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

Defining the Working Day and Time Limits

Working Time is the duration, measured daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, that a worker dedicates to the execution of their duties.

• Maximum length: 40 hours per week.
• Number of ordinary hours shall not exceed 9 hours a day.
• Minimum rest between shifts: 12 hours.
• Workers under 18 years old cannot work more than 8 hours a day.

Exceptions and Constraints on Working Hours

Certain sectors have specific regulations regarding the extension or constraint of the working day:

• Extensions: Trade, catering, and the watchful guard of mariners in these three sectors can extend the working day.
• Constraints: Work in cold stores, construction works, and works exposed to environmental risks.

Mandatory Rest Periods for Employees

Types

Don Quixote: Cervantes' Masterpiece

Genesis

Don Quixote is Cervantes' masterpiece. It consists of two parts: the first was published in 1605 and the second ten years later, in 1615. The first is more spontaneous; it seems written on the fly. The second is much more thought out and responds to a well-laid plan. Both show some structural parallelism. The apocryphal Quixote is very interesting because it reveals the outrage that the publication of the first part of Cervantes would have caused in the circle of Lope de Vega. El Quixote de Avellaneda becomes a spokesman for a noble reaction to the intrusion that the nobility led to the claim of a mere gentleman, like Alonso Quijano, passing as a gentleman.

Characters

There are two central characters... Continue reading "Don Quixote: Cervantes' Masterpiece Unveiled" »

Text Classification and Types

Understanding how texts are categorized helps in analyzing their purpose and structure.

Entertainment Texts

These texts are primarily designed for enjoyment and leisure, focusing on engaging the reader rather than conveying critical information.

Informational Texts

An informational text is a type of communication through which the issuer provides the receiver with facts, situations, or circumstances.

Historical Texts

Historical texts recount facts, actions, characters, and past events, generally focusing on those most prominent in their respective time periods.

Persuasive Texts (Advertising)

Advertising involves the dissemination of texts and images that invite the audience to acquire certain commercial products or perform... Continue reading "Fundamental Concepts of Text Classification and English Grammar" »

Definition of Services

Services are acts, actions, or performances that are essentially intangible. They may or may not be connected to a physical product, but the end result is always a feeling or experience.

Key Characteristics of Services

Services possess four core features that distinguish them from physical products:

• Intangibility: Services are abstract (i.e., they have no weight, color, or shape), which makes quality assessment more difficult for the customer.
• Inseparability (Perishability): Services cannot be stored like products. Their production and consumption are linked and often occur simultaneously.
• Heterogeneity (Variability): Services are variable because they are produced by people who are inherently unstable by nature, leading to

Consistency in Text

Consistency is an inherent property of all text, which is the ability to form a unified whole in which the parts remain locked to each other in content. In other words, a text is coherent:

1. When presented with a meaningful unity or sense, be seen from the existence of a clear and specific topic (global or thematic coherence).
2. When the component parts are not isolated but are connected to each other, forming a structure (linear or structural coherence).
3. When the successive statements convey ideas or judgments that do not violate the basic principles of logic, common sense, or universal standards of human development (local coherence).

Global Consistency

All information contained in a text is built around a core sheet or issue closely... Continue reading "Understanding Text Consistency: Global, Linear, and Local" »

Word Formation: Morphology

Morphology is the science that studies the form of words. It defines and describes their units, which are the word, the root, the base, and the morpheme. The morpheme is the least significant morphological constituent of a word. Grammatical affixes are bound morphemes attached to a lexical base. Inflectional morphology deals with the grammatical accidents of variable words, manifested through inflections.

Normal flexion includes changes of nouns and adjectives to express gender and number. Verbs can be regular or irregular; the former have an unchanged base and the latter have variations in the root or allomorphy. The vocalic theme, along with the lexical base, is the verb stem. The characteristic aspect expresses the... Continue reading "Word Formation and Sentence Structure in Linguistics" »

Metaphor

A metaphor establishes a similarity between two terms based on a shared characteristic or quality. It's a way of talking about something in two ways. In poetic metaphors, this characteristic is emphasized to say the same thing but more beautifully.

Examples of Metaphors:

• Your eyes are two stars (meaning your eyes are bright or illuminated).
• Your hair is golden (blonde hair).

Example of a Text Full of Metaphors:

His eyes, like rivers after the rain, expressed not only sadness, but vengeance also, like lava poured from the tip of an erupting volcano. Those tears, breaking like glass as they touched the ground, were not worth it. It was from anger and the rage of impotence, the same powerlessness a child feels when an adult steals their candy,... Continue reading "Literary Devices and Figures of Speech" »

Characteristics of Spanish Baroque Theater

• Combines tragic and comic elements.
• Shows little respect for the rule of three unities (action, time, space).
• Characters are often simple archetypes: protagonist, antagonist, lover, servant, comic relief, etc.
• The main plot is driven by love and honor, closely linked. In Baroque theater, characters may kill to defend their honor, considered a person's greatest asset—individually, within the family, and in society.
• Follows a simple three-act structure (beginning, middle, and end).
• Employs stanzas of verse.
• Performances were accompanied by music and dance.
• Features a wide variety of themes: love, religion, history, legends, etc.

Capitalization Rules

• Names, surnames, nicknames, and aliases are capitalized.
• Names

The Novel of the 1950s

Social and aesthetic intentions are the two pillars on which the works of social realism are based. Within the social novel, two currents are generally distinguished:

Objectivism in Social Realism

Key Features:

• Invisible Narrator: The narrator's presence is minimized, aiming to be almost invisible. They avoid making any judgments or comments, requiring the reader to derive their own conclusions from the text.
• Prevalence of Dialogue: Dialogue is prominent, with a significant linguistic effort made to capture the distinct features of various social groups and individuals.
• Representative Characters: Individual characters often represent a social class. They are characterized by their actions, words, and external attitudes, without

Sociolect Concept

Sociolect Concept: Linguistic diversity may arise from the distribution of speakers as a function of belonging to certain groups or social strata. In other words, it is the way a language is used within a particular social stratum of the linguistic community.

Factors Influencing Sociolects

• Sex: Differences in education, employment, or social norms can lead to variations in the speech of men and women.
• Age: Younger people are often more innovative and less systematic in their language use, while more mature individuals tend to adhere to established norms. Older individuals may use archaic language.
• Environment: The rural environment can influence language use, to the point where city slang may emerge as a way for speakers in large