ACTIVITY ABOUT INTERTEXTUALITY

1- WE CAN DEFINE “INTERTEXTUALITY” IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. IDENTIFY AND MATCH SOME OF THESE DEFINITIONS BELOW.

(____)A PRODUCTION WITHIN TEXTS.
(____)SERIES OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN DIFFERENT TEXTS.
(____)A COLLAGE OF IDEAS.
(____)IS A WELL WRITTEN BOOK.
(____)ALL KIND OF ART.
(____)IS A TRANSFERENCE OF MEANING FROM A TEXT TO ANOTHER.

2- TAKE A LOOK AT THESE PISCTURES BELOW AND MATCH WITH ITS DEFINITION:

( ) A CARTOON MAKES FUN OF A FAMOUS FILM OPEN CREDITS.

(____)HUMAN BEING CAN'T CONTROL NATURE.

(____)A PARODY OF A FAMOUS PAINTING.

(____)A PROTEST AGAINST A PETROLEUM COMPANY.


3- ACCORDING TO WHAT WE HAVE SEEN BEFORE, MATCH THE WORDS WITH IS MEANINGS:

( 1 ) IRONY ( 2 ) PARODY ( 3 ) PARODY


(____)IT MEANS ANY PUBLIC SHOW OF RESPECT TO SOMEONE TO WHOM ONE FEELS INDEBTED.

(____)IT IS A FIGURE OF SPEECH, IN WICH WHAT IS SAID IS NOT WHAT IS MEANT.

(____)IS A WORK CREATED TO MOCK, COMMENT ON, OR POKE FUN AT AN ORIGINAL WORK.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT PREPOSITION

How to choose the correct preposition?

I always listen to the radio in the evening before going to bed. I’m very interested in world affairs and love to hear about the way people live in other countries.


Choosing prepositions


Prepositions are the small words which you often hear between verbs and nouns. Prepositions are used to show the physical relationship between objects, or actions and objects. So, for example, we have prepositions of place and movement.


place e.g. The radio’s on the table under the window.
movement e.g. Go to the shops. / Go through the park.

However, there are two groups of words – time phrases and certain verbs and adjectives – which collocate with specific prepositions in a different way. This section will help you with these two groups.


Time phrases
Look at the following groups of time phrases. Match each group with the appropriate preposition.


at / on / no preposition / in
Can you identify a pattern for the use of each preposition?

Dependent prepositions
Try to fill the gaps below with the appropriate preposition.
I enjoy studying and depend a) __________ BBC World Service for English language programmes. I’m very interested b)__________ new technology and enjoy hearing c) _________ scientific developments around the world. Also, listening d) _________ the radio helps improve my English. At the moment, I’m concentrating e) _________ improving my grammar so that I can speak with fewer errors.

Learning tip:
As with many points of English grammar there are no constant rules which can help you learn which preposition to use. However, you can help your learning if you ...
a) make sure, when you are looking up a word in a dictionary, that you note which preposition follows it.
b) group words according to the preposition they use.This can help you identify patterns which make remembering the correct prepositions easier.

Learning task
Answer the following questions in complete sentences, using the correct preposition.
e.g. When were you born? / I was born on ...
a) When is New Year’s Day?
b) When is the weather hottest?
c) When do people in Britain have decorated trees in their houses?
d) When did William Shakespeare live?
e) When did you last listen to BBC World Service?
f) What time is your favourite programme on?


Guidelines and answers

Time phrases
Use in with months, years, decades, centuries, seasons – and parts of the day
(except for night).
Use at with times, and special times of the year. Also use at with ‘night’.
Use on with days and dates.
‘Time’ words such as next, last and ago, and words which fix a day in time
(e.g. yesterday, tomorrow) do not take a preposition.

Dependent prepositions
a) depend on, also rely on. Often verbs with similar or related meanings
take the same preposition.
b) interested in
c) hear about. Also speak about (discuss). Remember that some words
can take more than one preposition depending on the meaning you
want to convey.
d) listen to
e) concentrate on. Also focus on.

