&&exw dw wtr c$rx?xa?exm*cate rnrithsut words?

t...,.,, -
., ..-
Head: e reate:
Irance e a magazine article * a mime
',, Alabama, USA * autobiography performance
.,,' Burma (Myanmar) & an encyclopedia € a completed
mime art entry response form
, cartoons e a poem * an account
6 ajournal entry

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find

us without words?
Marcel Marceau, mime artist, 1923-2007

When we think about communication, we usually think about

speech, reading and writing, email and texting, and so on. You
may be able to think about other ways. A11 these methods of
communication use words, whether written or spoken.

24

I
Word origins
The word verbalcomes from the Latin noun verbum meaning
a word.

The word mime comes from the ancient Greek word mlmos
meaning a'mimic', or one who performs mime.

communication without words is called'non-verbal'. The most

basic form of non-verbal communication is the expression on
our faces. other ways of comlnunicating include the use of sign
language, or touch. Often it is not what we say but how we say
it that matters most. Think of the way human beings relate to
animals, or make silly sounds when they talk to babies.

Have you heard of the saying'to be lost for words'? The great
mime artist Marcel Marceau suggests that words cannot
express our deepest, most moving emotions. Such feelings are
too intense to explain or to describe.

Expressing emotions
Discuss how you use body language to express emotions'
Talk about howyou could use:

o facial expressions
(what happens to the muscles in your face?)
o body movements
I
(what happens to your shoulders whel you are sad?) Marcel Marceau miming a storU on stage.

o hands
(what happens to your hands when you are excited?)

When you have finished your discussion, decide on which

emotion you are going to mime. Think about how you are' 1 Talk about Marcel's views
going to do it. Practice on your own for a few minutes. Then on communication.
take it in turns to perform your mime. Can your group 2 Which emotions, or what
understand your emotion? Can you understand the others in Marceau calls'moving
your group? Whose mime was most successful and why? moments', do gou think
would be difficult to
express in wgrds?
3 Can gou think of a
situation in which gou
were 'lost for words'?

C
 iVtragazine artiele
The following article provides some background to the historg
of the art of mime and the character of the Pierrot that Marcel
Marceau liked to dress up as when he was performing.

%> Beyond Words cce

The greatest mime artist of modern times was Marcel
Marceau. In the 1950s when he was at the height of
his career, he gave 300 performances worldwide each
year.'S7ith his red flower and his white painted face, .,t: s.

5 Marceau was understood all over the world.'Mime,

like music, has neither borders nor nationalities,' he
explained . In fact, the Master of Silence, as he was
known, spoke five languages fluently and was extremely Marcel Marceau on stage.
talkative offstage. His performances, however, were
10 wordless.

At the age of five in 1928 Marceau saw the great comedian

*
charlie chaplin in a silent film.Immediately Marceau began
to imitate people, birds and even plants! In silent films the Discuss the meaning of the
actors did not speak, but short written summaries of what following words.
t5 was happening appeared on the screen for the audience to performance Iline 3]

read. Marceau's challenge was to fire the audience's imagination fluentlg IsJ
without any words at all. Through the movements of his talkative [9]
body he expressed everything - from beauty, comedy and offstage [sJ
conflict, to despair, tragedy and hope. moral Izr]

20 Mime has a long history. In ancient Greece it was a form of to entertain [30]
theatre where scenes from everyday life taught moral lessons. comedg routine [3r]
In theTheatre of Dionysus inAthens, masked actors performed acrobat [34]
'$7hen
outdoors to audiences of thousands. the Romans Make gour own word pool of
conquered Greece, they brought the Greek art ofmime back ang other unfamiliar words.
25 to Italy. Under Emperor Augustus of Rome mime was very
popular. This continued into the Middle Ages in Europe with
morality plays on Christian themes, and scenes acted out
from the Bible.

26

'i.
*l
 In sixteenth-century Italy touring groups of comic actors
30 known as the Commedia dell' drte entertained people with
their comedy routines and their invention of a set of stock
characters that were easy to identify by their masks, costumes
and names. One such charactff is the Harlequin, who was
anacrobat and a clown.Tle traditional Harlequin character
35 was introduced to France in the 1570s.In France the Harlequin
character became known as the Pierrot. The Pierrot is a
clown andasad loner who never found what he was looking
for in life.In the 1940s Marcel Marceau created his character
Bip in the tradition of Pierrot. He too was a melancholy man
40 who never reahzed his dreams.

*
q# :*s;

lmage of Harlequin from the

Commedio dell'orte.

