Questões de Concurso Sobre aspectos linguísticos | linguistic aspects em inglês

Instruction: Answer questions 31 to 35 based on the following text.

German student invents own language

1. Fynn Schlemminger _____ exactly what he wanted to do for his A-levels special project:
2. create a language from scratch. And that’s exactly what he did. The invented language is
3. called Garadálava, and, according to its creator, it is unique. “The premise of creating
4. Garadálava was to make it unlike any spoken language. I came up with a phonology people
5. usually interpret as harsh or pointed, featuring some guttural sounds and a very unmelodious
6. tone,” he explained.
7. All languages are, to a point, constructed because they went through corrections and
8. reforms over time. However, there is one main difference according to a professor of linguistics
9. at Wellesley College. Angela Carpenter, who has been teaching a course on invented languages
10. since 2010, said the main difference is that “an invented language originates in someone's
11. mind and is developed and expanded upon mostly by that person. A natural language ______
12. within a speech community, usually from another language, dialect or creole, over a period of
13. time.”
14. When Schlemminger began working on Garadálava, he started with a sketch, an idea of
15. how the language should sound and feel like.
16. “You begin with the more superficial things, the shape of the language so to speak, some
17. basic words, a sound inventory, sentence order. After that you simply go into more detail and
18. mostly rotate between making up words and grammar rules, until you are done,” he said to
19. Euronews. To him, the experience of creating a language was not unlike making a sculpture,
20. creating a work of art.
21. “Inventing a language is a very creative process that also requires knowledge of linguistic
22. structures to make it a viable language. Having to create your own language really ______
23. you to understand linguistic structure and the complex nature of language communication,”
24. explained Carpenter.

Fonte: adaptado de http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/25/from-klingon-to-dothraki-is-inventing-your-own-language-that-hard-

INSTRUCTIONS – Read the following text carefully and then choose the correct alternatives that answer the questions.

THE SADDEST TWEETERS LIVE IN TEXAS

Melody Kramer for National Geographic - Published May 29, 2013

Researchers analyzed ten million tweets to map happiness in the U.S.

Average word happiness for geotagged tweets in U.S. states collected in 2011. Redder states have higher averages and bluer states have lower averages.

Image courtesy Mitchell et al, PLoS ONE

The town of Beaumont is known as "Texas … with a little something extra." But the industrial town along the Gulf Coast now has a more dubious distinction: It's been named the saddest city in America—at least, if you're measuring sadness on Twitter.

That's according to a group of researchers at the Vermont Complex Systems Center, who analyzed over 80 million words from more than ten million geotagged tweets written throughout 2011. The results of their study, published Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE, showed that the happiest tweeters in the U.S. live in Napa, California, and their sad counterparts live mostly in the Rust Belt and along the Gulf Coast border.

"You can infer a lot of information about an area based on what people are writing on Twitter," says Christopher Danforth, a mathematician and a co-author of the study.

Danforth explains how his team measured the emotional state of a tweet: They created a simple computer algorithm to analyze the words within the tweets themselves. Each word was measured on a happiness scale, which his team had previously created using paid workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. The workers were asked to score more than 10,000 common English words on a happiness scale from 1 to 9. Words like "laughter," "love," "rainbow," and "smile" made the top of the list; at the very bottom—unsurprisingly—were words like "terrorist," "ugly," "cancer," "die," and "fatal."

A GEOGRAPHY OF HAPPINESS

Using that list, researchers then collected tweets from more than 300 separate cities and towns across the United States and created an algorithm to assess how frequently "happy" words occurred vs. how frequently "sad" words occurred in different places. For example, people in Napa were much more likely to tweet the word "hope" than were their counterparts living along the Gulf Coast.

"The differences in the words people used told us a lot about the cities themselves," says Lewis Mitchell, a mathematician and the study's lead author. "Essentially we were able to create a geography of happiness."

Many of the places at the very top of the list— Hawaii, Maine, and Napa—are also top vacation spots. A previous study by the same researchers indicated that people tend to use less-negative words when they're far away from home. But other places near the top of the list—like Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Spokane, Washington—aren't really tourist destinations.

The researchers say they plan to look at tourism's role in a future study. They also plan to analyze tweets in other languages. The current study looks only at tweets written in English, which could skew data in parts of the United States where many people tweet in Spanish.

In addition, the researchers plan to look at profanity more closely. Their current findings suggest that one of the major driving forces in a city's happiness—or lack thereof—is how frequently people use curse words in their tweets.

"People curse more and more as the day goes on," says Danforth, "but there are definitely places where profanity is more common. In the South, more people are cursing on Twitter. It's a tapestry of negative words."

TRENDING SADDER

He notes that many of the cities close to the bottom of their happiness list also rank low on other lists that measure factors like health outcomes and quality of life.

"The people at the bottom of our list live in states that are more socioeconomically depressed and where more natural disasters occur," he says."There are higher rates of poverty, and the median incomes are lower."

This might explain why places like Beaumont and Shreveport, Louisiana, have sadder tweets. But it doesn't explain one surprising finding: Tweets across the country are getting sadder, in general.

"If you go through all of the demographics since 2008, it's getting sadder everywhere," says Mitchell. "There's a strong downward trend. We don't know why this is."

He recently made a Twitter account— @geographyofhapp—that tracks the happiest and saddest cities on Twitter on a daily basis. But his own personal Twitter account—@dr_pyser— remains cheerfully optimistic.

"I try to be more conscious of what I'm talking about online and the way I talk about it," says Mitchell. "I try to put my best self out there."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130529-saddest-happieststates-twitter-texas-maine-hawaii-california/y

When I bought a motorcycle from you a few weeks ago, you said that your shop could replace

anything broken.

-Oh, yes! May I help you?

- Yes, please. I want a leg, a arm, new eyes and a tooth.

Leia o texto abaixo e responda as questões de 21 a 24.

Mary is a nice woman. She is a nurse and works in a big hospital. She works at night on weekends. Mary has two young children and they are very intelligent. Their names are "Jack" and "Julie". Jack is nine years old and Julie is eleven years old. Jack likes soccer and Julie loves movies. Jack wants to be a soccer player and Julie wants to be a movie star.

Mary likes to be with her children when she isn't working - they play board games together. Mary's family is very happy, especially when Jake, Mary's husband, is at home with them. Jake usually travels a lot and visits different places - he is a truck driver.

Read the text to answer 37, 38, 39 and 40.

Identity and globalization

Krasimira Mineva -Burgas Free University.

During the recent decades, intensity of relations between different cultures and different regions of the world has been increasing, due to the rapid development of telecommunications. The increasing economic and financial independence has its impact on the new opportunities for mobility and communications amongst different cultures. The development of the global market, the large volumes of production and exports enable the consumption of new, unfamiliar products. The economic aspects of the processes developing on a global scale are characterized by free movement of capital, search for new markets for goods and services, exported manufacturing facilities seeking cheaper labor markets, collision between local producers and powerful international corporations. The economic processes encourage the development of a new global culture, the basis for it being standards such as consumption, consumer attitudes and ultimate individualism. The effects of globalization have been described as: aculturalism, the mutual influence among cultures and their gradual convergence and unification; migration processes due to the collapse of local economies; increased number of illegal immigrants; marginalization and prejudice; spread of individualism and consumer attitude which undermine the values of traditional society; increased exchange of information and ideas , information on global scale doubles its volume every two years; individual consciousness is overloaded with information but behaviors which might alter culture become even more uniform.

(Available in: https://www.researchgate.net. Adapted.)

English learning in Brazil

Statutory and the National Curricular Guidelines make the teaching of a ......................................... language at elementary and high school ................................... . However, teachers and experts acknowledge that English teaching - both public and private - is unable to provide students with a usable level of English. They identify similar reasons to those that cause other problems in basic education: the lack of language teaching equipment and over-filled classrooms.

There are also fundamental problems with the amount of time set aside for teaching English and it is hard to find adequately qualified teachers. In these conditions English teaching is reduced to the basic rules of grammar, reading short texts and learning to pass multiple choice exams for university admittance. Even government officials admit that English teaching in basic education has many shortcomings. The National Curricular Guidelines (which outline the curriculum for each subject) are well articulated, but cannot be applied fully in practice. Officials have pointed out that there are no language labs in schools as there is little funding available for them.

They feel that this limits oral communication, a problem that many educators have argued is exacerbated by the large number of students in the classroom. Government representatives and teachers alike have bemoaned the poor quality of language teachers working in basic language education. They argue that a bachelor degree in literature coupled with a teaching license does not prepare a language teacher for the reality of the classroom and to effectively teach the language. There is a widely held belief that these teachers are unlikely to have actually had the means to visit English speaking countries and lack the communication practice required to develop the command of a language. Experts have argued that it would be helpful to send teachers to travel to English speaking countries.

The shortcomings of language teaching in Brazil have resulted in a shortage of professionals who can speak English well. That limits contact between professionals, clients and suppliers and restricts international business opportunities. This affects the whole country - if Brazil is to function fully in the global arena it will need professionals better equipped with English.

https://www.britishcouncil.org.br

Instruction: Answer to questions 38 to 47 based on the text below. The Highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

Caribou

01 ____Large hoofed animals belonging to the deer family, caribou and reindeer are actually the

02 same species — Rangifer tarandus. There are differences between caribou and reindeer though.

03 Caribou are native to North America, whereas reindeer are native to northern Europe and Asia.

04 Alaska does have some reindeer, however, imported from Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th

05 centuries.

06 ____Some people use the term "reindeer" to refer to domesticated work animals, such as those

07 pulling Santa's sleigh, but there are both wild and domestic herds of reindeer. Caribou, on the

08 other hand, are wild-living and long-migrating. Indigenous groups herd reindeer and use them for

09 their meat. That's also likely why reindeer evolved to be stockier than caribou.

10 ____Caribou make one of the world's great large-animal migrations. As summer approaches,

11 they head north along well-trod annual routes. Some herds may travel more than 600 miles to

12 get to their summer grazing grounds. They'll spend the summer months feeding on the abundant

13 grasses and plants of the tundra. This is also when they give birth. When the first snows fall each

14 year, the caribou turn back south. Herds of female caribou, called cows, leave several weeks

15 before the males, which follow with yearling calves from the previous birthing season.

16 ____They are taller and lankier than reindeer, likely because they evolved to make these long

17 migrations. They are the only deer in which males and females both have antlers—though only

18 some females have them. Cows have one calf each year, which can stand after only a few minutes

19 and move on with its mother by the next day.

20 ____Caribou are classified as vulnerable to extinction, one step above endangered. Because

21 they're migratory, changes in the landscape, such as the appearance of new fences or other

22 human development on their migration routes, can be especially disruptive. Climate change is

23 also a threat. As the Arctic warms, they become more susceptible to diseases and parasites,

24 which could quickly spread through a herd.

(Available in: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/caribou – text adapted especially

for this test).

Instruction: answer questions 51 to 58 based on the following text.

Eve Rodsky’s deck of cards could help you find domestic bliss

1. Eve Rodsky was fed up. For years she, like many other women, had shouldered the burden
2. of invisible labor at home. Rodsky, a Harvard-educated lawyer and organizational management
3. specialist who advises families and charitable foundations, was tired of being the “she-fault”
4. parent. So, she started a spreadsheet titled “Shit I do.” “After months and months of
5. crowdsourcing this beautiful, giant spreadsheet, I sent this to my husband and said, ‘Can’t wait
6. to discuss.'”
7. Rodsky shared the spreadsheet on Facebook. Soon, she was receiving messages from
8. strangers who had seen it, detailing the domestic indignities they faced. She wanted to channel
9. that frustration into something productive, and then Rodsky realized she could apply
10. organizational management principles to the home. When Sarah Harden, the CEO of the media
11. and production company Hello Sunshine, met Rodsky, she realized Rodsky was onto something
12. novel. “After 40 to 50 years of talking about the problems, she was working on a solution. [At
13. Hello Sunshine], (...) We like to be on the problem-solving end of the conversation rather than
14. wallowing” said Harden.
15. The result is Rodsky’s book, Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too
16. Much to Do (and More Life to Live), which came out in October. (Hello Sunshine inked a unique
17. deal with Rodsky as a venture partner, which means the company helped sell the book to a
18. publisher and will take a cut of its profits.) A key piece of Rodsky’s solution is gamifying the
19. notion of fair play with a set of cards. “So this is based on a 100 card game. You’re holding cards
20. that represent all that you do for your home and family.”
21. The author believes the cards can help couples navigate their domestic balance by helping
22. them to talk about home life (which most people don’t do) and take full ownership of the tasks
23. (concept, planning, and execution). The ultimate goal of redistributing domestic work, according
24. to Rodsky, is to free up time for what she calls “unicorn space” — the stuff that might feel like a
25. luxury or pipe dream to most parents. “This is about making time for the things we actually care
26. about — who we were before we had kids,” she said. “What are our passions and purpose,
27. beyond being a parent and a partner and a worker? The more we spend time arguing about who
28. does what, the less time we have for the things that truly matter.”

Adapted from: https://www.fastcompany.com/90425669/eve-rodskys-deck-of-cards-could-help-you-find-domestic-bliss

Scientists study the world’s oldest person

1. After being bewildered by the “super grandmother’s” great health at 116 years old,
2. scientists are studying Maria Branyas, the world’s oldest person, in an attempt to unearth the
3. secret to a long life. Mr. Branyas was born __ San Francisco __ 1907, and __ the age of eight,
4. she moved __ Catalonia, Spain, where her family was originally from. Ms. Branyas, known to her
5. X followers as the “Super Catalan Grandma”, has lived in the region ever since and has resided
6. in the same nursing home, Residència Santa María del Tura, for the last 22 years.
7. She has agreed to undergo scientific testing, which researchers hope will further their
8. understanding of certain illnesses associated with old age, such as neurodegenerative or
9. cardiovascular diseases. Despite her age, Ms. Branyas has no health complications other than
10. mobility issues and hearing (she suffered permanent hearing loss when she was a child). She also
11. still has a great memory: “She has a completely lucid head,” scientist Manel Esteller told ABC, a
12. Spanish outlet. “She remembers with impressive clarity episodes of her when she was only four
13. years old, and she does not present any cardiovascular disease, common in elderly people.”
14. Esteller, who studies genetics and how it applies to health conditions, became curious about how
15. Ms. Branyas’ genetic makeup might affect her aging. After a long talk with Ms. Branyas, Mr.
16. Esteller believes there must be more to her longevity than meets the eye.
17. The remarkable woman has not had an easy life; she survived an earthquake while she
18. was in the US, a major fire, both world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish Flu pandemic,
19. and more recently, COVID-19 in 2020. Despite the various pandemics, wars, and family losses
20. she has endured, her longevity has made scientists question what her secret could be. “We know
21. Maria’s chronological age, 116 years, but we must determine her biological age,” Esteller said to
22. ABC, believing that “she is much younger” physically. The scientist has taken biological samples
23. of saliva, blood, and urine from Ms. Branyas, which are thought to be the “longest-lived” biological
24. samples and have great scientific value, Josep Carreras, the head of a leukemia research institute,
25. said to ABC. The samples will be compared with the 116-year-old’s middle daughter, who is 79
26. years old.
27. Ms. Branyas often has been asked what her secret is to her long life, and she uses her X
28. account to post her advice for others. She attributed her longevity to “order, tranquillity, good
29. connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no
30. regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people”. However, she also credits a great
31. amount of luck. “It is clear that there is a genetic component because there are several members
32. of her family who are over 90 years old,” said Esteller. The rare biological samples will assess her
33. genes, which will hopefully advance the research of drugs that could help diseases associated
34. with age and cancer. As for Ms. Branyas, she said on her X account that she is “very happy she
35. can be useful for research and progress”.

(Available in: https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/lifestyle/maria-branyas-oldest-person-alive-spain-b2436228.html – text especially adapted for this test).

Instruction: answer questions 31 to 40 based on the following text. The highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

Carnival

1. ______ Carnival is ____ festival celebrated in _____countries of Catholic tradition, often
2. with public parades of playful, imaginative wagons typically called "floats, masking, jokes and
3. feasts”.
4. Etymology
5. The word carnival comes from the Latin "carnem levare" (=eliminate meat) and
6. originally indicated the banquet that was held on the last day of Carnival (Mardi Gras),
7. immediately before Lent, the period of fasting and abstinence when Christians would abstain
8. _____ meat. The first evidence of the use of the word "carnevale" (or "carnevalo") are the texts
9. of minstrel Matazone da Caligano of the late 13th century and writer Giovanni Sercambi around
10. 1400.
11. Carnival period
12. In Catholic countries, traditionally Carnival begins on the Septuagesima Sunday (70
13. days to Easter, it was the first of the nine Sundays before the Holy Week in the Gregorian
14. calendar), and in the Roman rite ends on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the
15. beginning of Lent. The climax is usually from Thursday until Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.
16. Being connected with Easter which is a moveable feast, the final dates of Carnival vary each
17. year, though in some places it may begin already on 17^th January. Since Catholic Easter is on
18. the Sunday after the 17first full moon of spring, therefore from 22 March to 25 April, and since
19. there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, then in non-leap years the last day of
20. Carnival, Mardi Gras, can fall any time within February 3 to March 9.
21. In the Ambrosian rite, which is followed in the Archdiocese of Milan and in some
22. neighboring dioceses, Lent begins with the first Sunday of Lent, therefore the last day of
23. Carnival is on Saturday, four days later than the Mardi Gras in other areas of Italy.
24. Carnival in antiquity
25. Although present in the Catholic tradition, Carnival has its origins in much older
26. celebrations, such as the Greek Dionysian festivals ("Anthesteria") or the Roman "Saturnalia".
27. During these ancient rites a temporary dissolution of the social obligations and hierarchies took
28. place in favor of chaos, jokes and even debauchery. From a historical and religious point of
29. view Carnival represented, therefore, a period of renewal, when chaos replaced the established
30. order, but once festive period was over, a new or the old order re-emerged for another cycle
31. until the next carnival.
32. In Babylon, shortly after the vernal equinox the process of the foundation of the cosmos
33. was re-enacted, described with the myth of the struggle of Marduk, the savior-god with Tiamat
34. the dragon, which ended with the victory of the former. During these ceremonies a procession
35. was held in which the forces of chaos were allegorically represented fighting the recreation of
36. the universe, that is the myth of the death and resurrection of Marduk, the savior. In the parade
37. there was a ship on wheels where the deities Moon and Sun were carried along a large avenue
38. - a symbol of the Zodiac - to the sanctuary of Babylon, symbol of the earth. This period was
39. accompanied by an unbridled freedom and a reversal of social order and morality.
40. In the Roman world the feast in honor of the Egyptian goddess Isis involved the presence
41. of masked groups, as told by Lucius Apuleius in the Metamorphoses (Book XI). Among the
42. Romans the end of the old year was represented by a man covered with goat skins, carried in
43. procession, hit with sticks and called Mamurius Veturius.
44. Carnival is therefore a moment in a mythic cycle, it is the movement of spirits between
45. heaven, earth and the underworld. In the spring, when the earth begins to show its power,
46. Carnival opens a passage between the earth and the underworld, whose souls must be honored
47. and for a short period the living lend them their bodies wearing masks. Masks therefore have
48. often an apotropaic meaning, as the wearer takes on the features of the spirit represented.
49. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Medici in Florence organized large masked carts
50. called "Trionfi" accompanied by carnival songs and dances one, the "Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna"
51. also written by Lorenzo the Magnificent. In Rome under the Popes horse races took place and
52. a called the "race of moccoletti" where runners bearing lit candles tried to blow out each other's
53. candles.

