Curriculum-based Pedagogy

Every educator across levels has their own understanding and views about curriculum and pedagogy and these may be based from personal and theoretical knowledge and from their own experiences both as a student and educator. An educator in the conduct of his or her profession in actual practice would be guided by his or her perspective on what curriculum is and should be. Curriculum studies and development had become abstract and highly theoretical and curriculum inquiry is a difficult and perplexing area of study which many educators are not comfortable with.However, the beauty of curriculum inquiry is that it enables educators to come to terms with their own beliefs and interpretation of curriculum. The exercise can be quite painful and revealing to educators as it makes them realize their biases and preconceived notion on what education should be and how lacking or adequate their approaches and philosophies are. It is in this context that I begin the process of self-reflection on my own beliefs and perspective on curriculum-based pedagogy and the theories and personalities that have influenced me as an educator.I do not intend to justify my beliefs or educational philosophies but rather I attempt to expound on what I think are effective practices and curriculum theories that I have embraced in my profession as an educator. I know that theories are not infallible and some may generate more questions and criticisms than answers but I do believe that it is still a good practice to anchor one’s beliefs in a certain theory or perspective as it provides a guide and substance to what I do as educator.In this paper, I try to make sense of my own realities and how it has affected my work and my personal life. There are two kinds of educators, those who follow curriculums strictly and those who adopt curriculums to their own realities and learning environment (Eisner, 1998). I would like to think that I belong to the latter. I had always thought of curriculum as a guide, as a framework and as an evaluative tool in how I conduct my teaching. I do not adhere to a specific curriculum nor do I force curriculum to a learning environment if it is not suited.I have nothing against those who use curriculum religiously because I have seen it to be effective in some schools however, in a diverse learning environment, one has to adopt and adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of all learners. I still see this approach as curriculum-based because I follow the instructional models that the curriculum provides; the changes I make are still based on the given curricula and basically teach the same thing and arrive at the same learning goals but in a slightly more appropriate way for my set of learners.I may not always interpret and apply the lessons and approaches provided for by the curriculum accurately, but I always see to it that every lesson is a learning experience for my students. There are different reasons for adhering to a curriculum approach, one can be an implementer, a developer or a maker and the choice would be dictated by one’s personal experience and perspective.I view education as a complete process that mirrors life and teaches students the skills and knowledge that they need to live this life. On the other hand, I also acknowledge the great impact of learner characteristics to the effectiveness of education, thus, curriculum-based pedagogy should not be viewed as a narrow and constricting approach to instruction but as a democratic and deliberate artistry that will lead to a more practical and appropriate learning process (Feden & Vogel, 2003).I know of some educators who had adhered to the curriculum they had been trained to use and apply for the longest time, they were experts in that certain curriculum and have produced learning and knowledge for their students to absorb and assimilate, but they had refused to learn anything else. I don’t blame them, comfort and familiarity is a much safer terr ain than change and innovation. At a certain point in my profession, I had also gravitated towards curriculum fidelity wherein I did everything by the book and relied on what curriculum experts deemed as true and correct and most effective.However, when one immerses oneself in the filed and puts the curriculum to practice, it is a different story. There were instances when I was left hanging and felt inadequate about my teaching even when I did everything that was asked by the curriculum, I thought I was not being a good teacher, I took me some time to realize that the curriculum I was using was not meeting the needs of my students.The curriculum was not at fault, nor was my teaching the problem, the problem was that I restricted my creativity and artistry in interpreting the guides given by the curriculum; I was not confident in my own abilities but relied on what was prescribed and suggested. The obsession with following curriculum guides, lessons and content led me to become a cu rriculum transmitter. I was focusing on what was in the book, in the unit lessons and had very few attempts at augmenting the lessons through additional research or innovative strategies.The lessons I was teaching was only based on the prescribed textbook and I followed it unit by unit even though I noticed that some units were not relevant or applicable and that some units were not in the right order of presentation. I thought I was being a good teacher by following closely what was demanded of me based on the curriculum. My principal and supervisor approved of my teaching and the system that I followed, it was in those times when curriculum was the be all and end all of pedagogy.Why would it not be, when it was assumed that the prescribed curriculum was the best and that the teaching strategies and unit lessons covered all the things that students are expected to learn? Moreover, the curriculum was designed by curriculum experts who were knowledgeable about student learning and ef fective instruction. As I gained experience as a teacher, I begun to notice things, that sometimes the content covered in the curriculum was not developmentally appropriate because students were not absorbing it, that sometimes the lessons were too long for something that was easy and sometimes it was too short for a difficult concept.It was at this point that I became more aware of my students needs and how the prescribed curriculum was not really bringing out the desired learning from the students. I started slowly, at first I felt guilty about skipping some units but then I found out that the amount of learning students gained was not affected by the skipped units.I also tried little by little to introduce new information from other books or materials and made use of different strategies in presenting the lessons and student became more interested, in the past I was labeled as a boring teacher, but when I made the changes, I became a little popular and students started greeting m e in the hallways. But I did get in trouble for those changes, my principal was alarmed at why my previously quiet classes were becoming noisy, and why were my lesson plans not in accordance with the content in the book.I was told to revert to my old teaching strategies and to continue using the prescribed textbook only. And as I was an obedient teacher then, I did as I was told, however the seed was planted. I was wondering whether other schools followed the curriculum closely and whether there was some other way of teaching the same content. This is when I decided to find answers to my questions and I pursued higher education to augment my knowledge and understanding of educational practices and curriculum. I guess I have gone back to school full of idealism and the hope of finding the answers to my questions.When I went back to school I was eager to prove my supervisors wrong and that I was correct. It was only when I had started reading the course materials and the papers given to us in class did I realize that curriculum-based pedagogy is more than an approach, more than a theoretical concept. At first I had difficulty reconciling the fact that there are a number of curriculums that different schools adhered to and that effectiveness is often measured in terms of student outcomes and achievement of learning goals. At best the course was an eye opener, but sadly after two courses I decided to go back to teaching full time.I thought that I could better apply my curriculum perspective in real classrooms and students than simply learning it in class. I decided to become a curriculum developer in the sense that I would try to adjust and modify the curriculum I was working with. I guess I was too adamant for my own good, because I found myself half-baked, wondering whether the strategies I was using was correct or not and not knowing how to derive feedback from my colleagues or my students on the quality of my teaching. I found myself using one strategy after a nother that often left my students confused instead of gaining understanding.I begun to read about curriculum theorists and I was enlightened by their conceptions of what curriculum should be and how it is applied in actual teaching. However, some were too theoretical for me, it was too abstract and complex that naturally I gravitated towards the theories that were more practical, more realistic and more applicable to my present reality as a teacher. But I knew that whatever practical understanding I have of those curriculum theories, I was sorely lacking in the theoretical aspect and could not distinguish one from the other.Thus, I knew I had to go back to school, this time with a more open mind and a desire to learn. In the next part of the paper, I will outline the different perspectives of the curriculum theorists and educational figures that have impacted my own professional life as an educator and how they contributed to my own conception of deliberate artistry. John Dewey and the Social Curriculum John Dewey is one of the pioneers of curriculum development and in his pedagogic creed he outlined the nature of education and what its subject content should be (Dewey,1897).I read Dewey’s creed as part of our course readings and I readily found his perspective to appeal to my own sense of educational focus. Dewey argued that children develop through social interaction and the social environment that the child is situated in. Thus, to him education should reflect the social life of the child, he pointed out that schooling should be a life itself and not as a preparation for future life (Dewey,1897). I think what Dewey was arguing was for educators to make their lessons and instructions mirror reality and actual life relationships and processes instead of some abstractions.It is very easy for us to teach mathematical concepts and relationships in algebra and trigonometry without placing those relationships in actual experiences or realities. In this cas e, the teacher should be able to make the connections between algebraic relationships to objects and concepts that are real to the student. Who would have ever thought that mathematical concepts could be used to predict the number of baseball homeruns? Math becomes more real to the student when it is explained in terms of baseball, a sport that most students play or know about and are very real to them.Dewey also said that there are two aspects of education, psychological and social, wherein the intellect and development of the child’s psychological processes serves as the starting point for which education and learning should be based (Dewey,1897). Dewey recognized that the child in the course of his or her development has the capacity to make sense of his or her social interactions and will learn from it. The sociological aspect of education is to place into context the psychological attributes of the child and to ascribe meaning to his or her capacities in relation to his or her social reality.It is important for both the psychological and sociological aspect of education to be aligned as it would benefit the child and lead to optimum learning. For example, providing psychological stimulation without social meaning will result to superficial learning while focusing on the sociological without considering the psychological would result to developmentally inappropriate content and instruction. In this respect, Dewey advocated that education for it to be effective; it should be cognizant of both the intellect and development of the child and the social environment of the child.It makes perfect sense to me that Dewey strived to communicate such practice because we now know that learning and instruction must be synchronized and aligned for effective learning to occur, but he was ahead of his time. At present, the curriculum standards of most states dictate that at a certain grade level and age, a child must be able to master and learn a set of skills and information that are appropriate for their age. However, what is problematic about these so called standards is that it does not take into account the variation of human development; some children develop faster while others appear to lag behind.On the other hand, children who do not perform at par with the given standards are labeled slow learners or have learning disability which strip them from their self-confidence and diminishes their self-worth. In an age where we know more about cognitive development than ever before, we fail at incorporating that knowledge to the social institution that is responsible for educating our children and our future. Dewey was correct when he said that education should be focus on the total development of the child or student in relation to his or her social activities.But this is easier said than done, when accountability issues and achievement scores dominate the educational system, it is very difficult to honor Dewey’s recommendations. De wey postulated a curriculum that would allow for the social development of the child, for schools to become social institutions and for educational content to become the social life of the child (Dewey,1897). In this way, the child becomes more in touch with his or her nature and the social context in which he or she engages in a daily basis and which constitutes his or her life. This would imply that lessons taught should be through the experiences of the child.For example, a kindergarten teacher who wishes to introduce her students to counting and numbers would be more effective if she uses blocks, balls or candies that children are familiar with and have come across it through their social interaction. On the other hand, it would not make sense to teach a historical event to students without connecting it to their present realities. For example, if I teach children about some ancient civilization and not connect it to the present realities in our society and culture, then I would have failed to impart to them information that had mattered and that would have shaped their own learning.In terms of curriculum content, Dewey had said that every lesson, concept and skill should be taught in the view of the social activities of the child. He had identified a number of subject matters that should be taught to children and this includes the arts, literature, language, culture and science as it encompasses the essence of human life. However, he cautioned on the mere teaching of science as an objective subject as it limits the experience of students in terms of how social lie is shaped by scientific developments.Dewey also stressed the importance of literature and language studies as the expression and cultivation of life experiences (Dewey,1897). It is important to study literature as it provides children with an unrestrictive medium of self expression as well as an understanding of the social realities of the past and the present. Language should not be taught only as a series of sounds, phonetics words or even grammar but as a form of communicating and the medium wherein knowledge is transmitted, ideas are shared and emotions are expressed.The problem with being too curriculum oriented is that we tend to rely on what is prescribed and live out our own creativity. Language instruction should first focus on the expression of experiences, the learning of grammar rules, tenses and subject-verb-agreement would then follow because the student has found that language is an effective agent of expressing ideas and experiences. In the classroom, this would mean that importance should be placed on developing students’ language skills such as speaking and then motivating them to become more effective communicators through the learning of correct grammar and pronunciation.

