Intelligence Testing Article

There is not one precise definition of intelligence. But, the idea of intelligence can be seen as a cluster of mental abilities that has the ability to obtain and use knowledge, exhibit problem-solving skills, and to excel at a variety of tasks (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). Intelligence is a necessary factor that allows one to adapt to one’s environment. But outside of the dominion of cultural context, intelligence cannot be really explained; this is because questions on intelligence tests that are scored often do not have the same meaning in every culture (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). Howard Gardner’s theory proposed his own view of intelligence in which he claimed that seven intelligences work independently but concurrently, completing one another. The PASS theory, a basis for the Cognitive Assessment System, features three functional units. Both these theories have a significant impact within psychology and smooth out the loose ends of extensive cross-cultural cracks in calculating tools. Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Howard Gardner offered an alternative understanding of intelligence, which added to the traditional definition; it incorporated three-dimensional relations, mathematics, music, linguistic ability, and interpersonal knowledge (Kaufman, 2013). Gardner (1989), defined intelligence as â€Å"the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting† (P. 4). His definition acknowledged mathematical and verbal skills. Gardner’s theory outlines seven intelligences; linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily, musical, intrapersonal, and two personal intelligences of social feelings and intentions of others. According to the theory of multiple intelligences, the intelligences work simultaneously, accompanying one another while an individual learns, develops, improves, and masters life skills. Gardner argued for the cultural and biological basis by emphasizing the outcomes of neurobiological research, which maintenances knowledge as a result of basic function capability and changes. Gardner not only had his biological origin for multiple intelligences, he also believes that culture plays an important role in the development of intelligence than traditionally acknowledged (Gardner, 1983). Some cultures value and preserve certain types of intelligences, especially if they help with the improvement and maintenance of a culture. The more appreciated a skill is, the more one is driven to know and thrive in that particular discipline. A particular intelligence can be very much developed due to a culture’s value, while others may not develop or develop hardly at all (Gardner, 1983). PASS Theory The PASS theory of intelligence proposes that cognition is organized in three functional units that are applied widely to IQ tests. According to Luria’s idea of this model, PASS stands for Planning, Attention-Arousal, and Simultaneous and Successive model of processing (Kaufman, 2013). According to this model, the first functional unit’s job is to focus and sustain attention. The second function is the attention process, which maintains alertness and arousal levels, and warrants focus on important stimuli. The final functional unit accepts and stores information with consecutive and concurrent processing. PASS theory challenges what is the foundation of all cognitive processes; G-based theories. G-based theories of human intelligence say that â€Å"human intellectual functioning is best described as a unitary class† (Das & Abbott, 1995). The challenge comes from the fact that g-theory believes that neuropsychological research that establishes the brain is made up of diverse codependent organisms (Das & Abbott, 1995). The PASS theory seeks to explain intelligence in a more dynamically appropriate sense and to overcome gaps from the traditional IQ test. IQ tests are based on outdates theories that rely on correlations between the IQ scores, but not taking into consideration that intelligence is evolving and unsolidified. Intelligence Testing The reason that traditional IQ testing is not reliable is because they are built on the concept that intelligence is mainly methodical and fixed. Gardner believed in calculating intellectual tendencies at an early age because he did not believe intelligences are permanent (Morgan, 1996). As cultures vary, they reach intelligence at different levels and they may see certain skills and knowledge of more value than others (Kaufman, 2013). Gardner’s theory is flexible to the dissimilarities in intelligences cross-culturally and is genuine in measuring intelligence (Morgan, 1996). The PASS theory emphasizes on developments, rather than intelligence and capability helps with being familiar cross-culturally, and is rather reasonable as oppose to general IQ testing (Das & Abbott, 1995). General IQ testing and similar tests stress the importance of language and mathematical abilities,; this is not exactly accurate cross-cultural measurement (Kaufman, 2013). Conclusion The unfairness of intelligence testing is submerged. The measurements of these tests are reliable, but only to a small fraction of the population cross-culturally. Both theories mentioned smooth out the bumps of widespread gaps in effective measuring tools when it comes to cross-cultural population. Different cultures cannot be effectively measured by traditional IQ and similar psychological tests. When the correlations of social success and IQ scores are matched, they show an inaccurate picture of bias constructed with things like sexism and racism. The measurement of intelligence must take into account the essential cultural perspective of knowledge and learning.