",J$ $,

'i.
.9

Horlequin bg Paul C6zanne, painted in 1BBB.

€
 :+-

h rc
;
i*r
':'i

0ne cf the mang performers painted to

reser'rb e a white' statue that can be
seen rn cirU streets all over the world
todaq.

The art of silence is very much alive today. There are mime
theatres all over the world. One of Marceau's famous
performances was Walking Against the Wind in which he
mimed walking into a strong wind. MichaelJackson borrowed
+s his famous'moonwalk' from this performance, which manv
dancers have copied since. Mime artists can be seen entertaining
people on many city streets today. Some earn money by making
themselves into white statues that make intermittent movemenrs
to alarm, delight and intrigue passers-by.

*d!;mumiRc$t

?8

*
 z
Comprehension

1 Find the words in the text which mean the same as the 1 What did Marceau mean
following:
\ when he said mime has
'neither borders nor
all over -the world [line 3) , ,- ?
nationalities'? [lines 6-7]
to mimic [line 13J .:. .' ' :.

afunng plag [line 18] I' 2 What was the difference

sad Iline 39J between Marcel's

everu now and then [line 4$ performances and the
silent movies?
2 Which adverb could gou use to replace'fluentlg'? [line 8]
3 Give one example which
3 Whg did the writer put an exclamation mark after'birds and
illustrates the fact that
even plants'? [tine 13)
mime has a long historg.
4 The statement'he expressed evergthing from beautg,
4 Whg do mime artists
comedg and conflict, to despair, tragedg and hope.'creates
perform on citg streets
two pairs of opposites. Which are theg? Write down opposites
todag ?
for the two remaining nouns.
5 What is a'mask'and what is it used for in mime?

Writixrg &neadimgs e&d staur?rlxaries

Read through the article again and write down briefly what you
think are the key points in each paragraph. Using your notes:
s Write a heading for each paragraph.
e Write a brief summary underneath your heading. @i

Miming a scenario
Now it's your turn! When you are in a country, where you do
not speak the language, sometimes you have to resort to mime
to make yourself understood. Take turns, with a partner, to
mime one of the following situations.
! You are about to get out of a taxi when yourealize you dont
have the correct money (the local currency). Your partner is
the taxi driver.
c You have been sick all night and have a really bad stomach
ache. You go to a pharmacist to buy some medication. Your
partner is the pharmacist
G You are in the middle of a town and want to know the way
to the beach.. Your partner is the person whom you ask for
directions.
 lil :i' :. .l.:'.- : : 1::':

Like mime, cartoons can make us laugh' They speak to us

through pictures, sometimes with the help of a title or caption ment can take
mmer, a
,: Have you got a favourite cartoon or cartoon character?
Why does it make you laugh?
i!,l J can rgferto
",' Explain what is going on in the cartoons
on these pages.
I
movement or a gradual process
I Why do we think they are funnY? of change or development.
:l I Cartoons can also draw attention to serious things. Human beings have evolved
Do you think cartoons are an effective way of from apes over manU
communicating important messages? thousands of gears.

Marcel Marceau's Parrot You ssspeak funny!

M A RC EL MARCEA U 's PRrror

(_
I
a

@
E E
o o
I
o o
@
c
) C
o o
o
h^;t o
o
O
6

iB Hqrg€Ne,Zool
>

You ssspeok funny!

How come you don't hove o lisssP?

,: Why is the beak of Marcel Marceau's parrot G Who is the odd one out in this cartoon?
firmly closed? * What kind of speech impediment is a lisp?
.: What is the parrot doing with its wings?

+&@*.
30

I
I
 Cotnmuttic:ltl

Food chain

a-eJ

t
o
o
Journal
o
ou
o ^- Vr/}ro., Ls memL bg t'ha
. a'o
o ^o
(, o
seAmg'Laughl;zr Ls Lhe
od- besb meA)And ?.

E
o Wrl*n a journal entrg on
o thLs LoP:w ...
co
o
U
;
=
=

a What is a food chain?

r Who is at the end of the chain?

Evolution

-* i\u, .a.*a
- )LL-y
)

Tar cE&rsar.s 6cr"*." *oor.o*Vfih0*

3 Explain how the pictures follow on from one another.

s What point is the cartoonist making in the final picture?

€
 Completing a response form
The editor of your local newspaper runs a feature called
Cartoon of the Week. Readers are invited to send in cartoons to
be included in the feature.

