programma di inglese

PROGRAMMA DI INGLESE
UNITS 1
SOCIETY
• Centenaries
• Homeless People
• Racial Integration
UNITS 2
ADOLESCENCE
• Viewpoints
• Rities of Passage
UNITS 3
ADDICTION
• Drug Abuse
• Alcohol
• Smoking
UNITS 4
HUMAN RIGHTS
• Emergency
• Surrogacy
UNITS 5
THE TOOLS OF DRAMA
UNITS 6
TRAGEDY: A DEFINITION
UNITS 7
COMEDY: A DEFINITION
UNITS 8
CONTENUTI SPECIFICI DI GRAMMATICA
• Present Simple
• Present Continuos
• Present Simple or Present Continuos
• Imperativo
• Past Simple
• Past Continuos
• Present Perfect
• Past Simple or Present Perfect
UNITS 1 SOCIETY
CENTENARIES
Prehistoric society
The distant past does not offer us much information on the structures of
society, but major changes in human behaviour make it likely that society
must have changed dramatically. In common with much of Europe, the
switch from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming around 4000 BC
must have heralded an enormous shift in all aspects of human life.
Nobody knows what changes may have occurred, and recent evidence of
permanent buildings and habitation from 3,000 years ago means that
these may still have been gradual shifts. One of the most obvious symbols
of change in prehistoric society is Stonehenge. The building of such stone
circles, burial mounds and monuments throughout the British Isles seems
to have required a division of labour. Builders would have needed to
dedicate themselves to the task of monument construction to acquire the
required skills. Not having time to hunt and farm would make them rely
on others to such an extent that specialised farmers would emerge who
provided not only for themselves but also for the monument builders.
What we know of prehistoric times apart from their monuments is mostly
derived from the remains of burials, and this shows another major change
in society: the rise of an aristocracy. It is perhaps inevitable that a
division of labour would give some people less work while others got
more, and an increase of lavishly furnished graves seems to confirm this.
Again, care should be taken not to infer too many complex ideas of social
history from grave sites, but they do show that people had surplus time
for the production of decorative items and they hint at early beliefs about
death and religion. This aristocracy, whether it gained its position through
martial strength or technological skill, made further social stratification
highly likely.
Two other changes which surely influenced social change were the
beginning of the Iron Age and the building of hill forts. The first probably
necessitated the second, but the growth in population, competition for
resources and an unwillingness to simply move on and abandon settled
lives or farms probably made the need for forts greater. Fortification and
war raise one important unanswered question about British society: the
role of invasion. Any incursion of other peoples into the British Isles is
bound to have major social effects, but we do not really know whether
these events were invasions, immigrations or simply adoptions of outside
ideas; and the native populations may have been mostly killed, slowly
supplanted, integrated with the new or just had the aristocracy replaced.
These questions relate to many of the changes in culture seen in
prehistoric and later times such as the Beaker people, the Celts, the
Romans and the Anglo-Saxons.
Romans
The arrival of the Romans in 54 BC probably did not alter society greatly
at first, as it was simply a replacement of the ruling class, but numerous,
at first minor, ideas would later gain footholds. Certainly, it wouldn't
have affected Ireland in the slightest. It is from the Romans, and
particularly Tacitus, that we get the earliest detailed written records of
Britain and its tribal society. We get fascinating glimpses of society in
Britain before the Romans, although only briefly and disparagingly
mentioned, particularly the importance of powerful women such as
Cartimandua and Boudica. City dwelling was not new to pre-Roman
Britain, but it was a lifestyle that the Romans preferred even though
available to only a select few Romanised Britons. Romanisation was an
important part of the Roman conquest strategy, and British rulers who
willingly adopted Roman ways were rewarded as client kings; a good
example of this is Togidubnus and his ultramodern Roman-style house at
Fishbourne.
Although the Roman conquest was relatively swift, there was often
rebellion, and war with the unconquered Caledonian tribes in the far
north, and so the army became an important part of Roman British life.
An army, probably larger than that of most medieval monarchs, gave a
low-status Briton the chance of a steady job, the possibility of seeing the
rest of the empire, and rewards for service if they survived. The army also
brought people to Britain, not just from present day Italy but from all
over the empire. To subdue and control the country, the Romans built a
major road network which not only was an important civil engineering
project but formed the basis of the country's communication links. The
Romans brought many other innovations and ideas such as writing and
plumbing, but how many of these things were the preserve of the rich or
were even lost and re-appropriated at a later date is uncertain. The one
other great social change the Romans brought to Britain was Christianity,
whose effect on society was probably minimal at first but eventually far
succeeded.
Early medieval society
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century is thought
to have brought general strife and anarchy to society, but the actual
events are not well understood. Archaeology certainly shows a reduction
in the expensive goods found before and the Roman cities began to be
abandoned, but much of British society had never had such things.
Certainly, numerous peoples took advantage of the absence of Roman
power, but how they affected British society is far from clear. The
hegemony of Roman rule gave way to a selection of splintered, often
competing, societies, including later the heptarchy. Rather than think of
themselves as a small part of a larger Roman empire, they reverted to
smaller tribal allegiances.
The Anglo-Saxons' arrival is the most hotly disputed of events, and the
extent to which they killed, displaced, or integrated with the existing
society is still questioned. What is clear is that a separate Anglo-Saxon
society, which would eventually become England with a more Germanic
feel, was set up in the south east of the island. These new arrivals had not
been conquered by the Romans but their society was perhaps similar to
that of Britain. The main difference was their pagan religion, which the
surviving northern areas of non-Saxon rule sought to convert to
Christianity. During the 7th century these northern areas, particularly
Northumbria, became important sites of learning, with monasteries acting
like early universities and figures such as Bede at the forefront of
European thought. In the 9th century Alfred the Great was extremely
interested in creating a literate, educated people and did much to promote
the English language, even writing books himself. Alfred and his
successors unified and brought stability to most of the south of Britain
that would eventually become England, and he is also credited with
organising the country into shires, the forerunners of current counties.
Late medieval society
Feudalism, although always a very contentious idea, is often used to
describe medieval society. Basically stated, a lord owns land or a fief
which he allows vassals to work in return for their military service. The
vast majority of the people were peasants who would work on the vassal's
fiefs. This or a similar system was the basis of later medieval society. It
probably existed in some form in England before the Norman conquest,
but the Normans did much to institute it, either replacing existing lords or
by becoming 'overlords' above now-demoted lords. A wealth of
information on these social structures can be drawn from one of the best
early surveys of its type, the Domesday Book.
After the Norman conquest of England, English society seemed fixed and
unchanging for several centuries, but gradual and significant changes
were still taking place, the exact nature of which would not be
appreciated until much later. The Norman lords spoke Norman, and in
order to work for them or gain advantage, the English had to use the
Anglo-Norman language that developed in England. This became a
necessary administrative and literary language (see Anglo-Norman
literature), but despite this the English language was not supplanted, and
after gaining much in grammar and vocabulary began in turn to replace
the language of the rulers. At the same time the population of England
more than doubled between Domesday and the end of the 13th century,
and this growth was not checked by the almost continual foreign warfare,
crusades and occasional civil anarchy.
The crusades are one measure of the ever-increasing power of the church
in medieval life, with some estimates suggesting that as many as 40,000
clergy were ordained during the 13th century. This is also shown by the
spate of cathedral building, common throughout Europe, at the time.
These great buildings would often take several generations to complete,
spawning whole communities of artisans and craftsmen and offering them
jobs for life.
The increase in population led not only to larger cities and towns, but also
to the building of many more towns. This did not change England
significantly from being a mainly rural society, and many agricultural
changes, such as crop rotation, kept the countryside profitable. It has been
suggested that the 13th century experienced a mini-industrial revolution,
with the increased use of wind power and changes in the wool industry.
Wool, always important to the British economy, was traditionally
exported to be processed, but it was now frequently processed in
England, creating a variety of extra jobs. The export of cloth continued to
increase from the 14th century onwards, and after the closing of the port
of Calais (which consumed much of the raw wool) by the Spanish in the
late 16th century, cloth became the primary type of wool exported. Many
people were finding different roles and responsibilities within English
society too, with the growth of common law giving people greater access
to the law and the "commons" starting to have a place in the Parliament
of England during Edward I of England's time.
After many years of growth and gradual change, there was one seismic
event which changed British society dramatically. The Black Death in the
middle of the 14th century, according to some estimates, almost halved
the population. Whole villages were wiped out by the plague, but rather
than destroying society it managed to reinvigorate it. Before the plague
there was a large, perhaps excessive, workforce with overpopulation and
people competing for scarce resources. The drop in population meant that
labourers were in short supply, and peasants who had once been confined
to a landowner's estate now had great incentive to travel to areas without
workers. This social mobility was combined with the fact that peasants
could charge much more for their services, and this began a switch from
indentured labourer to wage earner which signalled the decline of the
feudal system.
The peasants' new-found freedoms were very worrying to the authorities,
who passed laws specifying the maximum that a peasant should be paid,
but this had little effect on wages. The first of several sumptuary laws
were also made, dictating exactly how people at every level of society
should dress and what they could own, in an effort to enforce social
distinctions. These new laws, plus a newly levied poll tax which had been
calculated on pre-plague population figures, led directly to the Peasants'
Revolt. Although quickly put down, the revolt was an early popular
reform movement -- a precursor to later, more successful uprisings.
Geofrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales give an illuminating picture of many
of the different people who made up medieval society, although these
portraits are limited mainly to the middle classes. The Wife of Bath is one
particularly vibrant character within the Tales and a few years later a realworld equivalent, Margery Kempe, showed in her autobiography that
women had an important part in medieval society.
Tudor society
The Tudor dynasty period was seen as a very stable time compared to the
previous years of almost constant warfare. The Reformation caused not
only internal and external conflict, but also had some surprising effects
on society. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries these institutions
had been one of the important parts of social welfare, giving alms and
looking after the destitute, and their disappearance meant that the state
would have to adopt this role, which culminated in the Poor law of 1601.
The monasteries also had been the major educational establishments in
the country; after they had gone, many new grammar schools were
founded and these, along with the earlier introduction of the printing
press, helped to improve literacy. At the same time, though, language
suffered when the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which combined England
and Wales into one state, outlawed the use of Welsh language for public
offices.
The agricultural reforms which had begun in the 13th century accelerated
in the 16th century, with inclosure altering the open field system and
denying many of the poor access to land. Large areas of land which had
once been common, and whose usage had been shared between many
people, were now being enclosed by the wealthy mainly for extremely
profitable sheep farming. This change in farming practices probably
contributed to the growth of cities, as the unlanded and unemployed
moved to look for work; at the same time, there was a marked growth in
the suburb. These features were described by an 'explorer' of England,
John Leland, as not a place for the excluded poor, who were traditionally
kept on the outskirts of the city, but a place for the middle classes to
escape the crowded centre.
Many new opportunities presented themselves for people to alter their
places in society. There were the refinements of both the blast furnace
and gunpowder which made the arms trade lucrative, and science, art,
trade and exploration were all on the increase. William Shakespeare is a
very good example of the burgeoning society, showing not only that a
lowly son of a glovemaker could go on, apparently without a university
education, to become an actor, playwright and theatre owner - not highly
socially regarded professions - but also that people increasingly had the
money and time to attend the theatre.
Stuart society
If Shakespeare and his contemporaries symbolised the start of true social
mobility, then Oliver Cromwell reached the high point of social
movement, unequalled even in the 20th century. The son of a farmer, he
went on to become a king in all but name, and the effect of that shortlived republicanism would permanently alter British society.
Cromwell's rise to power was in part the outcome of religious conflict
and dissent present since the Lollards of the 14th century. However, these
religious radicals and even the Protestant Reformation did not seem to
affect society greatly, and in the case of the Reformation it was in
England a relatively calm transformation compared to other parts of
Europe. There was burning of heretics on both sides as the two factions
vied for power, but the vast majority of laypeople seemed unmoved or
even uncertain as to which faith they belonged to. It was only in Stuart
times, when the population felt itself to be strongly Church of England,
that fear of the re-adoption of the Catholic religion began to cause
problems.
The English civil war was far from just a conflict between two religious
faiths, and indeed it had much more to do with divisions within the one
Protestant religion. The austere, fundamentalist Puritanism on the one
side was opposed to what it saw as the crypto-Catholic decadence of the
Anglican church on the other. Divisions also formed along the lines of the
common people and the gentry, and between the country and city
dwellers. It was a conflict that was bound to disturb all parts of society,
and a frequent slogan of the time was "the world turned upside down".
In 1648 the Grandees on the winning Parliamentary side of the Civil War,
faced with the perceived duplicity and uncompromising stand of King
Charles I, gradually came around to the idea which more radical elements
on the Parliamentary side had been advocating for some time: that the
death of the King was necessary to restore peace. In January 1649 King
Charles was tried and executed as a traitor. During the Interregnum there
were two major types of government: the Commonwealth and the
Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Both these governments were based on
the rule of the same class of gentry and wealthy merchants who had
formed the majority of the electorate to Parliament before the Civil War.
After the capture of King Charles I, and during the first few years of the
Interregnum, the old ruling class faced challenges to their position by
other sections of society. The most important of these groups were the
Levellers, who wished to level society, removing class distinctions to
make all men equal. They also wished to see universal suffrage for all
adult male householders, regular elections and the abolition of all tithes which would break the power of the established church. The Levellers'
power base was in the New Model Army, but the Grandees managed to
contain and then destroy dissent within the Army, and with this loss of
influence the levellers were no longer able to mount a credible challenge
to the established order. There were more radical groups than the
Levellers - for example the Diggers, the Fifth Monarchy Men, and the
Ranters - but these more radical groups did not attract many supporters.
