Frostbite Chapter 20

Twenty We NEEDED AN ESCAPE PLAN, and we needed it fast. Unfortunately, my only ideas called for things that really weren't under my control. Like us being left completely alone so we could sneak off. Or having stupid guards whom we could easily fool and slip away from. At the very least, we should have been sloppily secured so that we could break free. None of that was happening, though. After almost twenty-four hours, our situations hadn't really changed. We were still prisoners, still securely bound. Our captors stayed vigilant, almost as efficient as any group of guardians. Almost. The closest we got to freedom was heavily supervised- and extremely embarrassing- bathroom breaks. The men gave us no food or water. That was rough on me, but the human and vampire mix made dhampirs hardy. I could handle being uncomfortable, even though I was fast reaching a point where I would have killed for a cheeseburger and some really, really greasy french fries. For Mia and Christian†¦well, things were a little harder. Moroi could go weeks without food and water if they were still getting blood. Without blood, they could manage a few days before getting sick and weak, so long as they still had other sustenance. That was how Lissa and I had managed while living on our own, since I hadn't been able to feed her every day. Take away food, blood, and water, and Moroi endurance dropped through the floor. I was hungry, but Mia and Christian were ravenous. Already, their faces looked gaunt, their eyes almost feverish. Isaiah made matters worse during his subsequent visits. Each time, he would come down and ramble on in his annoying, taunting way. Then, before leaving, he'd take another drink from Eddie. By the third visit, I could practically see Mia and Christian salivating. Between the endorphins and lack of food, I was pretty sure Eddie didn't even know where we were. I couldn't really sleep under these conditions, but during the second day, I started nodding off now and then. Starvation and exhaustion will do that to you. At one point, I actually dreamed, surprising since I didn't really think I could fall into a deep slumber under such insane conditions. In the dream- and I knew perfectly well that it was a dream- I stood on a beach. It took me a moment to recognize just which beach it was. It was along the Oregon coast- sandy and warm, with the Pacific unfolding in the distance. Lissa and I had traveled out here once when we lived in Portland. It had been a gorgeous day, but she couldn't handle being out in that much sun. We'd kept the visit short as a result, but I'd always wished I could have stayed longer and basked in all that. Now I had all the light and warmth I could want. â€Å"Little dhampir,† said a voice behind me. â€Å"It's about time.† I turned around in surprise and found Adrian Ivashkov watching me. He had on khakis and a loose shirt and- in a surprisingly casual style for him- wore no shoes. Wind ruffled his brown hair, and he kept his hands stuffed in his pockets as he regarded me with that trademark smirk of his. â€Å"Still got your protection,† he added. Frowning, I thought for a moment he was staring at my chest. Then I realized his eyes were on my stomach. I had on jeans and a bikini top, and once again, the little blue eye pendant dangled from my belly-button. The chotki was on my wrist. â€Å"And you're in the sun again,† I said. â€Å"So I suppose it's your dream.† â€Å"It's our dream.† I wiggled my toes in the sand. â€Å"How can two people share a dream?† â€Å"People share dreams all the time, Rose.† I looked up at him with a frown. â€Å"I need to know what you mean. About there being darkness around me. What does it mean?† â€Å"Honestly, I don't know. Everyone has light around them, except for you. You have shadows. You take them from Lissa.† My confusion grew. â€Å"I don't understand.† â€Å"I can't get into it right now,† he told me. â€Å"That's not why I'm here.† â€Å"You're here for a reason?† I asked, my eyes wandering to the blue-gray water. It was hypnotic. â€Å"You aren't just†¦here to be here?† He stepped forward and caught my hand, forcing me to look up at him. All amusement was gone. He was dead serious. â€Å"Where are you?† â€Å"Here,† I said, puzzled. â€Å"Just like you.† Adrian shook his head. â€Å"No, that's not what I mean. In the real world. Where are you?† The real world? Around us, the beach suddenly blurred, like a film going out of focus. Moments later, everything steadied itself. I racked my brain. The real world. Images came to me. Chairs. Guards. Flex-cuffs. â€Å"In a basement †¦Ã¢â‚¬  I said slowly. Alarm suddenly shattered the beauty of the moment as everything came back to me. â€Å"Oh God, Adrian. You've got to help Mia and Christian. I can't- â€Å" Adrian's grip on my hand tightened. â€Å"Where?† The world shimmered again, and this time it didn't refocus. He swore. â€Å"Where are you, Rose?† The world began to disintegrate. Adrian began to disintegrate. â€Å"A basement. In a house. In- â€Å" He was gone. I woke up. The sound of the room's door opening startled me back to reality. Isaiah swept in with Elena in tow. I had to fight a sneer when I saw her. He was arrogant and mean and all-around evil. But he was that way because he was a leader. He had the strength and power to back up his cruelty- even if I didn't like it. But Elena? She was a lackey. She threatened us and made snide comments, but most of her ability to do so came from being his sidekick. She was a total suck-up. â€Å"Hello, children,† he said. â€Å"How are we doing today?† Sullen glares answered him. He strolled over to Mia and Christian, hands folded behind his back. â€Å"Any changes of heart since my last visit? You're taking an awfully long time, and it's upsetting Elena. She's very hungry, you see, but- I suspect- not as hungry as you two.† Christian narrowed his eyes. â€Å"Fuck off,† he said through gritted teeth. Elena snarled and lunged forward. â€Å"Don't you dare- â€Å" Isaiah waved her off. â€Å"Leave him alone. It just means we wait a little longer, and really, it's an entertaining wait.† Elena's eyes shot daggers at Christian. â€Å"Honestly,† continued Isaiah, watching Christian, â€Å"I can't decide which I want more: to kill you or have you join us. Either option offers its own amusements.† â€Å"Don't you get tired of hearing yourself talk?† asked Christian. Isaiah considered. â€Å"No. Not really. And I don't get tired of this, either.† He turned around and walked toward Eddie. Poor Eddie could barely sit upright in his chair anymore after all the feedings he'd gone through. Worse, Isaiah didn't even need to use compulsion. Eddie's face simply lit up with a stupid grin, eager for the next bite. He was as addicted as a feeder. Anger and disgust flooded through me. â€Å"Damn it!† I yelled. â€Å"Leave him alone!† Isaiah glanced back at me. â€Å"Be silent, girl. I don't find you nearly as amusing as I do Mr. Ozera.† â€Å"Yeah?† I snarled. â€Å"If I piss you off so much, then use me to prove your stupid point. Bite me instead. Put me in my place, and show me what a badass you are.† â€Å"No!† exclaimed Mason. â€Å"Use me.† Isaiah rolled his eyes. â€Å"Good God. What a noble lot. You're all Spartacus, aren't you?† He strolled away from Eddie and put a finger under Mason's chin, tilting his head up. â€Å"But you,† Isaiah said, â€Å"don't really mean it. You only offer because of her.† He released Mason and walked in front of me, staring down with those black, black eyes. â€Å"And you †¦ I didn't really believe you at first either. But now?† He knelt down so that he was at my height. I refused to look away from his eyes, even though I knew that put me at risk of compulsion. â€Å"I think you really mean it. And it's not all nobility, either. You do want it. You really have been bitten before.† His voice was magical. Hypnotic. He wasn't using compulsion, exactly, but he definitely had an unnatural charisma surrounding him. Like Lissa and Adrian. I hung on his every word. â€Å"Lots of times, I'd guess,† he added. He leaned toward me, breath hot against my neck. Somewhere beyond him, I could hear Mason shouting something, but all of my focus was on how close Isaiah's teeth were to my skin. In the last few months, I'd only been bitten once- and that was when Lissa had had an emergency. Before then, she'd bitten me at least twice a week for two years, and I had only recently come to realize how addicted to that I'd been. There is nothing- nothing- in the world like a Moroi bite, like the flood of bliss it sends into you. Of course, by all accounts, Strigoi bites were even more powerful†¦. I swallowed, suddenly aware of my own heavy breathing and racing heart. Isaiah gave a low chuckle. â€Å"Yes. You're a blood whore in the making. Unfortunate for you- because I'm not going to give you what you want.† He backed away, and I slumped forward in my chair. Without further delay, he returned to Eddie and drank. I couldn't watch, but it was because of envy this time, not disgust. Longing burned inside of me. I ached for that bite, ached for it with every nerve in my body. When Isaiah finished, he started to leave the room, then paused. He directed his words at Mia and Christian. â€Å"Don't delay,† he warned. â€Å"Seize your opportunity to be saved.† He tilted his head toward me. â€Å"You even have a willing victim.† He left. Across the room, Christian met my eyes. Somehow, his face looked even gaunter than it had a couple of hours ago. Hunger burned in his gaze, and I knew I wore the complementary one: a desire to sate that hunger. God. We were so screwed. I think Christian realized it at the same time. His lips twisted into a bitter smile. â€Å"You never looked so good, Rose,† he managed, just before the guards told him to shut up. I dozed a little throughout the day, but Adrian didn't return to my dreams. Instead, while hovering just at the edge of consciousness, I found myself slipping into familiar territory: Lissa's head. After all the weirdness of these last two days, being in her mind felt like a homecoming. She was in one of the lodge's banquet rooms, only it was empty. She sat on the floor of the far side of it, trying to stay inconspicuous. Nervousness filled her. She was waiting for something- or rather, someone. A few minutes later, Adrian slipped in. â€Å"Cousin,† he said by way of greeting. He sat down beside her and drew his knees up, unconcerned about his expensive dress pants. â€Å"Sorry I'm late.† â€Å"It's okay,† she said. â€Å"You didn't know I was here until you saw me, did you?† She shook her head, disappointed. I felt more confused than ever. â€Å"And sitting with me †¦ you can't really notice anything?† â€Å"No.† He shrugged. â€Å"Well. Hopefully it'll come soon.† â€Å"How does it look for you?† she asked, burning with curiosity. â€Å"Do you know what auras are?† â€Å"They're like †¦ bands of light around people, right? Some New Age thing?† â€Å"Something like that. Everyone has a sort of spiritual energy that radiates out from them. Well, almost everyone.† His hesitation made me wonder if he was thinking of me and the darkness I allegedly walked in. â€Å"Based on the color and appearance, you can tell a lot about a person†¦well, if anyone could actually see auras, that is.† â€Å"And you can,† she said. â€Å"And you can tell I use spirit from my aura?† â€Å"Yours is mostly gold. Like mine. It'll shift with other colors depending on the situation, but the gold always stays.† â€Å"How many other people out there like us do you know?† â€Å"Not many. I just see them every once in a while. They kind of keep to themselves. You're the first I've actually ever talked to. I didn't even know it was called ‘spirit.' Wish I'd known about this when I didn't specialize. I just figured I was some kind of freak.† Lissa held up her arm and stared, willing herself to see the light shining around it. Nothing. She sighed and let the arm drop. And that's when I got it. Adrian was a spirit user too. That was why he'd been so curious about Lissa, why he'd wanted to talk to her and ask about the bond and her specialization. It also explained a lot of other things- like that charisma I couldn't seem to escape when I was near him. He'd used compulsion that day Lissa and I had been in his room- that was how he'd forced Dimitri to release him. â€Å"So, they finally let you go?† Adrian asked her. â€Å"Yeah. They finally decided I really didn't know anything.† â€Å"Good,† he said. He frowned, and I realized he was sober for a change. â€Å"And you're sure you don't?† â€Å"I already told you that. I can't make the bond work that way.† â€Å"Hmm. Well. You've got to.† She glared. â€Å"What, you think I'm holding back? If I could find her, I would!† â€Å"I know, but to have it at all, you must have a strong connection. Use that to talk to her in her dreams. I tried, but I can't hang on long enough to- â€Å" â€Å"What did you say?† exclaimed Lissa. â€Å"Talk to her in her dreams?† Now he looked puzzled. â€Å"Sure. Don't you know how to do that?† â€Å"No! Are you kidding? How is that even possible?† My dreams †¦ I remembered Lissa talking about unexplained Moroi phenomena, how there might be spirit powers out there beyond healing, things no one even knew about yet. It would appear that Adrian being in my dreams was no coincidence. He'd managed to get inside my head, maybe in a way similar to how I saw Lissa's mind. The thought made me uneasy. Lissa could barely even grasp it. He ran a hand through his hair and tipped his head back, staring at the crystal chandelier above as he pondered. â€Å"Okay. So. You don't see auras, and you don't talk to people in dreams. What do you do?† â€Å"I †¦ I can heal people. Animals. Plants, too. I can bring dead things back to life.† â€Å"Really?† He looked impressed. â€Å"Okay. You get credit for that. What else?† â€Å"Um, I can use compulsion.† â€Å"We can all do that.† â€Å"No, I can really do it. It's not hard. I can make people do anything I want- even bad things.† â€Å"So can I.† His eyes lit up. â€Å"I wonder what would happen if you tried to use it on me†¦.† She hesitated and absentmindedly ran her fingers over the textured red carpet. â€Å"Well†¦ I can't.† â€Å"You just said you could.† â€Å"I can- just not right now. I take this prescription †¦ for depression and other stuff†¦and it cuts me off from the magic.† He threw his arms up in the air. â€Å"How can I teach you to walk through dreams then? How else are we going to find Rose?† â€Å"Look,† she said angrily, â€Å"I don't want to take the meds. But when I was off them †¦ I did really crazy stuff. Dangerous stuff. That's what spirit does to you.† â€Å"I don't take anything. I'm okay,† he said. No, he wasn't, I realized. Lissa realized it too. â€Å"You got really weird that day when Dimitri was in your room,† she pointed out. â€Å"You started rambling, and you didn't make any sense.† â€Å"Oh, that? Yeah †¦ it happens now and then. But seriously, not often. Once a month, if that.† He sounded sincere. Lissa stared at him, suddenly reevaluating everything. What if Adrian could do it? What if he could use spirit without pills and without any harmful side effects? It would be everything she had been hoping for. Besides, she wasn't even sure if the pills would keep working anymore†¦. He smiled, guessing what she was thinking. â€Å"What do you say, cousin?† he asked. He didn't need to use compulsion. His offer was plenty tempting in its own right. â€Å"I can teach you everything I know if you're able to touch the magic. It'll take a while for the pills to get out of your system, but once they do †¦Ã¢â‚¬ 

