City Center

City Center, Las Vegas is made up of multiple skyscrapers with contemporary designs. The inside is just as lavish as the outside, where world famous artists have put in there own tweeks and installations to make City Center one of a kind. Combined City Center has 2,400 condominium and condo hotel units and approximately 4,800 hotel rooms. They are all distributed within several high rise and mid rise towers around the â€Å"CRYSTALS† retail and entertainment district. The multi use project is designed with green technologies to make it one of the world's largest environmentally sustainable urban communities. Private investors had to dish out 11 Billion dollars for the funding to build this extravagant addition to Las Vegas. City Center’s opening will boost Las Vegas economy when the country gets back on its feet after the economic collapse. Right now at least 50% of the 12,000 employees are only working part-time which means when business picks up more people will be getting paid and that puts money straight into Las Vegas businesses. I did the research about what materials were used to build this massive project and this is what I found: FACILITY †¢ 7,000 guest rooms across 5 separate buildings City Center resort & casino will tower 60 stories †¢ 165,000 sq ft casino †¢ 70,000 sq ft spa †¢ 2,000 sq ft theatre PROJECT SCOPE Hollow Metal Doors, Hollow Metal Frames, Architectural Wood Doors, Architectural Hardware, Rolling Steel Doors, Architectural Mouldings and Trim. Project Owner: MGM Mirage General Contractor: Perini Construction Architect: HKS Architects, In c. Project Amount: $9. 8 Billion Completion Date: December 2009 60% of the remains of the former hotel that occupied the lot, The Boardwalk hotel, were used for the construction of the project.

Human Resources Policies Essay

Armstrong, (2006) defined Human Resource policies as continuing guidelines on the approach the organization intends to adopt in managing its people. In addition, it can also be defined as the philosophies and values of the organization on how people should be treated, and from these are derived the principles upon which managers are expected to act when dealing with Human Resource matters. Human Resource policies therefore serve as reference points when employment practices are being developed, and when decisions are being made about people. Mullins, (2005) highlighted that Human Resource Management must be committed to creating a working environment free from discrimination and where all employees are treated equally with dignity, courtesy and respect. This can be done by putting into place Human Resource policies that shows how people should be treated, and from these are derived the principles upon which managers are expected to act when dealing with Human Resource matters. The most common areas in which specific Human Resource policies exist are HIV and AIDS, discipline, employee development, employee relations, recruitment and selection, equal opportunity, grievances, health and safety, managing diversity, promotion, redundancy, reward, sexual harassment, substance abuse and work life balance and e-mails and the internet. Cole (1997) argued that this employment equity policy helps in preventing discrimination and promoting equality in the workplace. The equal opportunity policy should spell out the organization’s determination to give equal opportunities to all, irrespective of sex, race, creed, disability, age or marital status. The policy should also deal with the extent to which the organization wants to take affirmative action to redress imbalances between numbers employed according to sex or race, or to differences in the levels of qualifications and skills they have achieved. According to the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01),Section 5 states that no employer shall discriminate any employee or prospective employee on grounds of race, tribe, place of origin, political opinion, colour, creed, gender, pregnancy, HIV/AIDS status or subject to the Disabled Persons Act (Chapter 17:01). Every manager must take steps to promote equal opportunity in the workplace by eliminating unfair discrimination in any employment policy or practice within their sphere of authority. All forms of unfair discrimination, whether direct or indirect, are prohibited and it is the responsibility of all employees to inform themselves about and refrain from perpetrating unfair discrimination. The sexual harassment policy is another policy which aims at preventing and managing sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment is unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment; or is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such an individual. The company must prohibit inappropriate conduct that is sexual in nature at work, on company business, or at company sponsored events. This can be done by prohibiting comments, jokes, or degrading language or behavior that is sexual in nature, sexually suggestive objects, books, magazines, photographs, cartoons, pictures, calendars, posters or electronic communications and unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, or any sexual touching this is according to Armstrong (2006). Sexual harassment is prohibited whether it’s between members of the opposite sex or members of the same sex. All managers have a key responsibility in establishing and maintaining a workplace free from personal harassment and they are directly responsible for the conduct of their staff. Sexual harassment is regarded as gross industrial misconduct and if proved makes the individual liable for instant dismissal. Less severe penalties may be reserved for minor cases but there will always be a warning that repetition will result in dismissal. Therefore all employees are expected to comply with this policy and that it is the pers onal responsibility of each employee to ensure that inappropriate conduct does not occur, as stated by Armstrong (2010). Safety policies should reflect the employers commitment to safety and health at work and should indicate what standards of behavior are to be aimed for in safety and health welfare matters. The policy statement should be drawn to the attention of all employees. In practice this is achieved by issuing a safety policy document to all employees via their pay packets, or by issuing company handbooks which include details of the policy. The important point is that the employer should be able to show that he has done more than just pin up a notice in various parts of his premises, this is postulated by Mullins (2005). The HIV/Aids policy is also used and its purpose is to provide guidance on managing departmental responses to HIV/AIDS in a manner that complies with the National Aids Policy and applicable laws, eliminates unfair discrimination and enables the harnessing of each person’s full potential. Employees who know that they are infected with HIV will not be obliged to disclose the fact to the company, but if they do, the fact will remain completely confidential. There must be no discrimination against anyone with or at risk of acquiring AIDS. In addition, employees infected by HIV or suffering from AIDS must be treated no differently from anyone else suffering a severe illness. All human resources processes and practices should promote an affirming non-discriminatory environment that fosters respect for the dignity of all while ensuring the maximum productivity of each employee regardless of HIV/AIDS status. This will be done through a regular review of all human resources practices and processes to eliminate existing or potential direct and indirect discrimination on the ground of HIV/AIDS. A prospective employee will not be required to disclose his or her HIV/AIDS status, there shall be no pre-employment HIV/AIDS testing in respect of a prospective employee and both permanent and contract employees are not obliged to disclose their HIV/AIDS status, as subject to Labour Relations Act (chapter 28:01). Recruitment and selection policies are also used to ensure a work environment that is anti discriminatory, democratic, respectful of rights, mindful of dignity and legally sound or legitimate. The Human resource department must be committed to utilise recruitment and selection practices that are based on merit, equity, objectivity, fairness and the need to redress the imbalances of the past so as to achieve a department that is broadly representative. According to Storey (1995), the recruitment process should reflect the department’s employment equity values and goals. Moreover, all phases of the recruitment process must support the recruitment of suitably qualified men and women from diverse racial and other backgrounds with a view to giving them an opportunity to serve all the people with excellence and responsiveness. Considerations of affirmative action will inform the entire recruitment process. The policy on age and employment should take into account that age is a poor predictor of job performance. It is misleading to equate physical and mental ability with age. More of the population are living active, healthy lives as they get older. Therefore the policy should define the approach the organization adopts to engaging, promoting and training older employees. It should emphasize that the only criterion for selection or promotion should be ability to do the job; and for training, the belief that the employee will benefit, irrespective of age. The policy should also state that age requirements should not be set out in external or internal job advertisements. Armstrong (2006). Diversity management policy is a concept that recognizes the benefits to be gained from differences. A policy on managing diversity recognizes that there are differences among employees and that these differences, if properly managed, will enable work to be done more efficiently and effectively. This concept does not focus exclusively on issues of discrimination but instead concentrates on recognizing the differences between people. Maund (2001) express it, the concept of managing diversity is founded on the premise that harnessing these differences will create a productive environment in which everyone will feel valued, where their talents are fully utilized and in which organizational goals are met. The diversity management policy must acknowledge cultural and individual differences in the workplace, state that the organization values the different qualities that people bring to their jobs, emphasize the need to eliminate bias in such areas as selection, promotion, performance asse ssment, pay and learning opportunities and focus attention on individual differences rather than group differences. Mathis, (2003) is of the view that the disciplinary policy should state that employees have the right to know what is expected of them and what could happen if they infringe the organization’s rules. It would also make the point that, in handling disciplinary cases, the organization will treat employees in accordance with the principles of natural justice. It must be the policy of the company that employees should be given a fair hearing by their immediate supervisor or manager concerning any grievances they may wish to raise, have the right to appeal to a more senior manager against a decision made by their immediate supervisor or manager and have the right to be accompanied by a representative of their own choice when raising a grievance or appealing against a decision. Cole, (1997) highlighted that the reward policy must cover matters as providing an equitable pay system, equal pay for work of equal value, paying for performance, competence, skill or contribution, sharing in the success of the organization and the relationship between levels of pay in the organization and market rates. There must not be discrimination of employees in pay levels. This will encourage the optimum productivity from employees and ensures high level of quality output. A performance management system must be put in place so as to pay employees according to their performance and efforts. Armstrong (2006) is of the opinion that job evaluation must also be done in a fairly and equitable manner so as to have a free work environment. In conclusion, companies must be committed to providing a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. Human Resource policies must prohibit discrimination and harassment in the workplace, whether committed by or against managers, co-workers, customers, vendors, or visitors. Employees must work and develop in an environment that is anti-discriminatory, democratic, respectful of rights, mindful of dignity, legally sound and productive. Workplace discrimination or harassment based on an employee’s race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age status, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law, must not be tolerated. REFERENCES Armstrong, M. (2006) Strategic Human Resource Management, (3rd Ed), London: Kogan. Armstrong, M. (2006) A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, (10th Ed), London: Kogan. Cole G.A. (1997), Personnel Management, Theory and Practice, London: Continuum. Labour Relations Act Regulations (1998), HIV and AIDS, Government Printers: Zimbabwe. Maund, L. (2001), An Introduction to Human Resource Management Theory And Practice, New York: Palgrave. Mullins, L. J. (2005), Management and Organizational Behavior, England: Prentice Hall. Storey, J.(1995), Human Resource Management: A critical text, London: Routledge.

