. If, after understanding the theory you
think:”wow, I’ve never considered that!” the theory has acuity. If, on the
other hand, you think, “no, duh” the theory does not demonstrate acuity.
Earlier we said that theories that are simple are not necessarily easy to
understand, because the real world is often complex. A theory that
explainsa difficult problem, however, is better than a theory that explains
somethingless complex. For example, a theory that explains a complex
problemsuch as how organizational cultures can influence employee
retentionis a more useful theory than a theory that explains a relatively
straightforwardproblem such as how to gain attention in a speech. Those

22
theories that explain difficult problems show acuity; those that focus on
fairly obvious problems demonstrate superficiality.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed the popular conception of communi-
cation, which suggests that the communication process is paradoxically
simple yet powerful. We defined communication as the process by
which people interactively create, sustain and manage meaning. We then
turned our attention to communication competence, indicating that
competent communicators are those who can balance effectiveness and
appropriateness. Next, we discussed the nature of theory. The distinc-
tions between commonsense theory, working theory and scholarly theo-
ries were addressed. Finally, we provided a means by which scholarly
theories of communication can be evaluated, including accuracy,
practicality, succinctness, consistency and acuity.

23
 Chapter4

The nature of communication

Communication between humans is an extremely complex and
ever-changing phenomenon. When two people are engaged in talking to
each other we can be fairly sure that they are doing so for a reason.
When one of these people speaks we can probably make the following
generalizations:
1. He wants to speak: “want” is used here in general way to
suggest that a speaker makes a definite decision to address someone.
Speaking may be forced on him in some way, but we can still say that he
wants or intends to speak, otherwise he would keep silent.
2. He has some communicative purpose: Speakers say things
because they want something to happen as a result of what they say. The
speaker may want to charm his listener; he may want to give some
information or to express pleasure. He may decide to be rude or to
flatter, to agree or complain. In each of these cases he is interested in

24
achieving this communicative purpose – in other words being successful
at what he wants to convey.
3. He selects from his language store: The speaker has an infinite
capacity to create new sentences if he is a native speaker. In order to
achieve his communicative purpose he will select (from the store of the
language he possesses) the language he thinks is appropriate for this
purpose.
These three generalizations apply equally to someone having a
private conversation and to the politician giving a speech to thousands.
They apply to the schoolteacher and the radio announcer, the judge and
the shop assistant.
It is important, too, to realize that these generalizations do not only
apply to the spoken word: they charachterisewritten communication as
well, and although a difference may be that the writer is not in
immediate contact with the reader (whereas in conversation two or more
people are together), the same also applies to the example of the radio
announcer, and, to some extent, the academic giving a lecture in a
packed hall (although there is of course much greater contact here).
Assuming an effective piece of communication, we can also make
some generalizations about the listener (or reader) of language. By
effective communication we mean that there is a desire for the
communication to be effective both from the point of view of the
speaker and the listener. Of course, there are many other characteristics
that are necessary for effective communication and there are many
possible reasons for breakdown in communication, but once again three
points can be made about the listener:
1. He wants to listen to “something”:Once again “want” is used in
a general way. But in order for someone to understand what they are
listening to (or reading) they must have some desire to do so.
2. He is interested in the communicative purpose of what is being
said: In general people listen to language because they want to find out
what the speaker is trying to say – in other words what ideas they are
conveying, and what effect they wish the communication to have.

25
 3. He processes the variety of language: Although the listener
may have a good idea of what the speaker is going to say next, in general
terms, he has to be prepared to process a great variety of grammar and
vocabulary to understand exactly what is being said.
Once again these comments apply generally to all listeners, and are
equally true of readers.
Whenever communication takes place, of course, there is a speaker
(and/or writer) and a listener (and/or reader). This is the case even where
a novelist writes a manuscript, for here the writer assumes that there will
be a reader one day and that the reader will be performing a commu-
nicative act when reading the book.
In conversation and, for example, the exchange of letters, the
speaker or writer quickly becomes a listener or reader as the communica-
tion progresses.
We can summarise our generalizations about the nature of
communication in Figure 1:

 Wants to say something

Speaker/Writer  has a communicative purpose
 selects from language store

 wants to listen to “something”

Listener/Reader  interested in communicative purpose
 processes a variety of language

The information gap

We have said that a speaker normally has a communicative purpose
and that a listener is discovering what that purpose is. However, even if
our listener has some idea about the purpose, he must listen in order to
be sure. He cannot be sure, in other words, what it is before he hears
what the speaker says. We can illustrate this with a simple example.
Consider the following example in which a man (A) speaks to a woman
(B) at a bus stop:

26
 A: Excuse me.
B: Yes?
A: Do you have a watch?
B: Yes… why?
A: I wonder if you could tell me what the time is?
B: Certainly… it’s o’clock.
A: Thank you.
B: Don’t mention it.

The man who starts the conversation may have many reasons for
speaking: he may want to get into conversation with the woman because
he thinks she looks interesting, and the question about the time may
simply be a pretext for this. On the other hand he may genuinely want to
know the time. In both there exists an information gap between what A
and B know. If the question about the time is a genuine one we can say
that B has information that A doesn’t have (the time) and A wants that
information. In other words there is a gap between the two in the
information they possess, and the conversation helps to close that gap so
that now both speakers have the same information. But even if this were
not the real purpose of the conversation there is still a gap between the
speakers where B does not know what A’s purpose is before he speaks.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed the nature of communication and
defined the purposes connected with the people engaged in the
communicative process: the purposes of the speaker and the listener
were pointed out. Information gap that can be the reason of
misunderstanding and confusion was addressed. The chapter clarified the
importance of listening. We have said that a speaker normally has a
communicative purpose and that a listener is discovering what that
purpose is. However, even if our listener has some idea about the
purpose, he must listen in order to be sure and understand.

27
 Chapter 5

Conversation skills
Effective communication
Speech is an important form of communication. Every time you
open your mouth, you reveal something about yourself to someone else -
not just in what you say, but how you say it, so speak clearly and
sincerely. Make yourselfheard without shouting, interrupting or talking
over others. Say what you think and how you feel, but say it without
hurting others' feelings. Some conversation do's and don'ts include:
Conversation DO'S
 Look at the person or people you are talking to
 If you haven't met before, introduce yourself and ask their name
 Use a person's name when talking to them
 Ask questions when you don't understand something
 Stick to the subject
 Say nice things about people and praise those who deserve it
 It's fine to disagree, but disagree politely
Conversation DON'TS
 Don't fidget, look elsewhere, or wander off while someone else
is talking
 Don't listen in on conversations you aren't part of
 Don't interrupt when someone else is talking
 Don't whisper in front of another person
 Don't whine, tattletale, brag, or say mean things about others
 Don't ask personal questions such as how much things cost or
why someone looks or dresses the way they do
 Don't point or stare
 Don't argue about things that aren't important
Some Magic Words to Being Polite

28
  "Thank You"
 "Please"
 "May I ... "
 "Excuse Me"
 "I'm Sorry"

You may be involved in speaking English in a wide range of

situations: chatting with friends, buying things in shops, asking
directions in the street, discussing a problem in a tutorial, consulting a
supervisor, giving a seminar presentation, and so on.
To speak effectively in another language we need a variety of
‘’tools’. We will be exploring some of them in this unit and suggesting
ways in which you can practice and improve using them in English.

Tools for speaking

Conversation is a complex activity, even in our first language, and
can cause difficulties for either the speaker or listener:
1. As a speaker you may not remember the exact word or
expression for what you want to say. In this case, you need to adopt one
of a set of communication strategies, which involve finding another
way of expressing the desired meaning in a different form.
2. When you are listening, you may not understand - or hear - the
speaker, so you have to signal that there is a problem, so that the speaker
and you can negotiate a way of resolving it between you. We refer to this
as conversational repair.
We are going to look at these two aspects of speaking.

Communication strategies
Sometimes we do not know, or cannot remember, the precise word
we need. This can happen in our first language too, but we are probably
more aware of it when speaking another language. Here are five
common strategies for dealing with this sort of problem:

29
 Communication strategies in a second language

 ApproximationUse a more general or related word; e.g. 'animal'

instead of 'rabbit'
 ParaphraseDescribe the appearance or function of the word;
e.g. 'He cleaned the house with a... it‘s the thing that sucks in
air'
 Invention Invent a word made from the second language; e.g.
'picture place' instead of 'art gallery'
 Mime/gestureDemonstrate the meaning with your hands, e.g.
clapping to show 'applause'
 Appeal for helpAsk the other person for help: e.g. 'What do you
call...?

Task 1
Here is an extract from a Danish student’s story about an accident,
based on a set of pictures:
They are carrying a man - in ahm - erm - in a portable bed - the
one that the hospitals use to carry people that got an accident - and
they're taking him - ah from the road - he was on the road - ok but they
have just come because - a man - has called the police - I mean the
people in charge of looking after people that have had accidents.
(Bygate 1987: 46)

What was the English word he was looking for when he said
portable bed?
What did he mean by the people in charge of looking after people
that have had accidents?
Which of the Communication Strategies was he using in both
cases?

30
 Task 2
For this task you will need to have a partner you can speak to in
English. (If you don’t have someone you can work with face to face, you
could use web software http://www.voxopop.com/)
Think of something special or unique about the culture of your
region. It could be a sport, or a dish, or a piece of clothing, and so on. It
is important that your partner is not familiar with the things you have
chosen, because that means they will have to make an effort to
understand you.
Describe it to your partner in English. When you find it difficult to
find the right words, use a communication strategy.

Conversational repair
A different sort of problem can occur when you are talking to
someone and you use a word which they do not know or understand. The
term covering the various ways in which this sort or difficulty can be
resolved is conversational repair.
Again, we may need to use this sort of repair in our own language,
too. In fact, our next example involved two native speakers of English:
A, an American woman visiting Edinburgh, and S, a local resident. A
had asked S for advice on where she could go for a cycle ride.
To understand the problem, you need to know that cobbles(or
cobblestones) isthe name for the squared stones that you see in the older
streets in Edinburgh, such as the Royal Mile.

Task 3
Read the conversation. What was the misunderstanding over the
underlined question?
A: What about going down by the Firth of Forth?
S: That should be fun, shouldn't it? Yes, you could. You can ride
right along the edge, you know, without having to keep to the main road.
That should be great, actually. You could do that.
A: Is it very rough down there, though?

31
 S: Well, there are no cobbles as far as I can remember. Have you
tried riding on the cobbles?
A: No, but I was thinking rather more... rough in terms of the
people.
S: Oh I see. Well, I don't think so. I don't know. Parts of it are quite
poor, particularly the Pilton area. (adaptedfrom Brown and Yule 1983:
93)
What the Scottish woman did was reformulate (rephrase) what she
has said, to make her meaning clearer. That is one possible repair
strategy; others are shown below.
 Confirmation check – e.g. ‘So he didn’t win, then?’ Listener
makes sure they’ve understood what Speaker means
 Comprehension check– e.g. ‘Do you follow me?’, or ‘Ok?’
Speaker makes sure that Listener has understood
 Clarification request – e.g. ‘When you say so-so, what do
youmean?’, ‘Pardon?’ Listener asks Speaker to repeat, explain
or rephrase
 Repetition -Listener or Speaker repeats their own (or the
other’s) words
 Reformulation – e.g. ‘So-so – in other words, not very good’
Speaker rephrases the content of what they have said
 Completion -Listener completes Speaker’s utterance
 Backtracking - Speaker returns to a point in the conversation,
up to which they believe that Listener has understood

Task 4
Below is part of a conversation between three international
students: Isabel (Spanish), Yuko (Japanese) and Khalid (Malaysia).
Isabel is talking about Seville, her home city. Notice how all three
students carry out conversational repairs, when they feel they need to.
The repairs are shown in bold.
Can you identify which repair strategy is being used (from the list
above) in each case?

32
 Isabel: I was telling one of my friends + 'yeah we have all the
streets full of orange trees' and + he asked me + 'but don't you eat the
oranges?' + and I said 'no they're very bitter it's impossible they're +
really bitter' and +
Yuko: it must be wild one + + wild orange tree? + + + wild?
Khalid:huh?
Isabel: wild?
Yuko: yes so nobody tries to eat them + the oranges from + uh +
Isabel:the street?
Yuko: the street yes
Isabel: no no + but do you know why do you use that orange for?
Yuko: for marmalade
Khalid:what?
Yuko:marmalade + sweet sort of jam
Isabel: yeah but for the + + queens of England but not for us + we
don't use it at home + + just to threw to each other
Khalid:threw?
Yuko:(laughs)
Isabel: yeah it's true + at Christmas I was having a party with my
friend + + just a dinner very quiet + and suddenly + + we went in the +
balcony
Khalid:hmhm
Isabel: and somebody throw at us an orange
Yuko: hah!
Isabel: it went (makes sound effect) POOSH! to the wall
Khalid:is that traditional way to + + celebrate something or
what?
Isabel: no
Khalid:just to + + annoy
Isabel: to bother us
(laughter)

33
 There is nothing unusual about that conversation. It simply
illustrates how the partners in a conversation can help each other out
when a communication problem arises.
When you have the chance to talk informally with others in
English, you should expect to do this sort of repair work. Don’t expect to
speak with complete accuracy or with total fluency. Nobody does.
Native speakers hesitate and make slips, too. This brings us to Language
Learning Principle which is Keep the conversation going.
Remember that, as a second language user of English, you can also
learn from the points in a conversation that need repair. To do that, you
need to identify what caused the problem:
 If it was something that you said, do you know exactly why it
was a problem for the others?
 If you are not sure what the problem was, you can always ask
other people what they thought you said. In that way you can
get an impression of how your English sounds to people
listening to you.

Look out for things such as the ways in which the speakers indicate
that they want to speak next, or are about to finish what they are saying.
Recognising these 'turn-taking' signals will help you to participate in
English conversations.
Learn some lines as wholes: The 'lines' in this case are phrases
and expressionswhich you can absorb into your own English. Use them
as you hear them being used, not as separate words but as whole
'formulae'. The examples below (from Cook 1989: 118) are some of the
expressions you will hear British people using in a variety of speaking
situations:
 Opening: Hello there; Hi; How are you?; How're things?
 Taking a turn: Yes but; Well yes but; Surely...
 Holding a turn: er; um; anyway; you know; I mean; sort of
 Passing a turn: What do you think?; tag questions
 Closing: Right; well anyway; so; ok then

34
 There are many more, of course. Opening expressions are used to
introduce particular types of talk. McCarthy (1991: 139) provides these
openers to anecdotes and jokes:

I'll always remember the time when...

Did I ever tell you about...
Did I ever tell you the one about...
Then there was the time...
I must tell you about..
Have you heard the one about...
You'll never guess what happened yesterday...
I heard a good one the other day...
Then there's the one about...

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed some conversation do's and don'ts that
can help us have successful communication. We defined the idea of
communication strategies and conversational repair that can be
addressed during communicative process to overcome the obstacles
blocking the way to understanding and delivering information. Besides,
the importance of “turn-taking” signals was pointed out. All the facts
considered can lead us to effective communication.

35
 Chapter 6

What is meaning?
Semantics, roughly defined, is the study of meaning of words and
sentences. In order for meaning to be successfully studied, of course, it
must be made clear what meaning is. Although most people do not feel
confused about the nature of meaning, very few would find a precise
explanation of it easy to give. In fact, meaning is a highly complex,
many-faceted phenomenon, and any complete explanation of it must
account for a surprisingly wide variety of different facts. In addition,
some commonly held ideas about meaning, turn out, to be false. The
purpose is to point out some of these misconceptions, and to discuss
some of the kinds of things an explanation of meaning must address.

Dictionary definitions
In our culture, where the use of dictionaries is widespread, many
people may have the impression that a word’s meaning is simply its
dictionary definition. A little thought should show, however, that there
must be more to meaning than this.
It is true that when someone wants to find out what a word means,
an easy and practical way to do it is to look the word up in a dictionary.
Most people in our culture accept dictionaries as providing unques-
tionably authoritative accounts of the meanings of the words they define.
The role of dictionaries in our society as authorities on meaning
leads many people to feel that the dictionary definition of a word more
accurately represents the word’s meaning than does an individual
speaker’s understanding of the word. Keep in mind, however, that the
people who write dictionaries arrive at their definitions by studying the
ways speakers of the language use different words. Some dictionaries are
relatively prescriptive, others more descriptive, but all must face the fact
that a word means what people use it to mean. There simply is no higher
authority than the general community of native speakers of the language.

36
A word’s meaning is determined by the people who use that word, not
by a dictionary.
The idea that a dictionary definition is all there to a word’s meaning
runs into even more serious problems when one considers that in order
to understand the dictionary definition of a word, one must know the
meanings of the words used in that definition. For example, if the word
blackmail is defined as ‘to make someone give you money or do what
you want by threatening to tell people embarrassing information about
them’ one must know the meanings of the words someone, threaten,
embarrassing, etc. in order to understand the definition. Not only that
but one must also understand the words to, or, by, about.
If a word’s meaning is its dictionary definition, then understanding
this meaning involves understanding the meanings of the words used in
the definitions. But understanding the meanings of these words must
involve understanding the meanings of the words in their definitions.
And understanding these definitions must involve understanding the
words they use, which of course would have to involve understanding
even more definitions. The process is never-ending. Dictionaries are
written to be of practical aid to people who already speak the language.
People can and do learn the meanings of some words through dictionary
definitions, so it would probably be unfair to say that such definitions
are completely unable to characterize the meanings of words, but it
should be clear that dictionary definitions can’t be all to the meanings of
all the words in a language.

Mental images
If a word’s definition is not all there to its meaning, what else is
there? One possibility is that a word’s meaning includes mental image.
This is an attractive idea in many ways because words often do seem to
conjure up particular mental images. Reading the words Mona Lisa, for
example, may well cause an image of the Mona Lisa to appear in your
mind.
It should be pointed out, however, that a mental image cannot be all
there is to a word’s meaning,any more that a dictionary definition can.

37
One reason for this is that different people’s mental images may be very
different from each other, without the words really seeming to vary
much in meaning from individual to individual. For a student, the word
lecture will probably be associated with an image of one person standing
in front of a blackboard and talking, and may also include things like the
backs of the heads of one’s fellow students. The image associated with
word lecture in the mind of the professor, however, is more likely to
consist of an audience of students sitting in rows facing forward, and
may include things like the feel of chalk in one’s hand, and so on. A
lecture as seen from a teacher’s perspective is actually quite a bit
different from a lecture as seen from a student’s perspective. Even so,
both the student and the teacher understand the word lecture as meaning
more or less the same thing, despite the difference in mental images. It’s
hard to see how a word like this could mean essentially the same thing
for different people if meanings were just mental images.
Another problem with the idea that meaning is just a mental image
is that the image associated with a word tends to be of a typical or ideal
example of the kind of thing the word represents. Any word, however,
can be used to represent a wide range of things, any one of which may or
may not be typical of its kind. For example, try forming a mental image
of a bird, and make sure it’s clear in your mind before reading on.
If you are like most people, your mental image was not one of an
ostrich or penguin. Yet ostriches and penguins are birds, and any
analysis of the meaning of the word bird must take this into account. It
may be that such an analysis should also provide some indication of
what the typical bird is like, but clearly some provision must be made for
typical birds.
An even more serious problem with the idea that a word’s meaning
is just a mental image is that many words, perhaps even most, simply
have no clear mental images attached to them. What mental image is
associated in your mind, for example, with the word forget? How about
the word the or the word aspect? Only certain words seem to have
definite images, but no one would want to say that only these words
have meanings.

38
 Meaning and reference
What else might be involved in a word’s meaning, besides a
definition and a mental image? One thing worth noting is that language
is used to talk about things in the outside world, and many words seem
to stand for (or refer to) actual objects or relations in the world. It seems
reasonable, then, to consider the actual thing a word refers to, that is, its
referent, as one aspect of the word’s meaning.
But once again, it would be a mistake to think of reference as all
there is to meaning. To do so would tie meaning too tightly to the real
world. If meaning were defined as the actual thing an expression refers
to, what would we do about words for things that don’t exist? There
simply is no actual thing that the words Santa Claus refer to, yet
obviously these words are not meaningless. Language can be used to talk
about fiction, fantasy, or speculation in addition to the real world and
any complete explanation of meaning must take account of this fact.
But even some sentences about the real world appear to present
problems for the idea that an expression’s meaning is just its referent. If
meaning is the same as reference, then if two expressions refer to the
same thing, they must mean the same thing. It follows that you should be
able to substitute on e for the other in a sentence without changing the
meaning of the sentence as a whole. For instance, since the name Ronald
Reagan and he phrase the winner of the 1980 U.S. presidential election
both refer to the same individual, the following two sentences should
mean the same thing:
Ronald Reagan is married to Nancy Reagan.
The winner of the 1980 U.S. presidential election is married to
Nancy Reagan.
And in fact these two sentences do seem to mean the same thing, at
least more or less. Clearly, both describe the same fact. But now look at
a sentence like the following:
Bill wanted to know if Ronald Reagan was the winner of the 1980
U.S presidential election.
Try substituting Ronald Reagan for the winner of the 1980 U.S.
presidential election. What you get is: Bill wanted to know if Ronald

39
Reagan was Ronald Reagan. But these two sentences don’t mean the
same thing at all! They don’t even describe the same fact. If the idea of
meaning as reference is going to work, it has to provide some
explanation for why this sort of substitution doesn’t.

Meaning and context

We have defined semantics as the study of meaning. Given this
definition, we may be tempted to think that once we understand the
semantics of the language, we completely understand that language.
Meaning, however, involves more than just the semantic interpretation
of the utterance. To fully understand the meaning of a sentence, we must
also understand the context in which it was uttered. Consider the word
ball. In a sentence such as, he kicked the ball into the net, we may
visualize a round, black and white soccer ball about nine inches in
diameter. In a sentence such as, she dribbled the ball down the court
and shot a basket, we would visualize a basketball. Given you another
sentence, She put the ball in from two feet away, we would visualize
another ball, a golf ball. In these examples, the word ball is understood
in different ways depending on what type of action is associated with it.
It is the context that fills in the details and allows full understanding –
such as the usual colour of a soccer ball, the size of a basketball, or the
weight of a golf ball. The study of the contribution of the context to
meaning is often called pragmatics.
We must ask ourselves, then, what is context: Is it simply the reality
which fills in meaningful details? No, it is not. Context can be divided
into four subparts of which reality is but the first. We call this aspect of
context the physical context; that is, where the conversation takes place,
what objects are present and what actions are taking place. Second, we
have an epistemic context, i.e. background knowledge shared by the
speakers and hearers. Third, we have a linguistic context – utterances
previous to the utterance under consideration. Finally, there’s a social
context – the social relationship and setting of the speakers and hearers.
As stated, this division of context may seem abstract, so let’s consider
how context helps people interpret a sarcastic remark. Suppose that two

40
people, talking loudly, walk into an individual study section of the
library (physical context). They sit down, still talking loudly, but no one
says anything to them. After about five minutes, a person across the
table from them sarcastically says: “Talk a little louder, won’t you? I
missed what you just said.” The hearers will interpret this utterance as a
request for them to be quiet, despite the fact that literally the speaker
requests them to talk louder. Certain contextual facts help to signal that
this is a request for silence: The utterance interrupts their conversation
and breaks the silence between them and others (linguistic context); the
request is made in sarcastic tone (linguistic context); people don’t
usually talk to strangers (epistemic context); libraries are quiet places
(epistemic context); and they are in the library(physical context).From
these observations, the hearers must conclude that the utterance is a
request for silence.
Given this expanded definition of context, we can see that
pragmatics does more than just “fill in the details”. Pragmatics concerns
itself with how people use language within a context and why they use
language in particular ways.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed conceptions of meaning, dictionary
definitions. We then turned our attention to mental images indicating
that they can differ from person to person as people’s mental images are
based on their conception that most frequently do not coincide with each
other. The idea of meaning and reference and meaning and context were
defined and we pointed out that communicative process is not only about
the meaning of individual words but the whole utterance that fills in the
details and determines the use of language in particular ways.

41
 Chapter 7

Words together
Collocations
Lexical chunks
Students frequently worry about the meaning of individual words.
Yet a marked feature of the way we construct and understand language
is that far from putting together strings of individual words, we actually
use collections of vocabulary items that frequently occur together in
pairs of groups, as this excerpt from the novel Small Island by Andrea
Levy (about Jamaican immigrants to Britain ) makes clear:
Louis now believed bloodyforeigner to be all one word. For, like
bosom pals, he only ever heard those words spoken together.
We will look at three specific instances of words that group
together: collocations, lexical chunks and idiom.

Collocations
If any two words occur together more often than just by chance, we
often call them collocations. In other words, when you hear the word
‘asleep’ there is a good chance that the word ‘fast’ will be used with it
(‘fast asleep’). In the example above, Louis has worked out that if he
hears the word ‘pals’, the word ‘bosom’ will be hovering around, too,
and he never hears the word ‘foreigner’ occurring without ‘bloody’ in
front of it. Knowledge of collocation is an important part of knowing a
word. For example, the Longman Dictionary o f Contemporary English
(LDOCE) lists the following collocations for the word ‘heavy’, when it
means ‘great in amount, degree or severity’: heavy traffic, heavy
rain/snow, heavy fighting, heavy drinker, heavy smoking, heavy smoker,
heavy burden, heavy demands, heavy pressure, heavy fine, heavy
casualties, heavy losses, heavy defeat, heavy cold, heavy use. The reason

42
for this listing is that even though ‘heavy’ (with this meaning) may
sometimes be used with other words, a study of language shows that it is
most often found in the company of the words indicated (traffic,
demands, casualties, etc). Furthermore, even though this meaning of
‘heavy’ is not unlike the word ‘big’, we do not often find ‘big’
collocating with words like ‘smoker’ and ‘casualties’.
The compilers of LDOCE (and other dictionaries) can be confident
about these issues because they have studied large computer corpuses
(collections of articles, novels, recorded speech, journals, etc stored
electronically). These corpuses (and the software which allows them to
be analysed) were developed towards the end of the twentieth century -
and this development process is still ongoing. Corpuses allow us to have
a much clearer idea of when and how often word collocations occur.

