TEXT III

Use of language in diplomacy

What language should one use when speaking to diplomats, or what language should diplomats use? Or, to be more precise, what language/languages should a (young) diplomat try to learn to be more successful in his profession? 

The term "language in diplomacy" obviously can be interpreted in several ways. First, as tongue ("mother" tongue or an acquired one), the speech "used by one nation, tribe, or other similar large group of people"; in this sense we can say, for example, that French used to be the predominant diplomatic language in the first half of the 20th century. Second, as a special way of expressing the subtle needs of the diplomatic profession; in this way it can be said, for example, that the delegate of such-andsuch a country spoke of the given subject in totally nondiplomatic language. Also, the term can refer to the particular form, style, manner or tone of expression; such as the minister formulated his conditions in unusually strong language. It may mean as well the verbal or non-verbal expression of thoughts or feelings: sending the gunships is a language that everybody understands.

All of these meanings - and probably several others - can be utilised in both oral and written practice. In any of these senses, the use of language in diplomacy is of major importance, since language is not a simple tool, vehicle for transmission of thoughts, or instrument of communication, but very often the very essence of the diplomatic vocation, and that has been so from the early beginnings of our profession. That is why from early times the first envoys of the Egyptian pharaohs, Roman legates, mediaeval Dubrovnik consuls, etc., had to be educated and trained people, well-spoken and polyglots.

Let us first look into different aspects of diplomatic language in its basic meaning - that of a tongue. Obviously, the first problem to solve is finding a common tongue. Diplomats only exceptionally find themselves in the situation to be able to communicate in one language, common to all participants. This may be done between, for example, Germans and Austrians, or Portuguese and Brazilians, or representatives of different Arab countries, or British and Americans, etc. Not only are such occasions rare, but very often there is a serious difference between the same language used in one country and another. 

There are several ways to overcome the problem of communication between people who speak different mother tongues. None of these ways is ideal. One solution, obviously, is that one of the interlocutors speaks the language of the other. Problems may arise: the knowledge of the language may not be adequate, one side is making a concession and the other has an immediate and significant advantage, there are possible political implications, it may be difficult to apply in multilateral diplomacy, etc. A second possibility is that both sides use a third, neutral, language. A potential problem may be that neither side possesses full linguistic knowledge and control, leading to possible bad misunderstandings. Nevertheless, this method is frequently applied in international practice because of its political advantages. A third formula, using interpreters, is also very widely used, particularly in multilateral diplomacy or for negotiations at a very high political level - not only for reasons of equity, but because politicians and statesmen often do not speak foreign languages. This method also has disadvantages: it is time consuming, costly, and sometimes inadequate or straightforwardly incorrect. […] Finally, there is the possibility of using one international synthetic, artificial language, such as Esperanto; this solution would have many advantages, but unfortunately is not likely to be implemented soon, mostly because of the opposition of factors that dominate in the international political - and therefore also cultural and linguistic - scene.

So, which language is the diplomatic one? The answer is not simple at all […].

Words are bricks from which sentences are made. Each sentence should be a wound-up thought. If one wants to be clear, and particularly when using a language which he does not master perfectly, it is better to use short, simple sentences. On the contrary, if one wishes to camouflage his thoughts or even not say anything specific, it can be well achieved by using a more complicated style, complex sentences, digressions, interrupting one's own flow of thought and introducing new topics. One may leave the impression of being a little confused, but the basic purpose of withholding the real answer can be accomplished.

(adapted from http://www.diplomacy.edu/books/language_and_ diplomacy/texts/pdf/nick.PDF)

TEXT II

World Work Worker Workplace

Does your workplace offer affordances for #wellbeing? Natural light, movement, a view, informal areas to socialize or collaborate? 40% say no. 

TEXT I

How music is the real language of political diplomacy

Forget guns and bombs, it is the power of melody that has changed the world

Marie Zawisza

Saturday 31 October 2015 10.00 GMT

Last modified on Tuesday 10 November 201513.19 GMT 

An old man plays his cello at the foot of a crumbling wall. The notes of the sarabande of Bach’s Suite No 2 rise in the cold air, praising God for the “miracle” of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as Mstislav Rostropovich later put it. The photograph is seen around the world. The date is 11 November 1989, and the Russian virtuoso is marching to the beat of history.

