Между А и Б
А и Б, руководствуясь (guided by) желанием укреплять узы дружбы и сотрудничества между обоими государствами, договорились об установлении дипломатических отношений, начиная с даты подписания настоящего совместного коммюнике, и обмене дипломатическими представителями (representatives/agents) на уровне послов (at the ambassadorial level).
Обе стороны выражают уверенность в том, что установление дипломатических отношений между А и Б – будет содействовать развитию международного сотрудничества, укреплению всеобщего мира и стабильности.
А и Б подтверждают свое стремление и готовность (to affirm/confirm one’s desire and readiness) строить двусторонние отношения в соответствии с Уставом ООН, на основе принципов мирного сосуществования, равенства, взаимного уважения суверенитета и территориальной целостности и невмешательства во внутренние дела друг друга.
Президент А Президент Б
Мадрид, 12 сентября 20__ года
TASK 9. Roman colonization of England, which began with the arrival of Julians Caesar’s troops in 55 B.C. and Latin-speaking missionaries later, lasted some four hundred years and left some traces in the English language. Latin was the normal language for learned and official writing in England until well into the 17th century. Some of the borrowed Latin words were completely assimilated by English and became part and parcel of its rich stock. Suffice it to mention “act”, “bill”, “insinuate” (hint indirectly, imply), “innuendo(e)s” (indirect remarks, gestures or references, usually implying something derogatory). Others are still felt as alien elements and retain their original characteristics (phenomenon-phenomena, criterion-criteria).
There is still one more group of Latinisms which were only superficially absorbed by English. (See: Лингвистические заметки, пункт II) But despite looking and sounding un-English, they are useful and necessary and a lot of them find their way into the language of politics and science. Now and then politicians, political scientists and journalists sprinkle their creations (written and oral) with Latin expressions. They also occur in various official documents.
Try your hand at dealing with Latinisms.
A. Match up the Latin words and phrases with their definitions.
| 1. ignoramus | a. my fault |
| 2. per capita | b. an oral examination |
| 3. tabula rasa | c. the college or school that one attended |
| 4. mea culpa | d. for each person |
| 5. viva voce | e. an ignorant person |
| 6. vox populi | f. an unexplored area, a wilderness |
| 7. terra incognita | g. conversely, the order or relation being reversed |
| 8. vice versa | h. the existing state of affairs |
| 9. alma mater | i. for a special case or purpose only |
| 10. status quo | j. an event provoking war or used as a pretext to make war |
| 11. ad hoc | k. a mode of living |
| 12. casus belli | l. willy-nilly |
| 13. volens nolens | m. after smth has already happened |
| 14. post factum | n. a blank sheet |
| 15. modus vivendi | o. public opinion or sentiment |
B. Translate the sentences containing Latinisms.
1. The severance of diplomatic relations shall not ipso facto involve the severance of consular relations. (Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Chapter I, Article 2)
2. The receiving State may at any time notify the sending State that a consular officer is persona non grata or that any other member of the consular staff is not acceptable. (Ibid., Article 23)
3. The Ad Hoc Committee on the negotiation of a Convention against Corruption is expected to complete its negotiations by the end of 2003. (From the UN Secretary-General’s report “Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration”)
4. There is evidence that individuals have been tortured, ill-treated and deported, and that asylum-seekers have been sent back to their countries of origin without sufficient effort being made to determine whether they are in fact bona fide refugees with a well-founded fear of persecution. (Ibid.)
5. He is not the product of PR firms; he is a bona fide scholar who has proved his credentials as journalist laureate by writing five books and hundreds of articles.
6. Sanctions rarely work in any event; when… there is no quid to be had for the quo of relaxing them, they would be merely a rude gesture. (Econ., April 14-20, 2001,p.14).
7. Mr. Savimbi was not the sole cause of Angola’s civil war, but he was probably the most important reason why it has lasted so long. When one casus belli disappeared, he always found another. (Econ., March 2-8, 2002, p.29).
8. “A Beautiful Mind”[…] brims with best-picture distinction. […] It has commanding performances from Russel Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, and an inspiring script by Akiva Goldsman (even if it is economical with the truth – and the economics). “A Beautiful Mind” has also done well at the box office, an Oscar sine qua non. (Ibid., p.81).
9. “Alexander Pushkin’s descendants can safely say that tzar Nickolas I lived in Pushkin’s time, not vice versa ”, Anna Akhmatova once said.
10. “The China-Japan wage gap is five times bigger than the United States-Mexico gap”, Xie said, comparing the per capita incomes of the two sets of industrial neighbors. (IHT, April 8, 2002, p.11).
