Language guide

FEATURES OF ENGLISH

Adjectives (Epithets)

Remember that in English adjectives come before the noun. So whereas many languages identify the noun, or main interest, and then tell you more about it, English starts with the strongest identifying features (“a famous university”). This may look easy on paper, but when listening to a spoken sentence with several adjectives it may sometimes be hard to remember that there is a noun still to come. An example would be the phrase “senior academic and administrative staff”.

However, an even more curious feature about English is the way that we can use nouns as verbs or adjectives without any obvious change of form. You can see this in phrases such as

· action plan; mission statement; student residence;

· staff training; career development

· course credits; class contact

· Funding Council; Research Councils

where the first noun in each case has become an adjective merely by its position. There are two good examples from football which apply to higher education. The first is the expression "league table", which shows the position of teams in a championship, and which has now become an accepted term when referring to lists of universities compared on a range of criteria to show (allegedly) the best. The second example would be that of goal posts, where it is now a cliché, if the rules or criteria of any exercise are changed, to complain that those responsible have "moved the goalposts". The popularity of the phrase is all the more puzzling in that no one has ever seen real goal posts being moved!

The use of a noun as adjective also explains why a number of UK universities have alternative titles - either the University of Aberdeen, or Aberdeen University. These titles are for practical purposes synonyms. However, not all names can be changed in this way - for some the “place” always appears first, while for others it always comes second. It is best to note this when listening or reading, and use the forms which you have seen.

Sometimes the combination of [adjective + noun] can itself become a single concept, so that “class contact” becomes a single idea to describe another word, as in “class contact hours”. Similarly, when we refer to “modern language students”, the first two words sit together to define a noun - these are not language students with modern ideas or modern lifestyles, but students in what are called the modern languages. The same thing is seen in a phrase like “the first great budget cuts of 1981”, while in another recent example[1] the same process affects the word “fee”: “As we British get used to paying tuition fees for university, experts are asking how long the flat-rate fee can last.”

It is this process which explains why we can refer to French students, History graduates and Chemistry lecturers, whereas other languages might think in terms of “students of French”, etc. The phrase “students/staff (etc) in Physics” is ok, but the other form is the more colloquial. One slight variant on this idea is the fact that “medicine” does not appear before nouns as an adjective, but is often replaced by “medical”, as in “Medical School”. So the future doctors whom we refer to as “medical students” are not medical in the way that their exhibits or illnesses are!

Verbs

You will probably be aware that English has a very simple form of verb conjugations - that is, there are basically just two forms of the present tense (I/you/we/they sit; he/she sits). Similarly, English is rather unique in having only one form of “you”, so we have clearly reduced the complexities a great deal.

Perhaps it is this general looseness of verb forms which allows us also to use other words as verbs without changing their form at all. The following examples show how a noun can suggest a certain concept (in column 2), which then allows it to be used directly as a verb(column 3):

Noun

Concept

Verb form

book

to write in a book

Can I book you for tonight?

The referee booked the player [one more step and he would be “red carded”!]

I’d like to book a room

to send by email

I emailed the document yesterday

hand

to have in your hand

He handed his resignation to the Director

factor

to use a formula or condition

We have factored this risk into the equation.

The position and multiplicity of adjectives, together with the way in which nouns serve as verbs, are all well illustrated in this extract from a newspaper article on a British University:[2]
“The students flocked through its doors - many from poor, under-privileged and ethnic minority backgrounds, groups traditionally excluded from university education. All this championed by a young, flamboyant Blairite vice-chancellor.”

Finally in this context, we might quote two words which are often used in financial terms. To “ring-fence” funds means to put up a metaphorical barrier to form a circle around them, and thus to treat the money as separate and protected. We therefore talk about funds that are ring-fenced. Similarly, just as we might indicate the identity of animals by putting a mark on their ear, so we can “earmark” money by specifying that it can be used for certain purposes only. Thus, in a recent article a UK Vice-Chancellor[3] includes both “the HEFCE ...had to earmark the grant” and “in the present age of ... earmarked funding”.