Publicity stunt or political act? No doubt a bit of both – and proof, in any case, that music can have a political dimension. Yo-Yo Ma showed as much in September when the cellist opened the new season of the Philharmonie de Paris with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a “messenger of peace” for the United Nations, the Chinese American is the founder of Silk Road Project, which trains young musicians from a variety of cultures to listen to and improvise with each other and develop a common repertoire. “In this way, musicians create a dialogue and arrive at common policies,” says analyst Frédéric Ramel, a professor at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris. By having music take the place of speeches and peace talks, the hope is that it will succeed where diplomacy has failed.[…]

Curiously, the study of the role of music in international relations is still in its infancy. “Historians must have long seen it as something fanciful, because history has long been dominated by interpretations that stress economic, social and political factors,” says Anaïs Fléchet, a lecturer in contemporary history at the Université de Versailles-St-Quentin and co-editor of a book about music and globalisation.

“As for musicologists,” she adds, “until quite recently they were more interested in analysing musical scores than the actual context in which these were produced and how they were received.” In the 1990s came a cultural shift. Scholars were no longer interested solely in “hard power” – that is, in the balance of powers and in geopolitics – but also in “soft power”, where political issues are resolved by mutual support rather than force. […] 

Gilberto Gil sings while then UN secretary general Kofi Annan plays percussion at a September 2003 concert at the UN headquarters honouring those killed by a bomb at a UN office in Baghdad a month earlier. Photograph: Zuma/Alamy 

Since then, every embassy has a cultural attaché. The US engages in “audio diplomacy” by financing hip-hop festivals in the Middle East. China promotes opera in neighbouring states to project an image of harmony. Brazil has invested in culture to assert itself as a leader in Latin America, notably by establishing close collaboration between its ministries of foreign affairs and culture; musician Gilberto Gil was culture minister during Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva᾽s presidency from 2003 to 2008. He was involved in France’s Year of Brazil. As Fléchet recalls, “the free concert he gave on 13 July, 2005 at the Place de la Bastille was the pinnacle. That day, he sang La Marseillaise in the presence of presidents Lula and Jacques Chirac.” Two years earlier, in September 2003, Gil sang at the UN in honour of the victims of the 19 August bombing of the UN headquartes in Baghdad. He was delivering a message of peace, criticising the war on Iraq by the US: “There is no point in preaching security without giving a thought to respecting others,” he told his audience. Closing the concert, he invited then UN secretary general Kofi Annan on stage for a surprise appearance as a percussionist. “This highly symbolic image, which highlighted the conviction that culture can play a role in bringing people together, shows how music can become a political language,” Fléchet says. 

(adapted from http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/31 /music-language-human-rights-political-diplomacy) 

Read the text and answer questions 22 to 25.

INSTRUCTIONS – Read the following text carefully and then choose the correct alternatives that answer the questions.

THE SADDEST TWEETERS LIVE IN TEXAS

Melody Kramer for National Geographic - Published May 29, 2013

Researchers analyzed ten million tweets to map happiness in the U.S.

Average word happiness for geotagged tweets in U.S. states collected in 2011. Redder states have higher averages and bluer states have lower averages.

Image courtesy Mitchell et al, PLoS ONE

The town of Beaumont is known as "Texas … with a little something extra." But the industrial town along the Gulf Coast now has a more dubious distinction: It's been named the saddest city in America—at least, if you're measuring sadness on Twitter.

That's according to a group of researchers at the Vermont Complex Systems Center, who analyzed over 80 million words from more than ten million geotagged tweets written throughout 2011. The results of their study, published Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE, showed that the happiest tweeters in the U.S. live in Napa, California, and their sad counterparts live mostly in the Rust Belt and along the Gulf Coast border.

"You can infer a lot of information about an area based on what people are writing on Twitter," says Christopher Danforth, a mathematician and a co-author of the study.

