Newspaper Article A Sample of Stylistic Analysis PDF

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READING COMPREHENSION BEFORE READING 1. Fill in the suitable prepositions in the following short extract from a talk given in 1973 by Dr Benjamin Spock, a world famous pediatrician and author of books on child care. Be ready to comment on the following:  relationships between parents and children up until the middle of the twentieth century;  Dr Spock’s interpretation of Freud and Dewey;  the effect of their influences on children.

I think …….the previous centuries and still ……the fist half ……..the twentieth century, parents felt they had to intimidate their children, just the way I was intimidated, scolded all the time, made to feel evil, threatened …….loss ……..love, and may be some kind …….punishment. I used to be scared ………my parents, I was scared …….policeman on the block, I was scared …….my teachers, I was scared……..barking dogs, I was scared …….bullies. Now I think it was Freud and Dewey particularly who changed that point ……..view. Freud said ……… so many words it isn’t ………disciplining or intimidating your children, it’s ……… loving them, then they love you, and they want to be worthy ……you, and they want to grow …….. to be mature people like you. …….other words, it’s the love ……..parent and child that makes them mature, and become responsible. And I think it was Dewey, who said you don’t have to force children to learn, they are wild to learn. I think both of these philosophers gave parents more trust ………their children. I think my job was to translate this ………ordinary language and apply it ………ordinary home situations. And that what the book really says is, not only trust yourself as apparent, it says, trust your children. They will want to grow ……..responsible. So I think many fewer parents tried to intimidate their children ……..the last twenty-five years. And I think that’s why their children are that independent. So when the government says, ‘Don’t reason ……….the war, go ….. and fight it because we tell you to,’ young people say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe you are not right. Maybe it isn’t the right war.’ And I think that when universities say to youths, ‘Never mind your ideas ………how you should be taught, we are ……this business, you take it …..us.’ And I think young people said, ‘Well, maybe it’s our business. We’re the ones who are here ………the education.’ So I think I had a small part …….translating Freud and Dewey. 2. Complete the letter written to a newspaper and be ready to answer the following questions:  According to the author, what have children lost these days, and what have they gained?  What is wrong with school?  How does he characterize the 1960s and the 1980s?  In what ways does the writer criticize youth? Is it for the things parents are traditionally critical about (e.g. being untidy, irresponsible, lazy), or is it something different?

Our Children’s Future As a parent and (1) an ………….(observe) of mankind, I grow (2) ……………(increase)concerned about the life that our children inherit, the values they hold dear, and their expectations for the future. Childhood seems to last but a few years until children become a market force to be bombarded with (3) ……………….(advertise) on the television. They demand to have all that they see, and regard it as their right to be entertained every (4) …………..(wake) moment. At school, most children are bored by the lessons, which they see as (5) …………..(relevant) to life as they perceive it. Life is about having fun, and having fun now. Or, at the other extreme, school is fiercely (6) ……………………..(compete), and pupils are pushed by parents to achieve at all costs. The 1960s were a time of great (7) …………….(liberal), when youth thought that it could right all wrongs. Its ideals of love and peace are now much scorned as hollow, hippy phrases. If the world veered to the left in ’68, then it lurched to the right in the past fifteen years. The 1980s are undoubtedly a more selfish, (8) ……………… (look inward) era, with the individual out to look after himself, (9) …………..

(regard) of the effect this might be having on others. The new gods are money and (10) ……………… (material), and teenagers want now what it took their parents half a (11) ………………..(generate) to achieve. James Stuart, Gloucester

WHILE READING Render the following Russian phrases into English using the text ‘Bringing up a better baby (and goodbye Dr Spock’.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

родители с чрезмерными амбициями, касающихся будущего своих детей посвятить жизнь воспитанию очень умного ребенка развить (=увеличить, приумножить) умственные способности ребенка абсолютно уникальная отрасль науки, которая объединяет ... основные факты возрастать прямо пропорционально стимуляции при условии получения правильных стимулов обычный взрослый человек выглядит ленивцем (=пассивным, медлительным) по сравнению с двухгодовалым ребенком 9. относиться к детям не столько с уважением, сколько с благоговейным страхом 10. вести к отличному владению чтением, математикой и т.д. 11. записать слова большими, понятными буквами на карточках 12. обладать поразительно цепкой памятью 13. относиться к мозгу ребенка как к губке 14. в подобной же манере 15. показывать необыкновенные знания в области математики (=творить чудеса, выделывать номера) 16. образец добродетели; образцовая жена 17. как и все, кому пошел восьмой десяток 18. мир катится в тартарары 19. наносить вред психики большинства американцев 20. улучшить познавательные способности младенцев AFTER READING Read the following statements through and mark them true (T) or false (F).

