Activity and Disengagement theory Essays

Activity and Disengagement theory Essays Activity and Disengagement theory Paper Activity and Disengagement theory Paper Looking at the activity theory, each practice persuades elderly to stay active by proving them with activities such as bingo, quizzes, physical activities, music and sensory activates. I believe from this the practice will be able to ensure that elderly people stay active. This theory relates to the practice because people in this practice have retired, however they still have other things to keep them entertained. Living in this practice will make them become part of the community there. This will make them stay involved with others. The practice will promote and prolong their activities. They will make sure that their clients maintain their relationship with the family and friends. However there are some with physical disabilities, mental health disabilities or learning disabilities who may not be able to participate in those activities. This theory convinces others to participate and to keep fit; however there can be times were keeping all clients fit becomes difficult. There are residents who may disengage themselves in the health and social care setting. This could be because they may have physical or learning disability which may make them unable to take part. There are some resident who choose not to get involved, not to take part in the services or activities available with the rest and to stay alone wanting to disengage themselves. People should respect their views as this is part of the Human Rights. The disengagement theory can also relate to health and social care settings if the setting doesnt have enough money to provide with such services and activities. This will not provide with appropriate facilities and resident may disengage themselves because of that. I have found that people who are lonely are twice as likely to develop Alzheimers disease, a large US study has suggested. This means that more people die from loneliness than diseases as I found from my research. So if the care setting doesnt provide with activities and make sure that each client is well aware of those services they can take part in, then it will make them feel lonely and they may be at a high risk of developing Alzheimer. This theory can influence some of the client to forget about their family and friends and just to wait for the rest of their lives. However other clients may find it wrong and always keep in mind not to let the disengagement influence them in the setting. Evaluate he nature-nurture debate in relation to the development of the individual. Nature is what we are born with and inherited. This is things like the way we are and our DNA. However nurture is what influences us from outside such as society determine who you are. It is more about what a person is like due to the environment they are in. I have looked at a debate on nature vs. nurture on gay people. It showed the following questions. Are people made or born gay? Are we all straight until our environment or some traumatic event makes us gay or have we indeed had gay feelings for as long as we can remember? Some of the article is shown below. I was born gay! You cant make someone gay no more than you can make someone straight. Of course environmental factors affect our sexuality. You just cant generalize these types of things. Ultimately what you end up doing is trying to figure out how to stop it like its a disease or somethinginstead of trying to help people ACCEPT themselves for who they are and help nurture them into healthy relationships. I was made gay! Might any of these factors (in the life of someone male) contribute towards giving him a gay disposition, or at least make him more inclined to seek the love of men? An alcoholic parent, mother or father; A cold parent, mother or father; Having been in a boys boarding school since about 11. Looking at this article, I have showed both nature and nurture side of the debate. I agree with the nurture side of this debate. I believe that gay people are gay because of their environment and surroundings. Like the boy that said he was made gay because he was surrounded by boys since he was 11 made him have interest in them. However I dont believe this is the right reason for this. I used to go to a girls school and was surrounded by girls from the age of 12 until I left secondary school and I am not a lesbian. But different people feel different about different situations. He mentioned that he didnt get support from parents as they were alcoholics. This can also be the reason as its the environment he is surrounded by. This debate will help gay people in their development as they will get information they need from researchers such as, scientist, psychologist and qualified people. This debate is useful as it creates ownership. If people are the way they are because of the environment, then what makes the environment this? This is because of who we vote for to lead in our communities. Arguments are given to qualify peoples position, so its useful for those people to take part. This will also mean taking responsibilities. Producing arguments helps with the development of the individual. This is because these arguments come from those who are qualified. They will also get money from this and will continue with researching. On the other hand people may feel that they have to take sides, but it all depends on the individual. For example if you have sickle cell anaemia, then there is no nurture part that is affecting your life as you will have to regularly visit the hospital. However the nurture part can affect the development of an individual if they live in a poor country were the transport to getting hospital is hard and treatments are not available. Personality is also something that people debate is either nature or nurture. Here are both of the sides. Personality is Natural This group believes that your personality is result of evolutionary process. You inherit behaviours due to complex interaction of genes. They control your behaviours. So you dont have a free will to act otherwise. Personality is Nurtured This group argues that you dont get your personality inherited. Your mind is a blank slate at your birth. It is your environment, education and culture that make up your behaviours. There are differences on the issue of free will to change your behaviours. Personally I believe that both nature and nurture influenced me on my outcome. Looking at Darwins theory of evolution, he proposed that like physical organs, your personality is result of natural selection for survival of the fittest. You do as your genes dictate. They suggest that fear of death, fear of injury, fear of snakes, shyness, addiction, criminality and sexual orientation are main examples of inheritable behaviours. This debate can take away responsibilities on the individual and make the individual blame it on education, friends and culture. Also gang culture; if people grow up carrying knifes and guns, they are more likely to make their own children do the same thing or even steal. This will make the individual place the blame on the environment, gene or biology.

