The Buy Nothing movement

P1 A…………., and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online shopping
means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands offer such cheap clothes that they
can be treated like disposable items – worn two or three times and then thrown away.

P2 In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which is around four per cent
of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure hides two far more worrying trends for society
and for the environment. First, a lot of that consumer spending is via credit cards. B……… That's 66 per cent
of the average wardrobe budget. Also, not only are people spending money they don't have, they're using it to
buy things they don't need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which goes into
landfill sites.

P3 People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they donate their unwanted
clothes to charities. C………. 'Fast fashion' goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often too poor
quality to recycle; people don't want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities end up being thrown away, and a
lot of clothes that charities can't sell are sent abroad, causing even more economic and environmental problems.

P4 However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the 'buy nothing' trend. The idea
originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the US, where it became a rejection of the
overspending and overconsumption of Black Friday and Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy
Nothing Day people organise various types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year, Buy
Nothing groups organise the exchange and repair of items they already own.

P5 The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of clothing and make-up that
they recommend for people to buy.D……….. Two friends in Canada spent a year working towards buying
only food. For the first three months they learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or things
for the house. For the next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at restaurants or buying
petrol for their cars. In one year, they'd saved $55,000.

P6 The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and paper packaging and a
positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved. If everyone followed a similar plan, the results
would be impressive. E………. Buy Nothing groups send a clear message to companies that people are no
longer willing to accept the environmental and human cost of overconsumption.
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR N°28 “OLGA COSSETTINI”

SECCIÓN PROFESORADO DE INGLÉS

INGRESO AL CURSO LECTIVO 2024

APELLIDO: .................................... NOMBRES: ............................................................

D.N.I.: ............................... COMISIÓN :.......................

AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE

Before you read the text:

1.Match the words with their definitions. Write the correct number next to each letter.
● A ___overconsumption
● B ___an influencer
● C ___a landfill site
● D ___disposable
● E ___overspending
● F ___to bombard
● G ___consumerism
● H ___to spring up

1.to hit someone with a lot of something, without pausing

2.designed to be thrown away after use

3.a place where rubbish is buried under the ground

4.to appear

5.the practice of buying and owning lots of products

6.the act of spending more money than you should

7.using too much of something

8.someone who uses social media to advertise products to their followers

 2. Now READ the article “The Buy Nothing Movement” and do the following
exercises.

In the article, 5 sentences have been removed. Choose from sentences (1-5) the one which fits each

gap (A-E).Write the correct letter next to each sentence.

1.But even if you can't manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the
anti-consumerist movement by refusing to buy things you don't need. _____

2.Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy _____

3.But charity shops can't sell all those unwanted clothes _____

4.British people currently owe approximately £670 per adult to credit card companies. _____

5.Some YouTube stars now encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long
as a year. _____

3. Circle the correct option: TRUE or FALSE

1. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away. True/False

2. The writer thinks it is worrying that people spend money on things they do not need. True/False

3. The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they spend on

clothes each year. True/False

4. Only a very small proportion of unwanted clothes are thrown away. True/False

5. Charities can find ways to use clothes even if they are not very good quality. True/False

6. Buy Nothing Day is a protest against credit cards. True/False

7. The two friends who did the 'buy nothing' experiment only bought food for 12 months.True/False
8. If everyone followed the Buy Nothing idea, the environment would benefit. True/False
4. Complete each sentence with one of the following words:

fashion - sites - hand - shops - spending - away

1. Fast _____________ is made quickly and cheaply.

2. Some clothing is so cheap that people can afford to wear it a couple of times and throw
it.________________
.3. There is a worrying trend for more consumer _______________on credit cards.
4. Giving clothes to charity does not completely solve the problem. __________________
5. Make sure you only donate clothes that people will want to buy second- _______________
6. A lot of clothes donated to charity cannot be reused and end up in landfill _________________

5. What do the underlined words in bold refer back to in the text? Identify and mention the
references.
1.In paragraph 2:
“that” refers back to …
2.In paragraph 4:
“the idea” refers back to …
“It”...
3-In paragraph 5:
“They”...
“Their”...

5. Find SYNONYMS of the following words in the text.

1 Paragraph 1: the synonym of “non-returnable : ___________________

2 Paragraph 2: the synonym of “tendencies”: ___________________
3 Paragraph 4: “develop”: ___________________
4 Paragraph 5: “motivate”: ___________________
5 Paragraph 6: “spectacular”: __________________
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR N°28 “OLGA COSSETTINI”
SECCIÓN PROFESORADO DE INGLÉS
INGRESO AL CURSO LECTIVO 2023
APELLIDO: ................................... NOMBRES: ......................................................
D.N.I.: ............................................ COMISIÓN : ......................................................

