Contents of the Video Interviews

All the interviewees of these five units were visitors at the University of Pennsylvania at different times and were scholars in their respective fields. The five interviews in this program contain discussion on five different topics – the city of Banares, music, journalism, holy men of India and India's traditional educational system. All the speech presented in these interviews is in formal style and ranges between Advanced level to Superior level of the ACTFL proficiency scale. As in the case of diglossia, many words used here in formal contexts are not likely be appropriate in informal colloquial situations. In these video interviews, learners can expect to listen to descriptions, narrations, propositions and opinions and detect attitudes at various places. The language contains a wide spread of vocabulary with metaphors, allusions, idioms and ironies.