Crime Rates Essay

In the recent years, crime rate especially in cities have been increasing at an alarming rate. This phenomenon has become a major source of insecurity and fear in the society and is a mind bogging problem faced by most governments. The increase of crime in cities are mostly due to the lack of education, social inequality as well as an ineffective justice system. Firstly, the lack of education in immigrants is a main cause of the increased crime rate in cities .Cities are attractive places to those living in rural areas as a better living can be obtained. However, those who migrate to big cities often lack proper education therefore they are unable to compete with others who were raised in cities. This causes them to face difficulty in searching for jobs and are often of the low income group or even unemployed. The living expenses in cities are much higher than rural areas thus those people are obliged to resort to crime in order to get cash immediately to pay for their living expenses. So, it is clear that good education does play a vital role in crime rates. Read more: Essay on Crime Rate Increase in India Moreover, social inequality also contributes to the increase of crime rates in cities like Delhi, India. The rich live in luxury while the poor live in poverty. This imbalance in the society results in the poor thinking that the government is not being fair and also jealousy. The poor will then commit criminal offences such as stealing and robbing from the rich in order to show their dissatisfaction. Those living in poverty are desperate for basic necessities and often turn to crime as an alternative as it is the fastest way to obtain it. Therefore, the large difference in society classes leads to an increase in crime rates. In addition, crime rates in cities are also influenced by the ineffective justice system of the country. In Battambang, Cambodia, the law does not have great authority hence the people are not afraid to commit crimes. For example, those who commit rape offences in Battambang do not have to face jail but only pay an amount of compensation fee. Those who are arrested are often set free because of loopholes in the proof. Consequently, they are not afraid of the punishment. Hence, a poor justice system leads to the increase in crime rates. Therefore it is obvious that the lack of proper education, large differences among social classes and a justice system that is weak are the main causes of the dramatic increase of crime rates in cities. This issue needs a combined effort by the society and the government to overcome. The government can start by offering free education for the society, enforce stricter laws and also find a solution to decrease the social inequalities in order to curb this issue as it will have a major negative impact on the growth of a country.

The Emergence of the Dark or Grief Tourism Phenomenon Essay

The Emergence of the Dark or Grief Tourism Phenomenon - Essay Example Today we hear of spiritual tourism, health tourism, casino tourism, sex tourism, adventure tourism and heritage tourism. If this was not enough today we have what is labeled the ‘dark’ or the ‘grief’ tourism. Postmodernism, tourism is more specialized and caters to tourists with all sorts of tastes. What exactly is the dark tourism and how does it affect the society and culture of the region? Uttering the word ‘tourism’ gives one a feeling of excitement and pleasure. The phrase dark tourism was coined in 1997 (MacMillan 2002) to describe the phenomenon of people traveling to the scene or place of disaster to see for themselves the place where it happened. There was a massive outpouring of public grief in the months following the death of Princess Diana in August 1997. People’s extravagant display of public sorrow for individuals they have never met led to the movement being called dark tourism. The words grief tourism and grief tourists were subsequently associated with visitors to the site in New York where the Twin Towers were demolished on 11th September 2001. It was in 2002 that the terms grief tourism and grief tourists first began to emerge as people flocked to Soham in Cambridgeshire following the deaths of two young schoolgirls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who were tragically murdered by the caretaker of their local school. Governments and other local authorities are faced with dilemmas regarding representation of sites associated with death and disaster in the context of tourism visits. Today a large number of sites associated with war, genocide, assassination and other tragic events have become significant tourist destinations. This phenomenon is called the dark tourism (John Lennon & Malcom Foley, November 2000). Places associated with death and catastrophe range from famous assassination sites such as Kennedy’s at  Dallas to concentration camps and Holocaust memorials.

The use of the Alternative voting system in parliamentary elections Essay

The use of the Alternative voting system in parliamentary elections would improve democracy in the united kingdom - Essay Example These reforms are sometimes evolutionary in nature and take place gradually over a long time-period; sometimes are revolutionary in nature and takes place at the spur of a moment; while at other times are deliberately brought in through changes in the legislation. UK has seen in many such reforms that have made it a modern democracy with elected representatives, from being a monarchic state (Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, 2007, 9). My article will examine the current electoral changes that have been proposed, which signal the ushering in of the Alternative Voting system (AVs). This topic has been in debate in the UK parliament for quite some years, and is currently under review, in the House of Lords and the Parliament. My article will explore to find out whether the changes in the electoral processes that will bring in use of the Alternative Voting System or AVs in parliamentary elections, would actually work towards improving democracy in United Kingdom. Discus sion What is AV: â€Å"AV represents a very simple change to our current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) voting system. The principle behind AV is a no-brainer: the winner in an election should need the support of a majority of the people. AV makes this happen with ‘preference voting’. ... In the present electoral process that is known as the First-Past-the–Post or FPTP, Candidate ‘A’ has garnered the maximum number of votes, and is the clearly the winner, though he hasn’t received even 50% of the total vote share, that is, majority of the voters are not backing him, yet under the present legislation, yet he must be declared the winner, thus casting aspirations on the true nature of UK democracy. However, under AV we find there are certain changes in the whole process that are certainly more democratic in nature. â€Å"With AV voters’ ‘first preferences’ are counted as before. As no candidate has 50% support the last placed candidate, ‘D’, is eliminated, and her supporters’ second preferences are transferred to the others. Still no candidate has 50% support, so candidate ‘C’ drops out and his voters’ second choices are transferred. ‘B’ emerges with majority support. She wins!†(Ibid.) Is AV more democratic in nature? A basic problem of the FPTP system that undermines the very meaning of the word democracy is that, often under this process the candidate who does not have the support of the majority of the voters, emerge as the winner. AV addresses this fundamental problem, and ensures that the winner is the person who genuinely enjoys the support of the maximum number of the voters in UK. Thus, we find we find that this system represents a more fair form of the electoral procedure, which brings forth the person who is the actual choice of the majority. The FPTPs that is in use in present day UK general elections and also used for local councils in England and Wales, is an ancient and rather outdated process, which started during the

Discussion Question Week 2-1D Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion Question Week 2-1D - Essay Example This difference between research questions and hypotheses can also be comprehended with the help of a simple example: Research Question – What percentage of people living in Ireland prefer cold-coffee over conventional coffee? Hypothesis – On average, 50-60% of population living in Ireland prefer cold-coffee over conventional coffee. Therefore, in one sense, research hypothesis is an assumption made by the researcher in response to a formalized research question, which helps in the assessment of researcher’s personal knowledge and approach on the subject over which study is intended. Further, it is not always possible that a research hypothesis is proven to be the right answer for the research question by results of study, and in this case, researcher explores the reason why his/her generalizations got wrong. 2. Extraction of Research Question from Hypothesis: Example 1: Sample Hypothesis: The effects of changing climate will have no contributions in Malaria pene tration into Alaskan population.

