How Have Other Peoples Readings Of “Translations” Helped You Essay

How Have Other Peoples Readings Of â€Å"Translations† Helped You To Understand The Contexts Of The Play In Scene 1? The first act of Friel’s play â€Å"Translations† features many different contexts ranging from the infamous potato famine to hinting at the possible forming of the present day IRA (the Donnelly twins,) and politics. One of the major contexts that also coincide with the title of the play is translation. The translation of Irish name into English name. I only realised this by reading a Canadian writers essay on language and its importance in â€Å"Translations†. Especially in relation to Owen and his take on the Irish language. Where as many Irish people, at the time, saw the English to be taking away Irelands identity by colonizing it and changing names, language etc. Owen seems to be naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve and miss this. By changing place names they are not only taking away identity but also something more intimate, a part of their lifestyle. Hence when the English mistake Owens name to be Roland it seems to be Manus who is more frustrated by this whereas Owen says â€Å"Owen – Roland- what the hell. It’s only a name. It’s the same me, isn’t it.† The importance (or un-importance, depending how you want to perceive it) of names is brought up firstly at the start of the play when Manus is teaching Sarah to speak. It is important to note that the first thing Manus teaches her to say is her name, also her identity. Owens ignorance for the colonisation is shown again when he says, â€Å"my job is to translate the quaint, archaic tongue you people persist in speaking into the Kings good English.† One quote from the particular essay by the Canadian writer says † The Gaelic tongue is becoming obsolete in the wake of colonisation, Owen has boarded the ship of progress disassociating himself from his foundation.† Similar, in a sense, is Maire’s view on the English language and that it should be learnt. Maire’s view links in with another context shown in the play and that is the focus on dead languages, such as Greek and Latin and soon to be dead, Gaelic. By researching Irish history at the time the play is set, it is easier to gather an understanding for the wanting of Maire to learn English. Dr Leon Litvack’s paper on the historical and colonial context of Friel’s Translations illustrates this. Maire’s reference to Daniel O’Connel, â€Å"the disillusioned veteran who founded the catholic association,† O’Connel preached that it was necessary to learn English in order to allow Ireland to progress in a quickly modernising western world. Hence Maire wanting to learn English rather than a dead language such as Greek or Latin as this will be necessary if she is going to immigrate to the United States. One interpretation of the play is the focus on schools. Being set in an illegally run hedge school, a place where Catholics turned to for education after the penal laws were instated. The time the play is set is during a major transition period when the English are trying to get rid of hedge schools and introduce new national schools. It has been shown by statistics that half a million Irish children received illegal tuition through hedge school. This links in with the whole idea of translations, as at the new national schools, where you were forced to go to by law, the language you would be taught in would be English, no longer Gaelic. To some people This was a problem but to others like Maire, English was seen as the language of opportunity. â€Å"The old language was a barrier to modern progress† she quotes from the famous Daniel O’Connel. There is an increasing amount of tension being built up in the first act with regards to the devastating potato famine. There is a sense of dramatic irony being shown as well. Seeing as the play is set in the 1830s this is only a short time before the potato blight occurred in 1845.this disaster caused the population of Ireland to drop from eight million down to six million. It is believed that one million people died of starvation while another million were forced to immigrate to start new lives in Canada and America etc. It is obvious to the audience that the famine will occur but the characters in the play are blind to this even though the clues are all there. This is why the audience tend to sympathise for their negligence. Even when Jimmy Jack suggests to Doalty he should plant something other than potatoes, which is the correct thing to do, he just comically shrugs off the remark, â€Å"Too lazy be Jesus to wash himself and he’s lecturing me on agriculture!† Bridget also brings up the subject of the blight and its distinctive, ominous â€Å"sweet smell,† only to be aggressively dismissed by Maire. â€Å"Sweet smell! Sweet smell! Every year at this time somebody comes back with stories of the sweet smell. Sweet God, Did the potatoes ever fail in Baile Beag? Well, did they ever-ever? Never!† This is where the audience really begin to sympathise, as they know of the catastrophic effects that will soon occur. Although Friel has not written the play from a biased or political point of view it is still possible to find the idea of the modern day IRA being formed in this play. This becomes more noticeable as the play progresses. Although it is still possible to get an idea of this from Doaltys seemingly harmless antics with the British soldiers and his constant dodging of questions involving the Donnelly twins. Manus â€Å"aren’t they at home?† Doalty â€Å"No.† Manus â€Å"Where are they then?† Doalty â€Å"How would I know?† Even the stage directions in this particular section lead us to believe something suspicious is going on, Doalty begins whistling through his teeth. Suddenly the atmosphere is silent and alert. To be able to understand that this may be about the IRA, background reading about the times the play is set and when the play was written (the 1970s, a time of great trouble and political unrest in Northern Ireland.) is necessary. The 1970s were a time when tension between Northern Ireland and England was at a peak. This also was around the time of the infamous â€Å"Bloody Sunday†. So it is possible that Friel may have tried to incur some of this in to the play. Although Seamus Deane says â€Å"Translations† is a â€Å"sequence of events in history which are transformed by his writing into a parable of events in the present day.† The play has also been described as an enlightening metaphor for the situation in Northern Ireland. The many contexts featured in the play are extremely important as they add a framework or shell to the play allowing it to go in many directions. Although it features so many different contexts Friel is quoted to say that â€Å"Translations† is â€Å"to do with language and only language.† Therefore not historical contexts. To become more familiar with the play and its many contexts background reading and the reading of other people’s interpretations are essential. By reading theses criticisms I have become more aware at how Friel has made the play so effective by setting it in the specific era. By doing this it makes it easier for the audience to see how the recent condition of Ireland spiralled way out of control originating in the mid 1800s. It also gives greater depth to the tragedy that will eventually befall and that the audience know the tragedy is coming but not on so many levels. Overall it is essential to at least to some form of background reading in order to understand the play to a higher level.

