6 Minute English - Estate agents’ language | Текст песни

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• 6 Minute English
• Estate agents’ language

NB: This is not a word for word transcript
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Продолжение транскрипта:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/6minute/101118_estate_agents.pdf

Yvonne: Hello, I'm Yvonne Archer and this is 6 Minute English. Today, I've been
joined by Alice. Hi Alice!
Alice: Hi Yvonne!
Yvonne: Now Alice, everyone seems to have something to say about estate agents or as
they’re known in the United States, real-estate agents - the people who help
others to buy or sell houses or flats. But what would you say about the
language they use?
Alice: Oh, it can be very descriptive and often, they make things sound better than
they really are.
Yvonne: Hmm – I have to agree with you on that one. Well, estate agents do seem to
have a language all of their own. For example, if they describe a house as
'characterful' – what would you think they meant by that, Alice?
Alice: Well, 'characterful' – so full of character, perhaps old, unusual and maybe that
there are quite a few things that need fixing.
Yvonne: Mm-hmm, definitely! But before we go any further, let’s have today’s question.
There are lots of old houses in London Alice, but do you know anything about
the smallest house?
Alice: The smallest house? I don't.
Yvonne: Well, the smallest house was built 1805 in central London and it's said that it
was used by people who were watching out for body snatchers – people who
stole bodies from the nearby cemetery for medical examinations. Anyway, can
you guess how wide that house is, Alice?
a) 2.4 metres
b) 5.6 metres or
c) 1 metre
Alice: Oh, I think I'll go for 2.4 metres. I can't imagine anything smaller.
Yvonne: No - but I will tell you what the correct answer is later on. So, we’ve already
heard some language used by real-estate agents, but what about some of the
other things they write in advertisements. In 1968 it became illegal - against
the law – to advertise a house or a flat in a way that might discriminate against
different groups of people or encourage discrimination. Listen to this example:
Insert 1:
Beautiful 3 bedroom house, close to temples.
Yvonne: Alice, why might that language be seen as discriminatory?
Alice: Well, it said ‘close to temples’. So maybe that might describe the perfect house
for people of a certain religion. But it could also seem like the sellers and the
estate agent won’t sell the house to people of any other religion.
Yvonne: Mmm… so using the words ‘close to temples’ could be used to exclude or
discriminate against people of other religions, or encourage discrimination
against them.
Alice: Hmmm, it's complicated. So estate agents have to be very careful about the
language they use to stay within the law.
Yvonne: Now one of the most interesting uses of language in estate agent adverts are
the synonyms; finding words which mean the same thing. So, for example,
how many ways can you say the word ‘small’ without putting people off?
Here’s Paul Bonnett, an estate agent, who’s said that for the past 30 years, the
vocabulary estate agents use hasn’t changed much.
Insert 2: Paul Bonnett
You’ve got the compact, you've got the bijou, you've got the delightful, you've got
attractive (charming), you've got panoramic…
Yvonne: So there, we heard words that lots of estate agents use. Alice – can you explain
them for us, please?
Alice: Yes – we heard ‘compact’, which means that it’s quite small, but everything
that’s needed can still fit into it. We heard ‘bijou’ – that's more elegant. It
means that the apartment, the flat, is small and elegant.
Yvonne: Mm… and what about ‘panoramic’?
Alice: Well, that means there's a good view of the area. So you can see all around you
from the flat.

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