Чтение и письмо: новые сложные тексты (грамматика C1)
Слова урока · 4
- restitution /ˌrestɪˈtjuːʃn/возврат (культурных ценностей)
- provenance /ˈprɒvənəns/происхождение (предмета)
- custodian /kʌˈstəʊdiən/хранитель
- on loan /ɒn ˈləʊn/во временном пользовании
Фразы урока · 2
- Restitution is not the same as a loan; the provenance of the bronze is documented.Возврат — не то же, что временное пользование; происхождение бронзы задокументировано.
- A museum is a custodian, not an owner — the piece is on loan for five years.Музей — хранитель, а не владелец; предмет передан на пять лет.
Текст: «Два текста: должны ли музеи возвращать спорные экспонаты?»
The case for returning contested objects is usually made in the language of justice, and in that language it is hard to answer. But a museum is not a court. It is a custodian, and the question a custodian must ask is not «whose is this?» but «where will this be seen, studied and kept safe for the longest time?» On the face of it, those questions have the same answer. In practice they often do not. Of the objects my own museum has been asked to return, roughly a third have a provenance that is genuinely disputed — sold, not seized, or seized by someone other than us — and for those, the honest reply is «show us, and we will talk». For the rest, the case for restitution is real, and I would not go as far as some colleagues in resisting it. I would, however, insist on one condition, which is rarely mentioned by those who campaign loudest: that the receiving institution can keep the object as well as we can. Where it can, return it. Where it cannot, a long loan — twenty years, renewable — serves the object better than a headline. Adequate, some will say. Adequate is a great deal better than lost.
TEXT B — from an essay by a historian
The curator's question — «where will this be kept safest?» — sounds neutral and is not. It was the question asked in 1897, when the objects were taken, and the answer then, as now, was «with us». Safety is a real concern; it is also the argument that has justified every delay for a century, and tellingly, it is never applied in the other direction: nobody proposes moving a fragile Turner to a museum with a better climate system. Nor is «show us the provenance» the even-handed offer it appears to be. The records that would prove a sale were kept by the buyers, in the buyers' language, in the buyers' cities; to demand them is to demand that the losing side produce the winner's paperwork. I do not say that every object should go back tomorrow, and I grant that a loan can be a decent bridge. What I say is that the burden of proof has been placed on the wrong party for so long that the placing itself is the injustice. Reverse it — assume return, and let the museum show cause why not — and most of the curator's reasonable conditions survive. Only the assumption changes. That is the whole argument, and it is enough.
Задание
Напишите эссе (280–320 слов) по двум текстам: «Should museums return contested objects, and on whose terms?» — выделите вопрос за вопросом (the question behind the question; it depends what you mean by «return»); изложите позицию каждого автора с опорой на текст и подтекст (the choice of the word «adequate»; tellingly; what is left unsaid; the implied stance); возьмите самое сильное возражение к своей позиции и ответьте на него (the strongest version; I grant that; this does not follow / this overlooks); взвесьте (outweigh; the decisive consideration; on balance) и сделайте вывод, соразмерный доводам (proportionate), с одной оговоркой и следствием (one qualification; the implication being).
Образец ответа
Whether museums should return contested objects depends what you mean by «return»: the question behind the question is not where an object sits but who must prove what. The curator (Text A) argues that a museum is a custodian and that the custodian's question is where an object will be kept safest; return is right where the receiving institution can care for it, and a long loan where it cannot. The choice of the word «adequate» for his own solution — and his pre-emptive «adequate is a great deal better than lost» — suggests he knows the loan is a compromise; tellingly, he never says who decides whether the receiving institution «can». The historian (Text B) grants the safety concern and the loan as a bridge, but reads the curator's question as the same one asked in 1897, with the same answer; her implied stance is that the conditions are reasonable and the assumption behind them is not, and her central claim is to reverse the burden of proof.
My own position is closer to the historian's. The strongest version of the objection to it is the curator's: an object destroyed in a poorly funded store is lost to everyone, including the community it was taken from, and no justice is served by a ruin. I grant that this is true of some objects. But «some objects might be lost, therefore the museum should keep the burden of proof» does not follow: it overlooks that the historian's reversal leaves the safety condition in place — the museum may still show cause — and merely changes who must speak first.
On balance, the historian's argument outweighs the curator's, because the decisive consideration is procedural: a century of «show us» has produced delay, not evidence. One qualification: reversing the burden works only where a receiving institution exists to receive; where none does, the curator's loan is the honest interim. The implication being that the first step is not a list of objects but a rule — assume return, show cause — and that rule, on this evidence, is proportionate to what both writers concede.
lightbulbЭссе по двум сложным текстам: the question behind the question → позиции с опорой на цитату и подтекст (the choice of the word, tellingly, implied stance) → the strongest version of the objection, I grant that, does not follow → outweigh, the decisive consideration, on balance → proportionate вывод, one qualification, the implication being.
Закрепите урок: упражнения со словами, фразами и грамматикой с проверкой и повторением.