Pathways 4

Academic Reading and Writing

Unit 6 Language & Culture

Full name:…………………………………………..Class:……………………………….…….. Date:……………………….……………….

READING REVIEW
Read this unit’s reading The Secret Language and choose the correct answer for each item.

THE SECRET LANGUAGE

by Daisy Zamora
Language can be a barrier - but also a window through which we experience new visions of the world.

A The rst words I heard in English were from my grandmother Ilse Gamez, who I remember as a magical
presence in my childhood. Everything about her seemed legendary to me. Among the stories she used to tell,
my favorites were about her life in New Orleans, where she and her family arrived from Europe and where she
spent her childhood until she was 14, when they set sail again, bound for Nicaragua, ful lling her parents' wish
to return de nitively to their country of origin. Her stories of New Orleans were lled with references and
names in English (frequently also in French), and those mysterious words, so different from the ones I heard in
everyday speech, produced in me an irresistible fascination. They sounded like strange music, an exotic
melody coming from faraway fantastic places where life had an agitation, a rhythm, an acceleration unknown
and unheard of in the peaceful world I shared with my parents, sisters, and brothers. We were all part of an
enormous family that included grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, uncles, aunts, and rst cousins, as
well as a second and third level of blood relatives, followed immediately by all the other people in the category
of relatives included in the family universe and its state of perpetual expansion.

B The English I heard from my grandmother Ilse had nothing to do with the English I was taught in
kindergarten through songs teaching us to count from one to ten, or the language that appeared in the English
textbooks we studied in the second and third grade of primary school: "See Dick. See Jane. See Spot. See Puff.
See Spot run. See Puff jump." For me, that English lacked charm, instead sounding like the noise of my shoes
crunching in the gravel of the schoolyard during recess. But that other English, the one my grandmother and
her sisters spoke, possessed multiple and varied registers that always amazed me. Sometimes it sounded like
the trill of a bird, light and crystalline, and at other times owed in dense, thick amber like honey. It would rise in
high notes with the lonely, nostalgic sound of a ute, or swirl in a whirlpool like the frenzied crowds I imagined
rushing around the streets of a big metropolis . . .

C Before long, my ears began to discern another way of speaking the language. It was not the cryptic and
fantastic English full of attractions and mystery that I loved to listen to, nor the tiresome, repetitious one that
sounded like a cart struggling over cobbled streets. No, this other English expressed things in a different way
that was not enigmatic and seductive, nor dumb and monotonous, but dramatic and direct: whatever the
characters said, happened simultaneously. That is to say, a word was an act; words and action occurred at the
same time. An activity was named at the very moment it took place. For example, a character that was
evidently crying would say: "I'm crying." Another one, obviously hiding something, would declare: "I'll hide this!”

D It was the English I started to learn from cartoons on television, where the characters expressed
thoughts, emotions, and feelings in a straightforward way: "Out! Help! Stop it! Don't go away! I'll be back! Let's
go!" I learned phrases and words that communicated necessity in a fast, precise manner. The language of
cartoons also introduced me to metaphors. The rst time I heard characters in a downpour shouting their
heads off with the phrase "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" I believed it was the proper way to say in English,
"It's a downpour," or "It's raining very hard.”

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 Pathways 4
Academic Reading and Writing
Unit 6 Language & Culture

E I had no choice but to learn yet another kind of English from cowboy movies, because my cousins
constantly used it in their games. Also, in a mechanical way, I learned by heart the English names for all the
plays in baseball, the most popular sport in Nicaragua.

F Gradually, the English that was so dull to me in the rst grades of school expanded and deepened, with
readings transforming it into a beautiful language that kept growing inside, becoming more and more a part of
my consciousness, invading my thoughts and appearing in my dreams. Understanding the language and
speaking it in a natural way became integral to my being, my way of appreciating literature, especially poetry,
and enjoying the lyrics of my favorite songs, which I was able to repeat perfectly.

G Literature classes were my favorite. To act as a character in any of Shakespeare's plays, or to read an O.
Henry short story out loud to my classmates, or a chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, or a
sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, brightened my day. At the school library, I discovered, among other
authors, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, then Carl Sandburg and William Carlos
Williams. Further along, I encountered William Blake, the sisters Brontë, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway.
Years later, while at university, I read the Americans William Faulkner, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein, and the
Irish authors William Butler Yeats and James Joyce.

H Along with my intense reading, I also became a music lover and put together a rather substantial
collection of Frank Sinatra and Beatles records - my favorites, although my interests included many other
groups and singers in English. From that deep relationship with the language, I wound up with what I
considered a broad and complex knowledge of English, the sounds of which captivated me in the rst years of
life.

I But my true encounter with living English (that is, the one spoken in everyday life) happened in the
United States, where I went to spend my school vacations in Middletown, Connecticut. My rst impression of
the country was completely idyllic. My aunt and uncle's house, where I would stay for three months, was a
beautiful and comfortable three-story building, an old New England manor with a gorgeous garden out back, an
orchard, a stable with horses, and a pond full of trout. A dense wood of birch and a variety of pine and spruce
trees, crisscrossed by narrow paths dotted with wild owers, went around the edge of that peaceful pond in a
landscape that seemed like it was lifted from a fairy tale. Those vacations are part of the happy memories of
my life because I also had the unforgettable experience of going to New York City for the rst time and visiting
the 1964 World's Fair. However, what is most deeply imprinted in my memory of that rst visit to the United
States is the shock I received from the language I had believed I understood and spoke correctly.

