Community Collaborator Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Community Collaborator - Essay Example Second, government officials, through their programs and reform initiatives affect student productivity, attendance, and the rate of students promoted to subsequent grades, while at the same time serving as role models for future students. Third, local groups like Elks, by providing financial and other forms of support, provide significant assistance to teachers in taking effective leadership positions among their students. Fourth, veterans, with their knowledge and the respect they earned in the community, serves as a source of wisdom in imparting to younger generations priceless life experiences to guide their futures. And last, local newspapers and district public relations offices help boost student esteem and morale by serving as an outlet for student works and publishing morale boosting articles about students and their schools. Each group successfully improves student learning through programs and strategies unique within the segment they represent. 4-H, for example, improves student behavior and encourages healthy development by involving all members of the community to work together to support learning both in school and beyond the classroom.

Evaluating benefits of networks and performing network management Essay

Evaluating benefits of networks and performing network management responsibilities - Essay Example Local Area Networks (LAN) can be described in various configurations and layouts referred to as Network Topology. Network topology determines the connectivity and communications mode of nodes on a network. Topologies are described as either physical or logical.The most popular network topologies are:Bus topology provides the simplest network connection. A single cable connects all the computers and network peripherals. Each node communicates with any other node by using the physical address of the network card of the destination node. This physical address is called the Media Access Control (MAC) address. The cables are terminated at both ends. All network equipment or nodes are connected by cables to a central connection unit, or hub. The nodes communicate with each other via the hub. The hub could be a Server or a Router. The figure below shows a star network wiring.In a ring topology, all the nodes are linked in a logical circle. Data circulates from node to node via a connection unit known as Multi-station Access Unit (MAU). Note that a closed loop is formed with the cable returning to the first device.Devices are connected with many redundant interconnections between network nodes. In a true mesh topology every node has a connection to every other node in the network. As the number of nodes increases, so does the complexity and cost. They are not popular with LANs but are often used in WANs. 1.1 Advantages & Disadvantages of Networks in an Organization The following advantages follow from installing and managing efficiently, a LAN in an organization. Increased productivity: According to Forbes.com a 20% increase in productivity can be attained since less time is wasted searching for files or managing files manually. Data loss reduced :LANs server software provides facilities for automatic file backup and easy retrieval in accidental deletion. Protection of Business Information: Built-in firewall protection and secure remote access guards your network. Other security software are available to protect your network from Internet intruders: spam, e-mail attachments and spammers. Business Access anytime, anywhere: A LAN allows you to connect to your business anytime and from anywhere you have access to the Internet. Improved Team Performance: Your workers can work better as a team when they can share information resident on the LAN and collaborate anytime. Resources Sharing and Costs Reduction: LANs enable your organization to share resources such as Internet access and business software; equipment such as printers. Some of the disadvantages of LANs include the risk of exposure to the evils of the Internet , namely Internet fraud, identity theft, and loss of useful data that was not backed up before a network fails. 1.2 The OSI Reference Model A discussion on networks and network

