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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Esta obra ha sido diseñada para guiar y enseñar a los opositores a enfrentarse a la parte práctica de la fase oposición de Enseñanza Secundaria , especialida Inglés. El manual que tienes entre tus manos te aconsejará cómo analizar los textos, qué partes fundamentales no puedes dejar de mencionar y analizar en la prueba práctica de tu ejercicio, así como te mostrará ejemplos prácticos de cada una de las posible preguntas que pudieran conformar la prueba práctica. Empezamos. Obra registrada en :

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos ÍNDICE 1. Intro: Sugerencias para el opositor. 2. Literary texts analysis guide. 3. Analysing Paragraphs. 4. How to use quotations in your exam. 5. Journalistic texts analysis guide. 6. Checklist before you finish your exam. PRACTICE: 1. Ejercicios sobre aspectos literarios, socioculturales, estilísticos, textuales, léxicos y morfosintácticos presentes en textos de carácter literario y periodístico. 2. Ejercicios sobre comprensión de textos literarios y periodísticos. 3. Traducciones al castellano e inversa de textos periodísticos y literarios.

1. INTRO: 3

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Sugerencias sobre la mejor forma de realizar los ejercicios y mejorar el rendimiento del opositor en el examen práctico:

How to analyze a text? 1. Read or reread the text with specific questions in mind. 2. Marshal basic ideas, events and names. Depending on the complexity of book, this requires additional review of the text. 3. Think through your personal reaction to the book: identification, enjoyment, significance, application. 4. Identify and consider most important ideas (importance will depend on context of class, assignment, study guide). 5. Return to the text to locate specific evidence and passages related to the major ideas. 6. Use your knowledge following the principles of analyzing a passage described below: test, essay, research, presentation, discussion, enjoyment.

2. Literary Texts analysis guide:

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. Examining the different elements of a piece of literature is not an end in itself but rather a process to help you better appreciate and understand the work of literature as a whole. For instance, analyzing a short story might include identifying a particular theme (like the difficulty of making the transition from adolescence to adulthood) and showing how the writer suggests that theme through the point of view from which the story is told; or you might also explain how the main character’s attitude toward women is revealed through his dialogue and/or actions. REMEMBER: Writing is the sharpened, focused expression of thought and study. As you develop your writing skills, you will also improve your perceptions and increase your critical abilities. Writing ultimately boils down to the development of an idea. Your objective in writing a literary analysis essay is to convince the person reading your essay that you have supported the idea you are developing. 4

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos In order to achieve this objective, we must take into account these three principles: 1. Your essay must cover the topic you are writing about. 2. Your essay must have a central idea (stated in your thesis) that governs its development. 3. Your essay must be organized so that every part contributes something to the reader’s understanding of the central idea.

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The elements of a good Literary essay :

1.1.1 The Thesis Statement 1.1.2 The Introduction 1.1.3 The Body of the essay 1.1.4 The Conclusion

1.1.1. The Thesis Statement: The thesis statement tells your reader what to expect: it is a restricted, precisely worded declarative sentence that states the purpose of your essay -- the point you are trying to make. Examples: “The fate of the main characters in Antigone illustrates the danger of excessive pride.” “The imagery in Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill” reveals the ambiguity of our relationship with nature.” 1.1.2. The Introduction: The introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to arouse interest in your reader. To bring immediate focus to your subject, you may want to use a quotation, a provocative question, a personal anecdote, a startling statement, or a combination of these. You may also want to include background information relevant to your thesis and necessary for the reader to understand the position you are taking. In addition, you need to include the title of the work of literature and name of the author. 5

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Example: “The first paragraph of Alberto Alvaro Rios’s short story “The Secret Lion” presents a twelve-year-old boy’s view of growing up -- everything changes. As the narrator tells us, when the magician pulls a tablecloth out from under a pile of dishes, children are amazed at the “stay-the-same part,” while adults focus only on the tablecloth itself (42). Adults have the benefit of experience and know the trick will work as long as the technique is correct. When we “grow up” we gain this experience and knowledge, but we lose our innocence and sense of wonder. In other words, the price we pay for growing up is a permanent sense of loss. This tradeoff is central to “The Secret Lion.” The key symbols in the story reinforce its main theme: change is inevitable and always accompanied by a sense of loss.” 1.1.3 The Body of the Essay and the Importance of Topic Sentences: The term regularly used for the development of the central idea of a literary analysis essay is the body. In this section you present the paragraphs (at least 3 paragraphs for a 500-750 word essay) that support your thesis statement. Good literary analysis essays contain an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text (short story, poem, play) that supports those ideas. Textual evidence consists of summary, paraphrase, specific details, and direct quotations. Each of the paragraphs of your essay should contain a topic sentence (usually the first sentence of the paragraph) which states one of the topics associated with your thesis, combined with some assertion about how the topic will support the central idea. The substance of each of your developmental paragraphs (the body of your essay) will be the explanations, summaries, paraphrases, specific details, and direct quotations you need to support and develop the more general statement you have made in your topic sentence. Example: “Sammy's descriptions of the A & P present a setting that is ugly, monotonous, and rigidly regulated. We can identify with the uniformity Sammy describes because we have all been in chain stores. The fluorescent light is as blandly cool as the "checkerboard green-and-cream rubber tile floor" (486). The "usual traffic in the 6

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos store moves in one direction (except for the swim suited girls, who move against it), and everything is neatly organized and categorized in tidy aisles. The dehumanizing routine of this environment is suggested by Sammy's offhand references to the typical shoppers as "sheep," "house slaves," and "pigs." These regular customers seem to walk through the store in a stupor; as Sammy tells us, not even dynamite could move them out of their routine (485).”

1.1.4 The Conclusion Your literary analysis essay should have a concluding paragraph that gives your essay a sense of completeness and lets your readers know that they have come to the end of your paper. Your concluding paragraph might restate the thesis in different words, summarize the main points you have made, or make a relevant comment about the literary work you are analyzing, but from a different perspective. Do not introduce a new topic in your conclusion. Note1: The Title of Your Essay It is essential that you give your essay a title which is descriptive of the approach you are taking in your paper. Just as you did in your introductory paragraph, try to get the reader's attention. Note 2: THREE CONVENTIONS TO REMEMBER WHEN WRITING A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY 1. You must give a clear, full reference to the work and author you are writing about somewhere in your introductory paragraph 2. Use the correct format for referring to the work you are discussing. The titles of short stories, poems, and essays should be placed in quotation marks; the titles of novels, plays, films, and TV shows should be either underlined or italicized: 3. Use the present tense when you are discussing and writing about literature -literary works are considered to exist in the present.

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 3. Analyzing a passage In writing about literature or any specific text, you will strengthen your discussion if you offer specific passages from the text as evidence. Rather than simply dropping in quotations and expecting their significance and relevance to your argument to be self-evident, you need to provide sufficient analysis of the passage. Remember that your over-riding goal of analysis writing is to demonstrate some new understanding of the text. Principles of analyzing a passage 1. Offer a thesis or topic sentence indicating a basic observation or assertion about the text or passage. 2. Offer a context for the passage without offering too much summary. 3. Cite the passage (using correct format). 4. Then follow the passage with some combination of the following elements: • Discuss what happens in the passage and why it is significant to the work as a whole. • Consider what is said, particularly subtleties of the imagery and the ideas expressed. • Assess how it is said, considering how the word choice, the ordering of ideas, sentence structure, etc., contribute to the meaning of the passage. • Explain what it means, tying your analysis of the passage back to the significance of the text as a whole. 5. Repeat the process of context, quotation and analysis with additional support for your thesis or topic sentence.

