朗文英语听说教程三

Unit 1 Slang: Talking Cool

TEACHER: OK, let's get started . . . Today we're going to be looking at a really interesting phenomenon, slang. We'll be looking at where slang comes from, who uses it and why. We all use it more often than you might think—every day of our lives, in fact. And we use it for a reason.

You know, most of us are fascinated with slang. We con-tinually hear new words and phrases enter the language and replace old, and we see familiar words take on new meanings. We feel a need to keep in touch with these changes, to be aware of the latest street talk. Fact is, we love slang. But what is it exactly? What is slang? Anyone like to suggest a definition?

STUDENT 1: Isn't it basically kind of casual talk? TEACHER: Can you say a bit more?

STUDENT 1: You know, the sort of words we use with friends ... in relaxed situations.

TEACHER: Good. You're pretty much there with your idea of casual language. We can say that slang is language that's found only in the very informal speech of particular groups of people. It can help to identify the communities, the groups of people, who use it. And this brings me to the first important point of the lecture—why people use slang.

A lot of slang comes from not wanting to be understood by outsiders, people outside your circle. In other words, people exploit slang to give their group an identity, by making their language exclusive, or at least private. Through this private language, they can tease one another, enjoy shared experiences, and keep everyone else at a distance. All cultures contain groups or subcultures with different interests and priorities, and each group tries to establish a separate identity. They want people to know who they are, what they stand for—and slang helps to construct and cement that identity. We can say, then, that slang reflects the experiences, beliefs, and values of its speakers.

Now let's look more closely at this relationship between slang and community, slang and identity. A nice example of this is, uh, student language, sometimes called \the words they use are used by both sexes, often metaphorically rather than literally. That is to say, the conventional meaning of the words change. For example, words that have traditionally had strong negative literal meanings that are used as insults have taken on, uh, gentler, and in many cases even positive meanings in conversation. We'll look at some examples later.

Now, if you ask college students why they use slang, they'll tell you it's cool, and that's true in several different ways. First, it's cool because it's in style, in fashion. Using current slang shows that the speaker is in tune with the times . . . you know, that he or she knows what's in fashion and is pan of that fashion.

Second, slang is cool in the sense of showing that the speaker is knowledgeable . . . the speaker is \the speaker knows when slang is acceptable. People don't use slang all the time, only in situations and with people who accept the use of slang—a point I'll return to later. Research tells us that although young people often deny that they use slang intentionally, in fact they clearly choose whether or not to use it depending on the situation they're in. As we've already said, slang's typically used in informal rather than formal settings, and this is certainly true among college students: They usually avoid using it in the class-room or a work environment, for example. Anyone like to suggest why?

STUDENT 1: People won't understand them. STUDENT 2: Yeah, so it's like a waste of time.

TEACHER: Well, that may be true, but it's not the main reason. They don't use it simply because it could make them look bad. And everyone hates looking bad, right?

So, to review, we've said that students use slang only in certain situations. But they also only use it with certain peo-ple, usually friends. When they use slang, they are showing that they share social and emotional experiences—so slang reinforces their relationships. But ... it also gives special meaning to what they say. For instance, to say \was the bomb\is more than merely saying it was a very good party. It shares an emotional experience that might otherwise take several sentences to explain. In other words, it's a kind of. . . shorthand.

The third and final way slang's cool is that it's fun; it's very creative in the same way that poetry is, and it's often humorous. In other words, it's a form of play, a way of entertaining.

So . . . uh, let me repeat: I've said that slang's cool for three reasons: One, it shows the user's fashionable and in tune with the times; two, it's a way of reinforcing relation-ships and communicating efficiently; and three, it's fun and entertaining. Got that?

All right then, let's now take a look at different kinds of slang, in particular three types of slang words: those that are currently most used, those that linger year after year, and those that have become unfashionable.

So . . . now what is the most used slang? Well, research tells us that over the past few years, in the number one posi-tion is \

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excellent, attractive, or nice. So somebody might say, for example, that his friend's new motorbike is really dope; in other words, it's very good. Other words that feature in the top twenty include \bomb\means bad, unfair, crazy, or foolish), and \(meaning person—usually a man, actually). Any other examples? Yes? STUDENT 1: Hella. TEACHER: Meaning? STUDENT 1: Very, a lot. TEACHER: OK, yep. Luis?

STUDENT 3: \relax, you know, sit around doing nothing.

TEACHER: Right. And it's interesting, isn't it, how most slang terms indicate approval or disapproval; they show what we feel positive or negative about. So, like \bomb,\we have \\—spelled P-H-A-T, not F-A-T—\and \—all meaning good, excellent, nice, or attractive.