Adverbs

These are words which modify or qualify not only verbs (“they ran quickly”, but also certain other words (very good). In English many adverbs end in “-ly” (the Romance languages have “ment/mente”). You will notice that whereas in some languages the adverbs almost always come after the verb, in English they can come before or after. So “students regularly complain about the fact that lecturers speak too quietly”. Generally it is true that by leaving the adverb of manner until after the verb one is giving it more emphasis but this is not something you need worry about - people will always understand your meaning. The important thing is that you should become accustomed to hearing such words in what may be an unfamiliar position:

Definite and Indefinite Articles

The definite article is really very easy, since there is only one form (“the”). The points to note are:

· it is often omitted in cases where many other languages would require its use (for example, in general cases: “Students have trouble learning...” or “Universities find themselves in a difficult position”)

· it is pronounced either as a clear sound like “he”/“we”, or as a very dull and neutral sound rather like unstressed French “e”(as in the French masculine definite article!) Again, we are not here trying to teach you to pronounce all this, but merely to warn you that you will hear both sounds.

The indefinite article similarly alternates between a very bold “a” sound as in the second syllable of the English version of HUMANE, and a much less distinct sound rather like the vowel in the English “but”. Try to pick these out when you hear native speakers use them.

When the indefinite article comes before a vowel it generally becomes “an”, but there is at least one group of words where this does not happen, and curiously it concerns ... universities! The “u” sound in this case is not a full vowel but is pronounced almost as if the word began with the “y” of “yes”. So two systems operate:

· words which start with “un” to indicate negativity (“uneducated”, “unfinished”) will use indefinite “an” - for example: “as an unfunded student this person brings no financial benefit”

· words where the initial “u” sound is like a “y” will retain the simple “a”: “a university is a unique place, with a unifying interest in the administration of car parks”

Because the letter “h” is pronounced “aitch” (curiously, without the aspirate sound which the letter otherwise signifies) the letter itself seems to start with a vowel, and so we talk about “an HEI [higher education institution]”.

Direct and Indirect Objects

English is much less careful about these distinctions than other languages. In grammatical terms, we often hide or disguise the indirect (dative) form, and you frequently see or hear expressions such as “I’ll give you an example”. In this sentence, “you” is an indirect form (= to you), since the thing that is being given (the direct object) is “an example”. Similarly, “He gave his staff the information”,although when there are two object nouns like this it is perfectly possible to say “He gave the information to his staff”.

One small but significant point concerns “to tell” and “to say”. Notice the difference in the following patterns:

· “I told the Finance Director the bad news”

· “I said to the Finance Director that we would give him no more money”

Oppositions

This is not an attempt to present all methods of arguing a case. It is simply that all the phrases quoted here were heard in presentations at the first HUMANE seminar of 1999, and several of them deserve a little extra comment:

he or she

This is really not an opposition but an alternative. However, the point is that if one refers to a manager or professor and says "he" one is implying that this can only be a male position. Gender equality now insists that one allows equal opportunities linguistically as well as in the workplace, and a variety of forms are used to express this. "He or she" is most frequent, while "(s)he" is sometimes seen - but is impossible to say! When referring to possession, the phrase "his or her" is also regularly used.

them and us

Also seen as "us and them", it refers to any opposition between national or social groups who see themselves as being separated by a major distinction (class or beliefs): "the academic and managerial staff are in a them-and-us situation"

pros and cons

The phrase illustrates the Latin influence, with "contra" being reduced in size for reasons of balance! For and against.

post/pre

This has a number of variations. We often use the basic opposition, sometimes with an assumed repetition, as in the "pre- and post-1992 universities" of the UK. In other expressions, for some reason only one of the words appears, so the opposite of postgraduate (students or degrees) is undergraduate.

outside/inside

(external/internal)

The words can be used in a variety of ways ("These buildings are old on the outside but totally modern inside", and often appear as synonyms for the Latin forms external/internal. "The external/outside walls are granite; the internal/inside structure is wooden." But they don't always mean exactly the same, especially when used in a non-physical sense - we talk about "inside [ie, privileged] information", whereas "internal information" is merely limited to a company or organisation. However, for present purposes note only that several important phrases in HE use the Latin-based forms; hence "external examiners", "External Relations" (sometimes equated with Pulic Relations); "internal markets" or "internal dispute".

the former/the latter

In such an opposition the former is the one furthest away in the sentence; the latter is the second to be mentioned (you could remember the difference by thinking of "later").

