At language functions they are related to the uses of language, where each one has a function according to the elements of communication.
They are classified into six types: referential function, emotive function, poetic function, phatic function, conative function and metalinguistic function.
question 1
(UEMG-2006) Check the alternative where the term(s) in bold of the quoted fragment DOES NOT contain (m) feature(s) of the emotive function of language.
a) The poems (Unfortunately!) are not on the packaging labels or next to the medicine bottles.
b) The reading gains contours of “laboratory guinea pig” when it leaves its meaning and falls into the artificial environment and the invented situation.
c) Other significant readings are the label of a product that is going to be bought, the prices of the consumer good, the movie ticket, the bus stop signs (...)
d) Reading and writing are behaviors of life in society. They are not dead mice (...) ready to be disassembled and assembled, chopped (...)
Correct alternative: c) Other significant readings are the label of a product that is going to be bought, the prices of the consumer good, the movie ticket, the bus stop signs (...)
In the emotive function, the writer (sender) has as main objective to transmit emotions, feelings and subjectivities through their own opinion.
Therefore, when reading the above fragments, we notice that certain expressions in bold have these characteristics: unfortunately; laboratory guinea pig; dead mice, ready and minced.
question 2
(UFV-2005) Read the passages below, taken from St Bernard, by Graciliano Ramos:
I. I decided to settle here on my land, in the municipality of Viçosa, Alagoas, and then I planned to acquire the property S. Bernardo, where I worked, in eito, with a salary of five pennies.
II. A week later, in the evening, I, who had been there since noon, had breakfast and talked, quite satisfied.
III. João Nogueira wanted the novel in the language of Camões, with periods formed backwards.
IV. Have you seen how we waste time in useless ailments? Wasn't it better that we were like oxen? Oxen with intelligence. Is there more stupidity than tormenting a living being for taste? Will it be? Will not be? What is this for? Look for trouble! Will it be? Will not be?
V. That's how it's always been done. [Answered Azevedo Gondim] Literature is literature, Seu Paulo. We argue, fight, deal with business naturally, but arranging words with ink is another thing. If I were to write as I speak, nobody would read me.
Check the alternative in which both passages demonstrate the metalanguage exercise in São Bernardo:
a) III and V.
b) I and II.
c) I and IV.
d) III and IV.
e) II and V.
Correct alternative: a) III and V.
The metalinguistic function uses code to explain the code itself. In other words, it is a language that speaks about itself, for example, a film about cinema.
In the excerpts above, we can note that in two passages of the work we have the metalinguistic function present:
- "João Nogueira wanted the novel in the language of Camões, with periods formed backwards."
- "That's how it's always been done. [Answered Azevedo Gondim] Literature is literature, Seu Paulo. We argue, fight, deal with business naturally, but arranging words with ink is another thing. If I were to write as I speak, nobody would read me."
question 3
(PUC/SP-2001)
The question is to get started
Scratching and eating is just getting started. Chat and write too. In speech, before starting, even in free conversation, it is necessary to break the ice. In our hurried civilization, the "good morning", the "good afternoon, how are you?" no longer work to engage in conversation. Any subject serving, talk about the weather or football. It could also be like that in writing, and there should be something like idle talk to writing, with which one wanders around until finding a subject for a chained speech. But, unlike the spoken conversation, they taught us to write and in the lamentable mechanical way that presupposed a previous text, a message already elaborated. You wrote what you thought before. Now I understand the opposite: writing to think, another way of talking.
Thus we were “literate”, in obedience to certain rituals. We were induced, from the beginning, to write nice and right. It had to have a predetermined beginning, development, and end. That spoiled, because it gauged, the beginning and all the rest. We will try now (who? you and me, reader) talking to understand how we need to re-educate ourselves to make writing an inaugural act; not just a transcription of what we had in mind, of what has already been thought or said, but an inauguration of thinking itself. “Stop there,” you tell me. "The clerk writes first, the reader reads later." “No!” I answer, “I can't write without thinking about you around, spying on what I write. Don't leave me talking to myself.”
So it is; that's what writing is all about: starting a conversation with invisible, unpredictable, only virtual interlocutors, not even imagined in flesh and bones, but always actively present. Afterwards, conversations are spread out and new interlocutors appear, join the circle, raise issues. It ends God knows where.