Fill in the newspaper's form to send to the editor with your

chosen cartoon. This is an online version of the form.

d."! r*'{1

Cortoon o ft he Week
Type in your comments below

rt
I
Cartoon details \e
What's the cartoon about?

of the Week?
Why should it be Cartoon

t
,*

3?

I
,r>-'

unicate ?
What people who are

Think of how difficult it would be to go to school, make friends

+
or learn the basic skills in life if you were deaf-blind. How *
would you communicate?
y
!q
Autobiography G
From The Story of My Lrf"by Helen Keller
*
Helen Kellerwas just nineteen months old when she became
deaf and blind following an illness. As a child she was also
unable to speak. As Helen grew older, she became wild and
uncontrollable in her behaviour because of her extreme
frustration at not being able to understand or communicate.

Her mother read about the successful education ofanother

deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and contacted the
Perkins lnstitute for the Blind, in Boston, USA, where Laura
had been educated. As a result Anne Sullivan, a former student
of the school, became Helen's teacher. She went to live with the
Keller familg in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1886.

The following extract from Helen's autobiographg reveals the moment

when she learned that allthings have names. This was the first step
in learning a language that would help her to be able to communicate.

Helen Keller, aged eight, with her teacher Anne

Sullivan, in 1888.

%> pirtt Lessons in Life cce

t I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I
supposed to my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught
up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal
all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.

s The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room
and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins
Institute had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but
I did not know this until afterwards. \7hen I had played
with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my
33
I
re*

10 hand the letters d-o-1-1.I was at once interested in this finger

play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in
making the letters correctly I was filled with pleasure and
@@
pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand to reveal Itine 3]
and made the letters for'doll'. I did not know that I was institute Iz]
t5 spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply fragments [32J
making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days sentiment [34]
that followed I learned to spell in this rvar. a great many hearth [30]
words, among them'pin','hat'r 'cup' and a feu. verbs iike to awaken [50J
'sit','stand' and 'walk'. But m1, teacher had been r,vith me
to quiver [55J
20 several weeks before I understood that everything has a
repentance [62]
name.
sorrow [62].
One day, while I n,as pla,ving rvith my new doll, Miss Sullivan
,a
put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled d-o-l-l and tried
I E
i
:i
to make me understand that d-o-l-l applied to both. Earlier €
i
:i 25 in the day we had had a tussle over the words m-u-g and
w-a-t-e-r. Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that 1 lmagine what it is like to
m-u-g is'mug' and that w-a-t-e-r is'water', but I persisted grow up not being able to

in confusing the two.In despair she had dropped the subject learn from other people
bg listening to what theg
for the time being, only to take it up agarrT at the first
sag and watching what
'l:
'Ei
rlt
30 opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts
theg do. How else could
and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was
gou learn about the
delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my
world?
feet.I had not loved the doll.In the still, dark world in which
I lived there was no strong sentiment or feelings of tenderness.
2 Whg is learning to use
language so important?
35 I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the 3 Can gou think ofother
hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of situations in which not
my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and being able to
I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, communicate makes
if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me someone feel left out?
40 hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the.well-house, attracted by

the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.
Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my
l

fffip'-mmmnw, hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one
45 hand she spelled into the other the word'water',first slowly,
34

I
 2
Ir

--
motions of
I Find the words in the
Suddenly the mystery of language was revealed to
text which mean the
then that -e-,r mean t the co same as the following:
50 was flowing over m v hand That living word w akened my coming near Iline 1]
soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers to reach out Iline 1J
still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. feeling Iline 39]
covered well (tine 411
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name,
perfume Iline a2)
and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned
to flow (line a4)
to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver
movement lline 47)
with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange,
new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I
2 Whg does Helen call her
first steps in learning
remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the
the words'monkeg-like
hearth and picked up the pieces.
imitation'? [tine 16)
I tried to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; 3 What does the'musterg
for I realizedwhat I had done, and for the first time I felt of language' refer to?
repentance and sorrow. Iline 48J

HsrsN Ksnpn 4 What phrase in

paragraph 4 most
highlights the
connection between
learning a language and
1 What basicthings does Helen not understand? learning to talk about
2 Whg is learning language ideas?