The Latin Influence

The British are, if you will pardon the term, Latin lovers. Although the numbers of people studying ancient languages is even more lamentable than those studying modern languages, there is a huge influence from Latin and Greek in the expressions which are used every day. We came across some of these in the previous section (eg pros and cons). Of course, the language of higher education is even more likely to show such influence, and not only in the Latin words for Doctor of Philosophy which give us our PhD. Some examples, with personal reflections, are:

caveat

Used as a noun, with strong stress on first syllable, meaning 'qualification', or 'reservation' :for example, "I would agree with what you propose to do, with the following caveats".

criteria, phenomena

(plural forms)

These really came from Greek, but let us not be too pedantic. The singular forms are "criterion" and "phenomenon" respectively. British people often get this wrong!

A lot of words from Latin end in "-um", and depending on how much they are perceived as English words or as exotic/"elite" words they will add a standard "s" or use the Latin "-a" for plurals. So don't be surprised if more than one forum for debate is indicated by "forums" or "fora"; football may be played in various stadiums or stadia, etc. Elsewhere "curricula" is more common than "curriculums", and is also adapted in phrases like the "extra-curricular activity" which may be a good or bad thing on a student's "cv" (curriculum vitae).

ex-

This is used to indicate a former state, as in "ex-polytechnics". However, when we ask for money from ex-students we call them alumni because it sounds even more grand and Latin! It is perhaps a reflection of modern life that when British people refer simply to someone's "ex" they mean "former spouse or partner"!

minimum/

maximum

The point to note here is that British people use the words as adjectives ("the minimum grades for university entrance"). The words "minimal" and "maximal" exist, but are generally descriptive rather than describing a precise figure. Thus, "with such minimal grades this student could never qualify. Notice also the formulations "You need a minimum of..." or "Temperatures reached a maximum of ..."

per capita,

pro rata

Presumably it is more logical to have per capitum expenditure or payments, etc, but the plural has become established in this phrase. The second phrase here has succumbed to the British tendency to create verbs from almost any word: "We shall pro-rate Round Table seats to the number of members in each country". Purists shudder.

via

Always used in terms of travelling through one place on the way to another, and pronounced to rhyme with "fire" - or indeed, with "vire", which is a 1970s formation from the French "virement" or turning of funds from one purpose or use to another: "Can I vire some money from my materials budget to pay for the American who came to us via New Zealand?"

vice

As in other languages, the word indicates a deputy (as well as appearing in vice versa). In both phrases British people pronounce it to rhyme with "mice". One curious and very British thing is that our university "Rectors" are called "Vice-Chancellors", and their deputies are ... "Pro-Vice-Chancellors". With the expansion of management functions one assumes that there could just be a deputy pro-Vice-Chancellor, but one hopes not!

We could go on ad infinitum, as they say. But as long as you are prepared to hear some rather odd pronunciations you should be able to recognise a lot more such expressions.

Make and Do

One of the most frequent small errors made in English by non-native speakers is in the choice of “make” or “do” - and this is not helped by the fact that in several other languages they are expressed by the same word! The best way to distinguish between these is to remember that you make something which is new or not previously existing (eg, to make a cake), whereas you do something to an existing object or idea (eg, to do homework). As in all language situations there are exceptions to this, but as what we call a rule of thumb (a general rule) it is good enough. So the university can make a lot of money from a certain activity, but can do a lot of new things with that money!

The word "do" can also be used in phrases which indicate taking action or having an influence. At the Ghent seminar in 1999, a Belgian consultant gave a wonderful lecture in the course of which he used an expression which was wise as well as illustrating the points made above: "When the birds of worry fly over your head you can do nothing about it; but when they try to make their nests inside your head, then you can do something about it.!"

To Get

It is possible to devise an exercise in which at least 60 expressions based on the word “get” are translated into French, all using a different construction - I speak from painful experience! No doubt it is much the same in other languages, but whatever the answer, one thing is certain - the word “get” is hugely important in English speech.

This sub-section has been left until the end of this Section 2, since many of the characteristic phrases here are indeed associated with spoken English (Part 3). Among the most obvious examples we may quote:

“get ...”