And then you have words like \which really mean good; so \you see, slang does strange things with language. Like I said earlier, it's certainly creative. As a matter of fact, some slang words have many different meanings, sometimes as many as nine or ten. For instance, the word \or \has various meanings, but they all reflect the idea of unusual, strange, or extreme. When a word's used a lot or has a num-ber of different meanings like this, we sometimes say it \hard.\The word \then, is a word that works hard.

Uh . . . now, the second type of slang consists of words that linger from decade to decade and never seem to go out of fashion—and these words also work hard, that is, they have a lot of meanings. A great example is the word cool— forever popular, it seems! Other terms in this category are \\\\man,\\\\of these show approval or disapproval.

And . . . now, finally, there are slang terms that come and go; they disappear almost as quickly as they appear. Examples include \five,\\it hanging,\and \Words like these often disappear because they're closely associated with famous personalities who similarly come and go—they're popular, in the spotlight for a while, and then seem almost to disappear. And when they disappear, the slang associated with them tends to disappear as well. Now, today, public tolerance of slang is at an all-time high—just look at how widely it's used in newspapers. But how do college teachers and academics view slang? Well, some persist with the idea that its use will degrade . . . uh, you might even say \among themselves students tolerate words their teachers

might consider taboo. Students are actually very good at code-switching; that is, they're very good at using different styles or codes of communication in different situations. Do you agree? Do you use slang in your essays or when you speak with a teacher?

STUDENT 3: Personally I never use slang in essays. It just doesn't feel right. It's true, you know, most students know when to use slang, and when not to.

STUDENT 2: I agree. I sometimes use it with teachers, though; it just depends on who the teacher is.

TEACHER: Why, I imagine most people do the same. Here's something you may find surprising: A recent study on stu-dent conversation suggests that students don't in fact use slang that often but instead they choose more ordinary col-loquial vocabulary.

OK, to finish up, now let me say something about the history of slang. Many years ago, slang was closely associ-ated with underground, criminal organizations, groups that deviate from mainstream society . . . uh . . . with notions of outcasts and socially unacceptable behaviors. A look back in time shows, for example, that in the seventeenth century more than twenty words were used to refer to vagrants, that is, to someone who has no home or job. Today, of course, these associations are much weaker and slang's used much more widely. As underground culture has become more mainstream, there's not the same need for the kind of secret code that slang offered. Today, most of us use slang and aren't ashamed of using it. It may still have negative connotations, but like it or not it's here to stay, and increasingly it's become the subject of serious academic study. And why not? As I've tried to show, it's a fascinating social as well as linguistic phenomenon. So, any questions? . . .

Unit 2 Murphy's Law

TEACHER: Good afternoon, everyone. More than 200 years ago, the Scottish poet Robert Burns said that \best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.\firsthand experience with what Burns means; no matter how carefully we plan a project and no matter how carefully we try to, uh, anticipate problems, we're likely to, uh encounter something unexpected and unwelcome that will throw our plan off course.

Well, class today we'll be looking at how plans can go right or wrong... and, uh, how we can make sense of this. Are you all familiar with Murphy's Law? Well, according to Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. So we'll be looking at everyday examples of Murphy's Law—uh, things like why toast falls buttered-side down, why it always seems like we choose slow lines at the supermarket, and why it is so difficult to win when we gamble.

As you may know, we now have many different versions of Murphy's Law, and today I'd like to look at the science behind three of them. I'll try to show you that some things

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which have happened to you, and which you may have thought were simply bad luck, had nothing to do with luck at all. What I'm saying is that there are some very good sci-entific reasons for many of the things that happen to us, and we're not victims of bad luck as often as we might think. When we consider some basic science and probability theory, we can more clearly understand why some \things happen the way they do.

All right. Let's begin with a very commonplace situation. Let's say you've just gotten up. You're still sleepy, and you make your way to the breakfast table. In your half-awake state, you accidentally hit your piece of toast, which has butter on one side. The toast begins to fall to the floor. Now what are the chances that you'll be lucky and the toast will land buttered-side up? Well, the toast has only two sides, so most people think that the answer is fifty-fifty. Fifty percent. Right? Do you think that there's a 50 percent chance that the toast will land with the buttered-side up?

STUDENT 1: Well, this sounds like a trick question, but, uh, yeah. Logically, 50 percent sounds about right.

