Apostila 1 - Reading I

Prévia do material em texto

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO AMAZONAS 
INSTITUTO DE CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS E LETRAS 
DEPARTAMENTO DE LÍNGUAS E LITERATURAS ESTRANGEIRAS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
RRR EEE AAA DDD III NNN GGG III 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Organização 
Profª Edlamar Benevides Xavier, M.A. 
Profª Irene da Costa Alves, M.A. 
Prof. Dr. Sérgio Augusto Freire de Souza 
Adaptação 
Profª Marta de Faria e Cunha Monteiro, M. Sc. 
 2013/2 
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R E A D I N G I 
 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
Unit 1 Reading ..........................................................................……...................….………. 03 
 
 
Unit 2 Reading Comprehension Clues .............................................................…………….. 04 
 
 
Unit 3 How to Deal with the Vocabulary .........................................................…………….. 05 
 
 
Unit 4 Reading Techniques .............................................................................………………07 
 
 
Unit 5 The Reader’s Objective ..........................................................................……………. 08 
 
 
Unit 6 Background Knowledge .........................................................................……………. 09 
 
 
Unit 7 Reading Strategies .................................................................................…………….. 10 
 
 
Unit 8 Making Inferences ..................................................................................……………..11 
 
 
Unit 9 Levels of Reading Comprehension ........................................................……………..12 
 
 
Unit 10 Different Genres of Texts .......................................................................……………. 13 
 
 
 
 
 
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UUUNNNIIITTT 111 
 
 READING 
 
 If we want to develop reading skills in a foreign language, it is important to understand what is 
involved in the reading process itself. If we have a clear idea of how good readers read, either in their 
own or in a foreign language, we will be able to decide whether particular reading techniques are likely 
to help readers or not. 
 
 In considering the reading process, it is important to distinguish between two quite separate 
activities: reading for meaning (or silent reading) and reading aloud. Reading for meaning is the 
activity we normally engage in when we read books, newspaper, road signs, etc.; it is what you are 
doing as you read this text. It involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they 
convey, i.e., making sense of a written text. It does not normally involve saying the words we read, not 
even silently inside our heads; there are important reasons for this, which are outlined below. 
 
 Reading aloud is a completely different activity; its purpose is not only to understand a text but 
also to convey the information to someone else. It is not an activity we engage in very often outside the 
classroom; common examples are reading out parts of a newspaper article to a friend, or reading a 
notice to other people who cannot see it. Obviously, reading aloud involves looking at a text, 
understanding it and saying it. Due to the fact that our attention is divided between reading and 
speaking, it is a much more difficult activity than reading silently. We often stumble and make 
mistakes when reading aloud in our language, and reading aloud in a foreign language is even more 
difficult. 
 
 When we read for meaning, we do not need to read every letter or every word, not even every 
word in each sentence. This is because, provided the text makes sense, we can guess much of what it 
says as we read it. To see how it happens at the level of individual words, try reading this sentence: 
 
A m_ _ was walk_ _ _ d_ _n the s_ _ _ _t, c_ r_ _ing a gr_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. 
 
 Even though half of the letters were missing, you could probably read the sentence without 
difficulty, and even guess the last word without the help of any letters. You may also have noticed that 
when you guessed the second word, it helped you to guess the first part of the sentence. This example 
is an isolated sentence; if you are reading connected sentences in a text, each sentence helps you to 
guess what the next one will be, and so on through the whole text. 
 
 Reading is an active process. When we read, we do not merely sit as passive receivers of the 
text; we also draw on our own knowledge of the world and of language to help us guess what the text 
will say next. It is only when we are reading a series of words that makes no sense at 
all, such as 
 
Man walking elephant the onto reading to help 
 
that we have to slow down and read every single word, for we can no longer make guesses. 
 
 Normally, when we read, our eyes take in complete phrases at a time. They do not move from 
word to word in a straight line, but flick backwards and forwards over the text. You can easily test this 
for yourself. Try covering a text with a piece of paper and reading it literally word by word, moving the 
paper along from each word to the next. You will probably find that you soon lose track of the 
meaning, and you need to keep looking back to take in whole sentences. This highlights another 
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important aspect of reading: it is not just that we do not need to read word by word, but rather that it is 
almost impossible to read and understand a text this way. Attempting to read one word at a time slows 
down reading so much that we lose the sense of what we are reading. 
 