(MARQUES, M.O. Writing is Accurate, Ijuí, Ed. UNIJUÍ, 1997, p. 13).
Note the following statement made by the author: "In our hurried civilization, the “good morning”, the “good afternoon” no longer work to start a conversation. Any subject serving, talk about the weather or football.” It refers to the language function whose goal is to “break the ice”. Indicate the alternative that spells out this function.
a) Emotional function
b) Referential function
c) phatic function
d) Conative function
e) Poetic function
Correct alternative: c) Phatic function
To answer this question, it is necessary to understand each of the language functions mentioned above:
- Phatic function: establishes an interaction relationship between the sender and receiver of the speech, being used at the beginning, middle and end of conversations.
- Emotive function: characterized by subjectivity, with the main objective to thrill the reader.
- Referential function: characterized by the function of informing, notifying, referencing, announcing and indicating through denotative language.
- Conative function: the main purpose of this function is to convince, persuade and captivate the interlocutor.
- Poetic function: focused on the message that will be conveyed, this function is characteristic of poetic texts.
question 4
(Enem-2007)
the warrior's song
here in the forest
Of the beat winds, Feats of brave
Do not generate slaves,
cherish life
No war and dealing.
— Hear me, Warriors,
"I heard my singing."
Brave in war,
Who is there, what am I like?
who vibrates the club
With more courage?
who would hit
Fatal, how do I give?
“Warriors, hear me;
"Who is there, what am I like?"
(Gonçalves Dias.)
Macunaíma (Epilogue)
History ended and victory died.
There was no one else there. Dera Tangolomângolo in the Tapanhumas tribe and her children fell apart one by one. There was no one else there. Those places, those fields, holes, trailing holes, those mysterious bushes, everything was the solitude of the desert... An immense silence slept on the banks of the Uraricoera River. No one he knew on earth could not even talk about the tribe or tell about such paunchy cases. Who could have known about the Hero?
(Mário de Andrade.)
Considering the language of these two texts, it appears that
a) the receptor-centered language function is absent in both the first and second texts.
b) the language used in the first text is colloquial, while in the second, formal language predominates.
c) there is, in each of the texts, the use of at least one word of indigenous origin.
d) the function of language, in the first text, focuses on the form of language organization and, in the second, on the reporting of real information.
e) the function of language centered on the first person, predominant in the second text, is absent in the first.
Correct alternative: c) there is, in each of the texts, the use of at least one word of indigenous origin.
From the reading of the texts, we can see that there is a relationship in the content, since both focus on the figure of the Brazilian indigenous.
However, the indigenous reality of the first text is positive and idealized; while in the second, it is negative and critical.
Another difference to be highlighted is that the text by Gonçalves Dias is in the form of poetry, with the presence of verses, and that of Mario de Andrade, in prose.
Although both use indigenous words (tacape, Uraricoera), the language used is not considered informal, colloquial.
Also read about the Poetic Function.
question 5
(Enem-2012)
Vent
Sorry, but I can't do a fun little chronicle today. It just can't. There's no disguising it: this is a typical Monday morning. Starting with the light on in the living room that I forgot last night. Six messages to be answered on the answering machine. Boring messages. Bills to pay that were due yesterday. I'm nervous. I am angry.
CARNEIRO, J. AND. See, 11 Sept. 2002 (fragment).
In texts in general, the simultaneous manifestation of several language functions is common, with the predominance, however, of one over the others. In the fragment of the chronicle Vent, the predominant language function is the emotive or expressive one, because
a) the enunciator's speech focuses on the code itself.
b) the enunciator's attitude supersedes what is being said.
c) the interlocutor is the speaker's focus in the construction of the message.
d) the referent is the element that stands out at the expense of the others.
e) the enunciator has as main objective the maintenance of communication.
Correct alternative: b) the enunciator's attitude supersedes what is being said.
The emotive function of language prioritizes subjective speech, where the sender transmits his emotions and feelings.