Indonesian Economy: Asia Pulp and Paper

Indonesian Economy Asia Pulp and Paper A short strategy analysis of APP mission , vision and strategy Indonesian Economy Asia Pulp and Paper A short strategy analysis of APP mission , vision and strategy Summary Introduction2 I. company overview3 II. APP’s financials, environment issues and mattel4 1. APP’s financials 2. Environment issues 3. Mattel III. The challenges and recomanded strategy7 1. The challeges 2. Recommandations IV. APP, a company to watch9 Conclusion10 References Introduction Corporate governance refers to the control of the firm, its ownership structure, and the disclosure quality. It was widely discussed in relation to the Asian crisis in 1997-98, because poor firm performance was assumed to be related to bad corporate governance . In particular, the East Asian economic model was said to reveal a â€Å"crony capitalism†, with the presence of numerous family-controlled groups, a high ownership concentration, a weak public governance, and poor monitoring of bank loans . The group Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) expanded impressively in the 1990s and became the largest pulp and paper producer in Asia outside Japan, and one of the top ten producers in the world. It attracted investors from all over the world in a context of â€Å"Asian miracle†, and because the giant pulp mills built in Indonesia were assumed to produce at the lowest cost in the world . Surprisingly, the group announced a debt standstill on $13 billion in 2001, the largest default for a private group in an emerging country At the same time, it was revealed that the industrial capacities had expanded at a much faster pace than the forest plantations, thus representing a high risk that operations would not be sustainable. Available studies showed the apparent lack of rationality in the decisions of the group, and the critical situation it faces from both financial and wood supply points of view. However, another explanation would be more convincing, which is based on the very rational behaviour of the ultimate owners of the group. This rationality being related to their ability: to increase their control of the decisions and accounts compared to their direct financial investments, to finance the expansion mainly with debts in order to reduce their own risks and to maximize their short-term profits, ,to benefit from a lax public governance context and a free access to natural forests for supplying fiber to the pulp mills. APP's trajectory has not been clean of obstacles , so with the tools provided by the theory strategy and organizational management we ‘re going to try to find the  «Ã‚  good  » way to manage that company . This is important because APP's default has attracted much attention so far, and the resolution of the case will impact on the willingness of foreigners to invest back in Indonesia. I. Company overview Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) has its roots in 1972, when the company Tjiwi Kimia was founded by Eka Tjipta Widjaja as a small caustic soda manufacturer. In 1978, Tjiwi Kimia commenced paper production of 12,000 tons/year. In December 1976, Indah Kiat was formed as a joint venture between CV Berkat (an Indonesian company), Chung Hwa Pulp Corporation and Yuen Foong Yu Paper Manufacturing Company Ltd. from Taiwan. In April 1979 Indah Kiat Tangerang mill’s Paper Machine 1 and 2 started with a production of 100 tons/day of wood free paper. By March 1984 Indah Kiat Perawang mill’s Pulp Machine 1 started producing bleached hardwood kraft pulp with an initial capacity of 250 tons/day. In May 1986 Sinar Mas Group acquired 67% of Indah Kiat’s total shares. Chung Hwa and Yuen Foong Yu had 23% and 10% shares respectively. In 1987 the first cast coating machine installed at Tjiwi Kimia, and in April 1990 Tjiwi Kimia was listed on the Jakarta and Surabaya Stock Exchange. In 1991 Tjiwi Kimia’s PM 9 started operation with an annual capacity of 207,000 tons. The following year Indah Kiat acquired PT Sinar Dunia Makmur, a manufacturer of industrial paper located in Serang with a 2. roduction capacity of 900 tons/day. jiwi Kimia commissioned the Carbonless Paper Plant in March 1993, an experiment The company Pindo Deli under control of APP in Feb. 1994, and by 1997 its paper machine #8 and #9 would both have begin operation with production capacity of 240,000 tons per year. In 1998, paper machine #11 started tissue production in Pindo Deli with annual production capacity of 400,000 tons started to operate. APP-China began investing in China in 1992, with an emp hasis on the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas. APP-China's pulp and paper mills now include Ningbo Zhonghua, Goldeast Paper, Ningbo Asia, Gold Huasheng, Gold Hongye, and Hainan Jinhai Pulp and Paper. APP-China was registered in Singapore in October 1994. APP-China employs over 37,000 people and created 5,000 new jobs in 2009 II. APP’S Financials, Environment issues and Mattel 1. APP’s financials Growth of the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia mainly came from leverage, which drove returns on equity ever higher. International financial institutions had played a central role in supplying the finances for APP. Its assets totaled US$17. billion, of which shareholders had financed 25 per cent (the most important shareholders being the Widjaja family, and the American fund managers, Franklin Templeton Investments and Capital Group), bondholders 38 per cent and banks 20 per cent. Over 300 international financial institutions, including many leading financial institutions (e. g. , investment banks in the U. S. , The Neth erlands, Switzerland and Germany) and export credit agencies were among those heavily involved in providing and guaranteeing this finance over the 10 years prior to 2001. Among the private financial institutions were Barclays Bank, NatWest, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton, Capital Group, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro and Bank of China. The use of financial â€Å"mark-up† practices – that is, the artificial inflation of the cost of an investment project – had allowed some pulp and paper products to secure much larger amounts of financing for their projects than they actually needed. In fact, financial institutions queued up to invest in the Indonesian pulp and paper companies because they perceived that they had a competitive advantage due to their access to cheap raw material resources. The situation turned difficult for APP in April 2001 when it announced that it had failed to include a US$220 million loss on two currency swap contracts in its financial statements, quickly followed by an official announcement that earlier financial statements for 1997 to 1999 â€Å"should not be relied upon†. A confidential 2,000-page report from KPMG released in July 2001 listed questionable transactions and accounting entries made in 1999 and 2000 by APP’s four Indonesian entities, and noted $1. 6 billion in provisions for doubtful debts, reclassification of receivables as well as a $672 million in derivative losses from various APP units. Other transactions, including $457 million in guarantees for non-APP companies, brought the total amount in the â€Å"questionable† category to $4. 41 billion. 2. Environment issues APP-China invested over 300 million RMB in environmental conservation facilities and activities in 2009 alone, and had invested over 5 billion RMB in environmental protection by 2009. APP-China inn 2009 also achieved 100% treatment of its solid waste from its six major pulp and paper mills. APP-China was honored in 2009 with the â€Å"Award of Contribution to Low Carbon Business (Multinational Corporation)† at the first meeting of the Low Carbon Forum hosted by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultatative Committee (CPPCC) and the China Association for Science and Technology. APP-China also received the â€Å"Green China Campaign-2009 Scientific Development of Forest Plantation Special Award† by the China Green Foundation and the State Bureau of Forestry, Center for Economic Development Research. Further, APP-China received the â€Å"2009 Scientific Forest Plantation Development Award† by the China Green Times. In November 2007, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) decided to rescind the rights of APP to use their logo, following pressure from other FSC Stakeholders, and a new policy approach by FSC Board of Directors. A investigation published in March 2008 by an environmental coalition called Eyes on the Forest showed evidence of a new road built by APP, heading through the Kampar peninsula, one of the world's largest contiguous tropical peat swamp forests, with more carbon per hectare than any other ecosystem on Earth. The investigation found tracks on the new road of the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger, whose wild population has been reduced to less than 500 individuals. APP claimed that it was building this state-of-the-art, paved highway for the benefit of the local communities, though satellite imagery shows that the road does not go anywhere near the two settlements. 3. Mattel On June 8, 2011, Greenpeace launched â€Å"Barbie, It's Over†, an international campaign criticising Mattel's use of Asia Pulp & Paper's products in its packaging, particularly in its line of Barbie products. Within two days of the campaign's start, Mattel ordered its packaging suppliers to stop buying from Asia Pulp & Paper pending an investigation into Greenpeace's deforestation allegations, and further ordered its suppliers to report on how they source materials. Asia Pulp ; Paper welcomed Mattel's response, believing that Mattel's investigation would conclude that its â€Å"packaging materials are more than 95% recycled paper sourced from around the world. † On October 5, 2011, Greenpeace announced that Mattel stated that it would no longer purchase pulp and paper products from Asia Pulp ; Paper due to the effects that its logging practices had on the Sumatran tiger population III. Challenges and recommanded strategy 1. The challenges The Strategy Group has identified many significant challenges facing the ndustry, including: * loss of demand for its products due to the consequences of the global financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009 * increased consumer and business use of digital communications, resulting in a slowing of the growth in consumption of paper-based communication, including newspapers * increased competition from cheaper imports, often using fibre from unsustainable sources, resulting in an uneven international pl aying field * projected shortages in available wood-based fibre to provide feedstock for existing pulp and paper facilities, especially due to limits on timber plantation establishment * escalating costs of key industry inputs, especially electricity, and limitations on the ability of the industry to capitalise on its innate energy generation capability * level of investment has been low—those mills lacking investment are facing closure while others which have continued or increased investment have become automated and more efficient * he growth of China, India and other emerging economies such as Indonesia, which is significantly altering the traditional supply and demand dynamics for paper products * the low level of R;D by Australia’s pulp and paper companies affecting the level of innovation and international competitiveness they can achieve * government and community responses to climate change, affecting all industries in Asia, including the pulp and paper indust ry 2. Recommandations Recommendations can be grouped into four major themes: innovation, investment, sustainability and productivity. The first recommendation is fundamental to the entire strategy and stretches across all four themes. It deals with the government’s commitment to the long-term viability of the pulp and paper industry in Asia and its workers. Asian Government( China, Japan, Singapour,indnesia) make a clear public statement supporting the value and long-term viability of the Asian pulp and paper industry, recognising the industry’s commitment to good environmental outcomes and its key role in the provision of economic and social opportunities for thousands of Asian, many in vulnerable regional communities. Innovation A Pulp and Paper Industry Innovation Council shloud be established and appropriately funded to build a culture of innovation in the industry. The Innovation Council will recognise Asian’s competitive strengths in fibre production, product innovation and renewable energy, and focus on long-term issues facing the industry. Investment The asian Government establish a plantation investment model that delivers the re-establishment and expansion of timber plantations to underpin existing processing industries or led to the creation of new processing industries in asia . Sustainability The Australian Government work with industry to support internationally recognised forest certification schemes (including the Indonesian Forestry Standard, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and the Forest Stewardship Council’s certification scheme) that provide for legal and sustainable forest management which ensures transparency, accountability and global and local consistency of application. Productivity Noting the significant price increases associated with the exercise of generator market power in the National Electricity Market, the Ministerial Council on Energy should accelerate efforts to improve competition in the wholesale electricity market, including by increasing penalties and developing rule changes to limit the exercise of generator market power. The Asian Government should support workforce planning and development initiatives that underpin future economic opportunities for the pulp and paper industry and its workforce. IV. APP, a compa ny to watch APP is a company more in the news than not, and for some good reasons; it has a well known plan to be the Number 1 pulp and paper company in the world; it operates in one of the â€Å"hottest† regions, Indonesia, when it comes to the NGOs focus on deforestation and climate change; it has a strategy of organic growth that includes the installation of the biggest and very best and in pulp and paper technology: and a strategy of acquisitive growth that will probably put it firmly in the RISI headline news stakes even more regularly next year. With its bold mission to be the number 1, APP is going to have yet another tough year in 2011 as it comes under even closer scrutiny regarding its forestry and plantation operations in Indonesia. Indeed 2010 saw a ramping up of NGO activity aimed against the company, particularly from Greenpeace, in which it published a series of reports highlighting alleged environmental transgressions, as well as naming some of the major brands around the world that were buying the company's products. APP in return commissioned a series of independent reports, including one by former Greenpeace founder Dr Patrick Moore, refuting the allegations. But perhaps the real reason this company is one of our Five to Watch for next year is its seemingly unstoppable progress, with new expansions in both pulp and paper too numerous to mention, including the start up of the world's biggest fine paper machine located on Hainan Island, China. One of the main areas of interest is where all the fine paper that APP is producing is going to go as duties have now been imposed in both the US and Europe on fine paper coming in from China. Duties are also now being talked about in Brazil and India as anti-dumping fears in those countries come to the fore. Another major development on the horizon is APP's aggressive acquisition strategy abroad through its subsidiary Paper Excellence based in Holland which has already seen it buy up four pulp mills, two in France and two in Canada. Could we see APP making an acquisition of a major European or US pulp or paper company in 2011? Conclusion APP’s trajectory since the early 1990s has been very impressive for several reasons. Focusing at first on Indonesia to develop a pulp and paper empire in order to become one of the top ten producers in the world, the group achieved its objective owing to very lax attitudes on the part of investors both from Indonesia and abroad. The context of the early and mid 1990s, with the so-called ‘Asian miracle’ and the Indonesian government’s official policy of pushing industries with a clear export-oriented stance, and the availability of huge forest areas for conversion, permitted the extraordinarily fast expansion of APP’s capacity. This expansion has been mainly based on debts, either through bond issuance or bank loans. In conclusion, Asia Pulp & Paper seems to illustrate the theories saying that the divergence between ownership and control through pyramid structures corresponds to poor corporate governance and leads to lower firm performance. References â€Å"Why a ‘Green' Logo May Mean Little,† Wall Street Journal, 30 Oct 2007 * New APP Logging Road Threatens One of World’s Biggest Carbon-Storing Forests, Tigers; Eyes on the Forest, March 2008 * Logging Road Threatens Rare Peat Dome, Tigers * People's Daily Online – Forestry authorities charges Singaporean paper giant with illegal logging * Asia Times Online  :: Southeast Asia news and business from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam * a b FSC rules in upheaval after green groups level accusations at APP | printweek. com | Latest Print Industry News, Jobs, Features, Product Reviews, Used Printing and Packaging Machinery * FT. com / Home UK / UK – The usefulness of scholarships and tigers * Ethical Corporation: Archive – APP decision a â€Å"landmark† for China’s environmentalists * http://www. rainforest-alliance. rg/forestry/documents/app. pdf * wikipedia * APP ‘ s Annual report 2010 , from www. freereport. com * http://www. ppimagazine. com/ppiissue/ ————â₠¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€œ [ 1 ]. Sumatran Tiger incident  : During late July 2011 Greenpeace revealed images and footage on their website that showed a critically endangered Sumatran tiger. This tiger had become trapped by an animal snare at the edge of an APP concession, and had been there for at least seven days, without food or water. Attempts to tranquilise and rescue the tiger failed due to its poor condition of health. APP denied any responsibility, despite reports to the contrary.