The Protectorate, which preceded the Restoration, might have continued a
little longer if Oliver Cromwell's son, Richard Cromwell, had been
capable of carrying on his father's policies. Richard Cromwell eventually
resigned his position as Lord Protector, but England was not yet ready to
be a republic. George Monck, governor of Scotland under the Cromwells,
instituted military rule when the younger Cromwell resigned his position
in 1659; Monck then began negotiations for Charles to return from exile.
The Declaration of Breda paved the way for the restoration and Charles's
return from exile, an event which took place on May 23, 1660. Later in
London, on May 29, he was restored as king.
After eleven years without a king, the transition back to a true monarchy
was quick and almost uneventful. The people might have supported the
limiting of the power of the king, but what they did not like were the
strictures placed on society by the Puritans. Amongst other things, the
Puritans banned gambling, cockfights, the theatre and even Christmas.
The arrival of Charles II—The Merry Monarch—brought a relief from
the warlike and then strict society that people had lived in for several
years. The theatre returned, along with expensive fashions such as the
periwig and even more expensive commodities from overseas. The
British Empire had been expanding since the late 16th century, and along
with much wealth returning to the country, expensive luxury items were
also appearing. Sugar and coffee from the East Indies, tea from India and
slaves from Africa were all essential items forming the backbone of trade
and the first three became the basis of London society.
One in nine of the population of the country is estimated to have lived in
London near the end of the Stuart period and, as a hub of trade, expensive
goods from all over accumulated there. Coffee houses were becoming the
centres of business and social life, and it has also been suggested that tea
might have played its own part in making Britain powerful, as the
antiseptic qualities of tea allowed people to live closer together,
protecting them from germs, and making the Industrial Revolution
possible. These products can be considered as beginning the consumer
society which, while it promoted trade and brought development and
riches to society, helped widen the gap between rich and poor.
At the beginning of the reign of the Stuart kings, James I of England
(James VI of Scotland) authorised a new translation of the Bible which
was known as the King James Bible or Authorised Version. This was not
only an important event in clearly separating the Anglican and Catholic
churches, just as the Book of Common Prayer had done fifty years
earlier, but as a standard text it also was a major influence on English
literature, language and thought for centuries to come. Newspapers, a
fairly new invention, soon became important tools of social discourse and
the diarists of the time such as Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are some
of the best sources we have of everyday life in Restoration England.
Georgian society
Stuart society ended with the Glorious Revolution, perhaps not all that
glorious, but it did show that the power of the king had not recovered
from limitations it suffered in the civil war and was still under obligation
to the state. One of William III's first actions on coming to power was to
sign the Act of Toleration of 1689 which granted rights of free religious
worship to many of the Protestant sects which had been formed around
the time of the civil war. Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists,
Ranters and Quakers were all allowed to pray freely, although many of
these groups had taken the opportunity of the expanding empire and had
set themselves up in colonies.
The Industrial Revolution can be thought of as starting as early as the
16th century, although it did not reach its peak until the 19th century, and
the form it took during the Georgian era was an agricultural revolution.
Along with developments in technology such as Jethro Tull's seed drill
which allowed greater yields, the process of enclosure, which had been
altering rural society since the Middle Ages, became unstoppable. More
people were made unemployed by being excluded and forced off the land
which, despite compensation, often meant having to enter the workhouse,
leaving many with a lasting distrust of the law. Criticism from the church
did not stop the process, and the new mechanisation that was being
introduced needed much larger fields — the layout of the British
countryside with the patchwork of fields divided by hedgerows that we
see today. As in other major times of inclosure, the poor moved into the
cities looking for work, and not only did existing cities grow but small
market towns such as Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds became cities
simply by weight of population.
Despite changes taking place in England throughout Georgian times, it is
often noted that the country was relatively calm and stable, certainly
compared with the revolutions and wars which were convulsing Europe
at the time. The politics of the French Revolution did not translate
directly into British society to spark an equally seismic revolution, nor
did the loss of the American Colonies dramatically weaken or disrupt
Great Britain. Part of the economic stability can be ascribed to wealth
gained through the colonisation of India. Great Britain's more gradual
adoption of the radical politics of the time is often explained by the
growth in Methodism among the poor and working classes, which
diverted their attention to more spiritual rather than physical revolutions.
Another factor frequently cited for the stable basis which the burgeoning
industrial revolution would be built on is the fact of the Civil War in the
17th century. Although not in living memory, the war that raged between
king and parliament still influenced national life, and fear of yet another
damaging revolution is thought to have prevented many from engaging in
such activities.
Victorian era
The social changes during the Victorian era were wide-ranging and
fundamental, leaving their mark not only upon the United Kingdom but
upon much of the world which was under Britain's influence during the
19th century. It can even be argued that these changes eclipsed the
massive shifts in society during the 20th century; certainly many of the
developments of the 20th century have their roots in the 19th. The
technology of the Industrial Revolution had a great impact on society.
Inventions not only introduced new industries for employment, but the
products and services produced also altered society. Mining to extract the
coal and other raw materials needed to fuel the Industrial Revolution was
a major new industry, and before 1842 even women worked in the mines.
The status of the poor is one area in which huge changes occurred. A
good illustration of the differences between life in the Georgian and
Victorian eras are the writings of two of England's greatest authors, Jane
Austen and Charles Dickens. Both writers held a fascination for people,
society and the details of everyday life but in Austen the poor are almost
absent, mainly because they were still the rural poor, remote and almost
absent from the minds of the middle classes. For Dickens, only a few
years later, the poor were his main subject, as he had partly suffered their
fate. The poor now were an unavoidable part of urban society and their
existence and plight could not be ignored. Industrialisation made large
profits for the entrepreneurs of the times, and their success was in
contrast not only to the farm workers who were in competition with
imported produce but also to the aristocracy whose landowning wealth
was now becoming less significant than business wealth. The British
class system created an intricate hierarchy of people which contrasted the
new and old rich, the skilled and unskilled, the rural and urban and many
more.
John Wesley's Methodists had succeeded in their campaign for the
abolition of slavery in 1807, but at the same time indentured labour and
near-slavery were still common, even at the heart of the Empire. Some of
the first attacks on industrialisation were the Luddites' destruction of
machines, but this had less to do with factory conditions and more to do
with machines mass-producing linen much quicker and cheaper than the
handmade products of skilled labourers. The army was called to the areas
of Luddite activity such as Lancashire and Yorkshire and for a time there
were more British soldiers controlling the Luddites than fighting
Napoléon in Spain. The squalid, dangerous and oppressive conditions of
many of the new Victorian factories and the surrounding communities
which rose to service them became important issues of discontent, and
the workers began to form trade unions to get their working conditions
addressed.
The first unions were feared and distrusted,and ways were devised to ban
them. The most widely known case was that of the Tolpuddle Martyrs of
1834, an early attempt at a union whose members were tried on a
spurious charge, found guilty and transported to Australia. The sentence
was challenged and they were released shortly afterwards, but unions
were still threatened. It was not until the formation of the TUC in 1868
and the passing of the Trade Union Act 1871 that union membership
became reasonably legitimate. Many pieces of legislation were passed to
improve working conditions, including the Ten Hours Act 1847 to reduce
working hours, and these culminated in the Factory Act 1901.
Many of these acts resulted from the blight of Britain's agricultural
depression. Beginning in 1873 and lasting until 1896, many farmers and
rural workers were hard-pressed for a stable income. With the decline in
wheat prices and land productivity many countrymen were left looking
for any hope of prosperity. Although the British parliament gave
substantial aid to farmers and laborers, many still complained that rents
were too high, wages too low, and the hours laborers were required to
work were too long for their income. As a result many workers turned to
unions to have their concerns heard and, with the acts listed above as
proof, were able to achieve some success.
Links and progress
Another important development during the Victorian era was the
improvement of communication links. Stage coaches, canals, steam ships
and most notably the railways all allowed goods, raw materials and
people to be moved about, rapidly facilitating trade and industry. Even
later communication methods such as photography, cinema, telegraph,
telephones, cars and aircraft, which would not have an impact but also
leisure. Many people used the train services to visit the seaside, helped by
the Bank Holiday Act of 1871 which created a number of fixed holidays
which all sectors of society could enjoy. Large numbers travelling to
quiet fishing villages such as Worthing, Brighton, Morecambe and
Scarborough began turning them into major tourist centres, and people
like Thomas Cook saw tourism and even overseas travel as viable
businesses. The trains became another important factor in regulating and
ordering society, with "railway time" being the standard by which clocks
were set throughout Britain. Steam ships such as the SS Great Britain and
SS Great Western made international travel more common but also
advanced trade, so that in Britain it was not just the luxury goods of
earlier times that were imported into the country but essentials such as
corn from the America and meat from Australia. One more important
innovation in communications was the Penny Black, the first postage
stamp, which standardised postage to a flat price regardless of distance
sent.
The Victorians were impressed by science and progress, and felt that they
could improve society in the same way as they were improving
technology. The model town of Saltaire was founded, along with others,
as a planned environment with good sanitation and many civic,
educational and recreational facilities, although it lacked a pub, which
was regarded as a focus of dissent. Similar sanitation reforms, prompted
by the Public Health Acts 1848 and 1869, were made in the crowded,
dirty streets of the existing cities, and soap was the main product shown
in the relatively new phenomenon of advertising. Victorians also strove to
improve society through many charities and relief organisations such as
the Salvation Army, the RSPCA and the NSPCC, and at the same time
there were many people such as Florence Nightingale trying to reform
areas of public life. Another new institution was Robert Peel's "peelers",
one of the earliest formal police forces.
Queen Victoria was possibly one of the most powerful women in Britain
since Queen Elizabeth, but her status did not dramatically improve the
position of women within society. There were many movements to obtain
greater rights for women, but voting rights did not come until the next
century. The Married Women's Property Act 1882 meant that women did
not lose their right to their own property when they got married and could
divorce without fear of poverty, although divorce was frowned upon and
very rare during the 19th century. The Victorians are often credited with
having invented childhood. Despite the image of large Victorian families,
the trend was towards smaller families, probably because of lower infant
mortality rates and longer life spans. Legislation reduced the working
hours of children while raising the minimum working age, and the
passing of the Education Act 1870 set the basis for universal primary
education.
20th century
War and depression
Victorian attitudes and ideals continued into the first years of the 20th
century, and what really changed society was the start of World War I.
The army was traditionally never a large employer in the nation, and the
regular army stood at 247,432 at the start of the war. By 1918 there were
about five million people in the army and the fledgling Royal Air Force,
newly formed from the RNAS and the RFC, was about the same size of
the pre-war army. The almost three million casualties were known as the
"lost generation", and such numbers inevitably left society scarred; but
even so, some people felt their sacrifice was little regarded in Britain,
with poems like Siegfried Sassoon's Blighters criticising the ill-informed
jingoism of the home front. Conscription brought people of many
different classes, and also people from all over the empire, together and
this mixing was seen as a great leveller which would only accelerate
social change after the war.
The social reforms of the previous century continued into the twentieth
with the Labour Party being formed in 1900, but this did not achieve
major success until the 1922 general election. Lloyd George said after the
First World War that "the nation was now in a molten state", and his
Housing Act 1919 would lead to affordable council housing which
allowed people to move out of Victorian inner-city slums. The slums,
though, remained for several more years, with trams being electrified
long before many houses. The Representation of the People Act 1918
gave women householders the vote, but it would not be until 1928 that
equal suffrage was achieved.
A short lived post-war boom soon led to a depression that would be felt
worldwide. Particularly hardest hit were the north of England and Wales,
where unemployment reached 70% in some areas. The General Strike
was called during 1926 in support of the miners and their falling wages,
but little improved, the downturn continued and the Strike is often seen as
the start of the slow decline of the British coal industry. In 1936 two
hundred unemployed men walked from Jarrow to London in a bid to
show the plight of the industrial poor, but the Jarrow March, as it was
known, had little impact and it was not until the Second World War that
industrial prospects improved. George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan
Pier gives a bleak overview of the hardships of the time.
The Second World War is sometimes regarded as simply a continuation
of the previous war after a brief period of peace, but the conflicts were
significantly different, particularly for British society. The war started
with a phony war in which threats of major actions did not materialise,
but thousands of children were moved from the cities into the country.
Ten times the number of children were evacuated in 1939, when there
were troops on the early expeditionary force in France, but many returned
some months later and remained in the cities until the end of the war.
There were half the number of military casualties in this war than the last,
but the improvements in aerial warfare meant that there were many more
civilian casualties and a foreign war seemed much closer to home. The
early years of the war in which Britain "stood alone" and the Blitz spirit
which developed as Britain suffered under aerial bombardment helped
pull the nation together after the divisions of the previous decade, and
campaigns such as "Dig for Victory" helped give the nation a common
purpose. The focus on agriculture to feed the nation gave some people
their first introduction to the countryside, and women played an important
part in the war effort as the Land Girls; there were also half a million
women in the armed forces, with even Princess Elizabeth, the future
queen, training as a lorry driver. The measure of freedom women
received through these jobs, and working in factories in the jobs of male
workers who had gone into battle, is considered as contributing to the
later sexual revolution.
Late 20th century
The Labour Party victory after World War II was seen as a vote by the
returning soldiers for what they felt were their rights after serving their
country. The most important reform was the founding of the National
Health Service on July 5, 1948. It promised to give cradle to grave care
for everyone in the country, regardless of income. Rationing, which had
been instituted during the war, was extended even after the war — with
bread rationed between 1946 and 1948, and sweets rationed until 1954.
For some of the very poorest, rationing was beneficial, because their
rationed diet was of greater nutritional value than their pre-war diet. Just
as after the World War I, there was a short-lived economic boom after the
Second World War, followed by an economic downturn in the early
1950s, which became known as the austerity years.