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Mixed Code in Hong Kong Speech

2012 International Conference on Asian Language Processing A Corpus-based Analysis of Mixed Code in Hong Kong Speech John Lee Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics City University of Hong Kong [email  protected] edu. hk Abstract—We present a corpus-based analysis of the use of mixed code in Hong Kong speech. From transcriptions of Cantonese television programs, we identify English words embedded within Cantonese utterances, and investigate the motivations for such code-switching.Among the many motivations observed in previous research, we found that four alone account for more than 95% of the use of English words in our speech data across genres, genders, and age groups. We performed analyses over more than 60 hours of transcribed speech, resulting in one of the largest empirical studies to-date on this linguistic phenomenon. Keywords-code-mixing; English; corpus linguistics. code-switching; Canton ese; II. PREVIOUS RESEARCH I. INTRODUCTIONWhile Cantonese is the mother tongue for the vast majority of the people in Hong Kong, English is also spoken by 43% of the population [1], reflecting the city’s heritage as a British colony. A well-known feature of the speech in Hong Kong is code-switching, i. e. , â€Å"the juxtaposition of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or sub-systems, within the same exchange† [2]. Specifically, in the case of Hong Kong, the two grammatical systems are Cantonese and English.The former serves as the ‘matrix language’, and the latter as the ‘embedded language’, resulting in Cantonese sentences with English segments such as (example taken from [3]): canteen heoi3 canteen jam2 caa4 ‘let’s go to the canteen for lunch’ Here, the English segment contains only one word (‘canteen’), but in general, it can be a whole clause. We will use the general term â₠¬Ëœcode-switching’ rather than the more specific term ‘code-mixing’, which refers to switching below the clause level, even though most English segments in our corpus indeed contain only one or two words (see Table 3).There is already a large body of literature devoted to the study of Cantonese-English code-switching from the theoretical linguistic point of view [3,4,5]. This paper investigates the motivations behind the use of mixed code, on the basis of a large dataset of speech transcribed from television programs. In Section II, we outline previous research on the motivations of code-switching, and discuss how our investigation complements theirs. In Section III, we describe our methodology for corpus construction, in particular the design of the taxonomy of code-switching motivations.In Section IV, we present an analysis of these motivations according to genre, gender and age. The first major framework for classifying codeswitching motivations in Hong Kong c onsists of two categories: ‘expedient’ and ‘orientational’ [6]. Central to this framework is the distinction between words in ‘high Cantonese’ and ‘low Cantonese’. In everyday conversations, a speaker sometimes cannot find any word from ‘low Cantonese’ to describe an object, institution or idea (e. g. , ‘application form’). Using a word from ‘high Cantonese’ (e. g. , biu2 gaak3), however, would sound too formal and therefore stylistically inappropriate.In expedient mixing, the speaker resorts to an English word; the mixing is pragmatically motivated. In contrast, orientational mixing is socially motivated. The speaker chooses to use English (e. g. , ‘barbecue’) despite the availability of equivalent words from both ‘low Cantonese’ (e. g. , siu2 je5 sik6) and ‘high Cantonese’ (e. g. , siu1 haau1), since he perceives the subject matter to be inherently more ‘western’. This dichotomy has been criticized as overly simplistic, because of the ambiguity in defining lexical and stylistic equivalents among ‘low Cantonese’, ‘high Cantonese’, and English.Instead, a four-way taxonomy is proposed: euphemism, specificity, bilingual punning, and the principle of economy [7]. This taxonomy is then further extended, in a study of code-switching in text media [8], to include quotations, doubling, identity marking, and interjection. These categories will be explained in detail in Section III. While these classification systems are comprehensive and well grounded, they do not per se convey any sense of the relative importance or distribution of the various motivations.Our goal is, first, to empirically verify the coverage of these classification systems on a large dataset of transcribed speech; and, second, to give quantitative answers to questions such as: Which kinds of motivations are the most prominent? Does t he range of motivations differ according to the speech genre, or to the speaker’s gender or age? We now turn our attention to the methodology for constructing and annotating a speech corpus for these research purposes. III. DATA A. Source Material Our corpus is constructed from television programs broadcast in Hong Kong within the last four years by Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB).The programs belong to a variety of genres, including two drama series, three current-affairs shows, a news program, and a talk show. The news program, TVB News at Six-Thirty, carries the most formal register, containing mostly pre-planned 165 978-0-7695-4886-9/12 $26. 00  © 2012 IEEE DOI 10. 1109/IALP. 2012. 10 speech by the anchor. The current-affairs shows, Tuesday Report, Sunday Report and Hong Kong Connection, are serious in tone but contain spontaneous discussions. The talk show, My Sweets, is about food and drink.It also contains spontaneous discussions, but the topics tend to be lighte r. Although pre-planned, the speech in both drama series, Moonlight Resonance and Yes Sir, Sorry Sir, is arguably the least formal in register, designed to reflect natural speech in everyday life. Details of these TV programs are presented in Table 1. Table 1: Television programs that serve as the source material of our corpus. Genre Program Length Current Tuesday Report ( ), 135 episodes affairs ), X 20 minutes Sunday Report ( Hong Kong Connection ( ) Talk 24 episodes My Sweets ( ) show X 30 minutesEuphemism: When a Cantonese word explicitly mentions something that the speaker finds embarrassing, s/he might opt for an English word that contains no such mention. For example, to avoid the female body part hung1 ‘breast’ in the word hung1 wai4 ‘bra’, the speaker might prefer to use the English ‘bra’ (all examples are taken from [7]): bra tau3 bra gaak3 gaak3 ‘A princess whose bra is visible’ Specificity: â€Å"Sometimes an English e xpression is preferred because its meaning is more general or specific compared with its near-synonymous counterparts,† [7] in either low or high Cantonese.For example, the verb ‘to book’ means ‘to make a reservation for which no money or deposit is required’, which is more specific than its closest equivalent in Cantonese, deng6 ‘to make a reservation’. It is often used in sentences such as: book ngo5 soeng2 book saam1 dim2 ‘I want to book 3 o’clock’ Principle of Economy: â€Å"An English expression may also be preferred because it is shorter and thus requires less linguistic effort compared with its Chinese/Cantonese equivalent. † [7] While the word ‘check-in’ has two syllables, its Cantonese equivalent baan6 lei5 dang1 gei1 sau2 zuk6 ‘check-in [on a plane]’ has six.The principle of economy is thus likely the reason behind mixed code such as: check-in nei5 check-in zo2 mei6 aa3 Ã¢â‚¬Ë œHave you checked in already? ’ The taxonomy in [8] builds on the one in [7], further enriching it with categories2 below: Quotation: When citing text or someone else’s speech, one often prefers to use the original code to avoid having to perform translation. An example is direct speech: â€Å"What do you think? † jau5 go3 pang4 jau5 man6 ngo5 what do you think ‘A friend asked me, â€Å"What do you think? ’ Doubling: Originally named ‘Emphasis or avoidance of repetition’ [8], it will be referred to as ‘Doubling’ [9] here to make it explicit, as this category refers to English words that are embedded alongside Cantonese words that have the same or nearly the same meaning. The purpose is to emphasize the idea or to avoid repetitions. In the following sentence, it serves as an emphasis: 2 News Drama TVB News at Six-Thirty ( ) Moonlight Resonance ( ), Yes Sir, Sorry Sir ( Sir Sir) 5 episodes X 20 minutes 4 episodes X 45 minute s B.Data Processing From the television programs listed in Table 1, all code-mixed utterances were transcribed, preserving the original languages, either Cantonese or English. Following standard practice, loan words are not considered to be mixed code; in our context, all English words (e. g. , ‘taxi’) that have been adapted into Cantonese phonology (e. g. , dik1 si2) were excluded. The TV captions corresponding to each of these utterances are also recorded as part of the corpus. These captions are in standard Chinese, rather than Cantonese.Furthermore, alignments between the Chinese word(s) in the caption and the English word(s) in the utterance are annotated. This information will be used in the classification of motivations. Finally, two kinds of metadata about the speaker are recorded: gender (male or female) and age group (teenager or adult). C. Taxonomy of Code-Switching Motivations Our goal is to quantitatively characterize the motivations behind code-switching; to this end, each English segment in the Cantonese sentences in our corpus is to be labeled with a motivation. Due to time constraint, this classification was performed only on the currentaffairs and talk shows.The ‘expedient’ vs. ‘orientational’ classification system is too coarse for our purpose. Instead, we adopted the taxonomy in [7,8] as our starting point, then introduced some new categories to accommodate our data. The categories in [7] are1: 1 A fourth category, ‘bilingual punning’, is excluded from our taxonomy. As may be expected, punning is rarer in speech, and is indeed not found in our corpus. Among these categories is ‘identity marking’, for mixed code that marks â€Å"social characteristics such as social status, education status, occupation, as well as regional affiliation. [8] We found it difficult to objectively identify this motivation, and excluded it from our taxonomy. 166 Very good very good m4 co3 aa1 Ã¢â‚¬Ë œVery good, very good! ’ Interjection: English interjections may be inserted into the Cantonese sentence. For example: Anyway anyway nei5 hou2 sai1 lei6 ak1 ‘Anyway, you are awesome! ’ A significant amount of mixed code in our corpus, however, still does not fit into any of the above categories. Most fall under one of two reasons, ‘Personal Name’ and ‘Register’.We therefore added them to our taxonomy: Register: This is roughly equivalent to the ‘expedient’ category in [6], but will be referred to as ‘Register’ in this paper to make the motivation explicit. Sometimes, the speaker cannot find any equivalent ‘low Cantonese’ word, but feels awkward to use a more formal ‘high Cantonese’ word (e. g. , paai1 deoi3 ‘party’). As a result, s/he resorts to an English equivalent instead. For example, party hoi1 ci2 laa1 ngo5 dei6 go3 party ‘Our party is starting’ Personal Name: It is common practice among Hong Kong people to adopt an English name.Although this phenomenon may be considered ‘orientational’ codemixing in terms of the ‘western’ perception [6], it is given its own category, because it is very specific and accounts for a substantial amount of our data. A typical example is: Teresa, Teresa ngo5 dei6 zing2 dak1 leng3 m4 leng3 ‘Teresa, did we make it nicely? ’ D. Annotation Procedure We thus have a total of eight categories in our taxonomy of code-switching motivations. Five of these categories – namely, ‘euphemism’, ‘quotation’, ‘doubling’, ‘interjection’, and ‘personal name’ – can usually be unambiguously discerned.The annotator, however, has often found it difficult to distinguish between ‘specificity’, ‘register’, and ‘principle of economy’. To maintain consistency, we adopted the fol lowing procedure. When an English segment does not fit into any of the five â€Å"easy† categories, the annotator is to decide whether it has the same meaning as the Chinese word in the caption to which it is aligned. If it is deemed not to have the same meaning, then it is assigned ‘specificity’. If it is equivalent in meaning, and the annotator cannot think of any equivalent in ‘low Cantonese’, then it is labeled ‘register’.Lastly, if there is a ‘low Cantonese’ equivalent, but its number of syllables is larger than that of the English segment, then the motivation is ‘principle of economy’. IV. ANALYSIS English segments in Cantonese speech (section A), then discuss the distribution of the categories of motivations, both overall and with respect to genres, genders, and age groups (section B). A. Density and Length of English Segments It is well known that English words are sprinkled rather liberally in the Canto nese speech in Hong Kong. We measure how the frequency of English segments varies across different genres.As shown in Table 2, the frequency correlates with the register of the genre (see Section III. A). In the drama series, the most colloquial genre, one and a half English words are uttered per minute on average. The talk show occupies second place, and the current affairs shows have slightly less frequent English words. In the news program, where the speech is preplanned, the anchor did not utter any English word. Table 2: The total number of Cantonese sentences containing English segments, and the total number of English words transcribed. The last column shows how often an English word is uttered.Program genre Drama Talk show Current affairs News # sent with English 219 487 1495 0 # English words 259 625 1995 0 Frequency (words/min) 1. 4 0. 87 0. 74 0 Second, we measure the length of the English segments. Table 3 shows that the vast majority of English segments contain no more than two words. Across all genres, more than 80% of the English segments consist of only one English word. This figure is comparable to the 81. 4% for text data reported in [8]. Table 3: Proportion of English segments with only one (e. g. , â€Å"canteen†) or two words (e. g. , â€Å"thank you†).Program genre Drama Current affairs Talk show One-word 85% 85% 81% Two-word 11% 11% 17% This section presents some preliminary analyses on this corpus. We first consider the frequency and length of B. Motivations for the use of mixed code A plethora of motivations have been posited for the use of mixed code in Hong Kong (see Section II). Applying our proposed classification system (see Section III. C) on our corpus of transcribed speech, we aim now to discern the relative prevalence of the various kinds of codeswitching motivations. Table 4 shows the distribution of these motivations in the current-affairs and the talk shows.Four dominant motivations – chiefly ‘reg ister’, but also ‘personal name’, ‘principle of economy’, and ‘specificity’ – are attributed to more than 95% of the English segments. This trend is the same across genres (current-affairs and talk shows), genders (see Table 6), and age groups (see Table 5). All other categories, including quotations, euphemism, doubling, and interjection, are relatively infrequent. Genres. Among the four dominant motivations, ‘register’ – the use of appropriately informal words – is the most frequent motivation in both the current-affairs and 167 talk shows.Its proportion, however, is significantly more marked (47. 4%) in the talk show than in current affairs (36. 4%), reflecting the more informal nature of the former. Table 4: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between genres. Motivation Current affairs Talk show Register 36. 4% 47. 4% Personal Name 26. 8% 24. 5% Principle of economy 19. 0% 17. 6% S pecificity 13. 2% 8. 2% Quotation 2. 1% 1. 0% Doubling 1. 4% 0. 4% Interjection 0. 9% 1. 0% Euphemism 0. 3% 0% Age groups. Table 5 contrasts the distributions of code-switching motivations between adults and teenagers in the current-affairs shows 3 .As mentioned above, the four major motivations remain constant. However, teenagers are much more likely than adults to use English words to achieve more informal register (52. 4% vs. 35. 1%). They also tend more to opt for English to save effort (23. 8% vs. 18. 6%). Somewhat surprisingly at first glance, teenagers address others in English names less often than adults (2. 4% vs. 28. 8%); it turns out that in the conversations in our corpus, teenagers often prefer to address adults with the more formal Chinese names, likely out of respect.Table 5: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between age groups. Motivation Adults Teenagers Register 35. 1% 52. 4% Personal Name 28. 8% 2. 4% Principle of economy 18. 6% 23. 8% Specif icity 13. 1% 14. 3% Quotation 1. 9% 4. 0% Doubling 1. 3% 2. 4% Interjection 0. 9% 0% Euphemism 0. 3% 0. 8% use English names to address others (32. 9% vs. 18. 9%); men, on the other hand, more frequently use English words to reduce effort (22. 9% vs. 14. 8%). V. CONCLUSIONS We have described the construction of a corpus of Cantonese-English mixed code, based on speech transcribed from television programs in Hong Kong.Drawn from more than 60 hours of speech, this corpus is among the largest of its type. A novel feature of the corpus is the annotation of the motivation behind each code-mixed utterance. Having proposed a classification system for these motivations, we applied it on our corpus, and reported differences in the use of mixed code between genres, genders and age groups. A key finding is that four main motivations – ‘register’, ‘personal name’, ‘principle of economy’, and ‘specificity’ — account for more than 95% of the embedded English segments.ACKNOWLEDGMENT This project was partially funded by a Small-Scale Research Grant from the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at City University of Hong Kong. We thank Man Chong Mak and Hiu Yan Wong for compiling the corpus and performing annotation. REFERENCES [1] K. H. Y. Chen, â€Å"The Social Distinctiveness of Two Code-mixing Styles in Hong Kong,† in Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, MA: Cascadilla Press, 2005, pp. 527541. J. Gumperz, â€Å"The sociolinguistic significance of conversational code-switching,† in RELC Journal 8(2), 1977, pp. 1—34. J.Gibbons, â€Å"Code-mixing and koineizing in the speech of students at the university of Hong Kong†, in Anthropological Linguistics 21(3), 1979, pp. 113—123. B. H. -S. Chan, â€Å"How does Cantonese-English code-mixing work? †, in Language in Hong Kong at Century’s End, M. C. Pennington (ed. ), 1998, pp. 19 1—216, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. D. C. S. Li, â€Å"Linguistic convergence: Impact of English on Hong Kong Cantonese,† in Asian Englishes 2(1), 1999, pp. 5—36. K. K. Luke, â€Å"Why two languages might be better than one: motivations of language mixing in Hong Kong†, in Language in Hong Kong at Century’s End, M.C. Pennington (ed. ), 1998, pp. 145—159, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. D. C. S. Li, â€Å"Cantonese-English code-switching research in Hong Kong: a Y2K review,† in World Englishes 19(3), 2000, pp. 305— 322. H. Cao, â€Å"Development of a Cantonese-English code-mixing speech recognition system,† PhD dissertation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. R. Appel and P. Muysken, Language contact and bilingualism. London: Arnold, 1987. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Table 6: Distribution of code-switching motivations, contrasted between genders.Motivation Female Male Register 37. 5% 40. 7% Personal Name 32. 9% 18. 9% Principle of economy 14. 8% 22. 9% Specificity 10. 9% 13. 2% Quotation 1. 9% 1. 7% Doubling 1. 1% 1. 3% Interjection 0. 7% 1. 1% Euphemism 0. 3% 0. 2% Genders. Finally, we investigate whether codeswitching motivations are biased according to gender. Aggregating statistics from both the current-affairs and talk shows, Table 6 compares the motivations of males and those of females. Females are shown to be more likely to 3 [7] [8] [9] The speakers in the talk show are predominantly adults. 168