Lexical chunks
Corpuses have shown us something else we have always been
aware of - but which is now more demonstrably the case. This is that
words group together into longer lexical phrases or lexical chunks.
Lexical chunks are strings of words which behave almost as one unit.
Some of these are fixed (which means you can’t change any of the
words, e.g. over the moon,out of the blue), and some of them are semi-
fixed (which means you can change some of the words, e.g. nice to see
you/good to see you/great to see you, etc).
Our ability to use the language effectively depends largely on
knowledge of lexicalchunking of this kind. In certain varieties of
English, for example, speakers may well usephrases like ‘It’s a safe bet
that...’ to preface a strong speculation, or ‘I wouldn’t go that far’to show
only partial agreement.
Lexical chunks become more or less problematic depending on how
idiomatic theyare. An idiom is a lexical phrase where the meaning of the
whole phrase may not becomprehensible even if we know the meaning
of each individual word (e.g. ‘full of beans’= energetic, ‘as plain as the
nose on your face’ = obvious). Many phrasal and multi-wordverbs cause

43
problems for learners precisely because they are idiomatic in this way.
Weshould note, however, that many idioms are extremely culture-
specific and so may not bethat useful anyway in international contexts.

Language functions
An exasperated teacher tells a habitually late student ‘You’d better
get here on time nextclass!’ She is making a recommendation, something
which is between advice and an order.There are other ways in which the
teacher can make recommendations, too, and herchoice may well depend
on exactly how exasperated she is and how formal, informal, director
indirect she wishes to be - what tone she wishes to adopt.

EXAMPLES
Get here on time next class if you know what’s good for you.
I strongly recommend that you get here on time next class.
I suggest you get here on time next class.
I think it would be a really good idea if you got here on time next
class.
It would be a good idea if you tried to get here on time next class.
Next class?On time, OK?

A language function is a purpose you wish to achieve when you say

or write something.By ‘performing’ the function, you are performing an
act of communication. If you say ‘Iapologise’, you are performing the
function of apologising; if you say ‘I promise’, you areperforming the
function of promising. But functions are more often performed
withoutusing verbs like this at all. We can apologise by saying ‘sorry’
and invite someone not bysaying ‘I invite you’ but by saying things like
‘D’you fancy coming round for a meal?’Aswe have seen above, there
are many ways of recommending a course of action. Manyfunctional
exponents (patterns or phrases) are exactly the kind of lexical phrases
wediscussed above.

44
 If our students want to express themselves in speaking or writing,
they need to knowhow to perform these functions. A key feature of
specific functional exponents is to knowwhich are more or less
appropriate in given situations (depending on who is being talkedto,
what the situation is and how determined or tentative the speaker wishes
to be). Issues of register are crucial here.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed collocations, lexical chunks, language
functions. If any two words occur together more often than just by
chance, we often call them collocations. Lexical chunks are strings of
words which behave almost as one unit. Some of these are fixed and
some of them are semi-fixed. The problem connected with idiomatic
expressions is to be taken into consideration. Idioms are problematic as
they cannot be translated by word for word translation, the meaning of
individual words cannot help us in understanding the idiom thus creating
the ambiguity in communication. And finally, a language function is a
purpose you wish to achieve when you say or write something. By
‘performing’ the function, you are performing an act of communication.

45
 Chapter 8

Rules of Conversation
Imagine what would happen to language if there were no rules to
follow during conversations. Then it would be perfectly acceptable to
follow "Hi, how are you doing?" with "cars are typically made from
steel", or to simply lie with every statement you made. But then
communication would be virtually impossible. It is clear that in normal
conversation we don't simply say whatever we please, but instead follow
some general guidelines as to what is acceptable and what isn't.
The use of language, like most other forms of social behavior, is
governed by social rules. Some rules are designed to protect people’s
feelings by showing respect (e.g. rules governing whether or not you can
use a first name in addressing someone or must use a title and last
name). Rather more important are rules designed to protect the integrity
of our language. It is reasonably clear that if people were to decide to tell
lies in some random way, so that listeners would have no way of
determining when speakers are lying and when they are telling the truth,
language would cease to be of any value to us. In response to this, we
have settled on a set of conversations governing language use that
preserves its integrity by requiring us, among other things, to be honest

46
in its use, to have evidence for what we say and to make what we say
relevant to the speech context.
The philosopher H.P. Grice formulated a Cooperative Principle,
which he believed underlies language use, according to which we are
enjoined to make sure that what we say in conversation furthers the
purposes of these conversations. Obviously, the requirements of
different types of conversations will be different. In a business meeting,
one is normally expected to keep one’s remarks confined to the topic at
hand unless it is changed in some approved way. Some close friends
having a few beers at a bar would not be governed by tight rules of this
sort. Nevertheless, even in a casual conversation, the conversation will
normally have one or more purposes and each of the parties to it can be
expected by the rest to behave in ways that further these purposes. Thus,
even the most casual conversation is unlikely to consist of random
sentences like the following:
1. Kim: How are you today?
Sandy: Oh, Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania.
Gail: Really? I thought the weather would be warmer.
Mickey: Well, in my opinion, the soup could have used a little
more salt.

Grice argued that there are a number of conversational rules or

maxims that regulate conversation by way of enforcing compliance with
the cooperative principle. At the heart of the system of maxims are the
Maxims of Quality.

Maxims of Quality
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
The first Maxim of Quality is self-evident. Without regular
compliance with this maxim, language would be useless to us. The
second is more interesting for it is only when we believe we have

47
adequate evidence for some claim that we can have much confidence
that we are observing the first Maxim of Quality.
Because we may normally assume that speakers are obeying the
Cooperative Principle, we sometimes draw inferences from what people
say that are based on this assumption. Consider the following conver-
sation:
2. Sandy: We need someone to make some sort of fruit salad for
the picnic.
Tom: I can make my family’s favourite fruit salad.
Sandy would likely draw the inference that Tom has actually made
this fruit salad before, for the very best evidence that Tom can make this
salad is that he has actually made it. However, this is not a valid
inference. Tom could say what was said based on the fact that he had
watched it being made many times and thought he knew all that needed
to be known to make it. Suppose Tom made the salad and it came out
very badly. Something like the following conversation might take place:
3. Sandy: I thought you said you could make this salad!
Tom: well, I thought I could.
As Sandy’s challenge illustrates, we take claims involving the word
can quite seriously – because we assume that speakers using it are
obeying the second Maxim of Quality.
A second class of maxims consists of the Maxim of Relation
(often called the Maxim of Relevance)

Maxim of Relation/Relevance
Be relevant.
This maxim is sometimes called a supermaxim because it is central
to the orderliness of conversation – it limits random topic shifts and also
it is very important to understanding how we draw conversational
inferences. Consider the following conversation:
4. Sandy: Is Gail dating anyone these days?
Tom: Well, she goes to Cleveland every weekend.

48
 In this case, Sandy will likely draw the inference that Gail is dating
someone because she will assume that what Tom has said is relevant to
what she had said. In fact, if Tom knew that Gail goes to Cleveland
every weekend because she has a job there, what she said would have
been very misleading. The next pair of maxims are the Maxims of
Quantity.

Maxims of Quantity
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required.
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is
required.
The first maxim is intended to insure that we make as strong a
claim as is warranted in any given circumstance and the second is meant
to insure that we do not make a stronger claim than is warranted in that
circumstance. The following conversation illustrates an inference that
might be drawn on the assumption that the speaker is obeying the first
Maxim of Quantity.
5. Gail: how far can you run without stopping?
Kim: twenty-four miles.
Gail: I guess you can’t run a whole marathon without stopping.
Kim: Nonsense, I’ve done it a number of times.
Notice that what Kim first says must be true if what she says next is
true. Certainly, if someone can run over twenty-six miles without
stopping then they can run twenty-four miles without stopping. Howe-
ver, Gail quite naturally was assuming that Kim was obeying the first
Maxim of Quantity.
The final group of maxims we will discuss are the Maxims of
Manner.
Maxims of Manner
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief.
4. Be orderly.

49
 These maxims are reasonably self-explanatory. The first enjoins us
to avoid use of jargon or other terms our listeners cannot be expected to
know. The second maxim requires us to avoid saying things that have
two or more meanings unless our listeners can be expected to know
which meaning is intended. The third maxim tells us not to expound at
length on a topic when a few words will do. The forth comes down to
saying that we should organize what we say in some intelligible way.
In discussing Grice’s conversational Maxims we pointed out that
we commonly draw inferences from what people say based on the
assumption that they are obeying the Cooperative Principle. This system
of inference drawing is a kind of side effect of the maxims, maxims
whose primary reason is to regulate conversation. One major reason for
exploiting the maxims in this way is to make conversation easier.
(Notice that How far you can run without stopping? is shorter than What
is the greatest distance you can run without stopping?) In conversation
(4) above, Tom might have said I believe that he may be dating someone
because he goes to Cleveland every weekend and that’s not his
hometown, and he doesn’t have a job there. Given out set of maxims,
Tom can say what he says and rely on the listener to figure out what he
means.
There are two other reasons we use these maxims to communicate
indirectly: (a) we sometimes need to avoid telling the truth because our
frankness may hurt us; (b) we sometimes need to avoid telling the truth
because the truth may hurt someone else. Grice gave an example of a
professor who was asked to write a letter of recommendation for a recent
Ph.D. who was applying for a teaching position. Suppose that the letter
went like this:
Dear colleague,
Mr. John J. Jones has asked me to write a letter on his behalf. Let
me say that Mr. Jones is unfailingly polite, is neatly dressed at all times
and is always on time for his classes.
Sincerely yours,
Harry H. Homer

50
 Do you think Mr. Jones would get the job? This is an example of
flouting of a maxim – in this case, the Maxim of Quantity. Professor
Homer wanted to convey his negative impression of the candidate
without actually saying anything negative about him. If one of the
maxims is violated by some utterance, and yet we are stillassuming that
that person is cooperating with us in communication, wecan take that
violation as a sign that something is being said indirectly.This is called
exploiting or flouting a maxim (deliberately violating it).The receiver
of this letter will assume that although Professor Homer has appeared to
be violating the Maxim of Quantity, he is not intending to be
uncooperative, and thus has said all of the relevant positive things he can
think of – which is the essence of damning with faint praise. Indirect
communication like this is very important to us. If a teacher believes that
his/her students are cheating on a quiz, he/she might say, “I see a lot of
roving eyes!” The students will doubtless take this as an indirect charge
that someone appears to be cheating. The Maxim of Relation/Relevance
plays a role here because a claim about roving eyes is relevant just in
case the eyes are roving to the wrong place.
The needs of social harmony and linguistic integrity are not always
consistent with each other. It is said that there are societies in which the
failure to answer a stranger’s question is considered very impolite and
therefore people in this society will give a stranger a wrong answer to a
question rather than give no answer. That is to say, that Grice’s maxims,
being conventions, are very different from natural laws.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed rules of conversation defining that
the use of language, like most other forms of social behavior, is
governed by social rules. Grice’s cooperative principle was pointed out
and maxims of manner, quality, quantity and relevance were analysed.
And finally, the concept of flouting a maxim was explained. If one of the
maxims is violated by some utterance, and yet we are stillassuming that
that person is cooperating with us in communication, wecan take that

51
violation as a sign that something is being said indirectly.This is called
exploiting or flouting a maxim (deliberately violating it).

Chapter 9

Text and discourse. Conversational discourse

Much of this chapter has dealt with language at the level of words
and utterances(sentences,questions, etc in speech). However, utterances
are generallypart of a longer stretch of spoken discourse. In writing,
sentences are usually part of alonger text. In order to be an effective
language user, therefore, speakers and writers need tobe able to operate
with longer texts (stretches of discourse) as well as with words,
phrases,sentences and questions.We will now look at cohesion,
coherence and the special features of spoken face-to-facediscourse.

Cohesion
Cohesion refers to the devices we use to stick text together - the
way we connect ideas andsentences together. Lexical cohesion involves
using words and groups of words throughouta text to bind a topic
together. Grammatical cohesion, on the other hand, uses
pronouns,articles and tense agreement, among other devices, for the
same purpose. In the followingpassage, describing a primary teacher’s
first day with a new class, lexical cohesion is achievedby the use of a
group of related topic-words (‘thuglets’, ‘boys’, ‘girls’, ‘young lad’,
‘children’).
Clare knew that her class had a high proportion o f ‘thuglets’ (the
word she usedfor boys and girls whose behaviour could cause
problems). They had acquired afearsome reputation in the previous two
years. But this did not stop her from walkingtowards the classroom with
a feeling of eager anticipation. She was a teacher, afterall. This is what
she did.

52
 The children were waiting for her. Some of them were sitting
quietly at their desks,but one young lad was standing at the back of the
room, his arms crossed and alook of sulky petulance on his face.
This is how it starts, she thought as she said ‘Good morning,
children,’ and waitedfor them to reply.
Grammatical cohesion is achieved by the placing of the account in
the past tense, but alsoby the use of words like ‘her’ in sentence 1
referring back to ‘Clare’, ‘they’ at the beginningof sentence 2 to refer to
the ‘thuglets’, and ‘she’ at the beginning of sentence 4 referring backto
Clare again. Such anaphoric reference is present in the second and
third paragraphs,too, with words like ‘her’, ‘them’, ‘his’, ‘she’, etc. But
the writer also asks us to make strongerconnections too. ‘This’ at the
beginning of sentence 3 refers back to the whole situation- the fact that
the ‘thuglets had acquired a fearsome reputation’. ‘This’ in sentence 5
ofparagraph 1 , however, refers to both the first day of a new year and
Clare’s job. ‘This’ in thefirst sentence of the last paragraph refers to the
experience of walking into a new class – inother words it refers to
everything that has gone before.
In many longer texts we also use linkers (‘In the first place’, ‘On
the one hand ...’,‘Furthermore ...’, ‘In conclusion ...’,etc) to show the
progress of a text.

Coherence
Cohesion will make no difference to the success of a text if it is not
coherent. The followingfour sentences (about the same teacher working
on notions of perception) are perfectlywell formed, but the text makes no
sense because it has no internal logic: the ideas are inthe wrong order.
She opened it and took a large spoonful. She held up the tin.
Ignoring the children’s shocked faces,she put the spoon into her mouth.
It was marked ‘Dog food’.
When a text is coherent - when it has some internal logic - the
readers should be able toperceive the writer’s purpose and follow their
line of thought.

53
 Conversational discourse
Many of the same elements of cohesion and coherence apply to
face-to-face spoken discourseas well. But in speech we can also use
ellipsis for grammatical cohesion,and participants need to be proficient
at turn-taking, the conversational convention thatrequires that only one
person speak at any one time. Moreover, if the conversation is tobe
successful, speakers should avoid long silences, and should listen when
someone else isspeaking.
The skill of turn-taking involves such attributes as recognising
when you can takea turn, knowing how to keep your turn (or hold the
floor), knowing how to signal thatsomeone else can take their turn, and
knowing how to show that you are listening. Thiskind of knowledge is
not specific to English, of course, since such conversational skills
arealmost universal. However, speakers of English need to know typical
discourse markers(that is, linguistic ways of performing these skills-
much like linkers in more writing-liketext) in order to operate
effectively. Phrases such as ‘You may be right, but ...’ or ‘Hold on, I’d
just like to say that ...’ or ‘Yes, but ...’ can help speakers take a turn.
‘And another thing...’, ‘and that reminds me ...’, ‘I’ve nearly finished,
but just before I do ...’ help to keep aturn, whereas ‘uh uh’, ‘right’ and
‘yeah’ show that we are listening. Speakers of English needto recognise
these discourse markers and be able to use them if they are to be
successfulconversationalists.

Language variables
The way English speakers use systems of grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation isdependent upon a number of variables. We will look at
speaking and writing, register andlanguage varieties.

Speaking and writing

54
 The way we put words together in correct sequences is often
influenced by whether ornot we are doing it in speech or writing. For
example, we find that in conversation wetend to use more contractions
(e.g. ‘it is’ contracted to ‘it’s’, ‘I have’ contracted to ‘I’ve’ )than in
writing. In speech we might well shorten ‘It’s warm in here’ to ‘Warm in
here’ oreven ‘Warm’, though such ellipsis is less likely in writing.
However, the choice of whethersomething is more or less speaking-like
or writing-like may depend on the register thespeaker is using.
Students ofEnglish need to be able to recognise the difference
between more speaking-likeand writing-like language, and to use these
differences creatively.
Recent computer research has also shown that words are used
differently in speech andwriting. ‘However’ is more common in writing
than speaking, for example, but ‘started’ ismuch more common than
‘began’ in speaking. People use ‘go’ and ‘be like’ to mean ‘said’(‘She
goes/She’s like “How are you feeling?” and I go/I’m like “Not so
bad” ...’) in speechbut almost never in writing.
Because speaking is often face-to-face and interactive, speakers can
use paralinguistic(or non-language) features, such as changing their
tone of voice, giving added emphasis,whispering and shouting or
speaking faster or slower. They can use gesture and expressionto modify
their meanings, too.
However, writers have their own bag of tricks:
- dashes
! exclamations marks
new paragraphs
, commas
capital letters, etc.
These can be used to create rhythm and effect. But whereas in
speech the participants canclarify what they are saying as they go along,
depending on who they are talking to, inwriting it’s much more
important to get it right the first time.

55
 Writers are likely to write full grammatical sentences and use
writing-specific language.In addition, research shows that they use a
higher percentage of content words (wordsthat carry meaning like
‘flower’, ‘car’, ‘hot’, ‘sun’, ‘feel’) relative to function words
(grammarwords like ‘which’, ‘to’ or ‘was’), than speakers do. With
speakers, the proportion of functionwords is often much higher.

Register
Our choice of words is also determined by the register we are
speaking in. Register refers toboth the topic we are speaking about and
the tone (for example formal or informal) thatwe wish to adopt. Thus,
for example, in a weather forecast we would expect to hear topicwords
such as ‘depression’, ‘cold front’, ‘moving in from ...’, ‘temperatures’
and ‘hot’, ‘cool’and ‘warm’.
However, if we revert to the sentence at the beginning of this
chapter (‘It’s warm inhere’) and imagine that the conversation was
taking place between two friends, one ofthem might change it to ‘Pretty
warm in here’. Here the use of ‘pretty’ (which is muchmore common in
speech than in writing) indicates an informal tone. But if we use theword
‘extremely’ instead (e.g. ‘It’s extremely warm in here’), the tone of the
speaker isconsiderably more formal.
Students of English need to be able to recognise register differences
so that they canchoose their words appropriately, depending on who they
are speaking or writing to, andon the topic in question.

Language varieties
English is not just one language, of course. There are many
different varieties. Even if wetake just British English for example, we
will find that whereas a speaker from southernEngland might say ‘It’s
really warm in here’, someone from Newcastle in the north of England
might say ‘It’sright warm in here’ (where ‘right’ is pronounced ‘reet’).
There areregional variations in Britain in pronunciation, word choice and
grammar.

56
 There are differences between varieties of British English and the
English used inother countries too. An Australian speaker, using an
informal tone, might well change oursentence to ‘Bloody warm in here,
mate’, and many American speakers of English will say/wo:rm/ rather
than /worn/ - i.e. with the Irlsound clearly audible. There are other
markeddifferences between British and American English, too. Whereas
a British speaker mayuse the present perfect to ask a question such as
‘Have you been to Venice?’,American speakers might use the past
simple, e.g. ‘Did you go to Venice?’.Indian and Pakistani speakers of
English often use the present continuous, e.g. ‘We are not having that
problem here’, where British speakers, for example, would use the
present simple to say ‘We don’t have that problem here’. And now
thatEnglish is becoming so much more widely used as a second language
than by first-language English speakers, the number of varieties (e.g.
Singapore English, Korean English, MexicanEnglish, etc) will gradually
increase, even if the majority of people in some countries (e.g.Korea and
Mexico) do not yet speak English with any confidence.
The status of English as one language is challenged by the many
different ‘Englishes’being used around the world, and notions of the
ownership of English have shifteddramatically. Although there are still
many people who advocate using a native-speakermodel to teach
English, there is growing acceptance of the concept of an
InternationalEnglish, used as a common language of communication by
people whose native languageis not English. This International English
belongs to everyone who speaks it, but it is noone’s mother tongue.
Students should be aware of the difference in language varieties and
should be givenopportunities to experience different Englishes, though
not in such a way as to make thingsincomprehensible to them.
Furthermore, they need to be aware that there is much morethat is
similar about different Englishes than is different.

Chapter Summary

57
 In this chapter we discussed text and discourse defining that in
order to be an effective language user, speakers and writers need to be
able to operate with longer texts (stretches of discourse) as well as with
words, phrases, sentences and questions. Cohesion, coherence, conversa-
tional discourse, register were addressed. The difference between spea-
king and writing was pointed out formulating an idea that the emotions
that are quite visible in face-to-face communication are delivered
through dashes, exclamation marks, commas and some other tricks by
the authors making us the part of the story. Finally, language varieties
were analysed and it turned out that there are different “Englishes”
summarising that international English belongs to everyone who speaks
it, but it is no one’s mother tongue.

58
 Chapter 10

Explaining theories of cognition and intrapersonal communi-

cation
In lecture 1 we defined communication as the process by which
people interactively create, sustain and manage meaning. Clearly, the
focus on interaction implies that at least two people are involved.
However, the reality is that massages have no meaning without an
individual’s interpretation. Everyone has to process every massage
internally while considering how best to make sense of these massages.
In other words, meaning is derived only after an individual perceives a
massage and gives it meaning; meanings reside in people’s interpret-
tations, not in the words or behaviours themselves. Consequently,
communication is also an intrapersonal process.
Communication accommodation theory

59
 Have you ever caught yourself changing your intonation, tone of
voice, sounds when speaking to different people? Maybe you have found
yourself speaking in fast clipped tones when talking with one of your
colleagues or friends point out that you suddenly sound more like
“Prince Charles” than “Charles Barkley”. Do you speed up while talking
with some colleagues but slow your speech when talking with others?
Communication accommodation theory (CAT) can explain many of the
changes in your speech and language use.
Originally conceived as speech accommodation theory (Giles,
Mulac, Bradac& Johnson, 1987) and later refined as communication
accommodation theory (Giles and Coupland, 1991) CAT provides an
informative platform from which to understand how we adapt our
communication when we interact with others. Essentially, Giles and
colleagues argued that when interacting with others, individuals will
accommodate their speech and language patterns, either by matching
their partner’s speech or by differentiating their speech and language
use.

Accommodation through convergence (A situation in which

people or things gradually become the same or very similar) and
divergence
Individuals adjust their speech and conversational patterns either in
an effort to assimilate with or to deviate from others (Giles and
Coupland, 1991). When a person wants to be viewed as part of an in-
group CAT predicts that this person will accommodate by convergence.
That is, you will alter your speech and behavior so that it matches that of
your conversational partner. Speech includes word choice, pronuncia-
tion, pitch, rate and even gestures such as smiling and gaze. For instance,
elementary school teachers often convergetheir speech, using more
expressive registers, slower speaking rates, and shorter words or phrases
to accommodate their young pupils. When individuals match their
speech, they convey acceptance and understanding. Interpersonal attract-
tion also leads to convergence (Giles, 1987). That is, the more the person

60
is likable, charismatic, and socially skilled, the more likely you are to try
to match his or her communication patterns.
Conversely, there are times when individuals do not want to be
associated with a certain group or do find a person interpersonally
unattractive; sometimes you want to differentiate yourself from a
particular crowd. In this instance, you will alter your speech through
divergence. Rather than match your partner’s communication patterns,
you will seek to make your speech different. Deliberately, diverging
from the speech of your partner signals disagreement or rejection. A
kindergarten teacher may use a more stern tone when disciplining the
class for misbehavior. In addition to expressing disagreement or
rejection of a speaker, divergence also illustrates one’s cultural identity
(e.g. student’s use of Ebonics (-English spoken by Black Americans)
when speaking with an English professor) or differences in one’s status
(e.g. a physician’s use of medical terminology when talking with a
patient).

The pitfalls (a problem that is likely to happen in a particular

situation) of accommodation
Importantly, accommodation is not always appropriate or effective
(Giles and Coupland, 1991). When in doubt, individuals rely on social
norms to inform their decision to accommodate or not. Norms are
implicit expectations that guide social behavior; thus, we must rely on
our perceptions of social appropriateness when determining whether to
converge or diverge. The table 1.1 below provides some consequences
of accommodation. Note that there are both positive and negative
consequences for both types of accommodation.
All told, CAT explains and predicts the experience of convergence
and divergence in interpersonal communication. The more we like a
person or perceive ourselves as part of an in-group, the more likely we
are to adopt and match our speech patterns. The more we want to
communicate our difference, status or unique cultural identity, the more
likely we are to differentiate our speech from our partner’s.

61
 Table 1.1. Consequences of accommodation
Positive effects Negative effects

Increased attraction; social Incorrect stereotypes of

Convergence approval; increased out-groups; perceived
persuasion condescension; loss of
personal identity
Protects cultural identity; Perceived disdain for
divergence asserts power differences; out-groups;
increased sympathy Perceived lack of effort;
increased psychological
distance

Communicators must be aware, however,that accommodation is not

always effective or well received.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed intrapersonal communication and
communication accommodation theory that helps us to understand how
we adapt our communication when we interact with others. We defined
the idea of convergence and divergence. If people want to be the part of
the group they tend to converge but when they want to differentiate
themselves from others they diverge thus making themselves more
important and special. Importantly, accommodation is not always
appropriate or effective and we should know that there are both positive
and negative consequences for both types of accommodation.