 There are differences between reading in our language, where comprehension does not usually 
pose a problem, and reading in a foreign language. The differences are even bigger if a foreign 
language uses a different writing system. The characteristics of good reading, however, are the same in 
any language. 
 
Adapted from Doff, A. (1988) 
 
 
UNIT 2 
 
READING COMPREHENSION CLUES 
 
 Understanding a text means extracting the necessary information from it as efficiently as 
possible. Comprehension is not achieved, however, by reading word by word or looking up every 
unknown word in a dictionary. This is unproductive, tiresome and extremely boring; and you have no 
comprehension at all. 
 
 In reading, you must be aware of the strategies and clues that can lead you to the meaning 
resulting in comprehension. For example: you should know that you can take advantage of the several 
similarities between Portuguese and English, such as: the alphabet, the order of handwriting (left to 
right), the classes of grammar, etc. 
 
 In addition, whenever you read a text, you can look for cognate words, repeated words and 
typographic clues to facilitate comprehension. 
 
 COGNATE WORDS - These are words very similar to Portuguese because they have a 
common root, Latin or Greek. A text usually has at least 20 % of cognate words. 
 
 REPEATED WORDS - In a text there are words that are more important and, for this reason, 
they are obviously repeated. These repeated words are generally nouns, adjectives or verbs; they may 
be key words to the understanding of the text. It is very important to know the meaning of these words. 
Try to guess the meaning by using the context, and relating the word to the topic of the text or look it 
up in a dictionary, if necessary. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHIC CLUES - These are the printed marks and signals a text contains that can help 
you identify and understand necessary information. It is of great value when you scan a text forspecific 
information. The most important typographic clues are: 
 
 Words in capital letters, acronyms or abbreviations: John, Brazil, UFAM, INPA, UEA, etc; 
 
 Words in boldface type or italics; 
 
 Symbols, signals and punctuation marks: %, &, $, R$, +, -, x, " ", ( ), /, *, etc; 
 
 Numbers and dates: 5000; 1984; 5%; March 5th, etc; 
 
 Graphs, tables, maps, titles, sub-titles, headings, etc. 
 
 
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UNIT 3 
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE VOCABULARY 
 
THE PROBLEM WITH THE VOCABULARY 
 
It is very common to hear someone who is learning a foreign language complaining about his 
lack of vocabulary knowledge: 
 
 "I can't understand if I don't know every word in text." 
 "I have a very poor vocabulary." 
 "I have to have the dictionary at hand the whole day." 
 
Some students who face this kind of problem usually ask: 
 
 "How can I improve my vocabulary in English?" 
 "Shall I use a dictionary every time I come across a word I don't know?" 
 
 Here we are going to suggest you some hints to make you aware of vocabulary problems and 
the best approach when reading in English. 
 
1 CHECK IF THE WORD IS IMPORTANT 
 
 Whenever you find an unknown word, you should not worry about its meaning at first; instead, 
your first step should be to check if a word is or not important for the text. 
 
It is often a difficult task for the reader to decide which words are important. However, you 
cannot solve your vocabulary problems by asking the teacher to explain the meaning of the unknown 
word. It is better to check if the word is really important to the understanding of the text. 
 
 You can check by seeing if the word: 
 
 appears several times in the text; 
 comes in a different style; 
 appears to explain an important aspect of the text. 
 
 You can also consider the word in relation to the topic of the text, its place within the text, as 
well as considering the title, sub-titles, figures, etc., which might give you a clue about the importance 
of the word. Thus, whenever you find an unknown word: 
 
1 you should decide if it is important to the understanding of the text; 
2 you should skip it if it is NOT important; 
3 If it is important (or if it appeals to your curiosity) try to understand it by using the context. 
 
2 ANALYZE WORD FORMATION 
 
 Just like you do in Portuguese, you create a new word by adding affixes to the stem of a word. 
Affixes refer either to PREFIXES, which are added to the beginning of the word (e.g. mis+understand 
= misunderstand), or to SUFFIXES, which are added to the end of the word (e.g. 
misunderstand+ing=misunderstanding). 
 
 
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Through word formation, by adding a prefix or a suffix to the stem, we can change the meaning 
or the class of a word: 
 e.g. nation (noun) 
 national (adj.) 
 nationalize (verb) 
 nationally (adv) 
 international (adj) 
 
3 TRY TO IDENTIFY THE GRAMMATICAL CLASS OF THE UNKNOWN WORD 
 
 Just like in Portuguese, a word in English can have its grammatical class changed according to 
its position in the sentence, thus changing its sense. Let's see the various uses and meanings of the word 
COST, in these examples: 
 
a) The cost of living is increasing. 
 