Cultural homogenization and the Internet Research Paper

Cultural homogenization and the Internet - Research Paper Example Since internet enables people of various cultural backgrounds to intermingle easily across the globe, it tends to form one uniform culture. Over a period of time, â€Å"popular cultural artifacts supersede the individual cultures, unpopular artifacts disappear, and the cultures resemble each other more† (par.3). Globalization, social media and internet can be perceived as the main reasons for cultural homogenization. By and large, the internet has a vast amount of information of anything, which a person can access from anywhere in the world. For e.g. A Mexican recipe is easily available to an Indian and vice versa. Cultural homogenization is unstoppable in this internet age. ICT gives a â€Å"powerful impetus to this cultural homogenization† (Fairweather & Rogerson 1). Globalization grows in a very fast pace and so does the business, economy and the internet. Since people across all nations have access to the internet, at very cheap rates, they will indulge more frequen tly in activities such as social networking etc the resulting interaction will facilitate a blending of different cultures. Thus, a new global culture will evolve to replace smaller, individual cultures. ... Exclusive insight about various cultures can be easily explored and shared via internet. Before the internet age, it was difficult to obtain information about other cultures unless through books or visiting that particular country. Cultural homogenization makes it possible for a person of one culture to like something of another culture and start to follow it. Cultural homogenization will continuously grow as the content about the cultures grows on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogging sites make it easy to discuss, share and communicate among people of diverse cultures. Internet usage is dominant in both developed and developing countries. This serves as a way to spread cultural ideals. Since English is the universal language of the internet, information is easily comprehended by many cross cultural people. The use of internet by a large number of people has facilitated frequent interaction and the resultant cultural exchange. The Internet could be a â€Å"harbinger † to the ideals of â€Å"democracy and human rights† in places â€Å"where these ideals are not appreciated by the authorities† (Hongladarom 1998). Internet promotes cultural understanding by â€Å"enabling people† from different â€Å"cultural background and identities under conditions that are conducive to cultural exchange† (Brey 4). Besides, the internet also promotes â€Å"cultural fragmentation† by â€Å"stimulating the formation of virtual communities and groups organized around† specific â€Å"interests, themes or cultural identities† (6). Cultural homogenization is widely considered as a way to improve rather than deter independence, preservation of culture, and general economic conditions. Common culture paves