AN INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMAR
Lexical and functional morphemes

Words fall into two categories. The first category is that set of words such as, nouns, verbs,

adjectives and adverbs that we think of as the words that carry the “content” of the

messages we convey. These words are called lexical morphemes. As we can add

morphemes (the smallest unit of language) to other words easily, they are treated as an

“open” class of words. The other type consists largely of functional words in the language

such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. That is why they are called

functional morphemes. As we cannot add any morpheme to create another word they

belong to the “closed” class of words.

Morphology

In many languages, what appear to be single forms actually turn out to contain a large

number of “word-like” elements. A “word,” then seems to consist of a number of elements

that, in English, turn up as separate “words.” The investigation of basic forms in language,

is generally known as morphology. This term, which literally means “the study of forms,”

was originally used in biology, but since the middle of the nineteenth century it has also

been used to describe the type of investigation that analyzes all those basic “elements”

used in a language. What we have been describing as “elements” in the form of a linguistic

message are technically known as “morphemes.”

Morphemes
We do not actually have to go to other languages to discover that “word forms” may consist

of a number of elements. We can recognize that English word forms such as talks, talker,

talked and talking must consist of one element “talk”, and the other four elements -s, -er, -

ed and -ing. All these elements are described as morphemes. The definition of a morpheme

is “a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.” Units of grammatical function include

forms used to indicate past tense or plural, for example. So, the word renewed consists of

one minimal unit of meaning (new), another unit of meaning (re- meaning “again”) and a

unit of grammatical function -ed (for the past tense). The word tourists has two units of

meaning (tour and -ist) plus a unit of grammatical function -s (for the plural).

Free and bound morphemes

From these examples, we can make a broad distinction between two types of morphemes.

There are free morphemes, that is, morphemes that can stand by themselves as single

words, for example, new and tour. There are also bound morphemes, which are those forms

that cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached to another form, exemplified as

re-, -ist, -ed, -s. These forms are as affixes. So, we can say that all affixes (prefixes and

suffixes) in English, are bound morphemes. The free morphemes can generally be identified

as the set of separate English word forms such as basic nouns, adjectives and verbs. When

they are used with bound morphemes attached, the basic word forms are technically known

as stems. For example:

undressed carelessness

un- dress -ed care -less -ness

prefix stem suffix stem suffix suffix

(bound) (free) (bound) (free) (bound) (bound)

Derivational morphemes

The set of affixes that make up the category of bound morphemes can also be divided into

two types. These are the derivational morphemes. We use these bound morphemes to

make new words or to make words of a different grammatical category from the stem. For

example, the addition of the derivational morpheme -ness changes the adjective good to

the noun goodness. The noun care can become the adjectives careful or careless by the

addition of the derivational morphemes -ful or -less. Derivational morphemes include

suffixes, such as the -ish in foolish, the -ly in quickly, and the -ment in payment, and prefixes,

such as re-read, mis understand, co-operate

Inflectional morphemes

The second set of bound morphemes contains what are called inflectional morphemes (or

“inflections”). These are not used to produce new words in the language, but rather to

indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. Inflectional morphemes are used to

show if a word is plural or singular, past tense or not, and if it is a comparative or possessive

form. English has only eight inflectional morphemes, all suffixes, as shown here.

Jim’s two sisters are really different.

One likes to have fun and is always laughing.

The other liked to read as a child and has always taken things seriously.

One is the loudest person in the house and the other is quieter than a mouse.

In the first sentence, both inflections (-’s, -s) are attached to nouns, one marking possessive

and the other marking plural. Note that -’s here is a possessive inflection and different from

the -’s used as an abbreviation for is or has (e.g. she’s singing, it’s happened again). There

are four inflections attached to verbs, -s (3rd person singular, present tense), -ing (present
participle), -ed (past tense) and -en (past participle). There are two inflections attached to

adjectives: -er (comparative) and -est (superlative).

ACTIVITIES:

1. Classify the given words in the chart under each heading.

consists, throughout, words, them, under, belongings, many, were, like, widely, new, what,
would, her.

OPEN CLASS CLOSED CLASS

2. Say whether these sentences are true, false or doesn't say. Underline your
justification.

True false and doesn’t say.

1. Morphology was used in Biology.
2. All languages have the same morphemes.
3. You cannot add any other morpheme to free morphemes.
4. Derivational and inflectional morphemes are affixes.
5. Inflectional morphemes are prefixes.

2. Complete the chart with the words given

Morphology, inflectional morpheme, derivational morpheme, free morpheme, bound

morpheme, prefix, suffix(2).

MORPHOLOGY
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR N°28 “OLGACOSSETTINI”
SECCIÓN PROFESORADO DE INGLÉS
INGRESO AL CURSO LECTIVO 2024

APELLIDO: ............................................... NOMBRES: ............................................................

D.N.I.: ......................................................... COMISIÓN :...........................................................

PHONOLOGY TASK
Phonetics fəˈnetɪks

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech. It has a long history, going back
certainly to well over two thousand years ago. The central concerns in
phonetics are the discovery of how speech sounds are produced, how they are
used in spoken language, how we can record speech sounds with written
symbols and how we hear and recognise different sounds.

