Arakin 4 kurs new 001 176. indd

16. Answer the following questions and do the given assignments:
a)
1. Denis Healey’s article is based on his impressions of the So-
viet Union. What is the keynote point of the article?
2. What can you say about the author of this article and his po-
litical views?
3. What was his opinion of the role and destiny of the national 
traditions which were rooted in centuries of history?

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4. What difference did Mr D. Healey see between the great achieve-
ments of the pre-war Soviet culture and the totalitarian policies of 
the Soviet rulers? How did that shape his attitude to the Soviet 
policies both at home and abroad?
5. What were the author’s impressions of sightseeing in Leningrad 
after the W.W. II? What sights were included into his itinerary?
6. How did the author compare the images of Moscow and Lenin-
grad?
7. What cultural and educational changes are pointed out by the 
author?
8. What was his impression of the Russian Theatre and how did 
he compare it with the British productions of Chekhov?
9. The author noticed new interests of the young Russians in 
Western culture. What do you think about such trends?
10. How did Mr D. Healey describe the importance of short visits 
to a foreign country? Do you agree with him?
b)
1. What are the underlying aims of the article? What devices 
help the reader understand the author’s attitude towards the Soviet 
Union? (Comment on the choice of epithets, the role of the logical 
contrast and the inverted commas, etc.) 2. What other devices does the 
author employ to interest the reader and to produce emphasis? (Speak 
on the introduction of rhetorical questions, parenthetic phrases, meta-
phors, hyperboles, lexical repetition, parallelism, emphatic construc-
tions, etc.) 3. Find the borrowed words and say what stylistic informa-
tion they bear. 4. How is the contact with the reader achieved?
c)
The combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal 
is characteristic of this text. Sum up your observations and say how it is 
realized (speak on its paragraphing, syntactical structures, connectives, 
etc., on the one hand, and on the use of imagery, etc., on the other). How 
is the descriptive manner of narration combined with the general state-
ments in the text? Do you think the author changes register?
NOTES ON STYLE
Publicistic style
has a combination of distinctive features. Among them 
we find first person narrator who always manages to convert the reader to 
his point of view. 
I saw, I visited, I thought...
. Find in the text the sentences 
where first person narration is employed to achieve this stylistic device.

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