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

This is an argumentative-expository text where the author presents a claim and argues their opinion.

Regarding adequacy, the author aims to inform readers of their findings on (...), specifically on (...); thus, the informative function is predominant. However, as common in such texts, the argument serves a secondary purpose: guiding the reader's opinion, adding a persuasive function.

The intended audience is clearly journalistic, as the text is for publication (... in a newspaper, in this case, the newspaper "..."). It's a (...) (article/editorial/letter to the editor = opinion; news/feature/interview = news genre; chronicle/critical = hybrid genre), typical of argumentative expository journalistic texts that address current issues. This was... Continue reading "Analysis of an Argumentative-Expository Text" »

Characteristics of the Realist Novel

European realist novels showcase a great variety, yet share common features reflecting new literary principles.

• Bourgeois Movement: Realism is a bourgeois literary movement, rooted in practicality and progress. Unlike romantic authors, realist novelists are ordinary citizens committed to reflecting their society's everyday problems and conflicts.
• Focus on Contemporary Reality: The story centers on contemporary life, aiming to provide a comprehensive picture of social life, customs, and ideas. Realistic novels depict scenes from streets, markets, factories, gatherings, cafes, and casinos. Protagonists are ordinary people, not heroes.
• Striving for Objectivity: Writers aim to be reporters, photographers, and faithful

ICT's Impact on Business Innovation

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have driven significant advances that reshape how businesses operate and innovate. Key developments include:

• Computers: A Business Revolution

  The rapid advancement of computer technology has revolutionized daily life and fundamentally changed business operations. Today, it is almost unthinkable for any company, regardless of size, not to utilize computers. This adoption leads to significant savings in both money and time, and the use of advanced software serves as a powerful competitive weapon for many organizations.

• The Internet: Information and Opportunity

  The internet revolution provides an impressive amount of information. The challenge for businesses lies in

Additional and Safety Power Supplies

A normal supply is provided by a primary supplier. An additional supply is provided by the same company, where independent energy distribution facilities are available. Additional supplies are classified as follows:

• Relief Supply: Limited to receiving 15% of the total power contracted for the normal supply.
• Backup Supply: Limited to receiving at least 25% of the power contracted for the normal supply.
• Duplicate Supply: Capable of maintaining service at more than 50% of the total power contracted for the normal supply.

Emergency Lighting Systems

The purpose of emergency lighting is to ensure illumination during a failure of the normal lighting system. It illuminates premises and access to exits for a potential... Continue reading "Electrical Safety in Potentially Explosive Atmospheres" »

Francisco de Quevedo: Beyond Satire and Mockery

Francisco de Quevedo is best known for his satirical and mocking poetry, his love poetry being little known. Yet, according to critics, this body of work reaches the highest levels of the Spanish lyric. This is certainly the case with “Amor constante más allá de la muerte” (Constant love beyond death), considered one of the most beautiful love sonnets ever written in Spanish.

Mythology and the Law of Forgetting

In just fourteen lines, Quevedo condenses part of Greek mythology concerning the afterlife. After death (“the final shadow I'll take the white day”), the soul separates from the body and must cross the sinister River Styx, led aboard the boat of Charon. The law of the underworld... Continue reading "Francisco de Quevedo: The Immortal Flame of Spanish Love Poetry" »

means of "you" or a number of nicknames: "hilarious ladies, dear ladies, young ladies, young valuable..."

The Youth:

• Their meeting
• Their decisions
• Their adventures

It is a well-defined framework, characters, scenario, historical time.

Narrative Planes:

• The 'own stories, each with its own characteristics. The first two planes are related by the main narrator, but from different functions.
• In the foreground, the first-person narrator fully identifies with the author and has no narrative function, but expository or argumentative: Boccaccio not "tells", but reflects and expresses his ideology, world view, and value of literature itself.
• In the second, an omniscient third-person voice acts as narrator. This map is dotted with the first interference, as comments

Item 8: Language and Art

1. The Sign and its Components

A sign is anything that represents and communicates something. This includes all signs that humans use, such as language, art, and mathematics. Linguistic signs can be differentiated into:

• A signifier: the "perceptible" part of the sign, whether sounds (phonemes) or graphics (letters).
• A meaning: what the sign represents. This meaning can be an object (referent) or a "mental concept."

2. Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics: Parts of Language

• Syntax examines combinations of signifiers.
• Semantics focuses on the study of the meaning of linguistic signs.
• Pragmatics is concerned with the use of language in terms of the relationship established between utterance, context, and actors. It analyzes how speakers

Distinctive Features of Goods and Services

Intangibility: The Non-Physical Nature of Services

Intangibility is the distinctive feature of services that prevents us from touching or feeling them, unlike material goods.

Challenges Posed by Intangibility

• Unable to store services (e.g., Cleaning service).
• Lack of patent protection (e.g., Catering/restaurants).
• Difficult to display or communicate the service offering (e.g., Life insurance).
• Difficult to price accurately (e.g., Music concert).

Solutions for Managing Intangibility

• Use of tangible clues (the material elements of the service environment): office decor, furniture, employee clothing, personnel demeanor, etc.
• Using personal sources of information, such as word-of-mouth referrals about the service.

The narrative is a type of text that includes real or fictional events that happen to characters in a certain space and time.

The narrator is the person who has the facts.

Types of Narrators

• External Omniscient Narrator: An outside observer.
• Internal Narrator Protagonist: A character within the story.
• Internal Narrator Minor Character: A secondary character's perspective.

Narrative Dialogue

The narrative dialogue is when the author presents directly the words of the characters in the story.

• Direct Style: Plays the exact words characters say.
• Speech: The narrator tells us what was said by the characters.
• Free Indirect Style: A mix between the two.
• Monologue: A character talks to themselves or directs someone without expecting an answer.

Description in Narrative

The... Continue reading "Understanding Narrative Texts: Types and Functions Explained" »

Communication is a process whereby the issuer prepares and transmits a message, which is then received and decoded by a receiver.

Elements of communication: the code, the channel, the transmitter, and the receiver context.

Feedback: Feedback is the response or reaction of the receiver to the message sent by the transmitter.

Interaction: Reciprocal activity between two or more people.

Group Discussion Techniques

Phillips 66 is a technique where six people discuss a particular issue, exchanging views on a subject for a maximum of six minutes.

Features:

• 1. Presence of a moderator, who leads and guides the discussion, ensuring that ideas relate to the topic.
• 2. A topic is chosen on which participants agree, and this is presented by the moderator.
• 3. Each