62
 Chapter 11

Uncertainty reduction theory

The theory we discuss here is uncertainty reduction theory (URT).
Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) URT holds that social life is full of
ambiguities. Not knowing what to wear on the first day at a new job
(should I wear a suit or go with business casual?), unsure as to how to
greet a new boss (Should I call her Megan? Ms. Smith? Mrs. Smith? Dr.
Smith?), and wondering whether you will get along with the new office
mate who just transferred from another location (will she bother me with
questions? Will she gossip about team members?) arejust a few typical
concerns during an average workday. Guided by several assumptions
and axioms of human behaviour, URT seeks to explain and predict
when, why and how individuals use communication to minimize their
doubts when interacting with others.
Three assumptions guide the uncertainty reduction framework.
First, Berger and Calabrese (1975) maintained that the primary goal of
communication is to minimize uncertainties that humans have about the
world and the people therein. Second, they proposed that individuals
experience uncertainty on a regular basis and that the experience of

63
uncertainty is an unpleasant one. Third, Berger and Calabrese assumed
that communication is the primary vehicle for reducing uncertainty.

Axioms explaining uncertainty reduction process

URT seeks to explain and predict the ways in which individuals use
communication to reduce ambiguity. Specifically, the process of
reducing uncertainty is predicated on eight axioms, or self-evident truths,
these axioms are summarized in the table 1.1.
As is plainly evident these axioms make sense; they are, after all,
“self-evident truths”. Unlike a commonsense theory, URT axioms have
been classified, paired together to create theorems, and tested systemati-
cally over time, thereby providing URT with scholarly credence.
Moreover, the axioms presented in table 1.2 supply only the backbone of
the theory. In other words, to say that using friendly non-verbal
behaviours reduces uncertainty is not enough to warrant a scholarly
theory. Discussed next, communication strategies to reduce uncertainty
provide additional substance to URT’s axioms.

Table 1.1.Axioms of uncertainty reduction theory

Axiom 1 As your verbal communication with a communication
partner increases, your level of uncertainty about the
person decreases; as a result, verbal communication
continues to increase.
Axiom 2 As welcoming nonverbal expressions increase,
uncertainty decreases and vice versa.
Axiom 3 The greater your uncertainty, the more information
seeking behaviours you use. Conversely, as your
uncertainty lessens, you seek less information.
Axiom 4 When uncertainty in the relationship is high, the
intimacy level of communication content will be low.
On the other hand, the reduction of uncertainty leads to
great intimacy.
Axiom 5 The more uncertain you are, the more you will use

64
 reciprocal communication strategies and vice versa.
Axiom 6 The more similarities you perceive to share with a target
person(s), the more your uncertainty is reduced.
Alternatively, perceiving dissimilarities leads to
increased uncertainty.
Axiom 7 As uncertainty decreases, liking increases. Conversely,
if your uncertainty rises, your liking of the person will
decrease.
Axiom 8 Shared communication networks, or shared ties, lessen
your uncertainty. On the other hand, if you share no
common relations, your uncertainty intensifies.

Uncertainty reduction strategies

When examining communicationstrategies for reducing uncer-
tainty it is important to remember Berger and Calabrese’s (1975)
original premise: uncertainty reduction is central to all social relations.
Berger noted that much of social interaction is goal-driven. In other
words, you communicate for a reason and you create cognitive plans that
guide individual’s social interaction. Three strategies typify most
uncertainty reduction communication: passive, active and interactive.
Indicative of the passive strategy, individuals observe their surroun-
dings and gather clues about which behaviours are appropriate as well as
which attitudes and beliefs others hold. The passive approach is much
like playing detective. The active strategy to uncertainty reduction
involves seeking information from a third party. Rather than playing
detective yourself you go to someone else who may know more about a
person or situation in question. Last, the interactive strategy is when you
go straight to the source in question and ask for as much information as
possible.
For example, imagine yourself in a new position at a new company.
As the December holiday season approaches, you begin to wonder
whether you should give a gift to your colleague. You could wait to see
if others give gifts (passive strategy), you could ask several peers what

65
they do (active strategy), or you could directly ask your colleague what
the company culture is like and what he or she expects (interactive
strategy). Clearly, there are many possible goals that would influence
which plan to enact. If the goal is to appear appropriate, effective and
appreciative, the active strategy is probably the best choice. By asking
others in your position what they do, you can get a good sense of what
your colleague expects without offending or embarrassing him or her.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed uncertainty reduction theory. It was
pointed out that the goal of communication is to minimize doubts and
reduce ambiguity. Axioms of uncertainty reduction were defined.
Finally, uncertainty reduction strategies – passive, active and interactive
strategies were analysed. The goal of communication is determined by
the individual and his decision but if the goal is to appear appropriate,
effective and appreciative, the active strategy is probably the best choice.

66
 Chapter 12

Explaining theories of interpersonal communication

It’s difficult to imagine a profession that does not require you to
interact with other people. You likely use interpersonal communication
every day – to handle complaints from a demanding client, to persuade
your boss to give you some time off, or to comfort a friends dealing with
a difficult relationship. This chapter explains a variety of interpersonal
communication theories, including those that explain how relationships
are initiated and developed, theories of how relationships are maintained
over time and theories that explain why and what to do when people
behave in ways that are unexpected.

67
 Interpersonal communication defined
Interpersonal communication (IPC) has been defined many ways.
Some scholars define IPC based on the situation and number of
participants involved (Miller, 1978). Using miller’s definition interper-
sonal communication occurs between two individuals when they are
close in proximity. Brown and Levinson determined when, why and how
interpersonal interaction is constructed through (or in the absence of)
politeness.

Assumptions of politeness theory

Three primary assumptions guide Politeness theory (PT). First, PT
assumes that all individuals are concerned with maintaining face (brown
& Levinson, 1978, 1987). Simply put, face refers to the desired self-ima-
ge that you wish to present to others. Face also includes the recognition
that your interactional partners have face needs of their own. There are
two dimensions to the concept of face: positive face and negative face.
Positive face includes a person’s need to be liked, appreciated and
admired by the select persons. Thus, maintaining positive face includes
using behaviours to ensure that these significant others continue to view
you in an affirming fashion. Negative face assumes a person’s desire to
act freely, without constraints or impositions from others. Importantly, it
is difficult to achieve positive and negative face simultaneously – that is,
acting in a way, so that you gain others’ approval often interferes with
autonomous and unrestricted behaviour.
Second, PT assumes that human beings are rational and goal
oriented, at least with achieving face needs (Brown & Levinson, 1978,
1987). In other words you have choices and make communicative
decisions to achieve your relational and task-oriented goals within the
context of maintaining face. Notably, Brown and Levinson posited that
face management works best when everyone involved helps maintain the
face of others. In other words, because “everyone’s face depends on
everyone else’s (face) being maintained” (Brown & Levinson, 1978), it

68
is in your own best interest to make decisions that uphold this mutual,
and rather vulnerable construction of face.
The final assumption is that some behaviours are fundamentally
face threatening (Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987). Inevitably, you will
threaten someone else’s face, just as another person will, at some point,
threaten yours. These face-threatening acts (FTAs) include common
behaviours such as apologies, compliments, criticisms, requests and
threats (Craig, Tracy and Spisak, 1993).
PT, then ties together these assumptions to explain and predict how,
when and where FTAs occur, as well as what individuals can do to
restore face once endangered. Discussed next, we clarify strategies used
to uphold and reclaim one’s own face and present strategies that pertain
to maintaining or threatening the face of others.

Preserving face
As stated earlier, face is the self-image that individuals desire to
present to others as well as the acknowledgment that others have face
needs of their own. To create and maintain this desired self-image, indi-
viduals must use facework – specific messages that thwart or minimize
FTAs, (Goffman, 1967). Preventive facework strategies include commu-
nications that a person can use to help oneself or another avertFTAs
(Cupach&Metts, 1994). For example, avoiding certain topics, changing
the subject or pretending not to notice the occurrence of an FTA are all
preventive facework strategies.
Similar to preventive facework, corrective facework consists of
messages that an individual can use to restore one’s own face or to help
another restore face after an FTA has occurred (Cupach&Metts, 1994).
Corrective facework includes the use of strategies such as avoidance,
humour, apologies, accounts or explanations of inappropriate actions.
Importantly, and as noted earlier, your own face needs may conflict
with your partner’s face needs. How you manage this discrepancy
between self and other’s needs may instigate your use of an FTA. As
you might imagine, behaving so as to gain other’s approval (positive

69
face) can obviously interfere with acting so as to appear self-sufficient
and unrestricted (negative face). Sometimes, then, individuals can need
to choose between positive and negative face needs. Especially when
your desire to appear unencumbered outweighs your desire to be liked,
you may need to engage in an FTA.
According to PT, individuals can choose one of five suprastrategies
when communicating in a manner that could potentially threaten the face
of another (Brown & Levinson, 1978). Moving from most polite (and
least direct) to least polite (and most direct), these suprastrategies
include avoidance, going off record, negative politeness, positive
politeness and bald on record. A speaker who uses avoidance simply
chooses not to communicate in a way that would create embarrassment
or a loss of face for another, whereas when a speaker is going off record,
he or she subtly hints or indirectly mentions the face-threatening topic.
Hinting or making indirect suggestions leaves the message open to
interpretation, thereby minimizing any face threat. For example,
Josephine works as a technician in a veterinary hospital where every
fourth weekend, she is expected to be on call for emergencies and to
make daily rounds, checking in on the animals. If something comes up
and Josephine wants to switch her weekend shift with a colleague, she
can hint that “it really stinks that I have to work this weekend because
my friends invited me to go to the beach”. If Josephine’s coworker picks
up the hint, he may offer to cover her weekend shift. If the colleague
doesn’t pick up on her or doesn’t want to work the weekend, he can
simply take her disclosure at face value _ Josephine wishes she were
spending the weekend at a beach resort with friends.
A somewhat more direct approach, negative politeness occurs,
when the speaker makes an effort to recognize the other’s negative face
needs – that is, the receivers need of freedom and lack of restraint. With
negative politeness you appeal to the receiver’s negative face needs
through apologies and self-effacement to make yourself appear vulne-
rable to the other, while also acknowledging that the FTA is impolite
and inhibits the other’s independence. For example, when Josephine

70
attempts to get a coworker to cover her weekend shift, she might say,
“I’m so sorry to ask, but I need a huge favor. I know this is last minute,
and I really hate to be such a pain, but could you cover my shift this
weekend? I know this is really inconvenient and I wouldn’t ask if it
weren’t so important”. By expressing such regret and making oneself
appear self-conscious about committing an FTA, the speaker directly
acknowledges the other person’s discomfort and potential restriction,
while still managing to engage in the FTA for which she claims to be so
embarrassed.
An even more direct yet less polite strategy is that of positive
politeness. Using positive politeness, the speaker emphasizes the
receiver’s need for positive face – that is the need to be liked. By
ingratiating the receiver by flattery and compliments you hope to
camouflage your face-threatening behavior. For example, Josephine
might attempt to “butter up” her colleague with praises before asking
him to cover her weekend shift, saying “Bill, you are such reliable
colleague and are so well respected. I feel like I can really count on you.
Would you cover my weekend shift?” Finally, the most direct and least
polite strategy is bald on record. Using this strategy the communicator
makes no attempt to protect the other’s face and simply commits the
FTA. Continuing Josephine’s predicament then she might simply
demand that Bill cover for her, saying, “Bill, cover my shift this
weekend”.
According to PT, people choose to engage in FTA rather tactically.
Specifically, there are a number of factors people use to decide how
polite to be. These factors are described in the table below. For example,
when considering how polite to be, communicators determine whether
the person has more or less prestige than they do, whether the
communicator has power over them at the time and whether what is
going to be said runs the risk of hurting the other person (Brown &
Levinson, 1978).

71
 Factors influencing politeness strategies
Consideration Prediction
Social Distance If someone has more prestige than you
(someone with an impressive title or a great
deal of money) you will be more polite. If
someone holds little or no prestige over you,
you need not be so polite.
Power If someone has power over you (your boss or
your auto mechanic if your car is not running),
you will be more polite. If it is someone with
little power over you, you need not be so polite.
Risk If what you are going to say has a high chance
of hurting someone (you are going to fire them
or you are going to report that a spouse is
cheating) you will be more polite. If it is not
likely to hurt, you need not be so polite.

As well, each of the strategies you can use to engage in an FTA has
positive and negative consequences. Going off record to make a request
for example, leaves much room for ambiguity and a high chance that a
hint will be ignored. Conversely, using the bald-on-record approach will
likely get you what you want but may cost you your own positive face in
the process. Furthermore, PT predicts that because humans typically
commit FTAs to achieve a desired goal (e.g. to obtain weekend shift
coverage), individuals will not use strategies that are more polite than
necessary because the cost of ambiguity is too great (Brown &
Levinson, 1978).
We should also underscore that very understanding of face, both
positive and negative, varies across cultures, within specific relation-
ships and even among individuals, to some degree. Thus, a person must
carefully weigh each decision to commit an FTA.

72
 Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed interpersonal communication, spoke
about politeness theory that is connected with face-threatening acts.
According to PT, individuals can choose one of five suprastrategies
when communicating in a manner that could potentially threaten the face
of another. These suprastrategies include avoidance, going off record,
negative politeness, positive politeness and bald on record. It was
pointed out that each strategy may have positive or negative consequen-
ces and should be chosen carefully.

73
 Chapter 13

Nonverbal communication
Body language
Communication in general is the process of sending and receiving
messages that enables humans to share knowledge, attitudes, and skills.
Although we usually identify communication with speech, commu-
nication is composed of two dimensions - verbal and nonverbal.
Nonverbal Communication has been defined as communication
without words. It includes apparent behaviors such as facial expres-
sions, eyes, touching, and tone of voice, as well as less obvious messa-
ges such as dress, posture and spatial distance between two or more
people.

74
 Everything communicates, including material objects, physical
space, and time systems. Although verbal output can be turned off,
nonverbal cannot. Even silence speaks.
Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage,
including voice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as
well prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress. Likewise,
written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial
arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much
of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on face-to-face
interaction, where it can be classified into three principal areas:envi-
ronmental conditions where communication takes place, physical
characteristics of the communicators, and behaviors of communicators
during interaction.

Importance
Nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all commu-
nication. Nonverbal communication can portray a message both verbally
and with the correct body signals. Body signals comprise physical featu-
res, conscious and unconscious gestures, and the mediation of personal
space. The wrong message can be established if the body language
conveyed does not match a verbal message. Nonverbal communication
strengthens the first impression in common situations like attracting a
partner or in a business interview: impressions are on average formed
within the first four seconds of contact. First encounters or interactions
with another person strongly affect a person's perception. When the
other person or group is absorbing the message they are focused on the
entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five
senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, 2% touch
and 1% taste.

Posture
There are many different types of posture, including slouching,
towering, legs spread, jaw thrust, shoulders forward, and arm crossing.

75
Posture communicates a variety of messages. Posture can be used to
determine a participant's degree of attention or involvement, the
difference in status between communicators, and the level of fondness a
person has for the other communicator, depending on body
"openness".Posture can be situation-relative, that is, people will change
their posture depending on the situation they are in.

Clothing
Clothing is one of the most common forms of non-verbal com-
munication. The study of clothing and other objects as a means of non-
verbal communication is known as artifacticsorobjectics. The types of
clothing that an individual wears convey nonverbal clues about his or her
personality, background and financial status, and how others will
respond to them. An individual's clothing style can demonstrate
their culture, mood, level of confidence, interests, age, authority,
value/beliefs, and their sexual identity.

Gestures
Gestures may be made with the hands, arms or body, and also inc-
lude movements of the head, face and eyes, such as winking, nodding, or
rolling one's eyes. Although the study of gesture is still in its infancy,
some broad categories of gestures have been identified by researchers.
The most familiar are the so-called emblems or quotable gestures. These
are conventional, culture-specific gestures that can be used as repla-
cement for words, such as the hand wave used in western cultures for
"hello" and "goodbye." A single emblematic gesture can have a very
different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from
complimentary to highly offensive. There are some universal gestures
like the shoulder shrug.
Gestures can also be categorized as either speech independent or
speech related. Speech-independent gestures are dependent upon
culturally accepted interpretation and have a direct verbal translation. A
wave or a peace sign are examples of speech-independent gestures.

76
Speech-related gestures are used in parallel with verbal speech; this form
of nonverbal communication is used to emphasize the message that is
being communicated. Speech-related gestures are intended to provide
supplementary information to a verbal message such as pointing to an
object of discussion.
Facial expressions, more than anything, serve as a practical means
of communication. With all the various muscles that precisely control
mouth, lips, eyes, nose, forehead, and jaw, human faces are estimated to
be capable of more than ten thousand different expressions. This
versatility makes non-verbal forms of the face extremely efficient and
honest, unless deliberately manipulated. In addition, many of these
emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust,
shame, anguish and interest are universally recognized. Displays of
emotions can generally be categorized into two groups: negative and
positive. Negative emotions usually manifest as increased tension in
various muscle groups: tightening of jaw muscles, furrowing of
forehead, squinting eyes. In contrast, positive emotions are revealed by
the loosening of the furrowed lines on the forehead, relaxation of the
muscles around the mouth, and widening of the eye area. When
individuals are truly relaxed and at ease, the head will also tilt to the
side, exposing our most vulnerable area, the neck. This is a high-comfort
display, often seen during courtship that is nearly impossible to mimic
when tense or suspicious.

Across cultures
Nonverbal communication can have different meanings according
to different cultures. Foreigners may even be confused about universal
emotions. "In many cultures, such as the Arab and Iranian cultures,
people express grief openly. They mourn out loud, while in Asian
cultures, the general belief is that it is unacceptable to show emotion
openly." Gestures, postures, haptics, clothing, eye contact and proxemics
all can be understood differently across the world.

77
 One common example in the United States is the gesture of a finger
or hand to indicate "come here please". This is the gesture used to
beckon dogs in some cultures. Pointing with one finger is also
considered to be rude in some cultures and Asians typically use their
entire hand to point to something. For example, when greeting a person,
Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans bow, and Thais bow their heads while
holding their hands as if they are praying. The Muslim Malaysians have
a greeting of their own: they shake hands as Westerners do, but they
follow up by touching their heart with theirright hand to indicate that
they are greeting you “from the heart.”
In mainstream Western culture, eye contact is interpreted as
attentiveness and honesty. In many cultures, however, including
Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, eye contact is
thought to be disrespectful or rude, and lack of eye contact does not
mean that a person is not paying attention. Women may especially avoid
eye contact with men because it can be taken as a sign of sexual interest.
The acceptable physical distance is another major difference in the
nonverbal communication between cultures. In Latin America and the
Middle East the acceptable distance is much shorter than what most
Europeans and Americans feel comfortable with. This is why an
American or a European might wonder why the other person is invading
his or her personal space by standing so close, while the other person
might wonder why the American/European is standing so far from him
or her.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed nonverbal communication, body
language.Nonverbal Communication has been defined ascommunica-
tionwithout words. It includes apparent behaviors such as facial
expressions, eyes, touching, and tone of voice, as well as less obvious
messages such as dress, posture and spatial distance between two or
more people. The importance of nonverbal communication was pointed
out as everything communicates, including material objects, physical

78
space, and time systems. Although verbal output can be turned off,
nonverbal cannot. Even silence speaks.Nonverbal communication can
have different meaning according to different cultures that is why
communicators should be very careful to get rid of misunderstanding
and avoid ambiguity.

79
 Chapter 14

Proxemics
Proxemics is the study of how people use and perceive the physical
space around them. The space between the sender and the receiver of a
message influences the way the message is interpreted. In addition, the
perception and use of space varies significantly across cultures and
different settings within cultures. Space in nonverbal communication
may be divided into four main categories: intimate, social, personal, and
public space.
The term territoriality is used in the study of proxemics to explain
human behavior regarding personal space. Hargie& Dickson (2004,
p. 69) identify 4 such territories:
1. Primary territory: This refers to an area that is associated with
someone who has exclusive use of it. An example is a house that others
cannot enter without the owner's permission.
2. Secondary territory: Unlike primary territory, there is no "right"
to occupancy of secondary territory, but people may still feel some
degree of ownership of such space as they develop the custom of
occupying it. For example, someone may sit in the same seat in church
every week and feel irritated if someone else sits there.
3. Public territory: this refers to an area that is available to all, but
only for a set period, such as a parking space or a seat in a library.
Although people have only a limited claim over that space, they often
extend that claim. For example, it was found that people take longer to
leave a parking space when someone is waiting to take that space.
4. Interaction territory: this is space held by others when they are
interacting. For example, when a group is talking to each other on a
footpath, others will walk around the group rather than disturb their
interaction territory.

80
 Kinesics
The term "kinesics" was first used (in 1952) by Ray Birdwhistell,
an anthropologist who wished to study how people communicate
through posture, gesture, stance, and movement. Part of Birdwhistell's
work involved making films of people in social situations and analyzing
them to show different levels of communication not clearly seen
otherwise.

Haptics: touching in communication

A high five is an example of communicative touch.

Haptics is the study of touching as nonverbal communication, and
haptic communication refers to how people and other animals
communicate via touching.Touches among humans that can be defined
as communication include handshakes, holding hands, kissing (cheek,
lips, hand), back slapping, high fives, a pat on the shoulder, and brushing
an arm. The meaning conveyed from touch is highly dependent upon the
culture, the context of the situation, the relationship between commu-
nicators, and the manner of touch.

81
 Touching is treated differently from one country to another and
socially acceptable levels of touching vary from one culture to another
(Remland, 2009). In Thai culture, for example, touching someone's head
may be thought rude. Remland and Jones (1995) studied groups of
people communicating and found that touching was rare among the
English (8%), the French (5%) and the Dutch (4%) compared to Italians
(14%) and Greeks (12.5%).

Tips for improving how you deliver nonverbal communication

 Use nonverbal signals that match up with your
words. Nonverbal communication should reinforce what is
being said, not contradict it. If you say one thing, but your body
language says something else, your listener will likely feel
you’re being dishonest. For example, you can’t say “yes” while
shaking your head no.
 Adjust your nonverbal signals according to the context. The
tone of your voice, for example, should be different when
you’re addressing a child than when you’re addressing a group
of adults. Similarly, take into account the emotional state and
cultural background of the person you’re interacting with.
 Use body language to convey positive feelings even when
you're not actually experiencing them. If you’re nervous about a
situation—a job interview, important presentation, or first date,
for example—you can use positive body language to signal
confidence, even though you’re not feeling it. Instead of
tentatively entering a room with your head down, eyes averted,
and sliding into a chair, try standing tall with your shoulders
back, smiling and maintaining eye contact, and delivering a firm
handshake. It will make you feel more self-confident and help to
put the other person at ease.

Chapter Summary

82
 In this chapter we discussed proxemics that is the study of how
people use and perceive the physical space around them. Primary
territory, secondary territory, public territory, interaction territory were
defined. We analysedhaptics that is the study of touching as nonverbal
communication, and haptic communication refers to how people and
other animals communicate via touching. Tips for improving how to
deliver nonverbal communication were introduced pointing out that
body language is the essential part of communicative process making it
natural and live.

83
 Chapter 15

Barriers to Communication
There are many reasons why interpersonal communication may fail.
In many communications, the message (what is said) may not be
received exactly the way the sender intended. It is, therefore, important
that the communicator seeks feedback to check that their message is
clearly understood.
The skills ofactive listening, clarification and reflectionmay help
but the skilled communicator also needs to be aware of the barriers to
effective communication and how to avoid or overcome them.
There are many barriers to communication and these may occur at
any stage in the communication process. Barriers may lead to your
message becoming distorted and you therefore risk wasting both time
and/or money by causing confusion and misunderstanding. Effective
communication involves overcoming these barriers and conveying a
clear and concise message.

84
 Common Barriers to Effective Communication:
 The use of jargon. Over-complicated, unfamiliar and/or
technical terms.
 Emotional barriers and taboos. Some people may find it
difficult to express their emotions and some topics may be
completely 'off-limits' or taboo.
 Lack of attention, interest, distractions, or irrelevance to the
receiver.
 Differences in perception and viewpoint.
 Physical disabilities such as hearing problems or speech
difficulties.
 Physical barriers to non-verbal communication. Not being
able to see the non-verbal cues, gestures, posture and general
body language can make communication less effective.
 Language differences and the difficulty in understanding
unfamiliar accents.
 Expectations and prejudices which may lead to false
assumptions or stereotyping. People often hear what they
expect to hear rather than what is actually said and jump to
incorrect conclusions.
 Cultural differences. The norms of social interaction vary
greatly in different cultures, as do the way in which emotions
are expressed. For example, the concept of personal space varies
between cultures and between different social settings.
A skilled communicator must be aware of these barriers and try to
reduce their impact by continually checking understanding and by
offering appropriate feedback.

A Categorization of Barriers to Communication

Language Barriers
Language and linguistic ability may act as a barrier to communi-
cation.However, even when communicating in the same language, the

85
terminology used in a message may act as a barrier if it is not fully
understood by the receiver(s). For example, a message that includes a
lot of specialist jargon and abbreviations will not be understood by a
receiver who is not familiar with the terminology used.Regional
colloquialisms and expressions may be misinterpreted or even
considered offensive.

Psychological Barriers
The psychological state of the communicators will influence how
the message is sent, received and perceived.For example, if someone is
stressed they may be preoccupied by personal concerns and not as
receptive to the message as if they were not stressed.Stress management
is an important personal skill that affects our interpersonal relationships.
Anger is another example of a psychological barrier to
communication, when we are angry it is easy to say things that we may
later regret and also to misinterpret what others are saying.
More generally people with low self-esteem may be less assertive
and therefore may not feel comfortable communicating - they may feel
shy about saying how they really feel or read negative sub-texts into
messages they hear.

Cultural Barriers to Effective Communication

Effective communication with people of different cultures is
especially challenging. Cultures provide people with ways of thinking--
ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world. Thus the same
words can mean different things to people from different cultures, even
when they talk the "same" language. When the languages are different,
and translation has to be used to communicate, the potential for
misunderstandings increases.
Stella Ting-Toomey describes three ways in which culture inter-
feres with effective cross-cultural understanding. First is what she calls
"cognitive constraints." These are the frames of reference or world views

86
that provide a backdrop that all new information is compared to or
inserted into.
Second are "behavior constraints." Each culture has its own rules
about proper behavior which affect verbal and nonverbal communi-
cation. Whether one looks the other person in the eye-or not; whether
one says what one means overtly or talks around the issue; how close the
people stand to each other when they are talking--all of these and many
more are rules of politeness which differ from culture to culture.
Ting-Toomey's third factor is "emotional constraints." Different
cultures regulate the display of emotion differently. Some cultures get
very emotional when they are debating an issue. They yell, they cry,
they exhibit their anger, fear, frustration, and other feelings openly.
Other cultures try to keep their emotions hidden, exhibiting or sharing
only the "rational" or factual aspects of the situation.
All of these differences tend to lead to communication problems. If
the people involved are not aware of the potential for such problems,
they are even more likely to fall victim to them, although it takes more
than awareness to overcome these problems and communicate effecti-
vely across cultures.