11. It is not often that one hears a European Union official issue a mea culpa. That’s why Franz Fischler’s comments in London on Monday were so surprising. (WSJ, June 13, 2002, p.14).
12. Consumer protection in the EU single market should be the subject of general strategy, not ad hoc reaction to disasters as with food safety, writes the newspaper.
13. He is not opposed to integration per se, but he has quite a few reservations about the methods.
14. Labour has promised inter alia devolution to Scotland, reform of the House of Lords and a bill of rights. (Econ., May 3-9, 1997, p.31)
TASK 10. The year of 1066 A.D. is, perhaps, the most famous historical date for the British, as in 1066 the Normans led by William (the Conqueror) invaded England to become the ruling class and exercise the most powerful influence on the English language for centuries to come. The French-speaking Normans gave to English a lot of words relating to government and administration, the military and legal spheres. After they had lost control of their territory in France in the early 1200s and were confined to Britain, they began to learn English. By the 15th century English had re-established itself as the major language of the country.
See if you can find your way among numerous French words and phrases in political English.
A. Translate the sentences into Russian.
1. The generally accepted forms of diplomatic documents are: notes, memoranda, aides memoires, and personal letters.
2. The term “diplomatic corps ” covers ambassadors, ministers, charges d’affaires ad interim and charges d’affaires avec letters, as well as the diplomatic personel headed by them, i.e. counsellors, minister-counsellors, first/second/third secretaries and attachés.
3. Companies have carte blanche to close their community affairs departments and slash their community contributions at any whiff of financial trouble.
4. The spotlight has turned to a moderate party whose raison d’étre rises above the nationalist label.
5. In many markets, the first company to eschew bribes will put itself at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis rivals who continue to pay for favours. (Econ., March 2-8, 2002, p.11)
6. August 1998 changed everything. With Western clients fleeing Russia en masse a lot of firms either closed down their Moscow offices completely or left a skeleton staff. (M. Times, January 31, 2003, p.9)
7. His predecessor and his cabinet were forced to resign en masse in 1999 over allegations of corruption and cronyism. (WSJ, May 27, 2002, p.1)
8. There are a number of Republicans, who are not willing to accept the President’s tax cut as a fait accompli.
9. The measure was greated with a wave of patriotic fervor. But it didn’t work in any other way, and within decades Spain was en route to pauperism. (WSJ, June 6, 2002, p.8)
10. So the trans-Atlantic difference in threat perceptions persists. There is some justification for this: the United States is al Queda’s prime bête noire and its preferred target. (WSJ, April 9, 2002, p.12)
11. The general is disheartened by low morale in the army.
12. The British press, in chorus, praised the Falklands military operation as a tour de force.
13. The last words, smilingly offered in French, were Tony Blair’s: “There are many more things that unite us than divide us”. Cue for a polite end to a half-day Franco-British summit, talked up in gushing terms on February 14th by France’s President Jacques Chirac: “Rarely have I seen such an entente cordiale as that which came spontaneously through in our meeting today”. (Econ., February 8-14, 2003, p.30)
14. Under Nixon’s watch the rot spread to the economic underpinnings of US postwar paramountcy: the suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold, the devaluation of the currency, the development of the United States’s first trade deficit in the century, and the OPEC oil embargo toppled the nation from its pedestal as the undisputed master of the postwar international monetary and trading system. The coup de grace came under Ronald Reagan, with the transformation of the United States from the largest creditor to the largest debtor nation in the world. (D. History, vol. 25, №2, Spring 2001, p.325)
15. In our post-September 11, post-Saddam world, a failure to stick to those fair and symmetrical demands would shatter the inner consistency of the struggle against terrorism and pose an unacceptable threat to the very raison d’être of Israel. It could turn the road map into a trap, not just for Israel but for all. (WSJ, April 28, 2003, p. A10)
B. In 1750, Phillip, Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, wrote in a letter to his son, “One false spelling may fix a stigma upon a man for life”.*
Study the spelling of the following words of French origin. Make sure you know how to pronounce them.