Billabong Analysis

Billabong International Limited is an Australian based clothing company that established its business in 1980’s and expanded internationally through its franchises and acquisitions. The business is engaged in the marketing, distribution, wholesaling and retailing of apparel, eyewear, accessories, wetsuits and hard goods in the boardsports sector under the Billabong, Element, Von Zipper, Honolua Surf, Kustom, Palmers Surf, Xcel, Tigerlily, Sector 9 and RVCA brands (Billabongbiz, 2013). The company is headquartered in Queensland, Australia with 6,000 employees and they operate across many countries such as Australia, North America, Europe, Japan and the rest of  the world.Billabong has emerged a number of sports and youth labels such as RVCA, and Surjection (Billabongbiz, 2013). They continue to expand their brand image by sponsoring promotional events and some of the athletes. The rival brands of Billabong are Quicksilver and Rip Curl as these companies are iconic surf brands . In order to perform Billabong International Limited effectively, the board of directors are structured into six non-executive directors, two executive directors and the chairman who are responsible for the shareholders of Billabong. However, due to recent recession, the new CEO, Launa Inman, has been appointed.2 – Financial AnalysisThe profitability performance of Billabong International Limited is not effective as it is -45.71% in Q2, 2013 (Google Finance, 2013). Similarly, net profit margin of the company is -50.72% which represents the profit after subtracting the indirect expenses. Overall profit performance is showing a negative sign and the firm have experienced shrinking sales and rising debts. However, with respect to gross profit margin, it shows a positive figure as it amounts to 50.21% in Q2, 2013.This shows that the profitability after accounting for the cost of goods sold is good and highly effective for the company, but the negative net profit implies that the indirect expenses of the company are significantly higher. The plans of the company are to focus on its core brands in the next four years, cut styles by 15% and achieve improvement in its supply chain for both the wholesale and retail operations2.1 Identification and evaluation of Billabong’s global strategyThe marketing mix helps a business to determine its sales and finally determine the success or failure of a business. For this reason, it is the most essential element of business when determining a marketing plan. Billabong International Limited makes broad use of the marketing mix in their marketing plan.Billabong International Limited has diversified their product range not only  related to surfing. Their positioning strategy is a high quality, high priced, fashionable product. Billabong gains customer satisfaction by offering quality products that is not vulnerable or ruined easily despite the harsh conditions of many of their products intended uses, such as swimme rs, skis and snowboards. Billabong has been successful in making brand images by appealing as an internationally known for professional surfing, and through its wave logo and sponsorship of international events.By doing this, it has not only gained international markets, however it has also become a prestige and status symbol for its target market. The product and positioning of Billabongs products is the most important element in its marketing mix as it ensures the long term survival of the company and continued high sales. By meeting customer demand, positioning itself as a well-known and trusted brand with a vast amount of prestige it has ensured that sales remain high.2.1.2 PromotionBillabong uses a strong promotion mix to highlight and reinforce its image and product. A combination of an interactive website, promotional magazines and flyers, personal in store selling and strong public relations through both sponsorship of sporting events and famous athlete using Billabong produ cts have generated a strong brand images amongst its industry. Billabongs sponsorship of international sporting events and sporting stars also helps to promote their brand not only in Australia but also on the international market as well.2.1.3 PriceBillabong uses a competition-based pricing method in which it sets its prices at a similar level to those of its competitors to ensure that their customers will not wish to buy the cheaper products. However, Billabong is awkwardly positioned between Rip Curl and Quicksilver. Especially wetsuits and women’s jeans are higher than Quicksilver’s. They rarely use below market value pricing to avoid creating a image of less prestigious products.Surf brands – Average price comparison(Source: EDITD, 2013)2.1.4 PlaceBillabong uses various methods to ensure that their product reaches the market place. With stores in more than 100 countries Billabong uses wholesalers to ensure that their products reach the retailers. Billabongs positioning also comes into effect with place as it must ensure that its product remains out of discount and department stores and remains only in specialty stores. Because of this Billabong has adopted an exclusive distribution network where the product is only available in specialty surf shops.2.2 – SWOT AnalysisA business can implement a SWOT analysis to decide which marketing strategy to apply.2.3 – Current Target MarketBillabong is a brand which offers various types of products designed to accommodate various lifestyles. Their extensive product ranges are for surfers, boarders, beach lovers, and the sensible fashion people. Even though it is difficult to identify comprehensive characteristics of this industry, the majority of consumers are males and females who are aged between 14 and 29. (Goldcoast, 2013)According to Australian Business Solution (2011), there are an increasing number of casual dress codes at Australian workplaces and social gatherings which has led to a high demand for affordable and modern look at workplaces. Billabong’s new casual-line is aiming to meet such demand and targeting office workers.Due to Billabong’s sports image, it has been entrenched in consumers’ mind especially among teenagers and youths. When these consumers grow older, they will be pleased to see Billabong to provide expanded casual-line offering to meet their new needs. The new product line is a modern, up-scale look but also inexpensive casual dress codes at workplaces. Therefore, it will better resonate with age group 25 to 39 years old who have built careers and gained stronger buying power.2.4 – Reasons for Billabong’s international expansionAustralia has small population compare to other regions that place significant restrictions on its total sales revenue and Billabong’s future objectives. Billabong’s expansion helped to boost their total sales revenue by over 70% in 2003-04. Increase in sales ha s also allowed the firm to lower its production cost by achieving economies of scale and lower risks. In 2003, Billabong adapted video conference technology in order to make the communication and exchange of ideas across the world for its overseas offices easier.Furthermore, by working in more than 100 countries obtained cushion impacts of the entry of a new competitor and economic cycle into any of their industries. Global expansion supported the extension product life cycle for numerous products and easier access to resources and technology.3. Identification and evaluation of the external environmentTo better understand Billabong’s global expansion strategy, both Porters Five Forces and a PESTEL analysis will be undertaken.3.1 – Porters Five Forces3.1.1 The CompetitionSince 1970s, there was a significant rising popularity of the beach and surfing, and then three major companies (Billabong, Quicksilver and Rip Curl) have become a symbolic of surfing. These brands mana ge to establish strong credibility within surfing subculture and it was also equally consumable by non-surfers who identified with the lifestyle. In the 1990s and 2000s, Billabong started to aggressively pursue international expansion by emerging sports and youth labels such as RVCA and Nixon watches to gain market share. However, in 2012, there was a significant loss of $287m. (Billabongbiz, 2013)3.1.2 New EntrantsThere is still room for a new entrant as the global demand for surfing apparel is expected to remain strong. For instance, Hollister – Abercrombie & Fitch started off with a local manufacture that successfully moved into surfing clothes and retailing. Moreover, smaller brands like Byron Bay label, Afends has dramatically grown in the last decades by selling its  products through independent and online stores. Afrends gained reputations among young surfers and skaters from Australia and California.3.1.3 Suppliers PowerAs Billabong has become an internationally wel l-known brand, they outsource its manufacturing by using small to mid-sized companies in order to keep economies of scale. Billabong uses Hong Kong as the central sourcing division to provide most of its products to Australia and New Zealand. These suppliers have no bargaining powers.3.1.4 Consumers PowerDue to the size of Australia population, consumers actually have not enough bargaining power. However, to the global extent, consumers are likely to find other tailors which would provide products that would be cheaper than existing ones.3.1.5 Product SubstitutesAccording to the Urban Market Research (UMR) survey, findings indicate that Nike (13%) has overtaken the lead from Billabong (10%) as the best choice for Australia’s youth. Other rival brands such as Quicksilver and Rip Curl have also expanded their popularity. Young females prefer ‘disposable fashion’ with affordable price such retailers like Cotton on and Supre. Country Road and Colorado would be other substitutes for Billabong, but it has different quality and style compare to Billabong.3.2 – Industry Analysis3.3 – PESTEL Analysis3.3.1 – Political factorsBenefit from the worldwide trade barriers which allowed exportation procedures much easier for Billabong International Limited to other regions. The rate of import duty decreased from 17.5% in 2005 to 10% in 2010 as the Australian governments maintained tariff barriers for protecting the domestic clothing and manufacturing industry. (Wellers, S., 2007) The announcement of bilateral trade agreements by World Trade Orgainisation  (WTO) has affected Billabong International Limited. Since 2005, all Australian businesses required to produce their financial reports to International Financial Reporting Standards. Hence, it makes easier for Australian accounting standards into global practices and cost of implementation was significant.3.3.2 – Economic factorsThe