Prática de Shadowing: What is History? E.H. Carr - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

What is history?

How should history be written?

E.H.

Carr, the historian, diplomat, journalist, philosopher and author of a 14-volume history on the Soviet Union,

set out to answer this question in 1961.

The book is considered a a classic.

Carr starts by discussing the common sense view of history.

In essence, that history is about facts and simply collecting as many facts as possible.

In this view, facts are like fish on a fishmonger's slab, ready to be chosen and cooked.

There are basic facts, raw materials, but the facts only speak when the historian calls on them.

Carr compares the fact that the Battle of Hastings happened in 1066,

with the fact that in 1850 a gingerbread vendor was killed by an angry mob.

The latter is not well known, it is unimportant.

One is selected over the other because it's considered useful.

We use the fact to understand something larger.

So on the one side we have the historian in the present making a judgement about what facts to select.

On the other side, there are documents, letters, diaries, treaties, etc. These are facts of a certain kind,

but tell us no more than what the author thought and are of course invariably one-sided.

Carr says that the classical liberal view of history, popular across the 19th century, proposes that, like the hidden hand of the market,

Letting historians pick from this fishmonger's slab of facts would result in a universal harmony.

The truth would emerge.

Carr starts to point out a few problems with this view.

First, the facts of the past are only accessible through the present.

He says of the historian, the very words which he uses, words like democracy, empire, war,

have current connotations from which he cannot divorce them.

A historical event looks very different through the eyes of a 17th century Frenchman than it does to a 21st century American.

But does this lead to what Carr calls total skepticism?

If there are different views at different times, how can any of them be the right one?

Is there no objective position from which to view history?

To answer the problem of total scepticism, Carr starts with the common view of historical work.

That is that 1 the facts are collected and 2 they are interpreted and written into a narrative.

For Carr, though, this isn't accurate.

It's much more likely that the process is reciprocal.

Some facts are collected, a tentative interpretation is made, more facts are collected, the interpretation is revised, and so on.

He says the historian is engaged in a continuous process of moulding his facts to his interpretation, and his interpretation to his facts.

It is impossible to assign primacy to one over the other.

This process is a dialogue between facts in the past and the historian contextualised in the present.

He says the past is intelligible to us only in the light of the present, and we can fully understand the present only in the light of the past.

He then goes on to say that the process is not just an individual one.

The men whose actions the historians studies were not isolated individuals acting in a vacuum,

they acted in the context and under the impulse of a past society.

He argues then that this means it's obvious we must look at social forces, class vested interests as well as individuals.

So as well as history being a dialogue between the past and the present, it's now a dialogue between the individual and society.

He's painting a picture on multiple axes – past and present, individual and societal.

But how then do we retain any sense of objectivity?

How do we know where to look and which facts to pick up?

To begin to get out of this predicament, Carr moves to compare the process of the historian to the process of the inductive method in science.

He says scientists no longer really spend their time searching for the laws of nature, but instead come up with a hypothesis,

test whether it's a fact, then reassess.

Science is also driven by a back and forth, and by values in the present.

He explores a number of objections to history being a science, problematising them in turn.

For example, it is said that science deals with the general and history with the particular, with unique events.

But he argues that history is also general.

For example, the historian looks for the causes of the phenomenon of war or revolutions.

These are general categories.

Another objection is that history is unable to predict the future.

But he points out that although science predicts, it only predicts probabilities.

Gravity might predict how an apple falls from a tree, but it can't predict things getting in the way or someone catching it before it hits the ground.

He also notes that modern physics after Einstein is also relative, not as universal as was once thought.

Ultimately, he says that the word science already covers so many different branches of knowledge, employing so many different methods and techniques,

that the onus seems to rest on those who seek to exclude history rather than on those who seek to include it.

Carr's view of history as a science is probably the view that would receive the most criticism today.

He moves on to look at causation.

For a long time, historians and philosophers looked for universal laws of history, to try and make it more scientific.

Historians now look for multiple causes.

The Bolshevik revolution, for example, might be said to be caused by the failure of the Tsar, the impoverished proletariat, Lenin's character,

etc. Usually a primary cause is given, then maybe a hierarchy of causes.

Carr draws an analogy.

Driving back from a party, a man who has drank too much,

in a a car with defective brakes kills a man crossing the road to get cigarettes at a blind corner.