Leisure activities began to be more accessible to more people after the
war. Holiday camps, which had first opened in the 1930s, became
popular holiday destinations in the 1950s — and people increasingly had
money to pursue their personal hobbies. The BBC's early television
service was given a major boost in 1953 with the coronation of Elizabeth
II, attracting an estimated audience of twenty million, proving an impetus
for people to buy televisions. At the same time, other new consumer
goods were coming into homes, and houses were more likely to be owned
with mortgages. The markets where people traditionally bought their
goods were being replaced by chain stores and shopping centres, and
advertising became widespread. Cars were becoming a significant part of
British life, with city-centre congestion and ribbon developments
springing up along many of the major roads. These problems led to the
idea of the green belt to protect the countryside, which was at risk from
development.
The 1960s are often considered a time of great shifts in attitudes in the
United Kingdom. One notable event was the publication of D. H.
Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover by Penguin Books in 1960. Although
first printed in 1928, the release in 1960 of an inexpensive mass-market
paperback version prompted a court case. The prosecuting council's
question, "Would you want your wife or servants to read this book?"
highlighted how far society had changed, and how little some people had
noticed the change. The book was seen as one of the first events in a
general relaxation of sexual attitudes. Other elements of the sexual
revolution included the development of The Pill, Mary Quant's miniskirt
and the 1967 legalisation of homosexuality. There was a rise in the
incidence of divorce and abortion, and a resurgence of the women's
liberation movement, whose campaigning helped secure the Equal Pay
Act and the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975.
The 1960s were a time of greater disregard for the establishment, with a
satire boom led by people who were willing to attack their elders. Pop
music became a dominant form of expression for the young, and bands
like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were seen as leaders of youth
culture. Youth-based subcultures such as the mods, rockers, hippies and
skinheads became more visible.
Reforms in education led to the effective elimination of the grammar
school. The rise of the comprehensive school was aimed at producing a
more egalitarian educational system, and there were ever-increasing
numbers of people going into higher education.
In the 1950s and 1960s, immigration of people to the United Kingdom,
mainly from former British colonies in the Caribbean, India and Pakistan,
began to escalate, leading to racism. Dire predictions were made about
the effect of these new arrivals on British society (most famously Enoch
Powell's Rivers of Blood speech), and tension led to a few race riots. In
the longer term, many people with differing cultures have successfully
integrated into the country, and some have risen to high positions.
One important change during the 1980s was the opportunity given to
many people to buy their council houses, which resulted in many more
people becoming property owners in a stakeholder society. At the same
time, prime minister Margaret Thatcher weakened the trade unions. The
United Kingdom's entry into the European Community (EEC) in 1973
meant that Britain was now more closely tied to its member states than
ever before, and the country's relationship with the European Union (as
the EEC is now called) is still much debated. The ecology movements of
the 1980s reduced the emphasis on intensive farming, and promoted
organic farming and conservation of the countryside.
Religious observance declined notably in Britain during the 20th century,
even with the growth of non-Christian religions due to immigration and
travel. Church of England attendance has particularly dropped, although
it is not clear if personal spirituality has changed markedly. The
movement to Keep Sunday Special seems to have all but lost its battle,
and the move towards a 24-hour society continues, with working and
living patterns changing accordingly.
UNITS 1 SOCIETY
HOMELESS PEOPLE
History of homelessness
Great Britain and the USA
Early history through the 1800s
Following the Peasants' Revolt, British constables were authorised under
a 1383 statute to collar vagabonds and force them to show support; if they
could not, the penalty was gaol. Vagabonds could be sentenced to the
stocks for three days and nights; in 1530, whipping was added. The
presumption was that vagabonds were unlicensed beggars. In 1547, a bill
was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme
provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and branding
with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second.
One arriving in the American colonies in the 18th century were
transported convicts. Large numbers of vagabonds were transported along
with ordinary criminals.
During the 16th century in England, the state first tried to give housing to
vagrants instead of punishing them, by introducing bridewells to take
vagrants and train them for a profession. In the 17th and 18th centuries,
these were replaced by workhouses but these were intended to discourage
too much reliance on state help.
The growing movement toward social concern sparked the development
of rescue missions, such as America's first rescue mission, the New York
City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872 by Jerry and Maria McAuley.
In smaller towns, there were hobos, who temporarily lived near train
tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations. Especially
following the American Civil War, a large number of homeless men
formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over America.
Early 20th century
How the Other Half Lives later inspired Jack London's The People of the
Abyss (1903). This raised public awareness, causing some changes in
building codes and some social conditions.
These were later replaced by dormitory housing ("spikes") provided by
local boroughs, and these were researched by the writer George Orwell.
By the 1930s in England, there were 30,000 people living in these
facilities. In 1933, George Orwell wrote about poverty in London and
Paris, in his book Down and Out in Paris and London.
In general, in most countries, many towns and cities had an area which
contained the poor, transients, and afflicted, such as a "skid row". In New
York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery",
traditionally, where alcoholics were to be found sleeping on the streets,
bottle in hand.
The Great Depression of the 1930s caused a devastating epidemic of
poverty, hunger, and homelessness. There were two million homeless
people migrating across the United States.
In the 1960s, the nature and growing problem of homelessness changed
in England as public concern grew. The number of people living "rough"
in the streets had increased dramatically. However, beginning with the
Conservative administration's Rough Sleeper Initiative, the number of
people sleeping rough in London fell dramatically. This initiative was
supported further by the incoming Labour administration from 2009
onwards with the publication of the 'Coming in from the Cold' strategy
published by the Rough Sleepers Unit, which proposed and delivered a
massive increase in the number of hostel bed spaces in the capital and an
increase in funding for street outreach teams, who work with rough
sleepers to enable them to access services.
Later 20th century
However, modern homelessness, started as a result of the economic
stresses in society, reduction in the availability of affordable housing,
such as single room occupancies (SROs), for poorer people. In the United
States, in the 1970s, the deinstitutionalisation of patients from state
psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor which seeded the
homeless population, especially in urban areas such as New York City.
The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in
setting the stage for homelessness in the United States. Long term
psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into SROs and
supposed to be sent to community mental health centers for treatment and
follow-up. It never quite worked out properly, the community mental
health centers mostly did not materialize, and this population largely was
found living in the streets soon thereafter with no sustainable support
system.
Also, as real estate prices and neighborhood pressure increased to move
these people out of their areas, the SROs diminished in number, putting
most of their residents in the streets. Other populations were mixed in
later, such as people losing their homes for economic reasons, and those
with addictions (although alcoholic hobos had been visible as homeless
people since the 1890s, and those stereotypes fueled public perceptions of
homeless people in general), the elderly, and others.
Many places where people were once allowed freely to loiter, or
purposefully be present, such as churches, public libraries and atriums,
became stricter as the homeless population grew larger and increasingly
congregated in these places. As a result, many churches closed their doors
when services were not being held, libraries began enforcing "no eyes
shut" and sometimes dresscode policies, and most places hired private
security guards to carry out these policies, creating a social tension. Many
public toilets were closed.
This banished the homeless population to sidewalks, parks, under
bridges, and the like. They also lived in the subway and railroad tunnels
in New York City. They seemingly became socially invisible, which was
the intention of many of the enforcement policies.
The homeless shelters, which were generally night shelters, made the
homeless leave in the morning to whatever they could manage and return
in the evening when the beds in the shelters opened up again for sleeping.
There were some daytime shelters where the homeless could go, instead
of being stranded on the streets, and they could be helped, get counseling,
avail themselves of resources, meals, and otherwise spend their day until
returning to their overnight sleeping arrangements. An example of such a
day center shelter model is Saint Francis House in Boston,
Massachusetts, founded in the early 1980s, which opens for the homeless
all year long during the daytime hours and was originally based on the
settlement house model.
Many homeless keep all their possessions with them since they have no
access to storage. There was also the reality of the "bag" people, the
shopping cart people, and the soda can collectors (known as binners or
dumpster divers) who sort through garbage to find items to sell, trade and
eat. These people carry around all of their possessions with them all the
time since they have no place to store them. If they had no access to or
capability to get to a shelter and possible bathing, or access to toilets and
laundry facilities, their hygiene was lacking. This again created social
tensions in public places.
These conditions created an upsurge in tuberculosis and other diseases in
urban areas.
In 1979, a New York City lawyer, Robert Hayes, brought a class action
suit before the courts, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State,
arguing for a person's state constitutional "right to shelter". It was settled
as a consent decree in August 1981. The City and State agreed to provide
board and shelter to all homeless men who met the need standard for
welfare or who were homeless by certain other standards. By 1983 this
right was extended to homeless women.
By the mid-1980s, there was also a dramatic increase in family
homelessness. Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished
and runaway children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new
sub-stratum of the homeless population (street children or street youth).
Also, in the 1980s, in the United States, some federal legislation was
introduced for the homeless as a result of the work of Congressman
Stewart B. McKinney. In 1987, the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act was enacted.
Several organizations in some cities, such as New York and Boston, tried
to be inventive about help to the swelling number of homeless people. In
New York City, for example, in 1989, a street newspaper was created
called "Street News" which put some homeless to work, some writing,
producing, and mostly selling the paper on streets and trains.
It was written pro bono by a combination of homeless, celebrities, and
established writers. In 1991, in England, a street newspaper, following on
the New York model was established, called The Big Issue and was
published weekly. Its circulation grew to 300,000. Chicago has
StreetWise which has the largest circulation of its kind in the United
States, thirty thousand. Boston has a Spare Change News newspaper,
founded in 1992 by a small group of homeless people in Boston, built on
the same model as the others: homeless helping themselves.
Seattle has Real Change, a $1 newsletter that directly benefits the
homeless and also reports on economic issues in the area. Portland,
Oregon has "Street Roots", with articles and poetry by homeless writers,
sold on the street for a dollar. More recently, Street Sense, in Washington,
D.C. has gained a lot of popularity and helped many make the move out
of homelessness. Students in Baltimore, MD have opened a satellite
office for that street paper as well.
21st century
In 2002, research showed that children and families were the largest
growing segment of the homeless in America, and this has presented new
challenges, especially in services, to agencies.
Some trends involving the plight of the homeless have provoked some
thought, reflection and debate. One such phenomenon is paid physical
advertising, colloquially known as "sandwich board men" and another
specific type as "Bumvertising".
Another trend is the side effect of unpaid free advertising of companies
and organizations on shirts, clothing and bags, to be worn by the
homeless and poor, given out and donated by companies to homeless
shelters and charitable organizations for otherwise altruistic purposes.
These trends are reminiscent of the "sandwich board signs" carried by
poor people in the time of Charles Dickens in the Victorian 1800s in
England and later during the Great Depression in the United States in the
1930s.
In the USA, the government asked many major cities to come up with a
ten year plan to end homelessness. One of the results of this was a
"Housing first" solution, rather than to have a homeless person remain in
an emergency homeless shelter it was thought to be better to quickly get
the person permanent housing of some sort and the necessary support
services to sustain a new home. But there are many complications of this
kind of program and these must be dealt with to make such an initiative
work successfully in the middle to long term.
It has been reported that some formerly homeless people, when they
finally were able to get their housing and life straightened out and return
to a normal lifestyle, have donated money and volunteer service to the
organizations which helped them when they were homeless.
Alternatively, some social service entities that help the homeless now
employ formerly homeless individuals to assist in the care process.
Homelessness has migrated toward rural and suburban areas. There are
1.6 million homeless people in shelters in 2009. The number of homeless
people has not changed dramatically but the number of homeless families
has increased according to a report of HUD.
UNITS 1 SOCIETY
RACIAL INTEGRATION
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation (the
process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to
desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to
association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the
development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than
merely bringing a racial minority into the majority culture. Desegregation
is largely a legal matter, integration largely a social one.
Distinguishing integration from desegregation
Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. in his paper "Integration of the Armed Forces
1940-1965" writes concerning the words integration and desegregation:
... In recent years many historians have come to distinguish
between these like-sounding words.. The movement toward
desegregation, breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system,
became increasingly popular in the decade after World War
II. Integration, on the other hand, Professor Oscar Handlin
maintains, implies several things not yet necessarily
accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it
refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other than
those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[1] in
other words, providing equal opportunity. But in another
sense integration calls for the random distribution of a
minority throughout society. Here, according to Handlin, the
emphasis is on racial balance in areas of occupation,
education, residency, and the like.
From the beginning the military establishment rightly
understood that the breakup of the all-black unit would in a
closed society necessarily mean more than mere
desegregation. It constantly used the terms integration and
equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals.
Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in
military files that include much correspondence.
Similarly, Keith M. Woods writing on the need for precision in
journalistic language writes, "Integration happens when a monolith is
changed, like when a black family moves into an all-white neighborhood.
Integration happens even without a mandate from the law.
Desegregation," on the other hand, "was the legal remedy to
segregation." Making almost the same point, Henry Organ, identifying
himself as " a participant in the Civil Rights Movement on the Peninsula
[i.e. the San Francisco Peninsula - ed.] in the '60s... and ... an African
American," wrote in 1997, " The term 'desegregation' is normally
reserved to the legal/legislative domain, and it was the legalization of
discrimination in public institutions based on race that many fought
against in the '60s. The term 'integration,' on the other hand, pertains to a
social domain; it does and should refer to individuals of different
background who opt to interact."
In their book By the Color of Our Skin (1999) Leonard Steinhorn and
Barbara Diggs-Brown - who also make a similar distinction between
desegregation and integration - write "... television has... give[n] white
Americans the sensation of having meaningful, repeated contact with
blacks without actually having it. We call this phenomenon virtual
integration, and it is the primary reason why the integration illusion - the
belief that we are moving toward a colorblind nation - has such a
powerful influence on race relations in America today." Reviewing this
book in the libertarian magazine Reason, Michael W. Lynch sums up
some of their conclusions as, "Blacks and whites live, learn, work, pray,
play, and entertain separately." He cites Stephan and Abigail
Themstrom's America in Black and White as making the case to the
contrary, gives anecdotal evidence on both sides of the question, and
writes:
The problem, as I see it, is that access to the public spheres,
specifically the commercial sphere, often depends on being
comfortable with the norms of white society. If a significant
number of black children aren't comfortable with them, it
isn't by choice: It's because they were isolated from those
norms. It's one thing for members of the black elite and
upper middle class to choose to retire to predominantly black
neighborhoods after a lucrative day's work in white America.