Cultural Dependency Theory

Cultural Dependency Theory Introduction: There are many reasons to examine the current situation of the world, where a lot of countries are underdeveloped or are developing, and a small portion of the world, which are the Western countries, are relatively rich and developed and rule over the under-developed and developing countries. In this essay, I discuss the Modernisation theory and the Cultural Dependency Theory, how they came into existence and what are their problems. Also, the contributions made by all the countries and trying to develop have not really helped them to a great extent. In this essay, I have also explained why this division is still present and the dependency of the Third World countries on the Western countries. At the end of the essay, I have given the pros and cons of both the theories. International Communication Theory: The Third world countries were highly inferred for development because of the cold war which divided the countries into Eastern countries and western countries. This lasted for more than 50 years. Most of the Third World Nations wanted to avoid the group of countries which had common interest in politics and they wanted to concentrate on getting their population out of the control of the other legal or political restrictions. Third world nations got their name during the cold war which is said to be given by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, who was the French Economic historian. The world was divided between the capitalist first world which was led by the United States, and the communist second world, which was headed by Moscow (Thussu, 2006). The Term Third world was given to the nations who were not included in above mentioned groups (Brandt Commission, 1981; South Commission, 1990) and Asia, Latin America and Africa started a movement of National Liberation. This changed the entire political maps of the world (Thussu, 2006). By 1960, a lot of countries were free from the colonial powers and these new independent states got an opportunity to develop because of International Communication (Thussu, 2006). The New International Economic Order (NIEO) was approved by the UN General Assembly and the UNCTAD, because, the Non-Aligned Movement started demanding fairness in the economy. NIEO had an independent and an egalitarian economic order which was grounded on the principles of equality and was government free which included that, all the members of the country had equal rights to participate in the development process (Thussu, 2006 cit. Hamelink, 1979: 145). The NIEO provided a structure which helped to understand the international relations between the countries based on North-South division. At the same time, New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) also had to be taken into consideration in order to link it with the economic order. The Non-Aligned countries demanded changes in the global economic and informational systems. Juan Somavia, 1976, observed that, The transnational Power structure supported the transnational communication system to develop. This is basically a tool for transmitting values and lifestyles to Third World Countries which provokes the consumption and society which is necessary to the transnational system as a whole. (Somavia, 1976: 16-17) There were a lot of times when the Third World or the developing countries took technical and financial help from the Western or the developed countries as they wanted to use the communication technologies for development. One of the main areas where the developing countries took support from the developed ones was the satellite television. Television was considered to be one of the most powerful and influential medium. It could be used for a lot of purposes like bringing change in the attitudes of the traditional people, educational purposes and modernise societies. Cultural Dependency Theory: Cultural Dependency Theory was emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s in Latin America. It was a criticism of the modernisation theory. This theory was developed in Latin America under the supervision of Raul Prebisch who was the director of United Nations Economic Commission. The main interest in research of Instituto Lationoamericano de Estudios (ILET) which was established in 1976 in Mexico City was to study the Transnational media business, which gave a force to criticise the modernisation theory.(Thussu, 2006) It became necessary to analyse international communication. So dependency theorists directed towards getting a substitute theoretical account (Baran, 1957; Gunder Frank, 1969; Amin 1976). Transnational Communication (TNCs) which was dominated by the North, have control over the governments and over developing countries by setting their personal rules and regulations on global trade which includes dominating labour, market, production and resources. These countries were developing in such a way that the developed countries keep dominating over the developing countries and maintained the need for the developing countries to be dependent on the developed countries (Thussu, 2006). Due to the neo-colonial relationship in which the TNCs controlled the exchange and structure of global markets, the inequality in the south had become wider and deeper whereas the TNCs had strengthened their control over the worlds natural and human resources (Baran, 1957; Mattlelart, 1979, Thussu, 2006). Dependency theorists tried to show the link between modernisation and policies of transnational media (Thussu, 2006). Herbert Schillers idea of cultural imperialism is the most clearly identified one (1969-92). Schiller analysed the links between the transnational business and the dominant states. (Thussu, 2006) The main argument of Schiller was about how the US based transnational corporations weaken the cultural liberty of the developing countries and force them to be dependent on both hardware and software of communication and media. The definition of cultural imperialism by Schiller was, the sum of the process by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to or even to promote, the values and structures of the dominant centre of the system (Schiller, 1976: 9) Schiller argued that new emergent American empire was taking over the European colonial empires like, British, French and Dutch. This was based on the economic, military and informational power. According to him, the US based TNCs are continuously growing and are starting to dominate the global economy. US business and military organisations have got a leading role in the development and control of a new, electronic based global communication system due to the support that economic growth has received from the communication knowledge (Thussu, 2006). USA had the most effective surveillance system as it controlled global satellite communications which was the crucial element in the cold war years (Thussu, 2006). Due to this the dependence on the US increased for communication Technology and investment (Schiller, 1969). All the western goods and services along with the American way of life were promoted when the media programs were imported from the USA which required sponsorship to run . This was a threat to the Southern traditional cultures (Schiller, 1969). He argued in his book, which was republished in 1992 that the domination over the worlds communication of the US increased after the UNESCO failed and the cold war got over. The domination of US over the economy had started decreasing as the TNCs started acquiring important role in international relations changing the cultural imperialism of US into Transnational corporate cultural domination (Schiller, 1992: 39) The other works which show the dominance of the US using cultural imperialism is clearly seen in the Hollywoods relationship with the European movie market (Guback, 1996); US exports television shows to Latin America and influences it greatly (Wells, 1972); Disney comic also have contributed in promoting capitalist values (Dorfan and Mattelart, 1975) and advertising industry has played a role of an ideological instrument (Ewen, 1976; Mattelart, 1991) (cited in Thussu, 2006: 48-49). Oliver Boyd-Barrett noticed one of the most prominent aspects of dependency in international communication in the 1970s as media imperialism. This examines the information and media inequalities between the nations. It analyses the domination of the US over the international media (Boyd-Barrett, 1977). Modernisation Theory: The concept of modernity has become a very general statement. It represents the experience of the western culture on the others. All the global cultures are disapproved to modernity and the concept of cultural imperialism critically evaluates the conclusions in the critique of modernity (Tomlinson, 1991). A philosophical notion in the years after the war was that international communication is an important part in order to modernise and develop the Third world nations. The notion was that international communication can be used to spread modernity among the newly independent countries and that it will help to transform the traditional societies of the developing countries. It was also used to transfer the hypothetical description of economic and political entity of the developed countries.   