growing popularity of surfing and skateboardi ng has been impacted by improvement in standard of living and the consumer spending power. As Billabong International’s products are distributed in more than 100 countries and the majority of the revenue is generated by other regions, the firm is continually influenced by fluctuations in currency. Every each year, value of earnings has shown loss when it was reported in Australian dollars. From the global point of view, Billabong’s global expansion was encouraged by its high incomes from Asia and South America that enabled to create new markets.3.3.3 – Social factorsBillabong’s brand awareness has been influenced by the growing popularity of surfing and skateboarding among the broader community. Identifying customer tastes were depends on various types of traditions and cultures. For instance, U.S preferred bright colours products while Australia preferred faded and weather beaten colours. Complications in writing contracts with different languages have e ncouraged the firm’s ability to operate in global markets. – errors on contracts could lead to future conflicts. Difference in oragnisational culture and practices on different regions are their major concerns. For instance, Australia has relaxed working environment while U.S and Japan are more intense. Further, European countries are imposed on limiting working hours by governments.3.3.4 – Technological factorsCable television and internet has attracted millions of new customers in surfing and skateboarding which helped Billabong’s products market towards a wider customer base. E-commerce has simplified the logistical and oragnisational difficulties when operating a global business.3.3.5 – Environmental factorsConsumers pay more attention on environmentally friendly products – source of materials, where materials are sourced, and whether production processes have negative impacts on the environment.3.3.6 – Legal factorBillabong ensur es to protect intellectual property rights issues such as brand logo, names and trademarks from unauthorised piracy.

Spartan Women

Spartan women were given great privileges as they Involved their prominent sections In society In regards to education, family, religion and the economy, which soon became desired by women all over ancient Greece. Ancient historians such as Plutarch, Xenophobe, Aristotle, Plato, Euripides, Herodotus, Discusses and Aristotelian provide valuable insight to the girls, women and mothers of Sparta, as they left no records themselves. Plutarch famous Sayings of Spartan Women alms to promote a Spartan society where females play an essential role in the Indoctrination of their sons and where mothers are painted has brutal patriots.Women were perhaps the most important eater of Spartan society for many reasons and even so their most important role was to give birth to healthy sons for Sparta. They weren't allowed to spin or weave like women from other parts of Greece; such menial tasks were meant for the helots – state owned slaves. Source 2 (Plutarch on Sparta, p. 1 60) â€Å"When an Ionian woman was priding herself on one of the tapestries she had made (which was Indeed of great value), a Spartan woman showed off her four most dutiful sons and said they were the kind of thing a noble and good woman ought to produce, and should boast of them and take pride in them.This quote illustrates that for Spartan women, skills in handicrafts were not essential, and were not regarded as important as bearing healthier, stronger sons for the army. Xenophobe stated, â€Å"For free women the most important Job was to bear children. † In order to Inculcate the offspring with patriotism, the mother had to have the correct attitude herself. Spartan mother did rear their sons according to the customs and expectations of their state and society.They were proud of their role in shaping new generations of citizens as cited in Source 2, women who produce strong offspring's (sons) should feel superior to other omen and should be proud of their self righteousness. It implies tha t women with strong sons were strong themselves because it is believed that strong Spartan women and men create a strong offspring. ‘Great value' also suggests that sons were worth more than daughters, as sons are the only ones that can achieve the greatest honor in Sparta.Women were encouraged to display patriotism by sacrificing the men whom they loved and so highly did they prize the warriors med, that they are said to have said tears of Joy over the bleeding bodies of their wounded sons. Source 1 (Plutarch on Sparta, p. 60) â€Å"As a woman was burying her son, a worthless old crone came up to her and said: ‘You poor woman, what a misfortune! ‘ ‘No, by the two gods, a piece of good fortune,' she replied, teacake I bore him so that he might die for sons, they took pride in the bravery that had led to that fate.The women were ordered not to mourn, to suffer in silence during their son or husband's death. The character of Spartan women is marked with uncomm on firmness. At the shrine of patriotism they immolated nature. Undaunted bravery and impeached honor was, in their estimation far beyond affection. If a son came home from Sparta without his shield the mothers wouldn't tolerate a son's act of cowardice and dishonor to Sparta. Sources tell us that a Spartan woman killed her son, who had deserted his post because he was unworthy of Sparta. She declared: â€Å"He was not my offspring†¦ Or I did not bear one unworthy of Sparta. † The education of women was a uniquely Spartan concept within the polis, Spartan women were well educated and brought up in an orderly fashion to become proper mothers for the state, manage killer (state-owned property) and partake in religious festivals. As Spartan boys were surrendered to the agog (Expatriate training program) Spartan girls remained at home with their mothers to get educated, learn reading and writing, as well as being organized into bands for team games and choral singing.In thes e bands they were taught, and had to regularly perform, choral lyrics of myths that had been immoralities through ancient songs and poems. Many of these poems would have come from the Parthian (a collection of work composed by Spartan poet Oilcan). Girls also learned the basis (a form of dancing/exercise where the girls do rump Jumps). Whilst in these bands the Spartan women also trained in gymnastics and athletics, such as running, wrestling and Javelin throwing. Spartan women of all ages were encouraged to mix and train with the Spartan men and enter sporting competitions to get fit and strong.Plato commented on the Spartan women's education: â€Å"there are not only men but women also who pride themselves on their education; you can tell that what I say is true and that the Spartan have the best education in philosophy. † The reasoning behind this idea of physical training is that while Spartan women trained with Spartan men, the men old choose the strongest woman and marr y her because if both parents were strong and healthy then they are more likely to give birth to a strong and healthy child, which was of great importance to the Spartan men and especially women as demonstrated in source 2.Spartan women had a great deal of influence and power on Sprat's economy. They were the ‘men' of Sparta when their husband and sons were at war or at the agog. The Management of killer was an essential skill for Spartan women. As each expatriate owned a killer, the killer would be inherited by the wives and mothers of Sparta to raise their sons who would eventually inherit the killer. This means that they controlled the family wealth which affected the entire Spartan agricultural economy which there fore shows there power on the economy and therefore on Sparta.Spartan male citizens were dependent on their wife's efficiency to pay their â€Å"dues† to the cystitis. The management of the killer was not Just a responsibility which separated them from wom en from other Greek cities, this role was a crucial element in the Spartan economy. In Athens and Greece poorer women worked on Sparta, as manual labor and handcrafting was seen as an act for the helots only and his is also exemplified in source 2 as the Spartan women doesn't have time to do low acts like handcrafting and manual labor. Her main goal is to produce healthy and fit children and manage the Spartan economy.Aristotle disapproved of the power women wielded in Sparta, especially in the economy, and felt it contributed strongly to the downfall of the once mighty polis. In his writing he frequently mentioned that the trend to give women economic power could lead to a contrariety, a government controlled by women. Growth in economic prestige and immense power is apparent wrought the story of Princess Kinas, the daughter of King Archaisms and champion of two Olympic chariot team races. This wealthy equestrian expert was the owner of a twice Olympic champion chariot team (396 an d 392 SC).She dedicated a statue to herself at the Olympic sanctuary in Olympus. Which according to historians indicates that, â€Å"To compete was a mark of wealth, since horses require a great deal of grass and grazing land is not plentiful in Greece† and this tells us that as a result â€Å"women had effective control of plentiful wealth. † Archaeological evidence provides us with a deep understanding of how important he role of religion was in Sparta and to Spartan women. Evidence comes from the sanctuary of Artemisia Orator, here hundreds of votive offerings were found and the majority of them were lead figurines in the shape of women.Theories suggest that it is linked to childbirth. This theory suggests that pregnant women would make these offerings for three purposes: either to ask for a successful childbirth as many women died from giving birth in antiquity, to ask that they bear a strong and healthy son, fit to become a warrior of Sparta or to make offerings t o the goddess Aphrodite Hear, when their daughters were married. According to Plutarch, Ulcerous stated that only women who had died giving birth would be allowed to have a marked grave – further archaeological evidence reinforces this custom.This shows how important childbirth was to the Spartan in that â€Å"only women who lost their lives to perpetuate the state were honored as heroes. † Yet it is also possible that the female-shaped figurines represented the understanding of importance and deep respect for the ‘maternal figure' in Spartan religion – as the Spartan took up many female gods from Greek mythology. At the temple of Athena of the Bronze House there are numerous bronze tastes of Athena and Aphrodite, typifying the importance of matriarchal figures in Spartan religion.

