IELTS reading answer “The discovery that language can be a barrier to communication”
| Answer | Keywords | Location | Explanation |
| 14 major consequences | Public attention | P 2, l 4 | Publicity comes only when a failure to communicate has major consequences, such as strikes, lost orders, legal problems, or fatal accidents – even, at times, war. |
| 15 surveys | books, periodicals | P 3, l 7 | In the English-speaking scientific world, for example, surveys of books and documents consulted in libraries and other information agencies have shown that very little foreign-language material is ever consulted. |
| 16 sales literature | British linguistic | P 4, l 11 | ….non-English-speaking customers were using English for outgoing correspondence; many had their sales literature only in English; and as many as 40 per cent employed no-one able to communicate in the customers’ languages.
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| 17 The Far East / Russia / Eastern Europe / Latin America / the Arab World / French-speaking Africa (one only) | difficulties, english | P 6, l 6 | This is especially a problem when English is not an official language of public administration, as in most parts of the Far East, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Arab world, Latin America and French- speaking Africa.
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| 18 C | P 1, line 12 | ….but the same….unfamiliar dialects or styles…….
They don’t talk the same language‘ has a major metaphorical meaning alongside its literal one. |
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| 19 B | P 2, line 17 | Presumably because the report of the treatment had been published only in journals written in European languages other than English. | |
| 20 C | P 5, line 1 | The criticism and publicity given to this problem since the 1960s seems to have greatly improved the situation, | |
| 21 (Industrial) training (schemes)
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P 5, line 1 | The criticism and publicity given to this problem since the 1960s seems to have greatly improved the situation, industrial training schemes have promoted an increase in linguistic and cultural awareness. | |
| 22 Translation services | P 5, line 5 | Many firms now have their own translation services; to take just one example in Britain, Rowntree Mackintosh now publish their documents in six languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Xhosa). | |
| 23 (part-time) Language courses | P 5, line 11 | Some firms run part-time language courses in the languages of the countries with which they are most involved; | |
| 24 (technical) glossaries | P 5, line 11 | Some firms run part-time language courses in the languages of the countries with which they are most involved; some produce their own technical glossaries, to ensure consistency when material is being translated. | |
| 25 D | P 6, line 1 | The changes in awareness have been most marked in English-speaking countries, where the realisation has gradually dawned that by no means everyone in the world knows English well enough to negotiate in it. | |
| 26 A | P 6, line 18 | In securing understanding, how ‘we’ speak to ‘them’ is just as important, it appears, as how ‘they’ speak to ‘us’. |
IELTS reading answer “The discovery that language can be a barrier to communication”