No trecho do quarto parágrafo – Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. – a palavra like indica
Instrução: Leia o texto para responder às questões de números 40 a 45.
To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious
March 31, 2010.
So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious
March 31, 2010.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
Gabarito comentado
Resposta correta: C — semelhança
Tema central: análise do uso lexical de like. A questão exige reconhecer a função semântica de like na frase — se indica preferência, probabilidade, semelhança, condição ou ênfase.
Resumo teórico: a palavra like em inglês possui várias funções: 1) verbo (to like = gostar); 2) preposição/partícula que expressa semelhança (like = similar to); 3) marcador discursivo (filler/ênfase em linguagem coloquial); 4) em SOME dialetos, aproximador de probabilidade (colloquial). Dicionários como Cambridge e Oxford listam essas acepções e mostram que o uso nesta frase corresponde à segunda (semelhança).
Justificativa da alternativa C: na construção “it sounds more like panting or something else” o termo like atua como preposição que estabelece comparação — algo “soa parecido com” ofegar (panting). Você pode substituir por “similar to” ou “as if it were”: “it sounds more similar to panting”. Isso confirma função de semelhança.
Análise das demais alternativas:
A — preferência: errado — preferência exigiria verbo “to like” (I like X) ou estruturas com would like. Aqui não há sentido de “preferir”.
B — probabilidade: incorreto — embora “like” apareça em fala coloquial como aproximador (“It’s like gonna rain”), nesse contexto a palavra indica comparação direta, não suposição.
D — condição: errado — condição exige termos como if/as long as; “like” não introduz condição aqui.
E — ênfase: incorreto — marcadores enfáticos (filler) aparecem em contextos coloquiais separados; aqui a função é semântica e comparativa, não mera ênfase.
Dica de prova: tente substituir por “similar to” ou “as if”; se o sentido permanecer, escolha semelhança. Consulte Cambridge/Oxford para exemplos e usos de like — isso ajuda a distinguir sentidos em contextos de concurso.
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