EIP assignment shopaholic Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

EIP shopaholic - Assignment Example Contemporary culture manifests a shopaholic as a maniac whose behavior is irrational. The research seeks to find out whether a shopaholic is really an irrational character. This is possible through examining the factors that re responsible for the making of a shopaholic. Since this is a social issue, the research shall only deal with secondary data. This is because secondary data is highly likely to employ qualitative analysis in assessing such a phenomenon. This occurs because such an issue requires multiple perspectives in drawing a conclusion. Secondary data, in this sense, traverses articles and books assessing the issue in terms of sociological, economical, business, and psychological perspectives. Secondary data will seek to inform the audience whether excessive shopping is a natural behavior or whether the same is an irrational habit. In turn, the data analysis shall occur qualitatively. This book seeks to analyze the predispositions for shopping as well as provide solutions for the behavior. In this sense, the author examines compulsive buying as a problem rather than as a mere phenomenon. The author explains shopping mania as a habit that develops to cure a different psychological need rather arise to satisfy the actual need of shopping. The text, therefore, manifests over-shopping as a means of distracting oneself from dealing with an essential emotional need such as love. Alternatively, it could be a means of gaining the attention of others if the involved person feels that others do not care about one. Besides, over-shopping could be a product of low self-esteem if the victim engages in impulsive purchases to feel important about oneself (Benson 14). The book, therefore, recommends mindful shopping as a means of countering this problem. It highlights the essence of financial security as a means of leading an enjoyable life in the end. The book entails the philo sophical arguments of merging the

Reflective paper The concept of the Dreaming Essay

Reflective paper The concept of the Dreaming - Essay Example It is the commonality tying all Australian indigenous groups and guiding them through all aspects of life. People see it as an embodiment of creation giving meaning to everything. It is said to establish rules that govern relationships between people, land and every existing thing for the aboriginal people. Edward refers to the dreaming as the time that the aboriginal people came to existence (Bingham, 2004). The dreaming is by far the most prominent views and ideals of the indigenous people despite the vast variety amongst the aboriginal people across Australia. Indigenous Australia was and is a multi-cultural society. Although quite a number of groups across the whole of Australia had their own languages distinct from each other also different life styles and dreaming stories, all of them had teachings concerning the natural and spiritual worlds, proper behaviors among themselves and also the laws that would govern the society(Caruana, 2003). There are three waves of migration into Australia. Edward termed the Ocean Negritos first wave’, with Murrayians being the second, and Carpentarians being the third. All the migrated people groups of the people that migrated had a diversified language. The number Aboriginal tongues were estimated to be 6000 in the entire Australia at that time. The diversity came up with different values and faith in the entire Dreaming era. The importance of Dreaming every bit of life forces the humans, the land, flora, fauna, the ancestral beings, and natural phenomena is inextricably and eternally connected to every other part (Buist, 2011). There are three key aspects of the dreaming. This includes the spiritual beings, kinships and dreaming stories. As seen earlier despite the differences in the languages or the land, they were born in the aboriginal people had common beliefs on the spiritual beings. They did have kinship systems but were not governed by chiefs or sub-chief as opposed to the case that came