Tam o,Shanter by Robert Burns Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Tam o,Shanter by Robert Burns - Essay Example e language in Robert Burns’s, Tam O’ Shanter, it seems to include an array of events, as formerly stated: â€Å"†¦a comic vision of the world torn between the pleasures of drink, camaraderie, song, dance, and sex on the one hand and Calvinistic duty, respectability, and restraint on the other† (Weston 337). From Robert Burns’s clever use of narration, intertwined with a variety of poetic devices, such as simile and personification, we find ourselves impeccably submerged in the ever changing characteristics found in Tam O’ Shanter. Now, as for the examination of the poem, we will begin bearing in mind that the conflicting personalities in the narration of the poem are the heart of the tale, and therefore, to understand it we must focus on the tone of the poem. In the opening stanza the narrator emphasizes the notion of himself in juxtaposition with Tam and others â€Å"While we sit bousing at the nappy / An’ getting fou and unco happy,† (5-6) as a means of presenting a cluster of men who seem to be conjuring up an unruly night. Moreover, their unruly event, which seems to be already known as unruly to the them is even further stressed in the last three lines of the stanza when it speaks of their significant others â€Å"where sits our sulky, sullen dame / Gathering her brows like gathering storm / Nursing her wrath to keep it warm (10-12). The words†Nursing her wrath† (12) indicates that when the men do finally decide to come home, their women will be waiting to confront them with an ger. Next we move into a vital point in the poem, as now the narration has changed its tone in focusing on Tam himself â€Å"O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,† (17). Here the nararator forces us to view Tam as a selfish vagabond, or rather mischievous man who listens to no know one, least of all his â€Å"wife Kate’s advice† (18) and he becomes less wise and even more disorderly in his nature. Moreover, the final lines of this stanza illustrate a prediction on behalf

Entrepreneurship Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 3

Entrepreneurship - Assignment Example Individual or group communication among the customers increases sharing of experiences and further requirements. Personal communication networks of ‘The Gathering Goddess’ are mainly the medium or channels that the management uses to interact with the customers. In the current study, critical evaluation of personal communication network (PCN) is made on the basis of small vintage apparel boutique based in London (Thegatheringgoddess.com, 2015). ‘The Gathering Goddess’ is developing new online stores to reach to more customers in the global market. Therefore, the organization must modify the personal networking policies as per the new platforms. ‘The Gathering Goddess’ is a small vintage apparel boutique based in the London area. The organization is producing female products for the Europe and USA clients. Initially, they started with sole physical store in the North Kensington area of London during the year 2002 (Thegatheringgoddess.com, 2015). The organization is facing huge challenge both nationally and internationally. ‘The Gathering Goddess’ is increasing their online presence for meeting challenges from competitors and increase market share and profitability. New partnership developed with the E-commerce firms like Fab.com and eBay helped the firms to meet global customers. Therefore, ‘The Gathering Goddess’ is modifying their Personal Communication Networks (Thegatheringgoddess.com, 2015). Initially, ‘The Gathering Goddess’ was using the personal communication networks to make direct influence on the customers. The firm was able to share information of the products and the services they were offering to the clients. They were using different types of communication channels and tools for communicating with the customers or other organizational stakeholders. Since 2002, the firm has used the several techniques to maintain communication networks among the customers (Thegatheringgoddess.com, 2015). The