Meaning

Example

to get + adjective

to become ...

to get angry

to get

to acquire/succeed

We got a grant of 65,000 ECUS

Our department of X got a "5" in the Research Assessment Exercise

to receive

We get a lot of income from non-government funds

got (perfect tense)

to have in one’s possession/to have acquired

I’ve got a car;

I've got a degree in (X)

Rich universities have got a big advantage

Implied motion, as in:

to get away

to escape

We got away with cheating in our research assessment

to get back

to recover (possession of)

We got our money back

to move back

“Get back!”

to get to

to reach

We got to London late

In HUMANE we got to 150 members in one year

The usage with perfect tense and “got” is to be noted, since it is a fairly straight substitution for “I have”. But because it is a rather colloquial expression there will usually be some abbreviation, so that “I have” will tend to become “I’ve” [see also Contractions, below]. At the individual level this is seen is expressions like “I’ve got a cold/problem” and at institutional level in “We’ve got four Faculties/6,000 students”.

SPOKEN ENGLISH

The Alphabet

It is well worth learning the English alphabet, since the individual letters occur so often in various expressions in Higher Education (HE), and indeed in all areas of life. Many of these types of usage (for example, acronyms) are common to many languages these days, but an immediate knowledge of the sound of the English Q or X (etc) will greatly help. For example, the phrase “for example” is often written “e.g.,” and the spoken form may use just those two letters.

Other typical examples might include:

Letters used as random examples

Plan B; Doctor X

Countries, political units

the UK, the USA, the EU

Symbols

k = 1000 as in “20k pounds” (but note also “ok”!)

Abbreviations of formal titles

DG22 (Directorate General 22)

MP (Member of Parliament)

OU (The Open University)

V-C (Vice-Chancellor)

Abbreviations

TV (television)

OHP (overhead projector)

FTE (full time equivalent)

TQA (Teaching Quality Assessment)

RAE (Research Assessment Exercise)

HQ (headquarters)

Qualifications and Degrees

BA, MSc, PhD

It is less important to learn all these forms/meanings than to be aware of the sounds. In written documents the first use of any abbreviation of an organisation is usually explained. But you still need to be able to recognise the sounds of capital letters in this sentence (taken from a newspaper): "The OU is responsible for 20% of the MBA's awarded in the UK".

Pronunciation

We cannot hope to go into all details of pronunciation of letters. One or two points stand out, however:

· as in many other languages, “g” is “soft” before “e”, “i” and “y”, but hard before “a/o/u”; examples of the soft sound are “general”, “geology”, “ginger” and “agenda”, where the”g” sounds like English “j”

· similarly, “c” is soft or hard before the same letters:; it is like the English “s” in “centre”, “science”, and hard like “k” in “academic” or “course” or “curriculum”.

· The “J” is always like soft “g” noted above

· The Q (the letter of the alphabet rhymes with the sound of “few”) is always followed by “u” and the sound is almost always [kw], as in quality, question, quota or that wonderful five-year period of stability known as the quinquennium..

Odd Sounds

In biblical times certain Israelites had a particular word which they used to test foreigners - this was the shibboleth, and outsiders couldn’t manage it (i.e., get it right!). Some words in English are pronounced in a way that one would never guess from the page, and you may like to learn these for your own use as well as getting used to the way they sound:

foreign

forget the “e” and the “g” - it sounds like “forin”

half

the “l” is not heard at all, and the sound is like an “r” - [harf ]]

often

usually pronounced without any “t” sound: [offen]

schedule

Generally words in “sch-” sound like “sk...” - so, “scholastic”. But British pronunciation of this particular word is [Shedule] - though Americans always say “sk”, and many British people now follow the practice.

[Silent “p”]

Initial “p” is silent in words starting “ps” (pseudonym, psychology, etc)

One other peculiarity to note is the word “quite” - no problem to pronounce, but (amazingly) it means two quite different things, either “fairly/reasonably” as in “It’s quite interesting”, or else “totally” as in “I am quite astonished”. Don’t worry - the context always makes it (quite!) clear!