Modernisation theory is an attempt to provide a support for the development policies which was created by the western countries. These development policies were supported towards the Third world countries which were still getting out of the rule of the stronger countries and were getting independent. This theory is just an attempt to explain the economic under-development of the Third world nations by focusing on the development which can be done with a process which is determined by the societys internal features. Vincent Mosco points out: The Modernisation Theory was meant to reconstruct the international division of labour amalgamating the non-Western world into the emerging international structural hierarchy (1996: 121). Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel and Tonnies and others came up with their own theories keeping in mind the dramatic changes in the European societies due to the modern world. There was an agreement between the theorists which was based on the political spectrum and all of them thought that the world had more than one possible meaning in the capacity to deliver fulfilment and happiness. Modernity was associated with enlightenment and was suppose to free the people from the control of another person or any legal or political restrictions. But modernity failed to deliver complete freedom. Modernisation includes economic scientific and technical development that is very closely related to the capitalist market. But Bermans, in his book All that is solid melts into air talks about the notion of self development. The main aim of his book is to explain that cultural condition of modernity stood still and lapsed during the twentieth century. He also aims to fix the serious problem which was closely linked to the possibilities of dangers along with the enthusiasts and enemies of the modern life which was found during the nineteenth century. (Berman, 1983) According to the Frankfurt School theorists the main issue of modernity was the injustices by the capitalist system or social intolerance by a bigot or of the ideology of possessive individualism (Tomlinson, 1991). Horkheimer and Adorno critiqued the modernisation theory by comparing it with the so called rational institutions. The main task of modernisation theory is to set people free, but the history and past politics show that this theory failed to do their task effectively (Tomlinson, 1991). According the Berman, people living in the twentieth century do not know how to live a modern life and missed of broken the connection between the culture and lives. He describes modernisation as a set of historical processes due to which the experience of modernity evolves. He claims that modernity is one of the most difficult, anxious and uncertain place to live, but ultimately it is the world where people live and people can master the cultures of the place where they live. At one point of time, he mentions about the Third World nations and discusses that the governments of those countries are trying to protect their people from modernisation which is being imposed by the West. He says that if the culture which is being imposed by the west is really not used by the Third World nations then will they consume so much energy? The governments of the Third world nations call the West as aliens. But they do not understand the fact that they are their own peoples energies, desires and cr itical spirit. When these governments say that they do not want the Western Countries to impose any kind of cultures in their nations, they are trying to say that, they have managed to keep the political and spiritual influence on the people. Also they do not realise that once the people become more aware of things going around them, modernist spirit will be one of the first things to be adapted by the people. The governments of the Third World Nations are fighting against each other in order to keep their tradition alive among the people, which had no result at the end. He also says that Third world governments think that they are being enforced upon by the western countries by accumulating a lot of capital or are being forced to break into parts. He suggests that people have to adapt to a place in which nothing can be taken for granted. Media is just one form of medium which helps to spread the experience of modernity. But according to another theorist, Peter Berger, 1974, modernisation is not a one way journey which rectifies human self understanding. He explains this concept with the help of a story of a visitor who visited the villages of Tanzania. People living in these villages belonged to different Tribes but are now living very co-operatively. This was one of the communities which were transferring from tradition to modernity. The visitor asked someone; whether they still practice their personal tribal dances. The answer was, yes, and it is done once or twice a year on any special occasion. He also added that this is done so that it becomes easy for the people to understand one another better. (Berger, 1974).It is clearly seen that there is a process of political-economic which is enforced upon the Third world nations as they are very closely connected with their traditions and colonialism which has become a history for the Western nations and still are in a position to dominate over the Thi rd world nations (Tomlinson, 1991). Castoriadis, 1985, mentions that the West will continue to conquer the world even if it was going to be destroyed materially (Castoriadis, 1985). So when Berman says that the Third World cultures need to be modernised, he means not just in terms of objective structures of the capitalist markets, urbanism, but also in terms of a narrative with a clear beginning keeping in mind the cultures of the west. His view of modernity means that it is full of forces like the dynamic and development forces which means that the Western cultures are being imposed on the Third world nations in order to modernise and develop their countries. But Castoriadis has a different opinion. He accepts individuals have their own priorities and have their personal institutional forces towards modernity. The kind of institutions we develop in order to become powerful does not come from external forces of humanity but it comes from within through the social imaginary (Tomlinson, 1991). Habermass view on modernity is completely different from that of Bermans. Habermas thinks that modernity is a way of making someone poor culturally, whereas Berman thinks that there are forces which drive people towards modernity (Tomlinson, 1991). Cultural Dependency Theory v/s Modernisation Theory: The gap between the ruling and the working class increased which combined with regular recession to create dissatisfaction among the working class (McPhail, 2009). In order to fight for their rights, working class started forming groups such as unions (McPhail, 2009). Stevenson criticised this theory by using the dependency literature which was notable for an absence of clear definitions of fundamental terms like imperialism and an almost total lack of empirical evidence to support the arguments (Stevenson, 1988: 38). A lot of other theorists argued that it did not consider the media form and the role played by the audience (Thussu, 2006). Those involved in a cultural studies approach to the analysis of international communication argued that, like other cultural artefacts, media texts could be polysemic and were amenable to different interpretations by audiences who were not merely passive consumers, but active participants in the process of negotiating meaning (Fiske, 1987, cited in Thussu, 2006: 49). It was also noticed by the theorists that cultural imperialism thesis did not consider issues as how global media texts worked in national contexts, ignoring local patterns of media consumption (Thussu, 2006: 49). Cultural Dependency theory also failed to explain the effects of the cultural products distributed by the US around the world. Also, cultural imperialism failed to give attention to the complexities of the Third World cultures and assumed a hypodermic-needle model (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1991, 1997). It was also argued that western scholars did not have deep knowledge about the Third world cultures. They had extremely limited knowledge and not being aware of diversities such as race, gender, class, religion and ethnicity. Very few systematic studies have been conducted by the southern scholars on cultural and ideological effects on western media on the audiences of the south (Thussu, 2006).One of the major issues of this theory was that it did not consider the role of the national elites, especially elites living in the developing countries (Thussu, 2006). Modernisation Theory had promised to deliver the social and economic change which failed miserably (McPhail, 2009). Therefore, three other theories were developed which looked at the development communication which were totally different and