An identification of factors affecting performance and reward Dissertation

An identification of factors affecting performance and reward management during the time of recession (2008) at Nationwide Build - Dissertation Example 9-16, 1994). In particular, performance and reward management is one of such aspects of human resource management that focuses primarily on ensuring effective performance and subsequently, efficient reward management of employees. In addition, experts (Office of Personal Management, 2001) have emphasized greatly on the effectiveness of performance and reward management (PRM) in terms of ensuring success of the organization. However, during the last decade, the whole world has confronted adverse impacts of financial crisis and recession and this has resulted in cutting down of various departments by the organizations (Perry, pp. 1-13, 2009). Still, a majority of organizations is utilizing the tool of PRM to ensure its success, and thus, the proposed research will include efforts on the same aspect of business field. Background & Significance In particular, it is a fact that every business firm comes into existence with a specific objective to attain, and that usually is achievement of profit. For this purpose, employers create jobs to carry out specified tasks and recent studies have indicated that since two decades, business organizations are now focusing principally on the notion of accountability that becomes possible with frequent review of individual performance (Hartman et al., pp. 23-25, 1994). In this respect, attainment of success at employees’ level enables the firm to attain success at organizational level that is the basic relationship of PRM with organization as it facilitates firms in ensuring its success. This indicates the significance of PRM and thus, PRM has always remained a crucial aspect of business organizations, one of the reasons of choosing this aspect of business organizations that will be very beneficial for the global business community. Before carrying out research on performance management, it is very imperative that the researcher ensures its clarified understanding as it is an observation that vague understandings often res ult in unproductive outcomes. For this reason, experts (Shepard, pp. 4-14, 2000) have identified that the basic responsibility of performance management is to ensure integration of organizational mission and aims with that of employees on individual level. For this purpose, performance management includes techniques to create, evaluate, and review organizational mission and aims and integrate them on individual levels. In other words, performance management is an effective tool for employers to create a platform for ongoing communication with the employees. However, performance management is not enough to ensure such an enduring relationship, and thus, reward management plays its role by regulating this connection with the tools of different types and kinds of rewards to ensure interest and loyalty of the employees. Research Statement In this regard, the researcher will focus on the following research statement to fulfill the aims and objectives of the research: â€Å"

Cross Cultural Managment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cross Cultural Managment - Essay Example In this context, therefore, cultural intelligence can be described as the ability of individuals in the working place to develop a sensible working condition despite their affiliations (Ang & Livermore, pp.38; Earley, Ang & Tan, pp.3). This essay shall aim at analyzing two articles in an attempt to find out which article is the most applicable to proving the importance of ‘Cultural Intelligence’ (CQ) to the manager of Global Alliances. The essay shall incorporate both theoretical and practical justifications on the importance of ‘Cultural Intelligence’ (CQ) in any organization. According to Triandis, just like in Peterson, (pp.177) and Lundby (pp.301), cultural intelligence is vital for survival of any organization. In his work, he indicates that no flourishing interaction can exist without the staff embracing the aspects of cultural intelligence. Triandis (pp.20) indicates that if the organization has to be successful in inculcating feelings of cultural int elligence among the workers, they have to be keen to detect any kind of flaws that might be existent in the workplace that might harbor successful incorporation of basics that can inculcate roots of cultural intelligence among the workers. ... This entails the ability of the individuals to understand the perceptions and behaviors of the concerned parties in regard to their cultural backgrounds. Of essence, he emphasizes that in the case of varying cultures, individuals must be quick to focus more on the context of their workforce unlike content of what they might have communicated. At times individuals are likely to behave according to the way other people behave in varying cultures, a factor Triandis (pp.20) refers to as ideocentrism. He also explains the concept allocentrism that may alter thriving of cultural intelligence in the workplace. On a practical aspect, in the case of a manager, it would be beneficial if one assesses all kinds of information given by the concerned parties, before making a judgment especially if disputes exist between sections of employees. Collecting tangible evidence unlike insinuations or clues would be beneficial to the manager. Secondly, culturally intelligent persons must be keen to identi fy behaviors that exist in the tough situations in the workplace (Livermore, pp.53). This interprets that, in the course of coexisting in the working environment, there are higher chances that individuals may conflict as a result of interactions in the society. Triandis (pp.22) indicates that chances are probable that individuals are likely to conflict in the quest to make their opinions heard in the workplace. Practically, the managers may consider gathering all kinds of information that would allow them make judgments that are biased, but for the good of the entire workplace. On another view point, a culturally intelligent person is one that is able to handle circumstances that emanate from cultural variances. Triandis

HIV pandemic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

HIV pandemic - Essay Example As such, the prevalence of the HIV epidemic continues to traverse across all quarters of the globe although the burden of the epidemic varies considerably between regions and countries. The worst hit region in the world is Sub-Saharan Africa whereby nearly one in every 20 adults is living with HIV, accounting for 71% of people living with HIV across the globe (Sidibà ©, Zuniga and Montaner 6). I am exploring this epidemic of HIV because I want to sensitize people on the prevalence of the disease, as well as assist in instituting significant changes that might bring down the afore-mentioned statistics. HIV and AIDS is not a killer disease as purported across various platforms, but a preventable and manageable health condition that people can live with and still fulfill all their dreams, goals and aspirations in life (Bahcall 1159). HIV refers to Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome mostly known as AIDS. As such, when this virus infects a person, he or she gets weak and loses ability to fight other opportunistic infections including even cancer. Many people who have the HIV virus end up testing positive for AIDS after developing other opportunistic infections, especially after their immunity levels drop. As such, having the HIV virus does not always means that one has AIDS (Dodds 790). However, a person can live as many years as possible with this virus before developing AIDS. HIV and AIDS are not curable diseases. As such, due to increase on research and medication available today, it is possible for a person to live a normal life with minimal interruption in quality of life. HIV normally attacks and destroys the CD4 white blood cells commonly known as the T-cell whose main function is to fight diseases in the body. As such, when the immune system of T-cells reduces to a very low point, one loses the ability to fight infections in his or her body. However, several conditions arise for patients infected

Intellectual Property Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Intellectual Property Law - Essay Example He is just as responsible as the Ph.D. student for having come up with a cure for the common cold. However, there are some things that Trevor might want to consider before applying his name to the patent. Coming from a relatively unknown Ph.D. student, this â€Å"cure for the common cold† could have major consequences (good and/or bad). The good consequences that could happen is that the cure for the common cold could be a huge success and garner both Trevor and the Ph.D. student international acclaim—since this would be such a huge discovery. On the other hand, there have been no clinical trials on the medication/drug. If something were to go wrong with the drug being used by actual people, Trevor could also be liable for damages claimed against him if he were to be named in a lawsuit which could prove the drug was faulty. Thus, whether Trevor puts his name on the drug discovery patent or not may have a lot to do with liability, as shall be seen in the future. In the s ubsequent follow-up question, we will speak more about this thread or line of thought as well. Trevor has to think in terms of dollar signs as well—or, in his case, Euros. This is because trial medications can actually cost a lot of money to get approval for to get them to take off in terms of popularity. Also, a lot of doctors need to proffer the medication before the drug starts to gain popularity. In addition, Trevor should think about all these aspects before he assigns his name to anything. With so many things that could possibly go wrong, it doesn’t make sense for Trevor to wildly assign his name to a product that he’s not completely sure about in terms of safety. The other unknown element that might be difficult to ascertain is what Trevor’s legal recourse would be in... In the same manner, torts could come into play were people to complain about this new medication slash prescription drug. The Consumer Protection Act basically guarantees that any product that a consumer consumes will be safe for them to consume. Trevor and this Ph.D. student have no idea what they are doing in terms of reassuring that they have adequate protection against the retributions that they could face, if, indeed it is the case that the medication is faulty. Thusly, the copyright alone will not protect Trevor and the Ph.D. student in case the drug does turn out to be faulty. It is simply a matter of judging what should be done in this case. Copyright law aims to protect those who have patented the item—but on the other hand, someone must be at fault if the drug turns out to be faulty. The government should not assume that weighty responsibility unless it wants to take the risk of having class action lawsuits filed against it in the case that the drug either: a) does n ot indeed work; or b) is faulty in some way, shape, or form. The Consumer Protection Act was basically put in place to protect the consumer. Basically, even though the people who made the product (Trevor and the Ph.D. student) have a copyright on the patent, that does not excuse the pair from being either negligent or having neglected a duty of care. Trevor and the Ph.D. student (and possibly, the person that signed off on the patent) could be in trouble if the drug were presumed to be faulty. Trevor and the student conducted no tests—other than a single trial, with no controls—in order to legitimize the drug’s supposed positive effects. So, in effect, having a copyright on a product does not prevent the public from suing against the maker of the product, in essence.