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Financial Institutions - Essay Example A financial institution has a pool of experts in the fields of investment planning, estate planning, tax planning, and other financial matters at the household level. I do not believe that a busy person who hates numbers and anything about finances will want to have the burden of learning all these. Therefore, a financial institution provides an individual the expertise and perhaps the peace of mind that he will not be burdened with debt once he religiously follows a financial plan. Financial institutions also act as intermediaries for individuals, governments, and businesses, but they treat each customer differently according to the category which one belongs. For individuals, as hinted earlier, they provide financial information where the individual is more likely uninformed. For governments and businesses, they treat them almost the same as institutions but depending on their credit rating. I believe individuals without a finance background have other subjects, interests, or callings. Or perhaps, they are afraid of anything related to money. Nevertheless, financial information is necessary. Therefore, financial institutions bridge that gap of ignorance by providing financial education and information to the public. For the most part, financial institutions deal with businesses as brokers for debts and other sources of money. Of course, this is different for individuals. An ordinary citizen needs financial information in order to live below his means. Businesses need capital and financial information necessary for huge investments.

Final Examination Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Final Examination - Essay Example Recruitment involves the generation of a pool of applicants qualified for a specific job. As defined by Fried and Fottler (2008), it refers to a set of processes used by organisations to attract individuals qualified for a given job in a timely fashion and in sufficient volumes and to promote their application of jobs available in the organisation. The human resource plan informs the approach to be used in designing the recruitment processes. This would guide on the recruitment strategies to use, the kind of applicants needed for the organisation to achieve its intended objectives and the process of recruiting and hiring. The designing process starts with analysing a job to determine the knowledge, skills, abilities and tasks associated with the job and therefore develop the qualifications that applicants should meet. Further, it would entail scanning the external environment to determine the supply for potential candidates and their competitiveness for the given job. This would incl ude establishing compensation from competitors and available external recruitment sources. A review of past recruitment process for a similar position, if not the same position, guides on where to improve. This would lead to querying the human resources information system to evaluate the skills, experience, training and education of current employees. It also provides data of previous applicants, the cost of recruitment and information on the performance and retention of employees. This results in a well-defined and objective recruitment process. Internal candidates are already known to their organisation, including their performance and potential, thus the ability to make accurate decision on their fit for the job. Because these candidates are aware of the processes and procedures of the organisation, the start-up time for them is minimal. Additionally, providing internal candidates with arising opportunities boosts morale among workers, encouraging the productive ones to remain in the organisation. However, the movement of an employee to another position could create a disruptive ripple effect to the entire organisation. It has also been noted that internal candidates could be promoted to greater positions without necessarily meeting the required aptitude, especially among clinical staff in healthcare organisations. Therefore, an organisation could prefer to acquire external candidates who bring with them new perspectives and ideas. It also gives the organisation the ability to target candidates with specific knowledge and skills on the given job. These candidates are perfect for organisations marred with politics as they are not restrained by such politics. Even so, these external candidates could fail to fit in the organisation’s culture. Their abilities and skills are also uncertain as no primary data exists on their performance. Finally, orientation of these candidates consumes time. This has caused organisations to adopt other selection tools suc h as recruiting part-time workers, employee referral and engaging executive search firms or employment agencies. Organisations seek to adopt retention strategies to have employees stay with them. Job satisfaction and sensitivity to staff welfare determine staff turnover. Therefore, to curb high staff turnover, organisations aim at making their compensation competitive including giving loans at favourable

Roles and Responsibilities of a Teachers Essay Example for Free

Roles and Responsibilities of a Teachers Essay Roles ,Responsibilities, boundaries and Relationship of teachers with other professional. * Roles and Responsibilities of a teachers in life long sector. In my view ,followings should be the roles and responsibilities of a teacher of numeracy /math, Physics, and ICT at adults level. 1. One of the responsibilities of someone who is thinking about going into teaching in the lifelong learning sector would be to gain the skills, which are required for the subject , in which he/she intend to teach and make sure that the/she have relevant literacy, numeracy and ICT skills and preferably the qualifications. 2. A teacher must make communication in easy and simple words so that all the learners can understand easily. He should communicate by lowering his own level at the level of the learners. A teacher should be very clear and concise in his ideas .Words and language with dual meanings or ambiguous language should not be used. He/she should be Generous with advice and guidance. Teachers should adjust their teaching style to meet individual needs of students. 3. A teacher should enter into the classroom with full preparation and in depth knowledge of the subject .He/she should plan the sessions and prepare the teaching materials with great care. It should be the responsibility of a teacher to make sure that all handouts, lesson plans, presentations and any other writing is always spellchecked as any spelling mistakes will reflect on the learners. He/she should use the modern technology in preparation of this material. It should be attractive, creative and inspiring. 4. Sometimes, the behaviour of learners demonstrates that something is not going right. Therefore, I think ,I as a teacher must pay attention to any suspicious sings that could bother the learners. As teacher must be my responsibility to find out what is going on with the learners in the classroom 5. A teacher should be inspiring , patient and must not preach. 6. A teacher should attend and contribute team meetings, section meetings, tutor and area team meetings where applicable. 7. A teacher should work closely with colleagues in developing and improving the current curriculum offer for programs of teaching. 8. A teacher partake in marketing and recruitment activities including open evenings, school tasters and visits, student profiling for publications, interview, induction, awards evenings, result day and enrolment. 9. A teacher should identify students weaknesses and should be able to plan a strategy to assist them with it. 10. A teacher should encourage students to discuss the chosen topic/method not only with the teacher but also amongst themselves . Teachers should create effective and stimulating opportunities for learning through high quality teaching that enables the development and progression of all learners 11. A teacher should assess various learning styles within the group and identify the methods by which various learners can understand better. And method should be easy and updated. 12. A teacher must try to make sure that all students have equal rights and safe learning environment where they are able to build a trusting and honest relationship. Teachers should value all of their learners individually and equally .A teacher should be professional yet sympathetic to the learner’s needs. Teachers should give students an environment to learn on their own without putting them in a box and sayingyou belong here because of your age, etc. 13. A teacher should be friendly with the learners, but he/she must remember that the learners should not be his/her friends. 14. The teacher needs to show respect toward the students so the students also respect the teacher 15. A teacher should complete attendance records and maintain the records of learners progress e.g. interviews, tutorials, assessments. 16. A teacher must not give false advice but a constructive and accurate one. 17. A facilitator must be organiser, analyst, administrator, media designer, tutor, team player, communicator, assessor, group leader and presenter. 18. A teacher should actively participate in continuous professional development appropriate for the development of programs and career of a teacher as a member of college staff. 19. And most of all, the perfect teacher, is the teacher that doesnt think himself/herself perfect. * Boundaries of the teachers in life long sector.