TEACHER: Yes, 50 percent does seem right, but, in this case, Murphy's Law of Falling Toast says: \a table will land buttered-side down.\ity of this happening is extremely high. It's close to 100 per-cent. Now, here's why. When something like a piece of toast falls from a table, its behavior is not random. The rate of spin is controlled by the laws of physics. This is the problem. The rate of spin, that is, how fast the toast spins, is too low for the toast to make a complete revolution. It's too slow to turn completely around and hit the floor buttered-side up. The rate of spin is determined by the force of gravity. So in a very real sense, the laws of physics, and specifically the rate of spin, make sure that our toast lands buttered-side down almost all the time. So the point is that simple probabilities—for example, the probability that toast has a fifty-fifty chance of landing buttered-side up—can be greatly affected by other more fundamental factors, such as the laws of physics. So, in this case, we believe that we have bad luck because we don't understand that the natural laws of physics are in effect. The toast should land buttered-side down. OK? Let's look at the next point.

Now we come to one of my most frustrating situations in life—the supermarket line. In this case, Murphy's Law of Supermarket Lines says: \line next to you will move faster than yours.\Now everybody wants to get into the fastest line when they go to the supermarket, right? OK, so let's say that you're at your local supermarket and there are five lines, but each of the five lines looks pretty much equal in length. Now, of course, you want to try to anticipate which one of the five lines will move the fastest. Well, this is where simple probability theory enters the picture. The chances that you have chosen the fastest of the five lines is one divided by the number of lines, which is five in this case. So mathematically, the formula is one divided by N where N is the total number of lines. So in this example, one divided by five gives us what?

STUDENT 2: One divided by five is one-fifth or . . . uh . . . 20 percent.

TEACHER: Right. Twenty percent. There's only a 20 percent chance that we have chosen the fastest of the five lines. Now even if we reduce that to three lines, our line and the lines on each side of us, the chances we've chosen the fastest line are still only what?

STUDENT 2: Uh, 33 percent. One out of three.

TEACHER: Sure. One divided by three is 33 percent, so it's not just your imagination that one line near you almost always moves faster than yours. Simple probability theory shows that the odds are against you. If there are very many lines, the chances that you'll choose the fastest one is quite low. So, you see, it has little to do with luck, but we perceive that it does.

All right. Now let's look at a final situation that shows how we commonly misunderstand the laws of probability. We've come to Murphy's Law of Gambling that says simply: \will lose.\Now in the case of the supermarket lines that we've just talked about, probability theory applied very nicely. And actually, as we go through life, most things are fairly predictable because they follow the basic laws of probability. Weather is an example. Let's say that it's been raining for a week, and a friend says to you \tomorrow.\Is that an unreasonable statement? Well, no. Clouds move, and they are of limited size, so if it's been raining for a week, it's likely that the rain and clouds will end soon. In other words, the next sunny day is more likely to occur after the seventh day of rain than after the first, because the storm front has what is called a life history. Now this is important, so let me explain that term. Events with a life history have changing probabilities of certain events occurring over time. For instance, uh, if you plant flower seeds, you can predict with reasonable accuracy when the plants will come up, when they will bloom, and how long they will bloom. For instance, with some types of flowers, there's a 90 percent chance that they will come up fifteen to twenty days after the seeds have been planted. In short, the growth of a flower follows a clear predictable pattern, and we call this pattern a life history. But this is the trick with many gambling games. The casino owners want us to believe that dice also have a life history and that we can therefore estimate the probability of events related to the dice. However, gambling devices like dice are different because they don't have life histories. Now . . . what do you think that means?

STUDENT 1: There aren't any reliable patterns? Um, just because I rolled a seven last time doesn't tell me anything about the next roll.

TEACHER: Right. You can't look at the past rolls of the dice and predict what the next roll will be. Now many people, especially gamblers, think that they can, but this is what's called the gambler's fallacy. The gambler's fallacy is expect-ing to roll a seven with a pair of dice because a seven hasn't come up recently. So, in other words, there's a widespread belief among gamblers that dice have a life history. In the

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real world, that's not a bad way to reason, but in a casino, it's the path to financial loss. Dice have no memory, no life history. Now you can predict that if you roll one dice many, many times, the number five will come up about 16 percent of the time. That's one divided by six. But that's not what we're concerned with here. We're concerned with the next roll of the dice. As a result, the element of arbitrariness or randomness makes prediction of the next roll impossible. Statisticians who work with probability theory call the roll of a pair of dice a single-event probability, and many of these same statisticians believe that the probability of a single event can't even be computed mathematically. So, the same probability theory that works well with supermarket lines won't help you win a million dollars in a dice game in Las Vegas. It could, in fact, lead to a catastrophe!