Impact and Benefits of Telecommunication Technology Essay

The emergence of what has been termed the â€Å"information age† is in large part characterized by the presence of real-time communications technologies. Telecommunications technologies are in operation continuously and in virtually all parts of the world. Telecommunications infrastructure is an important facilitator of economic growth and may be important to some level of social development in the world system. Technology does not create new ages, but the people who use the technology have the potential to forge new economic and social conditions (Goleniewski, and Jarrett, 2006). As this new information age emerges from the ashes of the industrial revolution in many areas of the world, new ways of production emerge. Previously non-existent factors are prominent in the new digital age. In general, technology has always been thought of as an important aspect of production and driver of economic growth, but telecommunications technology is sometimes overlooked as an initiator of development. This paper will explore the impact of telecommunications infrastructures and use of the videoconferencing development in Education, Healthcare and Business. Telecommunication Technologies in Organizations Organizations appear to be evolving toward new forms such as virtual organizations, spherical organizations, dynamic network organizations and network organizations (Hinterhuber and Levin, 1994). These forms may be a response to changing environmental conditions. An important characteristic of these forms organizations is distributed collaboration (i.e., work spread across personnel in many locations). The use of information technology in support of these forms is on the rise (Lucas and Baroudi, 1994). With the widespread usage of electronic communication facilities such as: facsimile, electronic mail, teleconferencing and videoconferencing, physical-meeting places are becoming less of a necessity (Goleniewski, and Jarrett, 2006). Additionally, telecommuting, or working from home using computer communications that started in the 1980s has gained momentum with improved support in recent years, and this has also limits the need for physical meeting places. In addition, federal laws (e.g. Clean Air Act of 1990) require businesses employing more than one hundred employees in one location to reduce their employees commute time (Venkatesh and Vitalari, 1992). Information and communication technologies are the tools to run all business activities. The introduction of new technologies is expected to have dynamic ramifications on the methods organizations do business (Remenyi, 2000). This close interaction between information technologies and business operations makes it very difficult to predict the full range of possible benefits impact of the technology implementation. Some aspects of real-time communication systems as computer-mediated communication and videoconferencing may produce tangible benefits that directly improve the performance of groups in the organizations (Goleniewski, and Jarrett, 2006). The direct benefits of real-time communication systems stem from: 1) Reduce work delays and incidents of rework due to fast response from information sources, increased information availability, or reduced ambiguity in existing information; 2) Improve quality of work due to timely and better decision making, clearer instructions, and reduced ambiguity in information; 3) Time savings for contractor and engineer due to decreased need for submission of formal requests for information (RFI’s); 4) Considerable savings in costs related to travel to attend meetings or to resolve issues. On the other hand, telecommunication technologies may produce several intangible improvements in the general work environment. Those benefits are more difficult to measure, however, they may have critical impact on project success (Remenyi, 2000). Teleconferencing Teleconferencing, defined as groups of people communicating electronically between locations separated by distance and/or time, is a technology that has become beneficial for education, healthcare and business. It can be an effective tool for conducting important decision-making or problem solving meetings that might not otherwise be held. It can reduce unproductive travel time, optimize attendance and access to scarce talent, and provide an excellent education and training medium. In other words, teleconferencing can significantly increase productivity and efficiency, can improve management communications at all levels, and can significantly enhance business opportunities when used appropriately (Johansen, 1984, p. 20). Teleconferencing is a broad term encompassing four basic types of communication: audioconferencing, conferencing, computer conferencing and videoconferencing. Each of these areas of concern can and has been integrated within a single teleconferencing system. Videoconferencing To many users, the term teleconferencing means only videoconferencing. Videoconferencing is one form of teleconferencing, and a form of teleconferencing that allows geographically separate conferees to see and hear each other. Videoconferencing can be divided into the following categories: still video, interactive motion video, and one-way broadcast video (Johansen, 1984, pp. 