 Here the article makes you preview that the following word is a noun. 
 
 b) Oil is going to cost a lot of money. 
 
 The word TO usually indicates that the next word is an infinitive verb. In this case, the 
expression GOING TO indicates future time, which really makes cost to be a verb. 
 
 c) He explained the mechanism of cost analysis. 
 
 In this sentence both cost and analysis are nouns. However, in this case, the first of them is an 
adjective since in English the adjective precedes the noun. 
 
 d) The book cost US$ 40.00. 
 
 As in English the word order is S+V+O or S+V+C we can understand the word in this case is a 
verb. 
 
4 USE THE CONTEXT 
 
 The context refers to the words near the unknown word plus everything you already know from 
the text. Using context is a strategy you do almost unconsciously when reading in your native language. 
Most of the words you know in your language, you learned the meaning by using the context and not 
using a dictionary. Test this hypothesis by asking your neighbor where he learned the latest slang 
expression. Most certainly it was not in the dictionary. 
 
5 USE CONTEXT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE 
 
5.1 Look attentively at the words next to the unknown word. In the sentence, most of the times, 
the meaning of an unknown word is obvious or implicit. 
 
 5.2 If the words in the same sentence do not help learn the meaning of an unknown word, try to 
relate this word to the previous paragraph(s) or to all you have grasped from the text so far, that is, you 
should consider the clues such as: cognates, typographic type used, relation to the title, sub-titles, 
figures, the word formation, as well as the punctuation used near it and its position in the sentence, that 
is, the class of word it belongs to. However, sometimes there is not enough context provided to indicate 
the meaning. 
 
 5.3 If after all these considerations the meaning is still unknown, you should ask it to someone 
or look it up in a dictionary. 
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6 WHAT DOES "TO UNDERSTAND A WORD" MEAN? 
 
 To understand a word does not imply to learn its correct meaning. For example: Do you know 
the meaning of the word oak? you may know it is a tree, but do you know the type of leaves it has? 
What are its seeds like? What is its timber used for? You may not know all about a word, but you can 
understand what it represents in a context. You should not worry about understanding the word 
perfectly. Most of the times, the only thing you need is an approximate idea of its meaning in the 
context. 
 
7 A FINAL WORD 
 
 How can you improve your vocabulary? First of all, there is no benefit in just having your 
teacher inform you the meaning of the unknown word. In order to improve your vocabulary, you have 
to make an effort in the same way you learn slang informally. This does not mean learning the word by 
heart, but simply making an effort to understand it using the context and situate it in your mind in a 
greater semantic word class. By using logical thinking you will be able to remember or at least 
recognize the word in the future. 
 
 If the word really seems important to your purposes, why don't you write it down? The simple 
act of note taking may help you remember it. As you improve your vocabulary, you may note that you 
can cope more easily with the meaning of unknown words. You should also know that the "750 most 
used words in English accounts for about 70% of all words in a text." (Wilkins, 1990). 
 
 
UNIT 4 
 
 READING TECHNIQUES 
 
 Once you know your objective in reading, comprehension can be successfully achieved by 
using the appropriate technique. The main reading techniques are: 
 
SKIMMING - To skim is to move the eyes very rapidly over a page to find some specific bit of 
information or to get a general comprehension of the text. In doing so, you just need to look for the 
clues of information that provide the main idea of the subject. Thus, you have to identify topic 
sentences, key words and contextual clues such as words in italics, bold face type, the title, the sub-
title, spacing, paragraph divisions, etc. 
 
SCANNING - To scan is to read quickly to locate a specific piece of information. To use scanning you 
must: 
 
 decide exactly which type of information you are looking for and think of the way it may be 
presented in the text. For example: to learn when something happened,you have to look for a date; 
if you want to know who did something, you must refer to a name which is capitalized; 
 decide where to look for the information needed. For example, you would not look for information 
about politics in the sport page, nor would you look in the telephone directory for Carlos Silva's 
telephone number, under the letter "C"; 
 locate the information. Read carefully down the page; when you find the information you need, 
stop. You do not need to continue reading. 
 
SELECTIVITY - When you read long texts, you do not need to read completely through the entire 
text. You just need to select the important parts of the text, that is: the title, the sub-titles, the first 
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paragraph, the first sentence of each paragraph and the last paragraph. These parts usually indicate if 
the text is of interest to you and if you need to read it more carefully. 
 