directed in a different way, which were, Cultural imperialism, Participatory communication and Entertainment-Education Theory (McPhail, 2009). Social and cultural theory does not agree with the core of modernity. Also this theory was criticised to a great degree because of its ideological basis, lack of clarity and it is a subject which is ignorant to many and it fails to exercise good judgement. This theory ignores the external determinants of underdevelopment like the exploitation of the Third world countries when they were being ruled by the Western countries. This theory ignores these factors and assumes that the Third World nations are progressing independently and are becoming modern on their own. In order for the Third world nations to progress they needed help from the Western countries as there was a lot of poverty, inadequate resources, lack of social provisions and political instability in the Third world nations. Modernisation Theory ignores all the disapprovals and expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its context which was addressed by the classical theorists (Tomlinson, 1991). In this theory, the traditional cultures, media habits, language, religion of the developing countries were not included, and were totally ridiculed and ignored (McPhail, 2009). One of the clear criticisms on this theory is that the American policy was to commit to free flow the information to the world and all the nations fell into the trap and gave immense support to this statement which was assumed to be true (McPhail, 2009). Scholars from the developing countries argued that the developing countries were not the beneficiaries of this theory, which was meant for them, but the western countries who created it were only getting benefitted out of this theory as it helped the companies to grow and establish in the Third world and could find their new consumers of their products (Thussu, 2009). A lot of people in the Third World remained poor and under developed, even after adapting themselves to modernisation theory and by the mid 70s, they started talking about the passing of the dominant paradigm (Rogers, 1976: 3).Slowly, when the US realised that the Southern nations are looking at them with suspicion, they stopped their free flow of information and became the one at the receiving end which at the end became a one way flow of information (McPhail, 2009). This matter was going to be brought up in the debate of the UNESCO in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the US president, Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher withdrew from UNESCO in order to protest against NWICO. Different opinions resulted in creating two streams, one of which was the outline of cultural imperialism by Herbert Schiller and the NWICO debate and fallout. This resulted in making a particular culture homogenous, that is the American popular culture, which is been mass produced (McPhail, 2009). Due to these reasons, the theorists of modernisation theory realised that this theory needs to be redeveloped (Thussu, 2006). The revised modernisation theory gives greater notice to the local elites (Thussu, 2006). But even in the revised version, western technology remains important. According to Thussu, 2006, Modernisation requires advanced telecommunication and computer infrastructure, preferably through the efficient private corporations, thus integrating the South into a globalized information economy (Thussu, 2006: 46) Despite of all the criticism done on dependency theory, cultural imperialism thesis have been extremely influential in international communication (Tomlinson, 1991; Thompson, 1995). This particular thesis was extremely important and needed during the heated argument during the NWICO debates in UNESCO and other international fora in the 1970s (Thussu, 2006). While criticising this thesis, John Thompson, 1995, concluded that this research is probably the only systematic and moderately plausible attempt, to think about the globalisation of communication and its impact on the modern world (Thompson, 1995: 173). Theorists, who defend this theory, argued that the critics of this theory often take the notion which is totally not in reference to the theory and it is completely abstract (Mattelart and Mattelart, 1998). There were a lot of changes in the debate of international communication which reflected the language of privatisation and liberalisation in the 1990s, media and cultural dependency theories became less eminent but their relevance was very visible all around (Golding and Harris, 1997; Thussu, 1998; Hackett and Zhao, 2005 and Hamm and Smandych, 2005 cited in Thussu, 2006: 50) Boyd-Barrett rightly argues that media imperialism has not included variables, such as gender, media relations and ethnic issues, so it is still a very useful theory to understand of what he terms the colonisation of communication space (Boyd-Barrett. 1998: 157). References: 1. Amin, S. (1976) Accumulation on a world scale: a critique of the theory of underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press. 2. Baran, P. (1957) The political economy of growth. New York: Monthly Review Press. 3. Berman. M (1983) All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity. London, verso, pp. 15 4. Boyd-Barrett, O. (1977) Media Imperialism: towards an international framework for the analysis of media systems. In J.Curran, M. Gurevitch and J. Woolacott (eds), Mass Communication and society. London: Edward Arnold. 5. Boyd-Barrett, O. (1998) Media imperialism which was developed again. In. D. Thussu (ed.), Electronic empires. London: Arnold. 6. Brandt Commission (1981) North-South: a programme for survival. The report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues under the chairmanship of Willi Brandt, London: Pan Books. 7. Castoriadis, C. (1985) Reflections on rationality and development, thesis eleven, no. 10/11, pp. 21. 8. Golding, P. And Harris, P. (eds) (1997) The political economy of the media 2 vols, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 9. Gunder Frank, A. (1969) Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America. New York. Monthly Review Press. 10. Hackett, R. A and Zhao, Y. (eds) (2005) Democratizing global media: one world, many struggles. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield. 11. Mattelart, A. (1979) Multinational corporations and the control of culture. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. 12. Mattelart, A. and Mattelart, M. (1998) Theories of communication: a short introduction. London: Sage. 13. McPhail, T. (2009) Development Communication Reframing the role of the media. London. Blackwell Publishing. 14. Mosco, V. (1996) The political economy of communication: rethinking and renewal. London: Sage. 15. Berger, P. (1974) Pyramids of sacrifice, Harmondsworth, Allen lane, pp. 197-8 16. Rogers, E. (1976) Communication and DevelopmentL the passing of a dominant paradigm. Communication Research, 3. 17. Schiller, H. (1969) Mass Communication and American Empire. New York: Augustus M. Kelley.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Second revised and updated edition published by Westview Press in 1992. 18. Schiller, H. (1976) Communication and cultural domination. New York: International Arts and sciences press, 9. 19. Somavia, J. (1976) The Transnational Power Structure and International Information. Development Dialogue, 2:   16-17. 20. South Commission (1990) The challenge of South: the report of the South Commission. Geneva: the South Centre. 21. Sreberny-Mohammadi, A. (1991) The global and the local in international communication. In J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society. London: Edward Arnold. 22. Sreberny-Mohammadi, A. (1997) The many cultural phases of imperialism. In P. Golding and P. Harris (eds), Beyond cultural imperialism. London: Sage. 23. Stevenson, R. (1988) Communication, development and the Third World: the global politics of information. London: Longman. 38. 24. Thussu, D. K (ed.) (1998) Electronic empires: global media and local resistance. London: Arnold. 25. Thussu, D. K (2006) International Communication- Continuity and Change (2nd Ed) Great Britain: Hodder Education. 26. Thussu, D. K (2006) Approaches to theorizing international communication. In: International Communication- Continuity and Change (2nd Ed) Great Britain: Hodder Education. Pp. 46. 27. Thussu, D. K (2006) Approaches to theorizing international communication. In: International Communication- Continuity and Change (2nd Ed) Great Britain: Hodder Education. Pp. 48-49. 28. Thussu, D. K (2006) Approaches to theorizing international communication. In: International Communication- Continuity and Change (2nd Ed) Great Britain: Hodder Education. Pp. 49. 29. Thussu, D. K (2006) Approaches to theorizing international communication. In: International Communication- Continuity and Change (2nd Ed) Great Britain: Hodder Education. Pp. 50. 30. Thompson, J. (1995) The media and modernity: a social theory of the media. Cambridge: Polity. 31. Tomlinson, J. (1991) Cultural Imperialism- a critical introduction. Great Britain. Pinter Publishers Ltd.