Chapter Summary
In this chapter we discussed barriers to communication and pointed
out language, psychological and cultural barriers to effective commu-
nication. There are many reasons why interpersonal communication may
fail. In many communications, the message (what is said) may not be
received exactly the way the sender intended. Tips how to avoid and
overcome thebarriers mentioned were analysed. Language, psycho-
logical state of the person, culture – theseare the things that can cause
obstacles for effective communication. That is why people should be
aware of the problems they can lead to and consider the tips minimizing
the problems.

87
PART TWO

ACTIVITIES

88
 1. Friends and Relationships

Discussthe following questions.

 Who is your best friend? What is he or she like? Describe him
or her to your partner.
 Why is he or she your best friend? What special qualities does
he or she have?
 Are there any famous stories of friendship in your culture?
 There is a saying "To have a good friend, you need to be a good
friend." How can you be a good friend?
 Has a friend ever let you down?
 There is a proverb that says, "A friend in need is a friend
indeed." Do you agree?

1. Unscramble the following words/phrases in the box below.

Sobs Eugealloc Regnarts xe-dneirflrig
tsebdneifr etam-meat Ecnatnaiuqca doldnefir

Match each of the words/phrases above to the definitions 1-8

below.
1. Someone you work with
2. Someone you play a sport with in a group
3. Someone you do not know at all
4. Someone who you know casually but not well
5. Your manager
6. The friend who you favour most
7. The girl you used to be romantically involved with
8. The friend you have known the longest

89
 2. Read the following sentences and correct the mistakes in
each one.
1. I hope I keep on touch with all my friends from my English
class.
2. We have such a laugh: we have exactly the same sense in
humour.
3. He has a lot in comon with her.
4. I never want to lose touches with my oldest friend.
5. Once I got too know him, he was a really friendly person.
6. They really enjoyed his companies.
7. I don’t want to fall in over money, so let’s divide all our bills
equally.
8. They got under so well, I was surprised they broke up.

3. Match the words below with the definitions.

1. to catch up a) to become familiar with
someone’s personality
2. to get back in touch/contact b) to tell each other your latest
news
3. to get on well c) to communicate with someone
4. to get to know each other d) to have a friendly relationship
with someone
5. to have a lot in common e) to have many similar interests
and opinions
6. to hit it off f) to like each other
7. to keep/stay in touch/contact g) to see and talk to someone
8. to lose touch/contact h) to stop talking to someone
because you are angry with him or
her
9. to meet i) to spend time with someone by
appointment
10. to meet up j) to start communicating with

90
 someone after a period of no
communication
11. to fall out (with someone) k) to stop communicating with
someone

4. Fill the gaps below with the words from ex.3 in the correct
form.
1. I first ........................ him when I was at school.
2. We ..........................immediately. We enjoyed spending time
together from the start.
3. We ........................ . We liked the same music and the same
sports.
4. We ..........................very well. We learned a lot about each other.
5. We ..........................when I went away to university. I was too
busy to email or phone him.
6. We ..........................after university. I rang him one day because
I missed him.
7. We ..........................because we understand each other.
8. We never ................ with each other because we tend to agree
with each other on most things.
9. We ..........................by email and phone. We speak to each other
at least once a week.
10. We ..........................once a month or so. We usually go to a pub
together then have a pizza.
11. We enjoy .................with each other. It’s nice to chat about
what’s happening in our lives.

5. Ask your partner the questions below.

1. How did you meet your best friend?
2. Did you hit it off immediately?
3. What do you have in common?
4. Have you ever lost touch/contact?

91
 5. Why exactly do you get on well together?
6. Have you ever fallen out with each other?
7. How do you keep/stay in touch/contact?
8. How often do you meet up?
9. Do you enjoy catching up together?

6. Discuss the following questions with your partner.

1. Who are your closest friends? What are they like? Describe them
to your partner.
2. What do you and your friends usually do together?
3. Who is your oldest friend? How long have you known each
other?
4. Do you find it easy to make new friends? Why (not)?
5. Who is your newest friend? How did you meet?
6. What qualities are most important to you in a friend? Honesty? A
sense of humour? Something else?
7. Have you ever had a pen-pal? Why (not)?
8. Why do some people like having a pen-pal?
9. How do you keep in contact with friends who don’t live near
you? How difficult is it to stay in touch?
10. Have you ever made friends with someone through the Internet?
Have you ever met this person face-to-face? Why (not)?
11. Do you think a man and a woman can be ‘just good friends’?
Why (not)?
12. What is more important to young people nowadays, friends or
family? Which is more important to you, and why?
13. Are you a good friend? What qualities do you offer your
friends?

7. Finish the following statement:

A man’s best friend is ……….

92
 2. Jobs and Occupations

1. Jobs
1 2 3 4

Crossword: 5 6 7

Across
8 9 10 11 12

1. Somebody who plays

an instrument. 13

3. Someone who grows

14 15 16
crops.
7. Somebody who fixes 17 18

teeth. 19

8. A person who serves

20

21

food.
9. Someone who fixes
cars. 22 23

13. Somebody who

catches criminals.
16. A person who plays
sports.
17. Someone who stars
in a movie.
19. A person who sings
songs.
20. Somebody who
helps sick people.
21. Somebody who flies
airplanes.
22. A person who does
experiments.

93
23. Somebody who teaches.
Down 12. A person
2. A person who who protects a
helps a doctor. country.
4. Someone who 14. Someone
delivers mail. who cleans
5. Somebody who buildings.
helps sick animals. 15. A person
6. Somebody who who makes
puts out fires. computer
9. Someone who games.
digs for metal ore in 16. A person
the ground. who goes to
10. Someone who outer space.
cooks food. 18. A person
11. A person who who tells us
paints pictures. the news.

Discuss the following points:

1. If you could have any job in the world, what would you like to
be? Why?
2. Do you think it's fair for your boss to ask you to work overtime
for no extra pay? Why or why not?
3. If you are paid for your overtime, would you prefer to be paid in
money or in "time off"?
4. Which of the following benefits is most important to you in a
job and why?
 A high salary
 Good working conditions
 A boss you enjoy working for
 Co-workers you like

94
  Little or no overtime
 Good opportunities for advancement
 The opportunity to use the training and skills you have acquired
 A job near where you live
 The opportunity to travel
 Flexible working hours
 Are there any of these not important to you?
 Are there any benefits not on the list that you would like to
have?
1. Suppose you are in charge of hiring a new employee for your
firm. You have to decide between two persons. One is a person with
many years of experience in a company very similar to yours who has
only a high schooleducation. The other person is a recent university
graduate with a degree in a field closely related to your company's
business. Which person would you choose?

The Working Quiz

2. Work with your partner to answer the following questions.

1. What is the name of the person who writes for the newspaper?
2. Does a social worker:
a. Organize people’s social lives
b. Help people with particular social problems or conditions
c. Help people decorate their houses
3. What is the name of the person who performs operations in an
operating theatre?
4. If a person does a job basically because he loves it we call it a
…………. of love.
a. effort b. labour c. call
5. Do we call a direction we take in our career, a career:
a. road b. lane c. path?

95
 6. What is the term used to describe when a person is totally happy
with their job?
7. If you are very good working under pressure, we say you are
very good at meeting tight ……….
8. If someone never loses their temper when under pressure, they
are:
a. quiet under pressure
b. calm under pressure
c. relaxed under pressure
9. What part of the body is used to describe if someone is great at
spotting details:
a. nose b. ear c. eye
10. If you are very good at working on your own, getting
inspiration and motivating yourself, we say you are good at using your
own …………..
11. What is the term used to describe a person who gets on with
most people and is well liked?
12. How do we describe the attitude of someone at work who will
try anything and expect it work?

3. In pairs write a sentence using each of the answers to the

quiz questions in Ex. 1.

4. Using Formal Language in the workplace.

When we communicate with people we do not know very well, we
use formal language. We also need to use formal language in most
workplace situations.
Try this quiz to test how good you are at spotting the difference
between formal and informal language.

Instructions
The replies to the questions below all need to use formal language.

96
 Choose the best word or phrase to complete the gaps in the
sentences.

1. I’m afraid we will have to -------- tomorrow’s meeting.

a. take a rain check for
b. put off
c. postpone
2. I hope that the staff will not find the new shift working
timetable ------- .
a. too much hassle
b. too inconvenient
c. too much of pain
3. We will need to examine the situation in order to ---------- what
can be done to rectify it.
a. scope out
b. establish
c. suss out
4. This offer of employment is made subject to the previous of
------ references.
a. stonking
b. satisfactory
c. awesome
5. ----------------- . Thank you for your recent enquiry regarding our
services.
a. Dear Mr. Patel
b. Hi Mr. Patel
c. Dear Sir
6. I am ------------- to have the opportunity to work with your
company.
a. over the moon
b. made up
c. very grateful

97
 3. Who Gets The Heart?

Read
You are members of the hearttransplant surgery team at a university
hospital in Washington, D.C. At the moment, you have seven patients
who desperately need a transplant if they are to have any chance of
living. All seven patients are classified as “critically ill”, and could die at
any time.
You have just received news that the heart of a 16-year-old boy
who was killed in an auto accident has become available for
transplantation. Speed is extremely important as you decide which of the
following patients is to receive the heart: not only might one of the
patients die, but the donor heart will soon begin to deteriorate.

Consider
1. The age and sex of the donor has no relationship to the age and
sex of the recipient. In other words, the heart of the 16-year-old would

98
work well in a 50-year-old woman. Size, however, might be a
consideration in the case of the infant.
2. Rank the option/patients in order of preference: 1= first to
receive, 8= last to receive.

Decide and Write

Patients
1. Amegnezaedorh, female, age 57. Mrs. Edorh, a renowned poet
and novelist from Nigeria, received the 1987 Nobel Prize for literature.
An inspiration throughout the developing world because of her anti-
colonialist writings, Mrs. Edorh has been confined to bed for the past
five months with steadily deteriorating health.
(Married: four children between the ages of 30 and 37)
Reasons she should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons she should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

2. Soonah Kim, male, age 12. Soonah, a junior high school student
from South Korea, was born with a congenital heart defect. Doctors
wanted to wait until he was a teenager to replace his heart, but his
condition has worsened dramatically. He is being kept alive on a heart-
lung machine.
Reasons he should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons he should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

3. Alicia Fagan, female, age 27. Ms. Fegan’s heart problems,

though recent, seem to have a genetic basis inasmuch as her twin sister
(patient 4) is similarly affected. Although Ms. Fegan is a promising Ph.
D. student in biochemistry at Georgetown University, her failing heart
and kidneys havecaused her to drop out of school temporarily.
(Unmarried)
Reasons she should receive the heart: ________________________

99
 Reasons she should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

4. Galia Feinstein, female, age 27. Mrs. Feinstein is Ms. Fagan’s

twin sister. Mrs. Feinstein who holds a Master’s degree from Harvard
University in computer science, currently operates a computer business
with her husband. (One daughter, age 4.) Mrs. Feinstein’s condition
differs from that of her sister in that her kidneys have not been affected.
Reasons she should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons she should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

5. Leonid Gromykovitch, male, age 34. Mr. Gromykovitch works

for the U.S. government as a researcher for the Central Intelligence
Agency. Born in the Soviet Union, Mr. Gromykovitch is considered the
agency’s foremost Kremlinologist (Soviet expert). Like patient 2, Mr.
Gromykovitch is being kept alive on a heart-lung machine. Unmarried
(his wife died in an automobile accident), he has three children (ages 6,
3, 2).
Reasons he should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons he should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

6. Martha Rosales, female, age 23. Mrs. Rosales’ heart problems

originated from a bout she had with scarlet fever while growing up in the
slums of New York. Unemployed and on welfare, Mrs. Rosales raised
money for her operation through the contributions of those in her
neighbourhood. Never married, she has four children (ages 8, 6, 5, 1).
Reasons she should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons she should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

100
 7. Peter Jacobsen, male, age 42. Mr. Jacobsen’s family has a
history of heart disease (his father died from a heart attack at age 39).
Considered the leading scientist in the world in the area of
bacteriological diseases, Mr. Jacobsen has already had one transplant
operation. Since his body rejected that heart (three weeks ago), Mr.
Jacobsen has been kept alive by an artificial heart. (Never married, no
children).
Reasons he should receive the heart: ________________________
Reasons he should not receive the heart: _____________________
Ranking of heart transplant team: __________________________

8. None of the above. Save the heart for someone else.

Ranking of heart transplant team: ___________________________

Discuss
Verbally compare your decisions with those of your classmates in
your discussion group. Explain and defend your opinions. Listen
carefully to your classmate’s opinions, but do not be afraid to disagree
with those opinions. Try to reach a group concensus on the best solution
to the problem. One person in the group should write down the group’s
decision.

Extend
1. Do you think that only doctors should decide who receives
transplants? Are there any other people who should help make such
decisions?
2. What do you think about cross-species transplants – such as
putting a baboon heart in a person?
3. How do you think you would feel if you received the heart of
another person? How would it feel to have another person’s heart in your
chest?
4. When you die would you be willing to donate your organs to a
person who needs them? Explain.

101
 Vocabulary

Team --- group

Donor heart --- heart that will be put in a patient
Deteriorate --- become worse
Recipient --- receiver
Renowned --- famous
Inspiration --- source of encouragement
Deteriorating --- worsening
Congenital --- present from of before birth
Dramatically --- rapidly
Inasmuch as --- since, because
Slums --- a poor area of a town where the houses are in very bad
condition
Bout --- battle; attack of an illness
Welfare --- government money for poor people
Reject --- refuse to accept
Donate --- give
Organs --- body parts such as eyes, heart, kidney, etc.

102
 4. Role-play

1.You are going to be interviewed for one of these jobs. Think

about what you will say.
a. Wanted: Nanny to look after three young children. Some
cooking and cleaning. Driving license essential.
b. Wanted: English teacher to teach beginners. Training given, but
experience an advantage.
c. Wanted: Actors/actresses for small parts in a popular daytime
soap. Good acting ability essential.

2. A Walk In The Woods

Student A
You are going to tell your partner a story and ask him/her to
continue the story at various points. First read the story yourself so that
you can tell it in a natural way without reading word for word. Then tell
the story making a note of your partner’s answers.

103
 I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are walking
through a wood. Tell me what the wood is like.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
Is there a path through the wood? If so, what’s it like? If not, how
do you find your way?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
Suddenly you see a bear. Describe this bear.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
You see a bunch of keys on the ground. How many are there and
do you pick them up?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
Stop the story there. Now it’s your turn to listen to your partner and
give answers. Say exactly what comes into your head. Read the
interpretation below and use it to explain the true/hidden meaning of
your partner’s answers. Does your partner consider this as an accurate
representation of his/her attitudes?

Interpretation

The wood is life, so how you see it shows how you see life
generally.

If you see a path you feel that there is a specific meaning to life
and a specific way we should live our lives. If you do not see a path,

104
 you feel we are all free to live as we choose.

The bear represents the problem we will encounter throughout

our lives. If it’s very big, you may have a tendency to exaggerate
problems and always make difficulties worse than they need be.

The keys are the turning points in your life. If you pick them up,
you will follow those turning points when they come along.

Then listen while your partner interprets your answers. What’s

your reaction? Do you recognize yourself?
What do you both think of the whole exercise?

Student B
You are going to listen to your partner tell you a story and note
down your answers at various points. Say exactly what comes into your
head.
When your partner has finished, you will continue the story. Read it
through first so that you can tell it in a natural way and not just read
word for word. Make a note of your partner’s answers.

I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are walking
through a wood. Suddenly you come to a river that blocks your path.
What is it like and how do you cross it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------

When you have crossed the river, you see another person standing
on the bank. Do you greet this person and how does he respond?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------

105
 Half-hidden under a tree, you see an old wooden chest and you
manage to open it. What do you see inside?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------

You are now at the end of the wood and see a wall ahead of you.
You manage to climb it and look over the top. What do you see on the
other side?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------

That is the end of the story. Now listen to your partner who will
interpret your answers for you. What’s your reaction? Do you recognize
yourself? Read the interpretation below and use it to explain the
true/hidden meaning of your partner’s answers.

Interpretation

The river represents emotion. If it’s a large full river you are very
emotional. How you cross it shows how much you get involved in
emotion in your life.

The person represents all other people and your relationships

with them. Do you make the first move?

The treasure chest shows whether you are an optimist or a

pessimist – what do you expect from life?

The wall represents death, the end of life. What do you see
afterwards?

106
 Does your partner consider this an accurate representation of
his/her attitudes? What do you both think of the whole exercise?

3. The House Guest

You have a chance to compare standard English and slang variants
in one and the same dialogue. Pay attention to the forms and study the
differences.

Dialogue in standard English

Jim is telling Cecily about his house guest

Cecily: Hello, Jim. What’s happening? You look overwrought!

Jim: That’s very true. Susan’s brother arrived without notice from
out of town, so I offered to lodge him for a few days. He’s really
bothering me. For one thing, he’s eating everything in our house
nonstop. He remains awake until early in the morning watching
television, theneats everything out of the refrigerator before he goes to
bed. The guy’s got an insatiable appetite. You should see the way he
eats voraciously. He even burps after he eats.
Cecily: How gross. I can’t tolerate people like that. Does he at least
offer you assistance around the house?
Jim: He doesn’t do anything! I strive vigorously cleaning up all
day and he sleeps late until noon. Oh, and listen to this… then he gets
on the telephone with his friends and invites them over.
Cecily: Man, he really imposes upon your generousity. You had
better do something quick or he’ll never leave. After all, he’s got an easy
time of it here.
Jim: You think he might stay even longer?
Cecily: Now, don’t go losing control of your emotions. If you’ve
tolerated all you can, just eject him… but do it delicately. I know! Tell
him a harmless lie like you’re getting the house fumigated.
Jim: That wouldn’t be a lie!

107
 Dialogue in slang
Jim is telling Cecily about his house guest

Cecily: Hey, Jim. What’s going on? You look like a basket case!
Jim: You can say that again! Susan’s brother dropped in from out
of town, so I offered to put him up for a few days. He’s driving me up a
wall. For one thing, he’s eating me out of house and home. He stays up
till all hours of the night watching the tube, thenraids the fridge before
he turns in. the guy’s a bottomless pit. You should see the way he puts it
away. He even belches after he eats.
Cecily: How gross. I can’t handle people like that. Does he at least
give you a hand around the house?
Jim: He doesn’t lift a finger!I bend over backwards cleaning up
all day and he sleeps in until noon. Oh, and check this out… then he
gets on the horn with his friends and invites them over.
Cecily: Man, what a freeloader. You better do something quick or
he’ll never hit the road. After all, he’s got it made in the shade here.
Jim: you think he might stay even longer?
Cecily: Now, don’t go falling apart. If you’re that fed up, just kick
him out… but do it with kid gloves. I know! Tell him a white lie like
you’re getting the house fumigated.
Jim: that wouldn’t be a lie.

Standard English Slang

Hello Hey
What’s happening? What’s going on?
Overwrought Basket case
That’s very true You can say that again
Arrived without notice Dropped in
Lodge him Put him up
Really bothering me Driving me up a wall
Eating everything in our house Eating me out of house and home

108
nonstop
Remains awake until early in the Stays up till all hours of the night
morning
Television Tube
Eats everything out of the Raids the fridge
refrigerator
Goes to bed Turns in
Got an insatiable appetite Bottomless pit
Eats voraciously Puts it away
Burps Belches
Tolerate Handle
Offer you assistance Give you a hand
Doesn’t do anything Doesn’t lift a finger
I strive vigorously I bend over backwards
Sleeps late Sleeps in
Listen to this Check this out
Telephone Horn
Imposes upon your generousity Freeloader
Leave Hit the road
Got an easy time of it Got it made in the shade
Losing control Falling apart
You’ve tolerated all you can Fed up
Eject him Kick him out
Delicately With kid gloves
Harmless lie White lie

109
 5. Seasons

Can you guess the word?

A part of the year distinguished by its particular type of weather,
esp. one of the four traditional periods into which the year is divided

Discuss the following points:

 What's your favorite season and why?
 In your opinion, which season is the most beautiful?
 Do you think weather affects the way people feel?
 What do you think of when you think of winter?
 If you could get rid of one season of the year, what season
would you get rid of? Why?

110
  If you could get rid of one month of the year, what month would
you get rid of? Why?
 What words do you link with the summer? Brainstorm as many
words as you can. How about the winter?
 What words do you link with the fall? Brainstorm as many
words as you can. How about the spring?
 What is the perfect summer day? Please describe it in as much
detail as possible. How about the perfect winter day?
 What is the perfect fall day? Please describe it in as much detail
as possible. How about the perfect spring day?
 Have you experienced an Indian summer? Did you like it?
 John Steinbeck said, “What good is the warmth of summer,
without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” Do we need winter so
that we appreciate summer?

3. You are given four different texts. What is the hidden idea
of these texts? What is meant in each of them?

She was dressed all in yellow, and, there was something, let
me say a tint of red in her dress. She was so beautiful… She walked in
beauty leaving the most wonderful and amazing colours on the
ground… She never stopped… She was walking with the wind
followed by these colourful butterflies everywhere…
Sending all her love and warmth she embraced the world with
her hot arms. The sea was washing the shore and both seemed out of
breath. The trees looked a bit tired of waiting in the sun, yet gave some
shade to the flowers resting by their feet. “Still no breeze from the
sea”, they thought, but found it difficult to say a word… and the day
was hot…
The sky looked at me with her grey eyes… eyes that rained
tears… I felt them falling on the universe as if they were trying to

111
 touch everything here and there… It was getting colder and colder…
…and when I turned around I saw the beautiful world dressed
all in white…
Running from the mountain the brook was singing to herself,
filling the world with the sounds of the beautiful melody… The brook
was running faster today, as if some new and unseen energy invaded
her… Even the flowers by the side were whispering with each other
and the birds soaring high in the sky were playing with the shining
Sun. and the grass, the green grass breathed deeply, saying Good
Morning to everybody!

 Try to prove your choice giving explanations and reasons.

2. Which of these words do you think will be in the poem

“winter?”

Word Yes – in the No – in the

poem poem
Season
Snowmen
Birthday
King
Cake
Sugar
Frosty
White
Bite
Fun
Tongue
Cold

112
 3. Read the poem and check your predictions.
Winter

Winter is the king of seasons

Turning tree stumps into snowmen
And houses into birthday cakes
Sprinkling sugar over lakes.
Smooth and clean and frosty white
The world is good enough to bite
Winter is the season for lots of fun
Especially when catching snowflakes on your tongue.

4. Check your memory. Cover the poem and fill in the missing
words.

1. -------------------- is the king of seasons

2. -------------------- tree stumps into snowmen
3. And --------------- into birthday cakes
4. ---------------------- sugar over lakes.
5. ----------------- and clean and frosty white
6. The --------------- looks good enough to bite
7. --------------- is the season for lots of fun
8. Especially when ----------------- snowflakes on your tongue.

5. Work in groups. Try to write a short poem about winter.

6. Moods are Weather

Underline the correct word in the sentences below:

113
 1. It was obvious that Charles was angry. He came
storming/breezing into the room, threw the contract on the table and
demanded to know why he had not been consulted.
2. It was obvious from the way Peter breezed/stormed in this
morning that Mary had said yes to his proposal.
3. I think I drank too much last night at dinner. I’m afraid I’m
feeling a bit under the sky/weather this morning.
4. They used to be crazy about each other but I think the
relationship has cooled/frozen recently.
5. Meeting Jane’s parents for the first time was a bit worrying, but
they gave me a very sunny/warm welcome. Her mother was lovely.
6. The car broke down on the way to my husband’s parents. We
were two hours late for Sunday lunch. You can imagine we got a rather
frosty/wet reception.
7. Ladies and Gentlemen, can I start by thanking you for giving me
such a warm/hot welcome.
8. What’s the matter? Cheer up! You look a bit foggy/gloomy.
9. I wish Dave was more dynamic. He always seems to be half-
asleep – he is a bit damp/wet, really.
10. My students really annoy me sometimes – particularly when
they never do their homework. They really are a shower/storm.

7. Find the meaning of the idioms in the dictionary and try to

make up dialogues using some of them.

114
 6. Business Life

International Business Etiquette - Customs and Culture

Cultural differences of doing business in foreign countries may
cause serious problems. The standards of doing business in the United
States, however, often do not apply when doing business in other
regions. All countries have unique customs, cultures, and traditions.
Therefore, when expanding a company into an overseas market,
interacting with a foreign customer or client who is visiting the United
States, or working in another country, requires taking the time to know
more about cultural differences to avoid embarrassing, offending, or
ruining a business deal. For instance, even though Canadians, Austra-
lians, and British individuals all speak English, differences in accents,
meaning of words, spelling, and slang can lead to some communication
issues.
In international business, first impressions are often the only chance
professionals have to impress a business contact. Avoiding a faux pas
and putting a foreign partner at ease requires knowledge of cultural
customs concerning business attire, facial expressions, body language,
eye contact, and shaking hands. For instance, in some Asian countries
extended eye contact can be viewed as impolite or aggressive while
American and Canadian business practices usually emphasize eye
contact as a means of showing interest and respect. So, we should know
about these facts if we want to seal the deal!

Faux pas - something embarrassing that you say or do in

asocialsituation

115
 Discuss the following points:
 Does culture explain why other people sometimes seem
"different"?
 What are some things that you do that you learned from your
culture?
 Are all of our behaviors related to culture?
 What can you do to learn about and understand other cultures?
 What if you were part of another culture? How might you be
different from the way you are now?

1. Everyone Has a Culture—Everyone Is Different

Directions: Write one sentence or phrase about each topic. Then
rate each item from 1-10 (1 is most important) according to what value
this topic has in your culture.