Applied linguistics Essay Example for Free

Applied linguistics Essay Applied linguistics 1 History The term applied linguistics dates back at least to the 1940s in the USA when linguists applied analytical methods to the practical problems of producing grammars and phrasebooks and developing language courses. 2 What Is Applied Linguistics? Applied linguistics: (1) was interdisciplinary, drawing on psychology, sociology, and pedagogy as well as theoretical linguistics; (2) included a range of fields including lexicography, stylistics, speech pathol ogy, translation, language policy, and planning among others; (3) performed a mediating function between theory and practice. Ð pplied linguistics must take into consideration the nature of language and the nature of the particular world in which language is used, the beliefs, social institutions, and culture of its users, and how these influence language use. Ideally, the job of an applied linguist is to diagnose a problem in real-world language use, bring the insights of linguistics to bear on the problem, and suggest solutions. 3 Relation of Theory and Practice: the Case of Language Teaching The applied linguist stands at the intersection of theory and practice, but it is not always clear how the applied linguist mediates between the two. This suggests a one-way street in which theory is at the starting point, and the applied linguist directs traffic from theory to practice. Influenced by structuralism in linguistics and by behaviorism in psychology, applied linguists believed that language was a collection of discrete learnable structures, speaking was primary, and learning a language was a matter of correct habit formation. To inculcate correct habits, teachers drilled students incessantly in correct pronunciation and patterned practice of grammatical structures. Under the influence of the theoretical work of Noam Chomsky, applied  linguists saw language learning as a cognitive process of hypothesis testing, in which errors indicated the stage of the language learner’s interlanguage. Instead, knowing a language means knowing how to communicate in the language; it involves acquiring â€Å"communicative competence. † A richer model of the relationship among theory, practice, and applied linguistics sees it as a two-way street in which the applied linguist directs traffic from theory into practice and from practice into theory. Similarly in applied linguistics, practice provides a testing ground for theory,  but it is more than that: real-world language use provides new questions and issues requiring new theories. 4 Recent Range of Inquiry Nevertheless, the central characteristics of applied linguistics remain: (1) focus on contextualized language use; (2) application of theory to practice and vice versa; (3) practical problem-based approach; (4) multidisciplinary perspective. 4. 1 Second language teaching and cross-cultural linguistics 2Accurate description of language use with the ultimate goal of teaching has motivated research in cross-cultural discourse and pragmatics. Concentration on  spoken language, combined with speech act theory among others, has engendered numerous research projects in applied linguistics investigating specific speech acts such as making requests and apologies in different languages and cultures. Applied linguists have examined the development of pragmatic competence in second language learners and the possibilities for teaching pragmatics. 4. 2 Language use in context: contributions of discourse analysis Outside the area of language pedagogy, the burgeoning of discourse analysis has provided a means whereby linguistic insight can be applied to real-world situations. Other institutional and professional settings, too, have come under scrutiny from applied linguists using theoretical constructs to explain how language is used in real-world settings such as commerce, employment, and public services. A field that has developed considerably in recent years in response to societal concerns is the investigation of language and gender. Recent empirical studies have enriched understanding of the interrelationship of language and gender and demonstrated that generalizations about male and female speech are unreliable when the particular communicative contexts in which the speech occurs have not been examined. Other work has examined gender and language cross-culturally and in specific institutional settings. 4. 3 Language maintenance and endangered languages and dialects The work of applied linguists on endangered or minority languages and dialects brings together field linguistics, anthropology, sociolinguistics and education. For example, a longitudinal study of language use and cultural context draws together sociolinguistic research into language use, research in language socialization, and second language acquisition research into educational discourse. It is not only minority languages that are under threat, but also dialects. 2. Contemporary linguistic approaches: Clinical, forensic, computational linguistics ( Ð ²Ã'‹Ã'‡Ð ¸Ã' Ã »Ã ¸Ã'‚Ð µÃ »Ã'Å'Ð ½Ã °Ã'  )( 29, 30, 25) We have chosen to focus on four relatively popular areas of inquiry: †¢ syntactic parsing; †¢ discourse analysis; †¢ computational morphology and phonology; †¢ corpus-based methods. Parsing and discourse analysis have had the longest continuous history of investigation. Computational morphology and phonology began to grow as a separate discipline in the mid-1980s. Corpus-based approaches were investigated as early as the 1960s. 1 Parsing (Ã'€Ð °Ã ·Ã ±Ã ¾Ã'€) Parsing is the act of determining the â€Å"syntactic structure† of a sentence. The goal is to represent â€Å"who did what to whom† in the sentence. Parsing involves tagging 3the words with an appropriate syntactic category and determining their relationships to each other. Words are grouped into phrase-like constituents, which are arranged into clauses and sentences. Machine translation systems employ parsing to derive representations of the input that are sufficient for transfer from the source to target language at either the syntactic or semantic level. A great deal of attention to the application of syntactic parsing models for language modeling for automatic speech recognition. 2 Discourse Analysis. The area of discourse analysis is concerned with inferring the intended meanings of utterances. In order for the dialogue participants to successfully carry out a dialogue, they must be able to recognize the intentions of the other participant’s utterances, and to produce their responses in such a way that will enable the other participant(s) to recognize their intentions. A recipe is a generic template for performing a particular action. The recipe library contains a collection of generic recipes, and during discourse understanding, the plan inference module attempts to infer utterance intentions and relationships using  information provided by this library. 3 Computational Morphology and Phonology Roughly speaking, the topics can be classified into computational morphology, which treats the analysis of word structure; and computational phonology, which, deals with the changes in sound patterns that take place when words are put together. 4 Corpus-based Methods The word corpus in linguistics is typically a collection of texts. Corpora have been widely used by linguists to identify and analyze language phenomena, and to verify or refute claims about language. However, a corpus also reveals important  quantitative information about the distribution of various language phenomena. 29 Clinical Linguistics Clinical linguistics is the application of the linguistic sciences to the study of language disability. 1 Identifying Linguistic Symptoms Attention has now come to be focused on important symptoms of language disability, and to those aspects of the problem which have been ignored or misdiagnosed. â€Å"Less noticeable† refers to any feature other than the audible qualities of pronunciation, the order and omission of surface grammatical elements, and the actual items which constitute vocabulary. These features exclude  most of the properties of phonological systems, the sense relations between lexical items, the constraints operating on discourse in interaction, and the many ramifications of underlying syntactic structure. All of these play a major part in identifying the various kinds of language disability. The use of a clinical linguistic frame of reference has also enabled people to make progress in identifying disorders of language comprehension. That requires careful testing and the controlling of variables. Disorders of a pragmatic kind, likewise, 4 have often remained undiagnosed, or have been misdiagnosed as problems of a  psychological or social behavioral type. 2 The Role of Clinical Linguistics 2. 2 Description A major area of clinical linguistic research has been to provide ways of describing and analyzing the linguistic behavior of patients, and of the clinicians and others who interact with them. 2. 3 Diagnosis An important aim of clinical linguistics is to provide a classification of patient linguistic behaviors. This can provide an alternative diagnostic model, and one which is more able to provide insights about intervention in cases where there is no clear evidence of any medical condition. 2. 4 Assessment (Ð ¾Ã'†Ð µÃ ½Ã ºÃ °). Clinical linguistics has also been much involved in devising more sophisticated assessments of abnormal linguistic behavior. A diagnosis tells us what is â€Å"wrong† with a patient; an assessment tells us just how seriously the patient is â€Å"wrong. † 2. 5 Intervention The ultimate goal is to formulate hypotheses for the remediation (Ð ¾Ã ·Ã ´Ã ¾Ã'€Ð ¾Ã ²Ã »Ã µÃ ½Ã ¸Ã µ) of abnormal linguistic behavior. Not all aspects of a patient’s problem are directly relevant to the need for linguistically based intervention, clinical linguistics can help clinicians to make an informed judgment about â€Å"what to teach next,† and to monitor the outcome of an intervention hypothesis, as  treatment proceeds. To a large extent, moving well beyond the patient’s language, to include an investigation of the language used by the person(s) carrying out the intervention, the kind of teaching materials used, and the setting in which the interaction takes place. 3 Linguistic Insights The chief aim of clinical linguistics is to provide the clinician with increasing levels of insight and confidence in arriving at linguistic decisions. The three pillars of any clinical linguistic approach: description – grading – intervention. All change needs to be regularly monitored, to demonstrate that progress is being made – this  is the task of assessment. The keeping of comprehensive linguistic records is a further priority, without which the efficacy of intervention can never be demonstrated. Forensic Linguistics Now linguists also have begun examining voice identification, authorship of written documents, unclear jury instructions, the asymmetry of power in courtroom exchanges, lawyer–client communication breakdown, the nature of perjury, problems in written legal discourse, defamation, trademark infringement, courtroom interpretation and translation difficulties, the adequacy of warning  labels, and the nature of tape recorded conversation used as evidence. 1 Trademark Infringement Typically, they respond to requests of attorneys to help them with their law cases. 2 Product Liability 5But the linguist, calling on knowledge of discourse analysis, semantics, and pragmatics, can determine the extent to which the message was clear and unambiguous and point out the possible meanings that the message presents. Once this is done, it is up to the attorney to determine whether or not to ask the linguist to testify at trial. 3 Speaker Identification Linguists have been used by attorneys in matters of voice identification. If the tapes are of sufficient quality, spectographic analysis is possible. If not, the linguist may rely on training and skills in phonetics to make the comparison. 4 Authorship of Written Documents Law enforcement agencies process provide a â€Å"psychological profile† of the person. Calling on knowledge of language indicators of such things as regional and social dialect, age, gender, education, and occupation, linguists analyze documents for broad clues to the identity of the writer. Stylistic analysis centers on a writer’s habitual language features over which the writer has little or no conscious awareness. 5 Criminal Cases Suspects are recorded with court authorized wire taps placed that none of the speakers is aware of being taped, or by using body microphones and engage suspects in conversation. If the law enforcement agency is concerned about the adequacy of the language evidence that they have gathered, they may call on a linguist to make transcripts of the conversations, analyze them. The tape recorded conversation itself points to the use of the other tools of the forensic linguist, including syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, dialectology, and discourse analysis. 3. Discourse analysis (17) Discourse analysis is concerned with the contexts in and the processes through which we use oral and written language to specific audiences, for specific purposes, in specific settings. 1 What Is Discourse? A Preliminary Characterization The big D concerns general ways of viewing the world and general ways of behaving, the small d concerns actual, specific language use. Discourse analysis emphasizes that language is not merely a self-contained system of symbols but a mode of doing, being, and becoming. Discourse research can be divided into 2 major types of inquiries: (1) why some but not other linguistic forms are used on  given occasions and (2) what are the linguistic resources for accomplishing various social, affective, and cognitive actions and interactions. 2 Communicative Motivations for the Selection of Linguistic Forms Language is inseparable from other aspects of our life and that the selection of linguistic forms should be explained in terms of authentic human communicative needs (i. e. , social, interactional, cognitive, affective needs). 2. 1 Context 6One of the first questions is what is happening in this stretch of talk, who the participants are, where they are, and why they are there. Linguistic choices are  systematically motivated by contextual factors. Context is a complex of 3 dimensions: First, the field of social action in which the discourse is embedded. Second, the set of role relations among the participants. And third, the role of language in the interaction. In this view, language is a system of choices made on the basis of a contextual configuration which accounts for field, tenor, and mode. 2. 3 Speech act What kind of speech act utterance is and whether this act is accomplished through direct or indirect means. Speech act theory says that language is used not only to describe things but to do things as well. Further, utterances act on 3 different levels: the literal level (locutionary act), the implied level (illocutionary act), and the consequence of the implied act (perlocutionary act). 2. 4 Scripts / plans Script is to describe the knowledge that we have of the structure of stereotypical event sequences. If such knowledge can be described in a formal way, then we may have a theory of how humans process natural language. 2. 5 Referentiality How entities (Ð »Ã ¸Ã'†Ð °) are referred to in utterances. Some analysts are interested in how referential forms make a stretch of discourse cohesive in form and coherent in meaning. 2. 6 Topicality and thematicity What is an utterance about, what is the starting point of a message, what is the focus of a message. Topic the part of the utterance about which something is said. Prague School linguists developed the functional sentence perspective which says that word order has to do with how informative each element in the utterance is – communicative dynamism, or CD. A sentence begins with elements with the lowest CD and ends with those with the highest CD. Theme is the part of the utterance with the lowest degree of CD. 2. 7 Sequential organization The sequential context of the utterance. Discourse analysts have sought to explain linguistic choices in terms of ethnographic contexts, knowledge structure, rhetorical organization, communicative intentions, textual organization, information management and sequential organization, among others. Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, and More Discourse analysts research various aspects of language not as an end in itself, but as a means to explore ways in which language forms are shaped by and shape the contexts of their use. Further, discourse analysis draws upon not only linguistics, but also anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, and  other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences concerned with human communication. Discourse analysis promotes a view of language which says that 7 Resource Center Saved Recents Uploads My Answers Account Products Home Essays Drive Answers Texty About Company Legal Site Map Contact Us Advertise  ©2016 StudyMode. com HOME   ESSAYS   LINGUISTICS   LINGUISTICS Linguistics Applied linguistics, Discourse analysis, Language By maor87 Apr 17, 2015 6489Words 150Views More info PDF View Text View PAGE8 OF 18 language use is not only reflective of other aspects of our lives but is also constitutive of them. As it draws insights from various disciplines, it also contributes to interfacing linguistics with other domains of inquiries, such that we might now investigate the construction of culture through conversation or program computers to generate interactive texts based on our understanding of the rules and principles of human interaction. It focusses on language as it is used by real people with real intentions, emotions. 4. Linguistics and pragmatics (16) The Puzzle of Language Use: How Do We Ever Understand Each Other? Pragmatics is the study of communication – the study of how language is used. This study is based on the assumption of a division between knowledge of language and the way it is used; and the goal of pragmatics is providing a set of principles which dictate how knowledge of language and general reasoning interact in the process of language understanding, to give rise to different kinds of effects which can be achieved in communication. Pragmatics as the Application of Conversational Principles to Sentence Meanings The starting point for studies in pragmatics is the mismatch between what words â€Å"mean, and what speakers â€Å"mean† by using them. There is the knowledge of  language, which dictates the meanings of words and the ways in which they can combine. This is called the encoded meaning. On the other hand, there are pragmatic principles which enable a hearer to establish some different interpretation – the nonencoded part of meaning. Moreover, given the full array of rhetorical effects such as metaphor, irony, etc. , all of which are uses of expressions in context in some sense, the proposed approach maintains a natural separation between literal uses of words, which are reflected in sentence-meanings, and the various non-literal uses to which they may be put. Knowledge of language: sentence-meanings as partial specifications of interpretation The problem for this â€Å"clean† view is that we use commonsense reasoning, whatever this consists in, not merely in working out why a speaker has said something, but also in establishing what she has said in using the words chosen. The overall picture of interpretation is that grammar-internal principles articulate both syntactic and semantic structure for sentences, a semantic structure for a sentence being an incomplete specification of how it is understood. Pragmatic theory explains how such incomplete specifications are enriched in context to yield  the full communicative effect of an uttered sentence, whether metaphorical, ironical, and so on. The Process of Reasoning: How Do Hearers ever Manage to Choose the Right Interpretation? Grice’s cooperative principle and the conversational maxims According to Grice who was the pioneer of the inferential approach to conversation, there is a general assumption underpinning all utterance interpretation that the interpretation of utterances is a collaborative enterprise. This 8collaborative enterprise is structured by a number of maxims, which speakers are presumed to obey: †¢ The maxim of quality: do not say that for which you lack evidence; do not say what you believe to be false. †¢ The maxim of relevance: be relevant. †¢ The maxim of quantity: make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more so. †¢ The maxim of manner: be perspicuous (avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly). Grice articulated the maxims as a means of simplifying the overall account of the relation between the use of language in logical arguments and the conversational use of language. Relevance theory This theory claims to characterize pragmatic phenomena in terms of a single  cognitive concept, that of relevance, replacing the social underpinnings of Grice’s cooperative principle. The principle of relevance Optimal relevance is getting the right balance between size and type of context and amount of information derived. The more information some stimulus yields, the more relevant it is said to become, but the more effort the interpretation of that stimulus requires, the less relevant it will become. And to be minimally relevant a stimulus must lead to at least one non-trivial inference being derived. However interpretation of an act of communication involves two agents – the  speaker and the hearer. The constraint of balancing cognitive effect with cognitive effort will also apply to what the hearer does, but here the task of interpretation is more specific because the hearer has to try and recover what the speaker intended to convey. There are two aspects to the task: 1 Decoding the information associated with an uttered expression– i. e. working out what words have been said and the information that they by definition carry. 2 Making choices which enrich that encoded information to establish what the speaker had intended to convey using those words. Relevance and speech acts  On the speech act view of language, language can best be understood in terms of acts such as these which speakers carry out in using language. The observation by speech act theorists that there is more to language than just describing things is quite uncontentious. Nonetheless, in relevance theory, where the type of implications that can be drawn is quite unrestricted, there is no need of any special discrete categories for such different kinds of act. 5. Linguistic typology and its directions (14) 1 The Diversity of Human Languages The field of linguistic typology explores the diversity of human language in an  effort to understand it. The basic principle behind typology is that one must look at as wide a range of languages as possible in order to grasp both the diversity of 9language and to discover its limits. Typology uses a fundamentally empirical, comparative, and inductive method in the study of language. That is, typologists examine grammatical data from a wide variety of languages, and infer generalizations about language from that data. The basic discovery of typology is that there are limits to linguistic diversity. By comparing diverse languages and discovering universal grammatical patterns, one can attempt to disentangle what is  universal about the grammars languages from what is peculiar to each individual language. 2 The Nature of Language Universals: Word Order One of the first areas of grammar where it was recognized that there are limits to grammatical diversity was the order of words. Word order is probably the most immediately salient difference in grammatical patterns from one language to the next. First, one must examine a sample of languages in order to infer the range of grammatical diversity and its limits. A variety sample collects as broad a range of languages as possible from different geographical areas and different genetic  groupings. Its purpose is to ensure that all possible language types are identified. Second, one must be able to identify phenomena from one language to the next as comparable. The basic problem here is the great variety of grammatical structures used in the world’s languages. The solution to this problem is due to another insight of structuralism: the basic unit of the language is the sign, a form that conventionally expresses or encodes a meaning. The basis for cross-linguistic comparison is a particular linguistic meaning; once that is identified, we may examine the different structures used to encode that meaning. Third, we must identify a range of grammatical patterns or types used to express the linguistic meaning being examined, and classify languages according to what type(s) is / are used in them. For instance, in describing word order of the sentence, the relative position of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V) are used to classify language types. Language structure is determined by factors of language use, such as processing. Language structure is also determined by historical relationships among grammatical patterns, which themselves are due to similarity in meaning. However, these factors do not uniquely determine a language structure, but  compete with each other. Speech communities resolve the competing motivations in arbitrary, language-particular ways; this leads to the diversity of languages found in the world. 3 Language Universals and the Formal Encoding of Meaning Word order universals appear to be motivated in terms of processing of linguistic structure in the act of producing and comprehending language. Word order is a fundamental grammatical property of sentences. 3. 1 Typological markedness and morphological representation 10Some of the earliest work in typology examined the coding of grammatical and  lexical concepts in inflected word forms. The universals go under the name of (typological) markedness. Typological markedness represents an asymmetric pattern of the expression of meaning in grammatical categories across languages. Typological markedness has two central characteristics. First, typological markedness is a property of conceptual categories – e. g. singular and plural – or more precisely, how those conceptual categories are expressed in languages. For number, the singular is unmarked and the plural is marked. Second, unmarked status does not imply that the unmarked member is always left unexpressed and the marked member is always expressed by an overt morpheme. The presence / absence of an overt inflection encoding a conceptual category is only one symptom of markedness, namely structural coding. Typological markedness is found in another aspect of the coding of concepts in words and constructions. Most words in sentences express more than one conceptual category. Pronouns in English, for instance, can express gender as well as number. In English, neither the singular nor plural pronouns express number by a separate inflection; instead number is implicitly expressed by distinct forms such as he and  they. The grammatical coding of additional, cross-cutting, distinctions in the singular but not in the plural is an example of the second symptom of markedness, called behavioral potential. Behavioral potential is also represented by an implicational universal: If the marked member of a category grammatically expresses a crosscutting distinction, so does the unmarked member. A third property of typological markedness points to its underlying explanation. The unmarked member is more frequent than the marked member in language use. Concepts that occur more frequently in language use (e. g. singular) will tend to be expressed by fewer morphemes than less frequently occurring concepts (e. g. plural). This explanation for how meaning is encoded in grammatical form is a processing explanation, called economy or economic motivation. 3. 2 Hierarchies and conceptual spaces We can describe the cross-linguistic distribution of plural markings across classes of pronouns and nouns with the animacy hierarchy. The hierarchy is a succinct way to capture a chain of implicational universals: if any class of words has a plural, then all the classes to the left (or higher) on the hierarchy have a plural. These  patterns are defined over a conceptual space. The conceptual space describes a network of relationships among conceptual categories which exist in the human mind and which constrains how conceptual categories are expressed in grammar. Grammatical change must follow the links in conceptual space. For instance, a plural marking spreads from left to right in the animacy space. Conceptual spaces specify what grammatical category groupings are found in, and how constructions spread (or retreat) over time in their application to grammatical categories. If we compare absence vs. presence of case marking on nouns for the grammatical  11 relations hierarchy, we find that absence of case marking occurs at he higher end of the hierarchy, and presence thereof at the lower end of the hierarchy. The grammatical relations hierarchy also defines the distribution of verb agreement across languages. Verb agreement is associated with the higher end of the grammatical relations hierarchy – the ability to trigger verb agreement indicates the greater behavioral potential of the grammatical relation. These facts demonstrate that the two grammatical relations hierarchies in fact reflect a deeper cross-linguistic universal pattern, found in many different parts of the grammar of languages. 3. 3 Economy and iconicity Economic motivation: the more frequently used category is more likely to be reduced in expression or left unexpressed. Iconic motivation the structure of language reflects the structure of concepts. In the example, each conceptual category, both singular and plural, are overtly encoded in the word form. A subtype of iconicity called isomorphism: the correspondence between forms and meanings. There are two ways in which isomorphism occur in human languages. The first way is in the correspondence of forms and meanings in the combination of words and inflections in a sentence. This is called syntagmatic isomorphism. Economic and iconic motivation compete to produce the range of attested and unattested correspondences between form and meaning. There are 3 predicted patterns. Overt expression is iconically motivated: there is a one-to-one correspondence between meanings and forms. However, it is only moderately economically motivated: it is more economical than expressing a meaning with more than one word or morpheme, but less economical than not expressing the meaning at all. Non-expression of a particular meaning, such as the singular of English nouns like car-O (vs.plural book-s), is economically motivated: zero expression breaks one-to-one correspondence between forms and meanings. The third possible option, zero marking of both singular and plural, corresponds to the absence of expression of the category. This option is economically motivated: either the meaning can be inferred from context, or it is not relevant to the communication. There is another economically motivated pattern of expressing meaning in form: the combination or fusion of discrete meanings in a single form. For example, the suffix -s in English run-s indicates 3rd person subject, singular  subject and present tense, all in a single suffix. In other languages, inflectional categories are found in separate suffixes, as in Turkish. The second type of isomorphism is the correspondence between form and meaning in the inventory of words stored in the mind; paradigmatic isomorphism. 12The possible means of expression of meanings in words are limited by economy and iconicity. Unmotivated possibility: the existence of more than one word with the same meaning, synonymy. It is not iconically motivated. A one-to-one match between a word and a meaning is called monosemy. It isiconic ally motivated but not that economically motivated: we would need very many words to express each discrete meaning. Homonymy is economically motivated, but it is not iconically motivated (many unrelated meanings are expressed by a single form). By far the most common state of affairs in languages, however, is polysemy: the grouping of related meanings under a single form. Polysemy is economically motivated because it subsumes several meanings under a single form, as with homonymy. It is iconically motivated, because the meanings are related. 4 The Dynamic Approach to Language Universals The most common word.