Reliability of the Media Essay -- Media Advertising Advertisements Ess

Reliability of the Media Growing up in America today means being exposed to numerous half truths. These are readily found on the television, newspapers, radio, and movies. The truth is hardly ever told in its complete form. Take for instance the local news broadcast, we watch it and take it for truth. We tend to give credibility to these newscasters based on the fact that they are representing major broadcast stations. These stations are supposed to be reliable and credible sources of information. In reality the facts are rarely ever told in complete form to the public. Bits and pieces of collected information is dressed up and edited to create a â€Å"news item†. Many times a station has to retract statements due to over-embellishment. The whole point in their doing this is to maintain an audience. Movie directors are masters of this technique. Movies based on historical events usually rely heavily on dramatization. It is the job of a movie director to gain and maintain the interest of the audience. As an audience we tend to take what we view as truth. Sometimes the dramatization is so extreme that the fictionalization masks the reality. The movie â€Å"Mississippi Burning† is an example of this type of media process. As an audience we are led to believe that the story is based on real life and that these actual events happened exactly the way it was portrayed, when in fact there are great differences in the movie and what really happened. Some of the events were changed, people ...

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. kockelman@dartmouth. 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.   

Are Gap Years a Good Idea? Essay

When you think about graduating high school, it is almost ingrained in your brain that college is the next step. You think, â€Å"Who doesn’t have a college degree?† And where in life am I going to get without one. But school is not for everybody. A lot of kids, including me, just go to college because it seems like the right path. Kids who have no idea what they want to do, think â€Å"well a college degree could be useful,† well why would you want to go do something, when you have no idea why you’re even doing it. Well, there may be another option. There is a British tradition, which is called a gap year. Defined by Cambridge Dictionaries Online as â€Å"a year between leaving school and starting university which is usually spent travelling or working† (Cambridge University 1). Now this sounds interesting, doesn’t it? What if you had a whole year to do what you needed, travel or work, something to help you figure out what you really want to do with your life. In Britain, there is now this option. With this idea in your head a question comes to mind, should the U.S. adopt the British tradition of students taking a gap year? In the paragraphs below, I will tell you why I think the U.S. should. I have looked at both sides of whether or not the U.S. should adopt this British tradition. I have found though, that it is working tremendously for the UK. That is the main reason I think that the U.S. should use this idea, if it is working so great for the UK and their colleges have a better reputation maybe we should also think about adopting this idea. I think students should take a gap year for many other reasons also though, which have to do with the student. First and foremost, it offers a great worldly experience and gives students time to do what they need to do. It also gives those students who have no clue what they would like to major in or do after college, time. Time is what many students need, being rushed into college right after high school and having to do college applications during senior year really stresses some students out. Me being one of these students, last year when applying to colleges, I had to write that I was undecided. And here we are midway through my first semester of college, and I am still undecided and have absolutely no clue what I want to do. And I feel like a lot of students are in the unspoken situation I was in. Maybe if gap years were a more widely accepted idea and promoted then students who didn’t quite know what to do would have another option. Anybody can do gap years also! It is not just used for young students. Older people going back to school, have this option also. And no matter the money situation there are so many options, so no matter what if you wanted to travel you could. There are student travel abroad programs, volunteer and scholarship options. No matter if you have money or not, you can get a great worldly experience that will give you time and extra skills which most students will not have in college. Many people think taking a year off of school is dangerou s. Not dangerous in a physical way, but mentally. An opinion of many who are asked about gap years is that students will not return to school once they have had the freedom of no school for a year. It is believed that students will become mentally lazy, and will not want to work again and realize that they really do not have to go back. But in researching this, I have found that kids who take gap years to do progressive things have loved their decisions and come back ready to learn again. On the infamous website planetgapyears.com, many students tell about their experiences with gap years and how it really helped them become motivated again. Even though people think kids will not go back to school, I think it’s better for someone to take a break then go to college when they are not ready. Studies show that â€Å"the dropout rate for incoming college freshman is almost 30%† (NCES 1). Most freshmen who are not equipped to handle college yet or who are not ready, but do it anyways, just end up dropping out. A Student dropping out provides lower statistics for good colleges, not because the college is doing a bad job but because kids just are not ready. Why should a person go to college when they are just not ready for it? If the dropout rate is high why not let a student defer their application until they are ready? This is how the British gap year works, a student applies to colleges their senior year of high school, like a normal fall applicant would. Once accepted, the student then defers their application and the university gives them an amount of time off. When this time is over, they start in the next semester. Most British colleges offer this to students, and a lot of colleges actually encourage it to students who think they are not ready to handle the college life. I think the U.S. should do this to, only because it is working so well in Britain. The gap ye ar is proven to be a helpful and great experience for students. If it wasn’t why would universities encourage it? Students come back from these trips or years off with a new found want to learn and a refreshed mind. After going to school for four year, it is definitely hard to be excited to do the same thing for another four years. But with a gap year, you’re doing something else for a year, so when you come back you are in learning mode. Another argument someone who is against gap years may make is that they are expensive, especially if you are looking to travel. This is completely wrong though! Travelling is only one option, you can choose to just live at home and work, or focus on something else! You do not have to spend money to take a gap year. But there is always that option too! Many students want to take a gap year, but have no savings or money to do so. No problem! British universities offer thousands of travelling options, such as scholarships, and study abroad programs. Scholarships can help you get started and make it mu ch cheaper. And study abroad programs are too, they help students get more for their money. And the study abroad option also helps them still be a part of the university they would like to attend! So you’re not fully out of school, you’re just off the main campus for a little while. Also there are volunteer options, where you can spend a little bit of your time volunteering but get to go somewhere for free or for a small fee! So there are many options for students who are not well off with money, which we know in this economy is a lot of us, so why not do it? You must wonder truly how popular gap years are in the UK. Well I found statistics on a website called gapadvice.org. A non-biased website towards gap years, this website is geared towards students who are looking to take gap years. It gives basic statistics and even research on gap years into how helpful and beneficial they are for students. According to UCAS Figures, the ‘students take a gap year’ rate per year is about 7%, and has stayed close to around 7% since 2002 until around 2011. But this year had a surprising, 37% reduction rate in the amount of students taking a gap year. You may ask why this year had a reduction rate. Nobody is really sure why, but a study called â€Å"Revision of Gap Year Provision† report commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills could only talk good things about gap years. This report was carried out by Dr. Andrew Jones from Birkbeck, University of London, to talk about if he thought gap years were hurting or beneficial to students. All he says in this report is that it is beneficial to students to take gap years, finding that â€Å"Planned and well-structured gap years are a highly beneficial experience for young people. They are often important factors in facilitating the next step in education or employment. Participants gain a wide range of life skills and other more specialized skills. These skills are often the ones employers identify as lacking in new recruits and are valued by universities. Gap year participation also benefits wider society both in terms of the activities young people undertake and the wider impact of facilitating the integration of young people into society as functioning citizens† (Jones 1). This is amazing. A professional does a study and finds only good things about students taking gap years. He also found that in the UK â€Å"between 200,000 and 250,000 young people aged 16-25 are estimated to take a gap year of some kind each year† (Jones 1). This number is huge and has only gone up since the earlier 2000’s. I think with only good things to say about gap years, what is the hurt in taking one? So I’m sure most students think, what’s the point? But if you really think about it, everyone has somewhere they would like to travel to eventually. So take this time to travel there. Almost every student story I read online from a student’s perspective, said that taking the gap year was one of the smartest things they have ever done. And on top of that, that it was one of the best experiences of their life. I’m sure as soon as you would mention taking a year off of school to your parents, is as soon as you would jump off a bridge, this is the same for me. My parents believe college is a necessity and would give me some crazy look if I had even mentioned taking a year off of school last year. But I do regret not even mentioning it. As of now, it’s taking me some time to get used to college. I have adapted pretty well, but I definitely think a student like me who has no idea what they want to major in or do outside of college, a gap year would have been a good learning experience for me. I didn’t have a chance to do this, but you do. With so many programs you barely have to pay any money to experience a whole new culture and part of the world. You can experience hands on activity and travel at the same time with volunteering. And you could even stay home, but don’t be lazy, take an internship, get a job, do something productive. It gives you time and options to think about what you would like to do when you grow up, and gives you time to set a financial ground for yourself before going into college. Students come back with worldly experiences and things many people have never seen before, which gives them a leg up in college. If there is only good to say about it, then why not?

6 Things You Must Ask Before Accepting a Job Offer

6 Things You Must Ask Before Accepting a Job Offer Got the job? Great. Now you need a crash course in negotiating. Don’t be too difficult or demanding, but do ask for what you want and need- respectfully and professionally. Here are 6 things to make sure you discuss before you sign the contract.1. The Money You WantSalary is the number one negotiated term for any new position. Do your research into the industry standards for your position, taking into account any extra expertise you might have- or any missing links. If you’re going to ask for more money, be prepared to explain why you deserve it. And why it would be in their best interests to spend the extra cash to get you on board.2. SweetenersIf you’re lucky enough to be in a field that typically offers signing bonuses, that can help mitigate a slightly lower salary offer. Again, do your research. Don’t ask for anything extortionate or too far out of the ordinary. But do use it as leverage if the hiring manager says they’d really like to offer yo u a higher salary, but they just don’t have the authorization. Maybe they can get the authorization for a signing bonus.3. Vacay DaysTime off is important to most of us. It might even be more important to you than your annual salary. If this is your main demand, you can ease up on the money talk and ask for compensation in more vacation days. Don’t forget to mention that your productivity increases exponentially when you have time off to reset.  4. Regular ReviewsHungry to get up the ladder? Not totally jazzed by your new job title? Make sure to formally request performance reviews. If you’re doing your job well, this is the surest way to title bumps and increased compensation. Show ‘em what you’ve got!5. Moving MoneyIf you need to uproot and go halfway across the country, be sure to ask for relocation assistance. Most companies have a separate budget for this. Be sure to go into the negotiation with a clear idea of how much your move is going to cost so you know how much you’ll need to ask for.  6. The Opportunity for FlexibilityThis can be a tough one, since the company doesn’t know your work style yet. They don’t know how productive and fabulous you are, because you haven’t shown them. But if schedule freedom is that important to you, or to your work, it’s okay to mention it in these initial negotiations.Remember: negotiating isn’t easy. And salary is just one piece of the puzzle. Make sure you know what your needs and wishes are, then rank them in order of importance. You can’t ask for everything right out of the gate, but you can (and should) ask for the most important.