UNIT 5 
 THE READER’S OBJECTIVE 
 
 Reading is a process that can be done in different ways. These ways are determined by two 
main factors: 
 
 a) the reader's objective 
 b) the reading techniques 
 
In this unit, we will focus on the first of these two points: the objectives in reading. 
 
5.1 THE READER'S OBJECTIVE 
 
 Although we may not realize it, we never read without a purpose. Even when we read the 
newspaper over somebody's shoulder on a bus, we read to be informed about the latest news, to satisfy 
a curiosity, or just to pass the time. 
 
 It is very important to establish and be aware of our objective in reading before we start reading 
in order to adopt the right technique to achieve our goal. Let us see the objectives we usually have 
when we read: 
 
 READING FOR APPLICATION - This is the kind of reading objective we have when we 
read to decide if the message in the text can be used to our purposes, or to retain ideas, facts, 
relationships, explanations, etc. When we study, we read for application. 
 
 READING FOR INFORMATION - It implies that we read to learn something we did not 
know before or just to learn more about something we know. When we read newspapers, magazines, 
articles or any other informative text we read for information. 
 
 READING FOR PLEASURE - Much of our reading is done purely for pleasure, to satisfy 
our natural curiosity, to pass the time. When we read any kind of material from comics to literature we 
read for pleasure. 
 
 CRITICAL READING - This type of reading involves the reader's critical sense, making a 
conscious effort to read "between the lines", to discern the motives that lie beneath the author's words, 
to be alert to implications. When we enter into "mental dialogue" with the author we are reading 
critically. 
 
 We may always read critically but this can be better done if we have enough knowledge of the 
subject to use as a parameter to what we read. Therefore, we must be aware that no book has definite 
truth and we need always to ask ourselves as we read: 
 
 Do I agree with this? Why? 
 Are the arguments convincing? 
 What parts are relevant to me? 
 Are the facts true? 
 
 These are the two kinds of reading students usually deal with in the class: Extensive reading 
and Intensive reading. 
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 EXTENSIVE READING - concerns to the reading longer texts, usually for one's pleasure. 
This is a fluency activity mainly involving global understanding and you usually use when reading 
short stories, essays, etc. 
 
 INTENSIVE READING - means reading shorter texts to extract specific information. This is 
more an accuracy activity involving reading for detail and that you price use for everyday class 
activities. 
 
UNIT 6 
 BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Reading comprehension depends on the activation of relevant knowledge. You must relate the 
language to what you already know about the subject. You achieve activation by making assumptions, 
supplying ideas and using your experience of life. 
 
 Consider, for instance, these sentences: 
 
 1 Mary heard the ice-cream man coming. 
 2 She remembered the pocket money. 
3 She rushed into the house. 
 
 According to Rumelhart and Ortony (1977), these sentences form a simple story most people 
can interpret since a number of factors are provided. Presumably, the interpretation in along the lines 
that Mary heard the ice-cream man coming and wanted to buy some. Buying ice-cream costs money, so 
she had to think of a quick source of funds. She remembered some pocket money she had not spent yet, 
which, presumably, was in her house. So Mary hurried into the house trying to get the money by the 
time the ice-cream man arrived. 
 
 Thus, to understand a text you not only need to identify letters, words and sentences, but also 
relate them to higher levels of cognitive skills, creating new structures of meaning: interpreting the text. 
How do you do this? Inside our minds, we have organized knowledge, or a network of real world 
information, that we can refer to. It is a sort of data bank of concepts and ideas known as schemata. It 
is through the activation of these mental frames that we can relate the written signals to meaning, and 
therefore interpret the text. 
 
 Schemata are never exactly the same for two readers, and the manner each reader accesses 
them is far from being fully understood. Nevertheless, it has been established that the way the reader 
activates schemata plays a major role in reading comprehension. Here follows an example of how a 
simple sentence that, theoretically, furnishes the same amount of information to any reader can be 
interpreted differently: 
 
GREAT BOOM ON THE STOCK-MARKET!! 
 