An act of kindness that you did for someone Essay - 1

An act of kindness that you did for someone - Essay Example When I entered into high school, my parents insisted that I begin to learn how to work in order to earn extra income for things that were not covered by my allowance. It was important to them that i learn the value of money and how to spend it wisely. Since I wanted to buy myself a tablet, I decided that I would take up my parents offer and help out at our family store after school and on weekends. I was really looking forward to buying my tablet sooner rather than later. But apparently the universe had other plans for me. I had to do something for others before I could get what I wanted. Tina, our house help, approached my parents and I over breakfast one day and told us that her son was in need of medical care. She had been taking him to the free clinic in town and she was told that he a cancerous tumor on the bridge of his nose and that he needed an immediate operation that was going to cost her $570. Somehow there was something about the diagnosis that did not sit well with me. It seemed not thorough and lacking in analysis. My parents also agreed that the boy should be brought to another doctor for a second opinion. But Tina did not have the money to go to a paid doctor. I had already saved up a little money from the token salary my parents were giving me for helping in the business, a total of $100. Obviously I was inching my way closer to my dream of a tablet. But I felt that Tinas son needed the medical help more than I required the tablet. So I offered my savings to her. I told her to take it and, along with the donations of my parents, take the boy to a specialist for a second opinion. It turned out that the boy was misdiagnosed. The second opinion revealed that he did not have a cyst or tumor at the bridge of his nose. A simple x-ray, according to Tina, showed that the boy had a protruding forehead bone. From the outside, it did look and feel like a cyst because it had a cavity between the forehead and the boys nose, muscle

Terrorism in the 21st century is very different than terrorism in the Research Paper

Terrorism in the 21st century is very different than terrorism in the 20th century - Research Paper Example In the course of this essay I will examine three aspects of terrorism then and now by looking at different groups with different aims. In the course of these examinations or comparisons, many of the salient differences between old terrorism and new terrorism will become evident. In the first case I will examine the Algerian-French conflict in the middle of the 20th century. In this conflict, the French fought an urban guerrilla war against Algerian nationalists who wished to liberate their country from French colonialism. The brutal reprisals of the French were responded to by acts of terrorism such as blowing up mailboxes in Paris. While the conflict elicited a cri du Coeur from other colonial subjects around the world and inspired a great many anti-colonialist thinkers, it did not, for example, draw in foreign fighters or radicalize a generation of extremists. Furthermore, terrorism was to some extent a last resort for Algerians who were consistently refused real political influenc e or power over their country. Their aim was clear and their methods—while highly objectionable—were coherent and connected to their aim. The Algerian terrorists of the time, while ruthless, could and did negotiate with the French. Indeed, the terrorist/freedom fighters were able to secure the independence of Algeria in 1962. In the second case I will examine the conflict in Afghanistan from 1979, what many analysts believe is the genesis of the new terrorism. While issues raised by this very long conflict began with the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, which provoked a somewhat traditional form of terrorism in the form of freedom fighters and guerrillas, as in the Algerian in the 1950s, the form of resistance morphed dramatically by the 1990s and into the 2000s. These years saw the rise of a new form of terrorism, funded and inspired in part by Saudi Wahhabism, and an ideology of global jihad (Coll 2004, 87). These new terrorists did not have clear or rational aims but instead

Historical essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Historical - Essay Example ample, many businesses flourished in the 1920s as subsequent governments adopted the pro-business stance leading to the growth of industries in the manufacturing, aviation, automobile and chemical sectors. In fact, automobile production per year increased threefold, leading to more than 50% of American households owning cars (Foner 610). In my opinion, true American entrepreneurship was born in the 1920s. That is, American entrepreneurship where tenacity, grit, street smarts, education, ambition and opportunity could lead to success on a far wider scale than ever imagined before in a capitalistic system. Many of the entrepreneurs found today have partly modelled their success in accordance to some of the entrepreneurs found in the 1920s. For example, the Prohibition era provided an opportunity for many individuals to become rich. For those who owned establishments such as speakeasies or those responsible for bootlegging, a lot of money was made. The period also witnessed massive rural to urban migration as farmers form the Southern states migrated to cities such as Los Angeles to work in textile and automobile industries, while others found employment opportunities in Hollywood. Indeed, everyone wanted a piece of the American dream (Foner 613). Even though there was far more rampant public corruption in the 1920s as gangs and criminals bribed city officials, the ability to spot an opportunity and utilize it to its maximum, is a trait that is seen today, as companies and multinationals try to exploit every little opportunity for profit. In the 1920s, liquor and prostitution based businesses reaped millions of profits in dollars. However, it was not just illegal business that flourished, even legal ones such as multinationals gained footholds in international markets, marking a shift from Internationalism to Isolationism (Foner 618). The celebrity culture present today also has its roots in the 1920s. As more people began to adopt more lax economic principles,

To write a business plan asking for supporting fund Essay

To write a business plan asking for supporting fund - Essay Example The project was established in the year 2009 with an objective of supporting the developing country in fighting for Malaria. This report will analyse the various activities that the project will be undertaking as part of their Malaria mission. The report will analyse the feasibility of the project, its scope of operation, the success factors, the marketing and financial plan, and its organization structure. The financial plan will analyse how the organization will manage the funds. Malaria has been a serious threat for the people living in this region. It has claimed the lives of many people including children.(Malaria Elimination Group, 2012) Among the children that are killed in Malaria, most of them fall below the age group of five. What makes such hazard rather sad is that Malaria is a curable disease and still children are prone to death due to unavailability of proper medical attention. Vision, Mission and Objectives Vision: The vision of Dunga Project is to empower the Zanziba r community to fight, prevent and control Malaria. Mission: Dunga Project’s mission is to drive the curative measures for Malaria in the Zanzibar region with an organized effort that works on a sustainable and eco-friendly mode. The project’s mission is to educate the children and their caretakers to take care of themselves and prevent the Malaria from spreading. Objectives: 1. To supply all required medical aids to the malaria affected region. 2. To take adequate measures for preventing the Malaria. 3. To educate the people about the causes, treatment and prevention of Malaria. Nature of Business This project is focussed on taking adequate care of the children in Zanzibar region who are affected by Malaria. The charity also aims at taking accurate preventive measures against the disease. The business will operate as a non-profit seeking organization in the form of a trust. The major activity of the business is to conduct health camps in diagnosing malaria or any other disease that has affected the people in the area. The health check-ups will be a periodic activity of the business. This will be conducted by dividing the regions into various groups for ease of management. Another major activity involved is to make available, the medical aids for infected people, mainly children. The third activity is the anti-malaria drive that will focus on spreading awareness about the disease. This will be conducted as a group activity at various sub groups in the region. (Where in City, 2012) Uniqueness of the Project The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that it focuses more on the prevention aspect. The famous phrase ‘Prevention is better than cure’ is one of the major driving forces of the project. Though utmost attention is provided towards supply of medicine and curing the disease, a major portfolio of the activity consists of preventive measures. The team has already purchased around 400 mosquito nets to be supplied to the househol ds. The mosquito nets can help in the prevention of Malaria to a great extent. We are also actively involved in removal of waste accumulations in the region, proper treatment of stagnant water and various other preventive measures that goes to the root cause of the problem. These entire activities make Dunga project unique in terms of its mode of operation. (Easmon, 2011) Constraints Following are the major constraints that are faced by the Dunga project. 1. Lack of adequate funds: Comparatively huge funds are required for

Cosmetic Surgery Essay Example for Free

Cosmetic Surgery Essay Finally, cosmetic surgery can cause an addiction by society trends and Body Dimorphic Disorder. No one is perfect, and there is no â€Å"perfectism† either. People often complain about something on their body. They may think that their noses are shorter than others. Maybe, they think beautiful women should have big eyes. Sometimes, they may wish their lips to be a little bit thicker. However, the truth is people are a product of the love between their mom and dad. They should accept it as a present that their parents gave them. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), â€Å"The top five surgical cosmetic procedures in 2007 were: liposuction (456,828 procedures); breast augmentation (399,440 procedures); eyelid surgery (240,763 procedures); abdominoplasty (185,335 procedures); and breast reduction (153,087 procedures) (â€Å"Highlights of the ASAPS 2007 Statistics on Cosmetic Surgery†). Based on the fact, most surgeries were done because they felt unsatisfied about their body. They want to change their beauties by using the plastic surgery to be more attractive. Nowadays, our society is developing so fast that it creates a lot of ways to make people look more beautiful or even younger by using make-up products, skin care or doing exercise to maintain a good and healthy body. That is good enough to make them look better based on what they have. More importantly, even if they do a cosmetic surgery, it does still not guarantee the expected results: The potential exists that the surgery will not produce the â€Å"ideal† look the patient was seeking in spite of the surgeon’s best efforts. Cosmetic surgery is not an exact science, so potential patients need to keep in mind that there is no way to know what the final outcome will look like until the procedure has been performed and the recovery period has passed. (â€Å"The Pros And Cons Of Having  Cosmetic  Surgery†) Therefore, nothing is 100% perfect. Being yourself is accepting the truth, and finding other ways to improve what you are not happy about are the best choices a person should follow. Finally, there is still something more important than appearance. What would we think if a Miss Universe wins with a low education and without a good heart? Then, the â€Å"beauty† exists for a long time or stays in a short time and gone? In another case, in the Vietnamese-American community, everyone knows about Mr Don Chu, singer Ha Phuong’s husband. Although he is not good looking, he is an American billionaire who is managing a billion dollar fund at Wall Street. He is still confident about himself, and people still admire him. Cosmetic surgery requires a lot of time for recovery and has a lot of side effects. After surgery, patients cannot do normal activities, such as sports or heavy lifting. The healing time can take several months, even forever. It depends on health condition, age, and gender. Sometimes, scars are left on the body that cannot be treated by any other surgeries. Moreover, smoking and alcohol are banned within healing time. If not, it can extend healing time and make the case more complicated. Like other surgeries, plastic surgery may lead the death if the equipment or chemicals used in the surgery are not suitable to that patient, or by bleeding. Following the death of a former Miss Argentina after complications arising from plastic surgery, questions are being raised about the risks of  cosmetic  surgery. Solange Magnano, 37, died in hospital, after being transferred from a clinic where she underwent an elective surgery on her buttocks last Wednesday†¦ Magnano is reported to have died from a pulmonary embolism, a blockage of the blood supply to lungs. (â€Å"Models death highlights plastic surgery risks†) Besides, as with any kind of surgery, it may have side effects. For example, breast implants makes it hard to read a mammogram which helps the body to prevent breast cell cancer. More important, although liposuction is the most common cosmetic surgery, it is also the most dangerous one. â€Å"A report by Dr. Frederick Grazer of Penn State and Dr. Rudolph de Jong of Thomas Jefferson Medical college says that to date, â€Å"917 plastic surgeons reported 95 deaths in over 496,000 liposuction surgeries. If you do the math, that comes out to 19 deaths per 100,000 or 1 death in 5,224† (â€Å"Liposuction safety report†). One of the most dangerous side effects is fluid imbalance. During the procedure, the surgeon will put a large amount of fluid inside the body, and some is removed from fat tissue, which causes fluid imbalance. It may cause kidney dysfunctions, heart problem, and too much fluid in the lungs. Cosmetic surgery addiction is one of the most modern addictions, along with internet addiction, shopping addiction, and workholism. According to recent studies, 66 percent of all patients who have a single cosmetic surgery will return to have another. They return, not because the first surgery failed, but because it succeeded and now the patient wants more. Often, these plastic surgery addicts have a perfect image in mind that they want to attain, whether it is a celebrity that they are trying to emulate, or their ideal picture of what they should look like. (â€Å"Plastic Surgery Addiction†) Among the reasons that cause cosmetic surgery addiction are society trends and Body Dimorphic Disorder (BDD). Nowadays, with the development of media and advertising, people accept with cosmetic surgery more easily. The result is they accept it as a should-have behavior to be beautiful. For example, in their beauty definition, a beautiful girl should have long legs, big breasts, big eyes, or a high nose. Wanting those characteristics compel them to come to a surgeon. Moreover, people with BDD never feel happy even after thousands of cosmetic surgeries. They always see something wrong with their body that must be fixed. Michael Jackson and Jocelyn Wildestein are good examples of this kind of addiction. Michael Jackson had more than ten nose surgeries, according to People Magazine. He spent over two million dollars for surgery over his career to range from a â€Å"handsome† black singer to an â€Å"alien with a chimpanzee face† who never stopped to surprise people. Jocelyn Wildestein has a similar story to Michael’s. She spent almost four million dollars on cosmetic surgery over the years. With the nickname â€Å"Bride of Wildestein,† nobody can recognize her now compared with that beautiful woman she was in the 1970s. Plastic surgery is not a good solution for anybody. People should face the truth that they are not beautiful instead of hiding themselves by using plastic surgery. Doing surgery only reflects that they love untrue beauty. There are a lot of ways to improve what they have. For example, if they have a problem with belly fat, they can exercise with a strict nutrition system. If they want a higher nose or bigger eyes, they can put on makeup that still makes them look beautiful without asking a surgeon. Moreover, cosmetic surgery requires a very strict aftercare and causes many kinds of side effects. It takes several months for healing time without any smoking and alcohol during this period. Also no normal activities and heavy lifting are limited. Additionally, breast implants may reduce the ability to detect breast cancer, and liposuction can cause buildup of fluid in the lungs. Finally, cosmetic surgery is a new kind of addiction in this century. People can get addicted either by society trends or BDD, which makes them never feel happy with their body and never say â€Å"No† to cosmetic surgery. Works Cited â€Å"Choosing Cosmetic Surgery. † medicinenet. com. MedicineNet, Inc, n. d. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. Rollins, Gray. â€Å"The Pros And Cons Of Having  Cosmetic  Surgery. † articlecity. com. N. p. , 3 Mar 2006. Web. 9 Sept. 2011. â€Å"Quick Facts: Highlights of the ASAPS 2007 Statistics on Cosmetic Surgery. † surgery. org. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, n. d. Web. 19 Sept. 2011 Tutton, Mark. â€Å"Models death highlights plastic surgery risks. † cnn. com. CNN, 02 Dec. 2009. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. Venuto, Tom. â€Å"Liposuction Safety Report Advice From A Respected Fitn ess Coach. † burnthefact. com. Burn The Fat Enterprises, n. d. Web. 19 Sept. 2011. â€Å"Plastic Surgery Addiction: Is it dangerous? † articlesbase. com. ArticlesBase, 31 May 2010. Web. 19 Sept. 2011.