Therefore, this type of text is focused on the sender and written in the first person. According to the options and focus of each of the language functions, we have:
a) metalinguistic function
b) emotional function
c) conative function
d) referential function
e) phatic function
Understand everything about the Conative Function.
question 6
(Ibmec-2006)
Give me back Neruda (which you haven't even read)
When Chico Buarque wrote the verse above, he still didn't have the “what you didn't even read”. The word Neruda - Nobel prize, Chilean, from the left - was prohibited in Brazil. In the Federal Censorship room, our poet negotiated the ban. And the song was released when he added the "you didn't even read" because it was like nobody cared about Neruda in Brazil. How stupid were the censors of the military dictatorship! And put an ass in it!!! But the phrase came to mind now, because I like it so much. Imagine the scene. In the middle of a separation, one of the spouses (excuse me for the word) lets go of this: give me back the Neruda you didn't even read! Think about it.
Well, I thought exactly about that when I started writing this chronicle, which has nothing to do with Chico, or Neruda, or even less, with the military.
It's just that I'm here to say goodbye. A quick goodbye because if they accept me - you and the magazine's director - I'll be back in two years. I'll go there to write a soap opera at Globo (the boss will remain the same) and then I'll come back.
Hoping you've already read Neruda.
But then you're going to say: Dude, writing two chronicles a month, apart from the soap opera, can't the guy do it? What is a chronicle? A page and a half. So, three pages a month and the guy comes to me with this Neruda thing?
Lazy to say the least.
When I lecture around, I'm always asked what it takes to become a writer. And I always answer: talent and luck. Between the ages of 10 and 20, I used to receive O Cruzeiro, Manchete and the newspaper Última Hora in my house. And inside I read (they envy me): Paulo Mendes Campos, Rubem Braga, Fernando Sabino, Millôr Fernandes, Nelson Rodrigues, Stanislaw Ponte Preta, Carlos Heitor Cony. And I thought, as a teenager: when I grow up, I'll be a columnist.
Good or bad, I got my space. And now, when I ask for the Chilean book back, I keep thinking about how I would feel if, one day, one of those above wrote that he was going to take a break. I killed the guy! This is not done with the reader (sorry, my friend, I'm not putting myself on their level, no!)
And I leave here some verses by Neruda for my readers aged 30 and 40 (and for all):
Listen to others in my aching voice
Llanto de viejas bocas, sangre de viejas supplications,
Love it, mate. Don't leave me. follow me,
Follow me, compañera, in this hello of anguish.
But if you love my words
All you occupy it, all you occupy
Voy by having an infinite collar from all of them
For your blanca bros, smooth as grapes.
Sorry for the bad way: bye!
(Silver, Mario. Época Magazine. Sao Paulo. Editora Globo, No. - 324, August 2, 2004, p. 99)
Relate the fragments below to the predominant language functions and tick the correct alternative.
I - "Imagine the scene".
II - “I am a lucky man”.
III - “What is a chronicle? A page and a half. So, three pages a month and the guy comes to me with this talk about Neruda?”.
a) Emotive, poetic and metalinguistic, respectively.
b) Phatic, emotive and metalinguistic, respectively.
c) Metalinguistic, factual and appealing, respectively.
d) Appealing, emotive and metalinguistic, respectively.
e) Poetic, factual and appealing, respectively.
Correct alternative: d) Appealing, emotive and metalinguistic, respectively.
To answer this question, we need to understand the main features of the six language functions:
- Conative (or appealing) function: the main purpose of this function is to convince, persuade and captivate the interlocutor.
- Emotive function: characterized by subjectivity, with the main objective to thrill the reader.
- Metalinguistic function: focusing on the message code, in this function we have a language that refers to itself.
- Referential function: characterized by the function of informing, notifying, referencing, announcing and indicating through denotative language.
- Phatic function: establishes an interaction relationship between the sender and receiver of the speech, being used at the beginning, middle and end of conversations.
- Poetic function: focused on the message that will be conveyed, this function is characteristic of poetic texts.
Learn more about Emotive Function.
question 7
(Fuvest-2004)
Note, on the side, this engraving by Escher: In verbal language, examples of the use of resources equivalent to those in the engraving by Escher are often found,
a) in the newspapers, when the reporter records an occurrence that seems extremely intriguing.
b) in advertising texts, when two products that have the same utility are compared.
c) in scientific prose, when the author describes the experience he is dealing with with impartiality and detachment.
d) in literature, when the writer uses words to expose constructive discourse procedures.
e) in instruction manuals, when a certain sequence of operations is clearly organized.