Learning task answers
a) New Year’s Day is on January 1st.
b) The weather is hottest in summer.
c) People in Britain decorate trees at Christmas.
d) Shakespeare lived in the sixteenth century.
e) I last listened on ... at ... .
f) It’s on ... at ... .

Fonte: BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

HOW TO BUILD YOUR VOCABULARY?

How to build your vocabulary

How can I learn new words? It seems impossible – there are so many. I want a manageable system to help me build my vocabulary – nothing unrealistic or trendy, simply a few tips to help me learn easily.

Word attack skills
The easiest way to extend your vocabulary is to improve your word attack skills. In English, we often use prefixes (letters added to the beginning of a word) and suffixes (letters added to the end of a word) to change or add to the word’s meaning. In this way, we create a word family.
Word attack skills involve looking for the stem (or root) of the word – the part which never changes – then working out how the prefix or suffix has changed the meaning.

Prefixes
These often give a word a negative or opposite meaning. Look at the adjectives below.

Impossible illegal untidy incomplete imprecise illiterate Unreal irrational immovable irrelevant

Can you notice a pattern in how we use these prefixes?

Suffixes
Different suffixes can give words different meanings. Look at the passage below. Can you identify what the suffixes -able, -y and -ish mean? What type of word do we add each suffix to – noun, verb or adjective?
I love listening to BBC World Service.The programmes are usually shortish – between 15 and 30 minutes, and always understandable.The news is very reliable and the music programmes are good for trendy, youngish people. It’s always easy to find something to listen to because World Service broadcasts on so many frequencies.

Learning tip: When learning a new word, always try to identify any prefixes or suffixes.This will help you focus on the word stem. If you are using a dictionary to help you, always take a note of the prefixes and suffixes listed in the dictionary entry.They are often divided from the word stem by a hyphen (e.g. im-possible).

Learning tasks
1. Link the words below to the appropriate prefix: im-, il-, ir-, un-, in-, convenient legible replaceable known passable

Complete the following sentence with one of the words with its prefix from exercise 1.
a) My brother’s handwriting is terrible. It’s so_____________________that his teacher refused to mark his
English composition!
b) Many mountain roads are_____________________in winter because they are blocked by snow.
c) Anna was very upset when she lost her necklace because she will never find another one like it.
It is_____________________.
d) ‘Is this an_____________________time to call you?’ ‘Not at all. I’m not busy at the moment.’
e) This poem was written by an_____________________poet. I wish I knew who he was!
2. Add a suffix to the words in brackets below to complete the sentences. Choose -y, -ish or -able.
a) The weather in London is very (rain) in winter so the streets are often wet.
b) I love food which is hot and (spice).
c) I bought my radio six months ago, so it is (new).
d) It was sunny this morning, but then it went (cloud) and now it’s raining!

Guidelines and answers

Prefixes: The prefixes attached to many adjectives to give them an opposite meaning depend on the first letter of the adjective. So, in many cases:
adjectives beginning with m or p take the prefix im
adjectives beginning with the letter l take the prefix il
some adjectives beginning with the letter r take the prefix ir-

Un and in: These can be quite confusing. However, as a general rule, longer
adjectives (which come from Latin) take in- and shorter adjectives take un-.

Suffixes have very specific meanings:
-able is added to the end of verbs to make adjectives which show that
something can be done, e.g. a book can be very readable, or a song singable.
-ish is added to short adjectives to show that something has some of the
properties of the adjective, e.g. someone who is 19 years old can be described
as twentyish, or youngish.
-y is added to nouns to make adjectives: tea with milk is milky tea; if you can
do a task with ease it is easy.

