Period 2 tasks: Culture, language and identity (pp84-85)
- culture (noun): the beliefs, habits, and ways of life shared by a particular group of people
- expatriates – people who live permanently in another country
- fellow countrymen – those who come from the same country
- object – think or say something is wrong
- unconsciously – without thinking about it
- accent – way of speaking
- Some words, like object, change their stress depending on whether they are used as verbs or nouns.
- Other words like this include record, increase / decrease, import / export and permit.
Grammar: verb / adjective + to + -ing
- He wanted to go home.
- She refused to learn any English.
- Their parents promised to join them as soon as possible.
- English people are accustomed to drinking tea with milk.
- They don’t object to paying local taxes.
- They’re not looking forward to going home.
Grammar: used to, and linking words + -ing
- They used to live in a small village.
- We were/got used to living in an area where everyone knew everyone else’s business.
- Apart from being a bit cold, I quite like this place.
- Despite living in the south for over fifty years, her accent remained strongly northern.
Grammar: modal verbs for the present and the past
- You should realise how lucky you are.
- The volcano is still active, so it could explode at any time.
- I was born in 1942, so I must have been about six or seven at the time.
- I should have realised what it was.
- I’m sure we could have afforded a fridge then.
Reading: Clinging to culture
- I was born in 1942, so I must have been about six or seven when the 1948 catastrophe (Nakba) happened.
- As a result, thousands of Palestinian families, including mine, were forced to leave Palestine.
- Mainly, though, her refusal to become accustomed to living in America was an expression of her conviction that our situation was only temporary.
- ‘Don’t get used to all this,’ she often told us, ‘because it won’t last. We’ll be going home soon.’
- It’s often been observed that expatriates are more likely to show the outward signs of their culture than their fellow countrymen who stay at home.
- The accent, it seems, is always the last thing to disappear.