Sandra Kendricks, Kickin It Apparel Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sandra Kendricks, Kickin It Apparel - Coursework Example Assume that she decides to pay herself a 15 percent commission instead of the monthly salary of $3,000. Recalculate her projected monthly income statement based on this scenario. 3. Sandra suspects that she might be underestimating the amount of time needed to manufacture a dress. Sandra estimates that, on average, each dress will require three hours of direct labor at a cost of $1 O/hour. Assume that in reality it takes five hours to manufacture a single dress. Recalculate the economics of one unit and projected monthly income statement based on this scenario. A way for Sandra to increase her profits is by increasing the sales price of her merchandise. Two additional ways to increase profits is by lowering the cost of materials and direct labor costs per unit. Sandra could pay the minimum salary of $7.25 an hour instead of $10.00 an hour for direct labor. Sandra and Kickin’ It are not the same entity. The company could make money, but this does not mean that Sandra is better off running the company than working elsewhere. If the sum of Sandra’s salary and the net profit of the business are less than what Sandra was making working full time Sandra is not better off as a manager of the business. Sandra could go back to work full-time and hire a manager that makes $1,500 a month instead of the $3,000 a month she allocated for her salary. This way Sandra would have a full time salary and the business would generated under the original scenario $4,320. The pricing strategy the Kickin’ It Apparel is using is a penetration strategy. The company just got its first order and the pricing strategy used was to set the sales price low in order to gain market share. The firm seeks to satisfy its first customer in order to gain penetration into the fashion industry. Once the first deal goes through the company expects to gain recurrent business from that strategy. Upon further researching the fashion industry my assessment is that the

Why are you pursuing a career in nursing What makes you capable to be Essay

Why are you pursuing a career in nursing What makes you capable to be a nurse - Essay Example It is an unequal encounter in all aspects. When I read, â€Å"the sick soon come to understand that they live in a different world from the well and that the two cannot communicate† in a book by Jessamyn West, I could really feel the vast expanse of solitude that surrounded the protagonist and my eyes became wet (West, 29). That was way back in 2000 but I gradually nurtured a secret wish to become a caring companion for such solitary souls. Even before that, I used to volunteer for taking care of the members of our family who had been sick and bed ridden. I would clean up the room for them, take flowers to them, read to them and keep them company. All those moments gave me deep satisfaction and a sense of purpose in life. The smile in their eyes brightened up my days. And once, I heard my sick grand mother whisper in a feeble voice, â€Å"my little Nightingale,† when I was kissing her good bye. Those words made a deep imprint in my heart. It was then I started thinking about taking up nursing as my career seriously. I already knew that I could feel empathy for others. It naturally came to me. I thought it as my asset and decided that I could really make this profession, my passion. Even now I remember, when I was a child, my grand mother had kept awake at my bedside whenever I fell ill. So I felt I owe to reciprocate that care to her.