4. How to use Quotations in your Exams / Essay : 5.1 Using Direct Quotations Quotations can illuminate and support the ideas you are trying to develop. A judicious use of quoted material will make your points clearer and more convincing. As with all the textual evidence you use, make sure you explain how the evidence is relevant -- let the reader know what you make of the quotations you cite. Below are guidelines and examples that should help you use quotations effectively:

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 1. Brief quotations (four lines or fewer of prose and three lines or fewer of poetry) should be carefully introduced and integrated into the text of your paper. Put quotation marks around all briefly quoted material. Prose example: As the "manager" of the A & P, Lengel is both the guardian and enforcer of "policy." When he gives the girls "that sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare," we know we are in the presence of the A & P's version of a dreary bureaucrat who "doesn't miss much" (487). Make sure you give page numbers when necessary. Notice that in this example the page numbers are in parenthesis after the quotation marks but before the period. 2. Lengthy quotations should be separated from the text of your paper. More than four lines of prose should be double spaced and indented ten spaces from the left margin, with the right margin the same as the rest of your paper. More than three lines of poetry should be double spaced and centered on the page. Note: do not use quotation marks to set off these longer passages because the indentation itself indicates that the material is quoted.

Prose example: The first paragraph of "The Secret Lion" introduces the narrator as someone who has just entered adolescence and isn't quite sure what to make of it: I was twelve and in junior high school and something happened that we didn't have a name for, but it was there nonetheless like a lion, and roaring, roaring that way the biggest things do. Everything changed. Just that. Like the rug, the one that gets pulled -- or better, like the tablecloth those magicians pull where the stuff on the table stays the same but the gasp! from the audience makes the staying-the-same part not matter. Like that. (41-42) Make sure you give page numbers when necessary. Notice in this example that the page numbers are in parenthesis after the period of the last sentence. 3. If any words are added to a quotation in order to explain who or what the quotation refers to, you must use brackets to distinguish your addition from the original source. Example: The literary critic John Strauss asserts that "he [Young Goodman Brown] is portrayed as self-righteous and disillusioned." Brackets are used here because there is no way of knowing who "he" is unless you add that information. 5.2 Punctuating Direct Quotations:

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 1. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, place periods and commas inside the quotation marks. Example: The narrator of "The Secret Lion" says that the change was "like a lion." The period is inside the quotation marks. 2. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, but you need to include a parenthetical reference to page or line numbers, place the periods and commas after the reference. Example: The narrator of "The Secret Lion" says that the change was "like a lion" (41). The period is outside the quotation marks, after the parenthetical reference. 3. When the quoted material is part of your own sentence, punctuation marks other than periods and commas, such as question marks, are placed outside the quotation marks, unless they are part of the quoted material. Example (not part of original): Why does the narrator of "The Secret Lion" say that the change was "like a lion"? The question mark is placed after the quotation marks because it does not appear in the original -- it ends a question being asked about the story. Example (part of original): The Duke shows his indignation that the Duchess could like everyone and everything when he says, "Sir, 'twas all one!" The exclamation point is placed inside the quotation marks because it appears in the original. 4. When the original material you are quoting already has quotations marks (for instance, dialog from a short story), you must use single quotation marks within the double quotation marks. Example: Lengel tries to stop Sammy from quitting by saying, " 'Sammy, you don't want to do this to your Mom and Dad'. "

5. Journalistic Texts: CHARACTERISTICS

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Journalistic style holds a special place in the style of literary language, since in many cases, it must process the texts created in other styles. Scientific and business speech focused on the intellectual reflection of reality, artistic speech - on her emotional reflection. Current Affairs plays a special role - it seeks to satisfy both intellectual and aesthetic needs. Outstanding French linguist C. Balli wrote that "scientific language the language of ideas and artistic speech - the language of feelings" 1. Added to this is that journalism - the language and thoughts, and feelings. The importance of topics covered by the media requires a thorough reflection and appropriate means of logical exposition of thought, and expression of the author's attitude to events is impossible without the use of emotional language. Journalistic text feature is the wide coverage of the vocabulary of literary language: -The scientific and technical terms to the words of everyday spoken language. -Sometimes the writer goes beyond the literary language, using his speech, slang word for this, however, should be avoided. Speaking of journalistic style, you must immediately note that not all texts that appear in the media belong to the journalistic style. When a journalist in a newspaper article tells about research on genetics and thus uses the scientific terms, or announces the launch of a spaceship, rescue exercises, and includes the opening of the air show in his speech of technical terms and in the court chronicle uses the legal lexicon. In these cases words and figures of speech are included in the expressive means of journalistic style, are included in the language of mass information. To see a vast theme, the breadth of journalism, just open any issue of any newspaper and see her titles. You get kind of notes, snapshot content of the newspaper. The newspaper can write about politics, diplomacy, sports, art, social movements, economics, construction, etc. Topics difficult to newspaper publications difficult to exhaust, so they are diverse. So, journalistic style, one of the varieties of which it is newsprint (newspaper subgenre), is a very complex phenomenon because of the heterogeneity of its tasks and conditions of communication. We will speak mainly about the features of a newspaper of speech, because it is more studied in modern style. One of the important functions of journalism (in particular, its newspaper and magazine types) is the information. The desire to promptly report the recent news could not be reflected in the nature of communication problems, and in the speech of their incarnation. Because of this journalism, especially newspapers, were characterized by vivid and direct expression of function effects, or expressive. These two basic functions, as well as linguistic-stylistic features, implement them, and today is not dissected in newspaper language. Is diverse and genre repertoire of modern journalism, is not inferior literature. Here and 11

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos reportage, and notes, and current affairs information, and interviews, and editorial, and a report and sketch, and lampoon, and review, and other genres. Journalism is rich and expressive in resources. As fiction, it has considerable power to influence, uses a variety of trails, rhetorical figures, the multiple lexical and grammatical means. Some stylistic features in Journalistic texts are: 1) documentary character, manifested in the objectivity and presentation factually proven that in terms of style can be defined as a vividly documented, factual accuracy of expression; documentary factual accuracy is manifested in termination of speech, limited metaphor of terms (other than the standard), the wide use of jargon; 2) self-restraint, formality, emphasizing the importance of facts, information, and these features are implemented, the character of speech, peculiar phraseology (cliche) and so forth; 3) A certain generality, abstraction and conceptual presentation as a result of analyticity. 4) Imaginative use of words: metaphor, metonymy, especially the impersonation. 5) Expression evaluation is expressed in forms of superlatives : the most drastic (measures), a severe (crisis), acute (controversy) is excellent, strictly, the most favorable. These, in general terms the main features of newspaper style and linguistic resources to implement them. Lexical features of journalistic texts: It has an extraordinary breadth and diversity of vocabulary. Message function makes use of a neutral vocabulary, in which the special role played by political, economic - in general conceptual vocabulary. For example, word-terms: marketing, management, business, exchange, ideology, exchange rate, deregulation, and many others - have become tokens are constantly occurring in the newspapers. In principle, the whole range of literary language is open to journalism. But the main criterion for the use, selection of speech means - accessibility. Excluded language means, do not possess this quality: highly technical words and expressions dialectisms, barbarisms - anything that might cause difficulty in understanding the message. As one journalist wrote, "the paper read by academics and ordinary workers, old and young, teachers and engineers, doctors ... you read the papers ... That is why people call the newspaper should be a simple word, which has, however, the ability to very clearly and very accurately express the most complicated concepts ". 6. CHECKLIST Before you finish your EXAM /ESSAY 12