Learning task answers
1. a) illegible b) impassable c) irreplaceable d) inconvenient e) unknown
2. a) rainy b) spicy c) newish d) cloudy

From: BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

TIPS ON LEARNING ENGLISH

Study English every Day

How many English words can I learn per day?
10 English words or phrases per day aren’t too many, are they? Just give it a try. You will find that you can learn them in next to no time. So why not take a little time each day (Monday to Friday) to learn 10 new words? Use the weekend to revise what you have learned during the past week(s). This way you’ll enrich your English vocabulary by 50 new words per week. (That’s 200 new English words after a month!)
Little strokes fell big oaks.

Learn English through Reading

Read English texts as often as you can.This could be the news, short stories or novels, texts from your textbook. Choose an interesting text that is not too difficult for you (otherwise it wouldn’t be fun).
Don’t look up every word which is new to you – even without a dictionary you will understand a lot. Just concentrate on what you do understand and try to find out the rest by intelligent guessing. That works rather well, especially if you are interested in the topic. If you are a football fanatic for example, you probably won’t have problems understanding an English text about football. On the other hand, someone who is better in English than you but not interested in football will have more problems understanding the same text.
Do also watch the news in your native language and try to find English news to some of the topics. Even if you don't understand every word in the English text, you will get the message as you already know what the text is about.
Read between the lines.

Learn English through Movies

Thanks to DVD, watching films in English has become an easy thing to do.
Choose your favourite film – you’ve watched that film a dozen times and probably know all the dialogues off by heart in your native language. So following the story will be easy for you.
Have paper and pen ready as you may want to jot down useful words or phrases that you wish to learn. English subtitles might be useful for that (although they might differ from what is actually being said).
If you are not used to watching films in English, choose a only few episodes – at the beginning it isn’t easy to concentrate on listening to the foreign language for a long time.
What you see is what you get.

Learn English through Songs
Vocabulary needs to be revised again and again. Well, what could be better than studying vocabulary by listening to your favourite songs?
Read the lyrics first and try to understand them. You don’t have to translate the lyrics word by word, just try to find out what the song is all about. (Note: ‘Rap’ might not be practical as those songs usually contain slang words that not even ‘ordinary’ English native speakers know.)
Pick some words or phrases from the song that you would like to learn. If necessary, look up their exact meaning in a dictionary. A dictionary might also be useful to find other interesting phrases with the word.
Now, to learn the vocabulary, all you have to do is listening to the song again and again (that shouldn’t be a problem if it’s one of your favourite songs).
Let the music turn you on.

Targets
Set small, achievable targets, e.g.:
§ learn 10 new English words or phrases every day, Mondays to Fridays (repeat on Saturdays, relax on Sundays)
§ unlearn one typical mistake before the next test

§ study 15 minutes every day
§ read the lyrics of an English song every week and try to understand its main content
§ read and try to understand one short English text every week

Reaching your target step by step is much better than setting a huge target that you cannot achieve. Easy does it … and keeps your motivation up.
Many a mickle makes a muckle.

Motivation is half the Work

“Boring!” Well, that’s definitely not the way it works.
Try to find a positive aspect to studying. Why not watch your favourite film in English and write down some useful words or phrases that you want to remember. You could also read the lyrics of Top 10 songs and try to understand what they are about. Or check out celebrity sites and learn more about famous actors, bands and other stars. This sure is good for your vocabulary and on top of that – it’s lots of fun.
Always look on the bright side of life.

Don't overdo it!
Studying 15 minutes per day is more effective than studying 2 hours once every week.
For a whole week, try studying 15 minutes each day. Not less. And definitively not more than that (even if you could).
You will see that the following day, studying is much more fun, simply because you didn't push it to the limit the day before.
Know when to stop before you start.

Treat yourself to something good

Everbody notices what you failed to do. But nobody appreciates what you succeeded to do. That's rather frustrating, isn't it?
Appreciation is always a good motivation. And if nobody else appreciates your efforts, you'll have to do it yourself. Set a target for the day, the week or the term and do also set a reward for yourself that you can look forward to, e.g.:
If I achieve the target, I will treat myself to ...
§ an adventurous monster killing game on my computer
§ a visit to the cinema at the weekend
§ a short trip to London

If it's a long-time target, write your reward down on a piece of paper and hang it up in a place where it catches your eye. This sure will be a good motivation.
Go for it!

Study English with Friends

Meet friends and study English together.
You can repeat your English vocabulary, do your homework together and help each other with English grammar. And why not try one of our games on ego4u. Studying with friends simply is much more fun.
It’s also a good oportunity to exchange ideas on studying in general. Maybe your friends have found out about a good way of studying more effectively. Or, who knows, maybe you can advise your friends on this?
All for one and one for all.

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/learning

An Unpolite way to learn English

ONE EYE SIMON'S TIP FOR FAKING IT

When you read something in English you can take as much time as you need to understand everything. However, when you speak English you have to think on your feet, sometimes it can be embarrassing or even a bit scary. Follow my
advice and impress English speakers by appearing more fluent.

If an English speaker asks you a question stroke your chin and look like you were thinking about something else for a few seconds before you answer. This will give you time to decide if you understood the question or if you need to hear it again. It should help you to avoid embarrassing situations, like this:

Native speaker: So, where do you come from,
then?
Johnny Foreigner: Yes, I would love to.
Native speaker : ?
(Native speaker explains her question again and they both
laugh nervously about the misunderstanding. Johnny
Foreigner is ashamed and commits suicide two hours later.)

Say ‘you know what I mean’ or ‘like’ after everything you say. Many English speakers add unnecessary words like these to their sentences. It is often considered a bad habit among native speakers. However, it will make you seem really cool if English is not your first language.

See how well Jeanette Foreigner does things:

Native speaker: Did you enjoy the film?

Jeanette Foreigner: Yeah. It was, like, quite good. You know what I mean? Did you like it?

Native speaker: I thought it was, you know, all right, like. Do you want to go to the cinema with me next week?

Jeanette Foreigner: I’m sorry, Dave has invited me.He doesn’t,like, try to stroke my leg during the film. And he’s much better looking than you. You know what I mean?

Native speaker: Oh, right…

Tap your wrist when you ask, “What time is it, please?” Do not tap your crotch when you ask, “Where are the toilets, please?” If you ‘invent’ a new word (by saying a word from your own first language with an English speaking accent) don’t stop, just ignore it and continue with what you are saying. Even if it doesn’t exist, the native speaker will think it is real word and feel embarrassed
that he doesn’t know it. If you make somebody repeat a question three times and you still can’t understand just say, “That’s none of your business, you ugly bastard”, look insulted and walk away. The person will think you’re mad but they will think that your English is excellent.
Frown when you speak to someone in English, it makes you seem much more credible. This really works! The person in front of you will think you know
exactly what you are talking about.

JOKES

We found this jokes on internet and we though it was pretty funny. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell a good joke in a foreign language - you forget words or the tense you want to use... Anyway, we're laughing already...



The smart tramp
A tramp walks into a bar and orders a drink. “I don’t think you can pay for that, can you?” says the barman. “OK” says the tramp. “If I promise to show you something amazing, will you give me a drink?” Reluctantly, the barman agrees, and the tramp pulls a baby chick out of his pocket and puts it on the bar.
The little creature runs over to the piano and plays Imagine by John Lennon. “That was amazing,” admits the barman as he pulls the tramp’s pint. Once he has gulped it down, the tramp asks for another. “I’ll need another miracle in return,” says the barman. So this time the tramp pulls out a piglet and puts it on the bar. The piglet clears his throat and sings Bohemian Rhapsody.
At this point, a man sitting in the corner of the bar comes up and gives him £100 for the piglet. When he’s gone, the barman says to the tramp, “You’re crazy to sell that pig so cheaply. You could have got much more.” “It’s OK,” replies the tramp, “The chicken’s a ventriloquist.”

