This week's classes

On Monday I had you do a written test without the support of Internet, dictionaries etc. since I need to assess your free writing in English as well as the more planned writing you are doing in your blogs. I hope to give you some feedback next week.
Then we started looking at how you can dissect a text by looking at participants and processes. Here is the powerpoint presentation that I used.

Participants and processes from Francesca Helm

Then we looked at this text about Conditions in the Niger Delta, but when we looked at it you were not aware that it came directly from Shell's website. If you analyse the text and look at just the participants and the processes involved, this is the picture you get and it makes it quite clear who are the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys'.

PARTICIPANTS	PROCESSES
Shell companies/SPDC/its operations	Operate, produce, reactivate, pay, is, have, launched, build trust, give, works with communities, builds trust, gives control over development
Local people/Communities/most of the 30 million people living there/The rapidly growing population/Only very few/civil unrest	Demand, remain, is putting pressure on resources, have access, have become increasingly frustrated,
Heavily-armed and well-organised Gangs/militant groups/	Shut down operations kidnapped staff, sabotaged pipelines, have emerged, are financed by theft, cause massive pollution, damage wellheads and other facilities
Security	Has deteriorated, has improved
The Niger  Delta/Nigeria	Is, is, is,
The government	(is paid tax), declared an amnesty
Crude oil theft and illegal refining	Finance operations of militant groups, cause major environmental problems

Finally we watched this video

You can read the tapescript here. A listening comprehension exercise, but also an exercise in critically analysing language. It was produced by the actor/activists, the Yes Men, who engage in what they define as 'identity correction'. They very cleverly adopt the language that multinationals use and the methods they employ to engage with the media to present themselves in a positive light. The Yes Men manage to create very negative publicity for these companies by obliging them to deny that what the Yes Men have said is true, so in this case Shell was obliged to say (in not so many words) that they were NOT sorry for what they have done!