€
 An encyclopedia entry

Louis Braille: 1809-1 852

The man who invented braille
Louis Braille became blind at the age of three, in .a

1812, when he accidentally stabbed himself in

the eye with one of his father's shoemaking
tools. At the age of ten, he won a scholarship to
the National lnstitute for the Blind in Paris,
where the students learned basic craft skills and
music, and also how to read from books printed
+a
with raised letters. Braille, who was eager to
learn, found this system very frustrating, as it
was too expensive to produce many books, and
he had soon read all of the ones that were
available. lt was also not possible for the
students to write with this system.

ln 1821, Charles Barbier, a captain in the French

Army, visited the school. Barbier shared his
invention called'Night Writingi a code of twelve Braille and his friend Pierre Foucault went on to
raised dots and a number of dashes that let develop a typewriter to make it even easier to
soldiers share top-secret information on the produce text in braille. Louis Braille's invention
battlefield without having to speak. This inspired was not taught in his own lifetime, but has since
Braille to make his own simplified version of the become the main method of reading and
alphabet, made up of six dots to form each writing for blind people all over the world.
individual letter.This is how Louis Braille wrote
his own name in his new system:

louis
a
a &

braille
These dots formed patterns which made it easy
to learn and take in more than one letter at a
m
time.To make the dots, Braille used his father's
stitching awl - the same tool with which he had
blinded himself.This simple method made it
easy to write as well as read. He also adapted it
+-kw-" to produce a version of the notation used in A blind person's f ingertips'read'the raised
36 music and mathematics. dots on a page of braille.
 I

GLOSSARY
How can technology help? Someone with a visual
These days, a variety of computer software applications such as disabilitg can be described as:
screen readers, offer support to people who are blind or blind Ino vision at all]
visually impaired. A screen reader is a form of assistive partiallg sighted Isome visionJ
technology that converts text into audio (sound) files. The visuallg impaired (vision
technology can change writing into speech, and speech into problemsJ
writing using speech-recognition software. short-sighted Inot able to see
well into the distance]
It's not just blind people who find this technology useful. Audio
long-sighted Inot able to see
books are popular among sighted people too. Have you ever well close up].
made a sound recording instead of writing a letter to a friend?
assistive technologg is the
Have you ever recorded yourself reading out a story, acting out term for a piece of equipment
a sceneor singing a song to music? What about a face-to-face designed to aid a person with a
phone conversation via a webcam over the Internet? disabilitg.
Awebcam is a video camera
which is connected to a
computer, so that it can be
:::!:!@ ffi
viewed on a network such as
the lnternet.

1 Whg is braille such an

efficient sustem of
writing for blind people
to use?
2 What other sustems of
writing do gou know of
that don't use words?
3 How does technologg
help people to
communicate? List all
the applications gou can
think of.
s:+t1itt$dil++l$,fi'1ii[lilj:if,6;f r[i] !.r',.'":in

€
,iil@r

Tauehing peoPEe
ffi row important touch is to blind people in learning
words through Braille. The Braille reader literallg touches
the raised
dots to 'read'the letters. The following poem is about the
non-literal, tr How is a person touched
or metaphoricol , meanings of to touch a nd to be touched ' bg art or literature?
2 When was the last time
F> Touchingcce gou were moved bg a
scene in a book or a
This is a song film?
About touch and touching'
3 What is different about
You touch me - a waY of feeling'
beingtouched bg a
I touch you - a way of understanding' person gou know?
'We
are touched
5
4 How important is it to
By a film or a book.
speak out to PeoPle gou
Ve are touched don't know?
When a stranger is kind.
How can we live
'$Tithout
10 touching and being touched?

There is a healing touch,

It makes the sick whole again'
Let's keeP in touch
'We
say to a friend who's going away'
15 To have the right touch
Means to know how it's done'
Touching is an art,
E
It's the movement
,!;
To and from the heart.

20 Some are easilY touched

Some are hard to touch
You are often touched.
I am often touched.

Nrssrlr Ezsxrst

l#F@,
We are touched bg a film or a book
38

I
Looking closelg
1 Which lines describe the difference between the inward
movement of being touched bg something or someone, and
the outward movement of reaching out to someone else?
2 Which lines link beingtouched in both a phgsicaland in an
emotionalwag?
3 What does the poet mean bg having the 'right touch'? [line 15]
4 Which lines refer to the relationship between the reader and
the writer?

Mang verbs have a literoland a non-literol meaning.

For example, the literal meaning of 'to touch'is to put the
fingertips in contact with something in order to feel it. @
€xample: The blind girltouched the raised dots in her braille
book to read the storu.

The non-literal meaning of 'to touch'is'to have an emotional

effect upon'. lt is often used in the passive form, as in the first
example.
€xomples: The kindness I received when lwas illtouched me.
I was touched bg all the kindness I received when I

was ill.