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 1. Is the topic you have chosen to write about manageable for the length of the paper you are writing? Is it too narrow or too broad? 2. Is your title engaging? Does it suggest the approach you are taking in your paper? 3. Does your first paragraph introduce your topic, name the writer and the work, and end with your thesis statement? Will it get the reader's attention? 4. Is your thesis clear? Does it state the central idea of your paper? 5. Is your paper organized in a way that your reader will be able to follow? 6. Are your developmental paragraphs unified (everything in the paragraph relates to the topic of the paragraph) and coherent (everything in the paragraph is arranged in a logical order)? 7. Have you used transitional words where necessary within each paragraph? Are there transitions linking all the paragraphs of your essay? 8. Does your concluding paragraph provide a sense of closure? 9. Have you used technical terms correctly? 10. Have you used brief summary, paraphrase, specific details, and direct quotations? Have you explained why you are using them and how they support your central idea? 11. If you have used information from sources outside the actual work of literature (for example, books of criticism), have you documented this information properly? To provide documentation for literary papers, you need to use MLA documentation style, which can found in most English handbooks and in books on how to write research papers. 12. Have you proofread your final draft?

PRACTICE: TEXT ANALYSIS: 1. Ejercicios sobre aspectos literarios, socioculturales, estilísticos, textuales, léxicos y morfosintácticos presentes en textos de carácter literario y periodístico:

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos TEXT 1. “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.”

Questions: 1. Identify and comment about the Author and the book where this passage belongs. 2. Type of text and main features. 3. Comment about the style used in the text, the narrator, the language. 4. Vocabulary: Substitute the words in bold with a synonym. 5. Give a definition for the underlined words. 6. What can you infer from this passage?

Answers for Text 1: 1. The author is J.D.Salinger. The book is The Catcher in the rye. The best tip to identify the text is the name of the character : Miss Aigletinger. She is Holden's grade school teacher who "took us [to the museum] damn near every Saturday." He thinks about her in Chapter 16 while he is looking for Phoebe on the Sunday morning before he goes on a date with Sally Hayes. 14

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Once we recognize the author and the book it is advisable to provide information about them if we know it. It should not be very dense but the person checking our test must take the impression that we know a lot about the author and his/her work. About the author and the book: J erome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. The son of a wealthy cheese importer, Salinger grew up in a fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan and spent his youth being shuttled between various prep schools before his parents finally settled on the Valley Forge Military Academy in 1934. He graduated from Valley Forge in 1936 and attended a number of colleges, including Columbia University, but did not graduate from any of them. While at Columbia, Salinger took a creative writing class in which he excelled, cementing the interest in writing that he had maintained since his teenage years. Salinger had his first short story published in 1940; he continued to write as he joined the army and fought in Europe during World War II. Upon his return to the United States and civilian life in 1946, Salinger wrote more stories, publishing them in many respected magazines. In 1951, Salinger published his only full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which propelled him onto the national stage. Many events from Salinger’s early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. For instance, Holden Caulfield moves from prep school to prep school, is threatened with military school, and knows an older Columbia student. In the novel, such autobiographical details are transplanted into a post–World War II setting. The Catcher in the Rye was published at a time when the burgeoning American industrial economy made the nation prosperous and entrenched social rules served as a code of conformity for the younger generation. Because Salinger used slang and profanity in his text and because he discussed adolescent sexuality in a complex and open way, many readers were offended, and The Catcher in the Rye provoked great controversy upon its release. Some critics argued that the book was not serious literature, citing its casual and informal tone as evidence. The book was—and continues to be—banned in some communities, and it consequently has been thrown into the center of debates about First Amendment rights, censorship, and obscenity in literature. Though controversial, the novel appealed to a great number of people. It was a hugely popular bestseller and general critical success.

2. This text is a descriptive text . The narrator is describing a place, the museum. In this kind of passage we find lots of noun phrases : “the best thing” ,“ a hundred thousand times”, “your partner in line the last time”… We also find descriptive adjectives : “pretty, skinny, naked, scarlet, different, etc.” Besides, we must realize that these adjectives are related to the body and they imply some kind of sexual language referred to women ( skinny, naked, scarlet, pretty…). 3. The style is colloquial addressed to young or plain readers. It also portraits the real language of the protagonist, Holden. i.e. . “Nobody'd” , “Nobody’s be different” “ I mean”, “ I mean” … 15

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Salinger overuses the contractions to emphasize this colloquial language as in realspoken language. The narrator of the story is Holden a teenager whose eyes are used by the author to portrait the American society in the forties. The language used in this piece of text gives us another important clue to identify the author and his nationality, the use of American English vocabulary: i.e. “kid” instead of child, “ pretty” which substitutes very, 4. Vocabulary. Catching: grab, pick up, capture. Hole: hollow, depression, cavity. 5. Meaning. -Skinny: Being very or extremely thin. (Esquelético/a) -Puddles: A small body of standing water (rainwater) or other liquid. ( charcos) 6. We can infer from this passage that Holden is describing the stillness of the museum and in certain way his own attitude towards life, he is just a spectator of life. On the other hand he introduces a contrast to this everlasting feeling towards life, the fact that we as human beings change, we develop and step by step we settle down and become adults. Even in this short passage Salinger is able to reflect his main idea that one about the teenage as a process of constant change in our lives, through the words of the narrator, although everything that surrounds us is still, it is unchangeable,we change.

Text 2. The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty MOTIF of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE at the conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre IN HORTO after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.

Questions: 1. Identify and comment about the Author and the book where this passage belongs. 2. What kind of technique is carried out in this passage? 3. Comment about the style and language. 4. Vocabulary: Substitute the words in bold with a synonym. 5. Give a definition for the underlined words. 6. What can you infer from this passage?

Answers for Text 2: 1. The author is James Joyce. The literary work is Ulysses.

