Note the text below:
– What is it, what is it? Made to walk but not walk?
- The street.
You must have played with questions like this several times, haven't you? This is a textual genre that is typical of popular culture and is passed on from father to son. Despite being a short text, its knowledge domain is very large, as it can be used to teach/learn the meaning and the word formation, in the construction of various knowledge, assist in the process of teaching and learning to read, among others.
Let's analyze the structure of this gender!
initial question
The riddle always starts with the question “What is it, what is it?”. This initial question is intended to draw the interlocutor's attention to the next question, with the intention of challenging and stimulating its solution. See some examples:
- What is it, what is it? Do you fall on your feet and run lying down?
Answer: the rain.
- What is it, what is it? Does it break when talking?
Answer: the secret.
challenge question
The second riddle question is the challenge question. Through this question, the interlocutor (the person with whom one is talking) is led to use social, cultural and linguistic knowledge to solve the proposed problem. Look at the examples:
- What is it, what is it? I have a tail, but I'm not a dog. I don't have wings and I know how to fly. If they let me go, I don't go up. I go out in the wind to play.
Answer: the kite.
Note that, in this example of the kite, in the construction of the challenge-question, there is an organization in the form of a verse and a rhyme. This type of textual feature is very common in riddles.
- What is what? Do you go around a lot and stay in place?
Answer: the clock.
Reply
After the initial questions and challenge, there needs to be an answer. Thus, it is clear that this type of text is a dialogue and, therefore, requires a sender and a receiver, that is, someone who asks the question and someone who answers it. In addition, the construction of the response requires much more than linguistic knowledge, as the receiver is asked to have an interpretive capacity that requires knowledge of the world. Thus, this type of textual genre can have many functions in Portuguese language teaching.
Now try to answer the following ten riddles. The answers are at the end of this text. Good luck!
1 - What is it, what is it? What did the sand say to the sea?
2 -What is it, what is it? What is at the end of the end, at the beginning of quite and in the middle of beginning?
3 – What is it, what is it? Is it a Brazilian bird and is its name backwards the same?
4 – What is it, what is it? What walks with his feet on his head?
5 – What is it, what is it? What's in the middle of the egg?
6 – What is it, what is it? Deaf and dumb, but does it count?
7 – What is it, what is it? What did the sphere say to the cube?
8 – What is it, what is it? what was the tomato doing at the bank?
9 – What is it, what is it? When does a tiger look like an old man?
10 – What is it, what is it? What is the animal that walks with its paws?
Answers:
1 – Stop wave.
2 - The letter M.
3 – Macaw.
4 – The louse.
5 – The letter V.
6 – The book.
7 – Stop being square.
8 – Take an extract.
9 – When it's a Bengal Tiger.
10 – The duck.
