Stuart: What did you do last night then? Did you work all night?
Judy: Yes, I did some work (Yes) but erm ... I watched a bit of TV ... (Uh-huh) got to relax, you know.
Stuart: Did you watch the football?
Judy: No, no I didn't. I can't bear football.
Stuart: Really?
Judy: Yes. I really hate it. (Yes) Well, actually, just before the football came on, I switched over (Yes) just to ... just to protest.
Stuart: What did you see then?
Judy: Well, I saw the programme before ... just the end of a film (Uh-huh) that was on before the football. It looked quite good actually. It's a shame I didn't erm ... switch on earlier. It was some kind of love story ... with Dustin Hoffman, you know, the erm ...
Stuart: The Graduate?
Judy: That's it. The Graduate.
Stuart: Yes. I know. I've seen that. (Yes) Yes, good ... good film.
Judy: Yes, and nice music. (Mm-mm) And then, when the football came on I turned over.
Stuart: Terrible, terrible!
Judy: I hate it! I really can't stand it.
Stuart: It was a great game!
Judy: Yes? (What did) Who was playing?
Stuart: England of course. (Oh) What did you see then that was more important than football?
Judy: Foxes. Yes, a good programme on foxes. (Uh-huh) Yes, they spent ages watching these foxes in a house. (Yes) They were watching them all night and these little baby foxes ... it was tremendous.
Stuart: Yes, sounds all right.
Judy: Yes, it was good; better than football ... and then, then I turned over, back to the other channel (Mm-mm) to see who won the football, but I missed it and I just saw the beginning of the News and packed up and went to bed.
Stuart: Well, I'm sorry you missed it. It was a good game.
Judy: Yes? Who did win?
Stuart: England, of course. Who do you think? (Ah) Six nil. (Yes) Yes.
Judy: Must have been quite good then!
Stuart: Yes, it was good, actually. It was very good. (Mm)Commentator: It's Carter to serve-he needs just one more point. He serves. AND SMITH MISSES! WHAT A GREAT SERVE! ... So the championship goes to 19-year-old Harry Carter. Who d've believed it a week ago? Poor old Smith just shakes his head in bewilderment. Well, well! What a way to finish it off! ... And now I'll hand you over to Peter Plumber, who's on court waiting to interview the two finalists.
Plumber: Thank you, David. Well Harry, congratulations on a marvellous victory. You were on tremendous form.
Carter: Thank you, Peter. Nice of you to say so. You know, well, I think I won because, well, I just knew all along I was in with a good chance.
Plumber: Yes, you certainly were pretty convincing today, but what about the earlier rounds? Any nervous moments?
Carter: Well, you know, I was a bit nervous against Jones when he took the lead in the second set, but then ... er ...
Plumber: Yes, that was in the quarter-finals, wasn't it? And of course you met Gardener in the next round, didn't you? Er ... the score was ... er ... 6-4, 7-5, wasn't it?
Carter: Yes, that was quite a tough match, I suppose, but ... er ...
Plumber: Anything else you'd like to add?
Carter: Well, I would like to say how sorry I am for John Fairlight not making it past the quarter-finals. He's unbeatable, you know, on his day, and ... er ... I'd also like to say what a terrific job the officials here have done you know, the ballboys and linesmen and umpires and so on. You know ... er ... lots of players have been complaining, but ... er ...
Plumber: Well, that's great. Harry, Well done again. And now let's have a quick word with the runner-up to the title, Mark Smith. If you just stand over here, Mark ... that's right ... Well, bad luck, Mark. It wasn't really your day, was it? I mean, what a terrible final set! Anyway, the less said about that the better, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Smith: Yeah, but you know, I did pretty well to beat Hutchins in the semis and ... er ... what's his name? ... Brown in the quarter-finals. And, I mean, what a terrible umpire, eh? I mean, half of Carter's points were on ... er ... doubtful decisions, weren't they?
Plumber: Well, that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but anyway it's time for us to leave the tournament now at the end of a tremendously exciting week, and I hand you back to the studio in London.
Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I declare the meeting open, and I take it you all have a copy of the agenda, so we'll take the minutes of our last meeting as read and get straight down to business. Now, the proposal before you is that we should see if we can reduce the size of the Olympic Games in any way and thereby ease the burden placed on the host city. We all know that each time we hold the Games this burden increases because of the vast undertaking it is to host them. Today, however, I only want to sound out your opinion of this proposal, so this is really no more than an exploratory meeting.
Mrs. Armstrong: Could I say something straight away, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman: Yes, Mrs. Armstrong.
Mrs. Armstrong: I can't accept your proposal at all on the grounds that I feel that to reduce the size of the Olympic Games would seriously damage their character, detract from their universal appeal and penalize certain countries if we start arbitrarily throwing things out before ...
Herr Müller: Yes, Mrs. Armstrong, if I may interrupt you for a moment. I think we all sympathize with your point of view, but we mustn't overlook the main point of this meeting put forward by the Chairman, which is to see if we can cut down the programme a bit, without in any way damaging the overall appeal of the Games, so let's not reject the proposal out of hand before we've had a chance to discuss it.
Mrs. Armstrong: Very well, Herr Müller, but I'd like to state here and now that I'm totally opposed to any reduction in the number of events in the Games.
Chairman: Your objections will be noted, Mrs. Armstrong, but to get back to the point of the meeting, could I hear from the rest of you what you feel? Sr. Cordoba, for example, what's your opinion?
Sr. Cordoba: Reluctant as I am to alter the composition of the Olympic Games, I can see the point that in terms of space and financial demands, the host city is subjected to a lot of difficulty. The costs seem to soar phenomenally every time we stage the Olympics, so we might be able to make one or two savings here and there. There is, for instance, quite a strong lobby against boxing because of its apparently violent nature so I did wonder if ...
Mrs. Armstrong: But that is one of the most popular sports in the world, and one of the oldest.
Sr. Cordoba: Agreed, but people get a lot of boxing on their television screens all the year round, so I was just thinking that we might be able to drop that from the programme. Football, too, is another thing which already enjoys a lot of television coverage, and as it takes up a lot of space accommodating all the football pitches, mightn't we also perhaps consider dropping that too?
Mrs. Patel: Mr. Chairman ...
Chairman: Yes, Mrs. Patel.
Mrs. Patel: I wholeheartedly endorse what Sr. Cordoba said about boxing and football. In my opinion we should concentrate on some of the more unusual sports which are rarely seen on our screens such as fencing and archery, for a change, since it is on TV that the majority of people watch the Games.
Herr Müller: Perhaps we could cut out hockey along with football because, relatively speaking, that too takes up a lot of space, as measured against its universally popular appeal.
Mrs. Patel: I can see your point, Herr Müller, and as one of the basic tenets of the Olympic Games is individual excellence, I feel we ought to concentrate on those sports which really are a true test of the individual, I, therefore, suggest we cut out-that is, if we go ahead with this idea-the team games such as basketball, volleyball, football and hockey.
Mrs. Armstrong: But then you're sacrificing some of the most interesting items in the programme. People like to watch team games as well as take part in them; it'll be very dull without them.
Chairman: I think Mrs. Armstrong has made a very valid point. We ought to keep some of the team games, although I am inclined to agree with what has been said about football.
Sr. Cordoba: There's one thing I would like to say about this and that is to suggest that we could remove from the programme sports like sailing and canoeing and possibly the equestrian events, where the test is not so much of the stamina of the competitor but of his skill in handling the boat or whatever.
Mrs. Armstrong: What about the pentathlon, then? Riding is one part of that, so we are going to need facilities to cater for that in any case, so why not use them for horse-riding as well-or do you think we should axe that too?
Chairman: Well, let's not get too heated about it, as this is only a preliminary discussion about possibilities and we are not yet in a position to make any final decisions. I will, however, briefly summarize what has been said so far, as I understand it. Mrs. Armstrong is totally opposed to reducing the size of the Games in any way at all. There is one body of opinion in favour of removing from the Games those sports which are already well represented in other international contests and in the media. Another strand of thought is that we should concentrate on individual excellence by cutting out the team games featured in the programme, and Mrs. Patel suggested we ought to focus attention on the more unusual sports in the programme which do not normally gain so much international attention. Sr. Cordoba also brought up the idea that we could drop boxing because of its seemingly violent nature. There was also an opinion voiced that we might exclude events where the skills of a competitor in handling a horse or yacht, for example, were being tested, rather than the stamina of the individual himself, as is the case with, say, athletics. Well, it is quite clear that we shall need to discuss this further, but in the meantime I think we'd better move on to something else ...