Information about the author and the book:

Escritor irlandés en lengua inglesa. Nacido en el seno de una familia de arraigada tradición católica, estudió en el colegio de jesuitas de Belvedere entre 1893 y 1898, año en que se matriculó en la National University de Dublín, en la que comenzó a aprender varias lenguas y a interesarse por la gramática comparada. 17

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Su formación jesuítica, que siempre reivindicó, le inculcó un espíritu riguroso y metódico que se refleja incluso en sus composiciones literarias más innovadoras y experimentales. Manifestó cierto rechazo por la búsqueda nacionalista de los orígenes de la identidad irlandesa, y su voluntad de preservar su propia experiencia lingüística, que guiaría todo su trabajo literario, le condujo a reivindicar su lengua materna, el inglés, en detrimento de una lengua gaélica que estimaba readoptada y promovida artificialmente. En 1902 se instaló en París, con la intención de estudiar literatura, pero en 1903 regresó a Irlanda, donde se dedicó a la enseñanza. En 1904 se casó y se trasladó a Zurich, donde vivió hasta 1906, año en que pasó a Trieste, donde dio clases de inglés en una academia de idiomas. En 1907 apareció su primer libro, el volumen de poemas Música de cámara (Chamber Music) y en 1912 volvió a su país con la intención de publicar una serie de quince relatos cortos dedicados a la gente de Dublín, Dublineses (Dubliners), que apareció finalmente en 1914. Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial vivió pobremente junto a su mujer y sus dos hijos en Zurich y Locarno. La novela semiautobiográfica Retrato del artista adolescente (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), de sentido profundamente irónico, que empezó a publicarse en 1914 en la revista The Egoist y apareció dos años después en forma de libro en Uneva York, lo dio a conocer a un público más amplio. Pero su consagración literaria completa sólo le llegó con la publicación de su obra maestra, Ulises (Ulysses, 1922), novela experimental en la que intentó que cada uno de sus episodios o aventuras no sólo condicionara, sino también «produjera» su propia técnica literaria: así, al lado del «flujo de conciencia» (técnica que había usado ya en su novela anterior), se encuentran capítulos escritos al modo periodístico o incluso imitando los catecismos. Inversión irónica del Ulises de Homero, la novela explora meticulosamente veinticuatro horas en la vida del protagonista, durante las cuales éste intenta no volver a casa, porque sabe que su mujer le está siendo infiel. Una breve estancia en Inglaterra, en 1922, le sugirió el tema de una nueva obra, que emprendió en 1923 y de la que fue publicando extractos durante muchos años, pero que no alcanzaría su forma definitiva hasta 1939, fecha de su publicación, con el título de Finnegan's wake. En ella, la tradicional aspiración literaria al «estilo propio» es llevada al extremo y, con ello, al absurdo, pues el lenguaje deriva experimentalmente, desde el inglés, hacia un idioma propio del texto y de Joyce. Para su composición, el autor amalgamó elementos de hasta sesenta idiomas diferentes, vocablos insólitos y formas sintácticas completamente nuevas. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial se trasladó de nuevo a Zurich, donde murió ya casi completamente ciego. La obra de Joyce está consagrada a Irlanda, aunque vivió poco tiempo allí, y mantuvo siempre una relación conflictiva con su realidad y conflicto político e histórico. Sus innovaciones narrativas, entre ellas el uso excepcional del «flujo de conciencia», así como la exquisita técnica mediante la que desintegra el lenguaje convencional y lo dobla de otro, completamente personal, simbólico e íntimo a la vez, y la dimensión irónica y profundamente humana que, sin embargo, recorre toda su obra, lo convierten en uno de los novelistas más influyentes y renovadores del siglo XX. 18

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Ulysses is set in Dublin, and the events unfold over 24 hours, beginning on the morning of Thursday 16th June 1904. Some of the events chronicled in the narrative correspond to actual episodes and occurrences in Joyce's life; most of them don't... Despite its diverse styles and fantastic representations, Ulysses is a deeply, even 'magically' naturalistic work. Many of the 'real' things and topical events that the narrative presents (historical references, newspaper reports, descriptions of environments, places and objects) were meticulously researched by Joyce; indeed, he is reported to have desired to "give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book". However, there is also a plethora of misrepresented facts and red-herrings in the narrative which, if you live long enough to research them, are very funny. The work has 18 chapters which correspond, often approximately and strangely, to episodes in The Odyssey of Homer. "Ulises" (Ulysses) probablemente sea el libro más importante e influyente del siglo XX (basta nombrar bajo su sombra a Faulkner, Woolf, Beckett, y por qué no escritores menores como Burgess o Sturgeon). También, uno de los más difíciles de leer. Luego de varios intentos de leerlo en castellano, intentos truncos todos, decidí un día leerlo en su idioma original, y mis sospechas se hicieron carne: sí, ahí estaba presente lo que había hecho famoso al libro y al autor, y sí, era muy difícil de leer. Cuenta la historia que a Borges le presentaron el Ulysses porque él era uno de los pocos dentro del mundillo literario argentino que podía leer inglés (estamos hablando de la primera mitad del siglo XX, donde primaba el francés sobre el inglés en los ambientes cultos); cuenta esa misma historia que Borges comprendió inmediatamente el genio de Joyce, y también su incompetencia para apreciar el infinito mundo del irlandés. 2. The technique carried out in this passage and the complete book is the stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness attempts to present the unedited, uncensored, free-flowing thoughts of a person. However, Joyce and other writers who use this technique do so with forethought and calculation. They are creating the thoughts of fictitious characters, not brain-scanning the thoughts of real humans. The thoughts these writers present to the reader are shaped to the theme of a literary work or the mindset of its characters. Consequently, one may argue, they are not really presenting true stream of consciousness. 3. The style : The author writes in third-person point of view with frequent use of allusions, symbols, literary archetypes, pastiche, and the stream-of-consciousness technique, all of which make the novel difficult to comprehend for even the most intelligent and informed readers. In stream of consciousness, a term coined by American psychologist William James (1842-1910), an author portrays a character’s continuing “stream” of thoughts as they occur, regardless of whether they make sense or whether the next thought in a sequence relates to the previous thought. These thought portrayals expose a character’s memories, fantasies, apprehensions, fixations, ambitions, rational and irrational ideas, and so on. 19

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Language: He uses refined language, vulgar language, slang and demotic dialogue, gibberish, coined words such as noctambules for night walkers, passages in all-capital letters, unpunctuated sentences, and abbreviations. In the last chapter of the novel, consisting of eight long paragraphs, Joyce omits punctuation entirely in order to mimic the uninterrupted flow of naked thoughts. Joyce also uses numerous sentences and phrases from Latin, French, German, Spanish, Russian (transliterated), Italian, and other languages. Another technique he uses is to combine two words into one to create a single adjective and sometimes a noun. (examples in the passage: wellknown, bayleaves, hollyberries,twelvetrees…) 4. -Charming: pleasing, delighting. - Relieved: alleviated, eased, 5. - Gloaming: the time of day immediately following sunset. -Mistletoe: Old World parasitic shrub having branching greenish stems with leathery leaves and waxy white glutinous berries; the traditional mistletoe of Christmas under which people kiss each other. 6. We can infer that in this passage Joyce associates members of a wedding with trees, in response a barroom discussion about the necessity to preserve the forests. Text 3.