It's quite another for people to be unable to enter that
commercial sphere because they spent their formative years
in a community that didn't, or couldn't, prepare them for it.
Writes [Harvard University sociologist Orlando] Patterson,
"The greatest problem now facing African-Americans is
their isolation from the tacit norms of the dominant culture,
and this is true of all classes."
Distinction not universally accepted
Although widespread, this distinction between integration and
desegregation is not universally accepted. For example, it is possible to
find references to "court-ordered integration" from sources such as the
Detroit News, PBS, or even Encarta. These same sources also use the
phrase "court-ordered desegregation", apparently with the exact same
meaning; the Detroit News uses both expressions interchangeably in the
same article.
When the two terms are confused, it is almost always to use integration
in the narrower, more legalistic sense of desegregation; one rarely, if
ever, sees desegregation used in the broader cultural sense.
UNITS 2
ADOLESCENCE
VIEWPOINTS
Adolescence (Latin adolescere, to grow) is a transitional stage of
physical and mental human development that occurs between childhood
and adulthood. This transition involves biological (i.e. pubertal), social,
and psychological changes, though the biological or physiological ones
are the easiest to measure objectively. Historically, puberty has been
heavily associated with teenagers and the onset of adolescent
development. In recent years, however, the start of puberty has had
somewhat of an increase in preadolescence (particularly females, as seen
with early and precocious puberty), and adolescence has had an
occasional extension beyond the teenage years (typically males). These
changes have made it more difficult to rigidly define the time frame in
which adolescence occurs.
The teenage years are from ages 13 to 19. However, the end of
adolescence and the beginning of adulthood varies by country and by
function, and furthermore even within a single nation-state or culture
there can be different ages at which an individual is considered to be
(chronologically and legally) mature enough to be entrusted by society
with certain tasks. Such milestones include, but are not limited to, driving
a vehicle, having legal sexual relations, serving in the armed forces or on
a jury, purchasing and drinking alcohol, voting, entering into contracts,
completing certain levels of education, and marrying.
Adolescence is usually accompanied by an increased independence
allowed by the parents or legal guardians and less supervision, contrary to
the preadolescence stage.
UNITS 2 ADOLESCENCE
RITIES OF PASSAGGE
Puberty
Puberty is a period of several years in which rapid physical growth and
psychological changes occur, culminating in sexual maturity. The
average onset of puberty is at 10 for girls and age 12 for boys. Every
person's individual timetable for puberty is influenced primarily by
heredity, although environmental factors, such as diet and exercise, also
exert some influence.
Puberty begins with a surge in hormone production, which in turn, causes
a number of physical changes. It is also the stage of the lifespan in which
a child develops secondary sex characteristics (for example, a deeper
voice and larger adam's apple in boys, and development of breasts and
more curved and prominent hips in girls) as his or her hormonal balance
shifts strongly towards an adult state. This is triggered by the pituitary
gland, which secretes a surge of hormones, such as testosterone (boys) or
estrogen and progesterone (girls) into the blood stream and begins the
rapid maturation of the gonads: the girl's ovaries and the boy's testicles.
Some boys may develop gynecomastia due to an imbalance of sex
hormones, tissue responsiveness or obesity. Put simply, puberty is the
time when a child's body starts changing into an adult's body.
Facial hair in males normally appears in a specific order during puberty:
The first facial hair to appear tends to grow at the corners of the upper lip,
typically between 14 to 16 years of age. It then spreads to form a
moustache over the entire upper lip. This is followed by the appearance
of hair on the upper part of the cheeks, and the area under the lower lip.
The hair eventually spreads to the sides and lower border of the chin, and
the rest of the lower face to form a full beard. As with most human
biological processes, this specific order may vary among some
individuals. Facial hair is often present in late adolescence, around ages
17 and 18, but may not appear until significantly later. Some men do not
develop full facial hair for 10 years after puberty. Facial hair will
continue to get coarser, darker and thicker for another 2–4 years after
puberty.
The major landmark of puberty for males is the first ejaculation, which
occurs, on average, at age 13. For females, it is menarche, the onset of
menstruation, which occurs, on average, between ages 12 and 13. The age
of menarche is influenced by heredity, but a girl's diet and lifestyle
contribute as well. Regardless of genes, a girl must have certain
proportion of body fat to attain menarche. Consequently, girls who have a
high-fat diet and who are not physically active begin menstruating earlier,
on average, than girls whose diet contains less fat and whose activities
involve fat reducing exercise (e.g. ballet and gymnastics). Girls who
experience malnutrition or are in societies in which children are expected
to perform physical labor also begin menstruating at later ages.
The timing of puberty can have important psychological and social
consequences. Early maturing boys are usually taller and stronger than
their friends. They have the advantage in capturing the attention of
potential partners and in becoming hand-picked for sports. Pubescent
boys often tend to have a good body image, are more confident, secure,
and more independent. Late maturing boys can be less confident because
of poor body image when comparing themselves to already developed
friends and peers. However, early puberty is not always positive for boys;
early sexual maturation in boys can be accompanied by increased
aggressiveness due to the surge of hormones that affect them. Because
they appear older than their peers, pubescent boys may face increased
social pressure to conform to adult norms; society may view them as
more emotionally advanced, despite the fact that their cognitive and
social development may lag behind their appearance. Studies have shown
that early maturing boys are more likely to be sexually active and are
more likely to participate in risky behaviors.
For girls, early maturation can sometimes lead to increased selfconsciousness, though a typical aspect in maturing females. Because of
their bodies developing in advance, pubescent girls can become more
insecure. Consequently, girls that reach sexual maturation early are more
likely than their peers to develop eating disorders. Nearly half of all
American high school girls' diet is to lose weight. In addition, girls may
have to deal with sexual advances from older boys before they are
emotionally and mentally mature. In addition to having earlier sexual
experiences and more unwanted pregnancies than late maturing girls,
early maturing girls are more exposed to alcohol and drug abuse. Those
who have had such experiences tend to perform less well in school than
their "inexperienced" age mates.
By age 16, girls have usually reached full physical development. At this
age, boys are close to completing their physical growth, which is usually
attained by age 17 or 18. Teenage and early adult males may continue to
gain natural muscle growth even after puberty.
Psychology
Adolescent psychology is associated with notable changes in mood
sometimes known as mood swings. Cognitive, emotional and attitudinal
changes which are characteristic of adolescence, often take place during
this period, and this can be a cause of conflict on one hand and positive
personality development on the other.
Because the adolescents are experiencing various strong cognitive and
physical changes, for the first time in their lives they may start to view
their friends, their peer group, as more important and influential than their
parents/guardians. Because of peer pressure, they may sometimes indulge
in activities not deemed socially acceptable, although this may be more of
a social phenomenon than a psychological one. This overlap is addressed
within the study of psychosociology.
The home is an important aspect of adolescent psychology: home
environment and family have a substantial impact on the developing
minds of teenagers, and these developments may reach a climax during
adolescence. For example, abusive parents may lead a child to "poke fun"
at other classmates when he/she is seven years old or so, but during
adolescence it may become progressively worse. If the concepts and
theory behind right or wrong were not established early on in a child's
life, the lack of this knowledge may impair a teenager's ability to make
beneficial decisions as well as allowing his/her impulses to control
his/her decisions.
In the search for a unique social identity for themselves, adolescents are
frequently confused about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong.' G. Stanley
Hall denoted this period as one of "Storm and Stress" and, according to
him, conflict at this developmental stage is normal and not unusual.
Margaret Mead, on the other hand, attributed the behavior of adolescents
to their culture and upbringing. However, Piaget, attributed this stage in
development with greatly increased cognitive abilities; at this stage of life
the individual's thoughts start taking more of an abstract form and the
egocentric thoughts decrease, hence the individual is able to think and
reason in a wider perspective.
Positive psychology is sometimes brought up when addressing adolescent
psychology as well. This approach towards adolescents refers to
providing them with motivation to become socially acceptable and
notable individuals, since many adolescents find themselves bored,
indecisive and/or unmotivated.
Adolescents may be subject to peer pressure within their adolescent time
span, consisting of the need to have sex, consume alcoholic beverages,
use drugs, defy their parental figures, or commit any activity in which the
person who is subjected to may not deem appropriate, among other
things. Peer pressure is a common experience between adolescents and
may result briefly or on a larger scale. If it results on a larger scale, the
adolescent needs medical advice or treatment.
It should also be noted that adolescence is the stage of a psychological
breakthrough in a person's life when the cognitive development is rapid
and the thoughts, ideas and concepts developed at this period of life
greatly influence one's future life, playing a major role in character and
personality formation.
Struggles with adolescent identity and depression usually set in when an
adolescent experiences a loss. The most important loss in their lives is the
changing relationship between the adolescent and their parents.
Adolescents may also experience strife in their relationships with friends.
This may be due to the activities their friends take part in, such as
smoking, which causes adolescents to feel as though participating in such
activities themselves is likely essential to maintaining these friendships.
Teen depression can be extremely intense at times because of physical
and hormonal changes but emotional instability is part of adolescence.
Their changing mind, body and relationships often present themselves as
stressful and that change, they assume, is something to be feared.
Views of family relationships during adolescence are changing. The old
view of family relationships during adolescence put an emphasis on
conflict and disengagement and thought storm and stress was normal and
even inevitable. However, the new view puts emphasis on transformation
or relationships and maintenance of connectedness.
Sexuality
Adolescent sexuality refers to sexual feelings, behavior and development
in adolescents and is a stage of human sexuality. Sexuality and sexual
desire usually begins to intensify along with the onset of puberty. The
expression of sexual desire among adolescents (or anyone, for that
matter), might be influenced by family values and the culture and religion
they have grown up in (or as a backlash to such), social engineering,
social control, taboos, and other kinds of social mores.
In contemporary society, adolescents also face some risks as their
sexuality begins to transform. Whilst some of these such as emotional
distress (fear of abuse or exploitation) and sexually transmitted diseases
(including HIV/AIDS) may not necessarily be inherent to adolescence,
others such as pregnancy (through failure or non-use of contraceptives)
are seen as social problems in most western societies. In terms of sexual
identity, all sexual orientations found in adults are also represented
among adolescents.
According to anthropologist Margaret Mead and psychologist Albert
Bandura, the turmoil found in adolescence in Western society has a
cultural rather than a physical cause; they reported that societies where
young women engaged in free sexual activity had no such adolescent
turmoil.
In a 2008 study conducted by YouGov for Channel 4, 20% of 14−17year-olds surveyed revealed that they had their first sexual experience at
13 or under.
The age of consent to sexual activity varies widely between international
jurisdictions, ranging from 12 to 21 years.
Culture
In commerce, this generation is seen as an important target. Mobile
phones, contemporary popular music, movies, television programs,
websites, sports, video games and clothes are heavily marketed and often
popular amongst adolescents.
In the past (and still in some cultures) there were ceremonies that
celebrated adulthood, typically occurring during adolescence. Seijin shiki
(literally "adult ceremony") is a Japanese example of this. Upanayanam is
a coming of age ceremony for males in the Hindu world. In Judaism, 13year-old boys and 12-year-old girls become Bar or Bat Mitzvah,
respectively, and often have a celebration to mark this coming of age.
Among some denominations of Christianity, the rite or sacrament of
Confirmation is received by adolescents and may be considered the time
at which adolescents become members of the church in their own right
(there is also a Confirmation ceremony in some Reform Jewish temples,
although the bar or bat mitzvah ceremony appears to have precedence). In
United States, girls will often have a "sweet sixteen" party to celebrate
turning the aforementioned age, a tradition similar to the quinceañera in
Latin culture. In modern western society, events such as getting your first
driver's license, high school and later on college graduation and first
career related job are thought of as being more significant markers in
transition to adulthood.
Adolescents have also been an important factor in many movements for
positive social change around the world. The popular history of
adolescents participating in these movements may perhaps start with Joan
of Arc, and extend to present times with popular youth activism, student
activism, and other efforts to make the youth voice heard.
Legal issues, rights and privileges
Internationally, those who reach a certain age (often 18, though this
varies) are legally considered to have reached the age of majority and are
regarded as adults and are held to be responsible for their actions. People
below this age are considered minors or children. A person below the age
of majority may gain adult rights through legal emancipation.
Those who are under the age of consent, or legal responsibility, may be
considered too young to be held accountable for criminal action. This is
called doli incapax or the defense of infancy. The age of criminal
responsibility varies from 7 in India to 18 in Belgium. After reaching the
initial age, there may be levels of responsibility dictated by age and type
of offense, and crimes committed by minors may be tried in a juvenile
court.
The legal working age in Western countries is usually 14 to 16,
depending on the number of hours and type of employment. In the United
Kingdom and Canada, for example, young people between 14 and 16 can
work at certain types of light work with some restrictions to allow for
schooling; while youths over 16 can work full-time (excluding night
work). Many countries also specify a minimum school leaving age,
ranging from 10 to 18, at which a person is legally allowed to leave
compulsory education.
The age of consent to sexual activity varies widely between jurisdictions,
ranging from 13 to 21 years, although 14 to 16 years is more usual. In a
2008 study of 14 to 17-year-olds conducted by YouGov for Channel 4, it
was revealed that one in three 15-year-olds were sexually active.
Sexual intercourse with a person below the local age of consent is usually
treated as the crime of statutory rape. Some jurisdictions allow an
exemption where both partners are close in age; for example, a 16-yearold and an 18-year-old. The age at which people are allowed to marry
also varies, from 17 in Yemen to 22 for males and 20 for females in
China. In Western countries, people are typically allowed to marry at 18,
although they are sometimes allowed to marry at a younger age with
parental or court consent. In developing countries, the legal marriageable
age does not always correspond with the age at which people actually
marry; for example, the legal age for marriage in Ethiopia is 18 for both
males and females, but in rural areas most girls are married by age 16.
