Il candidato per la Seconda Prova di Inglese al Liceo Linguistico doveva scegliere e svolgere un solo ambito tra A, B, C e D (qui il link alla traccia): quando segue è la traccia svolta dalla docente e linguista Silvia Ballabio (già collaboratrice per il Sussidiario.net) che in esclusiva ha redatto per noi due ambiti. Un commento critico in italiano (non richiesto dall’esame, ma utile in fase di ilustrazione nostra della prova)e le risposte di comprensione e interpretazione. Qui lo Speciale Live della Seconda Prova di Matutità 2018, mentre qui sotto appunto lo svolgimento per il Liceo Linguistico.
A – ATTUALITA’
Il brano proposto riguarda l’introduzione di self driving vehicles, in un interessante paragone con la scomparsa di cavalli e carrozze a favore delle auto, e anziché il consueto elogio della innovazione tecnologica, neutra e sempre positiva, suggerisce elementi di criticità, parzialmente ripresi nella PRODUCUTON 1 che chiede di riflette sulla scomparsa potenziale dell’idea stessa di ownership. La seconda traccia mantiene lo stesso suggerimento in un’ottica più semplice, immaginare un mondo futuro dove non sia possibile guidare la propria auto ovunque; le implicazioni più profonde del testo vengono abbandonate, proponendo una riflessione di carattere etico, da condividere con altri coetanei in un linguaggio neutro, vista la destinazione blog.
Le domande di comprensione presentano alcune elementi di difficoltà forse non totalmente risolvibili con il solo utilizzo dei dizionari consentiti durante la prova; ad esempio il termine “externalities” e “granular road pricing” afferiscono al linguaggio della macroeconomia e dell’urbanistica, pur essendo il loro significato generale sufficientemente chiaro nel brano grazie ai riferimenti statuali.
Comprehension and interpretation
1. What lesson should policymakers learn from the horseless carriage?
Policy makers should realise that the same questions which the introduction of the horseless carriage introduced will be asked with driverless vehicles, and they should not ignore the concerns and fears of people about the potential changes to their lives. Policy makers should learn to listen to these concerns about technology and its impact on society.
2. Provide three main facts in favour of AVs which are mentioned in the text.
The three main facts are costs, risks connected to driving and congestion of traffic. AVs will be cheaper than individually owned cars, the number of casualties due to car accidents will be dramatically reduced, as well as traffic and parking problems.
3. To what extent can AVs be compared to cars?
Cars and AVs are similar in their effects on people’s lives; cities will be different as commuting to work won’t be a waste of time and so tiring with AVs as it is with cars, and with Avs goods may be driven to customers, who will not need to drive to retail shops any more.
4. How can AVs challenge the idea of ownership?
Owing your own car won’t be as convenient as using an AV, which are not owned, but shared; therefore carmakers will sell their vehicles not to people, but to companies managing fleets of AVs, or they will directly provide transportations to customers in their AVs. Ownership may disappear.
5. What does the writer mean by “unwelcome externalities associated with cars” (lines 19-20)?
By “unwelcome externalities” the writer means the extra costs that car use brings with it and that now will be part of the cost of AVs, as they can be accounted for. Examples of these “externalities” include pricing based on such factors as traffic, peak or non peak times, delays due to traffic or different tolls.
6. What does “granular road-pricing” (line 25) refer to?
Granular road-pricing refers to new schemes of taxes and tolls to be imposed; they will be similar to those already in use in some cities, such as taxes on highly congested areas or such methods of transportations as Uber or Lyft.
7. What is the writer’s point of view on the beneficial aspects of self-driving vehicles?
AVs will certainly change the shape of cities for the better, with less traffic and less pollution, but this beneficial effect will come together with some risks connected to people’s privacy and freedom, as people’s lives will be more easily under control.
8. How can AVs affect passengers’ privacy and freedom?
Privacy and freedom may be negatively affected and they will be limited. People’s lives will be monitored because they will be recorded when they move around in AVs, and in authoritarian states passengers may not be free to go anywhere they want to, as some destinations may be deemed inaccessible and restricted by the authorities.
