A、There are four levels of class. B、It is an invention of modern society. C、It is influenced by the family one belongs. D、There

W: Bill, do you know Stephen Fry?
M: Not personally, but I know of him. Stephen Fry is an English writer and comedian and is well known for being extremely intelligent and very knowledgeable about many things cultural, historical and linguistic.
W: Yes. He knows a lot about something. I wish I were half as knowledgeable as he is!
M: I wish I were a quarter as knowledgeable!
W: Stephen Fry is also known as a technophile.
M: I know that. He loves technology, but it seems he’s not a fan of the telephone. He said the telephone was an old technology and a really annoying blip in our communications.
W: Really? Telephone has made a great contribution to human society.
M: Yeah, we are all beneficiary of telephone.
W: But why does he dislike telephone?
M: Well, as soon as an English person speaks, another English person despises them.
W: So, what is it about the English person’s voice that leads others to despise them?
M: Yes. You know, there is a lot of information about people that you get from their voice. From the way that they speak and the vocabulary they use, you can make a judgment about their age, level of education and class.
W: Class? Well, class used to be a lot more important in British society but there are still different prejudices and negative feelings related to the relationship between the classes.
M: Exactly. In Britain, we talk about three classes: upper class, middle class and working class. The family into which you are born dictates your class. So hearing someone’s voice on the telephone might make you think something negative about someone based on very old-fashioned ideas of class. For Stephen Fry, it is embarrassing and awkward to learn personal information from phone voice.
W: So Stephen Fry may be a technophile, but he’s not a fan of the phone!
M: Right. He hates being on the telephone to people, especially strangers in shops and things like that. What makes it worse is that telephone conversations happen in real time. So you have no time to really think about it.
W: Agree.
M: But do you think he’s right?
W: Well, actually, I don’t like to talk to strangers on the phone very much myself, but that’s just me. But I do think that although the class divisions in British society are much less obvious and much less important than in the past, we still do make judgements about people based on how they speak. And I afraid those judgements can often be completely false.
6. What is the feature of a technophile?
7. What are the speakers’ attitudes towards telephone?
8. What forms the judgement about people on phone calls?
9. What can we learn about class in Britain society?
10. Why does Stephan Fry hate telephone talk?