In most democratic countries, a citizen is eligible to vote at 18. For
example, in the United States, the Twenty-sixth amendment decreased the
voting age from 21 to 18. In a minority of countries, the voting age is 17
(for example, Indonesia) or 16 (for example, Brazil). By contrast, some
countries have a minimum voting age of 21 (for example, Singapore)
whereas the minimum age in Uzbekistan is 25. Age of candidacy is the
minimum age at which a person can legally qualify to hold certain elected
government offices. In most countries, a person must be 18 or over to
stand for elected office, but some countries such as the United States and
Italy have further restrictions depending on the type of office.
The sale of selected items such as cigarettes, alcohol, and videos with
violent or pornographic content is also restricted by age in most
countries. In the U.S, the minimum age to buy an R-rated movie, M-rated
game or an album with a parental advisory label is 17 (in some states 18
or even 21). In practice, it is common that young people engage in
underage smoking or drinking, and in some cultures this is tolerated to a
certain degree. In the United States, teenagers are allowed to drive
between 14-18 (each state sets its own minimum driving age of which a
curfew may be imposed), in the US, adolescents 17 years of age can serve
in the military. In Europe it is more common for the driving age to be
higher (usually 18) while the drinking age is lower than that of the US
(usually 16 or 18). In Canada, the drinking age is 18 in some areas and 19
in other areas. In Australia, universally the minimum drinking age is 18,
unless a person is in a private residence or is under parental supervision
in a licensed premises. The driving age varies from state to state but the
more common system is a graduated system of "L plates" (a learning
license that requires supervision from a licensed driver) from age 16, red
"P plates" (probationary license) at 17, green "P plates" at 18 and finally a
full license, i.e. for most people around the age of 20.
The legal gambling age also depends on the jurisdiction, although it is
typically 18.
The minimum age for donating blood in the U.S is 17 although it may be
16 with parental permission in some states such as New York and
Pennsylvania.
A number of social scientists, including anthropologist Margaret Mead
and sociologist Mike Males, have noted the contradictory treatment of
laws affecting adolescents in the United States. As Males has noted, the
US Supreme Court has, "explicitly ruled that policy-makers may impose
adult responsibilities and punishments on individual youths as if they
were adults at the same time laws and policies abrogate adolescents’
rights en masse as if they were children."
The issue of youth activism affecting political, social, educational, and
moral circumstances is of growing significance around the world. Youthled organizations around the world have fought for social justice, the
youth vote seeking to gain teenagers the right to vote, to secure more
youth rights, and demanding better schools through student activism.
Since the advent of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989
(children defined as under 18), almost every country (except the U.S. &
Somalia) in the world has become voluntarily legally committed to
advancing an anti-discriminatory stance towards young people of all
ages. This is a legally binding document which secures youth
participation throughout society while acting against unchecked child
labor, child soldiers, child prostitution, and pornography.
UNITS 3 ADDICTION
DRUG ABUSE
Drug abuse has a huge range of definitions related to taking a
psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic
or non-medical effect. All of these definitions imply a negative judgment
of the drug use in question (compare with the term responsible drug use
for alternative views). Some of the drugs most often associated with this
term include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines,
cocaine, methaqualone, and opium alkaloids. Use of these drugs may lead
to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and
psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdiction. Other
definitions of drug abuse fall into four main categories: public health
definitions, mass communication and vernacular usage, medical
definitions, and political and criminal justice definitions.
Worldwide, the UN estimates there are more than 50 million regular
users of heroin, cocaine and synthetic drugs.
Public health definitions
Public health practitioners have attempted to look at drug abuse from a
broader perspective than the individual, emphasising the role of society,
culture and availability. Rather than accepting the loaded terms alcohol or
drug "abuse," many public health professionals have adopted phrases
such as "substance and alcohol type problems" or "harmful/problematic
use" of drugs.
The Health Officers Council of British Columbia — in their 2005 policy
discussion paper, A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada
— has adopted a public health model of psychoactive substance use that
challenges the simplistic black-and-white construction of the binary (or
complementary) antonyms "use" vs. "abuse". This model explicitly
recognizes a spectrum of use, ranging from beneficial use to chronic
dependence (see diagram to the right).
Medical definitions
In the modern medical profession, the two most used diagnostic tools in
the world, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the World Health
Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases and
Related Health Problems (ICD), no longer recognise 'drug abuse' as a
current medical diagnosis. Instead, DSM has adopted substance abuse as
a blanket term to include drug abuse and other things. ICD refrains from
using either "substance abuse" or "drug abuse", instead using the term
"harmful use" to cover physical or psychological harm to the user from
use. Physical dependence, abuse of, and withdrawal from drugs and other
miscellaneous substances is outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR). It's section Substance
dependence begin with:
"Substance dependence When an individual persists in use of
alcohol or other drugs despite problems related to use of the
substance, substance dependence may be diagnosed. Compulsive
and repetitive use may result in tolerance to the effect of the drug
and withdrawal symptoms when use is reduced or stopped. This,
along with Substance Abuse are considered Substance Use
Disorders...."
However, other definitions differ; they may entail psychological or
physical dependence, and may focus on treatment and prevention in terms
of the social consequences of substance uses.
Signs and symptoms
Depending on the actual compound, drug misuse including alcohol may
lead to health problems, social problems, morbidity, injuries, unprotected
sex, violence, deaths, motor vehicle accidents, homicides, suicides,
mortality, physical dependence or psychological addiction.
There is a high rate of suicide in alcoholics and drug abusers. The reasons
believed to cause the increased risk of suicide include the long-term
abuse of alcohol and drugs causing physiological distortion of brain
chemistry as well as the social isolation. Another factor is the acute
intoxicating effects of the drugs may make suicide more likely to occur.
Suicide is also very common in adolescent alcohol abusers, with 1 in 4
suicides in adolescents being related to alcohol abuse. In the USA
approximately 30 percent of suicides are related to alcohol abuse.
Alcohol abuse is also associated with increased risks of commiting
criminal offences including child abuse, domestic violence, rapes,
burglaries and assaults.
Drug abuse, including alcohol and prescription drugs can induce
symptomatology which resembles mental illness. This can occur both in
the intoxicated state and also during the withdrawal state. In some cases
these substance induced psychiatric disorders can persist long after
detoxification, such as prolonged psychosis or depression after
amphetamine or cocaine abuse. A protracted withdrawal syndrome can
also occur with symptoms persisting for months after cessation of use.
Benzodiazepines are the most notable drug for inducing prolonged
withdrawal effects with symptoms sometimes persisting for years after
cessation of use. Abuse of hallucinogens can trigger delusional and other
psychotic phenomena long after cessation of use and cannabis may
trigger panic attacks during intoxication and with use it may cause a state
similar to dysthymia. Severe anxiety and depression are commonly
induced by sustained alcohol abuse which in most cases abates with
prolonged abstinence. Even moderate alcohol sustained use may increase
anxiety and depression levels in some individuals. In most cases these
drug induced psychiatric disorders fade away with prolonged abstinence.
Drug abuse makes central nervous system (CNS) effects, which produce
changes in mood, levels of awareness or perceptions and sensations. Most
of these drugs also alter systems other than the CNS. Some of these are
often thought of as being abused. Some drugs appear to be more likely to
lead to uncontrolled use than others.
Traditionally, new pharmacotherapies are quickly adopted in primary
care settings, however, drugs for substance abuse treatment have faced
many barriers. Naltrexone, a drug originally marketed under the name
"ReVia," and now marketed in intramuscular formulation as "Vivitrol" or
in oral formulation as a generic, is a medication approved for the
treatment of alcohol dependence. This drug has reached very few
patients. This may be due to a number of factors, including resistance by
Addiction Medicine specialists and lack of resources.
Prevention
The Vienna conference in March 2009
The declaration from UN's Commission of Narcotic Drugs Fifty-second
session in Vienna, 11-20 March 2009, with participation from 130
member countries, state that "We are determined to tackle the world drug
problem and to actively promote a society free of drug abuse..." The
concept drug abuse is used five times in the declaration.
UNITS 3 ADDICTION
ALCOHOL
What Is Alcohol Abuse
To some college students, heavy drinking that leads to vomiting is not
alcohol abuse but simply having a good time and being "one of the gang."
To many whose religion requires abstinence, simply tasting an alcohol
beverage is not only alcohol abuse but a sin.
To many activists, a married couple quietly enjoying a drink with their
dinner is guilty of abusing alcohol if they happen to be twenty years of
age.
To the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an accident is
alcohol related (and implicitly caused by alcohol abuse) if a driver who
has consumed a drink is sitting at a red light and rear-ended by an
inattentive teetotaler.
In American Society
Our historical background and multi cultural population have created
wide and strong disagreements in American society over what constitutes
alcohol abuse.
•
•
•
•
Our Colonial tradition taught us that alcohol is the "good gift of
God" to be used and enjoyed by all, including small children.
Our temperance and Prohibition experiences taught us that alcohol
is "demon rum," the cause of almost all poverty, crime, violence,
and other problems. So convinced were they that alcohol was the
cause of virtually all crime that, on the eve of Prohibition, some
towns went so far as to sell their jails. Temperance systematically
promoted both fear and hostility toward alcohol beverages, much
of which continues to this day.
Repeal of Prohibition left us with a society in which the majority of
people enjoy alcohol beverage in moderation, but a large minority
(today about 1/3) of the population abstains. And a substantial
proportion of American abstainers favor imposing prohibition
again on the entire population . The prohibition impulse has never
died and has re-emerged in a different form today.
Alcohol policy actually results not from science, logic, or evidence,
but from a continuing struggle between those who wish to use
alcohol beverages and those who don't want them to. Repeatedly
throughout our national life, movements have emerged to promote
abstinence by persuasion, but failing to succeed, they have then
resorted to coercion. The current neo-prohibition movement
attempts to reduce consumption in general and to prevent it entirely
among targeted groups, such as those under the age of 21.
And Young People
Prohibition for those under the age of 21 currently enjoys wide support in
the United States and is imposed by force of law. Often it is enforced
with a vengeance. "Carter Loar, a senior at Park View High School in
Loudoun County, Virginia was suspended for ten days in February for
violating the school's alcohol policy."
Carter's violation was using mouthwash at school. School officials
confiscated the contraband and "He was charged with violating the
school's alcohol policy which prohibits the possession or use of alcohol
on school property. As part of his ten day suspension, Carter was required
to attend a three day Substance Abuse Program sponsored by Loudoun
County."
Mr. Loar was a victim of "zero tolerance," which is now all the rage. But
what does such a zealous level of intolerance accomplish and what
messages does it send our young people? It probably achieves about as
much as the scare tactics characteristic of the temperance movement and
is almost certainly counter-productive.
UNITS 3
ADDICTION
SMOKING
What Is A Smoking Addiction?
A smoking addiction means a person has formed an uncontrollable
dependence on cigarettes to the point where stopping smoking would
cause severe emotional, mental, or physical reactions.
Everyone knows that smoking is harmful and addictive, but few people
realize just how risky and addictive it is.
Chances are that about one in three smokers who do not stop will
eventually die because of their smoking. Some will die in their 40s,
others will die later. On average, they will die 10 to 15 years earlier than
they would have died from other causes.
Most smokers want to stop and do indeed try, but only one in three
succeeds in stopping permanently before age 60. By this time, much harm
may have been done to the body - some of it irreversible.
•
•
Those who eventually quit smoking usually try to stop two or three
times before they're successful.
Only 2.5 percent of smokers successfully quit each year.
The reason why so many people fail to stop is because they are addicted.
Being addicted does not mean that you cannot stop - only that it is likely
to be difficult. Anyone can succeed if he or she goes about it in the right
way.
How you stop - and, especially, when you stop - is a very personal matter.
Only you know what you have to give up, and how the benefits of
smoking can be weighed against the benefits of stopping. Harassment and
pressure from others who do not understand is often unhelpful. You will
only stop when you have made a firm decision. When you do make up
your mind, however, you can succeed, regardless of how addicted you
may be.
If you stop smoking before or during middle age (age 35 to 50), you will
avoid about 90 percent of the lung cancer risk. If you are currently
middle-aged, you are also more likely to succeed in quitting now than
when you were younger.
Why Is Smoking Addictive?
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. It is absorbed and
enters the bloodstream, through the lungs when smoke is inhaled, and
through the lining of the mouth (buccal mucosa) when tobacco is chewed
or used as oral snuff or for non-inhaled pipe and cigar smoking. It is also
absorbed through the nose from nasal snuff, which was popular in the
18th century.
Nicotine is a psychoactive drug with stimulant effects on the electrical
activity of the brain. It also has calming effects, especially at times of
stress, as well as effects on hormonal and other systems throughout the
body. Although its subjective effects are less dramatic and obvious than
those of some other addictive drugs, smoking doses of nicotine causes
activation of "pleasure centers" in the brain (for example, the mesolimbic
dopamine system), which may explain the pleasure, and addictiveness of
smoking.
Smokers develop tolerance to nicotine and can take higher doses without
feeling sick than when they first started smoking. Many of the unpleasant
effects of cigarette withdrawal are due to lack of nicotine and are
reversed or alleviated by nicotine replacement (for example, nicotine
chewing gum or the nicotine patch).
As with other addictions, it is difficult to give up smoking, and without
help most smokers fail despite trying many times. Even after stopping
successfully for a while, most relapse within 2 to 3 months. More
alarming perhaps than the strength of the addiction is the ease with which
it develops. Although teenagers often start smoking for psychosocial
reasons, the effects of nicotine soon gain control.
Studies show that tobacco use usually begins in early adolescence, and
those who begin smoking at an early age are more likely to develop
severe nicotine addiction than those who start later. Each day, more than
4,800 adolescents smoke their first cigarette, and 42 percent of them go
on to become regular smokers.