21-3). Videoconferencing images are transmitted over a variety of telecommunications networks including the telephone network, a compressed digital network of transmission capacity and analog networks using terrestrial or satellite systems. Videoconferencing systems can be categorized as: still video, T1 video, fiber optics, analog baseband and/or direct broadcast satellite systems (Wilcox, 2000, pp.7-9). Impact and Benefits of Videoconferencing Since videoconferencing can encompass all forms of teleconferencing, it was selected as the focus for this paper. Videoconferencing is important to the fields of education, business, healthcare because it can offer a cost effective way of imparting the message to consumers who might not otherwise have an opportunity to receive valuable information. Often, because of monetary constraints, educators complain that they are unable to offer courses to all students who want to take them. If the situation is one in which there are only a few subject matter experts, but a large number of willing students, time often inhibits the educator’s ability to reach all interested students (Wilcox, 2000). On the other hand, in many states due to geographic size, all students cannot be reached. Many must travel great distances to obtain an education on a campus environment or forgo the education. There are also situations where, due to accidents or ill health, students are unable to attend classes. Videoconferencing can present a cost effective means to reach a large, possibly remote, audience and impart a simultaneous message (Johansen, 1984). In business, videoconferencing has been used to increase productivity and efficiency, improve management communications, and make better use of scarce talent. Education can be viewed as business-students provide revenue-institutions are competitively seeking to increase revenue by expanding enrollments. Like business, institutions of higher learning need to find innovative ways to increase enrollment, limit administrative costs and improve the quality of their product –education (Wilcox, 2000). Videoconferencing was originally promoted as an alternative to traditional face-to-face meetings, and as a means for an organization to save money in travel expenses for employees, however the benefits have gone far beyond travel savings. Videoconferencing changes the way organizations communicate. More efficient meetings can be conducted, since access to people and information is easier, and information can be communicated to as many people as need to hear the message. The potential for higher quality decision-making is greater because the opportunity exists for greater access to needed decision-makers. Videoconferencing improves and expedites the flow of information so that an organization can respond quickly to business opportunities and customer problems. Meetings tend to be more focused, reducing extraneous talk. The time intervals that occur between information processing, decision-making and implementing action is greatly reduced, which can improve an organization’s competitive action in the market (Combs, 1990). Problem definition is easier when videoconferencing is implemented, as projects can be monitored from beginning to end. Videoconferencing enables organizations to maximize use of subject matter experts, whose talents may be required by many departments of an organization. Videoconferencing is currently being utilized by a number of institutions in Education, Healthcare and Business. The examples cited below utilize a variety of organizations and applications for videoconferencing. Education, Healthcare and Business Organizations Using Videoconferencing In 1977, the Central Maine Interactive Telecommunications System (CMITS) was started to facilitate exchange of educational information among seven health care institutions. CMITS provides motion videoconferencing with educational programming for health professionals. An emphasis was placed on planning education programs, rather than producing shows. The CMITS experience led to the establishment of the Aroostook County Telecommunications System (ACTS). The interconnection between CMITS and ACTS allows members to share educational programs within the state. The systems are also members of the Association of Hospital Television Networks, a national consortium of 30 regional television networks providing educational services to staff and patients at over 900 hospitals nationwide (Niemiec, 1980). In 1969, Dartmouth Medical School set up INTERACT, a two-way video link between two hospitals for communication between health care professionals. The system was later expanded to provide continuing education, assistance to rural physicians, and engineering courses. The system is currently being marketed to a larger user base, including businesses in surrounding communities. The network director, Bill Loftus advises other groups who might be using videoconferencing that content is the key. Expansion of network uses is the next step. The system provides another example of the adoption and usage of videoconferencing. It also demonstrates how organizations can work together to mutually benefit from the adoption and usage of videoconferencing technology (Gold, 1985, pp. 79-84). The ability of videoconferencing technology to bring