The Joint Venture between NBC Universal and Comcast Term Paper

The Joint Venture between NBC Universal and Comcast - Term Paper Example The joint venture will combine the United States biggest cable broadband provider in Comcast with the programming domain of NBC Universal. The Federal Trade Commission, concerned with a possible monopoly situation, has placed conditions on the joint venture. General Electric will supply all of NBC Universal assets to the joint venture, valued at $30 billon, less about $9 billion in debt, and the joint venture will be managed by Comcast (Event Brief). Comcast will add its cable channels, regional sports networks, and two entertainment Internet sites, Fandango and Daily Candy valued at $7.25 billion and with adjustments, Comcast will also invest approximately $6.5 billion in cash to the deal (Event Brief). This joint venture will allow Comcast to control the video content provided by NBC Universal in their cable and Internet systems. Comcast is engaged in the development and operation of cable, Internet, and telephony systems and the company has 23.8 million cable consumers, 15.7 milli on broadband Internet consumers, and 7.4 million Comcast telephone customers (Comcast and GE to Create Leading Entertainment Company). Comcast's networks comprises E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, Golf Channel, VERSUS, G4, PBS KIDS Sprout, TV One, ten sports networks and a majority stake in Comcast-Spectacor, who posse the Philadelphia Flyers, the Philadelphia 76ers and two prominent multipurpose sports stadiums in Philadelphia (Comcast and GE to Create Leading Entertainment Company). NBC Universal has possession of and manages a collection of information and entertainment networks, a movie company 4,000 films, television production operations with 3000 titles, and the Universal Studios theme parks (Comcast and GE to Create Leading Entertainment Company). When General Electric acquired NBC Universal, it had a broadcast network with one revenue source. Eventually NBC Universal developed a cable unit with CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, and Oxygen that now provides 78% of cash flo w to the company (Event Brief). The new joint venture of Comcast and NBC Universal would bring together the major delivery capacity of Comcast in broadband cable, regional sports outlets with the exceptional content production and supply resources of NBC Universal (Event Brief). The joint venture would immediately create a corporation that would be the biggest in the business. The joint corporation would provide services to 23% of American pay-TV households, 14% of cable programming, operate network-owned television stations that reach 27% of homes, posses a Hollywood film studio, amusement parks, and sports arenas (Hatch, David). This combined entity could have a significant influence on pricing and availability of content delivery by the competition. An economic study of the joint venture provided by the American Cable Association indicates that the combination of Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal would increase expenditure to customers by $2.4 billion more than nine years bec ause of increased fees for pay television service content ("ACA: Comcast-NBCU Deal Will Cost Consumers $2.4B."). The

Electronic Communication Technology Research Paper

Electronic Communication Technology - Research Paper Example Signal frequency spectrum down-conversion is achieved by multiplying the radio-frequency signal by a local oscillator signal in a circuit known as a mixer. This multiplication produces two signals whose frequency content lies about the sum and difference frequencies of the center frequency of the original signal and the oscillator frequency. Two signals at frequencies f1 and f2 are applied to a mixer, and it produces new signals at the sum f1 + f2 and difference f1 - f2 of the original frequencies. A simple technique which uses a diode can be is employed for the purpose of obtaining multiplication. A diode is a non-linear (or non-ohmic) device/element, which means its response (current) is not proportional to its input (voltage). The diode therefore does not reproduce the frequencies of its driving voltage in the current through it, which allows the desired frequency manipulation. The current 'I' through an ideal diode as a function of the voltage 'V' across it is given by And can be approximated for small x (that is, small voltages) by the first few terms of that series. Suppose that the sum of the two input signals v1 + v2 is applied to a diode, and that an output voltage is generated that is proportional to the current through the diode (perhaps by providing the voltage that is present across a resistor in series with the diode). Then, disregarding the constants in the diode equation, the output voltage will have the form The first term on the right is the original two signals followed by the square of the sum, which can be rewritten as . The multiplied signal is present as the above equation shows. It represents all the higher powers of the sum which we assume to be negligible for small signals. As every multiplication produces sum and difference frequencies, from the quadratic term of the series we expect to find signals at frequencies 2f1 and 2f2 from and , and f1 + f2 and f1 f2 from the v1v2 term. Often, so the difference signal has a much lower frequency than the others; extracting this distinct signal is often the principal purpose of using a mixer in such devices as radio receivers. Filter: - The other terms of the above series give rise to other weaker signals at various frequencies which act as noise for the desired signal. They may be filtered out. The filter shown in the block diagram performs this purpose. IF amplifier: - It is an amplifying circuit in a (RF) receiver that processes and enhances a down-converted or modulated signal. A variable local oscillator is used in the receiver to hold the difference-signal center frequency constant as the receiver is tuned. The constant frequency of the down-converted signal is called the

Why is sports so important for the people of a number of countries in Research Paper

Why is sports so important for the people of a number of countries in the world - Research Paper Example Majority of the people in Spain celebrated their world cup win in South Africa in 2010. There was renewed show of patriotism. The jersey worn by the national team players was symbolic of the people, united and committed to one nation and cheered it on to victory. At that time, the victory served to brighten up a country that was hit by the recession, its unemployment rate was increasing and the confidence in the administrative bodies was dwindling. However, the sport united the people and gave them renewed hope to deal with the problems they face. This is what football often does in Spain. The sense of patriotism is evident in every person even the politicians. More than ever, they become committed to institute policies that will improve the welfare of the citizens. Spain struggles with the Catalan section due to the increasing will of the Catalans to be self-governing. The Catalan people view FC Barcelona as the representation of their customs and culture. It is no wonder that they fill the stadiums with banners carrying political messages regarding the same. Football is important to them as it helps them air their demands. It is a platform for them to advocate for a political voice. Their actions serve to spur heated exchanges and influence political ambitions of the two sections. To the people of Catalonia, football is their massive voice and they hope to continue using the platform. Some go to the extent of crediting the Barcelona players for the victories in major European competitions. They believe they have a big say in major things as demonstrated in football. However, until their ambitions materialize, they combine together to celebrate triumphs. This signifies that the Spanish and Catalan identities are not essentially incompatible (T he symbolism in Spanish football illustrates that Catalan and Spanish identities are not necessarily incompatible). Third, Football in Spain helps companies increase their financial returns. The Spanish football

Second Paper Assignment in English II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Second Paper Assignment in English II - Essay Example ’s Waltz† is narrated through the point of view and perspective of the boy and therefore the reader needs to listen for the voice of the poem behind the boy’s words. The tone suggests the mood of the narrator and the tone of a poem can be â€Å"serious, playful, exaggerated, understated, poignant, distanced, formal, informal, ironic, blunt or something other than these† (Schakel & Ridl 576). There can be a singular or multiple voices within the poem. The poem ‘My Papa’s Waltz† depicts a son’s memories of his father and the tone of the poem is equally important as that of the voice of the narrator. The complexity of the voice of the narrator of â€Å"My Papa’s Waltz† provides the poem variety of meanings and offers different readings to the poem. Many readers feel that the poem has a dark tone as the poem depicts â€Å"troubled relationship or dysfunctional home† (Schakel & Ridl 578). Unlike other poems in the chapter the poem addresses not the readers but the narrator’s own father and the ‘you’ in the poem stands for the boy’s father himself. The very first line of the poem suggests that the father is heavily drunk and his drunkenness is sufficient enough to â€Å"make a small boy dizzy†. Similarly, the frown on the mother’s face in the second stanza and words such as â€Å"battered† â€Å"beat†, and â€Å"dirt† adds to the dark tone of the poem and the reader can very well experience the desperate voice of the narrator. The simile employed in the third line of the poem-â€Å"I hung on like death† shows feelings of fear and insecurity in the voice of the narrator and the father becomes a formidable figure for the boy. The boy has no other alternativ es than succumb to the violent outbursts of his drunk father and even as an adult the narrator’s voice echoes the pain and suffering his drunken father’s actions caused him at his early childhood. However, there are many readers who feel that the poem has a joyful tone. As the title of the poem