1. Dr Spock reassured generations of parents that their babies were instinctively sociable. 2. The main ambition of many American professional parents these days is for their children to become integrated members of society. 3. The Better Baby Institute runs courses for specially gifted children. 4. Doman believes that any individual could be a genius as great as Shakespeare as long as training is started early enough. 5. Doman believes that a baby would prefer to learn Greek to its mother tongue because Greek is more challenging. 6. Doman maintains that babies can learn to read hundreds of new words and phrases every day. 7. Scientists have proof that Glenn Doman’s theory is correct. 8. It is a full-time job for parents if they embark on the training programmes. 9. Josh Pereira has difficulty getting on with other children. 10. Dr Spock believes it is desirable that parents make every effort to increase their baby’s cognitive abilities.

BRINGING UP A BETTER BABY (AND GOODBYE TO DR SPOCK) (1) Dr Benjamin Sock, the famous American pediatrician, reassured several generations of anxious parents in his best selling “Baby and Child Care”. He wrote “Your baby is born to be a reasonable friendly human being”. Today’s parents are not sure this is enough. There is a growing number of American professional parents with obsessive ambitions for their children. They are dedicating their lives to creating brillhiant children. The Age of Spock is over! Why have a merely “normal” baby when you can have an improved model, a Better Baby? In the world of baby care, common sense has given way to competition and connoisseurship. The Better Baby Institute (2) This was founded by an American called Glenn Doman. Four to six times a year the Institute opens its doors to a group of about eighty parents who have paid $490 each for a seven-day seminar entitled “How to multiply your baby’s intelligence”. After studying children for over forty years, Doman has developed an apparently brilliant, internally consistent and completely idiosyncratic brand of science that commingles developmental psychology, neurology and anthropology. He introduces the parents to his “89 Cardinal Facts for Making Any Baby into a Superb Human Being”. Cardinal Fact №6: “Our individual genetic potential is that of Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Michelangelo, Edison and Einstein.” (3) Doman claims that up until the age of six, when brain growth slows, a child’s intellectual and physical abilities will increase in direct proportion to stimulation. Thus any child, given the proper stimuli, can become the next Leonardo. Cardinal Fact №26: “Tiny kids would rather learn than eat.” (4) Doman claims that they’d rather learn Greek than baby talk, since higher orders of complexity offer more stimulation. He makes the average adult seem like a sloth in comparison with a twoyear-old. “Every kid,” he asserts, “learns better than every adult”. Parents at the Better Baby Institute learn to regard their mewling puking infants not so much with respect as awe. (5) So the question is now one of technique. How can parents create the kind of brain growth that leads to expertise in reading, math, gymnastics, and the like? Say you want to teach your sixmonth-old how to read. Write down a series of short, familiar words in large, clear letters on flashcards. Show the cards to your infant five to six times a day, simultaneously reciting the word written on each one. With his extraordinary retentive powers he’ll soon be learning hundreds of words, then phrases. The idea is to try to treat the baby’s mind as a sponge. By the age of three, Doman guarantees, your child will be entertaining himself and amazing your friends by reading “everything in sight”. In like manner he can learn to perform staggering mathematical stunts, or to distinguish and thoughtfully analyze the works of the Great Masters or the classical composers. (6) Doman declines to prove his claims to the scientific community; he’s happy, he says, as long as parents are convinced. These Professional Mothers (it is usually the mother) turn out to be paragons. Attractive young Mrs DiBattista printed up 9, 000 flashcards for five-year-old Michael. Stout, solemn Mrs Pereira patiently explained that she “took time off” from her all-day routine of teaching eleven-year-old Josh to devote several weeks exclusively to making Josh’s French and Spanish flashcards for the coming year. Wasn’t Josh lonely? “No,” his proud mother replied. He was “socially excellent”. (7) What does Dr Benjamin Spock think of the better baby phenomenon? Like most octogenarians he thinks the world has gone to hell; he argues that competitive pressures are taking a psychic toll on most Americans, especially young people, and blames “excessive competitiveness” for the extraordinary rise in teenage suicide over the last twenty years. Efforts to improve infants’ cognitive abilities only prove to him that the scramble for success has finally invaded the cradle. (Adapted from an article in “Harper’s and Queen”, March 1986) (Headway, Advanced – 1989)