9. What risk do AVs pose according to the writer?
AVs may limit people’s freedom in ways that may be much greater than expected. They will gain new freedoms, but they will lose the freedom to go anywhere they want, whenever they want.
10. What is the purpose of this text?
The purpose of the text is to raise awareness about the social impact that the use of AVs will certainly have; by comparing the advent of AVs to that of cars, the writer wants to urge readers to consider critically how technological change can have serious consequences, and therefore to think in advance of the deep social innovations that self driving vehicles will bring with them.
C – LETTERATURA
La scelta di The Remains of the Day di Kazuo-Ishiguro, autore britannico di origine giapponese e, per sua stessa ammissione, appartenente ad entrambi i mondi, ha il pregio di proporre un autore che ha reinterpretato l’essere inglese come scelta familiare e poi personale. La notorietà assicurata alla sua opera dall’adattamento cinematografico con Anthony Hopkins e Emma Thompson nel 1993 è stata confermata dal premio Nobel assegnato all’autore nel 2017, e a cui non seguirà quello del 2018, non assegnato a causa degli scandali sessuali che hanno coinvolto anche l’accademia svedese.
Quanto affermato dall’autore stesso in occasione del Nobel, “sono uno scrittore che desidera scrivere romanzi internazionali”, vale a dire un romanzo che “contiene una visione della vita che possa essere significativa per persone di varie provenienze nel mondo”, ha certamente avuto il suo peso nel dettare la prima traccia di PRODUCTION proposta, che chiede di riflettere sulla natura della letteratura come espressione di una identità nazionale, oppure di una prospettiva transazionale e cosmopolita. Un possibile svolgimento potrebbe contemplare autori di lingua diversa, certamente accessibili agli studenti del Liceo Linguistico, ma lo sviluppo che potrebbe essere più consono, quella della varietà delle letterature in lingua inglese ognuna con la sua identità ma spesso legata a modelli britannici del passato, è purtroppo inaccessibile alla quasi totalità degli studenti, non introdotti ad autori come Margaret Atwood o Wole Soyinka, solo per citarne alcuni.
Inoltre lo stesso Kazuo-Ishiguro non è certamente oggetto di studio nel corso del quinto anno, e la sua notorietà presso gli studenti potrebbe limitarsi al film, con la sua enfasi sul rimpianto di un amore mai vissuto per Stevens, e una percezione positiva della dedizione del maggiordomo, sottolineata dalla recitazione di Hopkins. Assenti dal loro orizzonte l’interesse dell’autore per il tema del ricordo, ampiamente riconosciuto dalla critica, e tuttavia ignorato nella scelta del brano, che verte invece sulla nozione di “Dignity” nella professione come atarassia voluta, accompagnato dalla nozione di superiorità degli inglesi su “quelli del continente”. Tuttavia se la ricchezza psicologica della descrizione del personaggio, pur nella sua rigidità, il suo “eroismo” il suo uso sapiente della voce suadente del narratore che si “confessa” al lettore, sono esemplificativi della ricchezza dell’opera, non è cosa immediata cogliere nel brano proposto la supposta nozione di superiorità culturale degli inglesi a cui, invece , le domande di comprensione e interpretazione indirizzano esplicitamente.
Tutto ciò mostra che la comprensione del testo senza contesto, senza familiarità perlomeno con l’opera, nella ricca mediazione che ne fa il docente, è cosa ardua; non è l’esito di tecnica perfetta, ma di uno sguardo attento ed educato alla lettura grazie alla familiarità con esso. Pertanto, l’interpretazione è, giocoforza, suggerita dalle domande, pur ben fatte, vera e propria ciambella lanciata al lettore. Di tale complessa interpretazione, infatti, non resta traccia nella PRODUCTION 2, che propone di riflettere sui valori tradizionali e la loro influenza sulla vita e sul lavoro di oggi.
Comprehension and interpretation
1. Most notably, in the story the narrator divides the idea of being a butler into three categories. What are they?
According to the narrator there are three types of butler: the perfect , or “real” butler, who never loses his poise and dignity, the “competent” or “lesser” butler, who only wears the mask of calm and self-control and easily looses it, and the “manservant”, who is totally incapable of controlling his emotions.