The professor had turned into a street to the left, and walked along, with his head carried rigidly erect , in a crowd whose every individual almost overtopped his stunted stature. It was vain to pretend to himself that he was not disappointed. But that was mere feeling; the stoicism of his thought could not be disturbed by this or any other failure. Next time , or the time after the next, a telling stroke would be delivered — something really startling— a blow fit to open the first crack in the imposing front of the great edifice of legal conceptions sheltering the atrocious injustice of society. Of humble origin , and with an appearance really so mean as to stand in the way of his considerable natural abilities, his imagination had been fired early by the tales of men rising from the depths of poverty to positions of authority and affluence. The extreme, almost ascetic purity of his thought combined , had set before him a goal of power and prestige to be attained without the medium of arts, graces, tact, wealth— by sheer weight of merit alone. On that view he considered himself entitled to undisputed success. His father , a delicate dark enthusiast with sloping forehead, had been an 20

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos itinerant and rousing preacher of some obscure but rigid Christian sect— a man supremely confident in the priledges of his righteousness.

Questions: 1. Identify and comment about the Author and the book where this passage belongs. 2. Explain features of the descriptions carried out by the author. 3. Comment about the style and language. 4. Vocabulary: Substitute the words in bold with a synonym. 5. Give a definition for the underlined words. 6. What can you infer from this passage?

Answers for Text 3: 1.- The author is Joseph Conrad. The book is The Secret Agent.

Information about the author and the book: Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and then always with a marked Polish accent). He wrote stories and novels, predominantly with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit by the demands of duty and honour. Conrad was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature. While some of his works have a strain of romanticism, he is viewed as a precursor of modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors. The Secret Agent In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verlac, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions. 21

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-inlaw. It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening. Mr Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law. The shop was small, and so was the house. It was one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned upon London. The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in small panes. In the daytime the door remained closed; in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously ajar.

2.- We can appreciate in this passage how the author emphasizes in the characters’ physical description, as he does in the whole novel. He begins describing the Professor in great detail. He even says that he is really short (stunted). In the same way Conrad refers in the novel to the Michaelis as a fat person, Stevie’s lip, etc. The author has a tendency to use negative descriptive adjectives: “ stunted”, “mean”, “humble” through its use Conrad creates an atmosphere of decadence and corruption. Conrad also shows a contrast between the Professor’s internal life and the noise and life of a city like London. He uses words and adjectives wich refer to many people. 3.- Conrad uses a "heavily ironic and dry verbal style”. Many critics note that Conrad's irony reflects a pessimistic perspective of the British society in The Secret Agent. Conrad's perspective is reflective of a society still reeling from the traumatizing social effects of industrialization. Conrad's pessimistic view of society envelops each character's personal relationships. Throughout The Secret Agent, the usage of geometric imagery shows the ripple effects of evil within society on the micro level. Through his irony, Conrad also criticizes the relationships within a society focused on outside appearances rather than inward realities. Each of the main characters is a secret agent of sorts, with a double or triple life. Every character, and especially Winnie, is involved in the same manipulative game. Each character in the novel loses part of his person through this game. But because Winnie specifically represents the typical Victorian wife, Conrad harshly punishes her in order to dramatically warn readers against their dehumanizing standards. 4.Mean: Hateful, nasty. Goal: Objective, aim. 5.Stunted: Inferior in size or quality. Stoicism: An indifference to pleasure or pain.

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 6.- In this passage the author tries to portrait a character and establish a contrast between his inner world and the city that tries to swallow human beings. Society is losing their references and it is just worried about benefits, wealth and abandons the humble side of life, people’s feelings.

Text 4.

“Dearest Maurice”, she wrote, “I mean to write to you the other night after you had gone away, but I felt rather sick when I got home and Henry fussed about me. I’m writing instead of telephoning. I can’t telephone and hear your voice go queer when I say I’m not going to come away with you. Because I’m not going to come away with you Maurice, dearest Maurice. I love you but I can’t see you again. I don’t know how I’m going to live in this pain and longing and I’m praying God all the time that he won’t be hard on me, that he won’t keep me alive. Dear Maurice, I want to have my cake and eat it like everybody else. I went to a priest two days ago before you rang me up and I told him I wanted to be a Catholic. I told him about my promise about you. I said, I’m not really married to Henry any more. We don’t sleep together— not since the first year with you. And it wasn’t really a marriage, I said, You couldn’t call a registry office a wedding. I asked him couldn’t I be a Catholic and marry you? I knew you wouldn’t mind going through a service. Every time I asked him a question I had such hope ; it was like opening the shutters of a new house and looking for a view, and every window jjust faced a blank wall. No, no, no he said, I couldn’t marry you, I couldn’t go on seeing you, not if I was going to be a Catholic.I thought , to hell with the whole lot of

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos them and I walked out of the room where I was seeing him , and I slammed the door to show what I thought of priests.

Questions: 1. Identify and comment about the Author and the book where this passage belongs. 2. Give details to confirm that this is a epistolary text. 3. Comment about the style and language. 4. Vocabulary: Substitute the words in bold with a synonym. 5. Give a definition for the underlined words. 6. What can you infer from this passage?

Answers to Text 4: 1.- the book if “The End of the Affair” by Graham Greene. Once we recognize the author and the book it is advisable to provide information about them if we know it. It should not be very dense but the person checking our test must take the impression that we know a lot about the author and his/her work. More information about the book and the author: Graham Greene was born in Hertfordshire, England, on October 2, 1904, to Marion Greene (first cousin of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson) and Charles Henry Greene, a school headmaster. An introverted and sensitive child, Greene had difficult early years because of his strict father and boarding school bullies. At sixteen, Greene suffered a breakdown and went to London for treatment by a student of Sigmund Freud. Graham Greene While in London, Greene became an avid reader and writer. Before leaving, he met Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein who became lifelong literary mentors to him. His other influences were Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. After graduating from high school in 1922 Greene attended Oxford University's Balliol College, where he received a degree in history in 1925. While at college, Greene became interested in politics, especially Marxist socialism (but not communism). This interest sometimes created tension in Greene's friendship with the conservative writer Evelyn Waugh although the two remained steady friends for many years. In 1926, Greene converted to Catholicism for his fiancée, Vivien Dayrell Browning, whom he married the following year. The couple eventually had two children. Greene is generally considered a Catholic writer despite his insistence that the conversion was not his greatest literary influence. 24

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos During World War II Greene did intelligence work for the British government in West Africa. His experiences at home and abroad inspired works like The Heart of the Matter (1948). In addition to his novels of intrigue, peopled with spies, criminals, and other colorful characters, Greene wrote short stories, essays, screenplays, autobiographies, and criticism. His literary reputation rests primarily on what are termed his Catholic novels, Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948), and The End of the Affair (1951); and his Cold War-era political novels, which include The Quiet American (1955) and The Comedians (1966). Greene is considered one of the most important English writers of the twentieth century, and his honors include consideration for a Nobel Prize. His works are popular with critics and readers, and they have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have sold more than twenty million copies. Greene died of blood disease in Vevey, Switzerland, on April 3, 1991. The end of the affair Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair was first published in 1951 in England. The events of the novel concern an adulterous affair in England during World War II. With the war and the affair over, Maurice Bendrix seeks an explanation of why his lover, Sarah Miles, broke off their relationship so suddenly. Greene's contemporaries could relate to the setting of the story, as the war was fresh in their memories and they were living in the same postwar period as the characters. Within this setting, Greene explores themes of love and hate, faithfulness, and the presence of the divine in human lives. Critics have been generally positive in their reviews and analyses of the novel, and readers have embraced it for more than fifty years. One of Greene's early admirers was William Faulkner. Critics consider The End of the Affair the last in Greene's Catholic tetralogy. In the first three books of the four, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and The Heart of the Matter, Greene depicts God as a source of grace in people's spiritual lives, but in The End of the Affair, Greene presents a more active, involved God who is a force in people's earthly lives (performing miracles through Sarah, for example). All four novels address the ideas of mortal sin and redemption. To many critics, The End of the Affair is the most obviously Catholic of Greene's novels, due in large part to the apparent sainthood of the heroine, whose death is followed by a series of miracles. 2.This passage is part of a letter written by Sarah as she mentions in the fragment. “I mean to write to you” “ I can’t telephone and hear …” Besides, the letter deals with topics such as Faith and Love. 3.The End of the Affair" is a moving first-person account of the warped liaison between a youngish English novelist and the wife of an up-and-coming civil servant. Greene's fatal attraction for melodrama and his equally fatal attraction for irony force the story-line to depend on the adulterer's attempt on behalf of the cuckolded husband to discover the lady's current favorite. He uses a romantic language in the letter but he also combines this pious language with a more colloquial one : “ To hell with the whole lot of them”. 25

