Hints: Texts C
These two texts on the same
topic, the desirability or undesirability of atomic power,
help to clarify what it means to say that a text presents
its material "abstractly" or "concretely."
Text C, the flier "12 Fragen
zur 'friedlichen' Nutzung der Atomenergie," is long, but
there are many cognate words in this difficult text that
might help the reader (e.g. Reaktorkatastrophe, Plutonium,
gigantische Industrien).
What makes this text
especially difficult, however, is that it is organized
around abstract ideas: questions for and against
nuclear energy. Moreover, the first lines of the flier
don't explicitly signal that the "did you know" statements
that follow are all against nuclear energy. To figure
this out, a reader has to burrow deeply into the content or
rhetorical organization of the text. The reader is not
instantly set up in a concrete context, in a known place and
time, with known characters. Who or what is the
"Rheinthal-Aktion" -- who are the authors? What are
they taking about -- everybody's nuclear energy, or just
their own? What is their mission -- for or
against nuclear energy? What is the time frame of the
text; that is, when is the issue happening -- is it about
today, or old reactors, or new reactors planned for the
future? Such specifics are implicit, abstract, in this
text.
If you chose this text as more
readable than the other, it is probably because the topic
and the vocabulary is more familiar to you, or because you
were able to translate the sentences. It is also more
international in address, reflecting general anti-nuclear
rhetoric rather than a specific situation in
Switzerland.
TEXT
PAIR 2, EXERCISE 1
TEXT
PAIR 3, EXERCISE 1