Applied linguistics Essay Example for Free

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

Economic Growth :: Economy Economics Governmental Essays

Economic growth is the most important study in economics today. The first book on economics was by Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations the full title was the Inquire Into The Nature And Sources Of The Wealth Of Nations. â€Å"Economic growth determines a countries future, and economic growth in the past determines a countries present as far as it’s material values are concerned.† (Buechner Recording) So every material value of the modern world is a result economic growth in the past, or your standard of living is the result of economic growth in the past. Economic growth in the future will determine whether or not there is rising or falling economic wealth, and coordinated with that whether or not the standard of living in the future continues to rise or fall. For example: In 1870 England was the leading industrial power of the globe, and as a consequence it also was the leading political power of the globe. According to M. Northrup Buechner the real wage rate in England is estimated to have been about 50% higher than the real wage rate in other European countries at that time. (Recording) It was about 1870 because of the rise of statist policies and ideologies that rate of growth in England started to lag behind that of the other European Countries. It didn’t lag a lot Buechner states the statistical estimate was less than one percent a year, however for a period of 10 or 20 years that’ll make a difference hardly anybody would notice. Yes maybe so, but if you compound that interest rate over 100 years what you get is what you see today. England is essentially a third rate economic power, and the real wage rate in England today is estimated to be â€Å"about 33% less than the real wage rate in other European countries.à ¢â‚¬  (Buechner Recording) In 1870 the United States in 1870 was an economically backward, internationally insignificant, and unimportant country in the world with respect to matters regarding foreign affairs. According to Buechner it was about 1870 when the United States embarked on a growth rate of over 5% percent a year, which was sustained for a period of over 40 years. (Recording) No country in the history of the world matched that record. At the end of that period about the time of World War I the United States took Britain’s place as the leading industrial power of the globe.