1. The houses they lived in were not meant to be permanent dwellings; as a matter of fact, we have no remaining evidence of their houses. Probably in the summertime they lived up on the mesa top near their fields, in temporary structures made of poles and brush. In winter they most likely moved down to the caves in the cliffs for warmth and protection against the snow.
2. People were experimenting and changing their methods of potting; the broken pieces are evidence of the steps in the process.
The first attempt at pottery came as women mixed clay, a kind of dirt, with water to make pots. When the clay dried, however, it crumbled and fell apart. Clearly this would not work.
The second idea was to add extra material to bind the clay together: grass, straw, or pieces of bark. This held the pot together very well until it was set on the fire. Then the binding material burned up, leaving a pot full of holes.
Again the Anasazi women tried to find the secret of success. They added sand or volcanic grit to the clay to make it harder, and they baked the pots before using them. This final step proved to be successful, and it is the basic method which is still used today.
3. The pots which the women made this way were far superior to baskets for carrying, cooking, and storing food and water. Now the people could add beans, a rich source of protein, to their diet. Water could be stored safely over long periods. Life became much easier, and so effort could now be spent on other developments.
4. Their culture developed to its height, and the main improvement was in housing. The earlier pit houses were modified to one-story row houses, made with pieces of stone. Several separate buildings stood near each other like a small village. Some villages were as large as several hundred rooms and could contain as many as a thousand people. The name for this kind of house and for these Indians is "Pueblo", which is the Spanish word for "village".
Christine: Harry, as an American, have you noticed any strong class distinctions in English society since you've been here?
Harry: Strong class distinctions? Yes, they haven't changed at all-that's what-that's what amuses me-in fifteen years or fourteen years-that the stratification is exactly the same as it was when I first came. It's extraordinary that it pervades everything.
Anna: What is class distinction? Because I don't know whether it's what job they do or ...
Harry: It's people's accents. In Pygmalion, you know, it goes back to, as soon as you open your mouth in England you're immediately you know placed.
Anna: Do you mean that there aren't different accents in America?
Harry: Not-of course there are different accents-but they're not as-they're not nearly as clearly defined.
Anna: But I mean, don't-doesn't a certain strata of American society use perhaps more slang than another one? More correct?
Harry: Not the way they do in England. In England they seem to really stick together. I mean I went the other week for the first time in my life to a point-to-point and I couldn't believe what I found. There I was in the middle of Lincolnshire and we went through muddy fields and suddenly we came upon this parking lot with nine thousand Range Rovers in it and everyone going 'Oh, hello darling. How are you?' you know and it was hilarious I mean and they were all you know this meeting of the clan and that certainly doesn't happen in America and all those people spoke the same way.
Barrie: But that-yes, I live in the middle of the country in the south and I must say when I moved there I noticed-I mean of course I'd been aware of class before that but I had no idea that the lines between them were so rigid. I lived on an estate of a very big and successful farm until recently, and so the farm of course was run by the landed gentry who all went hunting and to point-to-point and all the rest of it. I lived next door to the groom who was-who despised them because they did all this and he had to just get the horses ready, um but at the same time he was terribly fond of them and they of him and there was all this sort of paternalistic attitude to the country workers that still goes on. I was staggered and nobody knew where to put me because I was living in a tied cottage that was tied to the farm, um but because I didn't work with any of them they were all uneasy with me. Most peculiar.
Christine: But I think you raise a very good point there Barrie because you're in fact talking about yourself not fitting into either of these two extremes and I'd like to ask Harry again how many classes he can see very clearly defined.
Barrie: In England?
Christine: In England, yes.