Free Essays on Rousseaus Social Contract

What Freedom? One of the most thought provoking ideas in Rousseau’s Social Contract was when he stated that â€Å"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.† Today, this very same idea still stands true. Everywhere you look, there is an example of a person being tied to, or answering to another. It is sad to think that even though it is our constitutional right to be free, no one can ever be absolutely free. An example of man being in chains could lie within the family. Until most people are 18, they are expected to obey their parents, regardless of how they may feel. Even if a teenager is completely responsible and trustworthy, his parents may decide against something he wants to do, whether it be going to a party or going to the mall to ‘hang out’. It all depends on the type of parents a teenager may have. If this teen decides to do whatever he wants, then his parents will lose a sense of respect and trust for him, even if he did nothing wrong. Sadly, things happen in our world that make it impossible for parents to agree to everything teens want to do. So, in a sense, it is almost society that puts the chains on teenagers. Either way, a lot of teens do not get to experience as much as they would like because of how parents feel about what is going on around them. Another good example of how we are in chains lies inside each and every one of us. We are sometimes held back by our own values and beliefs of the world around us. For instance, a person may feel it necessary to act outside of his usual boundaries, but not do so because he is afraid of how others will view him and how he will feel about himself. If I were to decide I wanted to go to a party, I would feel very uncomfortable because it is not something I do. My beliefs and feelings would interfere with what I want to do, so in a way, I am held back by my own chains. Still, another example lies in the federal and state governments. There ... Free Essays on Rousseaus Social Contract Free Essays on Rousseaus Social Contract What Freedom? One of the most thought provoking ideas in Rousseau’s Social Contract was when he stated that â€Å"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.† Today, this very same idea still stands true. Everywhere you look, there is an example of a person being tied to, or answering to another. It is sad to think that even though it is our constitutional right to be free, no one can ever be absolutely free. An example of man being in chains could lie within the family. Until most people are 18, they are expected to obey their parents, regardless of how they may feel. Even if a teenager is completely responsible and trustworthy, his parents may decide against something he wants to do, whether it be going to a party or going to the mall to ‘hang out’. It all depends on the type of parents a teenager may have. If this teen decides to do whatever he wants, then his parents will lose a sense of respect and trust for him, even if he did nothing wrong. Sadly, things happen in our world that make it impossible for parents to agree to everything teens want to do. So, in a sense, it is almost society that puts the chains on teenagers. Either way, a lot of teens do not get to experience as much as they would like because of how parents feel about what is going on around them. Another good example of how we are in chains lies inside each and every one of us. We are sometimes held back by our own values and beliefs of the world around us. For instance, a person may feel it necessary to act outside of his usual boundaries, but not do so because he is afraid of how others will view him and how he will feel about himself. If I were to decide I wanted to go to a party, I would feel very uncomfortable because it is not something I do. My beliefs and feelings would interfere with what I want to do, so in a way, I am held back by my own chains. Still, another example lies in the federal and state governments. There ...

Rubber Chicken Bone Science Experiment

Rubber Chicken Bone Science Experiment You wont be able to make a wish on a wishbone with the rubber chicken bone science experiment! In this experiment, you use vinegar to remove the calcium in chicken bones to make them rubbery. This is a simple project that illustrates what would happen to your own bones if the calcium in them is used more quickly than it is replaced. Materials for This Project VinegarChicken boneJar big enough you can cover the bone with vinegar While you can use any bone for this experiment, a leg (drumstick) is a particularly good choice because its normally a strong and brittle bone. Any bone will work, though, and you can compare bones from different parts of a chicken to see how flexible they are initially compared with how they change when calcium is removed from them. Make Rubber Chicken Bones Try to bend a chicken bone without breaking it. Get a sense of how strong the bone is.Soak chicken bones in vinegar.Check on the bones after a few hours and days to see how easy they are to bend. If you want to extract as much calcium as possible, soak the bones in vinegar for 3-5 days.When you are done soaking the bones, you can remove them from the vinegar, rinse them in water and allow them to dry. While you have vinegar handy, how about using it to  make a bouncy ball from an egg? How It Works The acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the calcium in the chicken bones. This weakens them, causing them to become soft and rubbery  as if they had come from a rubber chicken. What Rubber Chicken Bones Mean for You The calcium in your bones is what makes them hard and strong. As you age, you may deplete the calcium faster than you replace it. If too much calcium is lost from your bones, they may become brittle and susceptible to breaking. Exercise and a diet that includes calcium-rich foods can help prevent this from happening. Bones Aren't Just Calcium While the calcium in bones in the form of hydroxyapatite makes them strong enough to support your body, they cant be made completely of the mineral or they would be brittle and prone to breakage. This is why vinegar doesnt completely dissolve bones. While the calcium is removed, the fibrous protein called collagen remains. Collagen gives bones enough flexibility to withstand everyday wear and tear. It is the most abundant protein in the human body, found not just in bones, but also in skin, muscles, blood vessels, ligaments, and tendons. Bones are close to 70% hydroxyapatite, with most of the remaining 30% consisting of collagen. The two materials together are stronger than either one alone, in much the same way reinforced concrete is stronger than either of it components. Science Ideas to Explore Carbonated soft drinks are also acidic. What happens if you soak bones in soda rather than vinegar?Teeth consist almost entirely of the calcium mineral hydroxyapatite. What do you predict will remain of a tooth if you soak it in vinegar for a long time? How about the effect of soda on teeth?

Pursue Business at USC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pursue Business at USC - Essay Example My skills and past experiences best suit me for this course. Personally, I believe I have an analytical mind and I am an awesome strategist. This was witnessed during my summer internship at an international trading company, which dealt with trading detergents from France. At the company I keenly analyzed the customers buying trends and developed a strategy that would assist the company realizes more sales. I realized that offering gifts to our customers would motivate them to come again and buy more goods. However, I had also to study our customer base, and I discovered that most of our customers were female. Based on the above insights, I came up with Louis Vuitton bags since they are a status symbol that could attract more female customers. This strategy bore fruits as there was a substantial increase in the company’s sales even to other Asian countries such as Taiwan, China, and Japan. I came to learn that I am considerate, hardworking, self-motivated, determined, and ambi tious. This qualifies, skills and experiences will enable me to thrive well in your institution that is competitive and encompasses people of different cultures. This program fits my future professional goals because in future I want to venture into the field of business. Despite the misconception that some people have that business is about making money, personally my motivation of doing business is that I like the idea of doing the business itself; meeting and interacting with people and learning from them.

