Text 1 MIND YOUR LANGUAGE (20 marks)

1 Write the paragraph number next to the sentence which describes it.
(7 marks)

a. __Internationally, French is losing ground to English.

b. __The law to protect the French language is virtually ineffective.
c. __The aims of Francophonia are more political than linguistic.
d. __The existing government measures will be reinforced despite the constitutional
verdict.
e. __Domestically, the French language is promoted in the media.
f. __French remains an official language, even though other languages are more
widely used.
g. __A definition of Francophony.

2 Mark the most appropriate option. (6 marks)

1 The French population is supportive of/ enthusiastic about/ indifferent to their

government's efforts to promote the language.
2 Francophonia is funded mainly by the member states/ France itself/ the European Union.
3 France voted / abstained from voting/ refused to vote for the UN Secretary General.
4 The French government finances most/ half/ part of the French film industry.
5 The current French government insists on/ is giving up on/ is not interested in
defending French against English.
6 The constitutional council agrees/ disagrees/ partly agrees with the French
government's measures.

3 Mark the option closest in meaning to the expression as used in the text.
(7 marks)

(paragraph number in brackets)

1 unerringly (1) rarely occasionally frequently
2 chief mother-tongue-wagger (2) Chirac Mitterand the French state
3 scope (2) funding opportunity target
4 barbarian onslaught (5) occasion persuasion invasion
5 ripped out the guts (6) made no changes made minor changes made major changes
6 undaunted (7) nevertheless apparently consequently
7 beefed up (7) strengthened weakened dissolved

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Mind your language
World Francophony Day, in case you did not
notice, was on March 20th. In France it barely
rated a mention. President Jacques Chirac un-
erringly refers in most of his foreign-policy
speeches to the need, as a “priority”, to defend
la Francophonie, a nebulous assortment of
countries from Congo to Cambodia that enjoy
“a shared use of the French language”. Most
Frenchmen seem unaware of this attempt to
create a kind of Commonwealth à la francaise,
and care even less. Yet it forms a big part of
France’s ever-growing arsenal of outfits and
measures to protect its native tongue against
the perceived threat of the global tyranny of
English.
Set up ten years ago by President Mitter-
rand with 42 founding member states, Francopho-
nia now has 53 members, four fewer than the
Commonwealth, the club of ex-British territories.
But such is the desperation of the chief mother-
tongue-wagger that no qualification is required for
entry. French does not have to be a member coun-
try’s dominant or official language. In some coun-
tries, such as Moldova, the newest member,
hardly any French is spoken at all. For France,
which foots the bulk of the Francophonic bill,
with plans this year to spend FFrs.6 billion ($1.1
billion) on gambits abroad, the more members the
club attracts, the greater its scope for promoting
France’s language and influence. No fuss about
who joins.
As the first language of perhaps 100m
people and the occasional language of another
30m-40m, French ranks only ninth in the world,
behind not just Chinese, Hindustani, Russian and
English, but also Spanish, Arabic, Bengali and
Portuguese. But French is still used—at French
insistence - as one of the two official languages of
all international bodies.
A losing battle. Almost everywhere, Eng-
lish is being adopted as the lingua franca. At the
United Nations, for example, despite the presence
of a French-speaking secretary-general,
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, whom France fervently
backed for the job, only a tenth of the documents
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The Economist MARCH 23RD - 29TH 1996
produced by the secretariat are in French, and al-
most all its computer programmes are in English.
At home, too, the French government con-
tinues feverishly to fend off the barbarian on-
slaught of “Anglo-Saxon” (ie, American) culture
and language. As well as television quotas, which
decree that 60% of programmes on French televi-
sion must be of European origin, of which two-
thirds must be French, the government now tells
radio stations that at least 40% of the songs they
broadcast must be French, and half of them new.
At the same time, the government pumps about
FFr800m a year - nearly a third of total invest-
ment in the industry - into French films.
So the 30-year-old war to ward off foreign
linguistic demons staggers on. The French culture
minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, has announced a
clutch of drab measures to enforce an act—the
1994 Loi Toubon; named after a previous minister
- designed to stiffen the French tongue. In fact, the
constitutional council had already ripped out the
guts of that law, which tried to ban the use of any
foreign term or expression wherever an “officially
approved French equivalent exists.
The law applied to all advertisements, ra-
dio and television broadcasts, official documents,
public notices, labour contracts and so on. But the
council ruled last summer that it conflicted with
freedom of expression. Undaunted, Mr Douste-
Blazy has announced that the various ministerial
committees set up since 1966 to invent French ne-
ologisms to oust wicked foreign (mainly Anglo-
American) words which have crept into the lan-
guage will be beefed up. So, please, let us repair
to a restovite- not un fast-food—to have un re-
mue-merlinges together, not - mon dieu - un
brain-storming, to discuss our latest plan for mar-
keting - sorry, mercatique.
 Text 2 LET’S RETIRE LATER (8 marks)
The 8 phrases below have been extracted from the text.
Indicate where each one belongs by writing the appropriate number, 1-8

___ The other is that it's a sudden drop for everyone

___ An obvious objection is that shorter hours in paid work would reduce earnings
___ Gradually reducing hours from that base would be easier, too
___ All these factors help to avoid illness
___ These are outlined in our report, 21 Hours.
___ but putting in fewer hours
___ make high demands on their time
___ are more likely to benefit from retirement
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 June 2010
The government says it wants to "reinvigorate the pensions landscape", starting with a new
retirement age for men at 66 by 2016. There are two big problems with a fixed pension age. One is
that people have infinitely different needs and desires. It's a universal measure that takes no
account of the huge discrepancies in working conditions and life expectancy between the rich and
poor. 1_________________ .
Whatever happened to the idea of a "flexible decade of retirement"? Introducing a right to
retire or work part-time between, say 60 and 70 would be a good start. But the real opportunity is to
make this part of a much wider redistribution of paid and unpaid time.
At the New Economics Foundation we are urging a slow, but steady move towards a much
shorter paid working week, with 21 hours as the goal. With rising unemployment, this would help
to spread opportunities for paid employment, while people who currently have jobs that demand
long hours would get more time for unpaid activities as parents, carers, friends, neighbours and
citizens (or, put another way, for contributing to the "Big Society".) 2_____________________,
but we propose a gradual transition, over at least a decade, that would allow time to shift
expectations and put compensating measures in place. 3 ____________.
The transition from work to retirement would be very different if all age groups spent fewer
hours in paid employment. People could go on earning for much longer if they were only required
to work for the equivalent of 21 hours a week. 4____________, because an even shorter working
week for the over-60s would still be near the norm, with everyone's lives more evenly balanced
between paid and unpaid activities.
Many people want to retire as soon as they can because their jobs are stressful, physically
exhausting and 5_____________. Yet their sense of purpose and identity, social networks, daily
routines and preoccupations are often closely bound up with paid employment, so that sudden
retirement can be experienced as shock and bereavement, leading to illness and premature death.
According to one study, complete retirement can lead to a 5–16% increase in difficulties associated
with mobility and daily activities, a 5–6% increase in illness and a 6–9% decline in mental health
over an average post-retirement period of six years. Involuntary retirement can exacerbate these
problems. And, unsurprisingly, the same study found that people who are better off
6_______________.
By staying in paid work longer, 7_________, people can retain work-place friendships, remain
active and engaged and go on enjoying whatever satisfactions their employment offers.
8_______________, to maintain health and wellbeing, and to prevent frailty and dependence in
later years. So a truly progressive approach to "reinvigorating the pensions landscape" should start
with a shorter working week for everyone.

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