Danforth explains how his team measured the emotional state of a tweet: They created a simple computer algorithm to analyze the words within the tweets themselves. Each word was measured on a happiness scale, which his team had previously created using paid workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. The workers were asked to score more than 10,000 common English words on a happiness scale from 1 to 9. Words like "laughter," "love," "rainbow," and "smile" made the top of the list; at the very bottom—unsurprisingly—were words like "terrorist," "ugly," "cancer," "die," and "fatal."

A GEOGRAPHY OF HAPPINESS

Using that list, researchers then collected tweets from more than 300 separate cities and towns across the United States and created an algorithm to assess how frequently "happy" words occurred vs. how frequently "sad" words occurred in different places. For example, people in Napa were much more likely to tweet the word "hope" than were their counterparts living along the Gulf Coast.

"The differences in the words people used told us a lot about the cities themselves," says Lewis Mitchell, a mathematician and the study's lead author. "Essentially we were able to create a geography of happiness."

Many of the places at the very top of the list— Hawaii, Maine, and Napa—are also top vacation spots. A previous study by the same researchers indicated that people tend to use less-negative words when they're far away from home. But other places near the top of the list—like Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Spokane, Washington—aren't really tourist destinations.

The researchers say they plan to look at tourism's role in a future study. They also plan to analyze tweets in other languages. The current study looks only at tweets written in English, which could skew data in parts of the United States where many people tweet in Spanish.

In addition, the researchers plan to look at profanity more closely. Their current findings suggest that one of the major driving forces in a city's happiness—or lack thereof—is how frequently people use curse words in their tweets.

"People curse more and more as the day goes on," says Danforth, "but there are definitely places where profanity is more common. In the South, more people are cursing on Twitter. It's a tapestry of negative words."

TRENDING SADDER

He notes that many of the cities close to the bottom of their happiness list also rank low on other lists that measure factors like health outcomes and quality of life.

"The people at the bottom of our list live in states that are more socioeconomically depressed and where more natural disasters occur," he says."There are higher rates of poverty, and the median incomes are lower."

This might explain why places like Beaumont and Shreveport, Louisiana, have sadder tweets. But it doesn't explain one surprising finding: Tweets across the country are getting sadder, in general.

"If you go through all of the demographics since 2008, it's getting sadder everywhere," says Mitchell. "There's a strong downward trend. We don't know why this is."

He recently made a Twitter account— @geographyofhapp—that tracks the happiest and saddest cities on Twitter on a daily basis. But his own personal Twitter account—@dr_pyser— remains cheerfully optimistic.

"I try to be more conscious of what I'm talking about online and the way I talk about it," says Mitchell. "I try to put my best self out there."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130529-saddest-happieststates-twitter-texas-maine-hawaii-california/y

Read the text to answer 

On Education, Republican Candidates Retreat From National Standards

                                                                                                  BY EMILY CADEI 8/20/15 AT 4:40 AM

           After 15 years of rising federal involvement in K through 12 schools, U.S. education policy is poised for a big shift in direction. If that wasn’t already apparent, it certainly became clear on Wednesday, when six of the Republican party’s leading 2016 contenders spoke about their views on educating America’s youth, and what their priorities would be should they make it to the White House. The consensus: national‐level reform efforts are out. Ceding control to state and local school districts is in.

     That’s always been the preference for some segments of the Republican party. But under President George W. Bush, a crop of GOP leaders interested in business‐backed education reforms banded together with Democrats eager to expand public funding for schools, particularly for underachieving schools, to carve out a more assertive federal role. That coalition helped pass the 2001 law known as No Child Left Behind, which set national standards for schools and used federal funding to create incentives to meet them.

      Though there is now broad agreement that parts of No Child Left Behind were ill‐conceived, the Obama administration has continued Bush’s muscular approach to education, prodding states to participate in national programs with offers of federal cash. But that coalition of Democratic and Republican reformers is now looking wobbly. The House and Senate have both passed updated versions of No Child Left Behind that would rein in the federal government’s role in setting K through 12 education policy, though not nearly as much as conservatives would like. The next step is reconciling differences between the bills in a way that keeps the more conservative House happy, without jeopardizing President Barack Obama’s signature. That’s going to be a tough task for Congress this fall. On the presidential trail, Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have made clear that they side with teachers’ unions who are critics of expanding charter schools and more teacher accountability, which both Bush and Obama tried to promote nationally.