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos 4.-Longing ; Hungriness, yearning. -Slammed: bang. 5.-Queer: Beyond or deviating from the usual or expected. -Shutters: A hinged blind for a window. 6.This fragment shows Sarah’s inner conflict between her feelings and her will. We can infer that Maurice’s real rival is God, and he can’t fight against him. Sarah finally dies and he doesn’t receive this letter. Once she realizes that she is weakening to love, she asks God for death as a solution to put an end to her torment.

2. Ejercicios sobre comprensión de textos literarios y periodísticos: Text 1: Abstract Art Mark Rothko, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, was born in Daugavpils, Latvia in 1903. His father emigrated to the United States, afraid that his sons would be drafted into the Czarist army. Mark stayed in Russia with his mother and older sister; they joined the family later, arriving in the winter of 1913, after a 12-day voyage. Mark moved to New York in the autumn of 1923 and found employment in the garment trade and took up residence on the Upper West Side. It was while he was visiting someone at the Art Students League that he saw students sketching a nude model. According to him, this was the start of his life as an artist. He was twenty years old and had taken some art lessons at school, so his initial experience was far from an immediate calling. In 1936, Mark Rothko began writing a book, which he never completed, about the similarities in the children's art and the work of modern painters. The work of modernists, which was influenced by primitive art, could, according to him, be compared to that of children in that "child art transforms itself into primitivism, which is only the child producing a mimicry of himself." In this same work, he said that "the fact that one usually begins with drawing is already academic. We start with colour." It was not long before his multiforms developed into the style he is remembered for; in 1949 Rothko exhibited these new works at the Betty Parsons Gallery. For critic Harold Rosenberg, the paintings were a revelation. Rothko had, after painting his first multiform, secluded himself to his home in East Hampton on Long Island, only inviting a very few people, including Rosenberg, to view the new paintings. The discovery of his definitive form came at a period of great grief; his mother Kate died in October 1948 26

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos and it was at some point during that winter that Rothko chanced upon the striking symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary colours. As part of this new uniformity of artistic vision, his paintings and drawings no longer had individual titles; from this point on they were simply untitled, numbered or dated. However, to assist in distinguishing one work from another, dealers would sometimes add the primary colours to the name. Additionally, for the next few years, Rothko painted in oil only on large vertical canvasses. This was done to overwhelm the viewer, or, in his words, to make the viewer feel enveloped within the picture. On February 25, 1970, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko’s assistant, found him in his kitchen, lying on the floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. His arms had been cut open with a razor. The emergency doctor arrived on the scene minutes later to pronounce him dead as the result of suicide; it was discovered during the autopsy that he had also overdosed on anti-depressants. He was just 66 years old. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE TEXT: Q1 - Mark Rothko emigrated to the United States with his father and elder sister. with his mother and brothers. with his mother and elder sister. with all his family. Q2 - Rothko wanted to be an artist from his early childhood. when he joined the Art Students League. when he watched students drawing. when he moved to the Upper West Side. Q3 - Rothko thought that modern art was primitive. could be compared to children's pictures. was already academic. was childish. Q4 - Rothko's distinctive style was inspired by Rosenberg. resulted from moving to Long Island. resulted from his grief. evolved in 1948. Q5 - Who named paintings by their colours? 27

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos Rosenberg Rothko Dealers Steindecker Keys: Question 1 : 3, question 2: 3, question3: 2, question 4: 4, question 5: 3.

Text 2: English in India. India has two national languages for central administrative purposes: Hindi and English. Hindi is the national, official, and main link language of India. English is an associate official language. The Indian Constitution also officially approves twenty-two regional languages for official purposes. Dozens of distinctly different regional languages are spoken in India, which share many characteristics such as grammatical structure and vocabulary. Apart from these languages, Hindi is used for communication in India. The homeland of Hindi is mainly in the north of India, but it is spoken and widely understood in all urban centers of India. In the southern states of India, where people speak many different languages that are not much related to Hindi, there is more resistance to Hindi, which has allowed English to remain a lingua franca to a greater degree. Since the early 1600s, the English language has had a toehold on the Indian subcontinent, when the East India Company established settlements in Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai, formerly Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay respectively. The historical background of India is never far away from everyday usage of English. India has had a longer exposure to English than any other country which uses it as a second language, its distinctive words, idioms, grammar and rhetoric spreading gradually to affect all places, habits and culture. In India, English serves two purposes. First, it provides a linguistic tool for the administrative cohesiveness of the country, causing people who speak different languages to become united. Secondly, it serves as a language of wider communication, including a large variety of different people covering a vast area. It overlaps with local languages in certain spheres of influence and in public domains. Generally, English is used among Indians as a ‘link’ language and it is the first language 28

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos for many well-educated Indians. It is also the second language for many who speak more than one language in India. The English language is a tie that helps bind the many segments of our society together. Also, it is a linguistic bridge between the major countries of the world and India. English has special national status in India. It has a special place in the parliament, judiciary, broadcasting, journalism, and in the education system. One can see a Hindispeaking teacher giving their students instructions during an educational tour about where to meet and when their bus would leave, but all in English. It means that the language permeates daily life. It is unavoidable and is always expected, especially in the cities. The importance of the ability to speak or write English has recently increased significantly because English has become the de facto standard. Learning English language has become popular for business, commerce and cultural reasons and especially for internet communications throughout the world. English is a language that has become a standard not because it has been approved by any ‘standards’ organization but because it is widely used by many information and technology industries and recognized as being standard. The call centre phenomenon has stimulated a huge expansion of internet-related activity, establishing the future of India as a cybertechnological super-power. Modern communications, videos, journals and newspapers on the internet use English and have made ‘knowing English’ indispensable. The prevailing view seems to be that unless students learn English, they can only work in limited jobs. Those who do not have basic knowledge of English cannot obtain good quality jobs. They cannot communicate efficiently with others, and cannot have the benefit of India’s rich social and cultural life. Men and women who cannot comprehend and interpret instructions in English, even if educated, are unemployable. They cannot help with their children’s school homework everyday or decide their revenue options of the future. A positive attitude to English as a national language is essential to the integration of people into Indian society. There would appear to be virtually no disagreement in the community about the importance of English language skills. Using English you will become a citizen of the world almost naturally. English plays a dominant role in the media. It has been used as a medium for inter-state communication and broadcasting both before and since India’s independence. India is, without a doubt, committed to English as a national language. The impact of English is not only continuing but increasing. Questions Q1 - According to the writer, the Indian constitution recognises 22 official languages. Hindi as the national language. 2 national, official languages. 2 national languages. Q2 - English's status as a lingua franca is helped by 29