Rank
_____ What language(s) do you speak?

_____What is your religion?

_____ What music do you listen to?

_____ What dances do you know?

_____ What foods do you eat at home?

_____ What do you wear on special occasions?

_____ What holidays and ceremonies are important?

_____ What is most important to you?

116
 _____ What things do you believe are right and wrong?

_____ How important is your extended family?

The name of my culture is ____________________________.

2. Study the following sentences and match each underlined

idiom to its correct definition below:
1. At the end of the meal, we decided to go Dutch.
2. If you want to win the argument, you should stick to your guns.
3. Thank you for all your help. I hope someday we can return the
compliment.
4. The politician managed to save face by escaping blame for the
mistake.
5. Everyone at the party was wearing special costumes, and we had
to follow suit.
6. During the negotiation they decided to give ground in order to
reach the agreement.
7. We were wined and dined all over the city.
8. I was trying to be polite, but he got the wrong idea.

A. Change your position in order to make it easier to reach an

agreement
B. Do something for someone because they have done something
for you
C. Do what other people are doing
D. Keep your position even if people try to criticize you
E. Misunderstood
F. Pay 50% of the bill each
G. Protect your reputation
H. Taken out for expensive meals

117
 3. Cultural Etiquette
Decide whether the statements are true or false and then check
your answers by reading the article:
1. In Singapore, the word “no” is considered impolite.
2. In Greece, you should nod your head upwards to say “yes”.
3. In Italy, it is a bad idea to turn up late for the meeting.
4. In the Netherlands, it is a bad idea to turn up late for the
meeting.
5. In Japan, the business card is very important and should be
treated with respect.
6. In Russia, you should not argue during business deals.
7. In turkey, you should not insist on sharing the restaurant bill
with your host.
8. In Mexico, you should be careful about proposing dinner
arrangements with your client.

Cultural Know-How
Learning about a countries culture can help you secure good
working relations on your travels.

1. Do you arrive ten minutes early or an important business

meeting in Rio or ten minutes late in Amsterdam? In Moscow, is it a
good idea to give ground at an early stage of the negotiations? And in
Istanbul, should you offer to go Dutch with the host on the restaurant
bill?
2. Mastering the local etiquette can be more valuable than learning
the language, because so much of the world does business in English or
a form of English. “Beware that an English word or phrase doesn’t
always mean the same thing abroad”, warns Michael Bennett, who sells
security systems in South East Asia. “In Japan and Singapore, people
feel that “no” is an impolite word and will sometimes say “yes” to avoid
causing offence. What they really mean is “I understand what you are

118
saying”, not “I agree”. I’m told that in Indonesia, there are 12 words for
“yes” that mean precisely opposite.
3. Even the movement of your head can be open to misinterp-
retation. Publisher Robin Touquet has had difficulties in Athens. “The
Greeks traditionally use an upward nod of the head to say “no”, and a tilt
of the head from side to side to mean “yes”. I was ready for that but
didn’t realize that younger generation have learnt to do it our way.
Confusion all round. If in doubt, keep still”.
4. The issue of punctuality is almost as complicated. Oil company
executive Malcolm Thorburn deliberately turns up a few minutes late for
meetings in Brazil “because Brazilians believe latecomers are more
likely to be commercially successful than people who arrive early. They
are impressed by people who are relaxed enough not to worry about the
clock. The Italians take a similar attitude. They believe that arriving late
shows who is the boss”. However, don’t risk that in the Netherlands.
“The Dutch frown upon lateness”, warns film finance agent James
Hindle:”they belive that people who can’t use their time wisely cannot
be trusted”.
5. Hindle has also experienced the ceremony of exchanging
business cards in Japan. “The business card is seen as representing the
individual, so the whole affair has to be treated with respect. You must
accept your client’s card with both hands, perhaps admiring it, and then
place it carefully in your cardholder”.
6. The social side of Japanese commerce can also unnerve the
western visitor, who might have to go a karaoke bar and sing. “Many
Japanese businessmen like to conclude business by performing their
favourite song in a karaoke bar”, says management trainer Nicole
Wehden. “You’re expected to follow suit”.
7. In Russia, the ritual of the business meeting is more theatrical
skill. “I’ve seen temper tantrums, sudden walk-outs, table-thumping and
so on, but it’s all part of the fun”, says Michael Bennett. “And they
admire you more if you stick to your guns. Seeking a compromise early
is seen as a sign of weakness”.

119
 8. In almost every business community around the world, the host
pays for the meal. Malcolm Thorburn was wined and dined in Istanbul,
and all went well until he insisted on paying his share.”It caused real
embarrassment”, he recalls. “In Turkey the idea of sharing a bill is quite
alien. The best policy is to thank your host and return the compliment at
the first opportunity”.
9. Insurance underwriter Toni Morrison caused super-time
embarrassment in Mexico five years ago. “I was working late with a
client, and midway through the evening I felt so hungry I suggested we
carry on working at a nearby restaurant. The client thought that was a
sign I had a romantic interest in him. When I realized he’d got the wrong
idea I started to laugh, which made things even worse. The only way of
getting out of it was to enable him to save face, so I accepted all the
blame for the misunderstanding”.

4. Work in groups. Try to use idioms given in exercise 2 in

your own dialogues or situations.

5. Read the article and choose one of these titles for it.
When in Rome…
Travelling abroad
Doing business in Europe
Problems that business people face
Good manners, good business
I don’t mean to be rude!
Nobody actually wants to cause offence but, as business becomes
ever more international, it is increasingly easy to get it wrong. There
may be a single European market but it doesn’t mean that managers
behave the same in Greece as they do in Denmark.
In many European countries handshaking is an automatic gesture.
In France good manners require that on arriving at a business meeting a

120
manager shakes hands with everyone present. This can be a demanding
task and, in a crowded room may require gymnastic ability if the farthest
hand is to be reached.
Handshaking is almost as popular in other countries – including
Germany, Belgium and Italy. But Northern Europeans, such as the Bri-
tish and Scandinavians, are not quite so fond of physical demonstrations
of friendliness.
In Europe the most common challenge is not the content of the
food, but the way you behave as you eat. Some things are just not done.
In France it is not good manners to raise tricky questions of business
over the main course. Business has its place: after the cheese course.
Unless you are prepared to eat in silence you have to talk about
something – something, that is, other than the business deal which you
are continually chewing over in your head.
Italians give similar importance to the whole process business
entertaining. In fact, in Italy the biggest fear, as course after course
appears, is that you entirely forget you are there on business. If you have
the energy, you can always do the polite thing when the meal finally
ends, and offer to pay. Then, after a lively discussion, you must remem-
ber the next polite thing to do – let your host pick up the bill.
In Germany, as you walk sadly back to your hotel room, you may
wonder why your apparently friendly hosts have not invited you out for
the evening. Don’t worry, it is probably nothing personal. Germans do
not entertain business people with quite the same enthusiasm as some of
their European counterparts.
The Germans are also notable for the amount of formality they
bring to business. As an outsider, it is always difficult to know whether
colleagues have been working together for 30 years or have just met on
the lift. If you are used to calling people by their first names this can be a
little strange. To the Germans, titles are important. Forgetting that
someone should be called Herr Doktor or Frau Direktorinmight cause
serious offence. It is equally offensive to call them by a title they do not
possess.

121
 In Italy the question of title is further confused by the fact that
everyone with a university degree can be called Dottore– and engineers,
lawyers and architects may also expect to be called by their professional
titles.
These cultural challenges exist side by side with the problems of
doing business in a foreign language. Language, of course, is full of
difficulties – disaster may be only a syllable away. But the more you
know of the culture of the country you are dealing with, the less likely
you are to get into difficulties. It is worth the effort. It might be rather
hard to explain that the reason you lost the contract was not the product
or the price, but the fact that you offended your hosts in a light-hearted
comment over an aperitif. Good manners are admired: they can also
make or break the deal.

6. Decide if these statements are true or false according to the

writer:
1. In France you are expected to shake hands with everyone you
meet.
2. People in Britain shake hands just as much as people in
Germany.
3. In France people prefer talking about business during meals.
4. It is not polite to insist on paying for a meal if you are in Italy.
5. Visitors to Germany never get taken out for meals.
6. German business people don’t like to be called by their
surnames.
7. Make sure you know what the titles of the German people you
meet are.
8. Italian professionals are usually addressed by their titles.
9. A humorous remark always goes down well all over the world.

122
 7. Discuss these questions:
1. Which of the ideas in the article do you disagree with?
2. What would you tell a foreign visitor about “good manners” in
your country?
3. How much do you think international business is improved by
knowing about foreign people’s customs?

123
 7. Words Together

1. Which of these words go together? Tick the boxes.

Alert Asleep Awake Conscious
Fast
Fully
Half
Semi
Sound
Wide

2. Find the missing noun for the sentences in column A and the
missing verb for the sentences in column B.
A B
1 Be a ….. and fetch me my 1 If you …. the club code, they
gloves. will kick you out.
2 She fell in ….. with a 2 Go on, ….the habit of the
Japanese guy. lifetime and take some
exercise!
3 For the …. of God be quiet. 3 We are going to …. our
journey in Idaho.
4 When he saw her it was …. 4 She doesn’t believe that she
at first sight. can …. the record.
5 There is no …. lost between 5 The more you …. promises
them. like this, the more people
will distrust you.
6 They’re head over heels in 6 I’m going to …. the back of
…. . this report before I go to bed.

124
 - What are the lexical phrases in each case?
- What other lexical phrases can you think of including the words
for column A and column B?

3. Language functions
How many different ways can you think of for expressing the
following language functions?
a. Giving advice
b. Inviting someone
c. Offering help
d. Giving your opinion

4. Phrasal Verb Fun!

Unscramble the words to form ten complete sentences. There is
a phrasal verb in each one.
1. up catch I don’t we’ll think because with them too ahead far
they’re.
2. away get you cheating with the in exams won’t!
3. up with keep I couldn’t was he because too fast running him.
4. new job that in she for put marketing in.
5. up come I need to ideas original some thins project for with.
6. knows he he down cut needs fatty on foods to.
7. always up I’ve to grandmother my looked.
8. youtheto forward awards looking tomorrow ceremony are?
9. with she’s going his up behavior put not to class in much for
longer.
10. night last make for up to dinner to out you take I’ll.

125
 5. In pairs discuss questions 1-5.
1. If you need to come up with new ideas for a project at home
or work, where do you find is the best place for inspiration and thinking?
2. What do you think is the best way to make up for forgetting a
close friend or relative’s birthday?
3. If you have to be away from college or work for a period of
time, what do you find is the best way to catch up with all your work?
4. When are you next planning to put yourself in for a
promotion or an exam connected with a leisure activity?
5. What do you think is the best strategy for trying to keep up
with a conversation in English when the speakers are speaking too fast?

6.Make a sentence as quick as you can.

In pairs take turns to make a sentence including one of the
following phrasal verbs.
1.get away with 6.make up for
2.cut down on 7.come up with
3.look up to 8.catch up with
4.look forward to 9.keep up with
5.put up with 10.put in for

7. What should the characteristics of a speaking activity can

be? Put a tick or a cross against the statements if you agree or
disagree with them.
A It should be a study exercise.
B It should be an activate exercise.
C It should engage students.
D It should involve everyone.
E It should practise specific language structures.
F Students should concentrate on the accuracy of what they
are saying.

126
 8. Superstitions

Lead-in
 Do you believe in superstitions?
 What is meant under the word “superstition”?
 What are some commonly held superstitions in your
culture?

Halloween
What do you know about Halloween?
What do you want to find out about it?

Traditions and Customs in the United States

Halloween is a festival celebrated on October 31. The name of the
holiday means “hallowed” or “holy evening’ because it happens the day
before All Saints Day.

127
 It is said that Halloween is the children’s New Year’s Eve. They
dress up with special costumes, they eat too much and stay up too late
celebrating.
Children go around the neighbourhoods wearing make-up, and
dressed in masks and colourful costumes. The most common costumes
are witches, ghosts, skeletons and popular TV, movie and storybook
characters. Some costumes are homemade, others are bought in stores.
The children go door to door saying “trick or treat”. People give them
candy, cookies, fruit or money. Sometimes money is collected to help
UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund).
Homes, stores and classrooms are decorated in the traditional
Halloween colours, orange and black. Usual decorations are witches,
black cats, ghosts, skeletons, and jack-o-lanterns. Jack-o-lanterns are
pumpkins that are carved to look like faces. They are placed on doorway
entrances and in windows. Horror movies and ghost stories are shown on
TV on this day.
Adults and other children also celebrate Halloween with parades,
festivals, and costume parties. Some people create their costumes; other
people rent them. Contests are held where the best costume receives the
prize. One of the party events popular with children is dunking for
apples. Apples are put in tubs filled with water. People try to get the
apples using only their mouths; hands cannot be used.

Background
Halloween comes the day before “All Saints Day”. Many supersti-
tions are connected with this day. The Druids, a group of priests from
Gaul and Britain, believed that ghosts, spirits and witches came out to
harm people on Halloween. It is because of this legend that people place
jack-o-lanterns and scary decorations in front of their homes to scare evil
spirits away. The Druids also thought that cats were sacred. They
believed that they were once humans who were changed into animals
because they did evil things. That is why black cats are part of

128
Halloween. It is also believed that the pumpkin symbolizes the human
skull.

Vocabulary
Holy --- important in a religion, or used in worship; sacred
Ghost --- the spirit of a dead person that someone sees or hears
Contest --- competition
Tub --- container; bath-tub
Dunk --- submerge briefly in water; dip (food) in liquid before
eating; go under the surface of a liquid, the sea, etc.
Superstition --- a belief that things such as magic or luck have the
power to affect your life
Evil --- devilish, unkind
Scary --- making you feel frightened

1. Match words and phrases with similar meanings:

1. Trick i. a person in a story, novel, play
2. to carve ii. something harmful, bad
3. character iii. a gift, something nice
4. collect iv. a practical joke
5. evil v. frightening
6. holy vi. to form something by cutting
7. ghost vii. sacred
8. costumes viii. to get, obtain
9. scary ix. special dress
10. treat x. dead person’s spirit

2. Circle the word that best completes the sentence.

1. On Halloween pumpkins are (carved, costumed, scary) to look
like a face.
2. Some children dress like television (groups, characters, sets).

129
 3. Children dress up to look like (tricks, saints, ghosts).
4. On Halloween you can see (collect, trick, scary) movies on TV.
5. Halloween means (evil, holy, scary).
6. Children wear colourful (ghosts, characters, costumes) on
Halloween.
7. Some children may play (tricks, treats, carve) on Halloween.
8. Some children (carve, trick, collect) money for UNICEF on
Halloween.
9. People put scary decorations in front of their doors to scare
(sacred, holy, evil) spirits away.
10.People give children (treats, tricks, costumes) when they come
to the door.

3. Complete each sentence.

1. The girl bought a special dress for the party. She bought a
------------ .
2. The child dressed up like a dead person. She wore a -----------
costume.
3. When the birthday person opened the empty box, his friends
laughed. It was a ------------- .
4. Martin liked to take a piece of wood and make a horse, cutting
away with his knife. He liked to --------------- .
5. The book told a story about three people. The story had three
------------ .
6. One of the character’s in the story was a bad, mean woman. She
was ------ .
7. The Bible is a religious book. It is a -------------- book.
8. John has dozens of costumes. He has a fine ---------------ion of
costumes.
9. The storm made everybody afraid. It was -------------------- .
10.The father bought his son a large ice cream. That was a real
-------------- for the child.

130
 Pumpkin Similes
1. A pumpkin is as big as a ----------
2. A pumpkin is as orange as a --------------
3. A pumpkin is as round as a ------------
4. A pumpkin can grow as big as a ------------
5. A pumpkin can have a face like a -----------
6. A pumpkin is like a -------------
7. The orange pumpkin looked like a --------------

What are the most common superstitions in Britain?

There are many superstitions in Britain, but one of the most widely-
held is that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder – even if it means
stepping off the pavement into a busy street!
If you must pass under a ladder you can avoid bad luck by crossing
your fingers and keeping them crossed until you’ve seen a dog.
Alternatively, you must lick your finger and make a cross on the toe of
your shoe and not look again at the shoe until the mark has dried.
Another common superstition is that it is unlucky to open an
umbrella in the house – it will either bring misfortune to the person that
opened it or the household. Anyone opening an umbrella in fine weather
is unpopular as it inevitably brings rain!
The number 13 is said to be unlucky for some and when the 13 th
day of the month falls on Friday, anyone wishing to avoid an
inauspicious event had better stay indoors.
The worst misfortune that can befall you is incurred by breaking a
mirror, as it brings seven years of bad luck! The superstition is supposed
to have originated in ancient times, when mirrors were considered to be
tools of the gods.
Black cats are generally considered lucky in Britain, even though
they are associated with witchcraft – a witch’s animal-familiar is usually
a black cat. It is especially lucky if a black cat crosses your path –
although in the United States the exact opposite belief prevails.

131
 A commonly-held superstition is that of touching wood for luck.
This measure is most often taken if you think you have said something
that is tempting fate, such as “my car has never broken down – touch
wood!”

Vocabulary
Inauspicious --- something that is inauspicious makes you think that
success is not likely
e.g. He made an inauspicious start to hiscareerbybreakingaleginhis
first race.
Incur --- to experience something unpleasant as a result of
something that you have done
Witchcraft --- the practice of magic, esp. for evil purposes
Prevail --- to be the strongest influence or element in a situation
e.g. We hope that common sense will prevail and
anagreementwillsoonbe reached.

Discuss the following points:

If bad luck is asleep you must not awaken it.
It’s better to be born lucky than rich.
You know what luck is? Luck is belief you are lucky.

132
 9. Media Opinions

Discuss the following questions:

 What is the role of newspapers in society?
 What images spring to mind when you hear the word “media”?
 Will newspapers disappear in the future?
 What is your favorite section of the newspaper to read?
 How often do you watch the news?
 Which kind of news is the best for you? Why?
 Newspaper?
 Radio?
 Television?
 Internet?
 Do you think that the news is necessary? Why or why not?
 What would the world be like without news?
 Do you think the news influences people too much?
 If the news reported your week, what would be the headline?

133
 1. Put the words from the box into the correct column. Some
words can go in more than one column.
Talk show Comics Documentar Traffic Tabloi Phone-
y report d in
Current Weather Quize Show Cartoon Reality Soap
Affairs Forecast Show opera
Programme

Radio TV Magazines/Newspapers
Programmes Programmes

2. Work in groups. Choose one of the types and try to present

the news.

3. Media Quiz
Answer the following questions all connected with the media.
1. What is the name of the person who controls the contents of the
newspaper?
2. Who actually finds out the information and writes the stories in
the newspapers?
3. Which day of the week paper contains the most section in the
UK?

134
 4. What is the name of the section that that often has interviews
with celebrities and film stars, etc?
5. Where do you look to find out information about money
matters?
6. The main news stories appear in short on the front of the paper.
What are they called?
7. There is one area of the media in the UK which is the fastest
growing – what is it?
8. The name of the person who takes part in a quiz show is a c _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ t.
9. A television or radio story about the daily lives of the same
group of people is called:
a. a chat show
b. a soap
c. a quiz show
10. What is the name of the people who watch a live show in a
studio?
11. Afilm or TV programmethat gives facts and information about
something is called:
a. the news
b. a live performance
c. a documentary
12. What is the name of the female equivalent of an actor?
13. What is the name of the papers published every day of the
week?
14. Who is the person who physically films live TV?
15. What is the name of the person who is responsible for the
making of a show or programme?

4. Now compare your answers with your partner. Are they all
the same? Decide which one is right or wrong if any are different.

135
 5. Media Opinions
Read the following dialogue between two friends exchanging
views on the media. Underline any mistakes. There are nine mistakes.
Chris: Yes, I thought that reality TV is just cheap and dull TV. It
costs hardly anything to make and relies on the people in it
Liz: for entertainment…
I’m not sure on that… I mean, celebrities have to be paid
Chris: and some of the people in the shows are quite funny.
I don’t think so. They don’t have much to say and are just
Liz: looking for fame. I prefer documentaries – they give you so
much more to learn about…
Chris: It depend on what they are about. Some are great, but others
can be a bit heavy going. What do you think?
Liz: On my opinion they are all about learning, but I do see your
point that some can be quite heavy going. What’s your
Chris: opinion in quiz shows?

Liz: It depends under the show – some are entertaining and you
learn something, but others are a bit silly.
Chris: Definately! Some are a bit stupid, but others are good value
I think.

So, what shall we watch tonight on TV?

There’s a good documentry on one channel…

6. In pairs, compare what you have underlined in Ex. 1 and

correct the mistakes together.

7. Discuss the following types of programmes in groups of

three or four giving clear reasons for your opinion.
1. Reality TV

136
 2. Documentaries
3. Quiz Show

Is This News?

Discussion:
Look at two people’s opinions on television news. Which person
do you most agree with?
“The public has a right to know what’s happening. I think they
should not cut out anything. People are mature enough to take in the
reality of what happens in the world every day.”

“TV news sometimes seems more like a show. They want a bigger
audience so they show shocking or provocative images. TV news should
report the news, not try to shock people.”
Can you think of a recent example of something sensational
appearing on the news?

Reading
Read the letter and answer this question:
Does the writer have a point or is (s)he being too sensitive?

To The Producer(s) At Channel 8

Dear Sirs,
I must say that I was shocked and outraged by your broadcast of the
images of the Concorde crash last week. Was it really necessary to show
the plane actually going down? This was prime-time television. Did it
not occur to you that there are children watching at 8 o’clock in the
evening? My 7-year-old little girl didn’t sleep for three nights! The
images still haunt me now as they will for a long time, I’m sure. How
dare you traumatize people’s lives like that!
I am a responsible parent who believes that it is the job of news
agencies to report the news without showing unnecessarily sensational or

137
graphic images simply to attract viewers. The terrible things that happen
in the world are not meant to be used as entertainment nor to increase
your ratings.
You can be sure that I will no longer be watching your television
news broadcast and I will be encouraging all my friends and relatives to
boycott it too.
Yours faithfully,
Chris Hale

Discussion:
1. Which of the factors below do you think most motivated the
parent to write the letter?
 Time of the broadcast.
 The fact that the images showed people dying.
 The fact that children were watching.
 The fact that the images were unnecessary.
 The suspicion that the images were used to improve the station’s
ratings.
2. Would the same factor have motivated you to write a letter?
3. Do you agree with the parent? Why/why not?
4. Do you think a letter like this one would have any effect on the
producers of the news programme?
5. Do you think the parent who wrote the letter is a father or a
mother? Why?

Discussion:
Work in groups of three or four. You are a team of news editors at
a national television station. The news programme is broadcast during
prime time when children will be watching. Look at today’s possible
stories and decide together whether the images should be broadcast or
not. If they cannot be broadcast at prime time, could they be shown in
the late news, or should the film clips be censored completely?

138
 1. Protest: images of protesters and activists being excessively
beaten by the police.
2. Fashion show: hot fashion designer, Roberto Nudo, shows his
new line of transparent evening wear – most of the models’ bodies can
be seen – almost as if they were wearing nothing.
3. Report on violence in films: examples of violent scenes from
current blockbuster movies which have been criticized for having much
violence.
4. Suicide: a relatively unknown politician commits suicide by
shooting himself in the head – all caught on film.
5. Special report on drinking and driving: film clips of the scenes
of serious accidents caused by drunken drivers, including images of dead
bodies and families of the victims.

139
 10. Changes

Discussion:
6. Is there anything you would like to change? What exactly?
7. How important is it to you to make some changes in your life?
8. Do you feel confident when you face some changes in your life?
9. What do you think, do changes cause stress and fear in people?

Discuss the following expressions. What is the hidden meaning?

Some changes are so slow you don’t notice them. Others are so
fast, they don’t notice you!

I find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.

1. Problems in the Past

Work in groups and discuss the following situations.

140
 1. You go riding in the woods. Your friend falls of his horse and
breaks his leg. He is in terrible pain. Unfortunately, the year is 1680 and
there are no hospitals, anesthetics, or telephones.

2. You live in a small country town. The year is 1750. You are
bored. Unfortunately, the television has not been invented yet and there
are no radios or video recorders. How can you make your evenings more
exciting?

3. You are a highly intelligent person. You love studying and your
family has enough money to send you to a good university. You would
like to study to be a doctor. Unfortunately, it is 1890 and women are not
allowed at university.

2. Work with a partner. Add five words to these lists about life
in the past.

300 years ago they didn’t have: cars, hamburgers, antibiotics…

300 years ago they had: horses, feasts, sword fights…

3. Fill in the gaps using the words from the box. Do you agree
with the statements?

a. b. bored c. amazing d. terrified

disgusting
e. f. exciting g. h.
charming depressed exhausted

1. Life is much more ------------------- now than it was in the past.

2. Life was really tough. People woke up at sunrise and went to
sleep feeling tired after a(n) ------------------- day in the fields.

141
 3. Kings and queens had a(n) ------------------- life and enough
money to buy anything.
4. As they didn’t understand science, many people were
-------------- of things like thunder and lightning.
5. In the old days, life was better for women because men had to
be ---------.
6. Nobody felt ------------ because stress didn’t exist.
7. People must have been -------------- without television.

4. How Many More Changes?

Read the text and express your idea about it:
Sir,
Wherever I look nowadays, there are changes. The other day I went
into our nearest big town to do some shopping, and I hardly knew where
I was.
There were some lovely old houses near the library six months ago.
Where are they now? When did they put up that large block of flats on
the corner of the High Street? There used to be a nice little butcher’s
there – and a good greengrocer’s shop. Are they going to pull down the
old cinema next? – or move the old church? To me, these are just
examples of the changes which are made in our community every day.
When is the pace of change going to slow down? When we’ve no money
left? Or when everything we used to know has disappeared?
Things have never changed so often or so fast as they have in the
past ten years. It’s confusing. It’s frightening.
I don’t know what young people think, but many pensioners like
me are beginning to feel insecure, and people of all ages are feeling the
stress of constant change. Everything looks different. Nothing stays the
same for very long. What I wonder is this: are the people who make all
these changes aware of the problems they cause? Is the increasing pace
of change the cause of some of our social problems and mental illnesses?
I’m sure it is!