 This sentence (a newspaper headline) brings with it two possible primary interpretations: the 
stock-market is either enjoying a sudden period of prosperity or has been affected by a decline due to 
some unexpected factor. You can, of course, check the actual meaning intended by the author by 
reading the article, but that is not the point on focus now. The point we want to make is that at the very 
first time this sentence is read it may be understood in two different ways. It happens due to the 
activation of two different schemata chosen differently for reasons we do not know for sure, but which 
we suspect are determined by the context the readers are in. Someone working on the stock-market is 
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likely to be surer in his assumption of interpretation than someone else who does not work in or is 
somehow related to the field. 
 This example tells us that comprehension is a two way: the text gives the reader information 
and the reader decodes this information into meaning through his knowledge. Therefore, every text is 
incomplete and needs to be completed by the reader’s schemata. “Comprehension is generated by the 
reader under the control of the stimuli of the text.” (Harris and Hodges, 1981) 
 
 Comprehension does not mean reading letter by letter, syllable by syllable, or word by word. 
We must bring certain part of ourselves to the text in order to comprehend it. Our previous knowledge 
and our expectation must be taken into account. Comprehension of a written text involves more than 
the sum of its parts; therefore, the balanced interdependence between the information found in the text 
and our previous knowledge is the essential condition for comprehension of the message being 
transmitted. 
 
 Culture is an important variable to consider in activating background knowledge. Readers can 
easily understand and infer the writer’s message if they have cultural appropriate schemata to 
understand the text. This means that if the reader is not familiar with culturalinformation, the 
comprehension of the real message may be distorted because there is a lack of cultural constructs 
necessary to interpret the message correctly. 
 
 
UNIT 7 
 
 READING STRATEGIES 
 
 When you read a text, it is very important to put in practice all your reading abilities in order to 
understand quickly the gist of the text. 
 
 Here are some skills which are basic in the reading process: 
 
 ANTICIPATION - Motivation is of great importance in reading. When we read a text, we 
want to find a number of things we suppose are there. We want to find answers to questions or any 
specific information we are interested in. Anticipation is to think about what may happen before it 
happens. This "expectation" is inherent to the process of reading; it is a permanent relation between the 
reader and the text. 
 
 PREDICTION - As the name implies, Prediction is the strategy the reader uses to imagine 
what comes next in a text. By using grammatical, logical, and cultural clues the reader can predict the 
topic of a text from its title, the development a text might take, and have some general idea of the type 
of vocabulary to express these ideas. 
 
 GUESSING - It is what the reader does when he tries to find out the correct meaning of lexical 
items or any other thing he may be interested in by using his knowledge of the world applied to certain 
clues in the text. 
 
 PREVIEWING - It is a very specific reading strategy which involves using tables of contents, 
appendices, prefaces, chapter and paragraph headings, and the like, to find out where the required 
information is likely to be. It is particularly useful in skimming and studying. 
 
 INFERENCE - To infer is to deduce sequence of events, elements and meanings, which are 
not explicit in the text, by using syntactic, logical, and cultural clues. This strategy will be better dealt 
with in Unit 8 
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UNIT 8 
 
 MAKING INFERENCES 
 
BEFORE YOU READ: 
 
You are in a second-hand book shop, looking at old books. Some of them are in a rather bad 
state and parts of the words on the covers have disappeared. Can you tell what the titles of the 
following books are? 
 
a) The ad ent es of Robinson Cr oe. 
b) The m tery o the ol cast . 
c) to bui your own hou . 
d) A ew Engl gram . 
MAKING INFERENCES 
 
 Inference is the act of coming to conclusions about something based on the information you 
have. Understanding inferences is to capture a meaning that is not directly stated. It is drawing 
conclusions from statements, circumstances, evidences or contexts in a passage. In reading, to infer 
relates to using the information in a text to form new and original ideas. 
 
 Words always convey more information than their dictionary meaning. Sometimes words have 
connotations which suggest additional information or express attitudes. 
 
 When we infer, we use the available logical, syntactic, and cultural clues to give meaning to 
elements in the text. When we do this, we learn to analyze what the writer intends to say and how this 
relates to our own thought. We form our own opinions and draw our conclusions from the available 
data. Therefore, when we read, we either understand directly from the text or we infer meanings that 
are implicit. Good readers know that reading between the lines really means being able to understand 
something that is not expressed openly; sometimes it is the most important message. 
 
 Making inferences is, then, filling gaps in the text; since not all ideas are explicitly told, the 
reader must complete the process by inferring from what is written, giving his opinion or drawing 
conclusions from what has been understood. 
 
 In order to be able to make inferences, the reader must rely on his: 
 
 previous knowledge of the subject; 
 experiences or anticipation about the facts; 
 predictions and clues about the matter. 
 