Is Smoking A Physical Addiction?
Smoking is a physical addiction that produces a "chain reaction" in the
body:
•
•
•
Nicotine acts on receptors normally used by one of the main
neurotransmitters in the brain and nervous system
(acetylcholine). Neurotransmitters are the "chemical messengers"
released by nerve cells to communicate with other cells by altering
their electrical activity.
The body responds to nicotine at these receptors as if it was the
natural transmitter (acetylcholine) and the activity and
physiological functions of many brain systems are altered.
With repeated nicotine dosage the body adapts to what it regards as
extra acetylcholine in an attempt to restore normal function. One
way it does this is to grow more acetylcholine receptors.
Thus nicotine induces structural as well as functional changes in the brain
of smokers. When nicotine is suddenly withdrawn, physiological
functions in the brain and other parts of the body are disturbed. This is
known as withdrawal syndrome. It takes time for the body to readjust to
functioning normally without nicotine.
UNITS 4
HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are
entitled". The doctrine of human rights aims to identify the necessary
positive and negative prerequisites for a "universal" minimal standard of
justice, tolerance and human dignity that can be considered the public
moral norms owed by and to individuals by the mere virtue of their
humanity. Such prerequisites can exist as shared norms of actual human
moralities, as justified moral norms or moral rights supported by strong
reasons, as legal rights at a national level, or as a legal right within
international law. Human rights advocates seek the strong protection of
human rights through their effective realisation in each of these ways.
The claim of Human rights is therefore that they are universal, in that
they are possessed by all by virtue of the fact that they are human, and
independent in that their existence as moral standards of justification and
criticism is independent whether or not they are recognized and by a
particular national or international legal system. or government.
The general idea of Human rights has widespread acceptance, and it has
been argued that the doctrine of human rights has become the dominant
moral doctrine for regulating and evaluating the moral status of the
contemporary geo-political order. Indeed, the Charter of the United
Nations which has been signed by virtually all sovereign states recognises
the existence of human rights and calls for their promotion and respect.
However, debate and disagreement over which rights are human rights,
and about the precise nature, content, justification and appropriate legal
status of those rights continues. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights has acted as the predominant modern codification of commonly
accepted human rights principles and many national many international
documents, treaties and instruments that have expanded on its principles
and act as a collective expression of widespread conceptions of human
rights by the international community. Examples of rights and freedoms
which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include
civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of
expression, and equality before the law; and economic, social and cultural
rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to be treated
with respect and dignity, the right to food, the right to work, and the right
to education.
“
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.
UNITS 4 HUMAN RIGHTS
EMERGENCY
Emergency is a humanitarian NGO that provides emergency medical
treatment to civilian victims of war, especially in relation to landmines. It
was founded by war surgeon Gino Strada in 1994 in Milan (Italy).
Gino Strada and the other founders of Emergency aimed to bring free,
high-quality medical and surgical assistance to war victims. Over time,
their humanitarian projects assumed a broader view, including giving
human rights to those who suffer the social consequences from wars.
Emergency promotes a culture of peace and solidarity.
Emergency strives for neutrality in every war; its aim is to guarantee the
right of free medical assistance to the population affected by a war.
Today Emergency is active in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Sierra Leone,
Sudan and Sri Lanka. Emergency’s humanitarian projects usually involve
construction, support, and operation of permanent hospitals. However,
Emergency has also given short-term emergency assistance to existing
hospitals in areas with a critical need for temporary care by providing
specialized personnel, drugs or instruments. These short-term projects
have included Algeria, Angola, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Palestine and Serbia.
To date, more than 2.3 million people have received care from
Emergency health centers.
Activities
How Emergency operates
Emergency begins operations in a specific region or country based on two
major factors: the real need of specialized medical assistance from the
local population, and the absence of similar humanitarian projects in that
given country. Once a project starts, specialized international personnel
construct and operate high-quality surgical centers for war and landmines
victims, as well as physical and social rehabilitation centers, first aid
posts, and health centers for basic medical assistance. Emergency also
deals with crippling and endemic diseases like polio and malaria and
provides basic health care, not only for war-torn areas, but also for high
poverty regions; it also helps the set up of social development projects.
Emergency strives to foster cooperation with and provide professional
training to the local personnel, so that eventually the facilities run
independently.
Emergency has operated in many war-torn zones, including Afghanistan,
Cambodia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Sudan. The organization has
a policy to build hospitals on both sides of a conflict rather than
supporting one or the other; for example, during the Afghan war between
the Talibans and the various mujahideen factions of the Afghan Northern
Alliance, hospital were built in Kabul and in Anabah, in the Pansheer
valley.
In view of the high incidence of heart disease in African countries and the
lack of health care facilities of adequate standards, Emergency built a
specialized heart surgery center in Khartoum, Sudan. The aim of this
project is to establish a regional center for cardiac surgery, serving the
people of Sudan and the nine bordering countries: Egypt, Libya, Chad,
the Central African Republic, Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and
Eritrea.
Promoting the culture of peace
In today's wars more than 90% of the victims are civilians, thus
Emergency is promoting a new culture of peace. Its vision is to eradicate
war from the modern world. Towards this aim, thousands of volunteers in
Europe and in the United States promote and organize conferences,
meetings, debates and events on the topics of peace, solidarity and civil
rights.
UNITS 4 HUMAN RIGHTS
SURROGACY
Surrogacy is a method of reproduction whereby a woman agrees to
become pregnant and deliver a child for a contracted party. She may be
the child's genetic mother (the more traditional form of surrogacy), or she
may, as a gestational carrier, carry the pregnancy to delivery after
having been implanted with an embryo, the latter being an illegal medical
procedure in some jurisdictions.
Terminology
Surrogacy or Surrogate means substitute. In medical parlance, the term
surrogacy means using of a substitute mother in the place of the natural
mother.
In traditional surrogacy (also known as the Straight method) the
surrogate is pregnant with her own biological child, but this child was
conceived with the intention of relinquishing the child to be raised by
others such as the biological father and possibly his spouse or partner.
The child may be conceived via sexual intercourse (NI), home artificial
insemination using fresh or frozen sperm or impregnated via IUI
(intrauterine insemination), or ICI (intracervical insemination) which is
performed at a fertility clinic. Sperm from the male partner of the
'commissioning couple' may be used, or alternatively, sperm from a
sperm donor can be used. Donor sperm will, for example, be used if the
'commissioning couple' are both female or where the child is
commissioned by a single woman.
In gestational surrogacy (aka the Host method) the surrogate becomes
pregnant via embryo transfer with a child of which she is not the
biological mother. She may have made an arrangement to relinquish it to
the biological mother or father to raise, or to a parent who is unrelated to
the child (e. g. because the child was conceived using egg donation,
sperm donation or is the result of a donated embryo). The surrogate
mother may be called the gestational carrier.
Altruistic surrogacy is a situation where the surrogate receives no
financial reward for her pregnancy or the relinquishment of the child
(although usually all expenses related to the pregnancy and birth are paid
by the intended parents such as medical expenses, maternity clothing, and
other related expenses).
Commercial surrogacy is a form of surrogacy in which a gestational
carrier is paid to carry a child to maturity in her womb and is usually
resorted to by higher income infertile couples who can afford the cost
involved or people who save and borrow in order to complete their dream
of being parents. This procedure is legal in several countries including in
India where due to high international demand and ready availability of
poor surrogates it is reaching industry proportions. Commercial surrogacy
is sometimes referred to by the emotionally charged and potentially
offensive terms "wombs for rent", "outsourced pregnancies" or "baby
farms".
Rationale
Intended parents may arrange a surrogate pregnancy because of female
infertility, or other medical issues which may make the pregnancy or the
delivery risky. A female intending parent may also be fertile and healthy,
but unwilling to undergo pregnancy. Many homosexual male couples turn
to surrogacy as their only option in becoming parents, as in many places
it is not yet legal for gay couples to adopt children.
Alternatively, the intended parent may be a single male or a single
woman who is unable to bring a pregnancy to full term.
Surrogate Mothers
Surrogate Mothers may be relatives, friends, or previous strangers. Many
surrogacy arrangements are made through agencies that help match up
intended parents with women who want to be surrogates for a fee. The
agencies often help manage the complex medical and legal aspects
involved. Surrogacy arrangements can also be made independently. In
compensated surrogacies the amount a surrogate receives varies widely
from almost nothing above expenses to over $30,000.[citation needed] Careful
screening is needed to assure their health as the gestational carrier incurs
potential obstetrical risks. It is also advisable that the intended parents
and the surrogate mothers have independent advocates to help them in the
legal issues in surrogacy.
It is estimated that in the United States, the payment for a surrogate
mother ranges between US$25,000 and $50,000, the whole procedure can
cost $75,000 to
$90,000+.
According
to a
poll
on
http://www.surromomsonline.com, fees anywhere from $10,000 to
30,000+ are considered fair by the surrogates themselves; with most
voting in the $22,000-$35,000 range. The fees for the rest of the processincluding fertility clinics; lawyers; medical fees; and agencies and/or egg
donors (if they're used) generally cost more than the fee going to the
surrogate. Gestational surrogacy costs more than traditional surrogacy,
since more complicated medical procedures are required. Surrogates who
carry a baby for a family member (i.e., sister or daughter) usually do so
for expenses only.
History
Having another woman bear a child for a couple to raise, usually with the
male half of the couple as the genetic father, is referred to in antiquity.
For example, chapter 16 of the Book of Genesis relates the story of
Sarah's servant Hagar bearing a child via NI to Abraham for Sarah and
Abraham to raise. Babylonian law and custom allowed this practice and
infertile woman could use the practice to avoid the divorce which would
likely otherwise be inevitable.
Attorney Noel Keane is generally recognized as the creator of the legal
idea of surrogate motherhood. However, it was not until he developed an
association with physician Warren J. Ringold in the city of Dearborn,
Michigan that the idea became feasible. Dr. Ringold agreed to perform all
of the artificial inseminations, and the clinic grew rapidly in the early part
of 1981. Though Keane and Ringold were widely criticized by some
members of the press and politicians, they continued and eventually
advocated for the passage of laws that protected the idea of surrogate
motherhood. Bill Handel, who is a partner in a Los Angeles Surrogacy
firm, also attempted to have such laws passed in California, but his
attempts were struck down in the State Congress. Presently, the idea of
surrogate motherhood has gained some societal acceptance and laws
protecting the contractual arrangements exist in eight states.
In the United States, the issue of surrogacy was widely publicised in the
case of Baby M, in which the surrogate and biological mother of Melissa
Stern ("Baby M"), born in 1986, refused to cede custody of Melissa to the
couple with whom she had made the surrogacy agreement. The courts of
New Jersey found that Mary Beth Whitehead was the child's legal mother
and declared contracts for surrogate motherhood illegal and invalid.
However, the court found it in the best interests of the infant to awarded
custody of Melissa to her biological father William Stern and his wife
Elizabeth Stern, rather than to the surrogate mother Mary Beth
Whitehead.
UNITS 5
THE TOOLS OF DRAMA
The elements of drama:
Any dramatic work is a collective event which involves various elements:
- A playwright: the addresser;
- A written text: the message;
- Actors, director, designers, musicians: the performance;
- Audience: the addressee.
Drama is a real moment of communication from author to audience
through the actors. So the same work can be performed in a different way
according to various factors like the sensibility of actors, audience and
director.
The features of a dramatic text
The structure:
A play consists of acts divided into scenes. In act 1 we have the
introduction, in act 2 the development, in act 3 there is crisis (of a
character), in act 4 there’s a complication, in act 5 the denouement, that is
the resolving of all difficulties.
In the tragedies the introduction is spoken by a chorus through a
prologue: it gives information about the main character or the subject of
the play. In the end of the play there’s often an epilogue.
Setting:
We can understand place and time from the dialogue and the stage
directions.
Dramatic techniques:
The main support of drama is Dialogue, which creates the action,
provides details about the characters, show what a character thinks about
another, gives information about the past.
Then there’s the soliloquy in which the character is alone on the stage,
and the monologue, in which there are other characters but the speaker
ignores them. In this way the audience knows a character through his
thoughts, his plans for the future, his feelings and reactions.
The asides are short comments made by a character only for the
audience. They reveal the nature of the speaker, explain what has been
said and the developments.
The stage directions are interventions of the playwright and provide
information.
Characters:
Characters include a hero, a heroine, and in the tragedies a villain who
does evil actions. Characters are divided into main and minor.
Analysis of a character:
The analysis of a character is how the character is presented: through
dialogue, soliloquies, asides and stage directions.
Language:
The language of drama represents the features of everyday speech, of
poetry and of prose, through the characters’ , the playwright’s and the
audience’s points of view.
THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA
The first expression in drama were Miracle plays. They were performed
on movable stage wagons called pageants which stopped at some places
in the town. People used to stop in front of a pageant to watch an episode
and each pageant was a section of the complete story and the audience
used to move from one pageant to another.
The next development in drama were the Morality Plays, whose
characters weren’t taken from the Bible. They were personification of
human vices and virtues. These plays were invented plots and went from
ancient to contemporary events. One of the most important morality play
is Everyman.
At the end of the 15th century began another form of plays: the interludes.
They were short plays, usually performed by a small acting company at a
lord’s house. It combined serious and comic elements and used two
technical expedients: the disguise and the personification of the vice.
UNITS 6
TRAGEDY: A DEFINITION
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that paradoxically
offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms
that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific
tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically
in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been
multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a
powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks
and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a
common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. From its obscure origins
in the theatres of Athens 2500 years ago, from which there survives only
a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, through its
singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Racine,
or Schiller, to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of Strindberg, Beckett's
modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering, or Müller's
postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon, tragedy has remained an
important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and
change. A long line of philosophers—which includes Plato, Aristotle,
Saint Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Hegel, Schopenhauer,
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Camus, Lacan, and Deleuze—
have analysed, speculated upon and criticised the tragic form. In the wake
of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre
distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general, where the tragic
divides against epic and lyric, or at the scale of the drama, where tragedy
is opposed to comedy. In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined
against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic and epic theatre.