142
 They say “a change is as good as a rest”. But let’s make changes
more slowly and with a little more thought for the effect on people.
Otherwise we will have no rest at all!
Yours,
Mrs. D. Swan

5. Comprehension:
1. Where does Mrs. Swan see changes?
2. What surprised her?
3. What questions does she ask?
4. What’s confusing and frightening?
5. How are people of her age beginning to feel?
6. What does she think about people who make changes?

6. What’s Your Opinion? Give reasons.

1. Do you agree or disagree with Mrs. Swan’s viewpoint?
2. How old do you think Mrs. Swan is and what sort of a person do
you think she might be?
3. Do you agree that “a change is as good as a rest”?
4. How many changes have there been in your town in the past
year? Talk about some of them and the way they have affected your life.
5. What are some of the changes in modern life a) that you like?
Say why. b) that you don’t like. Say why.

7. Life Changes
Think over the following situations and write sentences about
some of the things which you used to do but don’t do now, and also
what you have to get used to.

Situations A Situations B
You’ve got married. You’ve just retired.

143
I used to --------------------- I used to ---------------------
I didn’t used to I didn’t used to ----------------------
---------------------- I’m getting used to
I’m getting used to ----------------------
----------------------
You’ve started your first job. You’ve moved from the
I used to --------------------- countryside to the capital of your
I didn’t used to country.
---------------------- I used to ---------------------
I’m getting used to I didn’t used to ----------------------
---------------------- I’m getting used to
----------------------
You’ve won a large sum of You have had a baby.
money. I used to ---------------------
I used to --------------------- I didn’t used to ----------------------
I didn’t used to I’m getting used to
---------------------- ----------------------
I’m getting used to
----------------------
You’ve became a famous You’ve passed your driving test.
musician. I used to ---------------------
I used to --------------------- I didn’t used to ----------------------
I didn’t used to I’m getting used to
---------------------- ----------------------
I’m getting used to
----------------------
You’ve moved from the city to You’ve started a diet.
the country. I used to ---------------------
I used to --------------------- I didn’t used to ----------------------
I didn’t used to I’m getting used to
---------------------- ----------------------
I’m getting used to

144
 ----------------------
You’ve given up smoking. You’ve moved to Britain.
I used to --------------------- I used to ---------------------
I didn’t used to I didn’t used to ----------------------
---------------------- I’m getting used to
I’m getting used to ----------------------
----------------------

8. “All the great things are simple and many can be expressed
in a single word: justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

--- Sir Winston Churchill

You have one minute to think of other SINGLE words that can
express great things:

145
 11. Appearance

Discuss the following points:

 What is the first thing you notice about a person?
 What do the clothes someone wears say about that person?
 Is there a part of your appearance that you are very proud of?
(i.e. eyes, hair etc.)
 What kinds of things do you do to improve/maintain your
appearance?
 Do people in your country talk a lot about other people’s
appearance?
 Is it rude to tell the person that they need to improve their
appearance?

1. Are You Happy With Your Body?

Discussion:
You bump into a woman friend in town. You knew she was thinking
of having breast implants and you can see that she has obviously had the
operation. What do you say to her?
a. Nothing. It’s too embarrassing.

146
 b. “Wow. You look great! How much did it cost?
c. Something else.

Discuss the following points:

 Is plastic surgery popular in your country?
 Is it expensive?
 Do you think people who have plastic surgery are too concerned
about their looks?
 Are women more concerned with their appearance than men?

2. Reading: Younger Plastic Surgery Patients

Read through the article and answer the question:
Is there a similar trend in your country?
Surgeons at clinics specializing in plastic surgery are reporting
increasingly younger patients, according to a report released recently by
the National Association of Plastic Surgery in the United States.
“They want to look like the people they see in films or the models
they see in magazines. It’s becoming an obsession,” said one doctorin a
beauty clinic in California. “Last week we had a woman in here who, at
30, said she was looking too old and wanted a facelift. I told her to come
back and see me in 15 years.”
The average age for patients undergoing plastic surgery over the
last year was 32, down from 34 just the year before. In England recently,
a 15-year-old girl was in the news for announcing that her parents were
going to pay for rhinoplastyas her 16th birthday present.
Her mother said, “if it makes her happy and gives her more chance
of success in life, then what is the problem?” though women still domi-
nate the plastic surgery scene, men are growing increasingly concerned
with their physical appearance and are doing something about it.
According to the report, men now make up 39% of all surgeries perfor-
med – that’s an increase of nearly 20% from last year.

147
 One man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he got his
liposuction – removal of excess fat – after pressure from his wife. “She
is a very athletic woman and, well, I enjoy a good steak.”
Liposuction tops the list of plastic surgery performed on men,
followed by hair implants and breast reduction. For women the top order
is still breast enlargement, followed by liposuction and facelifts.

Read through the article again and answer the questions:

1. Why are younger people turning to plastic surgery?
2. Why did the doctor refuse plastic surgery to one patient?
3. Why is plastic surgery now more popular with men?
4. Why did the man have liposuction?

Discussion:
 Do you think the number of men who want plastic surgery will
eventually equal, or even surpass, the number of women?
 Read again what the mother of 15-year-old girl said. Do you
agree with her?

Vocabulary

1. Obsession fixed idea that fills the mind

2. release a report issue, publish
3. average age not exact; of an ordinary or usual
standard
4. be concerned with appea- take too much care of your
rance appearance
5. liposuction removal of excess fat
6. reduce make something smaller in size,
amount, degree, price, etc.

148
 7. surpass exceedsb/sth; do or be better than
sb/sth
8. rhinoplasty nose job
9. atrocity 1. very bad or unpleasant
2. great cruelty or wickedness
10. vibrant full of life and energy; exciting
11. Sag sing or curve down
12. posture position of the body
13. obese very fat

3. Language
Match these types of plastic surgery solutions to the problem
below:
Breast enlargement Hair implant Rhinoplasty (nose job)
Varicose vein removal Facelift Tummy tuck

1. “This thing on my face is an atrocity. I’m surprised birds do not

sit on it or that lightning doesn’t strike it in thunderstorms.”
2. “I hate them. I can’t wear shorts or a bikini because they stick
out, especially on the back of my thighs. They’re the ugliest things I’ve
ever seen and they’re getting worse every year because I have bad
circulation.”
3. “I started receding really badly at the age of 23. My wife says
she doesn’t mind, but I hate it. I mean, I’m not completely bald or
anything, but I constantly wear hats and baseball caps because I’m so
self-conscious about it. I could never wear a wig.”
4. “I hate being flat-chested. The boys at school used to call me
“ironing-board.” Imagine! I think I have a pretty face but I don’t feel
confident about myself from the chin down. I would like to feel good
about wearing a tight sweater or a low-cut dress.”

149
 5. “I used to have a youthful, vibrant-looking face. Now my skin
just sags. I think I look twice my age.”
6. “No matter what I do, my belly sticks out. I think it has
something to do with my posture. If I could just get a flat stomach, I
wouldn’t feel so bad about looking at myself sideways in the mirror.”

4. Work in groups. Discuss the following points.

 Which of the above treatments are most popular in your
country?
 Are there any other ones that were not mentioned?
 If you had a problem above and plenty of money, would you
have the surgery? Tell your partner what you would do for each
problem.
 In a survey of 37.500 girls aged 12 to 15, more than half listed
appearance as their biggest worry. What do you think is the reason for
this? Is it a worrying statistic?
 Are you happy with your size and weight? Is there a part of your
body that you would like to change (i.e. make smaller, make bigger)?

5. Here is an alternative point of view from a culture where

people take a different view of size:
“I must eat so I’ll be fat and people won’t laugh at my figure,”
explains one of the women in a fattening room in Calabar, Southern
Nigeria. “Nobody will marry me if I don’t get fatter.” Women come from
all over Nigeria to put on extra pounds at these fattening rooms. “We
can make any woman obese,” boasts the owner. “They will get a
husband after their stay here, no problem.” The women eat all day and
avoid moving so they don’t burn off any calories. “It’s a bit tiring eating
all the time, but I know when I come out I will be attractive, healthy and
beautiful,” said the woman we spoke to.

 Do you think it will be fashionable to be fat one day?

150
 12. Men And Women

Discuss the following points:

1. Women are better drivers than men.

2. A woman should receive the same salary as a man for the same
work.
3. Men should be nurses.
4. The household chores should be shared. Men should do the
cooking, too.
5. Men are more interested in their appearance than women.
6. Women talk to their friends about how they look. Men don’t.
7. Women like to go shopping with other women.
8. Men prefer to go clothes shopping alone. They are afraid to ask
a woman to help them.
9. Men spend more on cosmetics than 10 years ago.
10. Women should go to the army too.

1. Reading: Men’s Beauty Is Big Business

Read the first part of the article and underline all the different
things that men do to make themselves “beautiful”.
If you think the world of face creams, beautiful fingernails and
silky-smooth beautiful legs is exclusively female, think again. As sails of
men’s health and fashion magazines continue to grow at a huge rate,
more and more men are queuing up at health spas and gyms for complete
make-overs. “lots of men are no longer embarrassed to use products or
services that make them look and feel better,” said one enthusiastic
beauty consultant.Body hair removal, manicures, pedicures, teeth
whitening and liposuction, to name just a few, are all now in high
demand. Modern man is even plucking his eyebrows to complete the

151
well-groomed experience. So, what is the explanation for this? Why are
men spending more on pampering their bodies than on CD collections
and DVDs?

Compare what you underlined with a partner. Do you know what

all those things are? What is your explanation for men’s growing
interest in their appearance?
Now read the second part of the article to see if it gives the same
explanation:
According to some, the explanation is quite simple. Twenty years
ago, the only beautiful role models in the media were women. Now,
magazine covers displaying half-dressed male models with tans and
perfect hair have persuaded men they are missing out on something. In
other words, it’s just clever advertising.
Others offer a more profound explanation. As traditional roles
between men and women at home and at work become less distinct, men
are looking for new ways to express either their masculinity or their
new-found feminine side.
The masculine expression leads to joining a gym and building
muscle, the feminine expression leads to moisturizing creams and
beautiful nails. These days it seems to be a combination of both. You
could argue that the modern man is quite simply-confused.
So, are men just victims of the advertising industry, or are they
trying to re-invent themselves? Or is it just that women have been right
all-along – men are vainer? Now they have the proof. What do you
think?

Language 1
Explain what the following mean:
1. Men are queuing up at health spas and gyms…
2. …pampering their bodies…

152
 3. As traditional roles between men and women become less
distinct
4. Joining a gym and building muscle
5. Men are trying to re-invent themselves

Language 2
Two of the expressions below mean that you are not looking after
yourself properly. Which ones?

Watch what you eat Put on weight Let yourself go

Take regular exercise Stay in shape Pumper yourself
Work out at the gym Use body lotions Take pride in your
appearance

Now complete the text below with the correct form of verbs from
the expressions above. Can you do it without looking back at the
expressions?

Since my brother reached 40 he …………… himself go a bit.He

…………… a lot of weight. I’ve told him he’s got to start
……………… what he eats and start looking after himself. I think it’s
important to ……………..pride in your appearance. I want to
……………. in shape so I ………………. regular exercise and
………… at the gym. I also …………… myself occasionally – I have a
message once a month, for example. But I do not …………….. body
lotions or shave my legs or anything like that. I mean, there are limits!

153
 2. Men And Women Are From Different Planets

State your opinion for the following questionnaire:

1 = agree strongly Your opinion

2 = agree
3 = it depends
4 = disagree
5 = disagree strongly
Men are better drivers than women.
Women are more faithful in relationships.
Girls usually mature more quickly than
boys.
Women are inefficient in the business world
because they tend to be too emotional.
Men and women are born with identical
natural abilities.
Nature has given women so much power that
the law has very wisely given them little.
Men find it difficult to express their emotions
except when their football team scores a
goal.
If more women were in positions of power,
there would be fewer wars in the world.
Itis more important for women to take care
of their appearance than it is for men.
Men are from Mars and women are from
Venus.

154
3. Life Begins At 40
An argument between Daphne (aged 20) and Robin (aged 40)
Daphne: Are you seriously trying to argue that life begins at
40? Life begins nine months before birth! And what do
you mean by “life begins” anyway?
Robin:
Well, I don’t mean life begins at forty in a literal
sense, of course. But I do mean a number of things.
Here are some of them. Assuming your health is good,
at the age of 40 you are still young enough to enjoy
yourself; you can afford to enjoy yourself; you are
mature and experienced, so you can assess situations
and deal with them. You can deal with the opposite sex
Daphne: with skill; you can enjoy some of the fruits of your
efforts – in the family, at home and at work; you are at
the height of your mental powers; you can see clearly
the direction your life is taking; and you have a settled
existence.

What about the other side of things? You’ve lost

most of your youthful vigour and energy; life lacks
excitement because you are so settled that you can
almost predict what every day is going to bring; you are
putting on weight, losing your hair, going grey, or your
eyesight is beginning to fail. You’re worried because
you’ve got possessions and responsibilities. The best is
over for you: it’s too late to do anything about your life
if you’ve made a mess of it. It can’t be undone! And
what have you got to look forward to? Just old age…

155
 4. Comprehension
Concentrate on the different ideas the man and the woman
express:
1. Who is arguing that life begins at 40? Why?
2. What does Robin mean by “I don’t mean … in a literal sense”?
3. According to Robin, if you want to enjoy yourself, you need two
things. What are they?
4. In his opinion, what do you need to assess a situation and deal
with it?
5. What are some of the other things you can enjoy at 40?
6. According to Daphne, why does life for a 40-year-old lack
excitement?
7. What, in her opinion, is happening physically to a 40-year-old?
8. Why, in her opinion, is a 40-year-old likely to worry.
9. If you’ve made a mess of your life, what can’t you do at the age
of 40?

5. What’s Your opinion?

Robin assumes that young people: are poor, immature, inexpe-
rienced; can’t assess situations and deal with them; can’t get on with the
opposite sex; haven’t created their own families or homes; haven’t made
progress in their work/career; can’t see what direction their life is
taking; don’t have a settled existence.

Daphne assumes that middle-aged people: aren’t energetic; lead

unexciting lives; are already showing signs of old age; have possessions
and responsibilities; and only have old age to look forward to.

1. Do you agree with these assumptions? Why/why not?

2. Could Robin’s assumptions apply to 40-year-olds? In what
circumstances?

156
 3. Could Daphne’s assumptions apply to 20-year-olds today? In
what circumstances?

6. Talking Points
1. “You are as old as you feel”. Would you agree? Why/why not?
2. “Experience comes with age”. Do you agree with this idea?
Why/why not?

157
 13. Taboo Conversation Topics

Discussion:
Work in pairs. Discuss these questions:
When you fill in a form, are you happy to give this information:
 Your age?
 Your marital status?
 Your income?
Are there any other questions you don’t like answering?

1. Reading
Read through the four conversations below. Who are the people
and what is the situation?
Conversation 1
A: Your blood pressure is absolutely fine. Have you been eating
normally?
B: Oh, yes. The same as normal.
A: And do you take any regular exercise?
B: Yes, I play squash twice a week.
A: Mm. Tell me, how much do you weigh?
B: About 68 kilos.

Conversation 2
A: Hello, I’m Jean Walker. We’ve just moved in next door.
B: Paul Burton. Pleased to meet you. Do you work locally?
A: Yes, I’m a solicitor with a firm on the High Street.
B: A solicitor. That’s a good job. How much do you earn?

Conversation 3
A: Hello. I’m looking for a white tennis shirt.

158
 B: OK. Tennis shirts are over here.
A: As you can see, I’ll need a fairly large size.
B: Yes, I can see that. How much do you weigh, if you don’t mind
me asking?

Conversation 4
A: Gareth, you will be delighted to hear that we would like to offer
you the job.
B: Great! Thank you very much.
A: We need to talk a bit about salaries.
B: Right, yes, of course.
A: Remind me, how much do you earn at the moment?
B: About $35,000 a year.
A: Yes, well, we won’t be able to give you more than that initially,
but we should be able to match it.

2. Discussion:
1. In each dialogue there is a personal question. Decide if the
question is appropriate to the situation and the speakers. If it is not
appropriate, shy isn’t it?
2. The questions in conversations 2 and 3 do not have answers.
How do you think the speaker should reply in these situations?
3. Have you ever been asked an inappropriate question? When and
who by? How did you respond? Have you ever asked an inappropriate
question by accident? What happened?

4. Language
Mark the expressions below in the following way:
Q if they are polite ways of asking personal questions
R if they are ways of responding to personal questions

159
 1. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but…
2. I’d rather not answer that (if you don’t mind).
3. I know this is a bit nosey, but…
4. Mind your own business!
5. Why do you ask?
6. Can I ask you a personal question?
7. That’s rather a personal question.
8. I know this is a bit personal, but…
9. I’m afraid that’s really none of your business.

5. Discussion
Look at the questions below. Decide who has the right to ask you
these questions. It may be a particular person, for example, a doctor, a
priest, a police officer, a partner/lover. It might be anybody or it might
be nobody. Write anyone,a particular person or no one next to each
question.
How old are you?
How much do you weigh?
How tall are you?
How much do you earn?
Have you got a boy/girlfriend?
Are you married?
Were your parents married?
Have you ever taken drugs?
Are you planning to start a family?
Who did you vote for at the last election?
Have you got a criminal record?
How much was your CD player?
What religion are you?

Work in pairs. Ask your partner the questions. Use the expre-
ssions in the Language work to help you ask and answer the questions.

160
6. Your Best Friend
Could you say these things to your best friend?

You smell nice. What is it?

You need a haircut.
Your boy/girlfriend’s got nice legs.
I wish you’d learn how to make coffee.
I think you’ve had enough to drink.
You look silly in that shirt.
I think you should ring and apologize.
If you want to smoke, do it outside.

 Could you say the same things to your teacher or your boss?
 Do you have a friend you can say anything to?
 Are you a tactful person or are you more blunt and direct?
 Do you think being direct is a good or a bad thing?

161
 14. Entertainment

Discussion:
 What do you do in your spare time?
 What do you do for fun?
 Do you listen to classical music? Why or why not?
 Have you ever been to the theater?
 What kind of music do you like?
 What was the last book you read?

The Movies And You

Suppose that you have been chosen to produce or direct a movie.
You know that the first thing you must do is to plan the production of

162
the entire film beforehand. There will be many important decisions
that you will have to make even before you begin.
1. First, you must decide what kind of film you are going to
produce. Some possible types:
spine chiller
cliff-hanger
spectacular
soap opera
animated film

Match the terms in the above list with the definitions below:
1. a sentimental tearjerker --------------------------
2. a suspense type mystery -------------------------
3. a lavish show with lots of extras and props -------------------------
4. a hand-drawn film using no real actors ------------------------------
5. an adventure that keeps the spectator in suspense through many
exciting episodes -----------------------------

2. Second, you must decide on the cast, the actors who will take
part in the film. Some possible members:
Stand – in
Ingénue
Script girl
Stunt man
Extra
From the above list whom would you choose for the following
parts?
1. That part of a naïve young girl? --------------------------
2. A substitute for the leading man during an auto accident scene?
---------------
3. Each of the hundred soldiers used in one scene as background?
----------------

163
 4. A substitute to take the place of the leading lady while lighting
is being tried, cameras focused, etc.? -------------------------

3. Your next decision has to do with the physical setting and

enactment of some of the scenes. Some matters you have to deal with
are:
Ad lib Upstage Props Cue Set

1. The opening scene takes place in front of a row of stores. You

don’t need the complete store buildings, but you do need an appropriate
------------------ .
2. In that first scene you need a car, lamppost, and some large
signs. In other words, you need certain ------------------- .
3. The hero wants to know if, during the scene, he can depart from
the script and add dialogue of his own, or ----------------- .
4. One of the characters forgets his entrances and exits and needs
someone to ----------------------- him.
5. One extra keeps trying to -------------------- the hero by moving
to the back of the set, thus forcing the hero to face away from the
audience. You have to reprimand him.

4. In a meeting with the cameramen, you have to tell them

what kind of camera work you want in certain scenes. The types
they mention are:
Close-ups Fade-out Panning Long shot Dissolve

Match the camera work term from the list with its definition:
1. A scene showing a large crowd in the distance ---------------------
2. A scene in which miles of country are shown slowly, from west
to east ------

164
 3. A scene showing the grief-stricken face of the leading lady
---------------------
4. A scene in which a Western street grows darker until the scene
is entirely black --------------------
5. A scene in which a hero’s face begins to disappear, but before it
disappears completely, the villain’s face appears ----------------------

5. The film is finished and you have further decisions to make.

Fill the blanks with the term that completes the meaning.

Rave Angel Straw-hat SRO Dub in

circuit

1. At one theatre where the film is on, there are more people than
there are seats. What sign is placed in the lobby and outside the theatre?
----------------
2. The critics love the film and praise it highly. You are pleased
because the film is getting -------------------- reviews.
3. Foreign theatres want to show the film so you have to
-------------------- new dialogue in French and Italian.
4. Finally you decide to prepare the film as a Broadway play. You
need more money, so you seek a(n) ------------------------ to underwrite
production.
5. The film is also successful as a play. After a long run on
Broadway, you send it out on the -----------------------, where it plays in
summer theatres in small cities and towns.

165
 15. Just For Fun

1. Talking Points:

Read the poem: working with a partner, how many strange points
can you find?
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other.

Is there anything surprising about the poem?

Discuss in groups and share your ideas with the other ones.

2. Complete The Dialogues.

1. A: I wish I hadn’t done it!
B: sorry?
A: I said I wish I hadn’t done it!
B: Done what? …………..
A: ……………
B: ……………
2. A: Excuse me, but I know you, don’t I?
B: No, I don’t think so.
A: Yes, I’m sure we’ve met before.
B: Have we?
A: Yes, I remember now! Three years ago in…
3. A: Excuse me.
B: Yes?
A: Do you mind if I join you?

166
 B: No, not at all.
A: Thank you. Fantastic party, isn’t it?
B: ……………..
A: ……………..
4. A: She was really upset, wasn’t she?
B: Yes, really upset.
A: Well, I suppose it’s only to be expected.
B: Yes, you’d be just as upset, wouldn’t you?
A: I suppose so.
B: ………………
A: ………………
5. A: I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news?
B: What news?
A: about Tom and Gina.
B: Tom and Gina? No. What’s happened?
A: ……………..
B: ……………..

3. Questionnaire: What Sort Of The Person Are You?

Read through the sentences below and put a circle around the
number (1-5) that best describes you.Before starting look at the key.
(The higher the number, the more you agree with the statement.)

Key
1. No, definitely not.
2. No, not really.
3. I’m not sure, really./It depends.
4. Yes, probably.
5. Yes, definitely.

167
1. I feel nervous when I meet new peop- 1 2 3 4 5
le.
2. I get bored when I’m on my own for 1 2 3 4 5
more than a few hours.
3. I like to keep my home/room clean 1 2 3 4 5
and tidy.
4. I plan for the future. 1 2 3 4 5
5. I find it really easy to talk to strangers 1 2 3 4 5
and make new friends.
6. I get annoyed if I have to wait for so- 1 2 3 4 5
meone or if people turn up late.
7. I think things over very carefully 1 2 3 4 5
before making a decision.
8. I feel anxious when I have to speak in 1 2 3 4 5
front of a large group.
9. I talk a lot and often make the deci- 1 2 3 4 5
sions when I’m with a group of friends.
10. I tend to be very lucky. 1 2 3 4 5
11. I find that my first impression about 1 2 3 4 5
the person is usually right.
12. I worry about what others think of 1 2 3 4 5
me.
13. I find it hard to say “No” when peop- 1 2 3 4 5
le ask me to do things.
14. I am easily influenced by others. 1 2 3 4 5
15. I would rather take orders than give 1 2 3 4 5
them.

When you have finished, work with your partner. Try to discuss
each statement – especially those where your answers are very
different. Try to give reasons for your answers.

168
 4. How Wrong Is It?
Have you ever done anything wrong?
Have you ever considered how wrong it was?

a) Discuss the following points and try to come up with the right
decision:
1. How wrong is it to lie about your age?
2. How wrong is it to have plastic surgery to look younger or more
attractive?
3. How wrong is it to throw litter (paper, cans, etc.) in the street?
4. How wrong is it to park in a no parking street?
5. How wrong is it to drive through the traffic lights when they are
red? (No one gets injured.)
6. How wrong is it to cross a road when the traffic lights are red?
7. How wrong is it to hit someone in self-defence?

b) Work in groups and try to think over two or three more

questions starting “how wrong is it…?”
c) Discuss the questions with the other groups.

5. Talking Points:
Work in groups and prepare a short dialogue for the following
situations:
1. A friend whom you have not seen for many years calls you on
the telephone.
2. A person whom you have liked and trusted for many years tells
you a lie. You are unhappy and discuss the matter with him/her.
3. A friend asks you to take part in a play. You are interested, but
explain why you can’t do it at the present time.

169
 PART THREE

Situational Conversation Practice

(additional material)

170
 1. Situation: Introductions And Opening Conversations

1. A: Mary, this is Joe’s 2. A: Mrs. Smith, I’d like to

brother David. introduce a friend of mine.
B: I’m very glad to meet you. B: How do you do?
A: It’s a pleasure to meet you. A: Hello.
B: How do you like Texas so far? B: What’s your impression of the
A: It’s really different from what I United States?
expected. A: Well, I can’t get over how
B: Don’t worry. You will get used different the weather is here.
to it in no time. B: Oh, you will get used to it soon.
3. A: Wendy, I’d like you to 4. A: Mrs. Hughs, this is
meet my brother Sam. Peter Brown.
B: Hi. B: Pleased to meet you.
A: Nice to meet you. A: How do you do?
B: What do you think of Dallas? B: I hope you are enjoying your
A: Well, I’m still feeling a little stay here.
homesick and so many things A: If it were not for the climate,
seem strange to me. I’d like it very much.
B: You’re bound to feel that way B: It always takes time to get used
at first I guess. to a new place.

to get used to to adjust

in no time Soon
I can’t get over I’m still surprised at
bound to sure to
if it were not for used for saying what prevents the
situation from being different
to feel homesick feeling sad and alone because you
are far from home

171
 Practice
Phrasal Verbs with Get

get out leave or move I don't want you here.