Effect of Teaching Style on Students Scores Essay

Effect of Teaching Style on Students Scores - Essay Example The results revealed no significant changes between the two groups of students when using the ANOVA but depicted elevated levels in 2009 using the MRT. The PCC test revealed some positive correlation between the sampled assessment test scores. Therefore the study demonstrates that teaching styles are correlated to the final scores among students hence innovative teaching style has a favorable consequence among the learners’. Conventional teaching techniques are increasing being viewed as deficient in terms of upholding extensive scholarship and lasting preservation of essential educational concepts. Additionally, these teaching processes are alleged of encouraging quiescent rather than active interactive scholarship (Meyers & Jones, 1993). The advent of sophisticated ICT learning tools has compelled hitherto conservative educationalists to adopt modern methods of teaching especially in the scientific fields of study of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology educatio n. Considerable research has proven the wisdom of assimilating these innovative techniques, as growth have been demonstrated in the education milieu particularly in adult education (Hein & Irvine, 2004). Kolb (1985) in his pragmatic learning cycle claimed that a learner undergoes various stages of knowledge sequence; whereby there is a certain foremost useful stage that is conducive to instruction and understanding. DePorter (1992) further observed that perceived disparities in a student learning style are often caused by ‘a conflict.

How does oil and gas market effect on world economic Coursework

How does oil and gas market effect on world economic - Coursework Example There is no contention or doubt that oil and gas are the major sources of energy in the world, despite the invention of other sources of energy like Nuclear and geothermal energy, oil and gas remain the most crucial and fundamental source of energy. The economy of most countries in the world is dependent upon oil and natural gas; this has been greatly evidenced by the effect of global oil and gas prices on the prices of other basic commodities and the cost of living. This vehemently indicates that the global economy is inextricably bound with the global oil and gas market. Political crisis and interrupting in major petroleum producing countries has often had tremendous effect on global prices of all other industrial commodities. This is because oil and gas energy is the backbone of industrial activities and development. . Other factors affecting the global oil market include technical factors, pricing and marketing, Environmental issues, national security, and public policy choices a nd debates in global oil markets. According to a report released by the International Energy Agency in the year 2011, the top ten oil producers accounted for 63% of the oil produced worldwide. These giant oil producers who have a large share of the Market greatly influence the international oil market. It is also projected that USA is going to overtake Russia as the largest oil producer by 2017. The greatest share of oil production is in the Middle East and political crisis in the last few years has seen a significant increase in global oil and gas prices. ... Market regionalisation would see very great oil price disparities which is mitigated by the oil controlling cartels like OPEC (Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries) OPEC has dominated the global oil market for a very long time and has somehow been effective in pushing the price of oil upwards in favour of oil producers. Due to the impact that the cartel has on the prices of oil and the market in general, there have been claims that the global oil market is not a fair market. This has seen petroleum producing countries realise a lot of wealth from the oil importing countries. The cartel has been effective in keeping the prices of oil higher than it would probably be if controlled by competition in a liberal market. However oil prices are at times greatly affected by world crisis or disasters and also speculation by the traders in this multi Trillion industry The petroleum producing countries greatly impact on the global oil prices by regulating production and supply, especia lly OPEC is very instrumental in regulating production by member states thus affecting supply and demand. The organisation is also involved in marketing of oil of the member states giving them a bigger bargaining power. If traders speculate a reduction in oil, prices they push the prices up, the availability of oil in strategic reserves also affect the global oil market. These include the oil stored in American reserves and refineries and also Saudi Arabia which has a very big reserve. If Saudi Arabia for instance allows release of oil from its strategic reserves, global oil prices tend to go down. Demand of oil and gas also greatly impact on the prevailing prices, this is especially during the

The Problem of the Identity of Immanuel in Isaiah Essay

The Problem of the Identity of Immanuel in Isaiah - Essay Example Other writers in their interpretations of Isaiah 7:14 have aimed to establish an association of the incident with the birth of Jesus, while, referring to the significance of almah which is a word of Hebrew origin, the meaning of which has been identified as virgin. According to Grisham, the varying assumptions regarding the identity of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14 have extended to the belief which postulates that he is Jesus himself, while, some consider him to be the child of Isaiah and the king of Judah thus, in their construal of the Book of Isaiah interpreters have vowed to prefer either a single fulfillment or double fulfillment.For the purposes of the succeeding sections of the paper the major views on the identity of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14 would be assessed in a comprehensive manner. Grisham observes that one of the interpretations regarding the identity of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14 label the child to be that of Isaiah’s, in his perspective on the identity of the woman and ch ild, Walton notes that in accordance with the teachings of the gospel and that of Christian religion regarding the woman in Isaiah 7:14, much of the assertions point towards the declaration that she is Isaiah’s wife however, these postulations can be nullified on the basis of various arguments. Walton claims his translations of the scripture to be highly credible and reliable. The first argument which nullifies the identity of Immanuel as the child of Isaiah comes from the comparison of 7:14 and 8:3

Media system, communication ethics and society Assignment

Media system, communication ethics and society - Assignment Example For the past 40 years, the development of media has highly been influenced by the authoritarian policies regimes where the media has been controlled very finely by the strict laws and regulations imposed by the government. It has been very cleverly used by their governments as a tool to publicize their own social, cultural and economic programs. In Saudi Arabia, till 1990’s most of the television channels were government owned but with time, private channels also entered in the market and introduced by more professional and independent approach to media management. Al-Jazeera, Al-Manar, Al-Arabiya are few of the pioneers in satellite television industry. The history and trends of the Saudi Arab region and other Arabian countries has never let them deviate from their cores and roots thus they also avoided adoption of westernization in their media system like rest of the countries. However, the historical dominance of political system has been the primary force in shaping the media structure in most of its parts. The history in Arab has largely been influenced by political system that shaped the media

What You learned in this class Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

What You learned in this class - Assignment Example Graduate students should use MLA style to reference their assignments. Business letter is a portrait of a company, thus it has to look distinctive and present the high quality nature of the business. Business letters have a standard format and template. The most commonly used format is the block style with text in single space and double space between paragraphs. In addition, the letter must have the sender’s address, inside address, salutation, body text, signature block and an enclosure if there is one. Research paper writer must have the objective of focusing on the research topic. The outline of the research with the thesis statement is included in the paper. The research paper should have the introduction, body, discussion and conclusion. Movie review assists the learner in understanding the artistic creation work. In addition, movie review enables the learners to be creative and establish new and improved movies. In conclusion, a good paper should have an excellent format and grammar to enhance its presentation. Formatting the paper is important in business letter writing, research paper writing and establishing a movie review. Moreover, referencing and citing all sources used are vital in avoiding plagiarism