The Vietnam war Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Vietnam war - Research Paper Example Communist rebels from the north started invading the south. These rebels were trained and armed by the northern Vietnamese government, and they came to be known as the Vietcong. It is the attack on South Vietnam that drew America to Vietnam. The American government through it’s president had promised to support all the nations that faced threats from communism. It is the sole purpose of this paper to identify the superpowers that got assisted by the Vietnam War and how the Vietnam War influenced Cold War. In the period of the Cold War, the American government fought communism in multiple places worldwide. At that time, Southern Vietnam was an area under great threat by the communist Vietcong. The American’s believed that by allowing Communists to take over the Southern part of Vietnam, other countries within that region would follow suite and become communist countries (Domino Theory) (Salem State University, 2009). Faced with this threat, President Kennedy, J.F sent mi litary advisers to assist the army of South Vietnam. It is Kennedy’s successor who started sending military ground troops to Vietnam. But as it later unfolded, the unrest and continued activism against the Vietnam War by the American Citizens saw the government withdraw American troops from Vietnam in the year 1973. Consequently, the Russians won the battle and acquired control of the South. Vietnam was later unified and become a single communist nation. The Vietnam War had an influence over the Cold War. The cold war started in the year 1962 and ended in the late 1970’s. Earlier, in the year 1949, the US had defined all the governments that were communists as being â€Å"the enemy.† After the defeat of the French in 1954, the US replaced them in Vietnam. The war became a struggle between the US, against a nation-state that was emerging (Suffolk State University, 2011). It is the Cold War that saw the US commit itself to assisting all the countries that were und er threat of communism. The Vietnam War was basically a war in which a weaker south Vietnam fought against the north Vietnam. The north Vietnamese were being assisted by China and Russia. The American’s saw this war (Vietnam War) as being a war between communists and Nationalists. The north Vietnamese were communists and the south nationalists. Therefore, the involvement of the U.S in Vietnam War was a direct outcome of the Cold War. At the end of World War Two, the Korean Peninsula was divided between the US forces that were in the south and the Soviet forces that were in the north. Each of these super powers had the intention of unifying Korea under their auspices. The Chinese joined in the war and the war between China and the United States lasted for three years. This war resulted in the growing and intensification of tensions in the Cold War. This growing tension in the Cold War forced the U.S to change its policy towards Vietnam. Russia was keen on facilitating the spre ad of communism in Asia. Together with China, Russia supplied arms to northern Vietnam. The arms were delivered to a group of rebels who later attacked South Vietnam. The United States moved in to support the South fight against the communist north. This scenario overtly shows that the Vietnam War was a war of superpowers. The super powers were fighting a cold war that was due to their different ideologies. Each of the super powers had the intention of introducing her ideologies to other countries. For example, Vietnam was divided into two and each super power

Cases Of Plagiarism And Its Consequences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Cases Of Plagiarism And Its Consequences - Essay Example Also, it was detected that only the last edition of her book contained a thanksgiving paragraph for Taggart’s in the preface although nothing was written about him in the preface of the first edition. Goodwin had been ousted from the university but the matter was settled very quietly between Goodwin and Taggart with the latter taking no strict action against the accused (Crader). There had been a similar case of plagiarism two years back where Stephen Ambrose, a historian was accused of copying in his book â€Å"The Wild Blue†. He had copied innumerable lines including some entire texts from Thomas Childers â€Å"Wings of Morning†. Some important phrases from Childers book like ‘glittering like mica’ and ‘up, up, up’ has been repeated word by word in â€Å"The Wild Blue† and not been put in quotation marks. Also, he has not done proper referencing and mentioned Childers only in bibliography and footnotes. However, Ambrose escaped the accusation unscathed as Guilders didn’t take any action against him for plagiarism (Barnes). The consequence of plagiarism can be judged only on the basis that whether it was intended or unintended. The above articles indicate that the works done by Ambrose and Goodwin revealed intended plagiarism since the subjects were similar to the books they plagiarized. However, no action was taken against them and such a result sounds unfair as strict actions should be taken against such people. Although Goodwin was ousted from her University, she received several accolades for her work later on from the same university. So it can be said that justice had not been done and created a wrong example for students and authors alike.

Ethics -Radio Shack Ceo Sacandal Essay Example for Free

Ethics -Radio Shack Ceo Sacandal Essay Ethics is the consideration of how human actions can improve or deteriorate the environments in which we work and live. In the wake of recent corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom leading to trials and imprisonment of previously powerful (Chief Executing Officer) CEO’s public trust in CEO’s has diminished. Therefore when the story about the forged academic credentials of Dave Edmondson, CEO of Radio Shack came it re-ignited the mistrust. This paper will provide a brief background of the scandal and detailed analysis of the ethical issues involved and whether the actions taken by RadioShack were ethical or not. Background: Dave Edmondson was on a fast career track and was named CEO of Radio Shack in May 2005. In February, 2006 Radio Shack announced that its CEO, David Edmonson has resigned over questions raised over his resume. The Fort Worth Star- Telegram discovered that he had not earned degrees in theology and psychology from Heartland Baptist College as claimed on his resume. Moreover Edmonson had only finished two semesters at the college and the college did not even offer a psychology major. Edmonson admitted to the errors calling them â€Å"misstatements† and resigned in the aftermath of the corporate scandal. Analysis: The main issue about this case is not just forging of the academic credentials but how Radio Shack handled the case that generated criticism from public and turned it into a media circus. The basic hypernorms of honesty and integrity were not met by RadioShack in handling the situation. Edmondson did not display fairness towards Radio Shack by trying to communicate the value of knowledge via false degrees. It was not just the disappointing fact that Edmondson lied on his resume but what was equally troubling was the individual and corporate response to the scandal. Radio Shack supported its CEO and failed to give public any substantial answers. The ethical question then becomes that what is the responsibility of board of directors? Should they oversee the personal ethics of a CEO as long as he is driving the shareholders maximum value and yielding higher profits for he firm or they should step up and take responsibility for their own short comings, take the required action and set an example of driving the company by ethical values and standards not just profits? Radio shack displayed lack of responsibility as a company when it came to take ownership of the issue and failed to address the public with compassion and was unable to provide clarification regarding the r esume issue. From philosophical approach- consequentialism view holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act. Edmondson’s decision to lie on his resume turned out to bring good consequences only for him in terms of a career hike. Deontology brings up these questions: Was Edmondson’s decision legal, fair, just or right? No, it was not and transparency and information sharing regarding the falsified resume might have led to different outcomes both for Edmondson and RadioShack. Considering the virtue ethics, did Edmondson and RadioShack’s decision demonstrate expected virtues? The company had built its image and reputation over many years. This reputation entailed virtues of trustworthiness, compassion, integrity and responsibility. It did not seem that Edmondson’s decision to not come clean was based on any of these considerations. He bluntly violated the virtue ethics. The stakeholders involved were shareholders, board of directors, employees and common people. He could be cut slack for being an ambitious young individual at the start of his career but how can the ignorance be overseen that in the years of making towards a CEO he never came clean. Infact when the scandal was raised and he was confronted he did not even admit right away. This displays lack of character and credibility. A company’s leader should be transparent and trustworthy. From a modified moral standards approach I feel that there wasn’t any net benefit to the company from his falsified educational claims. It was also not fair to all the stakeholders involved as there could have been a better candidate who got rejected due to a truthful but less flashy resume. Also the distribution of benefits was enjoyed by the CEO whereas the burdens were shared by him and the company equally in terms of a bad reputation and loss of public trust. Also RadioShack was not consistent with the virtues expected by its employees as they did not bring them and other stakeholders in the loop during the media frenzy which led to a discontented employee atmosphere. This also leads to question the monitoring and compliance at RadioShack. They had a code of conduct and code of ethics in place detailing the responsibilities of the employees but how realistically this was being followed can be easily criticized based on Edmondson’s case. I believe that company’s code of ethics should be incorporated in its values and system actions. Corporate risk can be reduced and even mitigated if the organization can align values for ethical motivation and action. Edmondson did take accountability of his unethical actions later and RadioShack’s board of directors also learned the hard way that blind support of a CEO without any solid evidence is unwise and can tarnish the reputation of the company. If they had accepted and reacted to responsibility as soon as the scandal broke the company would have been able to save its reputation and maintained credibility.