Linguistics and Interjections Essay Example for Free

Linguistics and Interjections Essay In Western philosophy and linguistic theory, interjections—that is, words like oof, ouch, and bleah—have traditionally been understood to indicate emotional states. This article offers an account of interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya that illuminates their social and discursive functions. In particular, it discusses the grammatical form of interjections, both in Q’eqchi’ and across languages, and characterizes the indexical objects and pragmatic functions of interjections in Q’eqchi’ in terms of a semiotic framework that may be generalized for other languages. With these grammatical forms, indexical objects, and pragmatic functions in hand, it details the various social and discursive ends that interjections serve in one Q’eqchi’ community, thereby shedding light on local values, norms, ontological classes, and social relations. In short, this article argues against interpretations of interjections that focus on internal emotional states by providing an account of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. p a u l k o c k e l m a n is McKennan Post-Doctoral Fellow in Linguistic Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College (Hanover, N. H. 03755, U. S. A. [paul. [emailprotected] edu]). Born in 1970, he was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (B. A. , 1992) and the University of Chicago (M. S. , 1994; Ph. D. , 2002). His publications include â€Å"The Collection of Copal among the Q’eqchi’-Maya† (Research in Economic Anthropology 20:163–94), â€Å"Factive and Counterfactive Clitics in Q’eqchi’-Maya: Stance, Status, and Subjectivity,† in Papers from the Thirty-eighth Annual Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (Chicago: Linguistics Society, in press), and â€Å"The Interclausal Relations Hierarchy in Q’eqchi’ Maya† (International Journal of American Linguistics 69:25–48). The present paper was submitted 1 vi 01 and accepted 27 xii 02. 1. A longer version of this article was presented at the workshop â€Å"Semiotics: Culture in Context† at the University of Chicago in January 2001. Chris Ball, Anya Bernstein, John Lucy, and Michael Silverstein all provided very helpful commentary. This article also greatly bene? ted from suggestions made by Benjamin S. Orlove and several anonymous referees. Western philosophy and linguistic theory have traditionally considered interjections at the periphery of language and primordially related to emotion. For example, the Latin grammarian Priscian de? ned interjections as â€Å"a part of speech signifying an emotion by means of an unformed word† (Padley 1976:266). Muller (1862) ? thought that interjections were at the limit of what might be called language. Sapir (1921:6–7) said that they were â€Å"the nearest of all language sounds to instinctive utterance. † Bloom? eld (1984[1933]:177) said that they â€Å"occur under a violent stimulus,† and Jakobson (1960: 354) considered them exemplars of the â€Å"purely emotive stratum of language. † While interjections are no longer considered peripheral to linguistics and are now carefully de? ned with respect to their grammatical form, their meanings remain vague and elusive. In particular, although interjections are no longer characterized purely in terms of emotion, they are still characterized in terms of â€Å"mental states. † For example, Wierzbicka (1992:164) characterizes interjections as â€Å"[referring] to the speaker’s current mental state or mental act. † Ameka (1992a:107) says that â€Å"from a pragmatic point of view, interjections may be de?ned as a subset of items that encode speaker attitudes and communicative intentions and are contextbound,† and Montes (1999:1289) notes that many interjections â€Å"[focus] on the internal reaction of affectedness of the speaker with respect to the referent. † Philosophers have offered similar interpretations. For example, Herder thought that interjections were the human equivalent of animal sounds, being both a â€Å"language of feeling† and a â€Å"law of nature† (1966:88), and Rousseau, pursuing the origins of language, theorized that protolanguage was â€Å"entirely interjectional† (1990:71). Indeed, such philosophers have posited a historical transition from interjections to language in which the latter allows us not only to index pain and express passion but also to denote values and exercise reason (D’Atri 1995). 2 Thus interjections have been understood as a semiotic artifact of our natural origins and the most transparent index of our emotions. Such an understanding of interjections is deeply rooted in Western thought. Aristotle (1984), for example, posited a contrastive relationship between voice, proper only to humans as instantiated in language, and sound, shared by humans and animals as instantiated in cries. This contrastive relation was then compared with other analogous contrastive relations, in particular, value and pleasure/pain, polis and household, and bios (the good life, or political life proper to humans) and zoe (pure life, shared by all living things). Such a contrast is so pervasive that modern philosophers such as Agamben (1995) have devoted much of their scholarly work to the thinking out of this tradition and others built on it such as id versus ego in the Freudian paradigm. In short, the folk distinction made between interjections and language 2. D’Atri (1995:124) argues that, for Rousseau, â€Å"interjections . . . are sounds and not voices: they are passive registerings and as such do not presuppose the intervention of will, which is what characterizes human acts of speech. † 467 468 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 proper maps onto a larger set of distinctions in Western thought: emotion and cognition, animality and humanity, nature and culture, female and male, passion and reason, bare life and the good life, pain and value, private and public, and so on (see, e.g. , Lutz 1988, Strathern 1988). In this article I avoid such abstracting and dichotomizing traps by going straight to the heart of interjections: their everyday usage in actual discourse when seen in the context of local culture and grounded in a semiotic framework. I begin by characterizing the linguistic and ethnographic context in which I carried out my research and go on to relate interjections to other linguistic forms, showing how they are both similar to and distinct from other classes of words in natural languages. Next I provide and exemplify a semiotic framework, generalizable across languages, in terms of which the indexical objects and pragmatic functions of interjections can best be characterized. Then I detail the local usage of the 12 most commonly used interjections in Q’eqchi’ and show the way in which they are tied into all things cultural: values, norms, ontological classes, social relations, and so on. I conclude by discussing the relative frequency with which the various forms and functions of interjections are used. In short, I argue against interpretations of interjections that focus on emotional states by providing an account of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. Linguistic and Ethnographic Context While I am attempting to provide as wide a theoretical account of interjections as I can, thereby providing a metalanguage for speaking about similar sign phenomena in other languages, I am also trying to capture the grammatical niceties of Q’eqchi’ Maya and the discursive and social particularities of one Q’eqchi’-speaking village in particular. Before I begin my analysis, then, I want to sketch the linguistic and ethnographic context in which I worked. Q’eqchi’ is a language in the Kichean branch of the Mayan family, spoken by some 360,000 speakers in Guatemala (in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Izabel, and Peten) and Belize (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980). 3 Lin? guistically, Q’eqchi’ is relatively well described: scholars such as Berinstein (1985), Sedat (1955), Stewart (1980), Stoll (1896), and Chen Cao et al. (1997) have discussed its syntax, morphology, phonology, and lexicon, and I have detailed various morphosyntactic forms (encoding grammatical categories such as mood, status, evidentiality, taxis, and inalienable possession) as they intersect with sociocultural values and contextual features and as they illuminate local modes of personhood (Kockelman 3. Typologically, Q’eqchi’ is a morphologically ergative, head-marking language. In Q’eqchi’, vowel length (signaled by doubling letters) is phonemic; /k/ and /q/ are velar and uvular plosives, respectively, and /x/ and /j/ are palato-alveolar and velar fricatives, respectively. All other phonemes have their standard IPA values. 2002, 2003a, b). This article is therefore part of a larger project in which I examine how intentional and evaluative stances are encoded in natural languages and the relations that such stances bear to local modes of subjectivity. Alta Verapaz, the original center of the Q’eqchi’-speaking people who still make up the majority of its population, has had a unusual history even by Guatemalan standards. In 1537, after the Spanish crown had failed to conquer the indigenous peoples living there, the Dominican Friar Bartolome de Las Casas was permitted to ?pacify the area through religious methods. Having succeeded, he changed the name of the area from Tezulutlan (Land of War) to Verapaz (True Peace), and the Dominicans were granted full control over the area—the state banning secular immigration, removing all military colonies, and nullifying previous land grants. In this way, for almost 300 years the area remained an isolated enclave, relatively protected by the paternalism of the church in comparison with other parts of Guatemala (King 1974, Sapper 1985). This ended abruptly in the late 1800s, however, with the advent of coffee growing, liberal reforms, and the in? ux of Europeans (Cambranes 1985, Wagner 1996). Divested of their land and forced to work on coffee plantations, the Q’eqchi’ began migrating north into the unpopulated lowland forests of the Peten ? and Belize (Adams 1965, Carter 1969, Howard 1975, Kockelman 1999, Pedroni 1991, Saa Vidal 1979, Schwartz 1990, Wilk 1991). In the past 40 years this migration has been fueled by a civil war that has ravaged the Guatemalan countryside, with the Q’eqchi’ ? eeing not just scarce resources and labor quotas but also their own nation’s soldiers—often forcibly conscripted speakers of other Mayan languages (Carmack 1988, IWGIA 1978, Wilson 1995). As a consequence, the past century has seen the Q’eqchi’ population spread from Alta Verapaz to the Peten and ? nally to Belize, Mexico, and even the ? United States. Indeed, although only the fourth largest of some 24 Mayan languages, Q’eqchi’ is thought to have the largest percentage of monolinguals, and the ethnic group is Guatemala’s fastest-growing and most geographically extensive (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980). The two key ethnographies of Q’eqchi’-speakers have been written by Wilk (1991) and Wilson (1995), the former treating household ecology in Belize and the latter upheavals in village life and identity at the height of the civil war in highland Guatemala during the 1980s. In addition to these monographs, there are also a number of dissertations and articles on the history (King 1974, Sapper 1985, Wagner 1996), ecology (Carter 1969, Secaira 1992, Wilson 1972), and migration (Adams 1965, Howard 1975, Pedroni 1991) of Q’eqchi’-speaking  people. The data for this article are based on almost two years of ethnographic and linguistic ? eldwork among speakers of Q’eqchi’, most of it in Ch’inahab, a village of some 80 families (around 650 people) in the municipality of San Juan Chamelco, in the department of Alta Verapaz. At an altitude of approximately 2,400 m, Ch’inahab is one of the highest villages in this area, with an annual precipitation of more than 2,000 mm. It is also one of k o c k e l m a n The Meanings of Interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya F 469  the most remote, access to the closest road requiring a three-hour hike down a steep and muddy single-track trail. Its relatively high altitude and remote location provide the perfect setting for cloud forest, and such a cloud forest provides the perfect setting for the resplendent quetzal, being home to what is thought to be the highest density of such birds in the world. Because of the existence of the quetzal and the cloud forest in which it makes its home, Ch’inahab has been the site of a successful eco-tourism project the conditions and consequences of which are detailed in my dissertation (Kockelman 2002). While the majority of villagers in Ch’inahab are monolingual speakers of Q’eqchi’, some men who have served time in the army or worked as itinerant traders speak some Spanish. All the villagers are Catholic. Ch’inahab is divided by a mountain peak with dwellings on both of its sides and in the surrounding valleys. It takes about 45 minutes to hike across the village. At one end there is a biological station kept by the eco-tourism project and used sporadically by European ecologists, and at the other there is a Catholic church and a cemetery. In the center there is a small store, a school for primary and secondary grades, and a soccer ? eld. The surrounding landscape is cloud forest giving way to scattered house sites, agricultural parcels, pasture, and ? elds now fallow. All villagers engage in corn-based, or milpa, agriculture, but very few have enough land to ful? ll all of their subsistence needs. 4 For this reason, many women in the village are dedicated to chicken husbandry, most men in the village engage in seasonal labor on plantations (up to ?ve months a year in some cases), and many families engage in itinerant trade (women weaving baskets and textiles for the men to sell) and eco-tourism (the women hosting tourists and the men guiding them). Dwelling sites often contain a scattering of houses in which reside an older couple and their married sons, all of whom share a water source and a pasture. The individual families themselves often have two houses, a relatively traditional thatched-roof house in which the family cooks and sleeps and a relatively new house with a tin roof in which they host festivals and in which older children and ecotourists may sleep. Because of eco-tourism and the in? ux of money and strangers that it brings, there has been an increase in the construction of such tin-roofed houses, and, as will be seen, many of my examples of interjections come from such construction contexts. My data on the use of interjections among villagers in Ch’inahab comes from 14 months of ? eldwork carried out between 1998 and 2001. The data collection con4. Before 1968, what is now Ch’inahab was owned by the owner of a plantation. Q’eqchi’-speakers who lived in the village of Popobaj (located to the south of and lower than Ch’inahab) were permitted to make their milpa in this area in exchange for two weeks of labor per month on the ? nca (Secaira 1992:20). Only in 1968, when a group of villagers got together to form a land acquisition committee, were some 15 caballer? as (678 ha) of land purchased from the owner ? for 4,200 quetzals (US$4,200). This land, while legally owned by the entire community, was divided among the original 33 villagers as a function of their original contributions.  sisted in part of characterizing tokens of usage when I heard them and in part of tracking tokens of usage through recordings of naturally occurring conversations. 5 In particular, given the fact that many interjections occur in relatively nonconversational, task-engaged situations (house building, planting, playing, cooking, etc. ), trying to record them in such contexts was futile. Luckily, as will be seen, they often occur in modes of disruption (when some goal-directed action goes awry), which makes them relatively easy to notice in real-time context and their contextual regularities relatively easy to stipulate. In addition, I tape-recorded naturally occurring conversations in the households of three families once a week over several months, usually at dinnertime. 