John Lockes State Of Nature Philosophy Essay

John Lockes State Of Nature Philosophy Essay John Lockes state of nature is where humans exist without an established government or a social contract. It is a state of anarchy where there is completely no order or rules that guide human behavior. There are no laws to govern us and we are guided by our own instincts on what is right and wrong. According to Locke humans do not need a higher authority to control them and there can be a peaceful co-existence among people. There is no need for one person to take charge to bring about order. People behave according to the laws of nature which include natural freedom and moral equality. It is also known as our natural rights. John Locke believes that human beings are born with certain divine rights such as the right to live, the right to liberty and property. These natural rights alone have the sole capability of managing a harmonious society. Natural rights are rights of any species that exists outside the laws of the governing body. Fish that swim in the ocean do so by natural right not because legislation allows them to do so. The presence of a ruler to carry out our rights is uncalled for. He points out that a sovereign, limits human liberty and our natural rights. Human beings are perfectly capable of governing themselves as the respect for our natural rights. The state of nature is a state of equality with no one having more than another. People can act freely without being held by any set of rules or laws that would curtail their freedom and happiness. Locke states that God owns us and we are his property, therefore one has the right to protect themselves from harm. Humans have the right to defend themselves and punish anyone who violates the state of nature. The state of nature is governed by the law of nature. The law of nature states that we should refrain from causing harm to each others life, liberty, and property. Locke says that we should all treat each other as equal and doing harm to another is like doing harm to yourself. Rene Descartes is chasi ng me around the forest with a butcher knife and trying to kill me. Locke would argue that I did have the right to defend myself for my life was in danger. Descartes was harming my state of nature by trying to attack me. I have an obligation to punish him for he violated the laws of nature and caused me harm. The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction. Unlike the state of nature where we exists peacefully, the state of war is filled with malice and violence. We are constantly trying to watch our backs and protect ourselves. If any man is threatened by another he is in a state of war with that person. The innocent has the right to destroy the aggressor. Locke compares Descartes attacking me to a wild beast attacking me. He states that whether it be a man or lion, the consequences are similar because it is logical for me to attack anyone or anything that threatens my life. Rene Descartes is to be treated as a beast of prey. The state of war occurs when people exert unwelcome force on other people interfering with their own natural right and freedom without common authority. When one man uses force to deprive another of his life, health, possessions, or property, it becomes a state of war. The fundamental law of nature declares that man should preserve as much as possible, when al l cannot be preserved and the safety of the innocent is preferred. One may destroy a man who makes war upon him. Self-defense is a corollary of the natural law and we have the right to our preservation. The law of self-preservation dictates that a person may kill another person in self-defense. So in a state of war, I do have the right to defend myself because I am preserving my life and keeping the enemy from harming it. It is lawful to kill him for he put himself in a state of war with me and he has disobeyed the state of nature. I am able to destroy that which threatens me with destruction. Since there is no common authority, I myself can only be a judge of my own conscience. It is up to me to decide the fate of Descartes. The war does not end until the aggressive party offers peace and reparations for the damage done, until then the innocent party has the authority to destroy the aggressor. In a civil society, our natural rights à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ life, liberty, and property is protected by the government. A civil society exists when there is chaos and an authority must be present to set things in orders. We place the authority to a legislative and executive power and must abide by the laws set forth by the government. Humans no longer have the ability to punish those who violates their state of nature. This job solely rests upon the authority. In a civil society, I would not be able to kill Descartes or decide his penalty. In a civil society, a state of war exerts in the manner except there are laws and the government determines the punishment of the aggressor. Question 6: Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes state of nature is where there is no sovereign to put forth rules and regulations and human beings are living like wild beasts in the jungles. It is not a place where we can all peacefully co-exist amongst each other. It is filled with violence and we are constantly trying to escape death. Our equality is that we all want to kill each other. All men in the state of nature have a desire and will to hurt those who endangers them. Our nature of human beings is to be selfish and we will strive to protect and achieve are selfish ends. Everyone is naturally willing to fight one another and it is every man against every man. There is no civil society and we live in continual fear. According to Hobbes, life with constant battles and no strong central government would be solitary, poor, brutish, and short. There are no laws to maintain order and people have the freedom to do whatever it is their hearts desire. A state of nature is simply a state a war and its a competition for t he survival of the fittest. Humans are fighting with one another in order to survive. We will do anything to stay alive, even if it means taking another persons life. If I lived in a state of nature where food was scare, Descartes and I would kill each other in order to survive. Hobbes declares that a state of nature is horrible for there is no sense of what is right or wrong, except self-preservation. We are only looking after ourselves and every person has a state of natural right to do anything one thinks is essential for preserving ones life. There is no jurisdiction and humans cannot be held accountable for their actions. People are at each other throats for survival, resources, and power. There is nothing to protect the weak against the strong. The strong will prey upon the weak and overpower them. Descartes being a strong man and I am a weak fragile girl, he can easily wipe me out. There is no sovereign to protect me from getting killed. In this state there is no sense of sec urity and are lives are always in danger. Hobbes state of nature differs from Lockes. Lockes state of nature is peaceful and is separate from his state of war. Hobbes argues that a state of war exists within the state of nature. Humans fear a violent death and we are all aware that we can harm one another. We possess two desires, free of violent death and superiority over one another, we have the ability to hold it over one another. Without a governing authority, this will cause war to break out in a state of nature. Since we are all fearful of one another, we become aggressive towards each other with causes disputes and war to break out. Hobbes claims that there is no rule of property in the state of nature. No one can claim ownership over anything. All the laws come from the sovereign. We have the right to steal items from one another because it wasnt theirs to begin with for they do not have ownership over it. He argues that we must have a government to settle this chaos and madness. If we live in a world with no authorit y it would be destructive and everyone would be killing each other. Hobbes tells me that I need someone to protect me from Descartes and prevent him from killing me. Once we have a sovereign the laws of property and life are established. Descartes would receive punishment for his crimes and I could get a restraining order against him. Unlike the state of nature, we would be safe and secure living under a legislation and executive. The laws of the sovereign helps regulate how we act with one another and it keeps civil war and war against each other from happening. These laws ensures us to live in a peaceful civil society where we are protected from the things that we fear. In the state of nature, people had more freedom and more rights. Under the rule of the sovereign people will give up their rights in exchange for a more peaceful life and environment. The sovereign is given authority to by the people and whatever they do is right. They are the voice of the entire ruling body. One m ust not question their actions for there will be consequences if they disobey. They will follow the rules for they fear receiving punishment. The establishment of a government makes it possible for the lives of man kind to be preserved and their rights to be protected. The purpose of a sovereign is to control natural law. It acts as a remedy to restore sanity and tame the rambunctious behavior of man. The law acts as some form of punishment to those who go against it and try to interfere with the rights of other citizens. A government ensures that we each have our individual rights, however we must not interfere with the rights and freedom of others. An oppressive government, is better than no government at all.

Clash of identity :: essays research papers

Clash of Identity The difference between Rodriguez’s struggle between identity and Angelou’s struggle is that, Angelou’s identity’s center of focus is her name, while Rodriguez’s identity seems to revolve around his â€Å"complexion†. Although they both wrote about the struggle with their own identity, the views and attitude of the two authors differ. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay â€Å"Complexion† and Maya Angelou’s essay â€Å"Mary† both authors illustrate some hardships they faced during their life, such as their experience with racism and prejudice. In spite of the fact that they are both faced with similar situations, the actuality that sets apart their characters is how they dealt with each of their situations. Rodriguez attitude about himself during his childhood was largely influenced by his family, especially his mother, â€Å"Dark skin was for my mother the most important symbol of a life of oppressive labor and poverty.†(Rodriguez. 451), people who worked in fields and construction sites spent most of their time under the sun, causing their â€Å"complexion† to darken, so it was assumed that a person with dark skin was a menial laborer. Rodriguez’s mother would commonly point out his dark complexion by comparison with the poor and the black, at one time she told Rodriguez, â€Å"You look like a negrito†¦ you won’t be satisfied till you end up looking like los pobres†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Rodriguez 447). His mother’s friends would also often talk of what a burden or a curse it was, to have dark skin, â€Å"†¦ it was a woman’s spoken concern: the fear of having a dark-skinned son or daughter.†(Rodriguez 449), Rodriguez is illustrating t hat in his culture, people preferred light skin children over dark skin, knowing that a light skinned child would not face as much prejudice a dark skinned child would growing up. In contrast, Margaret wasn’t ashamed of her skin, or being of different color, she was proud of her race and ethnicity, at the beginning she expresses her pride through her relatives accomplishment, â€Å"†¦my grandmother had owned the only Negro general merchandise store since the turn of the century.†(Maya 3), this she said to a Texas women, when asked about her hometown.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Rodriguez and Angelou both expressed their struggled in search for their own identity in their essay. Margaret’s identity was compromised when Margaret was called out of her original name. Margaret’s name was casually changed by Mrs. Cullinan, â€Å"That’s too long she’s Mary from now on†(Maya 6).

Essay --

Sam Gourley rotherham Being a mechanical design engineer is not easy, however mechanical design engineering is one of the oldest and most respected engineering disciplines. Some skills that a mechanical design engineer will use in an average day are: math, physics, and chemistry principles, not to mention their imagination.With a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, one could focus on standard menial duties such as a machine operator on the factory floor, yet with this degree and additional specific education, the same person would be able to move into advanced disciplines or work a combination of the two. (A manager on the factory floor.) In mechanical engineering you can make between $46,432 and $106,848 annually. Some advantages to mechanical engineering are that you get to design and or build the products of tomorrow, such as: touchscreen devices, personal supercomputers, online social networks, and electric cars. Though this sounds like a dream job mechanical engineering does have its disadvantages, it includes using math and physics, and may require excellent management skills to organize resources. At minimum, mechanical engineering uses math and physics principles to help design product components with specific functions. (Such as the gears of an analog clock.) These skills are used by multiple industries; including medical, automotive, architecture, (e.t.c) No matter the project, most mechanical engineers are responsible for a single component of a system. Although smaller companies often depend on a single mechanical engineer for work that needs to be done, it’s common for larger companies to have entire teams. Though, in the case of a complex system, several mechanical engineers will usually work toge... ...part of a team that designs the first teleporter. Imagine discovering new ways to harness energy. Imagine creating the first personal consumer spacecraft. The imagination is the limit. In manufacturing industries, mechanical engineers may organise the installation of new equipment and plan schedules for regular servicing and overhauling of all the machinery and equipment involved. Mechanical engineers need excellent management skills to organise resources like people, money and equipment. Projects can vary significantly, from researching and developing medical products (such as mechanical hearts) to improving production processes in large oil refineries. Depending on the employment market in your area, it may be possible to enter the profession at technician level as an apprentice, for which a GCSE ( General Certificate of Secondary Education) will be required.

