МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБЩЕГО И ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
СВЕРДЛОВСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ
ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ
СРЕДНЕГО ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ СВЕРДЛОВСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ
«Уральский государственный колледж имени И.И. Ползунова»
ПРАКТИЧЕСКОЕ ПОСОБИЕ
ПО АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ
(профессионально направленный модуль)
для студентов укрупненной группы специальностей
«Экономика и управление» (базовая подготовка)
Разработала: Лизунова Н.С.
Кировград, 2014
Аннотация.
Данное пособие предназначено для студентов экономических специальностей, обучающихся на III курсе очной формы обучения.
Пособие содержит учебный материал по профессионально направленному модулю в соответствии с программой учебной дисциплины ОГСЭ.03 Английский язык и способствует развитию профессиональных компетенций студентов.
Пособие разделено на 5 разделов по темам: экономика как наука, уровни экономики, основные законы экономики, типы экономических систем, менеджмент, маркетинг, деловая переписка. В каждой теме содержатся тексты, диалоги и упражнения экономической направленности с целью развития навыков чтения, извлечения и обработки информации по специальности. Пособие завершают тексты для дополнительного чтения.
Данное пособие может быть использовано для аудиторной и самостоятельной работы студентов.
СОДЕРЖАНИЕ.
Unit 1. I. Economics as a science ………………………………….. 4
II. Levels of economics …………………………………….. 9
Unit 2. The laws of economics ……………………………………... 16
Unit 3. Economic systems ………………………………………..... 24
Unit 4. I. Marketing ………………………………………………... 33
II. Management ……………………………………………... 48
Unit 5. Business Correspondence …………………………………... 52
Text bank ……………………………………………………………61
Литература ………………………………………………………... 70
UNIT I.
I. ECONOMICS AS A SCIENCE
Text 1.
Although the content and character of economics cannot be described briefly, numerous writers have attempted that. An especially useless, though once popular, example is: «Economics is what economists do.»
Similarly, a notable economist of the last century Alfred Marshall called economics «a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.» Lionel Robbins in the 1930s described economics as «the science of choice among scarce means to accomplish unlimited ends.»
During much of modern history, especially in the nineteenth century, economics was called simply «the science of wealth.» Less seriously, George Bernard Shaw was credited in the early 1900s with the witticism that «economics is the science whose practitioners, even if all were laid end to end, would not reach agreement.»
We may make better progress by comparing economics with other subjects. Like every other discipline that attempts to explain observed facts (e.g., physics, astronomy, meteorology), economics comprises a vast collection of descriptive material organized around a central core of theoretical principles. The manner in which theoretical principles are formulated and used in applications varies greatly from one science to another. Like psychology, economics draws much of its theoretical core from intuition, casual observation, and «common knowledge about human nature.» Like astronomy, economics is largely nonexperimental. Like meteorology, economics is relatively inexact, as is weather forecasting. Like particle physics and molecular biology, economics deals with an array of closely interrelated phenomena (as do sociology and social psychology). Like such disciplines as art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, and the like, economics attracts different people for different reasons: «One person's meat is another person's poison.» Though all disciplines differ, all are remarkably similar in one respect: all are meant to convey an interesting, persuasive, and intellectually satisfying story about selected aspects of experience. As Einstein once put it: «Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.»
Economics deals with data on income, employment, expenditure, interest rates, prices and individual activities of production, consumption, transportation, and trade. Economics deals directly with only a tiny fraction of the whole spectrum of human behavior, and so the range of problems considered by economists is relatively narrow. Contrary to popular opinion, economics does not normally include such things as personal finance, ways to start a small business, etc.; in relation to everyday life, the economist is more like an astronomer than a weatherforecaster, more like a physical chemist than a pharmacist, more like a professor of hydrodynamics than a plumber.
In principle almost any conceivable problem, from marriage, suicide, capital punishment, and religious observance to tooth brushing, drug abuse, extramarital affairs, and mall shopping, might serve (and, in the case of each of these examples has served) as an object for some economist's attention. There is, after all, no clear division between «economic» and «noneconomic» phenomena. In practice, however, economists have generally found it expedient to leave the physical and life sciences to those groups that first claimed them, though not always. In recent years economists have invaded territory once claimed exclusively by political scientists and sociologists, not to mention territories claimed by physical anthropologists, experimental psychologists, and paleontologists.
Vocabulary
numerous многочисленный
to attempt попытаться
notable примечательный
scarce скудный, ограничен ный
witticism ['witisizm] острота, шутка
practitioner те рапевт
to comprise включать в себя
vast обширный, громадный
core ядро
casual observations зд. по вседневные наблюдения
weather forecasting прогноз погоды
array массив, масса, множе ство
closely interrelated тесно взаимосвязанные
phenomena явления
to convey передавать
income доход
employment занятость
expenditure затраты, из держки, расход(ы)
interest rate процентная ставка
range ряд
pharmacist фармацевт
plumber водопроводчик
conceivable мыслимый, ве роятный, возможный
expedient целесообразный (-о), соответствующий, подходящий, надлежа щий
to claim приписывать себе, претендовать
to invade вторгаться
General understanding.