Stages of Child Language Acquisition

Stages of Child Language Acquisition A child starts to communicate with those around him/her since birth, although in the first few months this communication occurs on a non-verbal level. However, as a child develops physically, he/she gradually acquires language skills. Overall, child language acquisition begins from phonological development and proceeds to syntactic and semantic development. The aim of the present essay is to analyse three major stages of the first language acquisition (phonological, syntactic and semantic). Although linguists and other scholars have agreed in opinion that language is a process of acquisition (rather than the process of learning), they provide contradictory theories of child language acquisition (Cole Cole, 1996). Among the most famous theories are a reinforcement theory, an imitation theory, a critical-age theory and an analogy theory. Despite the fact that all these theories present a valid explanation of language acquisition, certain problems occur when they are applied to practic e. The most likely interpretation of phonological, syntactic and semantic development of a child is provided by imitation and analogy theories; hence, these theoretical concepts are employed for the analysis. According to these theories, the process of child language acquisition is aimed at adjusting to adults’ speech that has its rules and structures. As acquisition of language is a rather intricate process, a child only listens to adults’ speech in the first few months. Actually, in this period a child is involved in the process of language perception rather than the process of language production (See Table 1). However, as a child reaches the age of 6 months, he/she starts to pronounce various sounds (Fee, 1995). At first a child pronounces vowel sounds and further he/she manages to unite vowels and consonants (e.g. sa, da, ma, ba, di, ti, gu, etc.). At approximately 8 months a child constantly repeats syllables (e.g. ba-ba-ba or di-di-di) and by 12 months he/she successfully combines these syllables into a simple word (e.g. â€Å"mama†, â€Å"papa† or â€Å"baba†). It is significant that child’s pronunciation of sounds also reflects intonation and stress; according to Echols and Newport (1992), through these patterns a child makes an attempt to impart certain meaning or reveal his/her emotions . This babbling is the initial step in child’s phonological development (Macken, 1995); the true phonological skills are exposed by a child at approximately 1.4 years (though even at the age of 0.4 – 0.9 months a child already has some phonological abilities, as he manages to recognise native and non-native speech). At this time a child demonstrates comprehension of the relation between sounds and meanings; moreover, he/she starts to identify phonemic differences in adult speech. In the process of sound production a child certainly makes pronunciation mistakes that linguists regard as phonological deviations. Generally, phonological deviations are divided into two basic categories: substitution errors and syllable errors (Bankson Bernthal, 1998). Further, these categories are divided into several sub-categories, including weak syllable deletion, final consonant deletion, consonant cluster reduction, velar fronting, palatal fronting, stopping, gliding of liquids, word final devoicing, etc. Due to an immature speech apparatus, some sounds are more complex for child’s pronunciation than others; for instance, such consonant sounds as â€Å"l† and â€Å"r† are learned by a child later than sounds â€Å"p† and â€Å"m†, because the former sounds are phonetically similar, while the latter sounds are different. As a result, a child substitutes voiceless sounds with voiced sounds (e.g. â€Å"gap’ instead of â€Å"cap† or â€Å"tad† instead of â€Å"dad†); it is context sensitive voicing. The second deviation is word final devoicing; it is a process when final voiced consonants are substituted with voiceless consonants (â€Å"dad’ is pronounced as â€Å"dat†). A child may also employ final consonant deletion, pronouncing â€Å"co† instead of â€Å"cow† or â€Å"pin† instead of â€Å"pink†. Velar fronting (e.g. â€Å"tiss† instead of â€Å"kiss†) and palatal f ronting (e.g. â€Å"sake† instead of â€Å"shake†) are used by a child, because it is easier for him/her to pronounce consonants that are at the front of the mouth and teeth. Other phonological deviations include weak syllable deletion (â€Å"pape† instead of â€Å"paper†), consonant harmony (â€Å"goggy† instead of â€Å"doggy), cluster reduction (â€Å"tool† instead of â€Å"stool†), stopping (â€Å"pan† instead of â€Å"fan†) and gliding of liquids (â€Å"wat† instead of â€Å"rat). In reality, as Maye, Werker Gerken (2002) demonstrate in their research, a child perceives accurate phonemic contrasts, but he/she is unable to produce correct sounds until a proper age. Moreover, unlike adults, an infant may even distinguish foreign phonemic contrasts from native contrasts; due to this ability a child who is adopted in a foreign country may easily acquire language of his/her parents. At the age of 3-4 years most children learn to rightfully pronounce all sounds, eliminating the majority of phonological deviations. However, some children may continue to employ these deviations in their speech; specialists regard these children as individuals with certain phonological disorders that may have a detrimental effect on their reading skills (Ingram, 1989). When a child learns how to pronounce simple words, he/she proceeds to combine known words into small utterances. In this respect, a child acquires syntactic skills that are usually developed in two stages: the holophrastic stage and the two-word stage. During the holophrastic stage (between 0.9 and 1.0 years) a child forms one-word utterances with a certain intonation. In general, these utterances are composed of either verbs or nouns, while adjectives and other parts of speech are acquired by a child afterwards. In fact, it is rather difficult for adults to interpret child’s one-word sentences, as, for instance, â€Å"book† may mean that he/she wants his/her parents to read a book or that he/she sees a book or that he/she does not like this book. The situation is even more complicated when a child pronounces a phrase without intervals. According to O’Grady (1997), â€Å"many children initially treat what’s that? look at that, come here, and similar expre ssions as single units that are linked holistically to a particular situational context† (p.13). In other words, if a child hears phrases that are somehow stressed, he/she may extract them from the rest of speech and use them as a single entity, making no pauses among words. In the two-word stage (1.5-2.0 years) a child creates two-word sentences that are pronounced with single intonation and start to reflect the first semantic relations, for instance, â€Å"baby read† or â€Å"sit table† (Pinker, 1994). In general, these utterances are categorised as follows: 1) Noun Utterances: My apple, His Daddy. 2) Verb Utterances: Me play, Girl sing. 3) Questions: Mom read? Baba go? 4) Negatives: Not eat, No shirt. As the examples show, though these sentences are not grammatically right yet, they are constructed in a right order (Ingram, 1989). By the age of 2-3 years a child easily produces several thousand syntactic utterances, and the major stress in these utterances is placed on the word that provides more information (e.g. â€Å"Mummy COME† or â€Å"MUMMY come†). Initially, these sentences lack such function units as â€Å"on†, â€Å"the† or â€Å"of† and such inflections as â€Å"-s†, â€Å"-ing† or â€Å"-ed† (hence, child’s speech at this stage is usually regarded as â€Å"telegraphic speech†), but gradually a child includes negations, passives, comparatives, relative clauses and conjunctions in his/her sentences. In some cases a child may use right patterns and wrong patterns in one sentence, for instance, I reading and Mama is cooking. Such a combination reveals that a child knows certain grammar patterns, but he/sh e has not mastered them yet. However, if an adult uses these patterns incorrectly, he/she will obviously point at the mistake. As a child acquires knowledge of such a pattern as â€Å"-ed†, he/she usually turns to overregularisation, that is, a process when all verbs become regular in child’s speech (e.g. â€Å"goed† or â€Å"spended†). This overregularisation can be explained by the fact that a child acquires a language in certain patterns and, as he/she learns the pattern (e.g. â€Å"mama helped† or â€Å"baba claimed†), he/she applies this pattern to other verbs, including irregular verbs. It is certainly easier for a child to apply â€Å"-ed† to all verbs than to memorise all irregular verbs and differentiate regular verbs from irregular verbs. As the time passes, a child learns to change the wrong verb form for a right form. In addition, he/she gradually acquires knowledge of definite and indefinite articles, plural nouns, linkin g verbs and possessive cases. However, even when a child acquires knowledge of all these rules and patterns, he/she may still be unable to form complex utterances; consequently, a child may turn to the repetition of certain phrases to fill gaps in his/her speech. Finally, as a child manages to create simple sentences, he/she acquires semantic skills (approximately 3.0 years). As word acquisition intensifies, a child collides with a necessity to form semantic patterns; above all, a child uses those content categories that refer to objects, events and humans, although usage of these categories greatly depends on social, cultural and linguistic aspects. However, in all cultures a meaning that a child puts into a certain object or an utterance differs from a usual adult speech. As Harris (1990) states, young children â€Å"are able to express complex meanings, although these meanings are concerned with the current interests and needs, rather than abstract concepts or events that are distant in terms of time or space† (p.4). If a child mainly interacts with his/her peers, then he/she adjusts language to this childish realm. As a rule, a child employs either overgeneralisation or underextension when he/she creates semantic patterns. As for the first process, a child provides a word with more meanings than the word has; for example, he/she may apply the word â€Å"fox† to different animals. In the case of underextension, a child uses fewer meanings than a word has in a usual vocabulary; for example, he/she may associate a word â€Å"arm† only with a mother who touches him/her. In other instances a child fails to recognise a word. Besides, if a child can not find an appropriate word during speech, he/she may devise completely new words with new meanings. However, as a child grows and interacts with people in different situations, he/she learns more meanings of words and utterances (Beals Tabors, 1995). This especially regards interactions with adults; as adult speech is more sophisticated, a child memorises unknown patterns and then employs them in his/her speech. Hence, as a child acquires words and phrases with a profound semantic content, he/she gradually eliminates less semantically valid patterns. According to Frawley (1992), a child’s early semantic patterns reflect the following semantic categories: Agent and Action Cat run Agent and Object Girl doll Entity and Locative Baba far Attribute and Entity Wet hair Agent and Location Mother bath Action and Recipient Give birdie Possessor and Possession Papa pen But as a child shapes linguistic skills (3.5–4.0 years), he/she starts to employ more semantic categories, such as number, time, colour, substance, shape, position, etc., for instance, â€Å"Mummy and I went to a playground†, â€Å"My doll cries and I calm her† or â€Å"I give it to you†. Mastering the major concepts of grammar/meaning relations, a child manages to gradually employ complex grammar patterns: negatives: shouldn’t, needn’t, couldn’t; when-questions (as well as what and why): When do you go? tag-questions: You will go with me, will you? be + verb + -ing: Is Mummy Cooking? compound utterances: Papa is working and I am playing. if sentences: I will do if I wish. Thus, analysing child language acquisition, the essay suggests that from 6 months to 4-5 years a child gradually acquires phonological, syntactic and semantic skills. Although every child develops individually, language acquisition reflects common stages of speech perception and production. Some researchers (e.g. Pinker, 1994; O’Grady, 1997) claim that syntactic and semantic development of a child occurs simultaneously. The fact is that meanings of some verbs can not be understood by a child merely from a context; it is the knowledge of syntactic patterns that provides a child with an opportunity to rightfully uncover the meaning of these verbs. Whether this viewpoint is valid or not, it is absolutely clear that while a child has inborn abilities for language, he/she needs specific social environment to acquire it. This became especially obvious with a discovery of Amala and Kamala, the feral children who were brought up with wolves and could not speak at all. Such findings ce rtainly refute an innate hypothesis and reveal that linguistic skills of a child are formed by and within society. Table 1. Stages of Child Language Acquisition* Phonology From birth to 0.5 years – perception of adult speech; 0.6 years – pronunciation of the first sounds (vowels → consonants → vowels + consonants); 0.8 years – repetition of syllables and recognition of phonemic differences; 1.0 year – understanding of the relation between sounds and meaning; Use of phonological deviations: 1.4 years cluster reduction 2 years – weak syllable deletion initial consonant deletion final consonant deletion 2.0-3.0 years – palatal fronting velar fronting stopping gliding of liquids Syntax 0.9–1.0 years – â€Å"the holophrastic stage† – formation of one-word utterances; 1.5-2.0 years – â€Å"telegraphic speech†, formation of two-word utterances; 2.0–3.0 years – overregularisation of grammar Semantics 3.0 years – application of meaning to language patterns and grammar structures; Use of either overgeneralisation or Underextension Use of the following semantic categories: 1) Agent and Action 2) Agent and Object 3) Entity and Locative 4) Attribute and Entity 5) Agent and Location 6) Action and Recipient 7) Possessor and Possession 3.5-4.0 years – knowledge of complex grammar patterns: negatives; when-questions; tag-questions; be + verb + -ing; compound utterances; if sentences * The ages of child’s language development are approximate; the data in this table are generalised, while every child acquires phonological, syntactic and semantic skills on an individual basis. However, such a generalisation is important, as it allows specialists to reveal any deviations from the normal development of children. Bibliography Bankson, N. Bernthal, J. (1998) Analysis of assessment data. In: J. Bernthal and N. Bankson (eds.) Articulation and Phonological Disorders. Boston, Butterworth-Heinemann. pp.270-298. Beals, D. E. Tabors, P. O. (1995) Arboretum, bureaucratic and carbohydrate: Preschoolers’ exposure to rare vocabulary at home. First Language, 15, 57-76. Cole, M. Cole, S. (1996) The Development of Children. New York, W. H. Freeman Company. Echols, C. Newport, E. (1992) The role of stress and position in determining first words. Language Acquisition, 2, 189-220. Fee, J. (1995) Segments and syllables in early language acquisition. In: J. Archibald (ed.) Phonological Acquisition and Phonological Theory. Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum. pp.43-61. Frawley, W. (1992) Linguistic Semantics. Hillsdale, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Harris, J. (1990) Early Language Development: Implications for Clinical and Educational Practice. London, Routledge. Ingram, D. (1989) First Language Acquisition: Method, Description, and Explanation. New York, Cambridge University Press. Macken, M. (1995) Phonological acquisition. In: J. A. Goldsmith (ed.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, Blackwell. pp.671-696. Maye, J., Werker, J. F. Gerken, L. (2002) Infant sensitivity to distributional information can affect phonetic discrimination. Cognition, 82 (3), 101-111. O’Grady, W. (1997) Syntactic Development. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Pinker, S. (1994) How could a child use verb syntax to learn verb semantics? Lingua, 92, 377-410. AN ANALYSIS OF SEMANTIC ROLES 2007 Until the 70s years of the 20th century semantics was completely excluded from any studies of grammar (Lyons, 1995; Bach, 2002). But recently, linguists and researchers have recognised a great variety of semantic roles (or theta roles) that provide valid information as to grammar/meaning relations (Cutrer, 1993). According to Payne (1997), a semantic role is a specific role that is classified in accordance with its meaning and is performed by a participant with regard to the principal verb of an utterance. In other words, semantic roles provide an opportunity to identify either similarities or dissimilarities of verb’s meanings in sentences. Actually, some semantic roles are regarded as principal, while others are thought to be less crucial for a linguistic analysis. But, as Langacker (1991) points out, â€Å"there is no unique or exclusive set of role conceptions. Those cited as archetypal are analogous to the highest peak in a mountain range: they coexist with others that m ay be significant despite their lesser salience† (p.237). The major semantic roles include Agent, Patient, Instrument, Theme, Cause, Experience, Goal, Benefective (or Beneficiary), Source, Location, Temporal and Path (Jackendoff, 1990; Dowty, 1991). According to Van Valin (1999), semantic relations may be also divided into two groups: the first group includes the usual semantic roles, such as Agent, Patient, Theme, etc., while the second group includes merely two semantic roles – Actor and Undergoer. The roles of the second group are usually referred to as semantic macroroles. Although this categorisation is not universally accepted, nevertheless, it is employed by researchers for a profound investigation of grammar/meaning relations. In the present analysis the classification of Jackendoff (1990) and Dowty (1991) is used. Let’s start from the following examples: Teddy killed the deer with a hunting rifle. A hunting riffle killed a deer. A deer was killed. In the first sentence Teddy performs a semantic role of an Agent, while in grammatical relations Teddy is a Subject. For all that, Teddy is associated with a hunting rifle by means of a grammar/meaning relation of a â€Å"kill† event. In the second sentence a semantic role of a Hunting Riffle is an Instrument, but in grammatical relations it is a Subject. Finally, in the third sentence a Deer appears in a semantic role of a Patient, while in grammatical relations it is again a Subject. Actually, if two participants are involved in an action of a sentence, a grammar/meaning relation is considered to be asymmetric. For instance, in the sentence Jimmy touched Marry two participants are involved in the action, but they perform various roles. Jimmy is a person who starts the action, thus, he is an Agent, while Marry is a person who is influenced by Jimmy’s action and she is a Patient. In this context, an Agent performs a conscious segment of a particular action and a Patient unconsciously responds to this action. As the above example demonstrates, an Agent should necessarily be alive, as it starts an action; however, this attribute is not ascribed to a Patient that is influenced by an action either in a direct or indirect way. There are some English sentences, where only an Agent is presented, such as Steven took a two-week holiday. Although this sentence differs from the previous utterance, both examples belong to a â€Å"do† category. But there are other categories of events, and sometimes it is really difficult to identify the right category (Frawley, 1992). The fact is that English sentences may reflect many similar features, but, despite these similarities, they may reveal various events and different semantic roles. For instance, in the sentence Peter heard a noise, Peter is a participant, but unlike prior examples, Peter does not appear as an Agent, because he is not an initiator of the action, he is an Experiencer. Therefore, such sentences may be attributed to an â€Å"experi ence† category. However, sentences that belong to this category may pose certain problems, as they may demonstrate different peculiarities of events, changing semantic roles in utterances. For example, in the sentence Ann looked at Ted, Ann is an Agent of the action, though she is also an Experiencer (similar to Peter from the previous example). Ann consciously pays heed to something, while Peter is unconscious of his action. Both sentences look similar, but peculiarities of events and semantic roles are different in these utterances. The second complexity that may occur in the process of analysis refers to the second participant of the discussed sentence. While in sentences with a â€Å"do† category the second participant is a Patient, because it is influenced by the Agent’s act, in sentences with an â€Å"experience† category the second participant (e.g. Ted) is not a Patient, as it is not influenced by the Agent’s act. As the above sentence shows , Ted is necessary for better understanding of the event; hence, he may be considered as a Theme of an action. But some utterances in this category have neither an Agent nor a Patient, though at the first sight it is easy to make a mistake. For example, in the sentence Danny loves Mag there are no agents or patients, as Danny does not perform any action and Mag is not explicitly or implicitly influenced by this action (probably she does not even know of Danny’s feelings). In this utterance Danny is an Experiencer, while Mag is a Theme. Unlike semantic roles, grammar roles can be identified more easily; in the discussed sentence Danny is a subject and Mag is an object. In fact, one grammar constituent may have a number of semantic roles; for example, a subject may involve an Experiencer, an Agent, a Patient, while an object may include a Theme, a Patient, an Instrument, etc. Thus, semantic roles provide more accurate and profound information as to the meaning of an utterance than grammar roles; however, both grammar roles and semantic roles are crucial for linguistics. In addition to the mentioned categories, there is also a â€Å"happen† category that is rather facile. For instance, the sentence My car is broken has one participant that is explicitly influenced by an action; that is why this participant (My car) is a Patient (there is no Agent in this utterance). Unlike a â€Å"happen† category, a so called â€Å"information transfer† category may pose certain difficulties for those who analyse semantic roles. In the sentence Jerome informed Timmy of a conference there are two participants – Jerome and Timmy. But while Jerome is an Agent of the occurred event, Timmy is not a Patient, as one may consider, taking into account the previous examples. In this utterance Timmy is a Recipient, and a Patient is absent in this sentence – neither Timmy nor information can be regarded as a Patient, because information is not directly or indirectly influenced by Timmy or by the transfer. In this regard, information in the discussed utterance is a Theme of the event. Overall, in all mentioned examples nouns and adjectives refer or point at a particular event; however, there are also sentences, where these parts of speech pay heed to a specific state instead of an event. Such utterances relate to a â€Å"be† category. For instance, in the sentence Viola is healthy again, Viola is a Participant that also appears as a Theme. In this utterance the state of Viola is determined by the adjective â€Å"healthy†, but not by a verb (as in the prior examples). Therefore, â€Å"healthy† fulfils a predicative role, unlike verbs in preceding sentences that fulfil an attributive role. Sentences in this category may also reflect temporal relations, like in the following utterance: Garry is in front of Nick. In this sentence there are two participants that certainly appear in temporal relations; undoubtedly, if the sentence is changed for Nick is behind Garry, the relations between Nick and Garry will not be altered. In this respect, both participants perform the role of a Theme in the sentence. In view of all observed examples, it is obvious that participants may fulfil either a central role or a marginal role in the action; that is, a division is made between the principal and secondary participants. For instance, in the sentence Nelly embraced Steve before the guests, Nelly is the principal participant, an Agent, while Steve is the secondary participant, an Instrument with the help of which Nelly fulfils the action. Even if an Agent is absent, as in the sentence A stone broke the fence, there is a supposed Agent and an Instrument. Moreover, if two participants are mentioned in a sentence, the secondary participant may perform a role of a Beneficiary, as in the following example: Mommy did homework for Sally. In this utterance Sally is a Beneficiary, as another person (his Mommy) does homework for him. Therefore, the analysed sentences demonstrate that each semantic role may reflect different properties, and identification of these properties may be rather problematic in t he process of analysis, resulting in frequent confusions. Table 2 below epitomises the observed semantic roles, their major functions and possible problems. Table 2. Major semantic roles Semantic role Function Possible confusions / problems Agent The principal participant (always animate) that starts an action An Experiencer may be wrongly regarded as an Agent But: An Agent consciously fulfils an action, while An Experiencer is not consciously involved in the action’s fulfilment Patient The principal participant (either inanimate or animate) that is influenced by an event In certain cases a Patient may perform a role of an Agent This occurs in instances that signify moves; that is, when a participant simultaneously performs an action and is influenced by it Instrument The secondary participant with the help of which an Agent fulfils an action If there are both an Agent and a Causer in a sentence, it may be difficult to rightfully identify instruments of an Agent and a Causer The instrument for a Causer is an Agent An Agent possesses other instruments Theme The principal participant that does not induce an event and is not influenced by it In the case of temporal relations there are usually two themes, instead of one Experiencer The principal participant (always animate) that does not explicitly fulfil an action; instead, it undergoes a certain state (or an event) As an Experiencer is influenced by a state (or an event), it may be confused with a Patient or even with an Agent (when an action coincides with experience) Beneficiary The secondary participant (always animate) that make gains from a certain event A Beneficiary should not be confused with a Patient that is the principal participant Recipient The objective (always animate) of an event that is connected with a transfer A recipient may perform a role of an Agent in such a sentence as â€Å"Father took a strange envelop from Jack† As is shown in Table 2, there are no definite borders among semantic roles; actually, every role may perform different functions in a sentence (Parsons, 1990), and the lack of an integrated structure complicates the analysis. The occurred intricacies can be explained by the fact that any semantic category is based on concepts of subjectivity rather than concepts of objectivity (Knott Sanders, 1998). For example, the word bookcase consists of certain letters and sounds, so it can not be attributed merely to an object. As words and meanings are acquired from a particular social, cultural and linguistic realm (Peregrin, 2003), the relations among all parts of speech are casual, but not natural. Therefore, semantic categories differ not only among members of various societies, but also among people of the same society. For instance, in two utterances Julia prepared bath for Jill and Julia prepared Jill a bath there are certain semantic roles that may be interpreted either as similar or as different. In the first utterance Julia is an Agent and Jill is a Recipient, while in the second utterance