| ballet barrage | corps debacle | ménage milieu |
| beret | debris | morale |
| bourgeois | détente | prestige |
| bouquet | entourage | protégé |
| burean | foyer | rapport |
| café | guard | rapprochement |
| camouflage | liaison | regime |
| chateau | matinee | rendezvous |
| clique | mediocre | sabotage |
| cliché | memoir | |
C. Match up the French words and phrases with their definitions.
| 1. entourage | a. head of a diplomatic mission with the longest term of stay in the country |
| 2. tête-à-tête | b. relaxation of tension |
| 3. nouveau riche (sing.) nouveaux riches (pl.) | c. informal discussion preliminary to the negotiations |
| 4. beau monde | d. document allowing the holder to pass, permit |
| 5. pourparler | e. in the manner or style |
| 6. rapprochement | f. private conversation between two people |
| 7. demarche | g. line of action, manoeuvre, diplomatic move, especially one initiating a change of policy |
| 8. laisser-passer | h. reporter |
| 9. rapporteur | i. restoring of friendly relations between states |
| 10.à la | j. a group of accompanying attendants, assistants, or associates |
| 11.détente | k. fashionable society |
| 12.doyen | l. a newly rich person (often connoting lack of culture) |
TASK 11. Translate the sentences containing pseudo-international words.
В начале 1999 года один российский дипломат с высокой международной трибуны настаивал на том, чтобы фраза «эта политика должна быть скорректирована» переводилась как this policy must be corrected. Разумеется, на английском corrected было бы адекватным для исправления неверно решенной математической задачи, а о политике лучше говорить, что the policy must be adjusted (или should, что звучит значительно лучше).
Линн Виссон.«Синхронный
перевод с русского на анг-
лийский».Москва, «Р.Валент»,
стр. 48.
1. Police and political observers speculate on possible motives of the assassination.
2. The popularity of shares ought to reflect the underlying profitability of the companies that issue them, not delusions of instant riches at no risk. It ought to be guided too by something closer to intelligent analysis than the comments of one American dotcom analyst this week. (Econ., March 10-17, 2001, p.15).
3. The Health Ministry says the number of registered drug addicts has tripled since 1998 but concedes that the figure of 600,000 is a fraction of the real number.
4. Yet, as the 36th president of the United States, Johnson went on to accomplish more for American blacks as any leader since Lincoln, and pushed through a programme aimed at improving the lot of the poor that was comparable in ambition only to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The effect, Johnson predicted, would be to cripple the national Democratic Party for decades, a bleak but accurate assessment from one of modern America’s shrewdest and most skilful political operators. (Econ., April 6-13, 2002, p.82).
5. A growing body of intellectuals who call themselves “neo-leftists” […] would like to see the party reverting to its role as the champion of the working class. (Econ., June 30 – July 6, 2001, p.24).
6. Despite near universal acclaim for a strong foreign policy performance in the first six months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W.Bush suddenly finds himself accused of indecisive leadership and of not having a coherent strategy to address a barrage of international crises. (IHT, April 22, 2002, p.3).
7. Lord Frank Judd, a European human rights official monitoring the military campaign in Chechnya, was one of its most vocal critics.
8. Is there any way of descending down this ladder of carnage and conquest? The Palestinian leaders’ insistent demand is for international intervention. (Econ., April 6-13, 2002, p.24).
9. Hitler and Stalin had invested huge prestige in winning the battle of Stalingrad, and Nazi morale never recovered. (Times, February 1, 2003, p.20).
10. The [unidentified] source [in the Russian military] said the U.S. administration will make a formal decision to conduct a military operation immediately after the military and its allies create “battle groups” in the region, which will take two or three weeks, the news agency reported. (M. Times, January 31, 2003, p.11).
11. Bush administration officials said the president was reviewing detailed and highly classified material [sent by the US Central Command]. (M. Times, September 23, 2002, p.14).
12. Your reporting on the midterm elections was perhaps an unwitting testament to how pathetic the US political system has become. (Time, December 9, 2002, p.13).
13. Adoption of this bill is critical to the Russian economy.
14. Understanding in minute detail the practical rules governing non-governmental organizations is the essence of his approach.
TASK 12. Test your political literacy.
A. Describe in detail the history, essence and international significance
of each document and summit on the list.
Pacta sunt servanda is the oldest principle in international law which says that treaties are binding on the parties to them and must be executed in good faith.