So, to sum up, we have looked at three cases involving Murphy's Law and our perception of \luck.\The first case was the toast, right? Our toast lands buttered-side down far more often than we would predict because the basic laws of physics have a strong effect on normal probabilities. The second case was the supermarket line, remember? Another line moves faster than ours because the laws of probability are behaving normally, even though we might perceive them as behaving unfairly. And the third case was the dice game. People lose at gambling games like dice because the laws of \history probability\simply don't apply in those situa-tions, even though gamblers think they do.

So, as you can see, in some cases, Murphy's Law is not just some form of bad luck. There are some very real, scien-tific explanations for these events. OK, that's about it for today. For next class I'd like you to take a look at Chapter 7 and be ready to talk about the discussion questions on page 255. See you then. Unit 3 Types of Memory

TEACHER: Good morning everyone. Um . . . today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to the basics of what I think is one of the most fascinating topics in the field of psychology—memory. What is memory? How does memory work? The research in this field is fascinating and dates back to the late 1800s, so it's been going on for more than a century. I'll begin today by saying a few things about three types of memory that we all have, and then we'll look at how memory is measured.

All right. First of all, let's begin by looking at types of memory. One of the most common ways to classify memory is based on time . . . based on time and duration of use. So typically, memory is divided into three types: sensory memory, working memory (which is also referred to as short-term memory), and long-term memory. Again, that's sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory. Let's talk about sensory memory for a minute. Sensory memory holds information for only an instant, say, less than half a second. This is just long enough to register an impression on one or more of our five senses—sight, hear-ing, touch, smell, or taste. Let me give you an example of a

phenomenon concerning visual sensory memory that I'm sure you've all experienced. Imagine that you're holding up a flashlight on a dark night. You start to move it in circles slowly, watching it carefully the whole time. Pretty soon you aren't just seeing the flashlight... you can see a full circle of light! Of course, it's actually just one point of light being moved around, but your memory of the visual sensation of the light fills in the rest of the circle. That's one example of sensory memory. So remember, you can hold something in your sensory memory for just a fraction of a second, up to around half a second, then it fades away.

Now if you want to keep the information for longer than a second, you have to put it into your working memory. Working memory, the second type of memory, allows us to hold on to things for as long as we think about them, that is, as long as we're paying attention to them. It's something like a kind of temporary storage place. Let me give you a simple math problem. Are you ready? Here goes ... 18 plus 44 plus 9 plus 19. . . I'll say that one more time. OK? 18 plus 44 plus 9 plus 19. ... All right? . . . Do you all have the answer? Maya? STUDENT 1: Uh, I think it's 90. Yeah, 90.

TEACHER: Let's see . . . 18 plus 44 is 62 . .. plus 9 is 71 .. . plus 19 is 90. Ninety is the answer. Now, to figure out this problem, you had to use your working memory. As you did the problem, you had to continue holding the numbers in your memory until you got the final answer. If you stopped concentrating on the numbers, that is, you stopped saying them to yourself, or stopped visualizing them, you would have forgotten them and then you wouldn't have been able to solve the problem. Do you see how that works?

Here's one more example of working memory involving reading. Look at the sentence: \is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life.\It's written down in your textbook. Why, you may wonder, do we need working memory to understand such a simple sen-tence? Well, the answer is because working memory holds the first part of the sentence, \is the only natural food ...\while our eyes move on to the last part, that is, \without destroying any kind of life.\Without our working memory, we would forget the first part of the sentence before we got to the end. So reading even short or simple passages would be impossible without our working memory.

OK, I think you can see how important working memory is, but our working memory is very limited, and it can only hold information temporarily. It usually lasts only one and one half to two seconds and then it begins to fade. So if working memory were all we had, we would be very limited. Essentially, working memory mediates between how we experience the environment and our long-term memory. This brings us to the third type of memory that we'll talk about today, long-term memory.

Now, long-term memory is involved with information that's stored for considerable lengths of time. For example, do you remember the name of your best friend when you were ten years old? I bet you do, because this information is certainly in your long-term memory. Actually, memory that's tested after about one minute behaves in a very simi-

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lar way to memory tested after a day, a week, or even years, so many scientists believe that any memories more than one minute old are part of our long-term memory. Interestingly, these memories seem to change over time in the sense that we tend to add information to them. In a sense, our memo-ries become somewhat distorted. The reason behind these changes is that our memory is designed to keep or preserve meaning, not to keep impressions or images, but to keep meaning. For example, try to remember a conversation you had yesterday with a friend. Now if you're like most people, you can't remember the exact words that you or your friend said, but you can remember the ideas that you discussed. Your memories of the points that were most important to you will be the clearest. So the essential feature of long-term memory is that it specializes in holding meaning. OK, are there any questions about that? Yes?