Panera Bread Company: Still Rising Fortunes? Essay

Panera Bread is a renowned restaurant that has come about from the merging of great companies and people. However, the beginning was actually with Au Bon Pain which was started in Boston’s Feneuil Hall as a demonstration bakery. Louis Kane was struck by this store’s growth potential and purchased the business in 1978. Between 1978 and 1981 the company opened 13 stores, but subsequently closed 10 of these stores, in the Boston area and had major debt. Ronald Shaich, a recent graduate from Harvard, opened the Cookie Jar in 1980 and befriended Louis Kane. In 1981, the friends merged the Au Bon Pain and the Cookie Jar to form one business known as Au Bon Pain Co. Inc. The co-CEO’s were able to lower debt, expand the business, and centralized facilities for dough production. In 1985, the company added fresh made sandwiches to their production when they noticed customer behavior of purchasing a baguette cut in half and using cold cuts brought from home to make sandwich es. This allowed for a new way to reach customers with fast service, all the while staying nutritious. Panera opened in three business segments: company owned bakery-cafà © operations, franchise operations, and fresh dough operations. The key initiatives of Panera’s growth was focused on growing store profit, increasing transaction and gross profit per transaction, use its capital smartly, and put in place drivers for concept differentiation and competitive advantage. During the recession, while other companies were lowering pricing and quality of goods, Panera was doing the opposite. The company instead targeted customer who could afford to spend an average of $8.50 on lunch. So during 2009, the company raised prices twice, on bagels and soups, which enabled the company to provide more for less. This attitude also allowed the company to maintain employees and customer satisfaction. By keeping labor consistent with sales and continuing to invest in its employees as a way to better serve its customers. In 2009, Panera had sales of nearly $2.8 billion and was ranked as the large st fast casual chain. Panera learned from its competitors, none of those competitors had yet to figure out the formula for Panera’s success. Panera has continued to add new and exciting products to its menu and strive to meet the expectations of its customers, and this included the new breakfast sandwiches introduced in 2008. The menu was redesigned and its menu boards with the hope of drawing the customer eye to the highest margin items. These new menus also included the calorie information for items in 2010, well  before any other company did so. The company has been able to anticipate and react to changes in food and supply costs, included fuel, proteins, dairy, wheat, tuna, and cream cheese in effort to drive gross profit per transaction. Resources: When dealing with resources there a few that jump out such as: Panera’s intellectual capital, its financial position, and the executives. Each of these resources enable the company to grow and provide service to customers while maintaining their current standards. Panera has been able to see their company continue to generate profits, keep employees working, and grow the company. Since the company is so good to their employees and franchisees, these employees are eager to maintain quality, which in turn leads to more loyal customers. Panera realized that the key ingredient was the kind of people behind the counter who provides the customer service. Because the company is maintaining quality, which includes freshness and nutrition this allows the customers to choose this casual fast food location for a much better meal. Since the company is doing well financially, they are able to continue expanding, which leads to more jobs and potential for the areas surrounding the store. Th is in turn enables the company to maintain their financial position and continue to invest in new ventures. Capabilities: Panera offers a great value on their products. This healthy option offers a number of varieties which enable customers to get anything from soup to pastries. Since trends are always changing, Panera does a good job in changing their menu to keep with customer demands. This ever changing menu has offerings to satisfy changing customer preferences, improve its products, and maintain customer interest. By maintaining the customer interest in its menu items Panera must continue to do research and develop new goods. As Panera doesn’t have a test kitchen, these items are instead tested these items out directly in the cafà ©s. The research and development team have twice yearly retreats that allow these team members to â€Å"out do† each other with their creations. Panera has also been able to negotiate the real estate locations so that be actually favors the company. This is also true with the ordering food products and other goods. Most of these companies will offer discoun ts on goods due to the name recognition and  stability of the company when others are failing. Core Competencies: When looking into core competencies Panera has proven and developed many of these. The goal in the beginning was to sell high quality food with a mid-price level. Panera has since exceeded the goal and customer expectations in the casual fast food category. The company continues to maintain these expectations by having fresh dough distribution centers in regional areas. This provides the product quickly and allows for faster use which keeps the product fresher for customers. While Panera strives to maintain these standards, the company also reaches out to the surrounding community by giving away left over bread to homeless shelters and collects donations for other charities. Panera also believes in providing bakery-cafà © operators the chance to participate in the success of the location, which enable the company to attract and maintain experienced and highly qualified personnel. Findings of Fact: Franchising a Key to Success: Franchising is a key component in the growth that Panera has experienced. Since a franchisee is purchasing the use of the Panera name, this means that they are also purchasing the business model and trademark for their location. This allows the company to grow quickly and the franchisee contributes the resources and capabilities necessary to implement the Panera concepts and strategies. The franchise program began in 1996, and as of December 2009 there are 795 franchise-operated bakery-cafà ©s open throughout the US and Canada. There are also commitments to open another 240 additional locations. Panera sells locations via the Area Development Agreements (ADAs) and the franchisee must be able to meet financial requirements set forth by Panera. The strategic choice perspective, which proposes that not only does the company adapt to changing environments, but they also have the opportunity and power to reshape their own environment, means that Panera is able to draw customers who can a fford to spend a little more. By opening franchises across the country, the company is reaching for a functional strategy by achieving corporate and business unit objects. By implementing the strategy that each franchisee must open a set amount of locations within their development area can allow the company to expand and reach a greater  amount of customers. In 2009, 57.6% of the company’s bakery-cafà ©s were owned by franchises comprised of 48 franchise groups. Panera does not facilitate the construction or development of the area where a location will be built. Franchising is a great way for Panera to enter new markets with little to no cost to the company. This can be seen with how Panera moved into the Canadian market. Panera entered into a credit facility with a Canadian franchisee and in March 2010, Panera had repurchased the locations in order to be more directly involved in the new Canadian market. By implementing ways for franchisees to continue to expand and generate more sales Panera would be able to lower some of the standards set to become a franchisee and this would allow for more opportunities for growth both inside and outsid e of the US and Canada. Quality and Concept Different from Competitors: Facing competition from numerous sources in its trade area means that Panera has to offer something unique. This means that Panera offers something different, such as fresh-baked artisan breads, fresh sandwiches, soups, and salads without worrying about whether it was nutritious. The unique dining experience to customers, combined with nutritious food and fast service keep customers coming back. The friendly atmosphere, which includes comfortable seating, warm tones, and convenient locations can offer customers a better option to be able to hang out and possibly spend more money. Panera handles this obstacle by offering specialty food, casual dining, and quick service cafà ©s. However, competitive factors include location, environment, customer service, price, and quality of products. This means that Panera competes for the best locations, hourly employees, and customers. The corporate culture within Panera has always been a collection of beliefs, expectations, and values learned an d shared by the company employees. This results in employees striving to be the best that they can be when offering quality service and products. There are competitors who have begun to test the concept of â€Å"upscale† dining, may also test the health and wellness or sustainability component that could be included. By being able to maintain their core beliefs such as no chemicals or preservatives, the company is able to bring customers back to simpler times and provide good, quality food. Since Panera is able to  dedicate themselves to their concept the company has enjoyed brand loyalty, positive name recognition, and goodwill. Since Panera operated on three business segments such as company-owned bakery-cafà © operations, franchise operations, and fresh dough operations the company is able to keep a better feel for those segments and maintain standards. Panera was able to extend its strong values in unpretentious ways in a welcoming atmosphere. Locations were often donating bread and baked goods to community organizations in need which showed that they were involved in bettering their community. By ensuring that Panera sets the standards that competitors much strive to reach, the goal is to find a propitious niche, such as the casual fast food dining experience with specialty foods. Financial Growth Panera reported a 48% increase in net income of $25,845 million during the first quarter of 2010. Panera believed that its primary capital resource was cash generated by operations. The principle requirements for cash have resulted in the company’s capital expenditures for the development of new company owned bakery-cafà ©s. By putting this capital to work for the company, such as purchasing new equipment, remodeling locations, or other needs such as enhancements to information systems or infrastructure, will be able to maintain standards for products. The company has access to a $250 million credit facility, which as of December 2009, had to borrowings outstanding. Panera will be able to use its cash flow from operations and available borrowing under its existing credit facility will be sufficient to fund its capital requirements for the foreseeable future. Panera should continue to invest in training, labor, and quality products. Panera was able to increase costs, which resulted in better products while other competitors were cutting costs, and this resulted in a more loyal customer. The company should continue to increase performance and be able to increase stock prices. The franchise agreements also provide a source of income when fees are due. These royalties and fees in fiscal year 2009 were up and with the franchisee opening more locations that should continue to grow. Finding ways to provide quality products at a mid-level cost to the customer will continue to ensure that Panera will continue to see growth in the future. Panera should begin to spend some of the capital on marketing.  Although most of the marketing has been done by word of mouth, there is no reason why the company couldn’t do some advertising. This would increase customer knowledge and traffic within the locations. Overall Panera Bread Co. Inc. is a stable company which has continued to grow as other competitors scaled back in the recent recession. Panera offers quality food, customer service, and a welcoming environment which some other competitors do not offer. By offering this type of arrangement for customers, it encourages more spending and allows customers to take their time while getting their meals faster. Being a national leader in business can allow the company to meet obligations and ensure that the capital will continue to grow. Panera will continue to set standards and strive to meet them every day. Works Cited Wheelen, Thomas L. and J. David Hunger. Strategic Management & Business Policy. 12th Edition. Boston: Pearson. 2012. Print

