ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY –

Retrieval of terms from corpora

1. Translate the following text into Romanian, paying attention to the terms
employed:
Pollution is a major environmental issue in Eastern Europe, the result of
unrestrained industrialization and the uncontrolled exploitation of water, minerals,
soil, fossil fuels and timber. The scale of the disaster is enormous: life expectancy is
becoming shorter, children's diseases and urban illnesses are increasing, industry is
unable to function and nature is gradually dying.
Czechoslovakia is one of the world's greatest per capita producers of sulphur
dioxide, one of the prime contributors to acid rain, which can cause the death of trees.
In 1983, it was estimated that two thirds of Poland's forests had been seriously
damaged. Added to this, over 1 million ha (2.5 million acres), one-third of
Czechoslovakia's forests, have been seriously damaged; 75 percent of trees in the
country's four national parks are dying; a quarter are already dead.
The threat to rivers
Water pollution has turned the Vistula, Poland's largest river, into an open
sewer; and the Oder, Elbe and Danube are not much better. Heavy metal pollution of
rivers is a threat to human health, and also poisons aquatic and riverside life.
The fate of the Gabcikovo / Nagymaros stretch of the Danube near the Czech-
Hungarian border is typical of what is happening to most of Eastern Europe's large
rivers. Termed "Europe's Amazon", it was once a lush forest area of low-lying dense
willow and poplar woods criss-crossed with small channels and ditches, islands and
backwaters, giving way to marshes meadows downriver. Now it is flushed not by the
river's waters, but by waste of every type imaginable. Over 50 percent of the
industrial and domestic waste from the nearby city of Bratislava is dumped untreated
into the Danube. Pollutants include sulphuric acid and oil, which forms a sediment on
the river bed, stifling life. As a result of irrigation schemes the water table has
dropped by as much as 10m (30ft), resulting in the drying out of rare riverside forests;
as much as 700ha (1,750 acres) of forests have already disappeared.
Plans are already in progress to construct a hydroelectric station here, together
with a 20-km (12-mi) long lake, two dams, and a canal to re-route the Danube. The
wildest part of the Danube will dry up, while the reduced river flow will prevent
pollutants from being flushed away. The project will destroy habitats along more than
200km (124mi) of the Danube. Similar schemes on the Tisza in Hungary and the Iron
Gates Gorge on the Serbian/Romanian border have caused huge problems.

2. Match the following words from the text to their definitions on the right
and fill in the grid at the end of the exercise:

1. soil a. a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or

other hostile action on someone in retribution for something
done or not done ;
2. timber b. a continuous area or expanse of land or water;
3. per capita c. the upper layer of earth in which plants grow; a black or dark
brown material typically consisting of a mixture of organic
remains, clay and rock particles;
4. threat d. for each person; in relation to people taken individually;
5. sewer e. wood prepared for use in building and carpentry;

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6. stretch f. narrow channel dug in the ground, typically used for drainage
alongside a road or the edge of a field;
7. lush g. causing inability to breathe properly; restraining;
8. ditch h. underground conduit for carrying off drainage water and
waste matter;
9. to flush i. to deposit or dispose of (rubbish, waste or unwanted
material), typically in a careless or hurried way;
10. to dump j. to cleanse (something especially a toilet) by causing large
quantities of water to pass through it;
11. stifling k. growing luxuriantly;
12. habitat l. narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with
steep rocky walls and a stream running through it;
13. gorge m. the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or
other organism.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

3. Collocations. Match the words in the first list to those in the second so as
to make up the right collocation; then use them in sentences of your own.

1) fossil, life, urban, acid, heavy metal, hydroelectric, domestic, irrigation, river,
aquatic and riverside;
2) life, pollution, waste, fuels, illnesses, schemes, flow, station, expectancy, rain.

4. Fill in the gaps with a suitable word from the list below:

Rain is naturally weakly (1) … . Carbon dioxide from the air (2) … in it to
form the weak acid, carbonic acid, H2CO3. Sulphuric acid is a thousand times stronger
than carbonic acid.
What harm does acid rain do? The main damage so far has been to lakes and
fish, to trees and to (3) … materials such as stone, concrete, metal and cement.
Fish cannot survive in acidic lake water. Thousands of lakes in Canada,
Norway and Sweden are now empty of fish. These countries produce very little of the
acid rain and snow that falls on them. The (4) … is carried to Scandinavia by the
prevailing winds from the UK and from Germany, France and other highly
industrialised European countries. Canada receives much of its pollution from the
USA.
Some countries suffer more than others from (5) … by acid rain. If the soil
contains basic (6) …, these will partially neutralise the rain as it trickles through the
soil. Cold countries like Sweden receive acid snow for many months. During the
spring (7) …, a huge volume of acidic water is released into the lakes. The soil has no
chance to (8) … it. The acidic lake water destroys water plants. As a result, light can
(9) … further through the water. Acid lakes look beautifully clear and blue.
(adapted from Chemistry for GCSE – E.N. Ramsden)

neutralise, thaw, penetrate, dissolves, attack, pollution, acidic, substances, building