Correct alternative: d) in literature, when the writer uses words to expose constructive procedures of the discourse.
According to the image above, there is the presence of the metalinguistic function, with a focus on the message code.
In this role, the main feature is the use of metalanguage, a language that refers to itself. Thus, the sender explains a code using the code itself.
In the case of the figure above, we have the metalinguistic function in painting, where we see the painter's hands drawing. This resource is widely used in literature, for example, a poem that talks about the construction of poetry.
question 8
(Unifesp-2002)
Text I:
Faced with Death pales and trembles,
Trembles before Death, pales.
Crown with tears forget
The cruel Evil that groans in the abysses.
(Cross and Souza, facing death.)
Text II:
Did you cry in the presence of death?
In the presence of strangers did you cry?
The coward is not descended from the strong;
Because you cried, my son you are not!
(Gonçalves Dias, I Juca Pirama.)
Text III:
Current, which from the distilled breast,
You are parting for two beautiful eyes;
And by carmine running divided,
You leave being, you take the color changed.
(Gregório de Matos, to the same feelings.)
Text IV:
Cry, little brother, cry,
Because the moment of pain has arrived.
The pain itself is a happiness...
(Mário de Andrade, little brother's rite.)
Text V:
My God! My God! but what a flag
is this,
How impudent in the crow's nest...
Silence... Muse! cry, cry so much
May the pavilion wash in your tears...
(Castro Alves, the slave ship.)
Two of the five texts transcribed express feelings of unrestrained revolt in face of unacceptable situations. This sentimental overflow is done through phrases and linguistic resources that emphasize the emotive function and the conative function of language. These two texts are:
a) I and IV.
b) II and III.
c) II and V.
d) III and V.
e) IV and V.
Correct alternative: c) II and V.
After reading the texts above, we can see that the tone of revolt is present in texts II and V.
Although in others one notices the presence of feelings such as anguish, pain and failure, they do not convey indignation, but rather a certain confirmation and conformity.
Text II, by Gonçalves Dias, exposes the father's indignation and revolt, who is concerned with his son's cowardly actions in the face of enemies.
Text V, by Castro Alves, presents the poet's revolt with the situation of slaves brought to Brazil.
question 9
(Enem-2014)
The phone rang.
- Hello? Who speaks?
- Like? Who do you want to talk to?
'I want to talk to you. Samuel Cardoso.
"It's really him." Who speaks, please?
"Don't you remember my voice anymore, Mr. Samuel?"
Make an effort.
'I'm very sorry, my lady, but I don't remember. Can you tell me who this is?
(ANDRADE, C. D. Apprentice's Tales. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1958.)
Due to the insistence on maintaining contact between the sender and the receiver, the function predominates in the text
a) metalinguistics.
b) factual.
c) referential.
d) emotional.
e) conative.
Correct alternative: b) phatic.
In the factual function, focusing on the message channel, the main feature is to establish or interrupt communication, the most important of which is the relationship between the sender and the receiver of the message.
Thus, according to the excerpt above, we have the insistence of the sender and the receiver to continue the conversation over the phone.
Understand more about the phatic function.
question 10
(Insper-2012)
To make a Dada poem
Pick up a newspaper.
Take a pair of scissors.
Choose an article in the newspaper with the length you want to give your poem.
Cut out the article.
Then carefully cut out the words that make up the article and put them in a bag.
Shake gently.
Then remove the cutouts one after the other.
Scrupulously transcribe them in the order they came out of the bag.
The poem will look like you.
And you will be an infinitely original writer, with a charming sensibility, yet misunderstood by ordinary people.
(Tristan Tzara)
The metalanguage, present in Tristan Tzara's poem, is also found more evidently in:
a) Hero Recipe
become a man made of nothing
like us in full size
soak your meat
Slowly
Of an acute, irrational certainty
Intense like hate or like hunger.
after near the end
shake a tassel
And blow a bugle
Serve yourself dead.
FERREIRA, Reinaldo. Hero Recipe. In: GERALDI, João Wanderley. Ports of passage. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1991, p.185.