STUDENT 1: Yeah. Can you explain why we don't remember all of the details of our past conversations?

recognition is a lot easier for most of us than recall. In other words, asking yourself \I seen this before?\is easier than remembering everything you saw.

Now the third basic method used to measure memory is relearning. Let me give you an example of a relearning test. First, you try to memorize a list of words. Then you don't look at the list for a period of time, maybe a week. If you're like most people, you won't be able to remember all of the words. After a week, you then look at the list a second time and try to relearn it. As you would guess, most people relearn information somewhat faster than they learn it the first time. By measuring the time people need to relearn information, we can calculate how much information they have stored in their long-term memories the first time.

So, let's stop there for today. Uh ... I hope that you'll put today's material in your long-term memory ... or you're going to have a hard time with the test. See you next week.

TEACHER: So the question is, \Unit 4 Actions Speak Louder than Words most experts believe that if we remembered all of the details of our past experiences, our memory system would be filled

TEACHER: OK, class, OK . . . let's begin. What do we mean

with a lot of trivial information, a lot of trivial and generally

when we say that actions speak louder than words?

useless information. Secondly, it is conceivable that we

would find it extremely difficult to sift through such a . .. a STUDENT 1: Uh . . . that means we believe people's actions mass of detailed information and find the really important more than we believe their words. information that we need. Um ... in other words, memory

TEACHER: Yes, exactly right—and, uh, in a sense, actions searches would proceed a lot more slowly.

are more important than words. That's because we usually judge speakers' intentions by the nonverbal signals they send STUDENT 1: OK, I see. Thank you.

us. And that's what our subject today's all about, nonverbal

TEACHER: OK, let's move on to ways of measuring communication—how we communicate through our memory. Just as we distinguished three types of memory, actions— facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, uh, there are three main ways of measuring how much a person body movement, and so on. And if any of you doubt the remembers. The first of these methods is called recall. You importance of these things, you might like to consider a use recall many times every day. Here's what I mean. . . . couple of statistics I've got here in front of me. Some Take out a sheet of paper. . . . OK, now look at the word list communication specialists estimate we spend about 75 in your text: drum, band, studio, and so on. . . . Read it percent of our waking hours communicating. And, more to silently to yourself. . . . OK? . . . Have you looked at all of the point, words account for only, mm, 10 to 30 percent of the words? . . . OK, you should be finished by now. Now, that communication—the bulk's nonverbal. That's food for close your book. Write down the words you saw, as many as thought, uh? you can, on your paper. . .. Go ahead.. .. OK, that's a simple Now although people clearly understand its importance, recall test. Now, most of you probably remembered most of nonverbal communication—I'll call it N.V.C. for short—is the words, but not all of them. Our memories, of course, are actually a rather recent field of study and owes a lot to an not perfect, and of course forgetting is natural. American anthropologist named Raymond Birdwhistle— The second method of measuring memory is recognition. spelled B-I-R-D-W-H-I-S-T-L-E. Easy name to remember, OK, for this you need another piece of paper, or just turn that right? Birdwhistle began studying nonverbal communication one over. . . . All right. Number the page from one to in the 1950s and, um ... one of his main ideas was that the eight. . . . Now look at the word list again. OK, now close meaning of nonverbal behavior depended on the context in your book. I'm going to say eight words. You have to write which it was used.... Uh, it depends on the context. So, he \—\looked at the whole context of nonverbal behavior— how the word I say was not on the list. Ready? Here I go. 1. stu-and, uh, where certain types of nonverbal behavior dio. 2. guitar. 3. stage. 4. recorder. 5. wiring. 6. song 7. appeared—and not just one particular behavior in isolation. vocalist. 8. drum. . . . OK, everybody finished? The answers Facial expressions, for example—frowns, smiles, raised eye-are 1. yes, 2. no, 3. yes, 4. no, 5. yes, 6. no, 7. yes, and 8. brows, and, uh, so on—we all use these to convey many dif-yes. . . . How did you do? Anyone get all eight correct? . . . ferent meanings. But those meanings are largely determined Good! That's what we call a recognition test. In contrast to by the situations we're in and the relationships that we have the recall test, recognition is more receptive and doesn't with the people we're communicating with. So, the same require you to produce anything. For this reason,

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