The Death Of Death After The End Of Every Life - 998 Words

Often times, we forget the inescapable end to our lives, the inevitable death. Although some of us understand how precious and delicate life is, we must also ascertain that death awaits us at the end of every life. Identically, we understand death which is due to old age which can be predicted and even expected. In spite of this, we rarely take into consideration that death can even be sudden leaving certain areas of our lives unresolved. Consequently, if death is expected, we are allotted time to say goodbye to our loved ones, resolve conflicts and even seek forgiveness for our sins or those we have wronged. Nonetheless, most do not physically or emotionally prepare for death, which leaves little understanding for us to cope with it. Uniformly important, there are several religious aspects to death in regards to the religious who have faith in various types of religions. That being said, the afterlife is unknown to many and equally hard to explain or portray. It goes without saying that some do not fear death because of their instilment of faith in their individual religion. Others ultimately fear death if there is an absence of religion in their lives. A majority feels that death is the awaited transition into the afterlife in which your life is taken into account to determine if you will pass through heaven or hell. It is for these reasons why dying is an event that is beyond our understanding and there are certain spiritual needs required by the dying to be at peace whenShow MoreRelatedDeath : How The Perspective Of People Changes When They Are On The Edge Of Life1173 Words   |  5 PagesDeath: How the perspective of people changes when they are on the edge of life. Death is the point that marks the end of a human’s life. 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