B) 
ç) 
d) 
and) 
Correct alternative: letter c.
It is worth remembering that the metalinguistic function is characterized by the use of metalanguage, that is, the language that refers to itself.
In the text by Tristan Tzara "To make a Dada poem", the artist points to the very act of writing and, therefore, uses the metalinguistic function.
According to the images, we can see that it is in Garfield's comic strip that this same function is used. In this type of text, whose code is predominantly visual, the second image can be bulged, suggesting the cat's excess weight.
For this, the author delimits the horizontal lines in the drawing of the second frame, replacing the straight lines, which are used in the first and last frames, with a curve.
question 11
(UFS)
racial disparities
A decisive factor in overcoming the colonial system, the end of slave labor was followed by the creation of the myth of racial democracy in Brazil. Since then, the false idea has been nurtured that there would be a cordial relationship between the different ethnic groups in the country.
Gradually, however, it could be seen that the less hostile coexistence between whites and blacks, for example, masked the maintenance of a huge socioeconomic inequality between the two groups and did not stem from a supposed equal division of opportunities.
Crossing some data from the last IBGE census for Rio de Janeiro allows us to measure some of these unmistakable differences. In 1991, illiteracy in the state was 2.5 times higher among blacks than among whites, and almost 60% of the black population over 10 years old had not managed to surpass the 4th. series of the 1st. degree, against 39% of whites. The numbers relating to higher education confirm the cruel selectivity imposed by the socioeconomic factor: until that year, 12% of whites had completed the 3rd. Degree, against only 2.5% of blacks.
It is undeniable that the racial discrepancy has been decreasing over the century: illiteracy in Rio de Janeiro was much higher among blacks over 70 years old than among those under 40 years old. This drop, however, has not yet translated into a proportional equalization of opportunities.
Considering that Rio de Janeiro is one of the most developed units in the country and with a strong urban tradition, it seems inevitable to extrapolate the restlessness resulting from these data to other regions.
(Folha de São Paulo, 9. of June of 1996. Adapted).
Considering the functions that language can perform, we recognize that, in the text above, the function predominates:
a) appealing: someone wants to convince the interlocutor of the superiority of a product.
b) expressive: the author only intends to show his personal feelings and emotions.
c) factual: the communicative purpose in play is to get in touch with the interaction partner.
d) aesthetics: the author intends to awaken in the reader the pleasure and emotion of word art.
e) referential: the author talks about a theme and exposes relevant considerations about it.
Correct alternative: e) referential: the author talks about a topic and presents relevant considerations about it.
According to the reading of the text and the alternatives offered, we can see that it is a text journalistic language in which there is a predominance of formal (denotative) language, where the main focus is on the context or on the referent.
Here, the issuer's main objective is to inform about something, in this case, about the issue of racial disparities in Brazil.
question 12
(Enem-2014)
There's the hypotrelic. The term is new, of unthinkable origin and still without a definition that captures its meaning in all its petals. We only know that it comes from good Portuguese. For practice, take hypotrelic to mean: antipodatic, smearing imprinted; or perhaps vicedito: pedantic individual, acute harasser, lack of respect for other people's opinions. Even more than, since it is an invented word, and, as will be seen below, making the hypotrelic annoyed by not tolerating neologisms, he begins by nominally denying his own existence.
(ROSE, G. Tutameia: third stories. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2001) (fragment).
In this excerpt of a work by Guimarães Rosa, one can see the predominance of one of the functions of the
a) metalinguistics, as the excerpt has the essential purpose of using the Portuguese language to explain the language itself, hence the use of various synonyms and definitions.
b) referential, as the main objective of the passage is to discuss a fact that does not concern the writer or the reader, hence the predominance of the third person.
c) factual, as the passage presents a clear attempt to establish a connection with the reader, hence the use of the terms “know-how” and “become hypotrelic”.
d) poetic, as the passage deals with the creation of new words, necessary for texts in prose, hence the use of “hypotrelic”.
e) expressive, as the passage aims to show the author's subjectivity, hence the use of the adverb of doubt “perhaps”.
Correct alternative: a) metalinguistics, as the essential purpose of the passage is to use the Portuguese language to explain the language itself, hence the use of various synonyms and definitions.
