Luyện nói tiếng Anh bằng Shadowing qua video: What is History? E.H. Carr

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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Từ vựng và ghi chú luyện nói cho bài học này

Video này có 106 câu và 1442 từ để luyện shadowing. Phần lời nói dài 9:47. Người nói giữ tốc độ đều, khoảng 147 từ mỗi phút, vừa sức để nói đuổi theo. 82% số từ nằm trong 3.000 từ tiếng Anh thông dụng nhất; phần còn lại nên xem trước khi luyện.

Từ vựng quan trọng trong video

15 từ ít gặp trong video, kèm phiên âm và nghĩa:

historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ (danh từ) — nhà viết sử, sử gia. A writer of history.
predict /pɹɪˈdɪkt/ (động từ) — dự báo. 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/ (động từ) — thu thập, gom góp. To gather together; amass.
objective /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/ (danh từ) — mục tiêu, mục đích. A material object that physically exists.
argue /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ (động từ) — tranh luận. To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
dialogue /ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/ (danh từ) — (cuộc) đối thoại, sự hội thoại. A conversation or other form of discourse between two or more individuals.
compare /kəmˈpɛɚ/ (động từ) — so sánh, so. 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/ (động từ) — lựa. To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
cigarette /ˈsɪɡəɹɛt/ (danh từ) — điếu thuốc lá, thuốc lá. 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/ (danh từ) — tôn ti, thứ bậc. A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/ (danh từ) — nhà triết học, triết gia. A lover of wisdom.
relative /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ (danh từ) — họ hàng, người thân. Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family.
technique /tɛkˈniːk/ (danh từ) — kỹ thuật, kĩ thuật. The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements.
narrative /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/ (danh từ) — kể chuyện, tường thuật. The systematic recitation of an event or series of events.
physics /ˈfɪz.ɪks/ (danh từ) — vật lý học. The branch of science concerned with the study of the properties and interactions of space, time, matter and energy.

Cụm động từ bạn sẽ nghe

look for (động từ) — tìm, tìm kiếm. To seek.
get in (động từ) — lên, xuống. To get into or inside something, literally or figuratively.
pick up (động từ) — nhặt, lượm. To lift; to grasp and raise.

Phát âm cần chú ý

Người nói dùng 4 dạng rút gọn, ví dụ can't, doesn't, isn't. Hãy nói theo dạng ngắn đúng như bạn nghe.

Âm “sh” và “zh”: interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
Từ dài — đặt trọng âm cho đúng: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/

Cách luyện với video này

Nghe hết video một lần, chưa cần nói, và ghi lại những từ bạn chưa biết.
Nói đuổi từng câu ở tốc độ bình thường, lặp lại mỗi câu đến khi nhịp của bạn khớp với người nói.
Ghi âm giọng mình rồi so với bản gốc, chú ý các từ như historian, predict, collect.

Ngữ pháp trong video

Những cấu trúc người nói dùng nhiều nhất, kèm đúng cụm từ trong video:

Cấu trúc	Trong video
Câu bị động be + quá khứ phân từ — nhấn vào việc xảy ra, không phải người làm	be written · is considered · be chosen
Thì hiện tại hoàn thành have/has + quá khứ phân từ — việc đã xảy ra nhưng còn liên quan đến hiện tại	has been criticised · have claimed
Mệnh đề quan hệ who / which + mệnh đề — thêm thông tin về người hoặc vật	those who seek · man who has

Phương Pháp Shadowing Là Gì?

Shadowing là kỹ thuật học ngôn ngữ có cơ sở khoa học, ban đầu được phát triển cho chương trình đào tạo phiên dịch viên chuyên nghiệp và được phổ biến rộng rãi bởi nhà đa ngôn ngữ học Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Nguyên lý cốt lõi đơn giản nhưng cực kỳ hiệu quả: bạn nghe tiếng Anh của người bản xứ và lặp lại to ngay lập tức — như một "cái bóng" (shadow) đuổi theo người nói với độ trễ chỉ 1–2 giây. Khác với luyện ngữ pháp hay học từ vựng bị động, Shadowing buộc não bộ và cơ miệng phải đồng thời xử lý và tái tạo ngôn ngữ thực tế. Các nghiên cứu khoa học xác nhận phương pháp này cải thiện đáng kể phát âm, ngữ điệu, nhịp điệu, nối âm, kỹ năng nghe và độ lưu loát khi nói — đặc biệt hiệu quả cho người luyện IELTS Speaking và muốn giao tiếp tiếng Anh tự nhiên như người bản ngữ.

Phương pháp shadowing: đọc hướng dẫn từng bước đầy đủ →

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