2. Which episode is the narrator recalling which epitomises the idea of a perfect butler’s reaction to unexpected circumstances and why do you think the episode is effective or rather stereotyped and farcical?
The narrator recalls a story, which his father had told him, about an English butler serving in India. He happened to find a tiger under the table in the dining room, and with perfect self-control he not only warned his master in the drawing room about the presence of the animal, but he also calmly suggested he should shoot it. The butler maintained his poise and balance also when he formally informed his master that dinner was going to be served with no delay in the dining room, which he had provided to have promptly cleaned from the remains of the “recent occurrence”. In the episode the butler looks cold and emotionless, his answers are formal and perfectly phrased. The whole episode seems too perfect to be true; it is the representation of the stereotype of the “ideal butler”. However, the narrator believes it is true and a perfect example pf his own profession.
3. What are the narrator’s speculations that make “lesser butlers” (line 26) appear like bad players in a pantomime?
With “lesser butlers” their professional being is only a mere appearance, a mask they wear, like actors in a show; they are bad players because any small accident or unpredicted event make them lose their self-control, while the “real butler” of the episode can even face a tiger and kill it as if this were part of his ordinary duties.
4. In the narrator’s opinion, what is the virtue that confers an almost heroic dimension on great butlers?
Great butlers are almost heroic in their ability to be perfectly professional at all times and in any circumstance, and always control their emotions. Their qualities are poise, balance, calm and professionalism; for the narrator they are the best that any person may show in their lives.
5. What is the narrator’s own conception of his profession and of the qualities required of him as a butler? The narrator thinks highly of his own profession as a butler; he insists on the “dignity” of his role (the word “dignity” is repeated three times, at line 19, line 25 and line 33) and clearly depicts the “emotionless butler” as the symbol of the highest humanity.
6. What comparison does the author use in the passage that contributes to the narrator’s depiction of a great English butler?
The author compares the perfect butler to a “decent gentleman” (l.30), and his profession to a “suit” (l.31) that he always wears in public with perfect decency, while a lesser butlers “tears off his suit and his short”, (ll.40); he gives vent to his emotions in public very easily and for no serious reason.
7. What does the narrator seem to suggest as an advantage of Englishmen over foreigners as regards “dignity”? Englishmen are capable of “emotional restraint” while foreigners are not; that is the reason why great, real butlers who personify “dignity in keeping with (their) position” (l.19) can only come from England, like the butler of the episode.
8. How would you define the tone Stevens uses towards foreigners? Substantiate your answer by referring to the text.
Stevens, the narrator, seems to be prejudiced against foreigners and looks down on them; he believes they are not able to control their emotions, and thinks this is a trait of them “as a breed”, so by birth and not by choice. He underlines that “only the English race” is capable to keep cool in all situations. The word “race” is evidence of the narrator’s view of Englishmen as superior to the “Continentals”. The word “Continentals” underlines the separation between the two groups, too.
9. What sort of relation is the narrator trying to establish with the readers through his use of digression and mode of discourse?
The narrator’s digressions and his direct address at the readers, for example at ll.17 “I hope you will agree”, and at l. 37 “as you will no doubt agree”, are supposed to create a feeling of intimacy with the readers, which is quite paradoxical if compared with his insistence on emotional coldness: the intrusive narrator is looking for the readers’ understanding and approval of his views, as he clearly shows when he expresses his opinion of his father’s story at l. 23 with the words “We may now understand better”; the pronoun “we” abates the distance between the narrator and the readers.
10. What idea does the narrator convey by depicting Englishness in a rigid manner and by over exaggerating the goodness of Englishness?
The narrator exposes a stereotyped view of Englishness as cold and rigid, and this may help readers to see the failure of this model; the initial episode, which shows the English butler managing his “native staff” as if he still were in his home land, hints at the potential lack of understanding that a feeling of superiority and a lack of emotional empathy may cause, although the admiration for the butler’s cold blood and efficiency is sincere and effective with the readers.
