Angličtina pro geografy I
Course materials and homework week III.
It's all in the name
http://www.rgs.org/GeographyToday/Geography+Features/10+03+03+its+all+in+the+name.htm
09.10.10
09.10.10
Pre-reading – answer these questions.
1) Why are geographical names important?
2) What can be the origins of these names?
3) What is geopolitics?
4) What do you know about Macedonia?
Reading I.
Read the first part of the text and find words which correspond to these definitions.
a) strong disagreement in which one group stops recognizing the authority of the other
b) group of people who try to influence politicians
c) confusion, st difficult to understand
d) small group in a community or nation
Now answer the questions.
1) Why did Clinton administration oppose the name of the Republic of Macedonia?
2) Why couldn´ t Macedonia join NATO?
3) Has this dispute been solved yet?
Place names matter. They not only help to locate particular locations but often invoke particular feelings and attachments. From Lake Disappointment in Australia to Victoria Falls in Zambia, place names can and do commemorate geographical conditions and/or former heads of states. Place names can also provide vivid insights into contemporary geopolitics.
Take the name ‘Macedonia’ as an example. A former socialist republic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia gained independence in 1993. Unfortunately for the newly independent Macedonian government, neighbouring Greece objected to the name itself.
Fearing that Macedonians might appeal to the Macedonian-speaking minority in northern Greece and resentful that the ancient kingdom of Macedon was being invoked, a Greek-American lobby in particular persuaded the Clinton administration to oppose the name ‘Republic of Macedonia’. So, as a consequence, when Macedonia joined the United Nations it was called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Unable to resolve their differences, an American Ambassador Matthew Nimetz has had the thankless task of bringing the two sides together. In August 2009, he concluded that ‘efforts to solve the name issue continue, even though Greece’s answer is not positive”. One tangible outcome of this schism is Greece’s resistance to Macedonia to joining NATO in April 2008. Angered by this objection, Macedonia referred the issue to the International Court of Justice, noting that Greece violated the 1995 Interim Accord, which was supposed to prevent such obfuscation. Recent meetings in February 2010 failed to fundamentally alter the dispute over place names.
Part II.
Pre-reading
1) What do you know about Northern Ireland? Which problems are there?
2) Do you know where the Falklands and the Malvinas are?
Reading – read the text and decide whether the statements are true or false. Correct the false statements.
a) In Great Britain place naming is problematic.
b) For Irish nationalists, the name Northern Ireland is not geographically accurate.
c) Great Britain is composed of 32 counties.
d) The name Londonderry reminds the Irish nationalists of the British occupation.
e) For the Iranian government, the name of the Arabian Gulf is unacceptable.
But Macedonia is not unique. The British and Irish isles remain haunted by place naming. The most obvious is ‘Northern Ireland’. Or should we call it the ‘occupied six counties’ or ‘Ulster’? For Irish nationalists and unionists, the place name favoured is not an innocent one. Each invokes a different geography and history. Take the ‘occupied six counties’ as a starting point. For Irish nationalists, the term ‘Northern Ireland’ while geographically accurate does not highlight the contested nature of the island of Ireland.
By using a term like the 'occupied six counties’, Irish nationalists remind audiences that they resent the continued British colonial presence and locate Northern Ireland within a broader Irish context composed of a total of 32 counties. The 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty divided the island and created the geographical and legal conditions for partition. To this day, Irish place names remain controversial – is it Londonderry or Derry? Or is it Doire or Doire Cholmchille? To use English place names is, for Irish nationalists, a provocative gesture, which naturalizes the 800 years of British dominance.
Place names, therefore, are never politically innocent. For many parts of the world, especially where communities are divided, place names invoke and provoke. The Falklands or the Malvinas? The West Bank or Judea and Samaria? New Zealand or Aotearoa? Burma or Myanmar? Most recently, the Iranian government has insisted that planes flying into Iranian airspace will need to ensure that their monitors correctly identify the Persian Gulf and not the Arabian Gulf.
In their different ways, they provide daily reminders for citizens and governments alike that the attachments we have to places matter deeply. Geographers around the world are showing us how, where and why these attachments matter.
Klaus Dodds is Editor of The Geographical Journal and Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Can you think of other examples similar to the names of Burma and Myanmar, in this country, Slovakia, or Europe?
Articles with geographical names II.
A] Supply THE or zero article.
………….K2 ...Czech Republic
….Lake District …, Gulf of Mexico
….Victoria Street …South Atlantic Ocean,
…..Falkland Islands ….Andes
B] Then fill in the missing expressions in the sentences.
· 'Genoa is in …………………...'
· …………… are an archipelago in ………….located approximately 250 nautical miles from the coast of mainland South America.
· 'Westminster Abbey is near Parliament Square - at the top end of ……………...'
· 'Lake Windermere is in ……………………………….'
· 'Everest and …………are the two tallest mountains in the world
· Flying over …………… was an amazing experience.
· Life in what is now ……………………. was very different before the revolution of 1989.
· The Matterhorn is a mountain in …………………on the border between …………………and Italy.
· …………………is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in …………..between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within ………….
· On April 20, BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in ……………