Unit 3c Book

Listen to or read the transcript in Unit 3c (Transcript 9 on pp. 119 and 120 in your coursebook). The lecture provides a comparison and contrast of computerized control systems in cars and planes. In everyday speech, people use the word “compare” to include both similarities and differences. Nevertheless, in this lecture, this is different. When the lecturer compares the systems, she mainly talks about their similarities. Contrasting, however, means listing features in which the systems differ. The whole lecture is divided into three parts:

Section 1: fly-by-wire (in aircraft) vs. drive-by-wire (in cars)

Section 2: fly-by-wire vs. automatic pilot

Section 3: automatic pilot (in aircraft) vs. cruise control (in cars)

Imagine you are actually sitting at this lecture. Listen and take notes, so that you can later fill in the gaps in the overview in this task. IMPORTANT: After you complete the task successfully, take a screenshot of the finished overview. You will need it later in this unit.

Now that you know what the lecture is about, focus on it in terms of linguistics. What words or phrases did the lecturer use to express similarities (i.e. comparison) and what did she use to talk about differences (i.e. to contrast things)? This exercise will give you a list of all the expressions used and your task is to decide whether they are used to talk about a similarity or a difference. To see the expressions in context, find them in Transcript 9 on pp. 119 and 120 in your coursebook.

The context is very important when learning new words, and the comparison and contrast expressions are no exception. The context shows that comparison and contrast expressions differ in their position in a sentence and in their punctuation, as you can see in this document. Surprisingly, the position of comparison/contrast expressions in a sentence is very often the same in Czech and in English. Therefore, with comparison/contrast expressions, it is worth remembering their Czech meaning precisely, as the meaning will help you to position a compare/contrast expression in an English sentence correctly. The document contains only basic comparison/contrast expressions because the more complex ones will be covered in the AEL6N course.

Now, it´s time to practise the comparison and contrast expressions from the grammar overview. In this task, you will have a chance to practise expressions used to talk about similarities, while this exercise focuses on differences. The following exercise will demonstrate that it is possible to use various comparison/contrast expressions to convey the same idea. Finally, revise the easiest way to compare and contrast phenomena: by using comparatives and superlatives of adjectives. You will need some of them in this text. It is a review of three types of boilers.