Harry: Well, I guess, three off the top of my head. I mean not counting immigrants and foreigners. Yes, I mean there's the middle class is the most snobbish of all it seems to me. You know, they're the most aware of the whole system really because they're upwardly mobile usually you know they hope to be, and they're the ones-I mean the upper class are what I find extraordinary-they seem to be totally uninhibited for the most part. I think it's extraordinary. I mean I'm not passing any moral judgements on them but it still exists ...
John: Because they've got the confidence ...
Anna: ... and the money ...
Barrie: ... confidence and the money ...
John: Well no, I don't think money's much to do with it actually.
Anna: How can you change it? I mean how would you change it?
Harry: I'm not saying it should be changed ...
Anna: No, no, no, no. I don't-I mean people do say that it should be changed. Politicians say that we should have total equality which I don't believe you can ever have in anything.
Harry: Well there should be equality of opportunity. I mean at least it's a nice ideal to have, isn't it?
Public school was hard compared to what I'd had before, day school on the reservation and a year at Sequoyah Government School. I almost flunked eighth grade at the public school, and it was a miracle that I passed. I just didn't know a lot of things, mathematics and stuff. I survived it somehow. I don't know how, but I did. The man who was head of the department of education at the Agency was the only person outside of my family who helped me and encouraged me to get an education. He understood and really helped me with many things I didn't know about. For a long time the white public school for the Big Cypress area would not let Indian children attend. A boy and I were the first Big Cypress Indians to graduate from that school. He is now in the armed forces.
After I graduated from high school, I went to business college, because in high school I didn't take courses that would prepare me for the university. I realized that there was nothing for me to do. I had no training. All I could do was go back to the reservation. I thought maybe I'd go to Haskell Institute, but my mother was in a TB hospital, and I didn't want to go too far away. I did want to go on to school and find some job and work. So the director of education, at the Agency said, maybe he could work something out for me so I could go to school down here.
I thought bookkeeping would be good because I had had that in high school and loved it. So I enrolled in the business college, but my English was so bad that I had an awful time. I had to take three extra months of English courses. But that helped me.
I never did understand why my English was so bad-whether it was my fault or the English I had in high school. I thought I got by in high school; they never told me that my English was so inferior, but it was not good enough for college. It was terrible having to attend special classes.
At college the hardest thing was not loneliness but schoolwork itself. I had a roommate from Brighton, one of the three reservations, so I had someone to talk to. The landlady was awfully suspicious at first. We were Indians, you know. She would go through our apartment; and if we hadn't done the dishes, she washed them. We didn't like that. But then she learned to trust us.
College was so fast for me. Everyone knew so much more. It was as though I had never been to school before. As soon as I got home, I started studying. I read assignments both before and after the lectures. I read them before so I could understand what the professor was saying, and I read them again afterwards because he talked so fast. I was never sure I understood.
In college they dressed differently from high school, and I didn't know anything about that. I learned how to dress. For the first six weeks, though, I never went anywhere. I stayed home and studied. It was hard-real hard. (I can imagine what a real university would be like.) And it was so different. If you didn't turn in your work, that was just your tough luck. No one kept at me the way they did in high school. They didn't say, "OK, I'll give you another week."Gradually I started making friends. I guess some of them thought I was different. One boy asked me what part of India I was from. He didn't even know there were Indians in Florida. I said, "I'm an American." Things like that are kind of hard. I couldn't see my family often, but in a way that was helpful because I had to learn to adjust to my new environment. Nobody could help me but myself.
Well, I graduated and went down to the bank. The president of the bank had called the agency and said he would like to employ a qualified Indian girl. So I went down there, and they gave me a test, and I was interviewed. And then they told me to come in the following Monday. That's how I went to work. I finished college May 29, and I went to work June 1. I worked there for three years.
In the fall of 1966, my father and the president of the Tribal Board asked me to come back to Big Cypress to manage a new economic enterprise there. It seemed like a dream come true, because I could not go back to live at Big Cypress without a job there.
But it was not an easy decision. I liked my bank work. You might say I had fallen in love with banking. But all my life I had wanted to do something to help my people, and I could do that only by leaving my bank job in Miami. Being the person I am, I had to go back. I would have felt guilty if I had a chance to help and I didn't.