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE “Bringing Up a Better Baby (and Goodbye to Dr Spock)” The article “Bringing Up a Better Baby (and Goodbye to Dr Spock)” comes from the 1986 March edition of “Harper’s and Queen” – the UK sister magazine of the popular American fashion magazine “Harper’s Bazaar” with a well-established more-than-a-century-long reputation – and deals with the innovative trends in upbringing of children. It is an example of a publicist style, thus performing two basic functions – informative (it reports on the aim of “The Better Baby Institution” founded by an American writer and child-rearing guru Glenn Doman and elucidates the teaching techniques propagated within its walls) and pragmatic (positive and negative attitudes towards the phenomenon in question are presented). Thus, the article under analysis may be described as educational (and at times, advertising or ideological) in its nature. (1)The introductory paragraph sheds light on the central idea of Dr Spock’s (the famous American pediatrician’s) book “Baby and Child Care” – that is, any baby is a reasonable friendly human being. (2)The author states that by enrolling on a seven-day seminar at the “Better Baby Institution” of Glenn Doman parents become capable of bringing up “an improved model” of a baby instead of a merely “normal” baby. (3)The “89 Cardinal Facts for Making Any Baby into a Superb Human Being” brings together bits of developmental psychology, neurology and anthropology in order to form the basis for a brand-new consistent science branch, which insists that every child can be moulded into a genius if taught from the very birth until the age of six. (4)The chief technique is presenting a baby with a number of flashcards with words, sentences and numbers on them to teach verbal skills and mathematics and simultaneously reciting the written data. (5)Although the inventor of this innovative teaching method is reluctant to discuss it in the scientific circles, the professional mothers seem to be very enthusiastic about putting it into practice. (6)The concluding paragraph elucidates Dr Spock’s reaction to the “Better Baby Phenomenon”, and namely: excessive competitiveness fostered practically from the birth of a child can be more of a detrimental rather than of beneficial effect. The headline of the article “Bringing Up a Better Baby (and Goodbye to Dr Spock)” exemplifies a number of structural and semantic peculiarities of a typical newspaper headline: it is written in much larger type size than the article text and is accompanied by the subhead in larger type size and in an entirely different font - “The Better Baby Institute”. Thus, the subhead provides us with the name of the place where a new teaching method is being taught, while the headline pinpoints its essence – it intends to bring up exclusively prodigies, which entirely contradicts Dr Spock’s ideas on child-rearing. For one reason or another, the author of the article chooses to avoid resorting to headlinese – the nonconversational language of newspaper headlines, in other words: he neither omits auxiliary verbs, articles, prepositions, nor employs striking imagery in the headline itself. However, he succeeds in keeping the headline laconic and void of ambiguity. Not only the headline (together with the subhead), but the whole main body of the article abounds in vocabulary items pertaining to the topic “child raising” – take for instance, “bringing up, pediatrician, baby/child care, mewling puking infant, professional parents” that can be regarded as general lexis on childhood and parenting, and then consider “flashcards, child’s retentive powers, perform mathematical stunts, cognitive abilities” that illustrate a specific teaching technique. One can’t but notice the author’s skilful juggling with simple, laconic, plain descriptions (for example, in the first paragraph) and complex, intricate, verbose and even flamboyant passages (for instance, the second paragraph), which proves the well-known fact that a newspaper article may combine the features of both written and oral speech.