Dates, Time and Numbers

Dates of years are split into the two halves of a four-digit date and then said just like the two resultant numbers. So 1964 = [19+64] “nineteen sixty-four”. (Out of interest, we use the same idea for time on the 24-hour clock - 18h30 is “eighteen-thirty”.)

Where we shall have a problem is in the next century, where at the time of writing (1999) people are still saying “two thousand and two”, etc. However, one suspects that once we have passed the landmark of the Year 2000, this may evolve into “twenty ten”, etc.

For numbers of things (as opposed to years/dates) the situation is quite similar, but note that after a very regular use of hundreds (five hundred, six hundred, etc) up to 1,000 it is possible to say either "one thousand, one hundred" or "eleven hundred" and so on up as far as 2,000, after which you have to say "two thousand, x hundred and z". So you will hear expressions like: "We have nine thousand, five hundred students, of whom thirteen hundred are postgraduates".

To go back to the idea of the clock, you may sometimes hear someone using the simple numeral for the time of day. So "I'm lecturing at two" means "I shall be giving a lecture at two o'clock", not that the person will have an audience of two students!

Similar ellipses affect our way of referring to age. For humans and other animals English can give just a number, with the age being implied ([Question]"How old are you? [Answer] I'm fifty-one."). Unlike many other languages we use the verb "to be" ("I shall be 52 this year"). However, for buildings and institutions such details are not part of the person, and we refer explicitly to years of age: "Our university is 150 years old".

Finally, we should mention the British way of referring to decades. A person might be in his or her forties or sixties (etc), and similarly we talk about "the Sixties" (i.e., the years between 1960 and 1969). It is also possible to say "the 1960s" (said as "the nineteen-sixties" but never written in full), but as long as it is the twentieth century the inital "nineteen" is understood.

Stress

English has a very significant system of stress on certain syllables of words. It is not part of this introduction to go over the reasons or full illustrations, but we do advise you to listen for the differences which you hear. What we need to emphasise here perhaps is the way that the syllables without stress tend to disappear in spoken language. For example, the part of London with the famous football team Tottenham usually sounds like a six-letter word “Totnum”, and if you want to sound English just think of it that way!

Where you notice this is in words like “manage”, where the stress on the first syllable results in a significant loss of the second , so that this second has a sound rather like [idge] and not at all like the separate word “age” (= number of years). As ever, the purpose of this note is to help you to hear these things, but if you wish to imitate it, so much the better!

The more that one wishes to stress (or underline) a certain idea the more stress (or emphasis) there is on the sound of key words. So it is quite possible to pronounce the four syllables of the word “regularly” in a rather regular fashion (“I go there regularly”), but also to put very significant weight on one syllable (“Students regularly complain...”). The emphasis in such cases goes on the syllable which would normally bear the greater-than-average stress (“this is a managerial issue”, but “that is a management issue”)).

This raises the question of how you are to know which syllable receives the main stress. British people are never actually taught the following rules, but they may be of interest and may also help you to recognise unfamiliar sounds.

Most words of more than one syllable have the stress on the first one:

universe, homework, income

[NB: this does not apply when the first part of a word is a preposition (eg, “under”, “pro”):

underline, professional]

Words with more than three syllables have the stress on the third from the end:

university, (compar)ability

Words ending in “-ic” or “-tion/-sion” have the stress on the last-but-one syllable:

historic, academic, polytechnic; institution, acommodation, examination, television

Words perceived as foreign often have the stress on the final syllable:

Personnel (cf personal), cigarette, questionnaire

And in terms of the sentence, you will hear great variations in stress patterns. The words of the following sample sentence can be said in four very different ways, implying different things:

This is a German school (it’s not a French one)

This is a German school (not a university)

This is a German school (after all, what do you expect?)

This is a German school (not like some others which we would rather not mention!)

Contractions

One of the most common features of spoken English is the way that certain verbal forms contract (i.e., shorten) from two words to one. There are several typical cases:

negatives

(I) cannot (do, etc)

(I) can’t

perfect tense

I have (done)

I’ve (done)

The trick here is to notice how the vowel (in “not” or “have”, etc) is lost, and indicated on the page by the [‘], with a very slight change of vowel sound which need not concern us at present. As examples, the following sentences each have two contractions, of which I give the first one in full in column 1 - see if you can work out the full form of the second one:

cannot: