Questões de Inglês

LAUGHING ALL THE WAY

 

  Understanding jokes is part of the process of native language acquisition, and jokes are part of the charm that belongs to any language. Learning to understand jokes in a new language is both a cause, and a consequence, of language proficiency (Cook 2000).

  The most obvious benefit of understanding jokes is that it can help students feel more comfortable in their new language. A shared moment of humor lowers the affective filter, that invisible barrier that makes learners feel awkward and uncomfortable. A low affective filter is one of the cornerstones of successfully learning a new language (Krashen 1982). If a class can laugh together, they are likely to learn better together, too. Jokes based on wordplay have additional benefits because they build metalinguistic awareness, or conscious awareness of the forms of language, and this, ___( I )___, helps in learning more language (Ely and McCabe 1994; Zipke 2008; Lems 2011). In particular, metalinguistic awareness boots reading comprehension and encourages higher-order thinking.

  ___( II )___ native speakers need to access a great deal of linguisticinformation and background knowledge to “get” a joke (Aarons 2012). At the same time, jokes that are based on wordplay in another language can be really hard to understand because they need to be processed very quickly. In a social setting where everyone is standing around chatting, understanding a joke that comes up may seem like a high-stakes test. Not understanding a joke in this situation can make someone feel like an  outsider and create a sense of isolation. ___( III )___, an important partof learning a new language is learning to enjoy its jokes.

  

Puns: A special form of joke

Puns are a special form of humor based on double meanings. Puns are sometimes nicknamed “the lowest form of humor” and often greeted with groans, but in fact, the language knowledge needed to understand a pun is very sophisticated (Pollack 2011).___( IV )__ they require processing the sound and meaning of words twice, puns demand considerable language agility. __( V )__ humor based on sight gags,  funny facial expressions, or amusing visual arrangements, the humor ofpun is based on language play.

ENGLISH TEACHING FORUM – VOLUME 51 NUMBER 1 2013

The words that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV and V, in the text, are

Minority Ethnic English

 

  For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK. British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English. Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).

Slang

  As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms, nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tagquestion, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.

Disponível em: <www.bl.uk/learning/lang/lit/sounds/case-studies/minorityethnic>. Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).

Glossário:

patchwork: colcha de retalhos

blended: combinado

regardless: independente de

The common use of “nang”, “diss”, “chuddies”, “desi”, and the tag question “innit” shows the

Minority Ethnic English

 

  For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK. British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English. Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).

Slang

  As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms, nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tagquestion, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.

Disponível em: <www.bl.uk/learning/lang/lit/sounds/case-studies/minorityethnic>. Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).

Glossário:

patchwork: colcha de retalhos

blended: combinado

regardless: independente de

Varieties of English such as London Jamaican are a direct result of

By analysing the two texts, it is understood that the man\'s initiative was

The message inferred from the first text is that the man is

ELIF BILGIN GOES BANANAS

Sep 25 2013 Bloggers, People

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

 

  Turkish teen Elif Bilgin has thrilled her teachers, parents and those who care about the planet by discovering a way to make bio-plastic from an item commonly found in our waste bins: banana peels. The 16 year old prodigy always showed promise academically. From the 4th grade, she was put into a school for gifted children, where she was encouraged to develop her already advanced skills and talents. Since then, the teen has excelled at her studies and learned more about climate change and the environment. Somewhat alarmed at what she was discovering, she was determined to find an alternative to petroleum produced  plastics.

  When Elif found that potatoes and mango peels are already used to make bio-plastic, that fact, combined with the knowledge that Thailand alone discards 200 tons of banana peels per day motivated Elif to work on extracting the starch and cellulose needed for bio-plastic production out of banana peels.

  Elif's research took a couple of years, and her trials initially failed: the plastics created weren't strong enough and decayed too quickly. But her persistence paid off, since she obtained the result she was pursuing and this discovery made her win the 2013 Science in Action award, Google's third $50,000 annual competition. Now she'll continue competing as a finalist in the Google Science Fair for the 15-16-year-old category, and will travel, along with 14 other contenders, to the company's Mountain View campus in California.

  She is enthusiastic that her discovery will make a difference to the planet: “The reason why I chose this particular aspect of science is that the bio-plastic is such a new concept and its range of use has been widening ever since it has been discovered (especially in the 21st century).” The young inventor's dream is to attend medical school in the US and continue with projects concerning the environment, such as building a greenhouse made of waste materials. No doubt whatever Elif does, future generations will thank her.

Disponível em: <http://eluxemagazine.com/people/elifbilgin/# sthash.kWg4Muw3.dpuf>. Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).

Glossário:

has thrilled: emocionou

peels: cascas

environment: meio ambiente

starch: amido

decayed: deterioraram

paid off: compensou

range of use: gama de uso

The excerpt “The young inventor\'s dream is to attend medical school in the US and continue with projects concerning the environment” in the last paragraph is written in direct speech as