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Task 1

Linguistically speaking, it's a whole new world. Non-native speakers of English now
outnumber native speakers 3 to 1, according to English language expert David Crystal, who
says, "There's never before been a language that's been spoken by more people as a second
than a first". In Asia alone, the number of English-users has topped 350 million roughly the
combined populations of the United States, Britain and Canada. There are more Chinese
children studying English about 100 million than there are Britons. The idea of linguistic
globalization seems to be to make everyone bilingual.
Find the words in the text above that have the following meanings in row 2:
1

to outnumber

= to be greater in number

language expert

= a linguist

second language

= a foreign language you can speak well

first language

= your mother tongue

bilingual

= able to speak two languages equally well

population

= all the people living in a particular place/area

to top

= to be higher than

the Britons

= the people of the United Kingdom

Task 2

Reading: The portrait of a Wikipedian

Can you guess what the word wikipediation means?

There is a list on Wikipedia of who has written or edited the most entries, and for a long time
the volunteer at the top of this list was a user known as SimonP. His real name is Simon
Pulsifer. He is 25, unemployed and lives in Ottawa.
Pulsifer has authored somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Wikipedia articles and edited
roughly 92,000 others. "I've actually fallen to No. 2 in terms of edits," says Pulsifer. "But it's a
fairly meaningless measure, so I don't feel too bad." He first heard about Wikipedia in 2001,
but it wasn't until 2003 that he got serious about contributing. That was the year he got a
really, really boring summer job. At that point Pulsifer got "superinvolved" with Wikipedia.
Why would somebody donate so much of his time? "There's a certain addictive element," he
says. Pulsifer was still in school, and writing Wikipedia entries turned out to be a handy way
of studying for exams. While taking a Russian-history class, he wrote entries about the czars.
He has chipped in pieces on African history and biblical studies. Some he wrote "off the top
of my head." Others took research. "It's a combination of things," Pulsifer says matter-offactly. "It's great to see your writing published onlineit's not that easy to create things that

are read by millions of people." He also liked the prestige that came with being a major player
on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia isn't a paradise of user-generated content. It has plenty of errors in it, and
omissions, although at this point it's considerably larger than the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. Some people enjoy vandalizing iterasing or falsifying entries. Earlier this
year the entire staff of Congress was barred from Wikipedia for sabotaging one another's
profiles. In a way it's as much a litmus test of human nature as it is a reference tool.
As for Pulsifer, he's quietly scaling back his compulsive Wikipediation. He no longer whizzes
through 250 edits a day. "To a degree, I'm moving on," he says. He has had a couple of job
offers; perhaps a well-paying gig will come along that will allow him to leave his parents'
home, where he resides. No doubt a new Wikipedian will arrive to take his place. There are
plenty of boring summer jobs out there.

After you read


1. Find words in the text that form partnerships (collocations) with the
following words:
entry

article

get

donate

handy

chip in

content

compulsive

addictive

vandalize

tool

major

Example: to author + an entry, to edit + an entry

Task 3

Communication
a. Can you explain how the items in the examples below are related?
Examples:

body language + non-verbal communication


real time + instant feedback
multimedia + new technologies
appropriateness + cultural context

b. Which of the following words and expressions in the table b. go


together?
Find as many expressions that go together as possible.

a) face-to-face communication

a) audiovisual

a) communicating across distances

a) multimedia

a) culture and context

a) appropriateness

a) oral (spoken) communication

a) real time

a) non-native speakers

a) colours and sounds

a) non-verbal communication

a) transient

a) instant feedback

a) facial expressions

a) body language

a) written communication

a) a medium of communication

a) one-way communication

a) English

a) social skills

a) interactive

a) etiquette

a) a means of communication

a) gestures

a) permanent (fixed)

a) new technologies

2. Reading: Welcome to the global


village
1. Read the text below. Find all the words which refer to:
People

Communication

The

new

electronic

interdependence

recreates the world in the image of a global


village.
Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan's observation (1962) that the world is becoming a global village as a result
of electronic interdependence is particularly true in today's business world. Technology has
made it easier for a businessman in Manila, Philippines, to conduct business with a client in
Chicago than with a compatriot in Zamboanga thanks to electronic mail, the fax, and satellite
communications. And it is most likely that the language they will use together will be English.
Indeed, English has become the common linguistic denominator, a lingua franca of our
time. Whether youre a Korean executive on business in Shanghai, a German Eurocrat
hammering out laws in Brussels or a Brazilian biochemist at a conference in Sweden, youre
probably speaking English. Even in face-to-face communication between non-native speakers
of English, like a Japanese banker and his/her Turkish counterpart, English is more likely to
be the medium of communication than either Japanese or Turkish.

After you read


1. Match the following items from table A to the corresponding items in
table B.
A

a means of
communication
to conduct

an image

an observation

an executive

to hammer out

non-native

likely

a Eurocrat

counterparts

a common
denominator

a compatriot

B
definition
a word with a negative prefix
a synonym of probable
to discuss something until everyone agrees
a top manager
European + bureaucrat
a person coming from the same country like you
an expression used in mathematics
a synonym for means of communication
to do (business)
two persons/items that can be easily compared for being in a
similar position etc.
a synonym of picture
a synonym of comment, remark

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