Among the main features of the text syntax the relative variety of sentence construction comes first. The readers encounter all the four types of sentences by purpose – declarative (naturally, they predominate), interrogative (What does Dr Spock think of the better baby phenomenon?), exclamatory (The Age of Spock is over!) and imperative (Write down a series of shirt, familiar words in large, clear letters on flashcards.). The four types of sentences by structure – simple sentences as well as compound, complex, complex-compound sentences, the parts of which are usually joined syndetically - are also to be found in the article. Surprising as it may seem, the principle of economy is realized in the article not through such time-honoured technique as indulging into compounds, blends, abbreviations, etc., but through the usage of short words/sentences instead of long words and unnecessary loaded, complicated syntactic structures. Of all the syntactical stylistic means the author appears to favour parallel constructions – “apparently brilliant, internally consistent, completely idiosyncratic”, “ attractive young Mrs DiBattista; stout, solemn Mrs Pereira”, “Say you want …; Write down …; Show the cards to …”, - which definitely contributes to the logical arrangement of ideas within the single paragraph and the whole text. The author’s resorting to rhetorical questions – “Why have a merely “normal” baby when you can have an improved model, a Better Baby?” – is aimed at getting his readers engrossed into the discussed matter. What strikes the readers most about the lexical stylistic devices, is the amalgamation of formal and informal words: for example, the author juxtaposes colloquial and neutral vocabulary items (especially, phrasal verbs and idioms) - “to take time off, to be over, a kid, to go to hell, to give way to smth.” – with the learned vocabulary (sometimes, terminology of the Humanities) “to commingle, stimuli, expertise, a paragon, an octogenarian”; “developmental psychology, brain growth, genetic potential”. Among the lexical stylistic devices occasional uses of genuine (not trite) similes (“the average adult seem like a sloth”), metaphors (“the scramble for success has finally invaded the cradle”) as well as two groups of epithets – the first advertising the new teaching method (“brilliant, extraordinary, staggering”) and the second emphasizing the negative effects of the ever on-going pursuit of success (“obsessive, excessive”) can be cited. They chiefly serve to clarify the author’s attitude to the described phenomenon. Furthermore, numerous cases of irony - a “completely idiosyncratic” brand of science which commingles knowledge from a number of other sciences; the boy didn’t feel lonely but was “socially excellent”; babies are trained to “perform staggering stunts” as if they were animals in the circus – are targeted not merely at producing humorous effect, but (in the first place) at conveying the author’s skepticism of any “apparently brilliant, internally consistent and completely idiosyncratic”. In addition, a number of vocabulary units illustrating the culturally bound peculiarities should be pointed out: first, “the Better Baby Institute” is a neologism coined by the American contemporary expert on child care and the inventor of the latest American child-raising craze– Glenn Doman; second, several allusions to the American pediatrician with world-wide fame – Dr Benjamin Spock – are made; third, some recent statistics of teenage suicide and its causes in the USA are presented. In a nutshell, the author’s ingenious employing an array of stylistic devices explicates the pragmatic function of the article, which is somewhat pessimistic and full of negative connotations. The author sides with Dr Spock against the unbearable competitive pressures on children of all ages, who are pushed by their highly ambitious parents to succeed in life at any cost. Hence, the main targets of the satire and irony in the article are the founder of the Better Baby Institute and the so called “professional mothers”.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: AN OUTLINE FOR THE ANALYSIS

1. Give the name/title of the article, identify its source and highlight the central idea(s)/issue(s). The article “…”

is taken from “…” comes from “…” (if possible, comment on the source)

The central idea of the article The author’s main concern The article also

It can be





is

reports on mentions covers comments on examines described as characterized as

and deals with focuses on centers on is about concerns is concerned with, etc. …

…. issue(s) the issue of … the problem of …

…

educational ideological sociological entertaining advertising, etc.

(in its nature) (in essence)

The article is an example of a publicist(ic) style/media discourse (discourse = (A) written or spoken communication or debate; (B) an institutionalized way of thinking that can be manifested through language, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic), which fulfills/performs 2 basic functions – informative (to give facts) and pragmatic (to show one’s own attitude and to make a certain impact on the reader). The latter function is, as a rule, more explicit: opinion articles are directed at influencing the readers, shaping their views and persuading them, in accordance with the argumentation of the author. Correspondingly, we find in publicist style a blend of the rigorous logical reasoning, reflecting...