Paraphrasing exercises
Paraphrasing exercises
Paraphrasing exercises
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<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> <strong>exercises</strong>No place in the English-speaking world is more breathtakingly replete with dialect thanGreat Britain. According to Robert Claibourne (1983:36), there are ‘no less thanthirteen’ quite distinct dialects in Britain. Mario Pei (1949) puts the number at fortytwo- nine in Scotland, three in Ireland, and thirty in England and Wales, but even thatis probably an underestimate. If we define dialect as a way of speaking that fixes aperson geographically then it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there are asmany as there are hills and valleys. In the six northernmost counties of England alone,seventeen separate pronunciations just for the word ‘house’ have been recorded.(Bryson 1990:92)Sussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007
<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> <strong>exercises</strong>Sussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007Language, be it remembered, is not an abstract construction of the learned, or ofdictionary-makers, but it is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys,affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low,close to the ground. Its final decisions are made by the masses, people near theconcrete, having most to do with actual land and sea. It permeates all, the past as wellas present, and the grandest triumph of the human intellect.(Crystal 1995:86)
<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> <strong>exercises</strong>Sussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007Paraphrase, using one or both quotations. Imagine you are writing a term paper withthe following perspectives:a. You are interested in facts relating to the number and types of dialects in the UK.b. You want to establish what ‘proper’ English is.c. You want to argue that it is impossible to categorise dialects, because of theirdiversity and constantly changing nature.
<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> <strong>exercises</strong>Sussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007References:Bryson, B, 1990, Mother Tongue, PenguinCrystal, D, 1995, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of The EnglishLanguage, CUP
<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> skills: exerciseParaphrase the following, ensuring the orange word is in adifferent form. The blue words can be used in their current form ifneeded.1. The educational reforms should result in both lowering costsand increasing efficiency. These reforms are long overdue andessential if the current education system is to meet the needs ofthe next generation (Chisholm, A. 2006:42).Sussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007
<strong>Paraphrasing</strong> skills: exerciseSussex Language Institute, Alison Chisholm & Rachel Cole15 January 2007Paraphrase the following, ensuring the orange word is in adifferent form. The blue words can be used in their current form ifneeded.2. Urbanisation in a rapidly changing world can bring an economiclifeline to city dwellers or signal disaster to those already living onthe margins. It is all too easy to make simplistic statements about‘urbanisation’. Commentators should reflect carefully beforereaching hasty conclusions (Cole, R. 2006: 51).
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