UNITS 7
COMEDY: A DEFINITION
Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally
intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy.
This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely
the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. In
the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was remarkably
influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the
theaters.
The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance
which pits two societies against each other in an amusing agon or
conflict. Northrop Frye famously depicted these two opposing sides as a
"Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old", but this dichotomy is
seldom described as an entirely satisfactory explanation.
A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle
between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that
pose obstacles to his hopes; in this sense, the youth is understood to be
constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice
but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic irony which
provokes laughter.
Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise,
incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite
expectations, but there are many recognized genres of comedy. Satire and
political satire use ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions
as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of
humor. Satire is a type of comedy.
Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses
certain ironic changes to critique that form from within (though not
necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball comedy derives its humor
largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters.
Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so called dark
or evil elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual
humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or
taboos in comic ways.
A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of
society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize
the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a
popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and
focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.
UNITS 8
THE TOOLS OF FICTION
The setting is the place and the time of the story. Time setting usually
refers to the time of the day, the season, the year; but it is important to be
aware of the context within which the action of a novel takes place,
so
social
historical
factors
are
also
important.
Place setting can be interior or exterior and it deals with the description of
the landscape, interiors and objects. A novel may begin with the
description of a town or a landscape which is the primary setting of a
story and also provides important information about the
characters who live in it. When the description is very detailed,
depending on the language of the senses or metaphorical expressions, the
setting may acquire the status of a character, almost a protagonist of the
story.
Characters are the people who appear in a novel and represent the most
important ingredient in the world of fiction. The presentation of a
character can be direct or indirect. The two methods of presentation are
often mixed by authors in order to create portraits that are realistic but
also provide a psychological insight into the inner life of their characters.
Depending on their role in the story there can be major and minor
characters. A further distinction can be made between round and flat
characters. Flat characters, also called "types" or "caricatures", are built
around a single psychological trait or quality; the are easy to recognise
and do not develop throughout the story, even if they experience different
relationship and situations. However this does not mean the are always
artistically inferior to round characters. As a matter of fact, the author can
use them to create a particular atmosphere inside a
complex narrative frame. Round characters pass through the crucial
events of the story, change their personality as the narration develops and
can even influence the plot; they are more complex and have more than
one
facet,
like
human
beings.
An essential element of a narrative text is the speaking voice, that is, the
narrator. The narrator is not the author of a book; author is a real person,
with his own experiences, personality and ideas. the narrator is the
voice who tells the story, either the protagonist or a witness. It may also
be a voice outside the story who tells events he has not taken part in. In
this
case
it
is
called
external.
The first-person narrator employs the "l" mode; it can coincide with a
character in the story or the protagonist who tells his life. The choice of
this
narrator
can
have
the
following
functions:
-to bring the reader close to the mind and feelings of the narrator;
to
convey
an
impression
of
reality
to
restrict
the
reader's
prospective.
The thir-person narrator knows everything about the events and the
characters' thoughts and intentions; this is why such a narrator is also
called omniscient. The omniscient third-person narrator can be obtrusive
when he addresses the reader directly by making personal remarks and
digressions or by providing a comment on the society of the time, on
some of the characters. The obtrusive narrator takes away the realistic
illusion and reduces the emotional intensity of what is being told by
focusing on the act of narrating. The narrator is unobtrusive when he
shows what happens but he does not interfere with the story
UNITS 8
CONTENUTI SPECIFICI DI GRAMMATICA
PRESENT SIMPLE
Quando si usa
Il Simple Present è il tempo verbale inglese che esprime il concetto generale di un’azione che,
pur svolgendosi nel presente, non è limitata al momento in cui si sta parlando.
Lo si deve usare per esprimere un’azione presente quando si verifica almeno una delle seguenti
circostanze.
1) L’azione esprime un fatto permanente, cioè qualcosa che è generalmente sempre vera.
Esempio
Note
Vivo in Italia
I live in Italy
Non vivo in Italia solo nel momento in cui sto
parlando, è una situazione stabile della mia
vita.
Lavoro in una banca
I work in a bank
È il mio lavoro stabile.
Parlo l'Inglese
I speak English
Sono sempre in grado di parlare Inglese.
2) Il verbo esprime un’azione ricorrente, che viene cioè ripetuta con una certa frequenza,
espressa nella frase o nel contesto da un’espressione di tempo del tipo:
in the morning
al mattino
in the afternoon
al pomeriggio
in the evening
alla sera
at night
di notte
every day
ogni giorno / tutti i giorni
every Monday
tutti i lunedì (Nota: every + sostantivo singolare)
on Mondays
tutti i lunedì
at weekends/at the weekend
nei fine settimana
once a week
una volta alla settimana
twice a month
due volte al mese
three times a year
tre volte all’anno
Posizione delle espressioni di tempo
In inglese le espressioni di tempo vanno messe all’inizio o alla fine della frase.
Esempio:
Vado al cinema TUTTI I SABATI con i miei amici.
a) ON SATURDAYS I go to the cinema with my friends.
b) I go to the cinema with my friends ON SATURDAYS.
Nelle frasi interrogative e negative vanno messe sempre alla fine della frase.
Esempio:
Do you go to the cinema ON SATURDAYS?
I don’t often go to the cinema ON SATURDAYS.
3. Nella frase al presente c’è un avverbio di frequenza. Gli avverbi di frequenza sono quegli
avverbi di tempo che rispondono alla domanda "quanto spesso?"
I principali avverbi di frequenza inglesi sono:
always
sempre
often
spesso
usually
di solito
sometimes
qualche volta
seldom
ogni tanto
rarely
raramente
hardly ever
quasi mai (vuole sempre il verbo nella forma affermativa)
never
mai (vuole sempre il verbo nella forma affermativa)
ever
mai (nelle frasi interrogative)
Posizione dell'avverbio di frequenza:
Gli avverbi di frequenza vanno messi tra soggetto e verbo.
Es. Mark OFTEN works at home.
Nella forma interrogativa l’avverbio di frequenza rimane tra soggetto e verbo.
Es. Does Mark OFTEN work at home?
Nella forma negativa l’avverbio di frequenza va tra ausiliare e verbo.
Es. Mark doesn’t OFTEN work at home.
Quando il verbo della frase è un ausiliare, l’avverbio di frequenza segue l’ausiliare.
Es. Mark is OFTEN tired. (Il verbo to be è un ausiliare)
4. Si usa il Simple Present per esprimere il presente di alcuni verbi inglesi che non vengono
utilizzati al Present Continuous, anche se si tratta di azioni limitate al momento in cui si parla.
I principali verbi che non vengono utilizzati nei tempi progressivi sono:
•
•
To want (volere)
To like (piacere)
•
I verbi che indicano sentimenti (to love, amare - to hate, odiare ecc…)
•
I verbi di percezione (to hear, udire - to see, vedere ecc…)
•
•
I verbi che indicano attività intellettuale (to know, sapere - to understand, capire ecc…)
I verbi che indicano possesso (to have, avere - to own, possedere)
Perciò se devo dire:
"Voglio un gelato"
non potendo utilizzare il Present Continuous con il verbo to want, devo usare il Simple Present
anche se il gelato lo voglio in questo momento:
"I want an ice-cream"
Come si costruisce
Forma affermativa:
Il Simple present è un tempo semplice, cioè non si avvale di nessun ausiliare nella forma
affermativa.
Il soggetto, che va sempre espresso, è seguito dalla forma base del verbo.
(forma base = infinito senza to >>vedi paradigma dei verbi inglesi)
Alla 3° persona singolare si aggiunge una s alla forma base, nelle altre persone il verbo resta
invariato.
Forma negativa e interrogativa:
Essendo il Simple Present un tempo semplice, i verbi non-ausiliari hanno bisogno dell’aiuto di un
ausiliare. Si usa il verbo TO DO che perde il suo significato di "fare" e serve solo ad aiutare il
verbo della frase ad assumere la forma interrogativa e negativa.
(Vedi generalità sulle forme interrogative e negative)
Forma
Costruzione
Esempio
I verbi interrogativa
forma
affermativa
negativa
che terminano perDO/DOES+SOGGETTO+FORMA
-ss,
SOGGETTO
-sh,
SOGGETTO
-ch, -x,+-oDO
+ FORMA
/ DOES
to kissBASE
+(baciare)>>
NOT
BASE
+ kisses
I do
Where
work
notdowork
you work?
aggiungono -es
FORMA BASE
(+ s alla 3° persona sing.)
Where
does
he work?
you
(I
don’t
work
work)
Eccezioni alla 3° persona singolare
he/she/it
He
does not
works
work
Poiché l'unica variabile del Simple Present
è la =terza
persona singolare, le uniche eccezioni
DO NOT
DON'T
riguardano la terza persona singolare.
we work
(He
doesn’t work)
DOES NOT = DOESN'T
Regola
Esempio
you work
they work
to watch (guardare)>>watches
to go (andare)>> goes
to relax (rilassarsi)>> relaxes
I verbi che terminano per -y preceduta da
to study (studiare)>> studies
consonante, cambiano la -y in i e aggiungono es.
Ciò non accade quando la -y è preceduta da
vocale.
to play (giocare)>> plays
I verbi modali (can - may - must) restano
invariati
I can swim >>He can swim
Il verbo to have (avere) diventa has
I have a new car >> He has a new car
PRESENT CONTINUOS
Quando si usa
Il Present Continuous si usa per esprimere un’azione presente quando si verifica una
delle seguenti circostanze.
Circostanza
1. Now: Il verbo esprime un’azione che si sta
svolgendo nel momento in cui si parla
Esempio
Che cosa fai?
Scrivo una lettera. (Sto scrivendo in questo
momento)
2. Around now: Il verbo esprime un’azione
che si svolge nel limitato periodo di tempo di
cui si parla, anche se non necessariamente nel
momento in cui si parla
Che cosa fai in questi giorni ?
3. Future plan: Il verbo esprime un
programma preciso per il futuro
Partirò domani alle 15.45.
Studio inglese, perché fra un mese avrò
l’esame. ( Non sto studiando in questo
momento, ma in questo periodo)
NOTA: Non è possibile fare il Present Continuous dei verbi che non vengono
utilizzati nei tempi progressivi (vedi uso della -ing form - tempi progressivi)
Come si costruisce
Il Present Continuous, come tutti i tempi progressivi, è un tempo composto. Utilizza
l’ausiliare to be al Simple Present e la forma in
-ing del verbo della frase.
Se il verbo deve essere messo in forma negativa o interrogativa, si fa la forma
negativa o interrogativa del verbo to be, mentre il verbo nella -ing form rimane
invariato al suo posto (vedi generalità sulle forme interrogative e negative).
Forma
Costruzione
Esempio
forma affermativa
soggetto + to be al Simple Present I am writing a letter
+ verbo-ing
forma negativa
soggetto + to be al Simple Present I am not writing a letter
+ NOT + verbo-ing
forma interrogativa
to be al Simple Present + soggetto Are you writing a letter ?
+ verbo-ing
SIMPLE PRESENT O PRESENT CONTINUOUS?
Il Simple Present
Continuous.
si confonde spesso con il Present
SIMPLE PRESENT
Il Simple Present si usa in due principali tipi di azioni:
•
•
ABITUDINI azioni che avvengono o non avvengono
regolarmente (ogni giorno, ogni anno)SE
STATI
cose che non cambiano spesso (opinioni,
condizioni)
Alcuni esempi aiuteranno a rendere più chiaro il concetto
TIPO DI
AZIONE
ESEMPIO
SPIEGAZIONE
ABITUDINE
Mike goes to class
every day
ABITUDINE It rains a lot in Milan
every day indica un'abitudine
significa che piove spesso
ABITUDINE
Sheila always talks
about you
always indica un'abitudine
ABITUDINE
Bob spends Christmas
with us
ciò implica che Bob trascorre il
Natale con noi ogni anno
STATO
George lives in Florida
questo è uno stato perché non
cambia
STATO
Mary has green eyes
di solito il colore degl'occhi di
qualcuno non cambia
STATO
Martin likes chocolate
quando ci piace qualcosa, di
solito ci piace sempre
STATO
Ann believes in God
opinioni e credi sono stati della
mente che non cambiano spesso
PRESENT CONTINUOUS
Il Present Continuous si usa per due tipi principali di azioni:
•
AZIONE TEMPORANEA CHE AVVIENE ORA
qualcosa che avviene proprio adesso, ma che si fermerà
in futuro
•
UN PROGETTO DEFINITO PER IL FUTURO
qualcosa che s'intende fare, di solito in un futuro vicino
Eccone alcuni esempi
TIPO DI
AZIONE
ESEMPIO
SPIEGAZIONE
AZIONE
TEMPORANEA John is winning the
CHE AVVIENE game
ORA
John sta vincendo ora, ma la
partita non è ancora finita
AZIONE
TEMPORANEA It's raining outside
CHE AVVIENE
Sta piovendo ora, ma presto
potrebbe smettere
ORA
AZIONE
TEMPORANEA She's working in the
CHE AVVIENE library
ORA
Lei ci sta lavorando proprio
adesso
AZIONE
Bob is spending
TEMPORANEA
Christmas with his
CHE AVVIENE
parents
ORA
Bob sta trascorrendo Natale
con i suoi ora, quest'anno,
ma forse non l'anno
prossimo
PROGETTO
I'm playing football
DEFINITO PER
tomorrow
IL FUTURO
L'azione è già stata
programmata
PROGETTO
He's leaving for Paris
DEFINITO PER
tomorrow
IL FUTURO
Probabilmente ha già
comprato i biglietti
PROGETTO
The Olympics are
DEFINITO PER taking place here next E' già programmato
IL FUTURO
year
PROGETTO
I'm having a party
DEFINITO PER
next week
IL FUTURO
E' stato tutto organizzato
IMPERATIVO
L’imperativo è l’unico tempo coniugato inglese che non vuole il soggetto.
