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Read the following newspaper article and ask the students to:

. note down the six verbs that are in the passive
. suggest a possible reason for the use of the passive in this article.

|ORCHESTRA'S SCHOOLS BOOST |
|Schools and community groups will be the winners if the |
|world famous Philharmonia comes to town. |
|Negotiations are still under way to make Bedford the |
|orchestra's first British residency outside London |
|beginning in 1995, it has been confirmed. |
|What is being talked about is a strong educational |
|emphasis on the deal, which would see members of the |
|orchestra travelling into the community doing workshops |
|with school and other local groups in the borough. School|
|children will be invited in to the Corn Exchange for |
|afternoon rehearsals of the main concerts to be staged. |
|Massive alterations to the Corn Exchange are being |
|planned in tandem so that the orchestra, which was formed|
|in 1945, and the audiences watching them, will enjoy |
|superior back and frontstage facilities including new |
|sloped seating going from the stage to the present |
|balcony and a new auditorium. |

Comment
1. The six verbs in the passive are:

1. it has been confirmed

2. What is being talked about

3. School children will be invited

4. the main concerts to be staged

5. Massive alterations to the Corn Exchange are being planned

6. which was formed.
(Notice that there are five different forms of the verb be in these sentences.)
2. The reason for so much use of the passive here could be that the events which have occurred and those which are planned are more important than the people behind them. It is also an informative article in a newspaper so that some formality is more appropriate than it would be in a friendly letter or in conversation.

Context and meaning

Lecture We'll turn now from context and grammar to the importance of context for meaning. One aspect of meaning is the extent of meaning that a word has. Imagine you are asked the meaning of the word chair. What do you say? 'It's something you sit on', perhaps.What we need to know are the boundaries of its use. Can you say chair for what you sit on in a train? In a car? When milking? On a bike? In church? Suddenly all sorts of judgements have to be made about whether you are going to introduce related words like bench, stool, pew, seat, armchair.
So a simple question about a simple object leads into questions about its use, and also what it must look like. Must a chair have a back? Legs? Arms?
This is important because although you may be able to translate chair, its full range of meaning will never overlap 100% with its equivalent in another language.
Now close your eyes and think white. If that's all I say, you are likely to think of the colour white, perhaps on a wall or a shirt or paper. But if I say white wine, you'll think of a yellow colour, or white people, a pinkish colour, or a white lie, no colour at all. Clearly then, the meaning of words often depends on the context.

| |
|In what different contexts could the speaker encountere |
|these words? See if you can find at least two different |
|contexts for each. |
|wings right-winger |
|term rate |
|bar |

Comment
Some of the possible contexts for these words are: wings: theatre, bird or car

right-winger: football or politics

term: language, school or maths

rate: currency exchange, tax on housing, or speed of increase/decrease

bar: law, music or drinking.

You have just been thinking about different areas of meaning for the same word. Sometimes these different areas depend on shared cultural assumptions and usage. An example of this is a British Rail poster advertising their
Family Railcard, depicting a jungle with some monkeys playing in the trees.
The text under this poster reads:

|Grown-ups get 25% off rail fares. Your |
|little monkeys go for only Ј1.00. |
|Don't drag your feet (or your knuckles). A|
|family Railcard only costs 20 for a year |
|swing by and pick up a leaflet from any |
|main British Rail Station. |

Note different meanings of the words used here and their sense.

Comment
You would first need to establish that the usual meaning of all the words was understood and then explain that monkeys can be used to refer to children in English, that it carries the idea of naughtiness but that it's used affectionately. To explain knuckles, you would have to refer to (or demonstrate) how monkeys move, using their knuckles, and explain that knuckles is substituting for the word feet in the phrase 'drag your feet'.
You would need to take the same approach to 'swing by'. It might be wise to point out that the use of this sort of language can change quite quickly and could become unfashionable in, say, ten years' time.

| |
|2. AAn advertisement for Remy Martin Champagne Cognac uses|
|three sentences suggesting that the consumers of the |
|product are very special. I have changed one word in each |
|to produce unusual collocations. Identify the word and |
|replace it with a word that collocates better. Ask another|
|person and see if they agree with you. |
|HAVE YOU EVER CREWED A YACHT BEYOND THE VISION OF LAND? |
|HAVE YOU EVER THROWN A BARBECUE THAT FRIENDS STILL TALK |
|ABOUT? |
|HAVE YOU EVER RECEIVED STANDING APPLAUSE? |

Comment

2. You should have suggested:

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