Ex 3
Questions
KEY
1 C
2 B
3 A
4 B
5 C
- Tamper with something: to make changes to something without permission, especially in order to damage it. Alter. Falsificar, alterar. E.g. Rich countries are tampering with statistics. Someone had obviously tampered with the brakes of my car.
- A dumping ground: a place where you put things you don't want. A tip (a place where you can take rubbish/garbage and leave it).
6 C
Transcript
Extract 1
A friend of mine studies village life in central Africa. A few
years ago, she paid her first visit to a remote area where she
was to carry out her fieldwork. The night she got there, she
was invited to a local home for an evening's entertainment.
She expected to find out about the traditional pastimes of
this isolated community. Instead, the evening turned out to
be a viewing of the film Basic Instinct on video. The film at
that point hadn't even reached the cinemas in London. This
appears to be the norm these days and such vignettes reveal
something about our world. And what they reveal isn't
trivial. It isn't just a matter of people adding modern
paraphernalia - videos, TVs, computers - to their traditional
ways of life.We live in a world of transformations, affecting
almost every aspect of what we do. For better or worse, we
are being propelled into a global order that no one fully
understands, but which is making its effects felt on all of us.
Globalisation: the term may not be particularly attractive or
elegant. But absolutely no one who wants to understand
our prospects and possibilities can ignore it. I travel a lot.
I haven't been to a single country recently where
globalisation isn't being intensively discussed.
The global spread of the term is evidence of the very
developments to which it refers. Every business guru talks
about it. No political speech is complete without it. Yet as
little as 10 years ago, the term was hardly used, either in the
academic literature or in everyday language. It has come
from nowhere to be almost everywhere.
Different thinkers have taken almost completely opposite
views about globalisation in debates that have sprung up
over the past few years. Some dispute the whole thing. I'll
call them the sceptics. According to the sceptics, all the talk
about globalisation is only that - just talk. Whatever its
benefits, its trials and tribulations, the global economy isn't
especially different from that which existed at previous
periods. The world carries on much the same as it has done
for many years.
Others take a very different position. I'll label them the
radicals; they argue that not only is globalisation very real,
but that its consequences can be felt everywhere. The global
marketplace, they say, is much more developed than even
two or three decades ago, and is indifferent to national
borders. Nations have lost most of the sovereignty they
once had, and politicians have lost most of their capability
to influence events.
Extract 2
It is wrong to think of globalisation as just concerning the
big systems, like the world financial order. Globalisation isn't
only about what is 'out there', remote and far away from the
individual. It is an 'in here' phenomenon too, influencing
intimate and personal aspects of our lives. The debate about
family values, for example, that is going on in many
countries, might seem far removed from globalising
influences. It isn't. Traditional family systems are becoming
transformed, or are under strain, in many parts of the
world, particularly as women stake claim to greater equality.
There has never before been a society, so far as we know
from the historical record, in which women have been even
approximately equal to men. This is a truly global revolution
in everyday life, whose consequences are being felt around
the world in spheres from work to politics.
Globalisation thus is a complex set of processes, not a single
one. And these operate in contradictory or oppositional
fashion. Most people think of globalisation as simply
'pulling away' power or influence from local communities
and nations into the global arena. And indeed nations have
lost much of the economic power they once had. Yet it also
has an opposite effect. Globalisation is the reason for the
revival of local cultural identities in different parts of the
world. If one asks, for example, why the Scots want more
independence in the UK, or why there is a strong separatist
movement in Quebec, the answer is not to be found only in
their local cultural history. Local nationalisms spring up as
a response to globalising tendencies, as the hold of older
nation-states weakens.
Extract 3
Globalisation is not a benign force, however. It creates,
some argue, a world of winners and losers. And indeed the
statistics are daunting. The share of the poorest fifth of the
world's population in global income has dropped from 2.3
per cent to 1.4 per cent over the past 10 years. The
proportion taken by the richest fifth, on the other hand, has
risen. In many less developed countries, safety and
environmental regulations are low or virtually non-existent.
Some transnational companies sell goods there that are
controlled or banned in the industrial countries - poor
quality medical drugs, destructive pesticides or high tarand-
nicotine content cigarettes.