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos its status in northern India. the fact that it is widely understood in urban centres. the fact that people from the south speak languages not much related to Hindi. it shares many grammatical similarities with Hindi. Q3 - In paragraph 3, 'toehold' means that English dominated India. changed the names of some cities in India. has had a presence in India. has been in India longer than any other language. Q4 - Hindi-speaking teachers might well be heard using English. only use English. only use English for instructions. do not use English. Q5 - In paragraph eight, it says 'the prevailing view', which suggests that the view is correct. the view is held by the majority. the view is incorrect. the view is held by the minority. Q6 - English in India is going to decrease. has decreased since independence. causes disagreement. is going to have a greater importance. Keys: Question 1: 2, Q2: 3,Q3: 3, Q4 : 1, Q5 : 2,Q6: 4

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Text 3: The Great Wall of China Walls and wall building have played a very important role in Chinese culture. These people, from the dim mists of prehistory have been wall-conscious; from the Neolithic period – when ramparts of pounded earth were used - to the Communist Revolution, walls were an essential part of any village. Not only towns and villages; the houses and the temples within them were somehow walled, and the houses also had no windows overlooking the street, thus giving the feeling of wandering around a huge maze. The name for “city” in Chinese (ch’eng) means wall, and over these walled cities, villages, houses and temples presides the god of walls and mounts, whose duties were, and still are, to protect and be responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants. Thus a great and extremely laborious task such as constructing a wall, which was supposed to run throughout the country, must not have seemed such an absurdity. However, it is indeed a common mistake to perceive the Great Wall as a single architectural structure, and it would also be erroneous to assume that it was built during a single dynasty. For the building of the wall spanned the various dynasties, and each of these dynasties somehow contributed to the refurbishing and the construction of a wall, whose foundations had been laid many centuries ago. It was during the fourth and third century B.C. that each warring state started building walls to protect their kingdoms, both against one another and against the northern nomads. Especially three of these states: the Ch’in, the Chao and the Yen, corresponding respectively to the modern provinces of Shensi, Shanzi and Hopei, over and above building walls that surrounded their kingdoms, also laid the foundations on which Ch’in Shih Huang Di would build his first continuous Great Wall. The role that the Great Wall played in the growth of Chinese economy was an important one. Throughout the centuries many settlements were established along the new border. The garrison troops were instructed to reclaim wasteland and to plant crops on it, roads and canals were built, to mention just a few of the works carried out. All these undertakings greatly helped to increase the country’s trade and cultural exchanges with many remote areas and also with the southern, central and western parts of Asia – the formation of the Silk Route. Builders, garrisons, artisans, farmers and peasants left behind a trail of objects, including inscribed tablets, household articles, and written work, which have become extremely valuable archaeological evidence to the study of 31

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos defence institutions of the Great Wall and the everyday life of these people who lived and died along the wall. Q1 - Chinese cities resembled a maze because they were walled. because the houses has no external windows. because the name for cities means 'wall'. because walls have always been important there. Q2 - Constructing a wall that ran the length of the country honoured the god of walls and mounts. was an absurdly laborious task. may have made sense within Chinese culture. made the country look like a huge maze. Q3 - The Great Wall of China was built in a single dynasty. was refurbished in the fourth and third centuries BC. used existing foundations. was built by the Ch’in, the Chao and the Yen. Q4 - Crops were planted on wasteland. to reclaim wasteland. on reclaimed wasteland. along the canals. Q5 - The Great Wall helped build trade only inside China. helped build trade in China and abroad. helped build trade only abroad. helped build trade only to remote areas. Keys : Question 1: 2 Question 2: 3 Question 3: 3 Question 4: 3 Question 5: 2

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos

TEXT 4: Dirty Britain

Before the grass has thickened on the roadside verges and leaves have started growing on the trees is a perfect time to look around and see just how dirty Britain has become. The pavements are stained with chewing gum that has been spat out and the gutters are full of discarded fast food cartons. Years ago I remember travelling abroad and being saddened by the plastic bags, discarded bottles and soiled nappies at the edge of every road. Nowadays, Britain seems to look at least as bad. What has gone wrong? The problem is that the rubbish created by our increasingly mobile lives lasts a lot longer than before. If it is not cleared up and properly thrown away, it stays in the undergrowth for years; a semi-permanent reminder of what a tatty little country we have now. Firstly, it is estimated that 10 billion plastic bags have been given to shoppers. These will take anything from 100 to 1,000 years to rot. However, it is not as if there is no solution to this. A few years ago, the Irish government introduced a tax on nonrecyclable carrier bags and in three months reduced their use by 90%. When he was a minister, Michael Meacher attempted to introduce a similar arrangement in Britain. The plastics industry protested, of course. However, they need not have bothered; the idea was killed before it could draw breath, leaving supermarkets free to give away plastic bags. What is clearly necessary right now is some sort of combined initiative, both individual and collective, before it is too late. The alternative is to continue sliding downhill until 33

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos we have a country that looks like a vast municipal rubbish tip. We may well be at the tipping point. Yet we know that people respond to their environment. If things around them are clean and tidy, people behave cleanly and tidily. If they are surrounded by squalor, they behave squalidly. Now, much of Britain looks pretty squalid. What will it look like in five years?

Questions Q1 - The writer says that it is a good time to see Britain before the trees have leaves because Britain looks perfect. you can see Britain at its dirtiest. you can see how dirty Britain is now. the grass has thickened on the verges. Q2 - According to the writer, things used to be worse abroad. the same abroad. better abroad. worse, but now things are better abroad. Q3 - For the writer, the problem is that rubbish is not cleared up. rubbish last longer than it used to. our society is increasingly mobile. Britain is a tatty country. Q4 - Michael Meacher followed the Irish example with a tax on plastic bags. tried to follow the Irish example with a tax on plastic bags. made no attempt to follow the Irish example with a tax on plastic bags. had problems with the plastics industry who weren't bothered about the tax. Q5 - The writer thinks it is too late to do anything. we are at the tipping point. there is no alternative. we need to work together to solve the problem. Q6 - The writer thinks that people are squalid. people behave according to what they see around them. people are clean and tidy. 34