(Available at: http://www.italyheritage.com/traditions/carnival/2023/04/14/ – text especially adapted for this test).

O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder às questões de 21 a 25.

PUCKER UP I'm a dermatologist - you've been using lip balm all wrong - here's why your pout is still chapped

(1º§)YOU might be reaching for your lip balm more and more through these winter months. But are your lips still sore and chapped, no matter how much of the stuff you slather on? According to dermatology experts, the type of balm you put on your pout might be more important than the amount.

(2º§)Dr. Mona Gohara, an associate clinical professor of dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine, and Dr. Brendan Camp, a dermatologist at MDCS Dermatology in New York, told TODAY why some lip balms could do more harm than good.

(3º§)To start with, they discussed why your lips might be chapped in the first place. The cold weather can wreak havoc on them as the skin is very thin, so they're more likely to dry out, Dr Gohara said. Meanwhile, Dr Camp noted that the delicate skin of your pout can easily be irritated by ingredients in skincare or food, yeast or bacteria, and even enzymes in saliva.

(4º§)You might also not be giving them enough love: lot's of people forget about their lips when they're moisturising their face. But if your lips are dry and chapped not long after you apply your balm, you just might be using the wrong kind.

(5º§)Four things to avoid in a lip balm:

1.Tingly balms

2. Fragrances

3. Flavouring agents

4. Dyes

(6º§)Dr Camp said these might cause allergic contact dermatitis, a type of eczema triggered by contact with a particular substance. And if your lips are dry, cracked, red, scaly and itchy, you might have developed a sensitivity to an ingredient in your lip balm, he added. Moral of the story, check your lip balm ingredients.

(7º§)Since you're doing that, there are a few ingredients that will help hydrate your pout. Dr Camp said you want to look for ingredients that will help trap water in the skin while keeping it moisturized for a long period of time. "Ingredients like beeswax, olive oil, castor oil, coconut oil, and shea butter are often used for this purpose," he said.

(8º§)You should also be wearing a salve with SPF to protect your lips from the sun. Meanwhile, Dr Gohara said that your ideal balm will have a combination of humectants (like hyaluronic acid and glycerin), which draw moisture into the skin, and occlusives (such as shea butter and mineral oil), which lock moisture in.

(9º§)The NHS recommended you use one containing petroleum jelly or beeswax. It said: "Try a few different lip balms if one is not working for you - some people may be sensitive to some fragrances, dyes or cosmetic ingredients."

(10º§)As long as you're using the right type of balm, Dr Gohara said you can apply it multiple times a day. According to Dr Camp, it's best to put on lip balm once in the morning and once before bed. There are other ways of preventing dry lips too.

(11º§)Lisa Borg, skin specialist and nutritionist at the Pulse Light Clinc, said the best thing you can do is drink plenty of fluids throughout the day. Preferably quality water as opposed to dehydrating coffee and fizzy drinks, she noted.

(12º§)Lisa also recommended eating foods that simulate saliva production, such as apples, cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, watermelon, lemons, and crunchy fibrous vegetables like carrots and celery. Meanwhile, the NHS said you should wash your hands before applying lip balm and cover your lips with a scarf when you're outside in cold weather. If you're outdoors, use a balm with SPF 15 or more every two hours, it added.

(13º§)Common causes of dry lips: cold weather, dry air or wind; damage from the sun; dehydration; a lip injury; allergies; and lack of vitamins and minerals. If you have sore or dry lips, you should avoid: picking or biting any flaky skin on your lips - this can slow down healing; licking dry or cracked lips - this can make them sore; and sharing lip balms with other people - this can spread germs.

(adapted) -wwrongg-pu--chappeed .uk/health/21661055/dermatologist-using-lip-balm-wrong-pout-chapped/