Media system, communication ethics and society Assignment

Media system, communication ethics and society - Assignment Example For the past 40 years, the development of media has highly been influenced by the authoritarian policies regimes where the media has been controlled very finely by the strict laws and regulations imposed by the government. It has been very cleverly used by their governments as a tool to publicize their own social, cultural and economic programs. In Saudi Arabia, till 1990’s most of the television channels were government owned but with time, private channels also entered in the market and introduced by more professional and independent approach to media management. Al-Jazeera, Al-Manar, Al-Arabiya are few of the pioneers in satellite television industry. The history and trends of the Saudi Arab region and other Arabian countries has never let them deviate from their cores and roots thus they also avoided adoption of westernization in their media system like rest of the countries. However, the historical dominance of political system has been the primary force in shaping the media structure in most of its parts. The history in Arab has largely been influenced by political system that shaped the media

Crime Is a Social Construct Essay Example for Free

Crime Is a Social Construct Essay Crime is a social construct Discuss. This composition will look at crime and its different criminological interpretations. Crime is an umbrella word which covers a diverse range of issues and is dependant upon the theoretical stand point of the writer. Although the wordings of the explanations differ, the implications are consistent (Newburn, 2007. Doherty, 2005). Mclaughlin et al (2006) seems the most relevant for the purpose. They separate crime into three key constituent parts. These are harm, social agreement and the official societal reaction. There are different theoretical interpretations of crime. The product of culturally-bounded social interaction is crime; which is the violation of the social contract (Newburn, 2007. Young, 1995). Societal responses are different dependant upon the society. Theft in the UK may result in caution or non-custodial sentence for a first offence; whereas in Saudi Arabia the offender would lose a hand. Deviance can be perceived as being actions or behaviour which although may not be criminal in nature are at odds with the social norms of the society. Promiscuity is legal, though is perceived as deviant (particularly in females due to patriarchal societal values). Homosexual behaviour, which was previously illegal, has undergone a shift in the moral attitudes of society. The moral’s of society regarding certain activities is not set in stone and it alters over time. This is the view rule-relativists have of crime, as what is appropriate to the society at any given moment in time and may change due to alterations in societal values. Social constructs are the institutions, agencies, judicial bodies and any other mechanisms that are produced to implement social order. These social constructs are not natural phenomena; they are created by the hegemony. Behaviour or activities that offend the social codes practices of a particular community. These codes and practices may be different due to cultural differences. Legal and social codes are not always identical. Laws are the mortar that binds societies and implement its norms. A Muslim man may marry more than one wife in certain countries. In the USA a Mormon may also marry more than one wife. He may bring both wives into this country with both having legal rights as his wife. However even though his culture would allow him to marry another wife, in this country he wouldn’t be allowed to. A man in the UK would not be allowed more than one wife. If he did marry a second wife he would be charged with bigamy. This crime doesn’t harm anyone; however it is classed as being against the social norms of British society. A number of crimes are made due to the state acting as a moral guardian to its community. At the present in Indonesia it is illegal to chew chewing gum, conversely in the UK this would not be seen as a reasonable criminal offence. Governments are not beyond contravening their own statutes, as in the case of prisoners that have been transferred to Guantanamo bay and the acknowledgement that water boarding (a form of torture) had been used upon a few of these prisoners. As well as the state justice there are systems which provide social control, such as private security etc. â€Å"They comprise the numerous forms of social control of crime and deviance that are part of group life† (Henry, 1994). There are informal modes of social control from local communities, such as being â€Å"sent to Coventry! The legal standpoint is simply what is enacted by society as criminal. On the issue of harm Lord Denning’s ruling in Donoghue v Stevenson holds â€Å"what would the man on the Clapham omnibus think†. Legally in addition to the criminal act there has to be a guilty mind, mens rea as well as the criminal act, actus reus. There has to be a legal capacity to commit crime, Doli incapax means that thos e less than eleven years of age and those suffering from mental illness are seen as not being capable of committing crimes. There are also mitigating circumstances; reasons why a criminal act may be seen as reasonable. This can be observed as being the contextual component; evidence of this can be seen in the case of the mignonette (Morrison, 2005). The classicist classification of crime is activities which have a negative impact upon the individuals and upon their property of the state’s electorate. Classicists do not take into account that there might be other factions with conflicting aims or moral codes. This can be perceived prior to the break up of the former Yugoslavia, where each faction had separate societal views. The conservative view of crime is that anything that threatens the social order should be criminal. This follows the classicist view insofar as that but they also include crimes which damage the integrity and morals of society. Those dealing with new deviance theory assert that there needs to be two separate parties. One party behaves or commits certain actions that another party who has differing morality categorizes that party as deviant. The factions in society with greater power impose their moral codes (Young, 1995). With new deviance theory the faction with the most power controls the morals; this doesn’t necessarily translate to being the majority of society. The Marxist viewpoint on crime is from of class and the intensification of social control of society. This viewpoint perceives capitalist societies as being breeding grounds for criminal activities. Theorists believe that only socialist societies can have any expectation of being without crime. Sheptycki (2006) states that â€Å"the roots of crime lie in the social structural inequalities of wealth and power. Capitalist societies promote individual interests over social welfare. The radical left criminological theory is that the nature of an advanced industrial society with its class system and its natural patriarchy is the cause of the prevalence of crime. They furthermore view crime as being more of a predicament for the poor. The way laws have been created can be shown in the disparity in sentencing for property theft when compa red to white-collar crime. Positivist criminology views crime and criminal activity as explainable through the natural sciences. Positivist criminologists look for specific causes for crime through scientific methodology. Whether this is because of biological, psychological and sociological disciplines to be able to quantify criminal behaviour. Positivists deem that there is a â€Å"consensus of value in society that can be scientifically ascertained† (Young, 1995). To bring to a close crime is a social construct. Crime is in addition a component of the larger issue of deviance. It is a consequence of social norms which the government has enacted into laws. The state has the infrastructure to enforce the society’s behavioural codes. By means of these criminological schools all of any given states laws can be identified. Having observed these, the new deviance theory was the most rational, building as it does on previous schools of thought. This holds that the faction with the greater societal power holding the reins to society’s moral codes. At the present time this looks to be direction in which western societies are on the face of it is heading. The Iraq war was implemented by the powerful elite of society.