Get out of my way!
get over (something) stop thinking about I can't get over how
something hard that test was!
get away with do something wrong The bank robbers got
(something) without punishment away with robbing
the bank. The police
never found them.
get on with continue with Listen everyone, it's
(something) something time to stop talking
and get on with our
class.
get around to go and travel to I get around by
different places bicycle, but my
brother gets around
on foot.
get around to finally do something I finally got around
(something) to doing my

172
 homework. I didn't do
it for several days.
get along with be friendly with My neighbor and I
get along very well.
We talk every day.
get by have enough to I have enough money
survive to get by until next
week.
get down to become serious about Dinner is finished and
now it's time to get
down to business.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps using the right phrasal verb.

1. Sheila can ………… on only one meal each day. She doesn't
need any more.
2. Jimmy doesn't ………….. his brother. They are always fighting
or saying bad things to each other.
3. Sarah had finished watching the video, so now it was time to
…………… preparing her presentation. She had stopped working on it
and now it had to be finished.
4. Those little kids ………………. making a lot of noise because
they are so cute. How can I punish them?
5. The teacher told Joey to …………….. of the classroom. He was
causing problems and the teacher wanted him to leave.
6. Children, it's time to stop playing around and finally
…………………….. studying.
7. Linda and James ………………… town in that little car. They
are able to go everywhere.
8. Renee couldn't ……………… the death of her husband. In her
mind she could see his face and hear his voice.

173
 9. I don't know when I can …………………… helping you. I have
been really busy. But I promise I will help you soon.

2.
Example
A: How do you like Texas?
B: If it weren’t for the climate, I’d like it very much.

1. A: ………… your new 2. A: …………. your new

job? class?
B: ………… the hours ………. B: …………. the teacher
………..
3. A: …………… your new 4. A: …………… Toronto?
neighbourhood? B: …………… the traffic
B: …………… the noise ………….
……………..

3.
Example
A: Does anything seem strange to you about the meals here?
B: Yes, I can’t get over how early you eat dinner.

1. A: …………… television …………?

B: …………… how many commercials there are.
2. A: …………… the theater …….?
B: …………… how far in advance you reserve seats.
3. A: …………… the food ………?
B: …………… how many pizza places there are.
4. A: ………….. the beer ……..?

174
 B: ………….. how could you drink it.
5. A: …………. the people ……..?
B: …………. how fast everyone talks.

4.
Example
A: The weather’s really different here.
B: Don’t worry. You will get used to it in no time.

1. A: The food isn’t very good here.

B: ……….. soon.
2. A: The people aren’t very friendly here.
B: ……….. in no time.
3. A: This is a terrible climate.
B: …………. before long.
4. A: I don’t like my new school.
B: ……….. a few weeks.
5. A: I don’t like the traffic.
B: ……….. in a few days.

175
 2. Situation: Special Greetings

1. A: Merry Christmas! 2. A: Happy New Year!

B: The same to you! B: Thank you! Same to you.
A: Are you doing anything special? A: Have you got any plans?
B: We’re having some friends over. B: I’ve been invited over to a
What are you doing? friend’s. And you?
A: Oh, I’m just going to take it A: My roommate’s having a party.
easy.

3. A: Have a nice Thanksgiving! 4. A: Have a nice weekend!

B: Same to you! B: Thanks. You too!
A: Are you going anywhere? A: Do you have any plans?
B: I thought about going to my B: Well, my family’s away and I
sister’s. How about you? can’t afford to do much. What
A: Oh, I’ll probably just stay at about you?
home. A: Oh, I haven’t decided what I’m
going to do yet.

to have (someone) over to invite someone to one’s house

to take it easy to relax
can’t afford don’t have enough money

Practice
Phrasal Verbs with take
Take to return ‘Could you take this
back (something) something book back to the library for
me?’
‘Could you take back this
book to the library for me?’

176
Take up to begin or start a ‘He took up jogging after
new hobby his doctor advised him to
get some exercise.’
‘He took jogging up after
his doctor told him to get
some exercise.’
Take out to remove ‘Take out the rubbish when
something to you leave.’
outside ‘Take the rubbish out when
you leave.’
Take in to understand or ‘Sarah couldn’t take in all
comprehend the information at the
something meeting.’
Take after to have a similar ‘In my family, I take
character or after my mother. We have
personality to a the same eyes and nose.’
family member

Take off (something) to remove ‘In Japan people take

something, off their shoes when they
usually an items enter a house.’
clothing or ‘In Japan people take their
accessories shoes off when they enter a
house.’
Take on to employ ‘The restaurant takes
someone or to be on extra staff in the
employed summer.’

177
 Check Your Understanding
1. Fill in the gaps using the right phrasal verb.

1. If we don't take this DVD to the store today, we

will have to pay a fine.

2. On my street, we our garbage on Thursday nights.

3. I was by the company after they saw I had good

experience.

4. In your family, who do you most ?

5. Jenny her make-up off before she went to bed.

6. Her father took golf after he retired.

7.Are you what I am saying?

2.
Example
I can’t afford to go anywhere for the holidays. I’m just going to
stay home.

1. ……………………….. for vacation, ………………………. .

2. ……………………….. to do much ………………………… .
3. …………………………………………………………….. here.
4. ………………………………… Christmas. …………………. .
5. …………………………….. to go away ………………….…. .

178
 3. Respond to A’s greetings.
Example

A: Happy New Year!

B: Thank you! The same to you!

1. A: Merry Christmas! 2. A: Happy Easter!

B: ……………………… B: ………………
3. A: Have a nice 4. A: Have a nice holiday!
Thanksgiving! B: …………………….
B: …………………………..

4. Respond to A’s statements using the passive.

Example

A: I’m going to Pat’s for the holiday.

B: I’ve been invited there too.

1. A: Pat’s going to Jim’s birthday party.

B: ……….. to his party too.
2. A: Louise invited me over for Christmas.
B: …………….. there for Christmas too.
3. A: Tim invited me to the country for the weekend.
B: …………….. to Tim’s too.
4. A: Chris and Mike have asked me to their anniversary party.
B: ……….……….. to their party too.
5. A: I’m going to her cocktail party.
B: …………… to her cocktail party too.

179
 3. Situation: Meeting Old Friends

1. A: I haven’t seen you for ages. 2. A: It’s nice to see you again.
You haven’t been sick, have you? Have you changed jobs?
B: No, I’ve been in California for B: No, I’ve been visiting relatives.
the past month. A: That’s nice. Where?
A: How nice. Where were you B: I went to visit an uncle of mine
exactly? in San Francisco.
B: San Diego. I got back yesterday.
3. A: You haven’t been around 4. A: Well, hello, stranger! Have
much lately, have you? you moved or something?
B: No, I’ve been away on vacation. B: No, I went to California for a
A: Oh? Where were you? few weeks.
B: Palm Springs. I’ve got a cousin A: Oh, really? Where did you go?
there. B: Los Angeles. I stayed with my
brother.

Practice
Relationship Idioms
Badblood Hatred or dislike among
individuals or groups of people
You can't please everyone Used for saying that whatever you
do, some people will not like it
Build bridges To increase understanding /
friendship between different people
or groups
Blood is thicker than water People who are related have
stronger obligations to each other
than to people outside the family
Have strong feelings To have strong emotions for
someone, often attraction

180
Fair-weather friend Someone who is your friend only
when things are pleasant or going
well for you
An item A term used for a couple who are
in a relationship

Blind date A blind date is when the two

people going out on the date are
meeting for the first time.

The honeymoon is over The early pleasant beginning (as at

the start of a marriage) has ended.

Check Your Understanding

1. Choose the right idiom for each gap.

1. Don't be upset if they don't understand you, Gemma ___.

An item

You can't please everyone

Blind date

Build bridges

The honeymoon is over

Bad blood

Have strong feelings

181
 Fair-weather friend

Blood is thicker than water

2. She's one of those people who is only around when

everything is fine. She's a ___.

You can't please everyone

Bad blood

Blood is thicker than water

Have strong feelings

Blind date

Fair-weather friend

An item

The honeymoon is over

Build bridges

3. Yes, James and I are ___ now. We've been dating for two
months.

Blind date

An item

Blood is thicker than water

The honeymoon is over

182
 Build bridges

Fair-weather friend

Have strong feelings

You can't please everyone

Bad blood

4. I'm going on a ___ I'm so nervous! What if I'm not attracted

to him?

Build bridges

Bad blood

An item

The honeymoon is over

Blood is thicker than water

Have strong feelings

You can't please everyone

Fair-weather friend

Blind date

5. Our relationship has gotten much harder since we had

children. I think ___.

183
 Blind date

Build bridges

Blood is thicker than water

Bad blood

Fair-weather friend

You can't please everyone

Have strong feelings

The honeymoon is over

An item

6. I know you're angry with your brother. But remember, ___.

The honeymoon is over

Have strong feelings

Blood is thicker than water

Build bridges

An item

You can't please everyone

Fair-weather friend

Bad blood

Blind date

184
 7. There's no ___ between us now. We hadn't spoken for weeks
but we made up last Monday.

Blood is thicker than water

An item

You can't please everyone

Blind date

Have strong feelings

Bad blood

The honeymoon is over

Fair-weather friend

Build bridges

8. I think we should try to ___ between Jess and Sophie, I'm

sick of them fighting.

Fair-weather friend

An item

You can't please everyone

Blind date

Build bridges

Bad blood

The honeymoon is over

185
 Blood is thicker than water

Have strong feelings

9. I ___ for him, but unfortunately I don't think he feels the

same way about me.

You can't please everyone

The honeymoon is over

Fair-weather friend

Bad blood

Blood is thicker than water

An item

Blind date

Build bridges

Have strong feelings

2.
Example
A: Where’s Frank?
B: I really couldn’t say. I haven’t seen him since Thursday.

1. A: ………… Carol and Mark?

B: ………….. the holidays.
2. A: ………. my glasses?
B: ………….. yesterday.
3. A: ………. your boss?

186
B: …………… noon.
4. A: ………… my umbrella?
B: …………… last week.
5. A: …………. the Fosters?
B: ………… November.

3.
Example
A: Where’s the landlady?
B: I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for quite a while.

1. A: ………….. Mike and Tim?

B: ………….. weeks.
2. A: …………… the landlord?
B: ……………. ages.
3. A: …………….. Mrs. Reeds?
B: ……………. some time.
4. A: ……………. your neighbours?
B: ………….. a few days.
5. A: ……………. the supervisor?
B: …………. quite a while.

4. Answer A’s questions using for or since.

Examples

1. A: Where’s Sue?
B: I really don’t know. I haven’t seen her since11:30.
2. A: Where’s Tom?
B: I really don’t know. I haven’t seen him for several hours.

187
1. A: ………………. his wife?
B: …………… six weeks.
2. A: …………… my book?
B: ……………… this morning.
3. A: …………….. Professor Watson?
B: …………… April.
4. A: ……………. the dictionary?
B: …………… over a week.
5. A: …………… the Costas?
B: ……………… Christmas.

188
 4.Situation: Saying Goodbye

1. A: I’ve come to say 2. A: I’d like to say goodbye

goodbye. to everyone.
B: When are you off? B: What time are you going?
A: I’m flying home on Sunday A: My plane leaves at 7:25.
afternoon. B: Well, goodbye and have a good
B: Well, goodbye. See you soon. trip!
A: Please don’t forget to say A: Goodbye. Remember to look
goodbye to the rest of the family me up if you are ever in
for me. Washington.

3. A: I’m calling to say 4. A: I just dropped in to say

goodbye. goodbye.
B: When do you leave? B: What time are you leaving?
A: I’m catching the 11:00 train. A: I’m going to try to leave by
B: Take care of yourself and don’t 10:00.
forget to keep in touch. B: Take care and give my best to
A: Goodbye. Thanks again for your parents.
everything. A: Goodbye. Hope to see you
again next year.

to be off to leave
to look someone up to call
to keep in touch to call or write sometimes
to drop in to visit someone

189
 Practice

Phrasal Verbs with look

Look after (someone or (1) to take care of;

something) (2) to make sure that someone is safe and well

Look ahead to think about and plan the future

to turn your eyes away from someone or

Look away
something that you were looking at
to think about something that happened in the
Look back
past

Look down on to think something or someone is inferior

Look for (someone or (1) to search for something or someone;

something) (2) to investigate or examine
to feel excited and happy about something that
Look forward to
is going to happen
(1) to find out more about something in order
Look into(something) to improve the situation;
(2) to investigate or examine
(1) to be careful;
Look out
(2) to avoid imminent danger

Look through to examine something, usually quickly

to search for information (usually in a

Look up
book)

Look up to to respect or admire someone

Check Your Understanding

190
 1. Fill in the gaps using the right phrasal verb.
1. Tonight I will have to …………. her child.
2. At the very moment she looked away, the door opened and
James appeared ……… his dog.
3. Jane ………… the word in the dictionary whenever she is not
sure of the spelling or meaning of a word.
4. I have some good news for Anna. I am ……………. to telling
her.
5. Can you ………. my homework and tell me if I have any
mistakes?
6. …………….! The benches have just been painted. You might
stain your clothes.
7. I will ……….. at my schedule and tell you whether I could take
such a journey.
8. She is such a haughty woman! She……….. on all the people in
this building.
9. If you ………… over the last few years, you will find that this
work has been worthwhile.
10. He was ………… to this smart little curly-headed girl when the
dog started barking.
11. I was ………… the faces in the crowded room, for the boy with
the dark brown eyes.

2.
Example
Don’t forget to call us if you are in Tokyo.

1. ………………………. give us a call ……….. .

2. ……………………………….. in town.
3. ………………….. come and see us ………. .
4. ………………. look us up ……………… .

191
 5. Be sure ………………. .

3.
Example
A: Goodbye and thanks again for all you’ve done!
B: It was a pleasure. Hope to see you again next year.

1. A: ……………….. a wonderful time.

B: ………………. in the spring.
2. A: ………………… everything.
B: …………………. someday.
3. A: …………….. all your help.
B: ………………. next time you are here.
4. A: ………………. showing me around.
B: ……………….. next summer.
5. A: ………………. a wonderful visit.
B: ……………. very soon.

4.
Example
A: When are you leaving?
B: My flight leaves at 5:30 tomorrow.
A: I hope you have a really good time.

1. A: …………….? 2. A: …………….?
B: …. bus leaves at 9:00 …. B: …. ship sails at 5:30 …
A: …………….. trip. A: …………… time.
3. A: 4. A: …………….?
……………? B: … train leaves at 11:35…
B: … plane takes off at 9:40… A: ………. vacation.
A: ………… flight.
5. Situation: Saying Thank You

192
1. A: I’d better be going. 2. A: I really must be going
B: So soon? Why don’t you stay a now.
little longer? B: But you just got there. Can’t
A: I wish I could, But it’s already you stay a little longer?
late. A: That’s very nice of you, but I
B: Oh, it’s a shame that you have really can’t.
to leave. B: Well, it’s too bad that you have
A: thank you for a wonderful to go.
meal. A: Thanks very much. It was a
B: I’m glad you enjoyed it. great party!
B: it was our pleasure.
3. A: I think it’s about time 4. A: I really should be on
we got going. my way.
B: What? Already? Won’t you B: Oh, not yet! At least have one
have more coffee? for the road.
A: I’d love to, but I have to get up A: No, thanks.
early tomorrow. B: Well, I’m sorry you have to
B: Oh! I’m sorry! I wish you could leave so early.
stay. A: Thank you very much. We
A: Thank you for a very enjoyable really had a good time.
evening. B: Well, thank you for coming.
B: Don’t mention it. I hope you
can come again soon.

be on your way To have started your journey to a

particular place.
e. g. Ben will be on his way to
Denmark tonight.
I should be on my way now (=I should
leave).
one for the road one more drink

193
 e.g. Let’s have one for the road.
all/just the same despite what has been mentioned
e.g. I’m sure he’s safe, but all the same,
I wish he’d come home.

I didn’t expect to find anything, but

I decided to look around just the same.

Practice

Way Idioms
look the other to deliberately ignore so You can’t just look the
way mething bad that other way if you know that
is happening he’s stealing things.
be in a bad to be very ill, injured, Frank was in a bad way
way or upset for weeks after
the accident.
in harm’s way in a dangerous situation U.S. troops are doing a ter
rific job, but they are
in harm’s way.
have it both Towant tohave You can’t have it both
ways thebenefitfrom ways, Paul. What’s
twopossibilitieswhen more important,
you canonlychoose one your familyor your job?
make your to start to make progres Edward
way s in a career or activity was just beginning to make
his way in life.

194
 Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps using the right idiom.

1. You will just have to make a decision. You can’t ………….

2. The army commander was very concerned about his troops and
would never allow them to be ……….
3. She knows that he is lying all the time, but she prefers to
………
4. Fortunately, he has recovered after that terrible accident. He was
in a ……… when I saw him in hospital.
5. She left school and immediately started to make her …………
without help from her family.

2.
Example

If you will excuse me, I really should be on my way.

1. …………… leaving.
2. ……………. have to ……….
3. ……………. must …………
4. ………………………… off.
5. ……………….. ought to…….

195
3.
Example
A: I’d better be going.
B: Why don’t you stay a little longer?

1. A: ……… going. 2. A: ……….. going.

B: …… have some more B: ……… have one for the
coffee before you go? road?
3. A: …………. on my 4. A: ……….. on my
way. way.
B: ………. have another piece B: ……….. come back again
of cake before you leave? soon?

196
6. Situation: Asking People To Repeat

1. A: I’m sorry, but I 2. A: I beg your pardon?

didn’t catch what you said. B: I said, “do you need any
B: I said, “do you want me to help?”
help you?” A: That’s very nice of you. I
A: If you are sure you are not in guess I could use some help.
a hurry, I can use a little help. B: Just tell me what you’d like
B: Would you like me to get you me to do.
a cab?
3. A: What was that? 4. A: Excuse me? I didn’t
B: I said. “is there anything I hear what you said.
can do?” B: I asked you if you wanted
A: If it’s not too much trouble, I some help.
would like some help. A: If you wouldn’t mind, I could
B: It’s no trouble at all. I’ll carry use a hand.
this suitcase for you. B: I’ll get this bag for you.

to catch to understand
Cab Taxi
a hand some help
to give someone a ride to take someone to a place
to drop someone off by car or some other vehicle

Practice

Catch Idioms
catch (someone) to witness someone The police
red-handed doing something they caught the
shouldn’t be. burglar red-
handed.

197
catch your to take a short rest after Let’s rest for a
breath doing something minute. I need
physically difficult. to catch my
breath after
that run.
catch to attract attention That article
(someone’s) eye caught my eye
because it had
such an
interesting title.
catch (someone) to do so something That difficult
off-guard people aren’t question really
expecting;surprised by caught me off-
something unexpected guard.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps using the right idiom.
1. He was caught ……. with the money in his bag.
2. There was one painting that …… my …….
3. The questions caught her completely ……..
4. I had to stop about halfway up the hill and ……..

2.
Example
I’m sorry, but I didn’t understand what you just said.

1. ……….. catch …………

2. Excuse me, ………………
3. ……………….. hear …………….
4. I’m afraid …………………
5. ……………… get …………

198
3.
Example
A: Excuse me, but is there anything I can do?
B: Yes. If you wouldn’t mind, could you carry this suitcase for me?

1. A: ……….. any way I can help?

B: ………. lend me a hand?
2. A: ………. something I can do?
B: ………… give me a ride home?
3. A: ………. anything you want me to do?
B: ……… show me where the post office is?
4. A: ………… something you would like me to do?
B: ………… get that bag for me?
5. A: ……… some way I can help you?
B: …….. drop me off at the store?

199
 7. Situation: Giving Compliments

1. A: What a beautiful 2. A: I like your new coat.

sweater! B: Do you think it fits ok?
B: Do you think it looks good on A: Yes, it looks terrific!
me? B: I bought it at half price.
A: Yes, and it goes beautifully A: You were lucky to find it.
with your pants.
B: You won’t believe it, but it was
really cheap.
A: I wish I could find one just like
it.
3. A: That’s a very nice 4. A: I love that shirt.
jacket. B: Do you really like it?
B: Does it really look ok? A: Yes, it fits perfectly.
A: Yes, and I like the colour too. It B: It wasn’t very expensive either.
matches your hat. A: That’s amazing! It suere looks
B: And I got it on sale. expensive.
A: That’s incredible.

Terrific very good

Match a thing
thatformsanattractivecombinationwith
something else
Thecurtainsare agoodmatch for thesofa.
Fit if clothes fit, they are theright size for you
I like the suit, but the jacket doesn’t fit me.
Suit if a style or something that
youwearsuits you, it makes you look good
Dark colours suit her best.
The new hairstyle really suits her.

200
201
 Practice

Appearance Idioms
dressed to kill wear fashionable and She arrived at the
expensive clothes to reception dressed to
attract attention kill
look/feel like a look extremely good With a tan and a new
million dollars hairstyle she looked
like a million dollars.
pretty as a picture very beautiful The young bride
looked as pretty as a
picture in her white
dress.
(all) skin and To be very thin in a After all this hard
bone(s) way that is not healthy work, he was all skin
or attractive and bone.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps using the right idiom.

1. A lot of these fashion models are all ……..

2. She was wearing an elegant suit that made her look like a
………….
3. She came in, dressed ……… in scarlet.
4. Your new hairstyle is perfect! You look as ……….. as
…………

202
2.
Example
Your blouse goes beautifully with that skirt.

1. …. shoes …… perfectly ……….. your dress.

2. ……. belt ……. just right ……. those pants.
3. ………. scarf ………. so well ………. that blouse.
4. ………. tie ………. very well ………. your shirt.

3.
Example
A: Don’t you think it’s a good combination?
B: Yes, it’s a very good combination.

1. A: ……….. a reasonable price?

B: …………………………….!
2. A: ……………… a nice colour?
B: …………………………….!
3. A: ………………….. an elegant coat?
B: …………………………!
4. A: ……………. a good price?
B: ………………………….!
5. A: ………………… an interesting design?
B: ……………………………….!

203
 8. Situation: Apologizing
1. A: I’m afraid I spilled coffee on 2. A: I’m really sorry, but I seem
the tablecloth. to have misplaced your scarf.
B: Oh, don’t worry about it. B: Oh, that’s all right.
A: I want to apologize. Is there A: I’m very sorry. Can I get you
anything I can do? another one?
B: Just forget about it. I never did B: No. Forget about it. It’s not
like it anyway. important.
3. A: I’m sorry, but I can’t find 4. A: I feel terrible. I’ve just
the book you lent me. broken your ashtray.
B: That’s ok. B: It’s nothing to get upset about.
A: I really feel bad about it. Let A: I don’t know what to say. I’d
me buy you a new one. like to replace it.
B: No, don’t be silly. I wouldn’t B: No, it’s out of the question.
dream of letting you do that.

Wouldn’t dream of doing used for emphasizing that you

something would definitely not do something
e.g. I wouldn’t dream of telling you how
to do your job.
Out of the question used for saying that something
is definitely not a possibility
Taking a holiday then is out of
the question.

Practice
Idioms - Mistakes
bark up the doing something that will The police are
wrong tree not get the result you want barking up the wrong
tree if they think that
Ray stole the car, he
can’t drive!

204
back the wrong to support someone or When I voted for him
horse something thatfails I was convinced he
would win, but I
backed the wrong
horse!
see the error of to understand that what He talked to a lawyer
your ways you are doing is wrong who tried to make
and accept to change your him see the error of
behavior his ways.
eat your words admit that you are wrong He said I would
never get the job, but
he had to eat his
words when I was
appointed.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps using the right idiom.

1. After talking with his friend he realized he was wrong and saw
the …… of his …..
2. He had to ……. when the lawyer found the evidence proving
that he was lying.
3. If you think she’s going to help you, you’re …… up the …….
4. Despite their best efforts, companies sometimes end up backing
the ……..

2.
Example
I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve broken something.

1. ….. very ……………….. ruined your shirt.

2. ……… extremely …………….. lost your pen.

205
 3. ……. awfully ……………….. broken a glass.
4. …….. really ………………. misplaced your umbrella.
5. ………. terribly ………………. spilled the wine.

3.
Example
A: Let me buy you another one.
B: No, I wouldn’t dream of letting you buy me another one.

1. A: Let me get you another one.

B: …………………………….
2. A: Let him pay for it.
B: …………………..
3. A: Let me repair it.
B: ………………….
4. A: Let her replace it.
B: …………………..
5. A: Let him buy you a new one.
B: ……………………………

4.
Example
A: I broke your ashtray.
B: Don’t worry about it. I never did like that ashtray anyway.

1. A: I lost the book you 2. A: I misplaced your blue

lent me. scarf.
B: ………………………….. B: ……………………………
3. A: I spilled coffee on 4. A: I lost the sweater you
your tablecloth. lent me.
B: B:
……………………………. ………………………………

206
 9. Situation: The Weather
1. A: Beautiful day, isn’t it? 2.A: It seems to be clearing
B: Yes, it’s not like what the up.
radio said at all. B: It’s such a nice change.
A: I wish it would stay this A: I really don’t think this
way for the weekend. weather will last.
B: As long as it doesn’t B: Let’s just hope it doesn’t
snow! get cold again.
3.A: It looks like it’s going 4.A: I think it’s going to be a
to be sunny. nice day.
B: Yes, it’s much better than B: It’s certainly a big
yesterday. improvement over yesterday.
A: They say we are going to A: But it’s supposed to get
get some rain later. cloudy and windy again this
B: Oh, let’s just hope it stays afternoon.
warm. B: Well, the worst of the
winter should be over.

as long as used before saying the conditions that

will make something else happen or be true
e.g. My parents don’t care what job I
do as long as I’m happy.
pick up if something such as the wind picks up,
it becomes stronger

Practice
Weather Idioms
As right as rain Feeling fine and healthy
Take a rain check Ask to rearrange a meeting
Come rain or shine no matter what the weather/situation

207
On cloud nine extremely happy
Rain on my parade if someone rains on your parade,
they ruin your pleasure or plans.
Throw caution to the wind forget all your commitments and do
something crazy
Steal my thunder if someone steals your thunder, they
take the attention away from you.