6 After I describe the forms and meanings of the interjections I will discuss the relative frequency of the various tokens collected and thereby illuminate which forms and meanings are most often used by whom. The Grammatical Form of Interjections There are four criteria by which interjections may be differentiated from other linguistic forms within a particular language and generalized as a form class across languages (Ameka 1992, Bloom?eld 1984[1933], Jespersen 1965, Wilkins 1992). First, all interjections are conventional lexical forms, or words, that can constitute utterances on their own (Wilkins 1992). They are conventional in that their sign carriers have relatively standardized and arbitrary phonological forms, and they can constitute utterances on their own because their only syntagmatic relation with other linguistic forms is parataxis—in which two forms are â€Å"united by the use of only one sentence pitch† (Bloom? eld 1984[1933]:171). They can therefore stand alone as perfectly sensible stretches of talk before and after which there is silence. Second, with few exceptions, no interjection is simultaneously a member of another word class (Ameka 1992a, Wilkins 1992). Almost all of them are what Ameka (1992a:105), following Bloom? eld (1984[1933]), calls primary interjections: â€Å"little words or non-words which . . . can constitute an utterance by themselves and do not normally enter into constructions with other word classes. † In Q’eqchi’, the main exceptions are interjections built, through lexical extension, from the primary interjection ay. In the case of ay dios, the additional 5. I also include several examples of interjection usage that occurred in the context of ethnographic interviews about topics other than interjections, for these often indicated that an ethnographic question was poorly posed or inappropriate in the local context. I also carried out extensive interviews about the meanings of interjections with native speakers (see Kockelman 2002 for an extended discussion of the relationship between form, usage, and speakers’ re? ections). 6.  Indeed, the best two accounts of interjection-like things— â€Å"response cries† in Goffman (1978) and â€Å"emblematic gestures† in Sherzer (1993)—explicitly take into account social interaction and ethnographic description. Good accounts of the discursive use of interjections are offered by De Bruyn (1998), Ehlich (1986), Gardner (1998), and Meng and Schrabback (1999). 470 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 element, dios, is a loan noun from Spanish, meaning â€Å"god. † In the case of ay dios atinyuwa’, besides the Spanish loanword there is a Q’eqchi’ expression, at-in-yuwa’ (you [are] my father). Interjections of this latter kind, which are or involve forms that belong to other word classes, will be called secondary interjections (again following Ameka and Bloom? eld). Similarly, the English secondary interjections damn and heavens may be used as both interjections and verbs or nouns. Third, with few exceptions, an interjection consists of a single morpheme and undergoes neither in? ectional nor derivational processes (Wilkins 1992). Interjections cannot be in? ectionally marked for grammatical categories such as tense or number, and they cannot be further derived into another form class such as noun or verb. Such forms are often classi? ed as a subclass of â€Å"particles† or discourse markers (see Ameka 1992a, Fraser 1999, Jespersen 1965, Schiffrin 1987, Wilkins 1992, and Zwicky 1985). In Q’eqchi’ there are three exceptions to this characterization. First, uyaluy is what I will call a reduplicative interjection, being composed, through syllabic reduplication, from the interjection uy. Second, ay dios and ay dios atinyuwa’ are what I will call extended interjections, being composed, through lexical extension, from the interjection ay. And lastly, the interjection ay may undergo further derivation into a delocutionary verb (becoming ayaynak, â€Å"to cry or yell continually,† often said of dogs howling), which may then undergo normal verbal in? ection for grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, and number. Lastly, although it is not a criterial feature, many of these forms are phonologically or morphologically anomalous, having features which mark them as odd or unique relative to the standard lexical forms of a language. For example, unlike most Q’eqchi’ words, in which stress falls on the last syllable (Stewart 1980), the interjection uyaluy has syllable-initial stress. Similarly, while reduplication is a common morphological process in Q’eqchi’ (Stewart 1980), the reduplicative interjection uyaluy is derived through a nonstandard morphological form. While many Q’eqchi’ words involve a glottalized alveolar stop, the interjection t’ is also implosive. 7 Whereas the Spanish loanword dios is usually phonetically assimilated in Q’eqchi’ as tiox when used as a noun, in the interjection ay dios there is no devoicing of the initial consonant of this noun (i.e. , /d/ does not become /t/) or palatization of its ? nal consonant (i. e. , /s/ does not become /x/). And the interjection sht differs from ordinary Q’eqchi’ words in using /sh/, rather than a vowel, as a syllabic (see Bloom? eld 1984[1933]:121). In short, it is clear from the number of quali? cations that interjections, like most linguistic forms, are dif? cult to characterize with necessary and suf? cient conditions (see Taylor 1995, Zwicky 1985). Nevertheless, they may simultaneously be differentiated from other form classes within a particular language and generalized as a form class across languages. 7. Often called a â€Å"dental click† (Wilkins 1992) or a â€Å"suction stop† (Jespersen 1965:90). Readers who speak some Spanish may have noticed that many Q’eqchi’ interjections look similar to Spanish interjections—ay (dios), uy, ah, eh, sht—and even to English interjections (sh[t] and t’). While I have no historical data that would attest to such a claim, given the history of sustained linguistic contact between speakers of Spanish and Q’eqchi’ via the colonial encounter and between speakers of Spanish and English this should come as no surprise. The one good account of interjections in Spanish (Montes 1999) discusses only a small range of the discursive functions of interjections and focuses on the internal state of the speaker. As I will show, however, the meanings of some of these interjections in Q’eqchi’ seem to bear a resemblance to their meanings in Spanish, as far as can be discerned from the comparative data. In this way, these â€Å"loan interjections† show that almost any linguistic form may be borrowed (see Brody 1995) with some maintenance of its meaning. The Meanings of Q’eqchi’ Interjections  Although interjections are relatively easy to characterize from the standpoint of grammatical form, there is no framework in terms of which one may order and compare their meanings—that is, the classes of objects and signs that they index (and thereby stand in a relationship of contiguity with) and the types of pragmatic functions they serve (and thereby may be used as a means to achieve). In what follows, I frame their use in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. I will begin with an extended example through which the framework will become clear. The Q’eqchi’ interjection chix indexes loathsome objects in the situational context. For example, when picking up his bowl of food from the ground, a man notices that he has set it in chicken feces. â€Å"Chix,† he says, scraping the bowl on the dirt to wipe off the feces. His wife, herself responsible for the chicken, then takes his bowl for herself and gives him a new one. Similarly, when opening the door to her house early one morning, a woman notices that the dog has vomited right outside the doorway. â€Å"Chix,† she says, and her ? ve-year-old son comes over to look. She tells him to scrape it away with a machete. Like most interjections that have indexical objects in the situational context, this interjection serves to call another’s attention to the object. 8 Relatedly, and as a function of responsibility assessment (husband 1 wife 1 child), it directs another’s attention to what must be cleaned up, avoided, etc. The interjection chix may also be transposed to index a sign denoting or characterizing a loathsome object (see Buhler 1990). In such cases of sign-based transposition, ? the interjection is in a relationship of contiguity with a 8. Montes (1999:1293) notes that most of the Spanish interjections she examined â€Å"seem to be associated with seeing. We ? nd that a large number of the interjections [ah, oh, uh, ay, oy, uy] used in the conversations examined co-occur with directives to ‘see’ or ‘look at’ or as a response to these directives. † k o c k e l m a n The Meanings of Interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya F 471 sign that denotes or characterizes the object or event in question (rather than being in contiguity with the actual object or event, as in the usage of chix just discussed). In other words, it is as if the speaker were inhabiting the frame of the narrated event (Buhler 1990). In this way, ? the interjection chix indexes not just loathsomeness but also signs that refer to or predicate qualities of loathsome objects. Insofar as the denotatum of such a sign has the same qualities and values as the object itself, the modality of contiguity (being able to taste, touch, see, or smell the object in question) is suspended while the ontological class of the object (loathsomeness) is maintained. For example, in telling a story to a group of  men about a friend who was bitten by a poisonous spider while working on a plantation in the lowland area of Guatemala, the speaker describes the pus blisters that rose up on his friend’s arm. â€Å"Chix,† says one of the men listening. The other men laugh, and before continuing his story the speaker adds that the pus blisters took two weeks to heal. Like most interjections that undergo signbased transposition, such usage often serves as a backchannel cue, indicating that the speaker is listening but cannot or does not want to contribute to the topic at hand (Brown and Yule 1983:90–94; Duncan 1973; compare the usage of mmm or jeez in English). Lastly, the interjection chix may be transposed to index an addressee’s relation of contiguity with a loathsome object. In such cases of addressee-based transposition, the situational indexical object is transposed to a person other than the speaker. The speaker’s sign is audible (a relation of contiguity) to the addressee, who is in a relationship of contiguity with the object. In other words, it is as if the speaker were inhabiting the ad? dressee’s current corporal?  eld (see Buhler 1990, Hanks 1990), and, again, the modality of contiguity is suspended while the ontological class is maintained. For example, a mother watching her three-year-old son approach a dog that is defecating wormy stool calls out to him â€Å"Chix. † The child stops his advance and watches from a distance. In this most addressee-focused way, the sign is used by a parent to index that a child is within reach (typically tactile) of a disgusting object and serves as an imperative not to touch the object. Interjections are primarily indexical (see Peirce 1955) in that they stand for their objects by a relationship of contiguity rather than by a relationship of convention (as in the case of symbols) or similarity (as in the case of icons). 9 Although the indexical modality of interjections is emphasized in this article, the symbolic modality is always present in at least two interrelated ways. First, and trivially, the interjection itself has a standard9. If interjections were iconic, then they would be expected to resemble their objects. The problem with this, as exempli?  ed by Kryk-Kastovsky’s (1997) argument that interjections are the most iconic of all linguistic elements expressing surprise, is that one needs to know what â€Å"surprise† looks like when usually our only indication of surprise is the interjection or behavior itself. However, interjections as indexical of situational and discursive objects do in certain cases have iconic modalities of meaning (see, e. g. , the discussion of ay, ay dios, and ay dios atinyuwa’ below). ized but relatively arbitrary form that is conventionally used by members of a given linguistic community. Second, interjections conventionally stand in a relation of contiguity with particular classes of objects. These conventional classes of indexical objects are present in two ways. First, across interjections, one may characterize what semiotic class of objects is being indexed. Second, in the case of any particular interjection, one may characterize what ontological class of objects is being indexed. Besides indexing objects or signs in the immediate context, interjections have pragmatic functions: they serve as a means to achieve certain ends. For example, chix variously serves as an attentative (when nontransposed), a back-channel cue (when undergoing sign-based transposition), and an imperative (when undergoing addressee-based transposition). Both the objects indexed and the pragmatic functions served (see Silverstein 1987) are integral aspects of the meanings of interjections. Finally, interjections may index more than one object at once. In particular, they may index objects, signs, internal states, and social relations. In what follows, I will refer to these distinct types of indexical objects as situational, discursive, expressive, and social, respectively. Situational indexical objects are the objects or events in the immediate context of the speech event. Discursive indexical objects are the signs that occur in the speech event. 10 Together, situational and discursive indexical objects are the most stable co-occurrence regularities that interjections possess and therefore the only ones that are easy to tabulate. Expressive indexical objects are the intentional stances of the speaker—the putative mental states, whether construed as â€Å"cognitive† or â€Å"emotive. †11 Lastly, social indexical objects are the various social roles inhabited by the speaker or addressee (gender, ethnicity, age, etc. ) or the social relations that exist between the two (status, deference, politeness, etc. ). For example, chix may index not only a loathsome object in the situational context but a social relation (parentchild, husband-wife, raconteur–appreciative listener) and, in many cases, an internal state (â€Å"disgust†). And the interjection ay not only indexes a painful object in the situational context or an unexpected answer in the dis10. This is not quite the standard distinction between â€Å"text† and â€Å"context† (Montes 1999 and Wilkins 1992). For example, while it is tempting to put sign-based transposition into the discursive context for the purposes of schematizing the data, sign-based transpositions make sense only in terms of the qualities of the objects referred to by the sign indexed by the interjection. In contrast, an unsolicited response such as a dubitive is directed at the truth of another’s assertion rather than at any particular quality of the state of affairs predicated by that assertion. For this reason, dubitives belong to the discursive context and sign-based transpositions to the situational context. 11. Whereas interjections creatively index expressive indexical objects in that the interjection is often the only sign of the internal state in question, they presupposedly index situational and discursive indexical objects in that both interjection and indexical object are simultaneously present in context (see Silverstein 1976 for this distinction). This difference in semiotic status (presupposing/creative) maps onto a putative difference in ontological status (world/mind). 472 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 cursive context but also an internal state (pain) in the expressive context and a role in the social context (in particular, female gender). Many interjections index signs in the discursive context in that they co-occur with (or serve as) a response to an addressee’s previous utterance or a nonresponse. In the case of a response, the use of an interjection occurs after and makes sense only relative to the addressee’s previous utterance. For example, the interjection ih indexes an addressee’s previous statement and serves as a registerative, indicating that the speaker has heard and understood the statement. In the case of a nonresponse, the interjection may either elicit an addressee’s utterance (and thereby occur before it) or occur in the midst of the speaker.