 We can easily make inferences even without being aware of it. Take this sentence, for example: 
 
AMERICAN FOOTBALL IS THE MOST FAMOUS SPORT IN THE USA. 
 
You can probably infer that: 
 The American football has outranked all other sports in the US in popularity; 
 The American football is the most famous sport because it attracts thousands of people to the 
stadiums; or 
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 Baseball is no longer the most famous sport in the US. 
 
 Making inferences does not mean, however, that you may be 100% certain of what you have 
inferred, but that the inference may probably or possibly be right according to the circumstances. 
 
UNIT 9 
 LEVELS OF READING COMPREHENSION 
 
 Because reading is a process that involves thinking, we can divide reading comprehension into 
levels or degrees of abstraction. The comprehension of a text depends mainly upon three points: 
 
 Our knowledge of the target language 
 Our knowledge of the subject matter 
 The level of comprehension the reader wants or is able to achieve. 
 
 Let’s focus on the last aspect. In reading, there are three levels of comprehension: General 
Comprehension, Main Points Comprehension, and Detailed Comprehension. We will go through each 
one of these levels briefly. 
 
 1 GENERAL COMPREHENSION - At this level, the reader can grasp the topic of the text, 
i.e., he can have a fairly good idea about the facts the writer deals with in the text. He can also learn 
where the text was taken from and identify the type of language used by the author (scientific, 
journalistic, colloquial etc.). He can check, through some aspects in the text, if it is an older or more 
recent text. 
 
 2 MAIN POINTS COMPREHENSION - At this second level, the reader goes a little further. 
He achieves all points discussed above as well as he understands the author’s argument and viewpoints. 
He perceives the author’s attitude in relation to the topic, even between the lines, and he is also able to 
discuss the topic, make a short summary and/or even criticize the text. 
 
3 DETAILED COMPREHENSION - The reading for detailed comprehension encompasses 
the two levels above plus the comprehension of the details of the text, as the title suggests. These 
details may or may not have importance for the reader. 
 
 When reading in our own language, we easily achieve the first two levels of comprehension. 
When we read a book, for instance, we are not likely to recall all the details, but we essentially 
remember the main ideas. Therefore, this means the third level of comprehension is only achieved if we 
have it as our aim. 
 
 Thus, it is advisable to follow some steps when reading in any language: 
 
 Look through the text quickly in order to get general comprehension. 
 Try to understand the main points (also by reading fast, not letting the vocabulary stop you 
from reading); decide if it is necessary for you to go into the understanding of details, and if 
it is, 
 Try to overcome the obstacles to the comprehension of details. 
 
This approach to reading implies returning to a text as many times as necessary, without any 
frustration. 
Adapted from Scott, Mike 
 
 
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UNIT 10 
 DIFFERENT GENRES OF TEXTS 
 
 A text is any written piece carrying a meaning. Just as we have an objective when reading, the 
author has also a purpose when writing a text and he demonstrates this through the way he writes it and 
through the words he uses to say what he thinks and intends. 
 
A writer can write a text in different ways: he can narrate a fact or event, and he can describe or 
dissertate it analyzing the implicationsof an event upon another event. 
 
 In narrative, the author writes about past facts or events according to their temporal occurrence; 
therefore, the main verbs will be in the past tense. Thus a narrative tells about a sequence of actions 
creating a story which involves what comes before and after. 
 
 In description, on the other hand, the author writes about a visual image or a situation creating a 
special organization showing us its characteristics and emphasizing elements like size, form, material, 
color, purpose, etc. The verbs in a description are in the present tense and the author always expresses 
certainty about the objects he describes. 
 
 In an argumentation, the author gives us facts about a certain topic or discusses some specific 
points so that the reader may grasp the idea of the argumentation. 
 
 There is another type of text in which the author can discuss a subject giving opinions for or 
against it. It is the dissertation. Here, the author can use narration, description, argumentation, or 
simply express his viewpoints, ideas and feelings. He can also give his interpretation of the facts 
analyzing the implications of an event upon another one, drawing conclusions, making generalizations 
or even making predictions about future events. 
 
 In addition to these different forms of genres, the writer can also use the text for different 
purposes such as to define, instruct, inform, persuade, reform, offer, ask, elicit, etc. 
 
