Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Language

1. The Text and Its Properties
Maximum unit of linguistic communication. It is characterized by its intentionality, reflecting a conscious effort by the issuer, including its text that sends a complete message that will be recognized by the issuer.
Features:
- Adaptation to the specific communicative situation in which to perform communication.
- Consistency in terms of contents, i.e., one-way and complete.
- Cohesion in their way. The issuer shall ensure the proper reception of the message using the necessary language procedures for the text to be correct and orderly.
2. Coherence
Consistency: A property that ensures the unity of the text from a semantic point of view. A text can be synthesized in one main idea that summarizes the overall content.... Continue reading "Understanding the Properties of Text and the Cantar de Mio Cid" »

Education and Describing People

Education Vocabulary

• Behave: Behavior
• Cheat: Copying
• Fail: Suspend
• Learn: Learn
• Leave: Leave
• Pass: Approve
• Review: Review
• Start: Go
• Study: Study
• Take: Take
• Boarding School: Internal
• Graduate: Graduate
• Head Teacher: Head
• Nursery School: Nursery
• Primary School: Primary School
• Private School: Private School
• Pupil: Student
• Professor: Professor
• Religious School: Religious School
• Secondary School: Secondary School
• Student: Student
• Uniform: Uniform

Describing People Vocabulary

• Tall: High
• Slim: Delgado
• Short: Low
• Overweight: Gordo
• Height: Height
• Well Built: Good Body
• Blonde: Blonde
• Pony Tail: Coleta
• Long Wavy Hair: Long Wavy Hair
• Gray Hair: Gray Hair
• Beard: Beard
• Curly: Curly
• Shoulder Length: Shoulder Height
• Bald: Calvo
• Mustache: Bigote
• Straight Dark Hair:

La Galatea

In 1585, Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of La Galatea, a pastoral novel whose central theme is love, presented through various cases. The narrative is set in a confined space and unfolds over a very short period (e.g., Erastro and Elicio's love for Galatea on the banks of the Tagus, over ten days).

Key Elements of La Galatea

• Interpolated Stories

  The work includes cases of love experienced by other shepherds, such as two pastoral, one tragic, and one Byzantine courtly love story.

• Poems

  Although primarily prose, the work incorporates a variety of love poetry, including praises and descriptions characteristic of the author's era.

• Debates

  The novel features philosophical debates about love.

Unfinished Nature

La Galatea is an unfinished... Continue reading "Cervantes' Literary Masterpieces: La Galatea & Exemplary Novels" »

Literary Texts and Description

Description in literature involves detailed portrayal through language. Unlike the dynamic nature of narrative, description is static, slowing or halting the action to focus on the described element. Text can be classified based on various criteria, such as the author's intention (objective description reflecting reality) or the described item.

Descriptive Language

Descriptive language requires precision, attention to detail, and careful selection of linguistic resources. These resources are present at every level of a literary text.

What is a Literary Text?

A literary text uses language in a specific way, employing elements of literary communication. It's a communicative and social phenomenon, a form of delayed... Continue reading "Literary Texts and Descriptive Language" »

Narration and Description: Narration is a text type where a narrator tells a story about characters in a specific place and time. Description details a person, object, place, or process. Basic text forms (narrative, description, and dialogue) can appear individually or combined in a single piece.

Statements: Statements (words, phrases, sentences) are minimal communication units, separated by pauses, conveying a complete message. A simple sentence has one verb; multiple verbs create a complex sentence.

Using the Dictionary: Dictionary entries may include information on etymology, gender, grammatical category, meanings, expressions, usage fields, and more. To find a word, locate the infinitive form; nouns and adjectives are listed in the masculine... Continue reading "Text Types and Literary Forms" »

Analysis of Bécquer's Rima II and Rima VII

Rima II

Theme and Structure

Rima II, a poem about poetry itself, explores the theme of uncertainty about fate, revealed in the final stanza. The poem's structure consists of two distinct parts:

• The first four stanzas present a series of images (bolt, leaf, wave, light) identified with the poet.
• The fifth stanza acts as a synthesis, where the poet's voice emerges.

Poetic Devices

• Metaphor: The entire poem is a metaphor, with the poet identifying with elements of nature (wind, water, plants). The third stanza's "wind ruffles" is a metaphor within a metaphor, comparing wind to breaking waves.
• Hyperbaton: Present in the first line of each stanza (disrupted word order).
• Polysyndeton: Use of repeated "and" in the

Rima XI: The Pursuit of Impossible Love

Poetic Themes and Structure

Rima XI delves into Bécquer's exploration of poetry itself. The central theme revolves around the pursuit of unattainable love, a desire the poet recognizes as impossible. This realization leads to a preference for dreaming and imagining, finding solace in the realm of wishes. The final stanza reveals this sentiment: "I am a dream...".

The poem's structure consists of three distinct parts:

• The dark-haired woman, symbolizing passion.
• The blonde woman, representing tender affection.
• The impossible woman, embodying unattainable love.

Rhetorical Figures

Bécquer employs several rhetorical devices:

• Parallelism: "Do I love you? - Do you love me?"
• Anaphora: "I am..."
• Allegory: The brunette

Grammatical Categories

Definition

Grammatical categories (parts of speech) classify words according to their type. Introduced by Nebrija in Spanish grammar, the term originally encompassed a limited set of word types. Modern linguistics uses "grammatical category" to describe a broader range of linguistic variables influencing a word's morphological form.

Traditional Parts of Speech

Traditional grammar identifies nine parts of speech (eight from Nebrija):

• Determiner
• Noun
• Pronoun
• Verb
• Adjective
• Adverb
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Interjection

Literary Devices

Figures of Repetition

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant sound in two or more closely placed words.

Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis (conduplicatio) repeats a word or phrase at the end... Continue reading "Rhetorical and Grammatical Figures in Language" »

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and his Fortunes and Adversities (better known as Lazarillo de Tormes) is a Spanish novel, written anonymously in first person and epistolary style (as one long letter). The earliest known edition dates from 1554. It is an autobiographical account of the life of a child, Lázaro de Tormes, in the sixteenth century, from his birth and miserable childhood to his marriage in adulthood.

A Picaresque Novel

It is considered the forerunner of the picaresque novel, with elements such as realism, first-person narrative, a structure roaming between multiple masters, and moralizing and pessimistic ideology.

Social Commentary

Lazarillo de Tormes is an outline of the ironic, ruthless society of the time. It shows its vices and... Continue reading "The Life and Adversities of Lazarillo de Tormes" »