But I told my daddy that I couldn't give him an answer right away, and I knew he was upset because he had expected me to jump at the chance to come back. He did understand, though, that I had to think about it. He knew when I went to live off the reservation that I had had a pretty hard time, getting used to a job, getting used to people. He knew I had accomplished a lot, and it wasn't easy for me to give it up. But that's how I felt. I had to think. At one time it seemed to me that I could never go back to reservation life.
But then really, through it all, I always wished there was something, even the smallest thing, that I could do for my people. Maybe I'm helping now. But I can see that I may get tired of it in a year, or even less. But right now I'm glad to help build up the store. If it didn't work out, if the store failed, and I thought I hadn't even tried, I would really feel bad.
The basic thing about my feeling is that my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews can build later on in the future only through the foundation their parents and I build. Maybe Indian parents don't always show their affection; but they have taught us that, even though we have a problem, we are still supposed to help one another. And that is what I am trying to do. Even when we were kids, if we had something and other kids didn't, we must share what we had ...
By the age of nine, girls were expected to take complete care of younger children. I too had to take care of my little brother and sister. I grew up fast. That's just what parents expected. Now teenagers don't want to do that, so they get angry and take off. Head Start and nurseries help the working mothers because older children don't tend the little ones anymore. The old ways are changing, and I hope to help some of the people, particularly girls about my age, change to something good.
There are people on the reservation who don't seem to like me. Maybe they are jealous, but I don't know why. I know they resent me somehow. When I used to come from school or from work back to the reservation, I could tell some people felt like this. I don't think that I have ever, ever, even in the smallest way, tried to prove myself better or more knowing than other people. I have two close friends here, so I don't feel too lonely; but other people my age do not make friends with me. I miss my sister, and I miss my roommate from Miami. My two friends here are good friends. I can tell them anything I want. I can talk to them. That's important, that I can talk to them. That's what I look for in a friend, not their education, but for enjoyment of the same things, and understanding. But there are only two of them. I have not been able to find other friends.
The old people think I know everything because I've been to school. But the old people don't have the kind of experience which allows them to understand our problems. They think that it is easy somehow to come back here. They think there is nothing else. They do not understand that there are things I miss on the outside. They do not understand enough to be friends. They are kind, and they are glad that I am educated, but they do not understand my problems. They do not understand loneliness ...
1. One wonders how, then, these students have arrived at such a false conclusion. One reason, of course, may be that they're science students. Scientific terms generally possess only one, precisely defined, meaning. It is, in fact, exactly this quality that makes these words distinctive in English, or indeed in any other language. Another reason could be the way in which these students were taught English. For example, long vocabulary lists are still an important feature in the foreign language learning programmes of many countries. On one side of the page is the word in English; on the other side a single word in the student's native language.
2. Practically all the students think that every word in English had an exact translational equivalent in their own language. Again this is a gross distortion of the truth. Sometimes a word in the student's native language may not have an equivalent in English at all, which may have to employ a phrase as a translation. Sometimes one word in the student's language may be translated by one of two possible words in English. The difficulty that many students have with the two verbs 'do' and 'make' is an example of this. Often the area of meaning covered by one word in the student's language may be wider or narrower than the area of meaning covered by a corresponding word in English. This sometimes happens with the naming of colours, where most students would expect an exact correspondence between their language and English. The borders between the primary colours of the spectrum are, however, drawn at different places in different languages. Translation, in fact, is a particularly difficult thing to do well. It certainly can't be done by matching single words from one language by single words from another. At first, those computer scientists who attempted to construct an automatic translation machine made this mistake. The machines often produced nonsense.
3. What, then, is the best way to increase one's vocabulary in a foreign language? This can be answered in three words. Firstly, observation: the unknown word should be observed in its context; in other words, the neighbouring words and the grammatical construction should be noted. A good dictionary should be referred to and examples of the usage of the word should be noted. Secondly, imitation: the student should use the new word in appropriate contexts, imitating the examples he has noted. Finally, repetition: he'll need to practise using the word several times before he's confident that he can use it correctly; in other words, repetition is necessary if the new word is to 'stick', and especially if it is to enter the student's active vocabulary. |