together urban and rural parts of the state of Minnesota in an interactive two-way environment was key to the high rating and acceptability of videoconferencing in a pilot project at the University of Minnesota. The general reaction of participants from both the Twin Cities and Morris locations was one of enthusiasm for the potential of the technology to bring groups together over distance for matters and issues of common concern (Peltz and Kolomeychuk, 1992, p. 98). There are a number of organizations which have adopted videoconferencing and have studied the need for the technology and its usage once installed. The following businesses are examples of firms that have conducted studies either prior to or after implementation to assess the need for and effectiveness of videoconferencing. The Boeing Company, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, began using videoconferencing in 1979 in order to meet a compressed release schedule on the introduction of the 757 aircraft. A system that began as a novel solution to a specific problem has evolved into a highly productive method of doing business. In five years, over 5,900 Boeing videoconferences have been attended by more than 160,000 employees, avoiding 1.6 million travel miles in the Puget Sound area alone (Whaley, 1986, pp. 113-120). Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) began using videoconferencing in the early 1980s to allow employees to effectively communicate with one another, even though physically separated. ARCO did not know who the active users would be or what applications would be developed, and therefore, decided to conduct ongoing research regarding the adoption and usage of videoconferencing. Research was conducted by interviewing potential users before, during and after implementation and usage of videoconferencing. The â€Å"success† of videoconferencing has in large part been achieved by generating a comprehensive data base of potential users. The research program resulted in a system uniquely tailored to ARCO’s needs, and therefore, employees feel a sense of ownership and involvement in system design and evolution (Ruchinskas and Svenning, 1984, pp. 166 -173). Pratt and Whitney began using Eagle Vision II, a motion videoconferencing system, in March, 1986. The final system design reflects a combination of operational requirements established through internal research into meeting characteristics and travel patterns. Pratt and Whitney believes it was only successful because considerable time and effort were spent in understanding the requirements, applications and needs of its users before a system was developed and implemented (Truesdale, 1985, pp. 128 -139). Martin Marietta, a technology intensive corporation engaged in design, manufacture, and integration of systems and products in the aerospace, defense, electronics, and information and data management fields, tested and evaluated audiographics conferencing, still frame videoconferencing and motion videoconferencing to determine if teleconferencing was feasible to support company communications. Martin Marietta also wanted to determine what types of meetings and what level of participants would use teleconferencing. During a 90 day pilot program of motion videoconferencing, Martin Marietta conducted close to 100 conferences with approximately 75% using the standard conference room to conference room configuration. As a result of the pilot program, Martin Marietta decided to implement a motion videoconferencing system with several sites in order to improve overall corporate communications (McKinny, 1986, pp. 367 – 371). Patrick Combs of Levi Strauss states that â€Å"for videoconferencing to be successful, it must achieve widespread adoption and effective use. By allowing users to try out videoconferencing in a relaxed environment, without expectations, the videophone made the conferencing concept less intimidating, and encouraged adoption† (Combs, 1990, pp. 100). Levi Strauss trialed the use of â€Å"videophones† (inexpensive, desktop videoconferencing units that use normal dial-up phone lines and personal computers) to determine how readily users would utilize the technology if it were easy to use. The conclusion was that â€Å"videoconferencing’s successful adoption within an organization is dependent on more than just the hardware. Successful adoption also depends on how accessible the technology is to its users† (Combs, 1990, pp. 100-103). Conclusion Because a communications network assists in the interaction of individuals it can be essential to knowledge creation. These networks will facilitate an economic and social development; they are to the information age what railroads were to the industrial age. Telecommunications like videoconferencing, therefore, to play a large part in how these networks evolve, and thus will impact the creation of knowledge in the future. In the past, telecommunications policy has been primarily focused on physical infrastructure. In the information age, it has become apparent that managers and policy-makers must enlarge their focus to emphasize the information side of telecommunications. It is not the creation of the infrastructure itself that will be the major source of profitability, but rather the exploitation of the infrastructure to create knowledge.