Esiste solo in seconda persona singolare e plurale:
Ascolta!
Ascoltate!
Per la costruzione dell'imperativo inglese si segue il seguente schema:
REGOLA
ESEMPIO
Forma affermativa:
Listen! (ascolta/ascoltate!)
FORMA BASE (infinito senza to)
Be quiet! (stai calmo/state calmi!)
Forma negativa:
Don’t talk (non parlare/non parlate!)
DON'T + FORMA BASE
Don’t be silly! (non essere sciocco/non siate
sciocchi!)
IMPERATIVO ESORTATIVO (LET'S)
L’imperativo esortativo è l’imperativo della prima persona plurale, più che di un
ordine si tratta di un'esortazione:
Cominciamo!
Andiamo!
Per la sua costruzione si segue il seguente schema:
REGOLA
ESEMPIO
Forma affermativa:
Let’s start! (cominciamo!)
LET'S + FORMA BASE
Let’s go! (andiamo!)
Forma negativa:
Let’s not go there! (non andiamoci!)
LET'S + NOT + FORMA BASE
SIMPLE PAST
Quando si usa
Il Simple Past è il tempo verbale inglese che esprime il concetto
generale di un’azione che si è svolta nel passato e non ha più nessun
rapporto con il presente.
Per poter mettere un verbo
contemporaneamente tre condizioni.
al
1.
L’azione
finita
nel
svolta
in
deve
essersi
momento
2. Il tempo in cui
nella frase o nel contesto.
l’azione
Ho visto quel film.
si
Simple
è
Past
nel
devono
passato
cui
svolta
deve
verificarsi
ed
essere
parla.
si
essere
espresso
L’azione di vedere il film è passata e finita, perché
in questo momento non lo sto più guardando, ma il
tempo in cui si è svolta non è espresso: non dico
quando ho visto il film. Perciò il verbo "vedere" non
può essere messo al S. Past in inglese.
3. Il tempo espresso deve essere passato e finito mentre si parla.
Ho visto quel film questa settimana
Il tempo è espresso, questa settimana, ma la
settimana non è ancora finita, perciò non posso usare
il S. Past.
Ho visto quel film la settimana scorsa
L’azione è passata (1° condizione).
Il tempo è espresso (2° condizione).
Il tempo espresso è finito (3° condizione).
>>> Devo mettere il verbo al S. Past.
I saw that movie last week.
Le espressioni di tempo che collocano
definito del passato possono essere di diverso tipo.
Posso esprimere il tempo mediante
l’azione
in
un
momento
Esempio
•
Avverbi di tempo.
Yesterday (ieri)
•
Complementi di tempo
Last week (la settimana scorsa)
During my summer holidays
(durante le mie vacanze estive)
Three days ago (tre giorni fa)
•
Proposizioni temporali
When I was a child (quando ero bambino)
When I was three years old
(quando avevo tre anni)
•
Un evento storico
During World War II
(durante la seconda guerra mondiale)
Nota
Si usa il Simple Past anche in assenza di espressione di tempo passato,
nei seguenti casi:
Circostanza
•
Esempio
Nelle domande al passato con WHEN, Quando hai visto quel film?
perché si presuppone nella risposta la
collocazione
dell’azione
in
un When did you see that movie?
momento preciso del passato.
•
Nelle proposizioni temporali introdotte Quando lo conobbi…..
da WHEN
When I first met him …..
•
Quando si parla di una persona che non Shakespeare scrisse molte opere teatrali.
vive più.
Shakespeare wrote many plays.
Come si costruisce
Il Simple Past, nella forma affermativa, è un tempo semplice, che è dato
dalla seconda voce del paradigma ed è uguale per tutte le persone.
Infinito italiano
Paradigma inglese
Lavorare
work - worked - worked
Andare
go - went - gone
Per i verbi regolari il Simple Past si ottiene aggiungendo -ED alla forma
base del verbo, tenendo presente quanto segue.
Regola
Forma Base
Simple Past
I verbi regolari aggiungono ed work (lavorare)
alla forma base
walk (camminare)
worked
I verbi che terminano per -e smile (sorridere)
aggiungono solo la d
smiled
I verbi che terminano per -y cry (piangere)
preceduta da consonante,
cambiano la y in i e
aggiungono es.
cried
I verbi che terminano per una admit (ammettere)
sola consonante preceduta da
una
vocale
accentata stop (fermarsi)
raddoppiano la consonante
finale.
admitted
I verbi che terminano per -l travel (viaggiare)
preceduta da una sola vocale
travelled
walked
stopped
raddoppiano sempre la l.
Per i verbi irregolari il paradigma è dato dal dizionario, e bisogna
impararlo a memoria (vedi paradigma dei verbi irregolari).
Esempio:
Infinito italiano
Paradigma inglese
essere
be - was - been
andare
go - went - gone
correre
run - ran - run
avere
have - had - had
Essendo un tempo semplice, il S. Past dei verbi non-ausiliari ha
bisogno dell’aiuto di un ausiliare per fare le forme interrogative e
negative. Si usa l’ausiliare DID, in presenza del quale il verbo dalla
frase resta invariato nella sua forma base.
Forma
Costruzione
Forma affermativa
SOGGETTO + 2° VOCE
PARADIGMA
Esempio
DEL I worked
you worked
he / she / it worked
we worked
you worked
they worked
Forma interrogativa
DID + SOGGETTO + FORMA Did you work last night?
BASE
(Hai lavorato ieri sera?)
Forma negativa
SOGG. + DID + NOT + FORMA I didn’t work last night
BASE
(Non ho lavorato ieri sera)
DID NOT>>>DIDN’T
Nota:
Ieri mattina
Yesterday morning
Ieri pomeriggio
Yesterday afternoon
Ieri sera
Yesterday evening
Ieri notte / sera tardi
Last night
PAST CONTINUOS
Il Past Continuous Tense, chiamato anche Past Progressive
Tense, si usa comunemente in inglese per un'azione che stava
avvenendo in un particolare momento del passato, ma non era
ancora finita. Si traduce in italiano con l'imperfetto
dell'indicativo o con STARE + GERUNDIO del verbo
Questo tempo si forma usando il verbo be al passato e la forma ing del verbo
SOGGETTO
BE
FORMA -ING
I
was
walking
You
were
walking
He
was
walking
She
was
walking
It
was
walking
We
were
walking
You
were
walking
They
were
walking
Il Past Continuous Tense si usa di solito quando un'azione è
iniziata prima di un'altra e finita dopo, ad esempio:
I was reading when he arrived.
(Leggevo/Stavo leggendo quando è arrivato)
In altre parole, ho cominciato a leggere (forse alle 7), poi lui è
arrivato (forse alle 8), poi ho finito di leggere (forse alle 9), ecco
uno schema:
7.00
8.00 he arrived
9.00
I was reading I was reading I was reading I was reading I was reading
Possiamo usare questo tempo anche quando parliamo di
un'azione che era già iniziata e stava ancora continuando in
un'ora particolare:
At 5 o'clock, it was raining.
(Alle 5 pioveva/stava piovendo)
In altre parole, cominciò a piovere (forse alle 4) ed è finito di
piovere più tardi (forse alle 7), ecco uno schema:
4.00
5.00 (ora specifica)
6.00
it was raining it was raining it was raining it was raining it was raining
Infine possiamo usare questo tempo per descrivere due azioni
che continuano entrambe nello stesso momento nel passato. In
questo caso usiamo il Past Continuous per tutte due:
While I was sleeping, she was working.
(Mentre dormivo/stavo dormendo, lei lavorava/stava lavorando)
In altre parole, ho cominciato a dormire e lei a lavorare (forse
alle 10.00), ed entrambi abbiamo finito le azioni più tardi (forse
alle 12.00), ecco uno schema:
10.00
11.00
12.00
I was sleeping I was sleeping I was sleeping I was sleeping I was sleeping
she was working she was working she was working she was working
PRESENT PERFECT
I have seen that film
Quando si usa
Il Present Perfect è il tempo verbale inglese che esprime il concetto generale di
un’azione che, pur essendosi svolta nel passato, ha ancora qualche tipo di rapporto
con il presente.
Tale rapporto con il presente può riguardare:
•
•
Il tempo in cui l’azione si è svolta.
L’azione stessa, che non è finita mentre si parla.
In pratica, si deve usare il Present Perfect quando si verifica almeno una delle
seguenti condizioni.
1. L’azione si è svolta nel passato, ma il tempo non è espresso (non dico quando).
Esempio:
Ho visto quel film.
L’azione di vedere il film è passata, ma non dico quando
l’ho visto, perciò uso il Present Perfect.
I have seen that film.
2. L’azione è passata, il tempo è espresso, ma non è finito mentre si parla.
Esempio:
Ho visto
settimana.
quel
film
questa L’azione di vedere il film è passata e finita, il tempo è
espresso, questa settimana, ma la settimana non è ancora
finita. Uso il Present Perfect.
I have seen that film this week.
3. In una frase al passato è presente uno dei seguenti avverbi di tempo:
In inglese
In italiano
Esempio
Already
già
I have already met
(L'ho già conosciuto.)
him.
Have you already met
(Lo hai già conosciuto?)
him?
(usato in frasi
interrogative)
affermative
e
Just
appena
I
have
just
met
(L'ho appena conosciuto.)
him.
Ever
mai
Have you ever met
(Lo hai mai conosciuto?)
him?
I
have
never
met
(Non l'ho mai conosciuto.)
him.
(usato in frasi interrogative)
Never
mai
(vuole sempre il verbo nella forma
affermativa)
Recently
recentemente
I have met him recently.
(L'ho conosciuto recentemente.)
a) ancora (in frasi negative)
a) I haven't met him
(Non l'ho ancora conosciuto.)
yet.
b) Have you met him
(Lo hai già conosciuto?)
yet?
Lately
Yet
b) già (in frasi interrogative)
Nota:
Already, just, ever, never si collocano tra l'ausiliare have/has e il verbo.
Esempio:
Ho
I have just finished.
appena
finito.
Non
I have never seen him.
l'ho
mai
visto.
ancora
finito.
Yet, recently, lately si mettono alla fine della frase.
Esempio:
Non
I haven’t finished yet.
ho
4. L’azione è iniziata nel passato ma non è ancora finita nel momento in cui si
parla.
Sono frasi in cui in italiano si usa il presente indicativo ed un'espressione di tempo
introdotta dalla preposizione da:
Esempio:
- Vivo in Italia da quattro anni.
- Lo conosco dal 1985
- Da quanto tempo lo conosci?
In inglese il verbo viene messo al Present Perfect, mentre l'espressione di tempo è
introdotta da:
SINCE quando è espresso il momento di inizio dell’azione: "da quando?"
Esempio:
Lo
conosco
I have known him since 1995.
dal
1995.
Il momento di inizio dell’azione può anche essere espresso da un’intera proposizione
temporale.
Esempio:
Lo
conosco
da
I have known him since I was a child.
quando
ero
bambino.
FOR quando è espressa la durata dell’azione: "da quanto tempo?"
Esempio:
Lo
conosco
I have known him for three years.
da
tre
anni.
Nelle domande l’espressione "da quanto tempo / da quando…?" si esprime in inglese
con HOW LONG?
Esempio:
Da
quanto
How long have you known him?
tempo
lo
conosci?
Nota
Queste frasi sono ingannevoli anche quando si trovano in inglese:
"I have been married for five years".
La maggior parte degli italiani capirebbe che sono stata sposata per cinque anni
(adesso non lo sono più). Invece la frase significa:
"Sono sposata da cinque anni" (sono ancora sposata).
Come si costruisce
Il Present Perfect è un tempo composto che utilizza l’ausiliare TO HAVE al Simple
Present ed il Participio Passato (3° voce del paradigma) del verbo della frase.
Essendo un tempo composto, è l’ausiliare have a prendere la forma interrogativa e
negativa, il verbo rimane al suo posto al participio passato.
Forma
Costruzione
Forma affermativa
SOGGETTO + HAVE/HAS
PARTICIPIO PASSATO
Esempio
+ See-saw-seen (vedere)
I have seen
you have seen
he/she/it has seen
we have seen
you have seen
they have seen
Forma negativa
SOGGETTO + HAVE/HAS + NOT + I have not seen
PART. PASS.
you have not seen
HAVE NOT >>> HAVEN'T
he/she/it has not seen
HAS NOT >>> HASN'T
etc…
Forma interrogativa
HAVE/HAS + SOGGETTO + PART. Have I seen…?
PASS.
Have you seen…?
Has he/she/it seen…?
PAST SIMPLE OR PRESENT PERFECT
Ecco le differenze tra il Present Perfect Tense e il Simple Past Tense.
Il present perfect viene usato quando il periodo di tempo
non è finito
I have seen three movies this week. (Questa settimana non
ancora finita.)
Il simple past viene usato quando il periodo di tempo è
finito
I saw three movies last week.
(La scorsa settimana è finita)
Il present perfect viene spesso usato quando si danno
notizie recenti
Martin has crashed his car again.
(Questa è una nuova informazione)
Il simple past viene spesso usato quando si da'
un'informazione più datata
Martin crashed his car last year.
(Questa è una vecchia notizia.)
Il present perfect viene usato quando il tempo non è
specificato
I have seen that movie already.
(Non sappiamo quando)
Il simple past viene usato quando il tempo è specificato
I saw that movie on Thursday.
(Sappiamo esattamente quando)
Il present perfect viene usato con for e since, quando le
azioni non sono ancora finite
I have lived in London for five years.
(Vivo ancora a Londra)
Il simple past viene usato con for e since, quando le azioni I lived in London for five years.
sono già finite
(Non vivo a Londra oggi)