The Life of Jane Addams Essay -- essays research papers fc

Jane Addams, a pioneering social worker, helped bring attention to the possibility of revolutionizing America’s attitude toward the poor. Not only does she remain a rich source of provocative social theory to this day, her accomplishments affected the philosophical, sociological, and political thought. Addams was an activist of courage and a thinker of originality. Jane Addams embodied the purest moral standards of society which were best demonstrated by her founding of the Hull-House and her societal contributions, culminating with the winning of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860, the eighth child of a prominent family in the small town of Cedarville, Illinois. Of the nine children born to her parents, John and Sarah Addams, only four would reach maturity. Pregnant with her ninth child at the age of forty-nine, Sarah Addams died in 1863, leaving two-year-old Jane, ten-year-old James Weber and three older daughters—Mary, Martha, and Alice.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Five years after Sarah’s death, John Addams married Anna Haldeman, a widow from nearby Freeport who had two sons, eighteen-year-old Henry and seven-year-old George. Jane welcomed the arrival of George, who was almost the same age as she, but she resented her new stepmother at first. The little girl was used to being pampered by her older siblings and the family servants, and she was taken aback by Anna Addams’s unfamiliar habits. The new Mrs. Addams was determined to enforce order in the somewhat unruly household, and she had a quick temper. When she arrived in her new home, she began at once to reorganize it, insisting on formal mealtime behavior, scrupulously orderly rooms, and strict discipline among the children.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Anna Addams was, however, intelligent, cultivated, and basically kind. An avid reader and a talented musician, she often entertained the youngsters by reading plays and novels aloud to them, playing the guitar, and singing folk songs. The children soon became accustomed to her ways, and after a few months she won the hearts of both Jane and her siblings. Although Jane grew found of â€Å"Ma,† as she began to call her stepmother, she continued to look to her father and sister Martha for advice and approval. When Martha suddenly died of typhoid fever at the age of sixteen, five-year-old Jan... ...d remedy some of society’s ills. Largely through Addams’s efforts, people became aware not only of poor people’s needs, but of what they could do to improve living conditions. Still standing on Halsted Street, the original mansion that contained Hull House looks as gracious and dignified as ever—as if Jane Addams herself stands within its courtyard reminding us to bring help and hope to those less fortunate. Bibliography Addams, Jane. Democracy and Social Ethics. 1902. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Addams, Jane. The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan Co., 1930. Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910. Reprint. Prairie State Books. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Berson, Robin. Jane Addams: A Biography. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Lasch, Christopher, ed. The Social Thought of Jane Addams. American Heritage Series. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965. The Official Web Site of the Nobel Foundation. Nobelprize.org. 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1931/addams.html

Sphere :: essays research papers

SPHERE is a great unpredictable and exciting novel. The transformations between Introduction,Rising Action, Climax, and the Summary is almost perfect. As the wire snagged something the crew laying the cable on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean realized they had a problem for their were no shipwrecks on the chart. They told someone and this went up the corporate line of command and soon the military found out that their was something on the bottom of the ocean and that they had to investigate. The military put together a team of people ranging from a psychologist to a mathematician. They called in Norman Johnson to lead the team he was a psychologist who had dealt with many, many disasters in his years. He comes in and comforts eyewitnesses who can't deal with the sight and helps victims and family members deal with the loss of friends and family. Norman was called one day and told that their was an emergency and that they wanted him to come in and work. He suspected that it was another plane crash. This guess of his was bursted when he was loaded onto a military helicopter and took off. He flew over the dark blue Pacific ocean and flew for what was hours but seemed to be days. Hours and hours of dark blue water was ended with a speck of a ship that turned into an entire fleet of navy research vessels. He knew then that this was no ordinary plane crash. The introduction of the book is very grabbing. You feel that this is just going to keep building and become fantastic. This feeling of amazement stays with throughout the introduction. As the rising action starts to take off you just sink into the same world that Norman, Beth, and Harry, the three protagonists, are living in. You start to feel claustrophobic as your reading about how confining the habitat on the ocean floor is. After the rising action gets going the "gang" as we will refer to them as will meet many hard problems and take risks. They battle with the giant squid near the begging of rising action. That was a case when something was heading toward the habitat and the couldn't tell what it was this thing was flying at the habitat when it stopped and seemed to disappear. The next encounter wasn't as easily escaped the thing reached up through an open hatch and with it's huge eye looked in and tracked the crew of the habitat running about trying to escape him. They finally figured out a way to defend the habitat to some degree against the

Essay --

Erika Poeling 6R Ella Fitzgerald Ella Fitzgerald was a great role model to many people including the members of several bands that she played in. She inspired the people of her generation and those after to pursue their dreams. She loved children that liked to play and do other fun stuff that she liked to do when she was a kid. She wanted to make people happy by singing. She is known as The First Lady of Jazz. Ella Fitzgerald was an African-American that was born on April 25th, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia. She was left in a park at age 4 by accident and got sent to an orphanage, but her mom, Temperance, was able to get her back a few days later. Her family was very poor and racial segregation was wide spread in the United States during this time. Her mom got divorced from Ella’s father, William, shortly after she was born. After the divorce, Ella and her mom moved to a town in New York called Yonkers. There, her mom got married to Joseph Da Silva. In 1923 Temperance and Joseph had a daughter and named her Frances. To help support her family during this time, Ella worked as a money runner for gamblers and bookies. Ella attended Sunday school and Bible study in addition to worship services, Here, Ella was introduced to music and singing. In school, Ella liked to dance and perform for others. When she entered fourth grade at a public school, she did not have a lot a lot friends because she did not know how to talk to others without hurting their feelings. She had to go to the school that was less expensive because they did not have that kind of money to spend on a private school. Ella had been singing since she was 4 years... ...way or something they did was bad. Older people today still listen to her music. She always had a smile on her face when she was mad or upset. She helped children to bring the dreams to a better place by practicing with them on their career. Ella liked going to the photo both to take pictures with her friends and family but she never had the time for all of the fun things because she always had to perform in a concert or on stage. Ella Fitzgerald is a great role model to kids and other adults. She shows us that hard work and determination can lead us to do great thing. She shows us that we should us the talents that we have. She inspired the people to go after their dreams and never give up on themselves. She loved children that wanted to peruse their dreams and she made them come true by helping them do the things that she loved to do when she was a kid.

