READING TEST

Paragraph: a section of a piece of writing, usually consisting of several sentences

dealing with a single subject. The first sentence of a paragraph starts on a new line. It
is a unit of text (text is different from syntax, includes syntax but it is more complex, it
contains also knowledge), it is not a syntactic unit like phrase, clause and sentence.
Lexical words: are words that have a culturally shared meaning in labelling an object
or action. They are also called content words and they are absolutely necessary to
convey an idea to someone else. Content words, which include nouns, lexical
verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, belong to open classes of words: that is, new members
are readily added
Function words: A word that expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with
other words in a sentence. In contrast to a content word, a function word has little or
no meaningful content. Function words are also known as grammatical words. Function
words include determiners (for example, the, that), conjunctions (and,
but),prepositions (in, of), pronouns (she, they), auxiliary verbs (be,
have), modals (may, could), and quantifers (some, both).

Construction of meaning: is a process of construction, from the text level we have

to go up, down, across the construction of meaning is a combination of a process of
decoding and understanding of words, phrases, sentences in a text and our
knowledge, expectations
Semantic area: same semantic meaning, eg: school, teachers, janitors, taught
Rhetorical questions: are a way to attract attention, to convince the audience
Double negatives: a double negative uses two negative words in the same clause to
express a single negative idea:
We didn't see nothing. [ = We saw nothing.]
She never danced with nobody. [ = She didn't dance with anybody.]
The rules dictate that the two negative elements cancel each other out to give
a positive statement instead, so that the sentence I dont know nothing
could literally be interpreted as I do know something. This strategy attract attention

There is one type of double negative that is considered grammatically correct and
which people use to make a statement more subtle. Look at the following sentence:
I am not unconvinced by his argument.

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The use of not together with unconvinced suggests that the speaker has a few mental
reservations about the argument. The double negative creates a nuance of meaning
that would not be present had the speaker just said:
I am convinced by his argument.
Rhetorical move: the text move from one aspect to another, one of the first move in
a text is the Addressing (generally at the beginning of the text); another rhetorical
move is thanking (generally at the beginning and the end of text)
Modal verb: when we find in text modal verbs, often they emphasize the sentence, or
they invite to do something eg: must
Bicolons and tricolons: set of two or three elements associated together eg: centre
and front
Metaphor: a word or phrase used to describe somebody/something else, in a way
that is different from its normal use, in order to show that the two things have the
same qualities and to make the description more powerful eg: She has a heart of stone
Inclusiveness: WE + ..., OUR+ phrase these are example of inclusiveness, idea to be
part of a group
Absolutes: never, always, all of they can be grammatical or semantical.
Evaluation: the speaker evaluate, gives his opinion that can be positive or negative.
It is the act of forming an opinion of the amount, value or quality of something after
thinking about it carefully. Eg: I think, we think, in my opinion, our partys view.
The evaluation can be implicit or explicit: I think (explicit); in this critical year
(implicit).
Similes: a word or phrase that compares something to something else, using the
words like or as, for example a face like a mask or as white as snow.
Superlatives: fantastic, wonderful so words that contain the idea of TOP even if
they are not superlatives in terms of Grammar.

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Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses,

eg: They need. They need

Commitment: a promise to do something or to behave in a particular way; a promise

to support somebody/something; the fact of committing yourself. Will is often use in
English to express promises, you commit yourself to do something in the future.
Depersonalisation: take distance from something using two strategies: passive voice
or cleft sentence, separate information so that they are difficult to check: I find it
difficult= it is difficult (depersonalisation). A sentence in which an element
is emphasized by being put in a separate clause with the use of
an empty introductory word such as it or that, e.g., its money we want; it
was today that I saw him; that was the King you were talking to.
Enumeration: mentioning a number of things one by one
Anadiplosis: a rhetorical term for the repetition of the last word or phrase of one line
or clause to begin the next, eg: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you."

Metonymy: A figure of speech (or trope) in which one word or phrase is substituted
for another with which it's closely associated (such as "crown" for "royalty").
Metonymy is also the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by
referring to things around it, as in describing someone's clothing to characterize the
individual.

Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (for
example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part. A whole is represented by naming
one of its part.
Metonymy and synecdoche are quite similar but metonymy looks at quality while
synecdoche looks at quantity.

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The rhetorical level has same aspects and moves of classical rhetoric (Aristotle), we
can identify three appeal:
Logos: the principle of reason and judgement, associated with the animus.
Pathos: the power of a performance, description, etc. to produce feelings of sadness
and sympathy.
Ethos: the moral ideas and attitudes that belong to a particular group or society;
ethos means authority.
Ethics: Moral principles that govern a persons behaviour or the conducting of an
activity. Moral level refers to the personal behaviour while the ethical level refers to
the society, is a public level.
Subject: is the general content of a text.
Topic: is the specific content of a text.