In general, we classify texts according to the language used. Thus, we can classify a “text” as: 
 
 INFORMATIVE – A text is informative when it has a referential or denotative function. In 
informative texts, the author gives the information trying to be as neutral as possible. The referential 
or denotative function is predominant and emotive and appealing functions are less used. 
 
 EMOTIVE – We can say a text is emotive if, as the label says it, it has an emotive function. The 
author expresses his emotions, his viewpoints, his images of the world, his beliefs, values and 
judgments, revealing himself through his message. As the emotive function of the language is more 
prominent in a text like this, the referential and appealing functions are less used. 
 
 APPEALING TEXTS – Appealing texts emphasize the appealing function of the language. The 
writer speaks directly to the reader trying to modify his behavior, giving him advice, emphasizing the 
advantages of his arguments in order to convince the reader of something. 
 
A writer can also use several resources to organize the message. He can use, for instance: 
 Classification 
 Definition 
 Enumeration 
 Exemplification 
 Comparison 
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 Contrast 
 Citation (of experts of other people’s opinions to support or not what the author says.) 
In order to get his aims, the author uses other resources: 
 Imperative/vocative 
 Persons of discourse: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. 
 Metaphor 
 Hyperbole/diminutives 
 Punctuation (inverted commas indicating irony, question marks for statements looking for the 
reader’s agreement, italicized words to express opinions.) 
 Comparisons 
 Antitheses 
 Use of redundancy between verbal and non-verbal information to reinforce the author’s viewpoint 
 Words expressing the writer’s personal judgments’ 
 Use of indefinite words: some, most, etc. 
 Use of words with strong connotation, e.g., ravage instead destroy, scourge instead of plague, etc. 
 
GETTING THE MOST OF TEXT READING 
 
 Now that you have understood how the writer normally uses the words to convey his message, 
it is important that you consider these points in order to be able to get the main idea of the text and even 
make critical reading of it. 
 
It is a good idea to follow some habitual procedures when you read a text: 
 
 Use the reading strategies to make the processing of the information easier 
 Make questions that will help you to: 
 Distinguish facts from opinions 
 Establish implicit relationships 
 Evaluate the reader’s viewpoint 
 Contribute to an efficient critical evaluation of the material 
 
As a means to evaluate critically the material you are reading you should ask: 
 
1 What type of text is this: informative, emotive or appealing? What is the main function of the 
language used? In which person (1
st
, 2
nd
, 3
rd
) was the discourse constructed? 
2 Which processes of text composition were used? Which dissertative resources (enumeration, 
classification, contrast, comparison) were used? 
3 Where does the text come from? What type of source is it: an old issue, a contemporary magazine 
of general subject, a newspaper, a journal? Is this source trustful? 
4 What type of reader is this publication addressed for? What kind of reader would be more 
influenced by this type of publication (old people, young people, educators, parents, negroes, 
religious groups)? 
5 How are the title, the illustration and the text related? Is there any element of redundancy among 
them? 
6 Is the presentation of the text confuse, attractive or clear? 
7 Observe the organization of the information on the printed page. Can you find three parts of a text 
in it: Introduction, Development and Conclusion? Is there any indication of the author’s 
participation? Is there any word reflecting his personal judgment? 
8 Can the facts mentioned in the text be checked from the text itself? Does the author express his 
opinion when reporting the facts? 
9 Do the facts mentioned support the author’s argument? 
10 Are words like important, essential, principal, fundamental, irrelevant used? Are there many 
comparisons? Superlatives? Are there many metaphors? Hyperbole? Is passive voice largely used? 
15 
 
 
Are indefinite words such as some, all, most used? Is there any word expressing strong 
connotation? 
11 Does the author quote any expert to support his ideas? 
12 Are there any percentage, total in millions, fractions of totals, etc. in the text? How can the reader 
check the veracity of these data? Does the author cite the source of these data? 
13 Which persons, countries, institutions, acronym, etc. are mentioned in the text? Does this type of 
information support the author’s arguments? What was NOT mentioned? 
14 Who is the most interested in the publication of the text? Who wins or loses with it? 
15 As he develops the subject along the text, does the author suppose you already have previous 
knowledge about it? Do you really have this kind of knowledge? 
16 Is the text interesting? Which type of information have you acquired from the reading? Would you 
select this text for reading? 
17 Can the information conveyed in the text be applied to your reality? Do you agree with the author’s 
opinion? 
 
Adapted from DIAS, R. Inglês Instrumental – Leitura Crítica (Uma Abordagem Construtiva), 1991.