History: the ancient world Essay

The region occupied by the ancient Aztec and Maya, now commonly referred to as Mesoamerica, is an area encompassing Southern and eastern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize an El Salvador, western and southern Honduras and the Pacific side of central America as far as the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. On the other hand, Egypt is located at the Northern part of Africa, along the Mediterranean ocean. Despite the distance between the geographical location of the two, history shows several similarities in their cultures. Ancient Mesoamerican people and the Egyptians shared a series of cultural traits; among the most striking of the two calendars of 260 and 365 days that perpetuate in a great cycle approximating fifty two years, language similarities, similar methods of construction, specifically the pyramids. There are also other similarities in their ways of life such as trading and farming among many others. Although the people inhibiting the Mesoamerica area were of many distinct cultures, often speaking mutually unintelligible languages, none the less, there was widespread contact over millennia through migrating, trade, conquest and pilgrimage. The interest in Egyptian and the Mesoamerican archeology arose in the beginning of the 19th century. It was intertwined with important local and global social political developments. Below is a discussion on some of the areas of similarity in the Egyptian and the Mesoamerican cultures. Similarities in the Egyptian and the Mesoamerican pyramids There is also a similarity in the methods of construction of the pyramids by the two cultures, based on the concept of externally oriented architecture. It is believed that the Egyptian pyramids often had temples placed at the summit of the pyramids, just as houses had been built on top of masonry platforms. For example, in the Puuc style, the stone temple facades resembled the design of the tied twig walls of the Maya house. The tendency of the early stone architecture to imitate reed or wood construction was also seen in the early Egypt. In Zozer’s pyramid complex at Saqqara, stone pillars were carved in the shape of the bundles of papyrus or the palm trees that had been used as supports in the palaces at that time. Many of the features of the Egyptian pyramids are found in the pyramids of Mesoamerica. At Uximal the pyramid complex was enclosed by a wall as were those of Egypt. Chichen Itza was also a walled city of 30 square kilometer with 7 paved roads, or sacheob, several kilometers long connecting important sites. The paved road between Uxmal and Kabah was 18 km long. These roads or sacheob, resemble the Egyptian pyramid causeways, although their geography was different. Differences in the pyramids Differences in the Egyptian and the American pyramids have already been noted, although some of them are more apparent than real. There are the differences as a result of time and function. It is said that the famous Egyptian pyramids were built before the year 2000, and the classic pyramids of Maya pyramids came 300 years after. However, history says that the Kushite revival of pyramids c-700 coincides with the construction of the early Olmec pyramids at La Venta. The pyramids of Egypt were conceived as tombs, playing an important part in the religion of the Egyptians. It has been admitted that the Mesoamerican pyramids were also important in their religion. However, the difference with the Mesoamerican pyramids is that never served as tombs, but were used for another reason. The famous Palenque is proving that at least some pyramids served as tombs in America, but for the important people of the society. There is no doubt that there was a difference in the precise religious function of the Egyptian and the Mesoamerican pyramids, although the exact purpose of the pyramids is contradictory. Also, there have been no claims to identify the composition and the construction methods of the pyramids. Whereas the Americans made extensive use of small stones, cement and stucco, the Egyptians used much larger stones while sparingly using the mortar. Astronomy and the calendar In both the Egyptian and the Mesoamerican complexes, the astronomical orientation played an important role. Both the Mesoamerican and the Egyptian civilizations had developed scientific calendars, as was common to all the agricultural societies. For this reason, they paid close attention to the solar and the lunar cycles. In Mesoamerica, close attention was given to the Venus cycle, which helped shape the calendar. Unlike the classical Greeks, the Maya knew that the morning and the evening stars were the same heavenly body (Venus). The Mesoamericans calculated that an 8-year solar cycle equaled a 5-year Venus cycle. Although the Mesoamericans knew that the solar year was a little over 365 days, they also made extensive use of a 260 day cycle which had no parallel in the Egyptian calendar. The Egyptians, on the other hand, had studied all the visible constellations in developing their star clocks. A different star was chosen every ten days (the Egyptian week) as the new decan star to mark the last hour of the night. The modern time measurement of 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night measurement had its own origin in the ancient Egypt. They had also developed a constant civil calendar of 365 days. However, the Egyptian calendar, with an early development of 4241 was far more ancient than that of Mesoamerica. Language similarity The precise history of the of the ancient languages of the people of Egypt and Mesoamerica remains a mystery even up to today, and the origin of the two cultures is also uncertain. The reason for the demise of the cultures of the people of Maya is uncertain, but the tragic devastation of the Aztec culture is all too well known. Although there is limited evidence, a number of scholars have suspected that these two regions, although from different parts of the world have come into contact between themselves during the ancient times. However, it has been denied that the encounter between these two cultures was a prolonged one. Other scholars have suggested that there could be a possibility that these two cultures never came into contact at all. Despite the contradictions among the scholars, the similarities between these two cultures are major and cannot be ignored. There is an assumption that the Egyptians and the Mesoamericans shared a common language which made it possible to exchange the ideas. The reasoning behind the similarities between the two languages is that there must have been contact between people from the two regions. There are many similarities in the linguistic correspondences between the two languages, which remove the possibility of just a contact between the Egyptians and the Mesoamericans. The possibility of a spontaneous coincidence has also been ruled out, because of the existence of similar sounds and meanings in some words. Application of Mathematics Mathematics was also developed at quite a high level in both cultures. This shows that they were able to make measurements during the construction of the pyramids, and also in other areas that could have required the application of mathematics. Today, it is clear that the Mesoamerican arithmetic is readily adaptable to the operations of multiplication and division as well as the simpler addition and subtraction operation. The difference in the numbering systems of the two cultures was that the Egyptian numbering system was additive, base 10, making extensive use of fractions and did not have a symbol for zero. On the other hand, the Mesoamerican system used base 20, was positional, was the first to invent a symbol for zero but as far as history shows, it did not use fractions. There are no detailed records of the Mesoamerican written materials, due to an order that was given by the Spanish authorities to burn down all Native American books. The Mesoamerican and the Egyptian writings were both rooted in their own separate cultures and iconography. It is not known if the first use of the paper in Mesoamerica received an impulse from Africans who were already familiar with papyrus writing materials. Several plant materials were used by the Maya of Mesoamerica to make â€Å"paper†. The famous maguey cactus and the amatl tree from which â€Å"amate† is made are some of the materials that were used to write on. Materials from the tree were soaked, washed, pounded, cut into small pieces and pounded again, a process that is not so different from that of making the papyri. Farming activities Both the Egyptians and the Mesoamericans relied on agriculture for food. During the early years, the Maya of Mesoamerica started civilizing. They built small radiating canal systems in a low rainfall area of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, which is assumed to have been used to irrigate crops. Irrigation was so important, as more than 85% of all the farming in Mesoamerica relied on canal irrigation. In Egypt, farming was common along river Nile. Irrigation was at first done through the over flooding water from the river at the farms along the river. Later on, they adopted the method of fetching water and pouring it directly to the crops, which was later on replaced with the digging of canals to redirect the water to the farms. Trade in Egypt and Mesoamerica Due to the farming activities along the river Nile, the people of Egypt engaged themselves in trading activities amongst themselves. They then upgraded to trading with the people of Mesopotamia, and later on with those from the kingdom of Kush towards the South. There are historians who believe that the Egyptian picture writing, or hieroglyphics, was developed from Sumerian cuneiform as a result of trade contracts with Mesopotamia. In Mesoamerica, long distance trade first developed in Maya. The first of these was a shift in the bulk of east west commerce from the ancient pre classic trade routes along the Pacific coastal plain and the coast of Yucatan to the central-Maya routes through the highlands and, more important, along the rivers across the lowlands. The second development was the emergence of a new Mesoamerican power centre at Teotihuacan, which was able to re-unify the long distance trade network during the early classic period. The trade differences in the two societies could be as a result of the differences in the goods traded by the two societies. Although they all specialized in farming practices, they planted different crops, which they used as trading commodities. Conclusion There are many similarities between the Mesoamericans and the Egyptians. Although it is not clear to any historians how these similarities came to be, the possibility of a mere coincidence in the cultures has been out ruled. This essay has highlighted some of the some of the areas of similarity such as the pyramids, the calendars, farming activities and trade, to prove a relation in the cultures of the Mesoamericans and the Egyptians. However, more research needs to be done to prove how these people from difference continents came to adopt such similar cultures. Future research should also focus on finding out whether there are other ways of life that the two cultures shared. Reference 1) Jerry H. Bentley, Herbert F. Ziegler, â€Å"Traditions and Encounters†, 4th edition, Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. ISBN 978-0-07-333062-4