      On the Republican side, meanwhile, the six candidates who spoke at the American Federation for Children’s Education Summit 2015 in New Hampshire fell all over themselves trying distance their agendas from current education policies and declare their support for local autonomy.

                                                                                (Available: http://www.newsweek.com/education)

Read the text to answer 

The nature of approaches and methods in language teaching

        Although specific theories of the language may provide the basis for a particular teaching method, other methods derive primarily from a theory of language learning. A learning theory underlying an approach or method responds to two questions: (a) What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in language learning? and (b) What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated? Learning theories associated with a method at the level of approach may emphasize either one or both of these dimensions. Process‐ oriented theories build on learning processes, such as habit formation, induction, inferencing, hypothesis testing, and generalization. Condition‐oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place.  

        Stephen D. Krashen’s Monitor Model of second language development (1981) is an example of a learning theory on which a method (the Natural Approach) has been built. At the level of process, Krashen distinguishes between acquisition and learning. Acquisition refers to the natural assimilation of language rules through using language for communication. Learning refers to the formal study of language rules and is a conscious process. Krashen’s theory also addresses the conditions necessary for the process of “acquisition” to take place. He describes these in terms of the type of “input” the learner receives. Input must be comprehensible, slightly above the learner’s present level of competence, interesting or relevant, not grammatically sequenced, in sufficient quantity, and experience in low‐anxiety contexts.

         Tracy Terrell’s Natural Approach (1977) is an example of a method derived primarily from a learning theory rather than from a particular view of language. Although the Natural approach is based on a learning theory that specifies both processes and conditions, the learning theory underlying such methods as Counseling‐Learning and the Silent Way addresses primarily the conditions held to be necessary for learning to take place without specifying what the learning processes themselves are presumed to be.

          Charles A. Curran in his writings on the Counseling‐Learning (1972), for example, focuses on the conditions necessary for successful learning. James Asher’s Total Physical Response (Asher 1977) is likewise a method that derives from a learning theory. Caleb Gattemo’s Silent Way (1972, 1976) is built around a theory of the conditions necessary for successful learning to be realized. Many of the techniques used in the method are designed to train learners to consciously use their intelligence to heighten learning potencial.

(Richards, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004. P. 22‐23. Adapted.)

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Communicative strategies

     As anyone who has tried to communicate in an L2 knows, learners frequently experience problems in saying what they want to say because of their inadequate knowledge. If learners do not know a word in the target language they may “borrow” a word from their L1 or use another target‐language word that is approximate in meaning, or try to paraphrase the meaning of the word, or even construct an entirely new word. These strategies, with the obvious exception of those that are L1 based, are also found in the language use of native speakers.

     There have been a number of attempts to construct psycholinguistic models to account for the use of communication strategies. Claus Faerch and Gabriele Kasper, for example, proposed a model of speech production which involves a planning and an execution phase. Communication strategies are seen as part of the planning phase.They are called upon when learners experience some kind of problem with an initial plan which prevents them from executing it. They can either abandon the initial plan and develop an enterily different one by means of reduction strategy (such as switching to a different topic) or try to maintain their original communicative goal by adopting some kind of achievement strategy (such as L1 borrowing).

      As Selinker has pointed out, communication strategies constitute one of the processes responsible for learner errors. We might expect, therefore, that the choice of communication strategies will reflect the learners’ stage of development. For example, learners might expect to switch from L1‐based strategies to L2‐based strategies as their knowledge of the L2 develops. It would also be interesting to discover whether the use of communication strategies has any effect on L2 acquisition. For example, do learners notice the gap more readily as a result of having to use a communication strategy? Or does successful use of a communication strategy obviate the need for learners to pick out the correct target‐language forms?  

(ELLIS, Rod. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University, 1997. P.60‐61. Adapted.)  