College Degree Necessary Essay Example for Free

College Degree Necessary Essay In Barbara Ehrenreich’s article, â€Å"The Higher Education Scam† she expresses her feelings about employers looking specifically for college grads to fill their positions. Ehrenreich seems to be voicing her feelings to employers because they are beginning to look specifically for college grads, instead of people who may have more experience and knowledge, or even currently work for the organization. She claims that employers seek college grads merely because they have a college degree and it shows they have the ability to listen and obey. Deep within Ehrenreich seems to be attacking the college grads by saying that once they have finished school and earned their degree, they are now slaves to the employers. Her claim is quite logical and the examples she gives validate what she is saying. Conversely, she seems to be going on a theory with her argument and her attacks on the college grads for going to school and earning a degree detracts from the value she has built up. Finally, Ehrenreich’s argument is effective to some degree, but lack of personal experience leave the article with a flaw. Ehrenreich uses value and emotion within her article to get the attention of her audience. We all need jobs in order to get through life and if you want to have a good job, you need to get a degree. This puts a lot of value in what you need to accomplish because the final product is suppose to be worth it, and employers will only hire you if you are a college grad. Ehrenreich uses this example to connect with her audience and adds to the credibility of her argument. Throughout the article Ehrenreich adds humor to help make an emotional connection with her audience. She says that whatever you learn in college doesn’t seem to matter. All that employers are looking at is that you were able to sit still for long periods of time, be told what to do, and appear awake. Ehrenreich is saying that no matter what degree you’ve just earned, all employers are looking at is that you devoted 4 years doing what your told. She adds, â€Å"no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming† (696). This is most likely what you will end up doing when you begin working at a white-collar job anyways, so by hiring you they know you are able to do what they ask. She also goes on to imply that you will be desperate for work because of the debt you have just accrued and you won’t become a troublemaker, or whistle blower. You’ll basically grovel at their every need and do exactly what your told. Ehrenreich adds to the credibility of her article by giving examples of people who have been able to do something and do it well, but didn’t have a degree to back it up. They were either dismissed from their job, or called out on it once they became popular. She gives the example about Marilee Jones who worked for MIT as the dean of admissions for twenty-eight years. Marilee claimed she had three degrees and yet she really didn’t have any. Now if Marilee had done a poor job as the dean of admission it would be easy to forgive and remove her from her position, yet she was very successful and it was threatening to an institution of higher learning. This gives us an emotional appeal because it’s a personal story of sadness for Marilee and it causes the audience to wonder if a college degree is really worth it. She did a good job for the institution and just because she didn’t have a degree, they were willing to dismiss her. Is that really all the companies want is a degree; or do they want someone who is going to do a great job for their organization? Throughout Ehrenreich’s article she stays pretty true to her argument, employers seek out college grads. Although she puts in the example of â€Å"Dr. Dennis Waitley Ph. D† who is known for writing a best selling self-help book The Secret. He confessed to not having a master’s degree and the marketing firm he worked for admitted that they couldn’t confirm he ever received his Ph. D. This example adds to Ehrenreich’s credibility, but it seems to go off what she talks about in the majority of her article, which seems to be more along the lines of employers. It does however stay true to her title, â€Å"The Higher Education Scam†. For her article to be spot on with her argument, she should have stuck more with education and touched on different subjects like employers, writers, and other people in general who have not had college degrees, but were still successful in their fields. In Ehrenreich’s article she doesn’t attack anyone in particular with what she is saying, but she keeps her comments vague so it is up to the reader to interpret the hidden meaning. In the beginning she talks about the amount of lies being put into resumes in order for people to get certain positions they are applying for. She says, â€Å"that 10-30 percent of resumes include distortions if not outright lies† (696). She adds to this with some more humor in saying, â€Å"lying is a grievous sin, as everyone outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue knows† (696). This comment adds humor to the article as well as a little ad hominem because of the hidden attack. Ultimately, the article by Barbara Ehrenriech is effective. She shows credibility with the examples she uses and the only flaw seen is that she doesn’t have a personal example herself. She keeps humor going in the article, which keeps the audience drawn in and is very logical in her viewpoints. Ehrenreich really makes you think after reading her article. Should we go to college in order to get a degree and work for a good company? Should employers really just look for candidates that have earned that college degree hoping they will obey their every need? Should employers give there currently employees a chance to earn a college degree instead of being dismissed from their position? Is it worth over looking other candidates for positions strictly because they don’t have a degree when they will be able to do the same job and possibly do it better? To sum it all up, why do employers really need to be looking for a college degree? Is the time and money really worth it to earn that degree for a position that you are going to learn on the spot anyways? Employers really need to think about what they are doing and not just jump on the bandwagon and make hasty generalizations. Works Cited Ehrenreich, Barbara. â€Å"The Higher Education Scam. † Inventing Arguments, 2nd ed. Eds. John Mauk and John Metz. Boston: Wadsworth, 2009. Print. 69-697.

Women and Society in Porphyrias Lover and A Dolls House

Women and Society in Porphyrias Lover and A Dolls House The composers, Henrik Ibsen and Robert Browning both challenge the values of their society by examining the relationship between the women in their literature and their respective societies. In the poem Porphyrias Lover by Browning and Ibsens play A Dolls House, the women challenge the 19th century notions of how women were expected to remain as passive and subservient figures. The Duchess in My Last Duchess by Browning and Nora in A Dolls House resist mainstream attitudes and perspectives that accustomed males to value their honour and reputation above all, which victimised women to attain the expectations of the ideal household and marriage. Brownings poem Porphyrias Lover explores the tension between the individual and social convention of the 19th century by subverting the social expectation of women to be passive and docile. The patriarchal society of Victorian England suppressed the outward manifestation of female identity and sexuality, by objectifying women and treating them as inferior. The shift in narrator voice in Porphyria worshipped me That moment she was mine, mine, fair reflects the patriarchal nature of Victorian society, with the repetition of the possessive pronoun mine revealing that males would ultimately assert dominance over females. In murmuring how she loved me and give herself to me forever suggests that Porphyria is entrapped in the passive role in which society expects her to remain. Porphyrias sexually forward behaviour is demonstrated in the vivid imagery, her smooth white shoulder bare which challenges the preordained ideas that women were to inhibit their sexuality and establish their value on their chastity. The churchs role in instilling and consolidating values of female submissiveness is demonstrated in the biblical allusions, And yet God has not yet said a word! further emphasising the societys expectation of women. Hence, Porphyrias Lover challenges traditional ways of thinking in 19th century England in which the societys perception of female behaviour and gender interactions were in place. Henrik Ibsens play A Dolls House also encapsulates how the values placed within female submissiveness and subordination transcend time. In 19th century Europe, a woman who stepped out of her domesticated role in the home and entered the outside world of the labour force was censured. Torvalds condescending manner when addressing Nora as squirrelkin or songbird ostensibly gives off the impression of being affectionate, however has paternalistic undertones which fix Noras inferior status in the relationship. Torvalds displeasure at Noras agitated dancing of the tarantella commenting, Not so violently, It isnt right reflects how the patriarchal society of 19th century Europe suppressed a womans desire to fulfil her need for self-expression and lead a full and satisfying life. Nora questions the possessive attitude of men in It pleased you, thats all- the idea of loving me which demonstrates how she challenges the social conventions that a woman must remain subordinate to men. Noras ass ertive exit at the end of the play undermines the role of women staying faithful to their husbands, challenging the norm that women will eventually submit to the male suppression of their independence and identity. Through Noras transformation from a woman, belittled and undermined by the males in her life, into a strong-willed and independent being, Ibsens A Dolls House explores the tension between the individual and the society with set the behavioural standards. Browning seeks to challenge the conservative Victorian mindset in his portrayal of tyrannical and rabid power, highlighting the materialism and commodification of life within his society. The ruthless and despotic power portrayed in Brownings My Last Duchess elucidates the moral inadeqacy of the patriarchal Victorian era, where social stratification encouraged obsession with power, in which women were characterised as either the Madonna or the whore. Motivated by wealth, privilege and punctilious pride of rank, ‘I choose never to stoop’, the Duke is a complex figure of artistic cultivation and consuming acquisitiveness. His aristocratic need for absolute control is disguised by his indifferent, almost affable tone, highlighted through the tension between the enjambment and the consistent rhyming couplets . Nevertheless, he ironically damns himself while attempting to discredit his naà ¯ve and unsophisticated wife who did not appreciation the ‘gift of a nine hundre d year old name’, revealing his chillingly casual and unmerited cruelty manufactured by his jealousy. Browning challenges societal expectations as he articulates the fallibility of humankind through the desire of material comforts as equalled signs of achievement and power. A Dolls House also challenges the 19th century way of thinking about how womens identities were determined by predefined roles within households resulting in feelings of suppression. The bourgeoisie men of 19th century Europe were socially conditioned to place obligations on their wives to uphold their reputation of their family and assume responsibility for all domestic affairs and difficulties. The emotive language when Torvald says â€Å"Almost always when people go bad young in life, the cause is a deceitful mother† reveals how women were expected to bear all responsibility for the children and familial affairs, which contrasts with Nora’s later decision to abandon this domestic life. Noras confrontation of social norms by prioritising her own self-respect and need to express her identity is revealed in the motif of clothing during her final conversation with her husband, Changing. No more fancy dress. This contrasts with Torvalds patronising tone in But no man sacr ifices his honour for the lone he loves, which implies that society has conditioned men to regard their reputation as more important than human emotions or interpersonal relationships. During her final conversation with Torvald, Noras assertion in But Im going to find out which of us is right, society or me, further reinforces how she defies the social norm that a woman should dedicate herself to maintaining the public image of the household and marriage so as not to threaten the values of the male. Thus, A Doll’s House presents ideas reluctant to mainstream attitudes as Ibsen explores the need for resistance against society, especially the expectations of women, in order to move forward. The individuals in Robert Browning’s poems ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’, as well as Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House behave in a radical and confronting manner as viewed by 19th century society, overcoming the constraints placed by the world they live in. They challenge society’s ideals regarding the accepted behaviour for women as passive figures whose identity and sexuality are suppressed, and as wives and mothers who must place their obligations to their husband and social reputation before their need to express themselves respectively.