According to the reading of the excerpt by Guimarães Rosa, the author offers us the explanation of a new term in the Portuguese language "hypotrelic".
Thus, there is the presence of the metalinguistic function, where he uses a code to talk about the code itself.
Understand more about the Metalinguistic Function.
question 13
(Enem 2013)
Lusophony
girl: s.f., fem. of boy: young woman; girl; girl; (Brazil), whore.
I write a poem about the girl who is sitting
in the cafe, in front of the coffee cup, while
smoothes her hair with her hand. But I can't write this
poem about this girl because, in Brazil, the word
girl doesn't mean what she says in Portugal. Then,
I will have to write the young woman in the cafe, the young woman in the cafe,
the coffee girl so that the poor girl's reputation
who straightens his hair with his hand, in a café in Lisbon, no
be spoiled forever when this poem crosses the
Atlantic to disembark in rio de janeiro. And this all
without thinking about Africa, because there I will have
to write about the cafe girl, to
avoid the girl's overly continental tone, which is
a word that is already putting me in pain
because, deep down, the only thing I wanted
was to write a poem about the girl from the
coffee. The solution, then, is to change my coffee, and limit myself to
write a poem about that cafe where none
girl can sit at the table because they only serve coffee at the counter.
JÚDICE, N. Poem Matter. Lisbon: D. Quixote, 2008.
The text highlights the metalinguistic and poetic functions. Its metalinguistic character is justified by the
a) discussion of the difficulty of making innovative art in the contemporary world.
b) defense of the postmodern artistic movement, typical of the 20th century.
c) approach to everyday themes, in which art turns to routine matters.
d) thematization of artistic making, through the discussion of the act of construction of the work itself.
e) appreciation of the estrangement effect caused on the public, which makes the work be recognized.
Correct alternative: d) thematization of artistic making, through the discussion of the act of construction of the work itself.
Metalanguage is characterized by the language that refers to itself. In the case of the poem above, the writer focuses on the production of the poem and, therefore, uses the metalinguistic function.
question 14
(Enem-2010)
The biosphere, which brings together all the environments where living beings develop, is divided into smaller units called ecosystems, which may be one has multiple mechanisms that regulate the number of organisms within it, controlling its reproduction, growth and migrations.
DUARTE, M. The guide for the curious. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995.
The function of language predominates in the text
a) emotional, because the author expresses his feeling in relation to ecology.
b) factual, because the text tests the functioning of the communication channel.
c) poetic, because the text draws attention to language resources.
d) conative, because the text seeks to guide the reader's behavior.
e) referential, because the text deals with conceptual notions and information.
Correct alternative: e) referential, because the text deals with conceptual notions and information.
The text above uses the referential function, since the intention is to inform about some concepts related to the biosphere.
Remember that the referential function aims to inform, indicate or refer to some topic. Thus, objectively and through a denoting language, it presents a subject without any subjective or emotional aspects.
Learn more about Referential Function.
question 15
(Enem-2009)
Song of the wind and my life
The wind swept the leaves,
The wind swept the fruits,
The wind swept the flowers...
And my life was
increasingly full
Fruits, flowers, leaves.
[...]
The wind swept the dreams
And sweep the friendships...
The wind swept the women...
And my life was
increasingly full
Of affections and women.
The wind swept the months
And sweep your smiles...
The wind swept everything!
And my life was
increasingly full
Of everything.
FLAG, M. Complete poetry and prose. Rio de Janeiro: José Aguilar, 1967.
The function of language predominates in the text:
a) factual, because the author tries to test the communication channel.
b) metalinguistics, because the meaning of expressions is explained.
c) conative, once the reader is provoked to participate in an action.
d) referential, as information about real events and facts is presented.
e) poetic, as attention is drawn to the special and artistic elaboration of the structure of the text.
Correct alternative: e) poetic, as attention is drawn to the special and artistic elaboration of the structure of the text.
The poetic function is focused on the message and is characterized by the use of connotative language (figured) and figures of speech. Thus, she is concerned with the form of discourse, that is, the way to convey the poetic message.
Keep studying about language:
- Language Functions
- Communication Elements
- Speech Figure Exercises
- Text Interpretation Exercises