Analysis of two speeches Obama and Bono

I have chosen to look at two speeches, one given by Barack Obama and another given by Bono. Both are very important leaders with their own kind of political influence. By choosing these speeches with a serious content (education and the third world) and both addressing the same kind of audience (students), I will be able to give an useful comparison in terms of leadership and emotional intelligence. Barack Obama's †Back to school† speech In his speech to the nation’s students (from kindergarten to 12th grade) President Barack Obama tries to stress the importance of getting an education and the responsibilities students have themselves.Addressing children ranging from 6 years to 18 years of age is a difficult task and Obama employs various strategies (both leadership and emotional) in order to get his message across to as many as possible. First of all, he talks directly to his listeners and makes sure they see him as a peer they can identify with and not only as th e President of the United States, which exemplifies his social skills. Secondly, he uses an informal style, a simple language, many repetitions, plenty of diverse concrete examples they can relate to, and he speaks to their patriotic feelings and their sense of responsibility.Obama’s main challenge with his target group is their size and diversity, and he therefore has to employ several strategies in order to reach as many as possible. In order to quickly get his listeners’ attention, he starts out by speaking directly to them, â€Å"Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? † A key element in getting the message across is that he gets the students’ attention, and that he then holds on to it. One way of doing this is by addressing them at eye level. He gets them to identify with him, respect him and deem him credible and then shows them that he genuinely cares about their situation (empathy).Obama does this by beginning the speech with a necdotes from his own life. He tells them how he was raised by a single mother, who could not afford to send him to the same schools as the other children, and how she homeschooled him at 4. 30 in the morning. He also tells them how he got into trouble and did things that he is not proud of. By sharing these rather personal stories of struggle and adversity, Obama uses his emotional intelligence in order to gain credibility in their eyes. Listening to someone who you respect and who you believe is credible makes it a lot easier to accept the messages and values that they speak of.After having established contact with his listeners, Obama starts conveying his message and values to the students. Obama’s main message of the speech comes in two parts. Firstly, he says that getting an education is the student’s own responsibility. Parents, teachers and the government also have a responsibility (he takes on the responsibility as a leader of the nation), but at the end of the day, â€Å"none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities†. In this argument, Obama tries to speak to the students’ conscience and sense of responsibility.He shows them how so many people already have done so much for them, and that it is now their turn to do something; namely to take responsibility for their own education. Secondly, Obama talks about the responsibility towards the US. Not only do the students have a responsibility towards themselves, they also have a responsibility towards their country. Here the political aspect of the speech appears. The United States cannot function or compete in the future if there are no qualified people to fill the many functions a society has, such as nurses, doctors, senators etc., â€Å"What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. †This leadership argument speaks to the listeners’ patriotic feelings. Mos t Americans are raised to be patriotic, and this is something Obama takes advantage of on several occasions in his speech with great success. Every one of the students carry the responsibility towards their country, â€Å"We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect †¦ If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country† (leadership).At the center of the speech is the idea that education is paramount to getting a successful life and that everybody has the opportunity to succeed. Obama stresses that, â€Å"[e]very single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. † and with some hard work and dedication the sky is the limit according to Obama. It seems as if Obama is truly concerned about the students, but the politics are easy to spot. Obama needs strong students in order to succes sfully run the country.During this part of the speech Obama motivates and inspires his listeners by showing them some of the key values he believes in (motivation and self-awareness). Hard work and dedication is one value he stresses as most important. In this part he indirectly refers to the American dream that implies that if you work hard you can achieve anything. Here Obama uses the American cultural heritage of the American dream in his rhetoric, â€Å"Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.†To further build on this motivational argument he offers several concrete examples of people who have had poor conditions, and who still have made it, through hard work and dedication. The examples are himself and his wife, Michelle Obama, who have both had difficult odds, but made it anyhow, and three cases he has found for the occasion, Jazmin Perez, Andoni Schultz and Shantell Steve. These three people have all overcome difficult odds and are living proof of how the American dream is obtainable if only you are willing to work hard, set goals for yourself and not give up, â€Å"Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you.They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. † Obama uses rhetoric in order to get his political message across. By using a simple language, addressing the students at eye level, employing leadership and emotional arguments and using several concrete examples (i. e. that he has weaknesses himself (self-evaluation)) he is able to reach a broad audience and show them what values he perceives to be the most important and by that inspire and motivate them. Bono’s commencement speech at Harvard UniversityPaul David Hewson, mos tly known as Bono from U2, has given his life to music, but also to charity. This is expressed in his very personal speech at Harvard University. Bono approaches the students at the commencement at Harvard University, and asks for their help to make America a great country and to help people in need. Bono begins his speech by introducing himself. He actually starts to criticize people like himself. Bono is talking about rock stars and singers, and says that singers contain a very big ego. This statement is a little paradoxical, because Bono is a singer and a rock star himself (self-awareness).Afterwards he is making clear that he is not just a singer, but also a father and a friend of dogs. The problem or conflict Bono is bringing up through his speech is mostly about Africa and the poor (the third world). He mentions the conflict, which has taken place in connection with sending money to some of the poorest countries of the world. When money is send to a third world country, it is not necessarily the poorest and the sickest people who get the money, because of the countries’ great debts. Bono finds this extreme problematic, and is therefore asking the students for their help.He thinks that the smart people at Harvard are needed to work this problem out. His argumentation for the importance of this cause is its influence on world history. He appeals to them and tries to motivate them by telling the sad story of the third world (motivation). Many people in third world countries dies e. g. of AIDS and HIV, because they do not get the money there is sent as help. He is mentioning that this holocaust, as he says, in Africa will be remembered forever, along with the internet. This argumentation is the climax of the speech.He brings up subjects who are very frail, and this is the point during speech, in which the listeners are paying most attention. During the speech at Harvard University Bono is appealing to the listeners feelings. In that way he uses emotio nal intelligence a lot. Already from the beginning he is trying make like a personal bond between him and the audience. He is talking about is personal life, which makes the speech a little informal and tries to make the audience forget the pedestal that most of them have put him on. This makes the listeners feel comfortable in his presence, and let them met him at eye level (social skills).The subject he brings up is mostly including death and diseases. The third world conditions are in advance much discussed, and the discussions are typically very emotional. Bono is mentioning the conditions as an â€Å"African holocaust†. Even the word â€Å"holocaust† is enough to bring up bad memories and associations about World War II. To speak of the African problems by using a word like holocaust, both attracts people’s attention but also fills them with horror – again he is appealing to the emotions of his listeners. People are maybe finding the death in Africa hard to relate to.But when Bono is talking about holocaust every man and woman knows the grade of seriousness and importance of the cause. The message of his speech is about brotherly love, charity and helping people in need. Bono is saying himself that he wants to ask the people at Harvard University for help. Help to make life better for people in the third world. By this he as a leader encourage them to take responsibility. He tries to guide them in the direction he thinks they should be guided (leadership). Comparison of the two speeches Both speeches start of by trying to meet the audience at eye level in order to inspire and motivate the audience.Both Obama and Bono succeed in doing this by making a rather humoristic intro before turning to the reel content of the political messages in the speeches. If this connection was not established, the political message would never get across to the rather difficult audience. The ability to establish this connection with an audience, an employee or a client is a sign of both good leadership skills and good emotional intelligence. Both Obama and Bono are very assertive in their speeches, but in very different ways. It is obvious that Bono is a rock star (who by nature exudes assertiveness) and not a politician like Obama.The Bono speech is written without a lot of foreign and long words, the language is very common, he uses little rhetoric, when getting his political messages across, which is all in oppose to the Obama speech. Obama uses long and intellectual words to promote his trustworthiness. Bono also uses a kind of slang when he says: â€Å"I’ve seen great minds and prolific imaginations disappear up their own ass (†¦)†. No one, especially not the President of The United states of America, besides a famous rock star, would be expressing themselves like that.Bono attracts the listeners’ attention by doing this, and he gets away with it, because of the entertainer and person he is. But it is definitely not something that a reel company leader would do in order to get his employees to follow him and his ideas. Obama shows a great deal of his emotional skills by letting in on his own weaknesses. Obama is the situational leader who guides his audience on what they must do and how they should do it, which you need to be, when you are the President of the United States of America. Bono I would characterize as a transformational leader (charismatic and inspirational). Analysis of two speeches Obama and Bono I have chosen to look at two speeches, one given by Barack Obama and another given by Bono. Both are very important leaders with their own kind of political influence. By choosing these speeches with a serious content (education and the third world) and both addressing the same kind of audience (students), I will be able to give an useful comparison in terms of leadership and emotional intelligence. Barack Obama's †Back to school† speechIn his speech to the nation’s students (from kindergarten to 12th grade) President Barack Obama tries to stress the importance of getting an education and the responsibilities students have themselves. Addressing children ranging from 6 years to 18 years of age is a difficult task and Obama employs various strategies (both leadership and emotional) in order to get his message across to as many as possible. First of all, he talks directly to his listeners and makes sure they see him as a peer they can identify with and not only as th e President of the United States, which exemplifies his social skills.Secondly, he uses an informal style, a simple language, many repetitions, plenty of diverse concrete examples they can relate to, and he speaks to their patriotic feelings and their sense of responsibility. Obama’s main challenge with his target group is their size and diversity, and he therefore has to employ several strategies in order to reach as many as possible. In order to quickly get his listeners’ attention, he starts out by speaking directly to them, â€Å"Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today?†A key element in getting the message across is that he gets the students’ attention, and that he then holds on to it. One way of doing this is by addressing them at eye level. He gets them to identify with him, respect him and deem him credible and then shows them that he genuinely cares about their situation (empathy). Obama does this by beginning the speech with an ecdotes from his own life. He tells them how he was raised by a single mother, who could not afford to send him to the same schools as the other children, and how she homeschooled him at 4.30 in the morning.He also tells them how he got into trouble and did things that he is not proud of. By sharing these rather personal stories of struggle and adversity, Obama uses his emotional intelligence in order to gain credibility in their eyes. Listening to someone who you respect and who you believe is credible makes it a lot easier to accept the messages and values that they speak of. After having established contact with his listeners, Obama starts conveying his message and values to the students. Obama’s main message of the speech comes in two parts.Firstly, he says that getting an education is the student’s own responsibility. Parents, teachers and the government also have a responsibility (he takes on the responsibility as a leader of the nation), but at the end of the da y, â€Å"none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities†. In this argument, Obama tries to speak to the students’ conscience and sense of responsibility. He shows them how so many people already have done so much for them, and that it is now their turn to do something; namely to take responsibility for their own education.Secondly, Obama talks about the responsibility towards the US. Not only do the students have a responsibility towards themselves, they also have a responsibility towards their country. Here the political aspect of the speech appears. The United States cannot function or compete in the future if there are no qualified people to fill the many functions a society has, such as nurses, doctors, senators etc. , â€Å"What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. † This leadership argument speaks to the listeners’ patriotic feelings.Most Americans are raised to be patriotic, and this is something Obama takes advantage of on several occasions in his speech with great success. Every one of the students carry the responsibility towards their country, â€Å"We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect †¦ If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country† (leadership). At the center of the speech is the idea that education is paramount to getting a successful life and that everybody has the opportunity to succeed.Obama stresses that, â€Å"[e]very single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. † and with some hard work and dedication the sky is the limit according to Obama. It seems as if Obama is truly concerned about the students, but the politics are easy to spot. Obama needs strong students in order to successf ully run the country. During this part of the speech Obama motivates and inspires his listeners by showing them some of the key values he believes in (motivation and self-awareness). Hard work and dedication is one value he stresses as most important.In this part he indirectly refers to the American dream that implies that if you work hard you can achieve anything. Here Obama uses the American cultural heritage of the American dream in his rhetoric, â€Å"Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. † To further build on this motivational argument he offers several concrete examples of people who have had poor conditions, and who still have made it, through hard work and dedication.The examples are himself and his wife, Michelle Obama, who have both had difficult odds, but made it anyhow, and three cases he has found for the occasion, Jazmin Perez, Andoni Schultz and Shantell Steve. These three people have all overcome difficult odds and are living proof of how the American dream is obtainable if only you are willing to work hard, set goals for yourself and not give up, â€Å"Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up.They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. † Obama uses rhetoric in order to get his political message across. By using a simple language, addressing the students at eye level, employing leadership and emotional arguments and using several concrete examples (i. e. that he has weaknesses himself (self-evaluation)) he is able to reach a broad audience and show them what values he perceives to be the most important and by that inspire and motivate them. Bono’s commencement speech at Harvard UniversityPaul David Hewson, most ly known as Bono from U2, has given his life to music, but also to charity. This is expressed in his very personal speech at Harvard University. Bono approaches the students at the commencement at Harvard University, and asks for their help to make America a great country and to help people in need. Bono begins his speech by introducing himself. He actually starts to criticize people like himself. Bono is talking about rock stars and singers, and says that singers contain a very big ego.This statement is a little paradoxical, because Bono is a singer and a rock star himself (self-awareness). Afterwards he is making clear that he is not just a singer, but also a father and a friend of dogs. The problem or conflict Bono is bringing up through his speech is mostly about Africa and the poor (the third world). He mentions the conflict, which has taken place in connection with sending money to some of the poorest countries of the world. When money is send to a third world country, it is n ot necessarily the poorest and the sickest people who get the money, because of the countries’ great debts.Bono finds this extreme problematic, and is therefore asking the students for their help. He thinks that the smart people at Harvard are needed to work this problem out. His argumentation for the importance of this cause is its influence on world history. He appeals to them and tries to motivate them by telling the sad story of the third world (motivation). Many people in third world countries dies e. g. of AIDS and HIV, because they do not get the money there is sent as help. He is mentioning that this holocaust, as he says, in Africa will be remembered forever, along with the internet. This argumentation is the climax of the speech.He brings up subjects who are very frail, and this is the point during speech, in which the listeners are paying most attention. During the speech at Harvard University Bono is appealing to the listeners feelings. In that way he uses emotion al intelligence a lot. Already from the beginning he is trying make like a personal bond between him and the audience. He is talking about is personal life, which makes the speech a little informal and tries to make the audience forget the pedestal that most of them have put him on. This makes the listeners feel comfortable in his presence, and let them met him at eye level (social skills).The subject he brings up is mostly including death and diseases. The third world conditions are in advance much discussed, and the discussions are typically very emotional. Bono is mentioning the conditions as an â€Å"African holocaust†. Even the word â€Å"holocaust† is enough to bring up bad memories and associations about World War II. To speak of the African problems by using a word like holocaust, both attracts people’s attention but also fills them with horror – again he is appealing to the emotions of his listeners. People are maybe finding the death in Africa h ard to relate to.But when Bono is talking about holocaust every man and woman knows the grade of seriousness and importance of the cause. The message of his speech is about brotherly love, charity and helping people in need. Bono is saying himself that he wants to ask the people at Harvard University for help. Help to make life better for people in the third world. By this he as a leader encourage them to take responsibility. He tries to guide them in the direction he thinks they should be guided (leadership). Comparison of the two speeches Both speeches start of by trying to meet the audience at eye level in order to inspire and motivate the audience.Both Obama and Bono succeed in doing this by making a rather humoristic intro before turning to the reel content of the political messages in the speeches. If this connection was not established, the political message would never get across to the rather difficult audience. The ability to establish this connection with an audience, an employee or a client is a sign of both good leadership skills and good emotional intelligence. Both Obama and Bono are very assertive in their speeches, but in very different ways. It is obvious that Bono is a rock star (who by nature exudes assertiveness) and not a politician like Obama.The Bono speech is written without a lot of foreign and long words, the language is very common, he uses little rhetoric, when getting his political messages across, which is all in oppose to the Obama speech. Obama uses long and intellectual words to promote his trustworthiness. Bono also uses a kind of slang when he says: â€Å"I’ve seen great minds and prolific imaginations disappear up their own ass (†¦)†. No one, especially not the President of The United states of America, besides a famous rock star, would be expressing themselves like that.Bono attracts the listeners’ attention by doing this, and he gets away with it, because of the entertainer and person he is. But it is definitely not something that a reel company leader would do in order to get his employees to follow him and his ideas. Obama shows a great deal of his emotional skills by letting in on his own weaknesses. Obama is the situational leader who guides his audience on what they must do and how they should do it, which you need to be, when you are the President of the United States of America. Bono I would characterize as a transformational leader (charismatic and inspirational).