Think about these questions, or answer them aloud.
In earlier lessons you tracked opinions, concessions and implied meaning. This lesson focuses on four smaller signals that show a speaker's stance: their attitude to what they are saying.
In real life, tone of voice helps a lot. But exams test meaning that you can check in the words and the situation, and that is the skill to train. The recordings in this lesson use synthetic voices with fairly flat intonation, so every answer can be worked out from what is said.
| Signal | Examples | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Distancing | supposedly; so-called; allegedly; in theory; on paper; what's described as | The speaker reports a claim but doubts it, or expects reality to differ |
| Cleft emphasis | What really bothers me is…; It's the timing, not the cost, that… | This is the speaker's main point, often a correction |
| Emphatic do | The reminders do work; I did warn you | The speaker insists, often against an expected objection |
| Strong negatives | by no means; not in the slightest; far from | A firm rejection of an idea |
| if anything | It didn't help. If anything, it made things worse. | The truth is the opposite of what you might expect |
| Understatement | not exactly ideal; hardly a success; a bit of a setback; to put it mildly | Negative, and stronger than the words suggest |
| Irony | Oh, wonderful. / Brilliant timing. / That went well. (after a disaster) | The opposite of the literal meaning |
Match each remark to what the speaker is doing. There is one description you do not need.
| What is said | Signal | Real meaning | Clue in the words |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Wonderful piece of software.” | Irony | It is badly designed | The facts that follow: twenty minutes, room already taken |
| “not quite the time-saver they promised” | Understatement | It wasted time | they promised sets up the contrast |
| “The so-called smart calendar” | Distancing | It is not smart | It “double-booked half the rooms” |
| “wasn't exactly perfect either” | Understatement | The old system had real problems | The example: queuing at eight |
| “What really annoys me isn't the bugs. It's that…” | Cleft emphasis | Lena's main complaint: students weren't consulted | isn't X, it's Y |
| “Brilliant timing.” | Irony | Very bad timing | The survey came during exams |
| “The reminders do work.” | Emphatic do | Lena fully accepts this point | Lena is agreeing with Theo's defence |
| “Quite handy?” | Challenge to an understatement | Theo thinks the map is excellent | “the only reason I can find anything” |
| “I bet that impressed them.” / “Oh, enormously.” | Irony from both speakers | The crash made a bad impression | “Two of them left before I'd finished” |
| “The idea's right; it's the way they've introduced it…” | Contrast emphasis | Overall: supports the idea, criticises the introduction | Lena would not go back |
Irony is proved by what comes next. Wonderful piece of software could be sincere on its own. The next sentence (twenty minutes, someone else in the room) makes it impossible. When you suspect irony, listen for the facts that follow.
Emphasis marks the answer. If a question asks What is Lena's main criticism?, the cleft sentence gives it: not the bugs, but the lack of consultation with students.
Overall stance is mixed, and that is the point. Lena is ironic about the software, yet says plainly that going back to the old system is not the answer. An option such as Lena wants the university to stop using the app reads the irony as Lena's whole view, which it is not.
Choose the correct answer. Use the words and the situation, not the tone of voice.
Choose the best answer to each question.
Listen to each remark once. Some are ironic or understated. Choose the reply that responds to what the speaker really means.
Save words to review them later with flashcards.
“The so-called express bus took fifty minutes.”
“The zone has supposedly made the centre more attractive to families.”
“In theory, cyclists get off and walk.”
“The evidence is, to put it mildly, not overwhelming.”
“It didn't cut waiting times. If anything, they got longer.”
“Promising is by no means the same as proven.”
“Two pages of notes is hardly a finished report.”
““Brilliant timing,” Lena said, with heavy irony, when the survey arrived during exams.”
“Eleven responses is too few to read much into.”
“A good idea was let down by the way it was introduced.”
“The marketing ran ahead of the science.”
“For a healthy brain, I'd put my money on exercise and sleep.”