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos people are like a vast municipal rubbish tip. Keys: Question 1: 3, Question 2: 1, Question 3: 2, Question 4: 2, Question 5: 4; question6: 2. 3. Traducciones al castellano e inversa de textos periodísticos y literarios : TEXT 1 : “Today marks the end of a journey that began 200 years ago. Today, La Mercedes’ mission has been completed. If the crew were unable to reach their destination, at least the cargo will.” So said Jorge Dezcallar, Spanish ambassador to the United States, in an emotional speech just minutes before two Spanish army planes headed home from Tampa, Florida with 17 tons of coins retrieved from the historical shipwreck. “Today we are recovering a historical legacy, not a treasure. This is not money, it is our history,” added Dezcallar at the military base where the Hercules aircraft took off, with stops scheduled in New Jersey and the Azores Islands before their landing at Torrejón de Ardoz on Saturday morning. The frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, part of the Spanish Armada, sank off the coast of Cádiz on October 5, 1804 after sailing from Montevideo in August. The ship was loaded with gold and silver, which ended up at the bottom of the sea, along with 249 seamen. Only around 50 survived. A US treasure-hunting company called Odyssey Marine Exploration announced the discovery of the haul in May 2007, launching a bitter court battle with Spanish authorities over ownership of the nearly 600,000 valuable coins. “El día de hoy nos marca el final de un viaje que comenzó hace 200 años. Hoy, La misión del barco La Mercedes ha sido finalizado. Si el pasaje fue incapaz de llegar a destino, al menos lo hará su carga” así declaró Jorge Dezcallar, embajador español en los Estados Unidos, en un emotivo discurso tan sólo minutos antes que dos aviones de las fuerzas armadas españolas partiesen hacia casa desde tampa, Florida con 17 toneladas de monedas recuperadas del histórico hundimiento. “ Hoy recuperamos un legado histórico, no un tesoro. Esto no es sólo dinero, es nuestra historia” añadió Dezcallar e la base militar dónde la aeronave Hércules despegó , con paradas programadas en Nueva Jersey y las islas Azores antes de su aterrizaje en torrejón de Ardoz, en la mañana del sábado. La fragata Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, parte de la Armada Española, se hundió en la costa de Cádiz el 5 de Octubre de 1804 tras navegar desde Montevideo en Agosto. El barco fue cargado con oro y plata, que terminaron en el fondo del océano, junto con 249 marineros. Tan sólo unos 50 sobrevivieron. Una Compañía caza-tesoros norteamericana llamada Exploracióm Marina Odyssey anunció el descubrimiento del botín en Mayo de 2007, comenzando una amarga batalla legal con las autoridades españolas sobre la legítima pertenencia de las casi 600,000 valiosísimas monedas.

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Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos

Text 2:

Princess Cristina won’t be indicted, says Nóos case judge The Balearic Islands judge who is investigating the alleged diversion of public money at Iñaki Urdangarin’s non-profit Nóos Institute announced Monday that he will not indict Princess Cristina in the case because she wasn’t responsible for making any decisions at the entity. Judge José Castro also decided not to call back Urdangarin, the princess’ husband, for a testimonial face-off with one of his main accusers, Diego Torres, his former partner who has also been indicted in the case. Castro said that his decision would only “remain in effect for now,” and left the door open for both defendants to confront each other in the future. The obscure rightwing union Manos Limpias had filed a complaint against Princess Cristina, asking the judge to charge her in the public-fund siphoning scheme. But Castro said there is no evidence that Cristina de Borbón committed any illegal acts when she served on the board of the institute. Urdangarin received some seven million euros from both the Balearics and Valencia regional governments, but prosecutors say he transferred some of the money to his private companies. La Infanta Cristina no será acusada, dice el juez del caso Nóos. El juez de las islas baleares que está investigando el presunto desvío de dinero público al Instituto Nóos sin ánimo de lucro anunció el Lunes que no acusará a la Princesa Cristina en el caso porque ella no era responsable de tomar decisión alguna en la entidad. El juez José Castro también decidió no volver a llamar a Urdangarin, marido de la infanta, para un careo con uno de sus mayores acusadores, Diego torres, antiguo compañero suyo, quien también ha sido acusado en el caso. Castro dijo que su decisión “ sólo sería por el momento” , y dejó un puerta abierta para que ambos acusados se enfrenten en el futuro. La oscura organización de derechas Manos Limpias ha rellenado una queja contra la princesa Cristina, pidiéndole al juez que la acuse de estar involucrada en la trama de apropriación de fondos públicos. Pero Castro declara que no hay indio alguno de que la Doña Cristina de Borbón cometiera acto delictivo alguno cuando estuvo relacionada con el instituto. Urdangarin recibió alrededor de 7 millones de euros de los gobiernos autonómicos Balear y valenciano, pero la acusación dice que éste desvió parte de este dinero a sus compañías privadas. Text 3: 36

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife. Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers—a gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on. “I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte. Nos adentramos en el tranquilo y humilde templo; el sacerdote esperaba en su habito blanco en el bajo altar, el monje junto a él. Todo estaba quieto: sólo dos sombras se movían en un esquina. Mis pesquisas eran ciertas : los extraños habían entrado antes que nosotros y permanecían junto a la cámara mortuoria de los Rochester, sus espaldas mirando hacia nosotros viendo a través de los raíles de la deteriorada tumba de mármol, dónde un ángel arrodillado custodiaba los restos de Damer de Rochester , decolorada en Marston Moor en tiempo de las guerras civiles, y de su esposa Isabel. Nuestro lugar estaba cogido en el camino de la comunión. Escuchando un cuidadoso paso tras de mí , eché un vistazo sobre mi hombro: uno de los extraños—un caballero, obviamente— estaba avanzando hacia el claustro. La misa comenzó. La explicación sobre el sentido del matrimonio pasó; y entonces el sacerdote dio un paso hacia delante, y, arrodillándose ligeramente sobre el Sr. Rochester, continuó. “Os pido y ordeno a ambos (al igual que responderéis el temido día del juicio final , cuando los secretos de todos los corazones sean revelados), que si alguno de los presentes conoce algún impedimento porque vosotros do debáis ser unidos en legal matrimonio , debe confesarlo ahora. TEXT 4: Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky chin, where the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair, he came upon a little bald spot. "There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that mark—the mark of the collar; and yet, Little Brother, I was born among men, and it was among men that my mother died—in the cages of the King's Palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the Council when thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I too was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the Panther, and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw, and came away; and because I had 37

Prueba Práctica : Análisis de Textos learned the ways of men, I became more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?""Yes," said Mowgli; "all the jungle fear Bagheera—all except Mowgli." The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Mogli elevó su fuerte mano morena , justo bajo la sedosa barbila de Bagheera, donde los gigantescos músculos enrollados estaban ocultos bajo el lustroso pelo, se topó con un pequeño espacio sin pelo. “ No hay nadie en la selva que sepa que yo, Bagheera, llevo esta señal— la señal de el collar; Y aunque, Pequeño Hermano, yo nací entre hombres, y fue entre hombres también que mi madre murió— en las jaulas del palacio real en Oodeypore. Fue por esto que yo pagué el precio por tres en el consejo cuando tú eras pequeño cachorro. Sí, yo también nací entre hombres. Nunca había visto la selva. Me alimentaban detrás de los barrotes con una barra de acero hasta que una noche yo sentí que era Bagheera , la pantera, y no un juguete de humanos, rompí el estúpido candado con un soplo de mi garra, y escapé; y puesto que había aprendido las costumbres humanas, me convertí en más temible en la jungla que Shere Khan. ¿verdad que es así? “sí” dijo Mogli; Toda la selva teme a Bagheera— todos menos Mowgli”.

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