Check Your Understanding

Choose the correct idiom for each sentence:
1. I don't feel sick anymore, I feel ___!

Like taking a rain check

As right as rain

2. I'm really sorry, I don't think I can make it to the cinema

tonight. Can we ___?

throw caution to the wind

take a rain check

3. I always walk to work, ___ It's good exercise.

on cloud nine

come rain or shine

4. I don't want to work tomorrow. Let's ___ and fly to Mexico!

208
 rain on my parade

throw caution to the wind

5. Ever since I won the lottery, I feel like I'm ___!

taking a rain check

on cloud nine
6. I can't believe you told our parents you're pregnant the day I
told them I'm getting married, you're always ___.

stealing my thunder

throwing caution to the wind

7. I was excited about the weekend but then, of course, my boss
came along and ___.

rained on my parade

felt as right as rain

1.
Example
A: Cold this morning, isn’t it?
B: Yes, and it’s supposed to get even colder.

1. A: Hot ………..? 2. A: Warm ………….?

B: …………….. B: …………………..
3. A: Cool ……………..? 4. A: Windy ……………..?
B: …………………… B: ………………………

209
 2.
Example
A: They say we are going to get some snow.
B: As long as it doesn’t rain.

1. A: ………. some fog. 2. A: …………. some

B: …………. freeze. showers.
B: …………. get windy!
3. A: …………. high winds. 4. A: ………… heavy rain.
B: …………. get cold. B: ………… spoil the weekend.

3.
Example
A: I think the wind’s picking up.
B: Yes, they said it would pick up later on.

1. A: …………. it’s getting 2. A: …………….. it’s

colder. clouding up.
B: …………………………… B: …………………………….
3. A: ……… it’s snowing 4. ………….. it’s getting
harder. warmer.
B: …………………………. B: ……………………………..

210
 10. Situation: Making a Telephone Call
1. A: Hello. Can I speak to John, 2.A: Hello, is Mary Ward there,
Please? please?
B: Hold on, please. B: I’ll see if she’s in.
A: Thank you. A: Ok.
B: Sorry, but she’s out. B: I’m afraid she’s not there.
A: Would you tell him Tom Gray A: Could you give her a massage,
called? please?
B: I’ll be glad to. B: Yes, of course.
3.A: Hello, is Mrs. James in, 4.A: Hello. Could I please speak to
please? Miss Davis?
B: Hang on, please. B: Just a minute, please.
A: All right. A: Thanks.
B: I’m sorry, but I think she’s B: She’s not at her desk right now.
stepped out. A: Could you tell her to give Doug
A: Would you ask her to call Larry a call when she gets back? She has
Brown at 836-2550? my number.
B: Certainly. B: Sure.

hold on Wait
in at home, or at your officee.g.
I asked to speak to the manager but
he wasn’t in.

Practice
Phrasal Verbs with Call
Call someone back: Return a phonecall “Matthew phoned
to someone who and asked me on a
tried to phone you date, but I don’t
want to go so I
won’t call him
back.”

211
Call something off: Cancel Example: “Only one
person chose the
course, so the
professor had to call
it off.”
Call on someone to visit someone “Hi Margaret, we
(usually in their called on you last
home) night but you
weren’t home.”

Call someone up: to phone someone “I can’t wait to call

her up and tell her
that I’m going to
visit her in July!”

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps with the right phrasal verb.

1. I called him at his mother's house but he had

already gone out.
2. Tracey was too busy to host the party last night so she called

it and we went to the pub instead.

3. They called me to tell me that I got the job, and I

almost cried!

4. You never called me so I got upset!

212
 2.
Example
Can I speak to Dick, please?
I’m afraid he won’t be here until 1:00.

1. A: ….. talk to Dr. Howard, 2.A: ……. to the doctor, …….?

….? B: ………. back …………. 3:00.
2. ……. in …… later.
3. A: ………. speak to the 4. A: …… with Officer
head nurse, ……? Evans, ……?
B: ……. available …… this B: …… on duty ….. this evening.
afternoon.

3.
Example
A: Hello, is Alice there, please?
B: Sorry, she is out. Shall I ask her to call you when she gets back?

1. A: ……….. Mr. Taylor ……? 2. A: ……….. Henry ………..?

B: ………………………? B: ……………….?
3. A: ……… the accountant ….? 4. A: ……….. Mrs. Thompson
B: …………………..? ….?
B: …………………….?

213
 11. Situation: Asking For Directions
1. A: Excuse me, can you tell me 2.A: Excuse me. Could you please
where Main Street is? tell me how to get to the station?
B: Turn left at the second light and B: Turn left at the first light. you
then go straight for two blocks. can’t miss it.
A: Is it far? A: Will it make me long to get
B: No, it’s only a five-minute there?
walk. B: No, it’s not far at all.
A: Thanks a lot. A: Thank you.
B: You’re welcome. B: Don’t mention it.
3.A: Can you help me out? I’m 4.A: Pardon me. I wonder if you
trying to find a post office. could tell me how to get to the
B: Go three blocks and make a Mott Street?
right. It’s right there. B: Keep going straight for two
A: Should I take the bus? blocks, then turn right on Elm
B: No. It’ll only take about five Street and you will run right into
minutes to walk. it.
A: Thank you very much. A: Is it too far to walk?
B: Any time. B: No, it’s only a little ways.
A: Thanks.
B: Sure. Have a good day.

Light traffic light

long lasting for a large amount of time
There was a long pause before he spoke.
take to need a particular amount of time
to happen or to do something
Our meeting took much longer than
I expected.

214
 Practice
Phrasal Verbs with Run
'to run across to meet somebodyor I ran across an old
someone/something' find something by friend in town
accident today. I hadn't seen
him for ages.
'to run around' to be very busy I'm always running
doing lots of things around trying to get
everything done on
time.
'to run someone down' to hit a person when I was crossing the
driving your car road when a car
nearly ran me down.
'to run into' problems to meet or encounter The company has
difficulties run into difficulties
since the
introduction of the
euro.
'to run into' something when you're driving I didn't brake
means to hit quickly enough and
something ran into the car in
front.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps with the right phrasal verb.

1. Our project ……. difficulties when we lost a sponsor.

2. I ………. the letter while I was tidying the drawers.
3. I’ve been ………..all day.
4. The car …… her …… outside school.
5. A truck …………. me at the lights this morning.

215
 2. Change A’s questions to a more polite form using Can you tell
me
Example
A: Where’s the station?
B: Can you tell me where the station is, please?

1. A: How far is it to Portland?

B: …………………………?
2. A: Where’s the shopping centre?
B: ………………………………?
3. A: Which way is it to the cinema?
B: ……………………………….?
4. A: How many miles is it to the next gas station?
B: ……………………………………..?
5. A: Which way is it to the beach?
B: ……………………………..?

3.
Example
A: He’ll get there in ten hours.
B: It’ll take him ten hours to get there.

1. A: We’ll fly there in 50 minutes.

B: ………………………………
2. A: They’ll walk there in half an hour.
B: …………………………………..
3. A: I’ll make it in 20 minutes.
B: ………………………………
4. A: She’ll do it in 24 hours.
B: ………………………………
5. A: You’ll get there in less than twenty minutes.
B: ……………………………………

216
 12. Situation: On A Bus

1. A: Does this bus go to the 2. A: Is this the bus for Park

train station? Ridge?
B: No. You’ll have to get off at the B: No. It only goes as far as Main
bank and take the A52. Street, but you can get the number
A: How long is the ride? 31 there.
B: About ten minutes. A: How long does it take to get
there?
B: It only takes a few minutes.
3. A: Does this bus go to the 4. A: Is this the right bus for
beach? Pacific Boulevard?
B: No. You are going the wrong B: No. You should have taken the
way. You want the number 11. It Yellow Line bus. You can get one
stops in front of the post office. at the next stop.
A: About how long does it take? A: Is it a long ride?
B: Only fifteen minutes. B: Not that long.

Practice
Phrasal Verbs with Go
go off to make a loud noise My alarm clock went
or to explode off at 7:00 a.m.

go over to review You should go over your

homework before you
give it to the teacher.
Make sure there are no
mistakes.
go on to happen What is going on in
China right now?

217
go with to match, to be similar My shirt and pants are
to both blue. They go with
each other.

go out (1) to stop working The electricity went out

(machines or last night. I couldn't see
electrical things) anything.

go out (2) to be a part of a Every weekend I go

social activity out with my friends.

go along with to agree with or Tommy usually goes

follow along with what I say.
He trusts me.

go by to pass Three hours went

by. Or I will go by that
old house.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps with the right phrasal verb.

1. Lots of activities ……….. in the city at night.

2. If you want to get to the supermarket, ……………….the old
school and turn right.
3. Marty is a very good boy. He doesn't ……………. the bad kids
at school. He doesn't like what they do.
4. The bomb will …………… if you push the button.
5. One sock is red and the other is blue. They don't ………. each
other.
6. John likes to …………… with his girlfriend on Saturday nights.

218
 7. Before we make a presentation, we need to ………….. this
business plan to make sure everything is okay.
8. I hope my hair dryer doesn't …………. . It sounds bad but I
really need to use it.

2. Respond to A’s statements using shouldn’t have + past

participle.
Example
A: I took the 61.
B: You shouldn’t have taken the 61. You misunderstood me.

1. A: I got off at the park.

B: ……………………………………………..
2. A: I caught the Turnpike Express.
B: …………………………………………….
3. A: I took the Park Ridge bus.
B: …………………………………………….
4. A: I went on the Red Line.
B: …………………………………………….
5. A: I bought a round-trip ticket.
B: …………………………………………….

219
 13. Situation: At A Drugstore

1. A: I’d like to have this 2.A: Could you fill this

prescription filled. prescription for me, please?
B: It’ll only take a few minutes if B: I’ll take care of it right away.
you want to wait. A: by the way, what do you
A: Have you got something for suggest for insect bites?
chapped lips? B: This ointment should help.
B: Rub this cream on every four
hours.

3. A: I need to have this 4. A: Can I leave this prescription

prescription filled. with you?
B: You can pick it up in about an B: I’ll have it ready for you by
hour. 5:30.
A: Can you give me something for A: And I’d like something for a
a rash? sunburn.
B: Try this lotion. It’s supposed to B: You might try this. It’s a new
be very good. product.

Toiletries soap, perfume, deodorant, etc.

Chapped dry from wind or sun
Rash skin irritation

Practice
Doctor Idioms
go under the knife to be operated on in His wife went under
surgery the knife at the hospital
last evening.

220
under the weather not feeling well My boss has been
feeling under the
weather all week and
has not come to work
during that time.
pull through recover from a serious The car accident was
illness very bad and I don't
think that the driver
will pull through.
feel on top of the feel very healthy I have been feeling on
world top of the world since I
quit my job
head shrinker a psychiatrist The man was told to go
and see a head
shrinker after he
threatened the woman
in the store several
times.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps with the right idiom.
2. 1. The man was forced to go to a ………….. after he killed the
two women.
2. 'I have a very bad disease. Tomorrow is an important day: I will
…………….tomorrow.'
3. Although the man was very sick I think that he will
…………………………. .
4. 'No problem. No disease. Everything's fine! I ………………..!'
5. 'My mother is worrying me: her health is very bad. She has been
feeling ……………………… all week.

221
2.
Example
A: Here’s some medicine for you to take.
B: How often am I supposed to take it?

1. A: ……….. ointment ………… use.

B: ……………………………………
2. A: ……………. Lotion ……….put on.
B: ……………………………………..
3. A: …………… tablets …………..take.
B: ……………………………………..
4. A: ………… cream ………… use.
B: …………………………………
5. A: ……………. pills ……… take.
B: …………………………………

3.
Example
A: what do you suggest for insect bites?
B: Try this cream. I think it’ll help.

1. A: …………. indigestion?
B: ……….. these tablets. ………..
2. A: ………… insomnia?
B: ……….. these pills. …………….
3. A: …………… a sore throat?
B: …………. These lozenges. ………..
4. A: …………. An upset stomach?
B: …… this new formula. ……….
5. A: ………… dandruff?
B: ……… this shampoo. ………..

222
 14. Situation: At The Dentist’s Office
1. A: How long have you felt like 2.A: When did your toothache
this? start?
B: It started bothering me B: It’s been this way for a few
yesterday afternoon. days.
A: I think I’d better take an X-ray. A: Let me take a look at it.
B: Can you see anything? B: What do you think?
A: It’s a small cavity. It should be A: You’ve got an abscess. I don’t
easy to fill. think we can save the tooth.
3.A: How long has it hurt? 4. A: How long have you
B: The pain started last night. been in pain?
A: Well, let’s have a look. B: It started to hurt when I was
B: What are you going to do? eating dinner.
A: Your gums seem to be A: Open your mouth as wide as
inflamed. You’ll need treatment. you can, please.
B: How bad is it?
A: It’s quite serious. I’m afraid
we’ll have to pull the tooth.

Practice
Teeth Idioms
Lie through your to lie openly, knowing I saw him breaking
teeth that what you are the window, if he
saying is completely denies it, he is lying
false through his teeth.
Like pulling teeth extremely difficult to Getting him to talk
obtain about his job was like
pulling teeth.
Sweet tooth someone who enjoys She will be delighted
eating sweets if you bring her
chocolate – she’s got a
sweet tooth.

223
Teething problems if you experience a The new idea will
bad thing at the remove many teething
beginning of a project, problems.
you have a teething
problem

Long in the tooth to be old The dog was feeling a

little long in the tooth
and it couldn't even
stand up.

Armed to the teeth to possess many The terrorists were

weapons armed to the teeth
when they attacked to
the land
As scarce as hen's extremely rare Computers were as
teeth scarce as hen's teeth in
1990s.

Check Your Understanding

1. Fill in the gaps with the right idiom.
1. That actor is getting a little ………………
to play the romantic lead.
2. John eats candy all the time. He must have a ………..
3. Support for the president is as ………. as ………. in this part of
the country.
4. They say they’re not married but they’re …………………...
5. Starting our own business had many ………….. , but now
everything is ok.

224
2.
Example
A: When did your toothache start?
B: It began when I was eating dinner last night.

1. A: …….. the trouble ……?

B: ………. Having lunch yesterday.
2. A: ………. the pain ………?
B: ……….. working in the garden on Saturday.
3. A: …………….. the problem ……..?
B: ……….. going to work this morning.
4. A: ………… the discomfort …………?
B: ………….. watching TV last night.
5. A: ……… the soreness …………?
B: ………….. on my way home yesterday.

3.
Example
A: How bad is it?
B: It’s not too bad, you’d better stop eating so much candy.

1. A: How bad is it?

B: …………. stop chewing gum.
2. A: How bad are they?
B: ……….. come for a check-up more often.
3. A: Is it bad?
B: ………. brush more regularly.
4. A: How bad is it?
B: ………. watch what you eat.
5. A: ………. are they bad?
B: ……….. start taking better care of your teeth.

225
 15. Situation: At A Bank

1. A: I’d like to change these 2. A: Would you cash these

pesos, please. travelers’ checks, please?
B: How do you want them? B: How would you like them?
A: it doesn’t make any difference. A: In ten-dollar bills, please.
B: Do you want anything else? B: Is there anything else?
A: Yes, I’d like to open an A: Yes, I’d like to know how to
account. send money to France.

3. A: Could I change these 4. A: Could you change

pounds to dollars, please? these for me, please?
B: Do you want small bills or B: What would you like?
large? A: Twenties and some smaller
A: It doesn’t matter. bills, please.
B: Do you want anything else? B: Anything else?
A: Yes, I’d like to know the A: Yes, could you tell me my
exchange rate for yen. balance? Here’s my account
number.

a penny = 1 cent a one = a dollar bill

a nickel = 5 cents a five = a five-dollar bill
a dime = 10 cents a ten = a ten-dollar bill
a quarter = 25 cents a fifty = a fifty-dollar bill
a half dollar = 50 cents a hundred = a hundred-dollar
bill

226
 Practice
Money Idioms
Saving for a rainy This means keeping Every month, I transfer
day money for the future, part of my salary into a
or saving for an savings account. I think
emergency. it’s important to save for
a rainy day.
A fool and his Some people are A: I can’t believe Dave
money are soon clever with their spent all his money on a
parted money, others aren’t. new car!
This proverb reminds B: Well, a fool and his
us that foolish people money are soon parted!
do not know how to
hold on to their
money!
Money doesn’t Parents frequently tell Child: Mom, can you buy
grow on trees their children this if me this new toy?
they constantly want Mother: No, it’s too
to buy things! This expensive. Money
expression means that doesn’t grow on trees!
money is not easy to
earn.
Money talks This is a modern A: I can’t believe they
expression which got this work done so
means that money is quickly. Did you pay
powerful, or that them extra to make them
money makes things work harder?
happen. B: Yes. Money talks, you
know?

227
 Check Your Understanding
1. Fill in the gaps with the right idiom.

1. He opened a bank account and saves part of his salary, just for a
…………
2. Money …….. in today’s harsh economic climate.
3. He has to work hard to make ends meet. He knows that money
doesn’t ………….. .
4. He spent all his money in a casino and he is in debts now. It’s
true what they say, a fool ……….. .

2.
Example
A: What do you need for your trip to the United States?
B: Can you give me 190 pounds in dollars?

1. A: ………… Mexico City?

B: ……… $500 ………… pesos?
2. A: ………… Montreal?
B: ………… $250 …………. Canadian dollars?
3. A: ……………… Tokyo?
B: …………. $300 ………….. Japanese currency?
4. A: …………… New York?
B: ………………. $400 …………. U.S. dollars?
5. A: …………. Puerto Rico?
B: ………… $200 ………… U.S. dollars?

228
 Key
Part two
1. Friends and relationships
1. 1.Colleague 2. Team-mate 3. Stranger 4. Acquaintance 5. Boss
6. Best friend 7. Ex-girlfriend 8. Old friend
2. 1. keepin touch 2. Same sense ofhumour 3.A lot in common with
her 4. Lose touch with 5. I got to know him 6. Enjoyed his company 7.
Want to fall out over money 8. They got on so well
3.1b 2j 3d 4a 5e 6f 7c 8k 9g 10I 11h
4.1 met 2 hit it off 3 had a lot in common 4 got to know each other
5 lost touch/lost contact 6 got back in touch/contact 7 get on well 8 fall
out 9 keep in touch/keep in contact 10 meet up 11 catching up

2. Jobs and occupations

1.
M U S I C I A N F A R M E R
U A
V F R D E N T I S T
E I S L
W A I T E R M E C H A N I C S
E I H R A O
F N E T R L
P O L I C E O F F I C E R D
G R S I I
J P H A T H L E T E
A R T S R R
N O E A C T O R R
S I N G E R R E
T R D O C T O R P
O A N P I L O T
R M A R
M U T
S C I E N T I S T T E A C H E R
R R

229
 The working quiz
1. journalist 2. b 3. surgeon 4. b 5. c 6. job satisfaction 7.
deadlines 8. b 9. a 10. initiative 11. a people person 12. a “can do”
attitude

4.
1. postpone 2. Too inconvenient 3. Establish 4. Satisfactory 5.
Dear Sir 6. Very grateful

6. Business life
2.1. F; 2.G; 3.B; 4.D; 5.C; 6.A; 7.H; 8. E
3.1. T; 2.F; 3.F; 4.T; 5.T; 6.F; 7.T; 8. T
6. 1. T 2. F 3. F 4. T 5. T 6. T 7. T 8. T 9 F

7.Words together
1. fast asleep; fully alert/awake/conscious; semi-alert/conscious;
sound asleep; wide awake
2. a. love b. break
3. language functions

A. If I were you, I’d study more; How about studying more?; Why
not study more?; Study more; Perhaps, you should study more, etc.

B. Would you like to come to dinner?;D’you fancy coming for

dinner?; I was wondering if you might be interested in coming for
dinner?; How about coming for dinner?; Dinner at my place?, etc.

C. Can I help you?; Would you like some help?; I’ll help you; Let
me help you, etc.

D. In my opinion…; The way I see it…; It’s a fact that….; You’ve got
to admit that….; As far as I can see….; etc.

230
 4.
1. I don’t think we’ll catch up with them because they’re too far
ahead.
2. You won’t get away with cheating in the exams!
3. I couldn’t keep up with him because he was running too fast.
4. She put in for that new job in marketing.
5. I need to come up with some original ideas for this project.
6. He knows he needs to cut down on fatty foods.
7. I’ve always looked up to my grandmother.
8. Are you looking forward to the awards ceremony tomorrow?
9. She’s not going to put up with his behavior in class for much
longer.
10. I’ll take you out to dinner to make up for last night.

8. Halloween
1.
1. d 2. f 3. A 4. H 5. B 6. G 7. J 8. I 9. E 10. C
2.
1. Carved 2. Characters 3. Ghosts 4. Scary 5. Holy 6. Costumes 7.
Tricks 8. Collect 9. Evil 10. Treats
3.1. costume 2. ghost 3. trick 4. carve 5.characters 6. Evil 7.
Holy 8. Collection 9. Scary 10. Treat
9. Media opinions
3.1. An editor; 2.A journalist; 3.The Sunday papers; 4.The review
section; 5.The financial section; 6.The headlines; 7.Online news;
8.Contestant; 9.A soap; 10. The audience; 11.A documentary; 12.An
actress; 13.The daily papers; 14.A cameraman; 15. A producer

5.
11.Change thought to think; 2. Change I’m not sure on that to I’m
not sure about that; 3. Change It depend on to It depends on; 4.

231
changeWhat you think? toWhat do you think? 5. Change on my opinion
to in my opinion; 6. Change what’s your opinion in…? towhat’s your
opinion on…? 7. Change it depends under… to it depends on… 8.
Change definately! todefinitely! 9. Change documentry to documentary

14. The movies and you

1.
1. Soap opera
2. Spine chiller
3. Spectacular
4. Animated film
5. Cliff-hanger

2.
1. Ingénue
2. Stunt man
3. Extra
4. Stand-in

3.
1. Set
2. Props
3. Ad lib
4. Cue
5. Upstage

4.
1. Long shot
2. Panning
3. Close-up
4. Fade out
5. Dissolve

232
 5.
1. SRO (standing room only)
2. rave
3. dub in
4. Angel
5. straw-hat circuit

Part Three
4. Saying Goodbye
ex. 1.
1. Tonight I will have to look after her child.
2. At the very moment she looked away, the door opened and
James appeared looking for his dog.
3. Jane looks up the word in the dictionary whenever she is not
sure of the spelling or meaning of a word.
4. I have some good news for Anna. I am looking forward to
telling her.
5. Can you look at my homework and tell me if I have any
mistakes?
6. Look out! The benches have just been painted. You might stain
your clothes.
7. I will look ahead at my schedule and tell you whether I could
take such a journey.
8. She is such a haughty woman! She looks down on all the people
in this building.
9. If you look back over the last few years, you will find that this
work has been worthwhile.
10.He waslooking up to this smart little curly-headed girl when the
dog started barking.
11.I was looking through the faces in the crowded room,for the boy
with the dark brown eyes.

233
 5. Saying Thank You
ex. 1.
1. have it both ways. 2. in harm’s way. 3. look the other way. 4.
bad way. 5. own way.

6. Asking People To Repeat

ex. 1.
1. He was caught red-handed with the money in his bag.2.There
wasonepaintingthatcaughtmyeye.3.The questionscaughthercompletelyoff
-guard.4.Ihadtostopabouthalfwayup thehillandcatchmybreath.

7. Giving Compliments
ex. 1.
1. skin and bones. 2. million dollars. 3. to kill. 4. pretty, picture

8. Apologizing
ex. 1.
6. error of his ways. 2. eat his words. 3. barking up the wrong tree.
4. the wrong horse.

9. The Weather
ex. 1.
1. as right as rain. 2. take a rain check. 3. come rain or shine. 4.
throw caution to the wind. 5. on cloud nine. 6. stealing my thunder. 7.
rained on my parade.

10.Making a Telephone Call

ex. 1.
1. on. 2. off. 3. back. 4. up.

11.Asking For Directions

234
 ex. 1.
1. ran into; 2. ran across; 3. running around; 4. ran down; 5. ran
into

12.On A Bus
ex. 1.
1. Go on; 2. Go by; 3. Go along with; 4. Go off; 5. Go with; 6. Go
out; 7. Go over; 8. Go out.

13.At A Drugstore
Ex. 1.
1. Head shrinker; 2. Go under the knife; 3. Pull through; 4. Feel on
top of the world; 5. Under the weather

14.At the Dentist’s Office

1. Long in the tooth; 2. Sweet tooth; 3. Scarce/hen’s teeth; 4.
Lying through their teeth; 5. Teething problems.

15.At A Bank
1. Rainy day; 2. Talks; 3. Grow on trees; 4. And his money are
soon parted.

235
 References

1. Dean Curry. Kaleidoscope, 2005

2. JEREMY HARMER . HOW TO TEACH SPEAKING . LONGMAN . 2007
3. JEREMY HARMER . THE PRACTICE OF E NGLISH L ANGUAGE
TEACHING . LONGMAN . 2007
4. L G Alexander, R H Kingsbury. I Think You Think, Longman, 1999
5. Marianne Dainton, Elaine D. Zelley. Applying Communication Theory
For Professional Life, a practical introduction, 2011
6. Monica Crabtree, Joyce Powers. Language Files – Ohio State
university Press, 1999
7. Michael Ockenden, Timothy jones. Around Town, Longman, 1999
8. Various sources from the internet

236
gamomcemlobis direqtori _ nana xaxutaiSvili
gamomcemlobis redaqtori _ lali konceliZe
teqnikuri redaqtori _ eduard ananiZe

xelmowerilia dasabeWdad 18.01.2017

qaRaldis zoma 60X84 1/16
fizikuri Tabaxi 14.7
tiraJi 100

daibeWda universitetis stambaSi

q. baTumi, ninoSvilis 35

237