The Camera Essay Example for Free

The Camera Essay It was a hot summer July afternoon in Key West, Florida with my family. We were on our first family vacation in a long while. All of us were standing in the ocean water watching the trainer directing the dolphin to do tricks. She each let us interact individually with the dolphin. It was one of the best feelings ever to just be so close to this gentle creature. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life that I never want to forget. How would I remember this exact moment in time? Photography is simply the answer. Photographs were taken during the whole time of this event. I can always look back at these photos and not forget one detail. In the words of Jim Jonnard, who is the founder of the Red digital camera system, â€Å"The camera is arguably one of the most important of all inventions†¦it is he single tool that has the ability to stop time, record history, generate art, tell stories, and communicate messages that transcend language like nothing else ever conceived. † (Red Camera) I agree with this statement and the depth within it. The way it changed art is still unexplainable with its eternal lasting impact. The invention of the camera was completely necessary in order for original art to grow and change its direction throughout history and present time. (Berger 16-20) When the camera was first invented it immediately changed how people saw. This was first depicted in paintings. It had taken away the uniqueness of paintings by conveying a different message. When looking at a painting on a screen its surroundings include but are not limited to furniture and the appearance of the walls in the background. This interferes with the true meaning of the image because its environment is causing a distraction to its viewers. Instead of the viewer finding its way to the painting, the painting makes its way to the viewer. The whole meaning changes in its path. This is when the power of the camera took over and became a whole new way of art. (Berger 16-20) Not much concern was put towards how the camera would affect artists and their work. At first they panicked. Adapting to this constant changing world with an art career wasn’t a quick adjustment for them. During the time of the 1830’s which was when the camera was invented was also the era where portraits were a huge deal. Artists felt this pressure through their commissioned portraits. This was the main job of most artists. Many of them didn’t view the camera as a positive attribute to their work. When the camera was introduced to society, people soon realized that it’d be a lot less money and more time efficient to just get photographs taken of them instead. The emergence of â€Å"starving artists† became quite popular. Artists started losing hope with their way of thinking that art had died. (Mcrae) However this art depression didn’t last too long. They were able to shift this downfall into something completely unique and out of the ordinary. Instead of just focusing on portraits that had to be â€Å"true to life,† they looked to paint new subjects, experimenting what could work. They started painting the everyday, working class people exposing the secrets of society. This lead to the development of Cubism, Impressionism, modern art, and even abstract art. To make their pieces unique they added elements that the camera could not obtain. They wanted spectators to know the original. Little did the artists know that photography became a whole new art in itself, opening a door of fresh inspiration. It all began with the camera teaching them realism which allowed artists to see the juxtaposition of things that are real and not. A new perspective was quickly attained and applied. At first painters had to create this concept of realism. Now they just had to arrange and capture. (Lane) Also, artists now didn’t have to sketch the image being created in front of their subject. They could just use a snapshot as a reference instead of having added pressure from the subjects they were surrounded by. This allowed for more detailed and intricate pieces to be created. Now artists had the opportunity to express themselves. Becoming interested in how the camera worked light became the main focus. Light was meant almost everything in art. it was used to depict the mood, theme and even taught the viewer how to feel after looking at a painting. Lighting had such a strong power and artists didn’t even realize this until the invention of the camera. Once again, the realism that photographs portrayed taught the artists how to do their work in a whole new way. Light reflected off of objects passes through the lens of the device, burning an image onto film. Artists made that same connection with humans. Through the human eye, light reflects off of objects and passes through the eye burning an image onto the retina. This concept really intrigued artists, applying the properties of light to their own paintings. (Kenny) I think this was an overwhelming time for artists. They were used to art as being a depiction of one of their creative envisions. Now there was this device that stopped moments in time which caused them to focus on reality. They had to adapt to producing pieces that were exactly as seen. I agree that this can be a difficult concept to grasp especially when taught something a specific way. (Berger 16-20) Now that it is clear that the invention of the camera first influenced art such as in paintings, it also created a whole new classification of art through the video camera. Why just take a snapshot in time when you can record what is actually occurring right in front of you? The art of cinema and theatre were born, showing a side of art that no one had ever seen before. Photographing motion picture just seemed unrealistic and nearly impossible to society at the time, but they were so wrong. It was the gateway to visual media. Changes and developments in the art world highly influenced visual artists, photographers, and film makers. Willie Varela, in The Journal of Film and Video quotes that, â€Å"filmmakers who started working after World War II constituted a movement as powerful and significant as the abstract expressionists in paintings. † These two types of arts worked hand in hand with each other. The ideas that these expressionist painters were able to gain from photography contributed to the growth and success of film making. Through this they were both able to have an extreme impact on each other, leading to the growth of the relationship between art and audience. (Tenney) Film was another way of communicating to society just as photographs and paintings did. This all goes back to the creation of the camera which just proves the point that it was completely necessary in order for art to prosper. It first influenced paintings and then progressed to even more especially motion picture. Videoing moments in time are such a crucial part of today’s society. I don’t think most people realize how much it’s used in their everyday lives. It is used for so many things such as television and movies but most importantly for communication. (Tenney) I feel that both photography and film are so important. It’s what helped to advance society in its major aspects. To me art was the first one, but through the camera a door opened revealing a whole new level of creativity. Society would not nearly be as advanced as it is today without this invention. A life without the camera seems impossible. It gave way to an innovative way of art that was created that ended up changing how people saw for a lifetime. A picture is worth more than just a thousand words.

Utilitarianism And Libertarianism Views On Public Policy Issues Philosophy Essay

Utilitarianism And Libertarianism Views On Public Policy Issues Philosophy Essay Ideologies are a set of ideas, ways, thoughts, goals, expectations and actions that are shared within a community. It is made by a society that believes in the same goals, expectations, etc. Its purpose is to offer change in a society where the group belongs. It is a set of views that guides its members on how to see things. Literally, it means the science of ideas. Moreover, it is a set of ideas that characterize a certain group. In this paper, two famous ideologies will be compared. The following topics will be covered in this discussion: What is Utilitarianism? What is Libertarianism? How does Utilitarianism and Libertarianism view the public policy issues on economic inequality, homosexual conduct, and abortion? Which of the two is a more convincing ideology? What is Utilitarianism? Utilitarianism is a theory in ethics that believes in the maximization of things for the benefit of the whole society. It is a form of consequentialism. The goal is commonly referred to as happiness or pleasure. It can be summed up to a general statement which states: The promotion of the greater good for the greatest number. But, there is an ambiguity in the words greater good. It means happiness or pleasure, not necessarily that it means the right thing or wrong thing. According to Bentham, it only means the tendency to augment or diminish happiness or pleasure. When talking about the number, one is equal to one vote; no one identity has a value of two. There are two types of Utilitarianism: Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism believes that the best action is the one that can give the most happiness. It has no moral rules. It believes that for each individual situation, there is an individual action that is to be justified as best if it is for the greatest happiness. On the other hand, Rule Utilitarianism believes that there is a general act of greatest happiness for each situation. In general, it believes in a set of rules or laws that is perceived to be for the greatest happiness. Furthermore, a Rule Utilitarian will consult the rules instead of acting first. What is Libertarianism? Libertarianism is the belief in liberty. It is set of beliefs and ideas which advocates the maximization of an individuals thinking and living by abolishing or minimizing the power of the state. It believes in a world that is free, peaceful and abundant. Also, they want to take control of their own lives without taking into consideration other ideas. Each individual has his own opinions; each individual may choose what to do with his life. Libertarians believe that each individual has his own life and that he has a freedom to choose and live his life. Their goal is to bring liberty into the world. They believe in the non-initiation of force. How does Utilitarianism and Libertarianism view the public policy issues on economic inequality, homosexual conduct, and abortion? First, the issue of economic inequality, the Utilitarians believe that if something is benefiting the whole of the population, it is considered good. For example, if the economic inequality is of benefit to the greater masses and that it brings the greatest happiness for the community, it is considered to be good. But the Act and Rule Utilitarians differ in how they view economic inequality human rights. For an Act Utilitarian, if torture is benefiting the population, even though it is a violation of the human rights in general, it is still good for the Utilitarians. Their goal is just to achieve happiness for the greatest number. If the majority of the people achieve happiness in torturing, it is not wrong for them. Furthermore, for a Rule Utilitarian, human right is considered a moral rule. They follow their rules, whatever it takes. They will protect it whenever possible. Therefore, they believe that economic inequality is not right. On the contrary, for the Libertarians, economi c inequality is a no-no. Libertarians believe in equality, that each individual is entitled to have a fair judgement in the law. Libertarians grant each individual freedom on what they want to do in their lives. They oppose every kind of unequal treatment such as racism, discrimination, etc. Second, the issue of homosexual conduct, for the Utilitarians, same as the one discussed before. They believe in the greater happiness of the greatest number. It does not matter if it is a wrong ethically speaking thing to do. Also, if homosexuality is benefitting the greatest number of the population, then it is still acceptable. If homosexuality brings happiness to the majority of the population, then it is considered a good thing. That is the general case. But like the previous discussion, the Act Utilitarians differ greatly from the Rule Utilitarians. For an Act Utilitarian, if it is not bringing the greatest number of population happiness, then it is considered bad. Even if the thing is right ethically speaking it is not favoured if it does not please the majority. But, for a Rule Utilitarian, human rights are considered a moral rule. That is why they respect these kinds of actions. On the other hand, Libertarians view homosexual conduct as a right to express ones feelings. They are not against these kinds of act. As discussed earlier, the Libertarians view equality as an equal to freedom. They believe that each individual has the right to express his own individuality. Third, the issue of abortion, for the Utilitarians, it is the same old story. The Act and Rule Utilitarians differ greatly on their way of accepting things. For an Act Utilitarian, it will do whatever that they believe is to be benefitting the greatest number of the population. If, for example, abortion is benefitting the society, it is believed to be a right thing to do. If abortion gives happiness to the majority of the community, it is considered to be a good thing. On the other hand, for a Rule Utilitarian, it believes that human right is a moral rule. Thus, abortion is opposed. Furthermore, for the Libertarians, it is very clear that equality and freedom is their goal. Thus, abortion is strongly approved in their ideologies. Their rights as individuals prevail. Although there are some Libertarians that oppose abortion, they have their own views. A view of an individual is respected in their community. Freedom in their thinking is what they advocate. Which of the two is a more convincing ideology? I believe that the points of the Libertarian are more convincing. People are born as free individuals, with human rights. As time goes by, certain rules were implemented as to make the community organized or follow a certain code. But I believe that these implemented rules and codes should not eradicate an individuals human rights. As an individual, I also believe in equality. I believe that each person has a right to live his own life. On the other hand, on the case of abortion, I oppose it because I believe that it is murder. The tiny speckle in the womb of the mother is alive. I believe that it has also its own rights. But comparing Utilitarianism with Libertarianism, the latter is the more convincing ideology. I dont believe that the Utilitarians view of imposing what is right and what is wrong in a society. I dont believe in their labels of good things and bad things. Again, it is a violation of human rights. In the sense that if you are not a part of the majority, you cannot do what you want. You cannot do things that the majority thinks that is bad. This is stripping you of your freedom. That is why I believe in Libertarians better than the Utilitarians.