What was the cause?

And what is our motivation in finding out what the cause is?

To make roads safer?

To reduce drinking?

Maybe he was killed because he was desperate for cigarettes, but by intuition we distinguish between rational and accidental causes.

Carr's point here and he quotes the German historian Friedrich Meineck,

is that, "...the search for causalities in history is impossible without reference to values.

Behind the search for causalities there always lies,

directly or indirectly, the search for values." We are always trying to learn something from history.

This leads Carr to argue that,

to avoid total scepticism, the facts and interpretations historians choose should be organised around the idea of progress.

Maybe not as an unbroken straight line without reverses and deviations, as he says, but progress all the same.

Ultimately he says that a belief in progress means belief not in any automatic

or inevitable process but in the progressive development of human potentialities.

Being objective, choosing the facts and the hierarchy of causes, means considering the future.

He says when we call a historian objective we mean I think two things.

First of all we mean

that he has the capacity to rise above the limited version of his own situation in society and in history.

Secondly, he means

that he has the capacity to project his vision into the

future in such a way as to give him a more profound

and more lasting insight into the past than can be attained

by those historians whose outlook is entirely bounded by their own immediate situation.

In other words, historians should work to transform society as much as other disciplines do.

Carr has been criticised for having a relativistic view of history.

That the facts and questions are determined by the present, so that no objective reading of the past is possible.

But through an optimism about the future, Carr also tries to draw a route back to objectivity,

picking facts through the value of progress.

It's a unique argument and many have claimed it doesn't hold today, but the text, both short and rich,

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is still held as a classic introduction to the question, what is history?

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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição

Este vídeo tem 106 frases e 1442 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 9:47. O falante mantém um ritmo estável de cerca de 147 palavras por minuto, confortável para o shadowing. 82% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês; vale a pena estudar o restante antes de começar.

Vocabulário principal deste vídeo

15 palavras menos comuns do vídeo, com pronúncia e significado:

historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ (substantivo) — historiador, historiógrafo. A writer of history.
interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/ (substantivo) — interpretação. An act of interpreting or explaining something unclear; a translation; a version.
predict /pɹɪˈdɪkt/ (verbo) — prever. To make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of…
collect /ˈkɑlɪkt/ (verbo) — juntar, reunir. To gather together; amass.
objective /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/ (substantivo) — objetivo. A material object that physically exists.
universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ (adjetivo) — universal. Of or pertaining to the universe.
argue /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ (verbo) — discutir, argumentar. To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
dialogue /ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/ (substantivo) — diálogo, conversa. A conversation or other form of discourse between two or more individuals.
belief /bɪˈliːf/ (substantivo) — crença. Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
compare /kəmˈpɛɚ/ (verbo) — comparar. To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it…
select /sɪˈlɛkt/ (verbo) — escolher, selecionar. To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
cigarette /ˈsɪɡəɹɛt/ (substantivo) — cigarro. A small cigar consisting of tobacco or another substance, wrapped up in a thin roll with paper, intended for smoking.
hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/ (substantivo) — hierarquia. A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ (substantivo) — objeção. The act of objecting.
philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/ (substantivo) — filósofo, filósofa. A lover of wisdom.

Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir

look for (verbo) — procurar, buscar. To seek.
look at (verbo) — observar, ver. To observe or watch.
point out (verbo) — apontar. To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body.
come up with (verbo) — pensar (em), alcançar. To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
deal with (verbo) — lidar. To handle verbally or in some form of artistic expression; to address or discuss as a subject.
find out (verbo) — descobrir. To discover, as by asking or investigating.
pick up (verbo) — pegar. To lift; to grasp and raise.

Pronúncia para ficar de olho

O falante usa 4 contrações e formas reduzidas, como can't, doesn't, isn't. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.

Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/

Como praticar com este vídeo

Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
Faça shadowing frase por frase na velocidade normal, repetindo cada uma até o seu ritmo ficar igual ao do falante.
Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como historian, interpretation, predict.

Gramática neste vídeo

As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:

Estrutura	No vídeo
Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz	be written · is considered · be chosen
Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora	has been criticised · have claimed
Orações relativas who / which + oração — informação extra sobre uma pessoa ou coisa	those who seek · man who has

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

Técnica de shadowing: leia o guia completo passo a passo →

Prática de Shadowing: What is History? E.H. Carr - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

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