Phonology fəˈnɒləʤi

Phonology deals with how these speech sounds are organised into systems for
each individual language; for example: how the sounds can be combined, the
relations between them and how they affect each other.

EXERCISE 1

You are going to watch a video, which shows a pronunciation issue that took on
unexpected relevance some time ago. Fill in the blanks in the following script of
the speaker´s speech. You will watch the video twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG98Uaoxhm4

“Hi Mohamed Shalaham, this is Tony Hadley here from the UK. I got your 1-
___________ from my management and I understand you were in a radio competition
to guess the various 2-_________ and names and there was a bit of a misnomer
because you 3-____________ pronounce my name correctly. Now, I’ve listened back
to the 4-_________ and as far as I’m concerned, you pronounced my name 5-
____________ correctly: Tony Hadley, you might say Hadley, it’s like accent but as far
as I’m concerned, you know, you 6-_________ my name correctly. So you should be
entitled to whatever the 7- _________ was. I mean I’m not an adjudicator so I can’t get
involved to an 8-__________ but as far as I’m concerned you pronounced my name
correctly and if you 9-________ it up to the people concerned maybe this might
influence 10-________, I don’t know but I thought you pronounced my name correctly.
Listen, all the very best and see you hopefully when we get to Singapore. All right, take
care, Mohamed, bye bye bye bye.”
Oral Discussion

1- What was the problem that originated this video?

2- How did Tony try to help?
3- Which of these vowel sounds does Tony use to pronounce his name?
What does he say about Mohamed´s pronunciation?

a) / / b) / /

Vowels ˈvaʊəlz

Ask most speakers of English how many vowel sounds the language has, and
what answer will you get? Typically, unless the person asked has taken a
course in phonetics and phonology, the answer will be something like ‘five; A, E,
I, O and U’. With a little thought, however, it’s easy to see that this can’t be right.
Consider the words ‘hat’, ‘hate’ and ‘hart’; each of these is distinguished from
the others in terms of the vowel sound between the ‘h’ and ‘t’, yet each involves
the vowel letter ‘a’. When people answer that English has five vowels, they are
thinking of English spelling, not the actual sounds of English. In fact, there are
12 different vowel sounds in English, but most speakers are completely
unaware of this, despite constantly using them.

Vowels are the class of sound which makes the least obstruction to the flow of
air. They are almost always found at the centre of a syllable, and it is rare to find
any sound other than a vowel which is able to stand alone as a whole syllable.
In phonetic terms, each vowel has a number of properties that distinguish it
from other vowels. These include the shape of the lips, which may be rounded
(as for an uː vowel), neutral (as for ə) or spread (as in a smile, or an i: vowel –
photographers traditionally ask their subjects to say “cheese” so that they will
seem to be smiling). Secondly, the front, the centre or the back of the tongue
may be raised, giving different vowel qualities: the RP æ vowel (“cat”) is a front
vowel, while the ɑ: of “cart” is a back vowel. The tongue (and the lower jaw)
may be raised close to the roof of the mouth, or the tongue may be left low in
the mouth with the jaw comparatively open, therefore we talk about “close” and
“open” vowels. Here are the phonemic symbols that represent the different
vowel sounds in English:
EXERCISE 2

Look at the following list of words taken from Tony Hadley´s speech in the video
and write them next to the corresponding vowel sound symbol (there should be
two for each). Take into account the underlined syllable in the words. You will
watch the video one more time.

guess - bit - back - far - involved - up - people - thought - listen -

adjudicator - hopefully - got - see - best - accent - concerned - correctly
- can´t - whatever - all

1) /i:/ ………………………….. 7) /ʌ/ …………………… (only 1)

2) /ɪ/ …………………………… 8) /ɑ:/ …………………………………
3) /e/ …………………………… 9) /ɒ/ …………………………………
4) /æ/ ………………………….. 10) /ɔː/ ……………………………….
5) /ɜ:/ …………………… (only 1) 11) /ʊ/ ………………………… (only 1)
6) /ə/ ……………………………… 12) /uː/ ………………………… (only 1)

EXERCISE 3

Read the texts on Phonetics, Phonology and Vowels again and say if the
following statements are TRUE or FALSE.

1) Phonetics and Phonology deal with the sounds we use when we speak
as well as the sounds we make when we are doing other things. _____
2) Phonetics concerns the physical description of the actual sounds used in
human languages. ______
3) Phonology studies the patterns into which sounds fall. ______
4) There are more vowel sounds than vowel letters in English. ______
5) The words ‘hat’, ‘hate’ and ‘hart’ differ in more than one sound. ______
6) When we pronounce vowels, the air escapes freely from our mouth. ___
7) A vowel on its own cannot make up a syllable. ______
8) We can differentiate one vowel from another by changing the position of
the lips and the tongue. ______
9) When describing vowels, it´s important to consider which part of the
tongue we raise and how high we raise it. ______
10) The terms “front, central and back” and the terms “close and open” refer
to the height and part of the tongue respectively. ______