Consequences of Nick Carraway as Narrator of F. Scott Fitzgeralds The

The Importance of Nick Carraway as Narrator of The Great Gatsby    In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald critiques the disillusionment of the American Dream by contrasting the corruption of those who adopt a superficial lifestyle with the honesty of Nick Carraway. As Carraway familiarizes himself with the lives of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Jay Gatsby, he realizes the false seductiveness of the New York lifestyle and regains respect for the Midwest he left behind. "Fitzgerald needs an objective narrator to convey and prove this criticism, and uses Carraway not only as the point of view character, but also as a counter example to the immorality and dishonesty Carraway finds in New York" (Bewley 31). Fitzgerald must construct this narrator as reliable. Due to the nature of the novel, the reader would not believe the story if it were told from the perspective of any other character. Fitzgerald cannot expect the reader to believe what the immoral and careless characters have to say, and he spends so much time establishing them as such. Thus, Car raway is deemed narrator and the reader trusts him. As the practical character in the novel, Carraway is not rash; he is not swayed by the greed and alcohol as some other members of East and West Egg society are. He proclaims, "I have been drunk just twice in my life" (Fitzgerald 33). Fitzgerald constructs Carraway as a follower, not a man of action. He observes Gatsby's parties, never fully experiencing them. He observes the moment before the kiss between the starlet and her director, although Fitzgerald never details the physicality of his relationship with Baker. He observes the affair between Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson, but he never confronts Tom Buchanan, nor does he e... ...y to tell the story, but also to critique the mass disillusionment with the American Dream. Carraway's honesty makes him ideal to represent all that the Buchanans lack and legitimizes his admiration of Gatsby. No reader would consider the full impact of Fitzgerald's themes had less attention been given to the creation and execution of the character of Carraway. Works Cited and Consulted: Bewley, Marius. "Scott Fizgerald's Criticism of America." Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992. Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes. New York: Pantheon, 1994. Raleigh, John Henry. "F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby." Trilling 99-103. Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.

Compare and Contrast Death of a Naturalist, An Advancement of Learning

Compare and Contrast Death of a Naturalist, An Advancement of Learning and The Early Purges. In this essay I am going to discuss ‘Death of a Naturalist’, ‘An Advancement of Learning’ and ‘The Early Purges’ by Seamus Heaney. I will focus on the similarities and differences between these poems in terms of what they are about, their language and themes. The first out of the three poems by Heaney that I have studied is ‘Death of a Naturalist’. This poem is about Heaney as a young child, exploring a field. He comes across frogspawn and remembers when his teacher would tell him about how the â€Å"Daddy frog was called a bull frog†, â€Å"and how the mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs and this was frogspawn†. Heaney then writes about when he used to steal the frog spawn and put it into a jam jar for school, and how he would watch them grow into tadpoles. When he finishes describing what he did, Heaney starts a new stanza. The mood changes in stanza in this stanza. Heaney describes the frogs as angry, and that they were croaking in a way he had never heard; â€Å"The air was thick with a bass chorus.† Heaney claims in the poem, that the frogs were angry at him for stealing the frogspawn when he was younger. Heaney â€Å"sickened, turned and ran.† The second poem entitled â€Å"An Advancement of Learning†. This poem is about Heaney taking a walk along an embankment and coming across a rat that was crawling out of the river. Heaney writes â€Å"I turned down the path in cold sweat†. However he comes across another rat. Heaney claims that the rat was staring at him, â€Å"insidiously listening†. He describes the rat having â€Å"raindrop† eyes. Heaney stares back at the rat – â€Å"forgetting how he used to panic† when he lived on a farm. The rat â€Å"... ... In conclusion, the main similarities between the three poems are in the language used. By this I mean that of particular phrases such as war words and the usage of similes and alliteration and the fact that they are all about animals and fear. The main differences are that â€Å"The Early Purges† is a different structure to the other two poems. I have learnt about parts of Seamus Heaney’s childhood and his coping with fear. I have also learnt different techniques to use in poems, for example alliteration. I have enjoyed the excitement Heaney builds up in each poem. My favourite poem is â€Å"An Advancement of Learning† because I can understand and picture everything Heaney describes. Also it is my most preferred poem due to the fact I can relate to confronting a fear and not having a path to turn to and then the fear swam away from me, so I can relate to the story.

Race :: essays papers

Race When I was a little girl, my best friend's dad was a neurologist. He tricked us with color and number tests and other brainteasers. I was fascinated by how my brain reacted to the games, and ever since, I have wanted to study the brain. Later, as a high school sophomore, I still focused on being a doctor, and that year I was deemed worthy of an internship at a local hospital. So, the following summer, I gave up late mornings and relaxing by the pool to get up early and help doctors at the hospital. I had originally applied for a neurological internship, which the program did not offer, so I was shuffled into working with doctors in the maternity ward and the nursery. Nevertheless, by the end of the first week, I was feeding babies, checking vitals, changing diapers, and rolling them in carriages to their mothers and fathers. Each moment I spent helping the doctors with the newborns, I wondered if I should be an o.b./gyn doctor instead of a neurologist. One morning a few weeks after I began the internship, the doctors told me a mother was to deliver a baby, and she had given permission for me to view the delivery. For awhile the mother tried to deliver, but she was tense; the doctors kept telling her to relax and stay calm for the baby. The tense mother continued trying to deliver, and with the doctor's encouraging words and the heat of the small, boxy room, I became conscious of what I was about to witness and wondered if I could handle it all. Before I could change my mind, a small, smooth head slowly emerged. I discovered what I had expected - I could not take it. Tears filled my eyes along with the healthy newborn baby's. What I had seen, some never see -- including the father who had decided he should stay in the much calmer hallway. As the beautiful baby was carried around from doctor to doctor to be examined and then to the mother's arms, I realized that I did not want to be an o.b./gyn doctor. Residents had warned me that this job must be a passion or one would burn out from stress and constant fatigue, which I definitely felt after watching the birth of a baby. As my internship continued, I helped doctors in the neo-natal care unit.

Ancient history Essay

Lebanon   French: Republique libanaise), is a country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon’s location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity. [8] The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than 7,000 years—predating recorded history. [9] Lebanon was the home of the Phoenicians, a maritime culture that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (3000–539 BC). Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the five provinces that comprise modern Lebanon were mandated to France. The French expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon, which was mostly populated by Maronite Catholics and Druze, to include more Muslims. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, and established a unique political system, known as confessionalism, a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities. French troops withdrew in 1946. Before the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the country experienced a period of relative calm and prosperity, driven by tourism, agriculture, and banking. [10] Because of its financial power and diversity, Lebanon was known in its heyday as the â€Å"Switzerland of the East†. [11] It attracted large numbers of tourists,[12] such that the capital Beirut was referred to as â€Å"Paris of the Middle East. † At the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure. [13] Until July 2006, Lebanon enjoyed considerable stability, Beirut’s reconstruction was almost complete,[14] and increasing numbers of tourists poured into the nation’s resorts. [12] Then, the month-long 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah caused significant civilian death and heavy damage to Lebanon’s civil infrastructure. However, due to its tightly regulated financial system, Lebanese banks have largely avoided the financial crisis of 2007–2010. In 2009, despite a global recession, Lebanon enjoyed 9% economic growth and hosted the largest number of tourists in its history. Etymology The name Lebanon comes from the Semitic root lbn, meaning â€Å"white†, likely a reference to the snow-capped Mount Lebanon. [15] Occurrences of the name have been found in texts from the library of Ebla,[16] which date to the third millennium BC, nearly 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, and three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh (perhaps as early as 2100 BC)[17]. The name is recorded in Ancient Egyptian as Rmnn, where R stood for Canaanite L. [18] Ancient history Main article: History of ancient Lebanon Evidence of the earliest known settlements in Lebanon was found in Byblos, which is considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world,[9] and date back to earlier than 5000 BC. Archaeologists discovered remnants of prehistoric huts with crushed limestone floors, primitive weapons, and burial jars left by the Neolithic and Chalcolithic fishing communities who lived on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over 7,000 years ago. [19] Lebanon was the homeland of the Phoenicians, a seafaring people that spread across the Mediterranean before the rise of Cyrus the Great. [20] After two centuries of Persian rule, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great attacked and burned Tyre, the most prominent Phoenician city. Throughout the subsequent centuries leading up to recent times, the country became part of numerous succeeding empires, among them Persian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Arab, Seljuk, Mamluk, Crusader, and the Ottoman Empire.

“Conyo Talk”: The Affirmation Of Hybrid Identity And Power In Contemporary Philippine Discource Essay

I. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM This study is conducted to find out the current status of the â€Å"conyo† talk in the Philippines. The study specifically answers and defines the following questions: 1. Origin and history of â€Å"conyo† talk in the Philippines 2. How does â€Å"conyo† talk affects the Filipino society? 3. Is â€Å"conyo† talk a part of our culture or not? 4. Why is â€Å"conyo† being discriminated? 5. Why do Filipinos love to mix languages? II. HYPOTHESIS No stated hypothesis in the study. III. RESEARCH METHOD The researcher used historical research method to examine the past events in order to identify the origin and definition of unfamiliar terms. This method also helped the researcher to broaden their experiences. It aims to determine the past eents in making the research possible. Acoording to Good and Scates (1972), the divisions of sources of historical research are the documents which report of events which are composed of impressions made on some human brain by past events and the remains of relics which are physical objects or written materials of historical value and produced without deliberately aiming to impact information. With these divisions of sources, the researcher were able to know more about the subjects past conditions that can be used for the study. IV. CONCLUSION AND FINDINGS ‘Conyo’ talk is a cultural identification where its speakers can be described as having a profound cultural ambivalence. ‘Conyo’ speakers use it not spontaneously, like in situations of code switching, but intentionally to demarcate their own space. This type of discourse is clearly used as a strategy to give the impression of being privileged socially and  economically. The switching between languages clearly conveys the multiple and complementary identities its speakers create for themselves. They have created a ‘social community’ taking on the role of stereotype images of Spaniards or Americans that exist in the Philippine popular imagination adding â€Å"local color† to their everyday discourse. They communicate with other ‘conyo’ speakers directly, without the need of explanations. Discussions on why ‘conyo’ talk exists have gone beyond face-to-face everyday conversation. ‘Conyo’ speakers have created an effective space through the help of Internet where anyone from anywhere can join in. And â€Å"space is fundamental in any form of power of communal life† (Foucault 2000, p. 361). The Philippine linguistic and cultural phenomenon â€Å"coà ±o talk† (a mix of predominantly Spanish and English with tagalog) is a type of discourse that purportedly identifies and differentiates people of ‘power’ from the common masses, and arose from the impact of Spanish and American colonization. Due to steady linguistic influences, resulting from contacts with different peoples and cultures, a word or a phrase may take on another meaning among a given group of people, entirely different from its original significance, where â€Å"a meeting of cultures in the intercultural sphere results in irreversible intra-cultural changes† (Mey 2007, p. 171). In the last decade, it has become the solution to problems of intercommunication where some Filipinos draw on the languages they know and tailor them for their specific shifting communicative needs. ‘Conyo’ talk became an emulation of how English and/or Spanish speakers talked to native Filipinos: a sentence in English and/or Spanish with some Filipino words. In time, it has become a stance among the middle class and the preferred means of communicating with others and establishing potential relationships. In conclusion, this study reflects the contradictory and shifting positions and boundaries of some Filipinos due to lack of confidence in their language fluency, social and economic status. The participants of the web discussions analyzed are searching for a comfortable position to show societal identification. On one hand, they want to affirm their right to be different and highlight their individuality, and on the other hand, they criticize everything that separates them from other individuals or threaten their individuality. Philippines is a hybridized society, and many Filipinos want to preserve the double cultural standard, maintaining the dominance of  Eng lish and Spanish as languages of power, but embracing as well their complex identities manifesting openly the hybridity of their identity as Filipino, Hispanic and Anglophone.â€Å"Conyo talk†: the affirmation of hybrid identity and power in contemporary Philippine discourse. The common ground that unites all ‘conyo’ speakers is their cultural peculiarity and historical memory. In the Philippines, despite being a colony of Spain for more than 300 years (1521-1898), Spanish has remained an exclusive language. It continues to be reserved only for the upper/middle class and university-educated people. Later, when the islands as a nation was transferred to the Americans through the Treaty of Paris in 1898, English – spoken by the educated, upper/middle class – was accorded the same privileged status. Social structures are the determining factors on how speakers behave, their particular ways of speaking, choices of words and rules for conversing. Filipinos who speak fluently Spanish and/or English are perceived to be from upper/middle class and are treated with more respect. On the other hand, Philippine languages are considered inferior and the languages of the poor and illiterates. And because of the continuous disregard for Philip pine languages and the high esteem held for Spanish and English, some Filipinos who have not come to terms with their perception of themselves as the ‘other’ created a hybrid language where they persistently identify with their former colonizers. Consequently, ‘conyo’ talk has become the response for many Filipinos who, constrained by their background and having been deprived, at one point, of ‘power’ -economic as well as social – , are constantly subjected to the idea of being ‘the other’. ‘Conyo’ talk has become a metaphor of what they have been denied – the Spanish language, and an affirmation of their existence and the power that should be theirs and should continually flow to them. Its representation, as Blumenberg (2010) aptly wrote, â€Å"indicates the fundamental certainties, conjectures, and judgments in relation to which the attitudes and expectations, actions and inactions, longings and disappointments, interests and indifferences, of an epoch† (p. 14). ‘Conyo’ talk has become a social-cultural default for many who want to be perceived as coming from upper-middle class, or simply an individual with ‘power’. The advent of Internet and Web discussions has opened new venues for people to discuss matters that affect society without being prejudiced. The opening threads of â€Å"What is conyo ba?†, â€Å"Why do  Filipinos love to mix languages?† and â€Å"Why are conyos discriminated?† shed light on the need to comprehend how this discourse came into being, why speakers have chosen to speak it, what it represents to them. Participants facilitate, and even guide the flow of conversations – from discussing its possible origins, their position towards its speakers or the discourse itself to expressing themselves in ‘conyo’. It is evident, from the examples cited, that its speakers endeavor to assert their identity as Filipino, Hispanic and Anglophone. They have created among themselves a type of jargon that is textually mediated where norms and rules are flexible, subject to interlocutors’ interpretations, and as in many social practices, they facilitate â€Å"perceived anomalies to pass, in order to make sense of the rules and make the coding categories ‘fit’ the data† (Firth 2009, p. 69). Thus, when two participants wrote in Spanish: â€Å"?porque hay conyo? para el pene puede lo entre.† and â€Å"exactamente, Una mujer tiene un conyo asà ­ que puedo utilizar mi pene serà ¡ malo que una mujer tenga†, no one seemed to mind the faulty grammar; on the contrary, the intention was accurately understood by some and were amused by these remarks. ‘Conyo’ talk’s unwritten rules of conduct aremultifunctional and reflexively relate to its context of use. It is like a language game where the interactants position themselves intersubjectively. Thus, when one reads â€Å"Yu-uck, that’s sooo s-q-H2o!† or â€Å"OMGeesshh dude pare bro labuyo!†, only a person familiar with this type of discourse can understand and infer the utterances’ meanings and allow themselves to be subjected to it. In this case, comprehension is achieved â€Å"procedurally and contextually in what is said is invariably assessed in a particular, loc al context, by particular persons, at particular moment† (Ibid., p. 71) IV. ANALYSIS Just like English and Tagalog, â€Å"conyo† talk is just another way of Filipinos, especially the teens, to express and to communicate. Despite being referred to as the way of the â€Å"rich kids† to talk, â€Å"conyo† talk can be heard almost all around the Philippines, especially, in conversations in almost all of the universities in the Metro Manila. Students from private schools and universities are more likely to be heard talking in a â€Å"conyo† way. English and Tagalog words are combined to make a sentence or phrase. I can say that to talk in a â€Å"conyo† way is part of the Filipino students’ culture, especially those who are in the â€Å"higher ups† in our society. But looking on the brighter side of it, I noticed that this â€Å"conyo† talk shows how intelligent the Filipinos are. It may sound annoying, but only the Filipinos can do that to talk with each other using a combination of two languages. They can position themselves more easily without fear of retaliation or ridicule as well as express solidarity, difference and/or power similar to everyday interactions or the hybridity-of-the-everyday. Participants use a more informal language, colloquial forms and other features that are usually associated with spoken language. In this case, hybridity occurs in the responses to the threads posted in reaction to positioning within the ambiguity of what is a Filipino. Are Filipinos only Asians, Hispanics, or Anglophones, or all of these? At the same time, in their continual accommodations of positions and power differences the idea of otherness may haunt the possibility of identification, for in many multiethnic societies such as the Philippines, â€Å"discourse is bounded by the essentialism of social status† (Tate 2007). Factors independent of specific speakers and circumstances, such as economic forces, power relation as well as factors directly related to speakers’ social networks and relationships, their attitudes and their self-perception and perception of others, influence their use of one or another language, or both. In virtual interactions, due to anonymity, member participants have more freedom to create identities to reflect their thoughts and belief. V. REFERENCES http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/linguelinguaggi/article/viewFile/12641/11252 Blumenberg, H. 2010, Paradigms for a Metaphorology, Cornell University Press, U. S. Bhabha, H. 1990, Dissemination, in Bhabha, H. (ed.), Nation and Narration, Routledge, New York, pp. 291-323. Firth, A. 2009, Ethnomethodology, in D’hondt, S., Ostman, J.O. and Verscheren, J. (eds.), The Pragmatics of Interaction, John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam, pp. 66-78 Mey, J. 2007, Developing pragmatics interculturally, in Kecskes, I and Horn, L (eds.),Exploration in Pragmatics, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 165-189.

High School Analogy Essay

A newly bought camera, one that gives the buyer satisfaction, yet a strange tingling feeling of unfamiliarity with a pinch of nervousness and fear. Now there’s a high school freshman feeling the very same thing looking at a new environment; strangely a camera and high school have a comparable relationship, with very obvious difference and . One such similarity, is that when a student takes their first few strides into the usual two storey building, it resembles him taking his very first picture. Both individuals new and inexperienced, every move is made with caution afraid of what the outcome could be. Perhaps, an embarrassing moment? A broken camera?. Both face criticism inside lowering their inner confidence, he looks at his photographs often ranking them poorly, while she looks at some of her peers judgmentally and the same comes back to her. Another comparison, looks at the ever-changeable lens on the camera representing her ever-changing views on the present and future. An extending lens that looks ahead at the long road that is yet to be journeyed through and short, stubble ones they may remind her of the moment she is in. As she gets comfortable and more confident, the student is met by a whirlwind of opportunities. Each chance that walks past, she begins to see a new path, some that are very clear and some that are not in focus since it seems so far away. As days pass, she begins to see those opportunities in a new light, stopping more often to think and bring it into focus. The buyer also now picks up his camera casually like it belongs in hands just a ring belong on a finger. As an image comes into focus on the screen and her visual mind, the moment is captured in that very time, and stored in their memory. One being natural and the other digital. Finally, when the time comes to buy a new camera or move forward, both him and her view life more positively, raising their head in pride. As the chapter of high school, and his very first camera approaches its close, they take their experiences with them and move on to a firmer ground where the environment is a very familiar one. Their previous chapters soon become forgotten as life leads them elsewhere, but the memories remain, once in awhile reminding them of that one time and they don’t fade unless you willingly reach for the