Writing an account of an experience

Choose the line or two lines from the poem which you like the
best. Write them out and write an account of an experience
which fits the lines.

You maywrite about a personal experience or about someone

you know or have read about. You can also be creative, and just
make it up! @
 i;Y:i

From Elephant Billby J.H.Williams

INDIA CHINA f

LAOS
WordPool

THAILAND

lndian
Ocean

I
t
to knead Il-zJ

Map showing Burma IMganmarJ in Southeast Asia' to suppurate [13]

The writer of the following account is J.H.Williams
who was known as infected It sJ
looked after
Elephant Bill. He was an English veterinarg surgeon who
in
the elephants in the teak forests of Burma Inow called Mganmar]
the 1930s. The elephants were used to move the heavg logs in the
forests.

ln thetext, Elephant Bill describes his experience with a female elephant

ti for
l:ti called Ma Kgaw. He had treated Ma Kgaw two months previouslg
li wounds on her back caused bg a tiger.
lr
li
ili

r>The ElePhant Who SPoke to Me cce

I know that an elephant can be grateful for relief from pain
had
and sickness. I remember one elephant, Ma Kyaw' She
terrible lacerations on her back caused by a tiger's claws'
and I treated her every day for three weeks' To begin
with
she suffered great pain and made a lot of fuss. But I
was
5

determined to treat her and she became a good patient'

40 when she was sufficiently healed I sent her back to camp
 z
1U

be given An elephant working in the Burmese

with her rider, and gave instructions that she was to teak forests.
light dressings of fly repellent on the wounds'

10 I later on had the chance to inspect her. She was the last in
the row of elephants and I went over her back very carefullr teaktrees grow in Mganmar
kneading the wounds with my hands.I found one little hole and all over South and
which still suppurated. There was great tenderness along a Southeast Asia. lts wood is
line about nine inches long where the wound had healed extremelg hard and weather-
15 over. It was undoubtedly infected. Ma Kyaw let me open it resista nt.

up to its full length there and then, although it obviously A veterinarg surgeon I usuallg
gave her great pain. abbreviated to'vet'] is an
animal doctor.
I did not see her agarn for two months. I was having a cup
of tea in camp outside my tent, while seven elephants were
20 being washed in the river nearby ready for me to inspect
them. The animals started to come out of the river and to
return to camp to dry off before my inspection. The last
elephant was Ma Kyaw with her rider following her on foot.
As she passed me about fifty yards away) I called out. I did
25 so to greet the rider and to show that I had recognized him.
'How is Ma Kyaw's back?'I called. (,
rl '{rre6

Her rider did not hear me, but Ma Kyaw swung round, at
right angles to rhe way she was going, and came towards
me. she walked straight up ro where I was sitting. I patted
30 her on the trunk and gave her a banana from my table. Then,
without any word of command, she dropped into the sitting
position and leaned right over towards me, so as to show
me her back. Having patted her, I told her,'Tah' (get up),
and away she went. I was sure that she had come to say
3s ,thank you,.Then I began to think that perhaps she had
come to see me merely because she remembered my voice.

This made me think over the incident again. Perhaps she

came and showed me her back in order to tell me that it was
still painful. But I am sure that she liked me, trusted me, and
40 was grateful - and that we were very good friends'

|.H. Wrrrtaus

i
1

I
rl
:l

r*.wt@q
42 A painting bg Mac Tatchell of Elephants working in the Burmese teak forests

I
I
 t t tr-
1 Whg was the writer called Elephant Bill? \s
s
2 What is a 'laceration'? [tine 3J
Jotlrnal
3 What is another word for'suppurated'? [tine t3l
4Whatdoestheword'Tah'meantoaBurmeseelephant? wuo obl,P, tD
Iline 33]
\t
nirtlx, wi.thout
de t).hk
ih Ls
ln be
0n
Comprehension to commu
l,g,vgL?
1 What kind of work did the elephants do in Burma
IMganmarJ?
a vet to look after
Z Whg do gou think the elephants needed
them?
3 Whatikind of injuries did Ma Kgaw suffer from?
wounds were still
4 How did the writer know that Ma Kgaw's
infected?
between Ma Kgaw
5 How would gou describe the relationship
and the writer?

Writing a report
have to write a
Imagine that you are Elephant BilI and you
report on Ma KYaw.

Use these sub-headings in your report:

* I'tIy treatment of Ma $ow

w Ma l$aw\ behaviour
* Irly conclusionsfi