1. The 1941 Atlantic Charter
2. The 1944 Bretton Woods conference
3. The 1955 Bandung conference
4. The 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty
5. The 1975 Helsinki Accords
6. The 1978 Camp David Accords
7. The 1990 Charter of Paris
8. The 1938 Munich Treaty/Agreement
9. The 1939 Molotov-Riebentrop Pact
10. The 1815 Congress of Vienna
11. The 1961 Vienna Convention
12. The 1958 Treaty of Rome
13. The 1944 Dumbarton Oaks conference
14. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty
15. The 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
16. The 1987 INF Treaty
17. The 1648 peace of Westphalia
18. The Schengen Convention
19. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (1967-1979)
20. The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (1982-1991)
21. The 1919 Versailles Treaty
22. The 1995 Dayton Agreement
23. The 1972 ABM Treaty
B. Translate the passages containing references to various bilateral and multilateral treaties.
1. Given that Mr Duncan Smith made his name as a serial rebel against ratification of the Maastricht treaty and has chosen a shadow cabinet that in large measure reflects his own implacable views about European integration, this was a remarkable decision. (Econ., July 5-11, 2003, p.36)
2. Mr Cash, who has devoted his political career to reversing Britain’s accession to the Treaty of Rome, is the party’s spokesman on constitutional affairs. (Ibid., p.36)
3. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73%.(WSJ, September 25, 2003, p. A10)
4. […] Bosnia isn’t working because no one has been willing to admit publicly that Dayton fashioned a political system that makes the country virtually impossible to govern successfully without an international presence. (WSJ, August 29-31, 2003, p.A7)
5. The ABM Treaty was considered to be the cornerstone of the Russian and American nuclear relationship.
6. “We are on the way towards resolution of the impass over the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement”, the Irish Foreign Minister said in his interview to The USA Today.
7. Since the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in 1947, with its basic principle that tariffs must not discriminate between countries, trade has been governed by multilateral rules. (Econ., Sept. 20-26, 2003, p. 13).
C. Explain the meaning of the underlined phrases and translate the passages into Russian.
1. There has never been a comparable crisis in California’s history, not even during the Civil War when people imagined California might become an independent country. (Econ., July 5-11, 2003, p.43)
2. The war on terror was always going to be long and hard, very much like the Cold War. Most important, we are better off fighting it from our shores, in places like Iraq, rather than place our hope in a Maginot Line called “homeland security” (WSJ, Sept. 10, 2003, p.A6)
3. The truth is that Yasser Arafat’s moment in history has ended. The world would do well to think hard about how it came to pass, after so many years and so much talk and blood, that the era of Arafat arrived at this endpoint – with Israel saying that it may be worth the trouble simply to kill him. How far we’ve come from the Rose Garden in 1993. (WSJ, Sept. 17, 2003, p. A12).
4. Students of foreign policy analysis and of strategic studies have used Korea to examine certain ideas. In the policy analysis field particular interest has been shown in the decision to escalate the war in the autumn of 1950 when the UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. Janis (1972) […] has called this decision Truman’s Bay of Pigs. (Gr. Evans and J. Newnham. The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations. Penguin Books, 1999, p. 295).
5. “No Taxation on My Caffeination”. That was the battle cry of Seattle coffee lovers who recently staged a mock Boston Tea Party, protesting a ballot initiative for a new, citywide tax on expresso. And just like the original effort against George III’s unfair tea tariffs, these latter-day Sons of Liberty managed to get their point across. On Tuesday the people of Seattle voted down the tax measure by a more than two-to-one margin. (WSJ, Septermber 19-21, 2003, p. A8).
TASK 13. Consider the alternatives in brackets. Rank them in order of preference. Say how different they make the meaning. Try to suggest some more ways of conveying the same information.
1. The city’s energy commission (consented to, agreed to, gave the nod for, gave its blessing to) (a hike, an increase, an uptick) in tariffs by 20 percent.
2. There is a new phenomenon (marring, overshadowing, casting a shadow over) the season of good will.
3. Sometimes political candidates (advance, come up with, make) ridiculous (pledges, promises, oaths, swears).
4. (Disinclined to commit, reluctant to commit, not wishing to commit, undesirous of committing) himself on the most vital issue before the nation, Richard Nixon refused in the 1968 election campaign to (open, tell about, reveal, disclose, divulge) any details of his plan to (end, terminate, bring to an end, wind up) the war in Vietnam.
5. No force in the world is capable of (getting … to, making, forcing to, compelling to) a candidate (give up, renounce) such frenzied campaigning.
6. NGOs also (demand, ask for, clamour for, claim) seats at global decision-making (forums, summits, meetings).
7. He (warned, cautioned) that North Korea had been enriching uranium for a second (illegal, illicit, unlawful) bomb-making programme.
8. He (dismissed, ruled out, brushed aside) any possibility that military officers might be (plotting, conspiring) against Mr. Mugabe.
TASK 14. Read the text. Translate the introduction and the list of treaties into Russian.
Text 1