J Almost immediately, I realized that my English, that is, the English through which I expressed myself,
sounded strange to everybody. My cousins, not to mention their friends, listened to me with surprise or
mocking looks. In turn, their English was almost unintelligible to me because they spoke, of course, in teenage
slang. When one of my cousins couldn't stand it anymore, she told me that I was a weirdo, that I spoke like a
philosopher, some sort of Socrates or something, and asked me to make an effort to try to talk like normal
people so I could make some friends. She didn't have a clue about the extreme anguish I was going through
trying to understand what was being said around me, trying to decipher everything I misunderstood, assuming
one thing for another. Desolate, I thought about the abundant literature I had read up to then, and the songs I
had worked so hard to memorize. It was all worthless for learning to speak practical English that would help me
establish bonds with boys and girls my own age. On the contrary, the vocabulary I learned from books,
especially from the poetry that taught me to love the language, had no place in the everyday speech of my
contemporaries.

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 Pathways 4
Academic Reading and Writing
Unit 6 Language & Culture

K To be accepted by everybody, I started paying extreme attention to how I expressed myself and to the
words I chose. I anxiously searched for ways to adapt my way of speaking, imitating what I heard from others,
so I wouldn't be excluded from their conversations or activities. I understood that if I didn't do that, I would be
left on the fringes of the main current, the mainstream where all U.S. teenagers lived, with space only for
themselves. The barrier was not easy to cross, and when I couldn't do it, my consolation was to take refuge in
the library of the house, where I read, during that rst vacation, an English translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's
Crime and Punishment.

L I was 14 years old when I went to the States for the rst time - the same age as my grandmother Ilse
when she watched New Orleans fade into the distance from the deck of a steamship - and ever since then I've
understood what it means to live in direct contact with a language through the people who speak it, through
their culture, and through their vision of the world.

1. In paragraph A, Daisy Zamora shares that her grandmother and her family were "bound for Nicaragua."
Bound for in this context means ________.
A. obligated to go to B. excited to go to C. on the way to

2. In paragraph B, Zamora describes the English that her grandmother spoke as "that other English" because
________.
A. her grandmother and sisters spoke in a different English dialect
B. Zamora could not understand her grandmother when she spoke English
C. it sounded different from what Zamora was learning at school

3. Zamora says that she memorized ________ in English. (Choose two answers.)
A. baseball terms B. her favorite poems C. lyrics to songs

4. What Zamora particularly remembers about her rst trip to the United States is that ________.
A. her English was not as good as she thought it was
B. her aunt and uncle’s home was unusually beautiful
C. the 1964 World’s Fair was quite impressive

5. Why couldn’t Zamora understand her cousins and their friends when they spoke English?
A. They used words and phrases Zamora didn’t know.
B. They spoke too quickly.
C. They didn’t make an effort to include Zamora in their conversations.

6. In paragraph K, Zamora says "the barrier was not easy to cross." The barrier she was most concerned
about crossing was the ________ barrier.
A. language B. cultural C. friendship

7. One of the ways that Zamora learned English was by watching cowboy movies with her cousins.
A. True B. False C. Not given

8. In school, Zamora received her best grades in literature class.

A. True B. False C. Not given

9. Zamora’s most genuine experience with English occurred through music and song.
A. True B. False C. Not given

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 Pathways 4
Academic Reading and Writing
Unit 6 Language & Culture

10. Zamora and her grandmother arrived in the United States at the same age.
A. True B. False C. Not given

11. The author's attitude towards the English language can best be described as ________.
A. purely positive C. purely negative
B. both positive and negative D. confused

12. What did the author's grandmother do when she was 14?
A. arrive in New Orleans C. move to Nicaragua
B. arrive in Europe D. move to Europe

13. The author does NOT compare her grandmother's use of language to ________.
A. the songs of birds C. the sound of a musical instrument
B. a cart being pulled across stone streets D. the ow of a sticky liquid

14. The word it in the rst sentence of paragraph E refers to ________.

A. the English used in cowboy movies C. the author's favorite movie
B. a game the author's cousins played D. the name of a play in baseball

15. What is the main topic of paragraph G?

A. the plays of Shakespeare C. American literature
B. the language used in university classes D. the author's love of literature

16. The word idyllic in paragraph I is closest in meaning to ________.

A. very memorable C. somewhat confusing
B. peaceful and pleasant D. troubled and lonely

17. In paragraph I, what does the author say she remembers most clearly about her rst visits to the U.S.?
A. her aunt and uncle's beautiful house C. the pond near her aunt and uncle's house
B. the 1964 World's Fair in New York D. her experiences communicating in English

18. The author's cousins thought that she spoke English ________.
A. extremely slowly C. in an oddly formal way
B. using too much slang D. with a strong accent

19. The word contemporaries in paragraph J refers to ________.

A. people the author's own age C. people from the author's country
B. the author's family members D. writers from the author's time

20. When the author rst visited the United States, she ________.
A. was the same age as her grandmother had been when she rst came to the U.S.
B. visited the same city that her grandmother had often spoke of
C. planned to attend university during her stay there
D. was the same age as her grandmother had been when she went to Nicaragua

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