ISCAL - Materiais Pedagógicos
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- Corporate emails in English: brief contexts and languagePublication . Fanha Martins, HélderIn the 21st Century, the written word is undergoing major shifts in form and function. Messages that once were delivered orally in person or through carefully phrased formal letters are now dashed off in email. This document is divided into categories and subcategories presenting contexts and language examples for those contexts.
- The economy principle: 17 characteristics that make the English language economical…in comparison to Portuguese – a pedagogical perspectivePublication . Fanha Martins, Hélder; Carvalho-Oliveira, José ManuelABSTRACT We believe that all languages in the world use the Economy Principle in some way or other. The principle states that “languages tend to express ideas as economically as possible”. This means that the speaker tends to leave out unnecessary words and not to repeat concepts that have been previously expressed. In the Portuguese language, such expressions as “recuar para trás”, “ambos os dois”, and “preferir antes” are justifiably viewed as poor, since they unnecessarily repeat ideas (“para trás” is implied in “recuar”, “ambos” includes the idea of “os dois”, “preferir” encompasses the concept of “antes”). This type of expressions is anti-economical, and grammar books classify them as pleonasms, i.e. redundancies. English is so easy to learn by foreigners partly because it is one of the languages that most efficiently use the economy principle. In this brief note, we present several perspectives that justify the previous statements, with examples from English and Portuguese.
- Selected collocations in English: contributions to Business English fluencyPublication . Fanha Martins, HélderThe collocations in this text have been selected to make it as useful and easy to use as possible for learners of English. A special effort has been made to identify and incorporate collocations that are used in the business area, thus, contributing to a better business English fluency. The collocations presented here were selected from those identified as significant from multiple sources: The CANCODE Corpus of Spoken English, The Cambridge International Corpus of Written and Spoken English, The Cambridge Learner Corpus, the British National Corpus, the BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms, the Longman Dictionary of English Collocations, and Tom Cobb’s LexTutor Concordance System (http://www.lextutor.ca/).
- Basic synonyms in English you should knowPublication . Fanha Martins, HélderSynonyms are words that are similar or have a related meaning, to another word. They can be lifesavers when you want to avoid repeating the same word over and over. Also, sometimes the word you have in mind might not be the most appropriate word, which is why finding the right synonym can come in handy. (...)
- Elementary general Business vocabulary list: a selection of 2620 termsPublication . Fanha Martins, HélderElementary General Business Vocabulary List. A Selection of 2620 Terms
- Acronyms in Business English: the Financial languagePublication . Fanha Martins, HélderAcronyms in Business English: the Financial Language
- Acordo ortográfico em vigor desde 2009Publication . Barrocas, Ana Paula B. de GouveiaEste conjunto de diapositivos resume as regras da grafia a adotar no âmbito do acordo ortográfico de 2009. Está dividido em cinco secções: três novas letras; maiúsculas e minúsculas; consoantes mudas; acentuação e hifenização.
- Teoria dos Jogos: Algumas Noções ElementaresPublication . Gomes, OrlandoEm muitas situações de interação, os agentes são compelidos a agir estrategicamente. Isto significa que as linhas de ação que um agente escolhe tomar são condicionadas ou determinadas pelo comportamento observado ou esperado de outros. A teoria dos jogos consiste precisamente no estudo de como os intervenientes numa determinada relação de interação estratégica atuam de modo racional, no sentido de promover o melhor resultado possível para si próprios. Ao analisar um jogo é necessário identificar as estratégias disponíveis para cada um dos jogadores, quais os resultados que a escolha de cada estratégia permite alcançar, os momentos de tempo em que as decisões são tomadas e que informação têm disponível os participantes na relação de interação. Apresentar-se-á conceitos centrais como o de estratégia dominante, ou o de equilíbrio de Nash; far-se-á a distinção entre jogos de informação completa e de informação incompleta, e entre jogos em forma normal e em forma extensiva; será ainda feita menção à teoria dos jogos evolucionária.
- General Insights into Word Choice in Business CommunicationPublication . Fanha Martins, HélderWords are the smallest units of messages. Attention should be given to each word used to be sure it is the most effective one. An effective word is one that the receiver will understand and that will elicit the wanted response. The ability to choose words by (a) using a dictionary and a thesaurus and (b) following some of the principles of business communication described in this text can be improved.