Bad day
A big lorry driver with a reputation for making trouble walks into a bar. Everyone pretends not to see him and hopes he will leave them alone. A little man is sitting at the bar just staring at his drink when the big lorry driver walks up to him, grabs his drink and gulps it down in one swig. The poor little man starts crying. The lorry driver is surprised and says, “Come on man, I was only messing about, I’ll buy you another drink. I just can’t stand to see a man rying.” “This is the worst day of my life,” says the little guy, sobbing. “I can’t do anything right. I slept-in and was late for an important meeting, so my boss fired me. “When I went to the car park, I found my car was stolen and I have no insurance. I grabbed a taxi home but, after it left, I found out my wallet was still in the taxi. “I got in the house and discovered my wife had left me for my brother… And then you turn up and drink the poison!”

We hope you had fun!

INTERTEXTUALITY

We are going to present you the intertextuality among many kinds of artistical expressions, contrasting their age context and cultural differences about the issue: ART REPORTING TECHNOLOGY

Art is the expression of the human reality. Every time something changes in the world, in people’s way of life, it is reported by music, literature, painting, theatre, cinema and many other kinds of artistical expressions, when technology was introduced in society it was not different. Check out some examples of it.

The songs Admirável Chip Novo by the Brazilian rock singer Pitty and Brave New World by The British rock band Iron Maiden are intertext with the book Brave New World from the English writer Aldous Huxley.

MUSICAL INTERTEXTUALITY

There are many kinds of intertextuality: parody, homage, citation, reelaboration, etc.
In record stores or musical web sites we can easily find similar covers of albuns from artists that have nothing in common one each other. Check out some examples of this kind of intertextuality.

BIOMECHANICAL

The Swedish architect and plastic artist H. R. Giger is the creator of Alien and he was inspired by the Austrian science fiction movie director Fritz Lang, who was the first in associate biomechanical elements with the cinema, Lang’s masterpiece is Metropolis from 1927, which shows a dehumanize vision of the future.

MOVIES AND BOOKS

Is also pretty common the intertextuality between cinema and literature. One example is George Orwell’s book “1984” and the science fiction movie “Equilibrium” from 2002 written and directed by Kurt Wimmer.
The film itself is an original story, but it takes a large amount of influence from many books such as Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World", George Orwell’s book "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury.
Some similarities and ideas taken from the book are for example the conditioning of the population, the obligatory injected “drug” they must take, the rules dictated by the Father, also called "Big Brother”, who is watching the population all the time. The destruction of the art and books by the fire is an idea from "Fahrenheit 451". Which have not the same story, but the movie is clearly based on these mentioned books.

PAINTING INTERTEXTUALITY

“The Dwarf Sebastian de Morra” from 1645 by Diego Velázquez.
"Velázquez Dying Behind the Window on the Left Side Out of Which a Spoon Projects” from 1982 by Salvador Dalí.
In this painting Dalí uses the same central element as Velásquez portrait, but he mixes it with surrealist elements, in such case he does a reelaboration.

Portrait of Pope Innocent X” from 1650 by Diego Velázquez.
“Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X” from 1953 by Francis Bacon
In this painting the Irish artist Francis Bacon does a citation of Velázquez portrait . He uses the central element deforming it and shows a distorted version of the Pope’s portrait.

GOOD HUMORED INTERTEXTUALITY

The American cartoonist Matt Groening uses intertextuality in this picture of The Simpsons, which is a parody of the painting from 1931 “The memory persistence” by the Spanish painter Salvador Dali.

"Texts exist in cultural and aesthetic contexts alongside other texts. They influence one another and often refer to one another overtly, this being a particular characteristic of postmodernist writing. In fact, all language is itself intertextual, since language always pre-exists the speaker: words and meanings are always second-hand in some sense”. Aidan Arrowsmith