Finite Evidence and Universal Propositions :: Ampliative Logic

Finite Evidence and Universal Propositions There is a lot of empirical evidence supporting the proposition '‘All metals expand when heated’. For example on many, many occasions we have observed metals expanding when heated. Because of this large amount of evidence we take the proposition to be true (or highly likely to be true). The proposition '‘All metals expand when heated’ is caled a universal proposition. A universal proposition mentions al things of a certain kind. The proposition '‘Al metals expand when heated’ is about al metals, not just some of them; it is about al pieces of metal, not just some pieces. Any piece of metal, any kind of metal, according to this proposition, wil expand when heated. Now as we have said there is a great deal of evidence supporting this universal proposition; it is not a proposition that many would doubt. But however large the body of evidence supporting this proposition, and whatever the variety, this body of evidence is finite. Our experience is finite, even our colective experience. But the proposition is universal: it refers to al metals, not just this bit or that bit, nor this kind or that kind. Any bit of metal at al, whatever kind, wil expand when heated. This is what the proposition says. The proposition does not just say, only those bits of metal that we have observed, expand when heated. Those bits we have observed, they expand when heated; but the proposition also says, even those bits that we have not observed expand when heated. This is what the '‘al’ means; this is why we cal the proposition universal. The evidence which supports ‘Al metals expand when heated’ is finite. The proposition which draws support from this evidence is universal. How can finite evidence support a universal proposition? A universal proposition, even when supported by evidence, goes wel beyond evidence. There are infinitely many bits of metal. Compared to the many bits of metal in the universe the bits we have observed is only a tiny fraction. How can a tiny fraction support such a large number? When we have no evidence for a proposition we would not take the proposition to be true. When we have only a litle evidence for a proposition we stil would not take it to be true. If we are to take a proposition to be true, or likely to be true, we require a large amount of evidence.

Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Canada Essay

â€Å"You know the world is off tilt when the best rapper is a white guy (Eminem), the best golfer is a black guy (Tiger Woods), the tallest basketball player is Chinese (Yao Ming, 7’6†³) and Germany doesn’t want to go to war (in Iraq)†. Charles Barkley stated in a 2003 interview, pointing out various misconceptions with stereotypes. A stereotype is defined by dictionary. com as: â€Å"something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially: an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group†. I have commonly heard stereotypes such as the French are good cooks, Italians are great lovers, and the Irish are lazy or comments made like dumb jock, lazy Cape Bretoner, or that women are not strong!! The list could go on endlessly as there appears to be stereotypes regarding people of all races, religions, sexes and ethnic groups, etcetera. Stereotypes can be either positive or negative. Most stereotypes tend to make us feel superior in some way to the person or group being stereotyped. Stereotypes ignore the uniqueness of individuals by painting all members of a group with the same brush. Throughout the course of this paper I plan to discuss some racial and ethnic issues in Canada. Where some of these issues originated from, what we can personally do to help eliminate discrimination in the workplace and what the government is doing to try to combat such discrimination. Let me first begin by defining discrimination, racism and ethnicity since these terms are all important terms to understand before going into further discussion. To discriminate is simply defined by yourdictionary. com as: â€Å"To make distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit; show preference or prejudice. † Therefore, discrimination occurs when a person is not treated equally because of their gender, race, religion, ethnic origin, nationality, sexual orientation, or age. Yourdictionary. com defines racism as: â€Å"The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. Discrimination or prejudice based on race. † In other words, when an individual or group is treated unfairly or abused because of their skin color or racial heritage they are victims of racism. Ethnic, as defined by yourdictionary. Com is: â€Å"Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage. B. Being a member of a particular ethnic group, especially belonging to a national group by heritage or culture but residing outside its national boundaries. † With that being said, it is my belief that stereotypes and ignorance about others most often lead to discriminatory behavior both inside and outside the workplace. I have heard Canada described as a multicultural nation meaning that Canadians are not of any one cultural background, race or heritage. For all Canadians, including Aboriginal People, this multicultural diversity can be traced to an immigrant past. This does not mean that the majority of today’s Canadians are immigrants but rather that the majority of Canadians have in their past, perhaps many generations ago, a family member who migrated here from another country. That is why many of us have a mixed ancestry, for example; Irish, Scottish, Ukrainian, French and Aboriginal, and the list can go on. Canada’s Aboriginal People were the first to immigrate, and settle across the continent, tens of thousands of years before European settlers. After the European settlers came the French, followed by the English, Scots and Irish formulating Canada into the diverse country it is today. In the years before the American Civil War, thousands of black slaves escaped slavery in the United States by following the â€Å"Underground Railway† north to Canada. Then, at the turn of the century, American farmers moved northward into the Canadian prairies to develop farm lands. Although Canada originally consisted of a wide variety of immigrants, some people were not as welcome in the country as others and were therefore not treated equally. Those who were of different race, color, or religion then the majority of Canadians were labeled as â€Å"foreigners†. The use of the term â€Å"foreigner† held many connotations for example, different, strange or inferior and many at the time wanted to see the â€Å"foreigners† assimilate to fit into Canadian society. There are many events in Canada’s past that has contributed to the racism and discrimination in Canada today for example, the disregard and unfair treatment of Aboriginal Peoples by European’s who settled here. Even though a vast majority of African-Americans moved to Canada to avoid slavery, from early in the 1600’s until 1834 there was a recorded 4092 slaves throughout the country, mostly living in Quebec . The Asiatic Exclusion League, which originated in California in 1905 as an anti-Oriental movement, moved north into Vancouver in 1907. The league was the main instigator in anti-Asian riots in the city since their main goal was to have all Chinese and Japanese immigrants removed from North America out of fear that they were taking jobs away from Whites . It also appears that throughout history the acceptance of immigrants in Canada greatly depended upon the economic state of the country at that time. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s immigrants seeking jobs were unwelcome and overlooked for employment. Although the Government of Canada has made many advances in breaking the barriers that Aboriginal People, immigrants and minorities face in the country; immigrants today still face a number of problems when trying to enter the labor market, for example: ? Non-recognition of international credentials and work experience ? Lack of Canadian work experience ? Inability to communicate in English or French ?Insufficient labor market information prior to immigrating to Canada I have traveled to some of the major cities in Canada and was a little surprised by the degree of segregation that is apparent in these cities. By this, I mean that these larger cities, like Toronto and Vancouver, have communities which are almost completely independent from the rest of the country. These independent communities that I saw, of Chinese or Italian people, seemed to have everything they needed to survive within the community including their own schools. I could not help but wonder what effect this type of segregation has on the country. I respect the fact that all people are trying to protect their identity. At the same time, by choosing to live in Canada, shouldn’t they try to integrate into the country a little more while still preserving their identities? Shouldn’t they try to assimilate? How can Canada thrive as a country with so much segregation? We need to become a unified country. Not such a historical thought pattern, I guess!! It is people who have attitudes like mine that are causing problems in the country or do all people have these thoughts and choose not to admit it. I have similar negative feelings about scholarships being available only to certain people or government funding for certain people to attend university because they are a minority. I understand that differential treatment is required in order for equality to become a possibility. However, I still feel a degree of resentment about these programs being offered when I have to borrow money in an effort to obtain my university degree. Will this resentment evolve? When I hold a management position in the future, will I discriminate against a person because he or she doesn’t have a huge student loan to pay and another does? It is cases like mine that causes racism to continue in society and the workplace today? With the announcement of Nova Scotia’s plan to increase immigration into the province came an increase in the racist comments I have heard. Since I work in bars I hear, and partake in, a great deal of conversation. When people are drinking they tend to be even more likely to say things they normally wouldn’t. That is why I have heard, at times, some very racist remarks. People have said that the government should be trying to retain people in the province that are born here before they bring â€Å"foreigners† here. They need to take care of their own first!! It is because of these comments and feelings that I am doubtful that discrimination against people, because of their race or color, will ever be completely eliminated in the country. How do we achieve equality with so much differentiation? How do we check or personal opinions at the door when we go to work? Since it is impossible to eliminate racism and discrimination entirely in society, we need to do as much as possible to eliminate it in the workplace. We need to make changes similar to the changes companies have made in an effort to combat discrimination against people because of their religion. For example, adapting zero tolerance rules, providing more education for employees, human resource departments need to provide more opportunities for people of minorities, immigrants, and Aboriginal Peoples and barriers have to be removed for all these people who are trying to enter our labor market. March 21, 2005 is International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination a day to remember the struggles and challenges that Aboriginal peoples and people of color have endured. It is also a time to recognize and applaud the fact that members of these two communities have made anti-racism struggles a significant part of labor’s agenda. Lets’ respect this day and try to make some positive changes at home, school, or work toward eliminating racism.