1. Is there a common opinion on the content and character of economics?
2. What definition of economics is referred to as «especially useless»?
3. With what sciences does the author compare economics? Why?
4. What similarities with economics have the following sciences: a) psychology b) astronomy c) meteorology 4) particle physics and molecular biology 5) art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, and the like.
5. What is the scope of economics? What does economics deal with?
6. What does the author refer to as «popular opinion»?
7. According to the text, can such problems as marriage and extramarital affairs be the subject of economists' attention? Is there a division between «economic» and «noneconomic» problems?
8. What fields have economists «invaded» in recent years?
1. Defining economics.
A. Use the text to fill in the spaces:
PERIOD OF TIME
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PERSON
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DEFINITION
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19th century
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«a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.»
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George Bernard Shaw
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1930s
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«the science of choice among scarce means to accomplish unlimited ends.»
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B. What other two definitions could be found in the text? How does the author refer to each of them?
2. Similarities and differences:
SCIENCE(ES)
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SIMILARITY
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DIFFERENCE
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psychology
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astronomy
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meteorology
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particle physics and molecular biology
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art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, «and the like»
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3. Which of the following is not true about economics and economists:
A. There is no brief description of the content and character of economics.
B. Alfred Marshall and Lionel Robbins agreed that: «Economics is what economists do.»
C. In the 19th century economics was called «the science of wealth».
D. Economics is only a theoretical science.
E. Einstein once said, «One person's meat is another person's poison».
F. Economics deals with the problems of income, employment, and interest rates.
G. Economics also deals with weather forecasting, psychology and fantasy writing.
H. In recent years economists switched to the new fields, such as political science and sociology.
4. Say in your own words what each of the following outstanding people thought of economics and econo mists:
a) George Bernard Show
b) Alfred Marshall
c) Lionel Robbins
5. What is the profession of people who work in the field of:
Example: Those working in the field of economics are economists.
a) physics
b) astronomy
c) meteorology
d) psychology
e) astronomy
f) meteorology
g) sociology
h) mathematics
Text 2.
What is economics?
One of the things that people discover every day is that you can't have everything. You are reminded of it every time you shop. Although you may see twenty or thirty items that you would really like to buy, you know that you will have to limit your selection to one or two. Everyone goes through life having to make choices.
Every business, even sports teams, must pick and choose from among the things they would like to have because they cannot have everything. Governments, too, cannot have everything. Every year the most important political debates concern questions about spending taxpayers' money.
Neither individuals nor societies can have all the things they would like to have. There simply is not enough of everything. Economists note that there is no limit to the amount or kinds of things that people want. There is, however, a limit to the resources, things used to produce goods and services, available to satisfy those wants. Once that limit is reached, nothing else can be produced. In other words, when nation's resources (all its workers, factories, farms, etc.) are fully employed, the only way it will be able to increase the production of one thing will be by reducing the production of something else.
To summarize: human wants are unlimited, but the resources necessary to satisfy those wants are limited. Thus, every society is faced with the identical problem, the problem of scarcity.
Text 3.
What do economists do?
Economics deals with the problems of scarcity and choice that have faced societies and nations throughout history, but the development of modern economics began in the 17th century. Since that time economists have developed methods for studying and explaining how individuals, businesses and nations use their available economic resources. Large corporations use economists to study the ways they do business and to suggest methods for making more efficient use of their employees, equipment, factories, and other resources.
Vocabulary
to impose — наложить, накладывать
trade-off — зд. замена
opportunity costs — цена альтернативы, альтернативные издержки
to give up — отказываться
II. LEVELS OF ECONOMICS.
Text 1.
Macroeconomics.
The word macroeconomics means economics in the large. The macroeconomist's concerns are with such global questions as total production, total employment, the rate of change of overall prices, the rate of economic growth, and so on. The questions asked by the macroeconomist are in terms of broad aggregates — what determines the spending of all consumers as opposed to the microeconomic question of how the spending decisions of individual households are made; what determines the capital spending of all firms combined as opposed to the decision to build a new factory by a single firm; what determines total unemployment in the economy as opposed to why there have been layoffs in a specific industry.
Macroeconomists measure overall economic activity; analyze the determinants of such activity by the use of macroeconomic theory: forecast future economic activity; and attempt to formulate policy responses designed to reconcile forecasts with target values of production, employment, and prices.
An important task of macroeconomics is to develop ways of aggregating the values of the economic activities of individuals and firms into meaningful totals. To this end such concepts as gross domestic product (GDP), national income, personal income, and personal disposable income have been developed.
Macroeconomic analysis attempts to explain how the magnitudes of the principal macroeconomic variables are determined and how they interact. And through the development of theories of the business cycle and economic growth, macroeconomics helps to explain the dynamics of how these aggregates move over time.
Macroeconomics is concerned with such major policy issues as the attainment and maintenance of full employment and price stability. Considerable effort must first be expended to determine what goals could be achieved. Experience teaches that it would not be possible to eliminate inflation entirely without inducing a major recession combined with high unemployment. Similarly, an overambitious employment target would produce labor shortages and wage inflation.
During the 1960s it was believed that unemployment could be reduced to 4 percent of the labor force without causing inflation. More recent experience suggests that reduction of unemployment to 5.5 percent of the labour force is about as well as we can do.
Vocabulary
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