The main issues of the Brazilian port system

Since the beginning of the privatization of the Brazilian ports in 1995, the lessee companies of container terminals have invested approximately USD 1 billion acquisition of modern equipment, physical infrastructure, training of manpower and infrastructure.

Particularly after the injection of resources by the Federal Government through the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), the situation at the Brazilian ports started to improve.

Part of the dredging works in the main Brazilian ports are finished. With the sea deeper along the ports’ area, it is estimated that around 30% of the vessels worldwide that could not dock in Brazil before, now can.

But what used to be an issue at the sea, now it is an issue at the land. The logistical problems of access are evident, the bottleneck of access from the cargo container terminals generate unproductive periods, which are highly detrimental to the foreign trade and financial activity of Brazil. It is a fact that the rail network and roads in the vicinity of the ports are insufficient.

Another great matter about the Brazilian ports is the bureaucracy. Besides making everything more expensive, slowness in the Brazilian ports invented a truly “congestion at sea”. Every ship that arrives in the country waits at least 5.5 days to have the goods delivered by agencies such as IRS, the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Docks. The world average is three days. 

In Brazil, the organs responsible for clearance of goods run only during business hours. It is the only country among the world’s major economies, which does not have these services available 24 hours.

Text VI.

                            Critical Discourse Analysis

      We have seen that among many other resources that define the power base of a group or institution, access to or control over public discourse and communication is an important "symbolic" resource, as is the case for knowledge and information (van Dijk 1996). Most people have active control only over everyday talk with family members, friends, or colleagues, and passive control over, e.g. media usage. In many situations, ordinary people are more or less passive targets of text and talk, e.g. of their bosses or teachers, or of the authorities, such as police officers, judges, welfare bureaucrats, or tax inspectors, who may simply tell them what (not) to believe or what to do.

      On the other hand, members of more powerful social groups and institutions, and especially their leaders (the elites), have more or less exclusive access to, and control over, one or more types of public discourse. Thus, professors control scholarly discourse, teachers educational discourse, journalists media discourse, lawyers legal discourse, and politicians policy and other public political discourse. Those who have more control over more ‒ and more influential ‒  discourse (and more properties) are by that definition also more powerful.

      These notions of discourse access and control are very general, and it is one of the tasks of CDA to spell out these forms of power. Thus, if discourse is defined in terms of complex communicative events, access and control may be defined both for the context and for the structures of text and talk themselves.

(van DIJK, T. A. Critical Discourse Analysis. In: SCHIFFRIN, D.; TANNEN, D.; HAMILTON, H. (eds.).   The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Wiley‐Blackwell, 2003. pp. 352‐371.)

One day I was showing the beginning saxophone students at Ridgecrest Junior High school in Paragould, Ark the proper way to assemble and hold their instruments. It s extremely important to connect the neck strap to the loop on the back of the instrument so it doesn't fali out of your hands at a careless moment, I explained. “ Mr. Reely”, a dull student sitting in the back of the room quipped, “ Are you teaching us how to practice safe sax? “

                                                Contributed by Trey Reely Adapted from Readehs Digest, March 1997

‘Intellectualism’ is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.

                                                                                                                                         William James

                Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/search/belief?page=1#vM Pj4T57BbXTwqJA.99

Read the Mother Teresa’s “Anyway Poem” and answer.

                          People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;

                                                     Forgive them anyway.

                          If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior

                                                                  motives;

                                                            Be kind anyway.

                         If you are successful, you will win some false friends and 

                                                        some true enemies;

                                                         Succeed anyway.

                             If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

                                                Be honest and frank anyway.

                         What you spend years building, someone could destroy

                                                            overnight;

                                                         Build anyway.

                            If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

                                                    Be happy anyway.

                           The good you do today people will often forget tomorrow;

                                                     Do good anyway.

                              Give the world the best you have, and it may never be

                                                            enough;

                                     Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

                         You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;

                                   It was never between you and them anyway.

[Reportedly inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta, and attributed to her. However, an article in the New York Times has since reported (March 8, 2002)]