As one writer put it recently, rather than a global village,
this is more like global pillage. Along with ecological risk, to
which it is related, expanding inequality is the most serious
problem facing world society. It will not do, however,
merely to blame it on the wealthy. Globalisation today is
only partly Westernisation. Globalisation is becoming
increasingly decentred - not under the control of any group
of nations and still less of the large corporations. Its effects
are felt as much in Western countries as elsewhere.
This is true of the global financial system and of changes
affecting the nature of government itself. What one could
call 'reverse colonisation' is becoming more and more
common. Reverse colonisation means that non-Western
countries influence developments in the West. Examples
abound - such as the Latinising of Los Angeles, the
emergence of a globally oriented hi-tech sector in India, or
the selling of Brazilian TV programmes to Portugal.
Vocabulary
Extract 1
- Vignette: /vɪnˈjet/ a short piece of writing or acting that clearly shows what a particular person, situation, etc. is like. Estampa. E.g. a charming vignette of Edwardian life.
- Paraphernalia: /ˌpærəfəˈneɪliə/ a large number of objects or personal possessions, especially the equipment that you need for a particular activity. E.g. skiing paraphernalia. An electric kettle and all the paraphernalia for making tea and coffee.
- Propel somebody + adverb/preposition: to force somebody to move in a particular direction or to get into a particular situation. Impulsar. E.g. He was grabbed from behind and propelled through the door. Fury propelled her into action.
- Guru: /ˈɡʊruː/ a person who is an expert on a particular subject or who is very good at doing something. E.g. a management/health/fashion, etc. guru. Jean-Paul Sartre was the guru of post-war French philosophy.
- Spring up, sprang up,sprung up: to appear or develop quickly and/or suddenly. E.g. Play areas for children are springing up all over the place. Opposition groups are springing up like mushrooms.
- Tribulation: /ˌtrɪbjuˈleɪʃn/ great trouble or suffering. E.g. the tribulations of modern life.
- Trials and tribulations: the difficulties and problems involved in something. E.g.They soon came to learn about the trials and tribulations of parenthood.
- Sovereignty: /ˈsɒvrənti/ complete power to govern a country.
- Strain: pressure on somebody/something because they have too much to do or manage, or something very difficult to deal with; the problems, worry or anxiety that this produces. E.g. Their marriage is under great strain at the moment. These repayments are putting a strain on our finances. Relax, and let us take the strain (= do things for you). The transport service cannot cope with the strain of so many additional passengers. You will learn to cope with the stresses and strains of public life. I found it a strain having to concentrate for so long. There are strains in the relationship between the two countries.
- Stake (out) a/your claim (to/for/on something): to say or show publicly that you think something should be yours. Reclamar el derecho. E.g. Adams staked his claim for a place in the Olympic team with his easy win yesterday.
- In (a)… fashion: (formal) in a particular way. E.g. How could they behave in such a fashion? She was proved right, in dramatic fashion, when the whole department resigned. In a similar/orderly/spectacular etc fashion. Voting was conducted in a peaceful and orderly fashion.
- Spring, sprang, sprung up: to appear or develop quickly and/or suddenly. E.g. Play areas for children are springing up all over the place. Opposition groups are springing up like mushrooms.
- Hold (on/over somebody/something): influence, power or control over somebody/something. E.g. What she knew about his past gave her a hold over him. He struggled to get a hold of his anger.
- Benign: /bɪˈnaɪn/ kind and gentle; not hurting anybody. E.g. You would never have guessed his intentions from the benign expression on his face.
- Daunting: making somebody feel nervous and less confident about doing something. Intimidating. Desalentador. De enormes proporciones. E.g. She was a brave woman but she felt daunted by the task ahead.
- Tar: a sticky poisonous substance from tobacco that people who smoke cigarettes get in their lungs. Alquitrán. E.g. low-tar cigarettes.
- Pillage: /ˈpɪlɪdʒ/ the act of stealing things from a place or region, especially in a war, using violence. Saqueo. E.g. They brought back horrific accounts of murder and pillage.
- Abound: to exist in great numbers or quantities. Abundar. E.g. Stories about his travels abound.
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