The use of surveying in mapping features within the physical Landscape Essay

The use of surveying in mapping features within the physical Landscape - Essay Example vides valuable botanical and faunal samples to compare with the mapping images to make it possible to arrive at right conclusions whether different land use systems were in vogue in these landscapes. These scenarios inevitably necessitated field surveys to either support, or to provide certainty to the veracity of digital mapping data bases. The science of land forms with emphasis on their origin, evolution, form, and distribution across the physical landscape is called geomorphology. The techniques employed to study geomorphology and landscape features include aerial photographic interpretation, field study of soil profiles; off-site sampling and analysis of extensive Paleolithic items; paleo-biological analysis, and drawing of paleo-geography. Ultimately, the entire study will be placed within the given physical landscape using images along with GIS (Geographical Information System) systems. The study of features within the physical landscape includes investigation of its structure, development, and character. Geomorphologists, including many European practitioners have employed several methods to research and develop methods to illustrate features of earth’s physical surface. In 1899, Albert Heim undertook a balloon flight over the Alps to conduct observations and take aerial photographs to study the landscape . In spite of all attempts by physiographers to provide qualitative descriptions and diagrams to provide accurate Maps provide historical information about landscape changes. Today’s many landscapes are the result of factors like river corrections. The hydraulic works have completely modified the geomorphological behavior of rivers that allowed extensive agriculture and later on commercial activities and urbanization. The analysis of landscape changes cannot be undertaken by using historical maps alone without field survey. After all, maps are only representations of earlier realities and are static; they do not take landscape dynamics into account.

High Powered Money Multiplier to Credit Creation Essay

High Powered Money Multiplier to Credit Creation - Essay Example The high power money multiplier is based on some assumptions, partial fulfillment and non-fulfillment which impact on income generations. Some of the assumptions include; the supply of goods should be adequate, level of investment should be maintained, the economy should be closed and unchanged marginal propensity to consume. High power multiplier has both advantages and limitations to the economy. When money is deposited into the bank by clients, the money is usually given out to other people in need of loans. The bank ends up getting interests in return. The rule associated with banking usually allows them to set aside some money referred to as reserve. The capital set aside by the bank is important in ensuring the daily cash needs of the bank are met (Steindl, 2010). It also ensures the depositors who come back to the bank to withdraw their money are accounted for. Such kind of banking is known as fractional reserve banking. Due to the reason of loaning out that the depositors’ funds by the company, a money multiplier effect usually result. To an individual the benefits are also withstanding. Through money multiplier an individual is able to acquire a loan from the bank for the purpose of expanding his business. The bank also offers protection and security to the deposited money. The high power money multiplier can aid in capital leverage. It ensures for example, the bank is able to make a lot of money out of the little money spent at the start. The individuals too are able to benefit (Bomhoff, 2008). If 10% is the reserve requirement, a bank may lend out $90 of $100 deposited by the customer. The $ 90 can also be lent to someone else who deposits the same amount to the next bank. The bank in receivership can lend out $81 dollars of the am ount deposited. The initial deposit of $100 can be expanded through the banking system as the process proceeds.  

Ender's game Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ender's game - Essay Example Valentine is the elder sister of Ender and due to her compassion; she is able to protect Ender from the sadism and ruthlessness of Peter. As the story progresses, we learn that valentine considers Ender as the best of the brothers and as a result of this loves him more. Her love is the one that ensures that she is able to save Ender when Battle School’s pointlessness is on the brink of breaking him up. She is kind hearted to the point of not wanting to harm anyone deliberately. Peter lacks the compassion that Ender and Valentine have, and instead, ruthlessness rules his life. Peter is so sadistic such that at some points, he even considers killing Ender and Valentine. Coupled to this ruthlessness is Peter’s extreme desire and thirst for power. As a result of this, people can be regarded as an individual who has no humanity. His ruthless further makes him to act for his own selfish interests. Peter has noteworthy understanding of other characters, but instead he uses thi s knowledge as a manipulation tool for his advantage (Card 50). Peter’s ruthlessness and aggressiveness benefits him in that he is able to regain the control of the whole world so that he becomes the Hegemon (leader of the world). Even though he acquires the power in a peaceful manner, Peter did not have to do this since he just sought this alternative so that he would appear a good leader in the face of his future subjects. Even though Peter uses his ruthlessness and aggressiveness to become the leader of all humans on the earth, his attributes alienate him from the rest of humans. Ender has taken the attributes of his two siblings. Compassion, an attribute that is also in the character of his sister, is his greatest trait which has ensured that he is an able commander. Compassion runs throughout his whole life. Compassion saves Peter a number of times and it is the factor that has ensured that he has a different life. Without

Substantive EU Law-Free Movement of Goods and Parallel Imports Essay

Substantive EU Law-Free Movement of Goods and Parallel Imports - Essay Example As a result, EU states will not impose any trade restriction on member states in relation to imports and exports of goods (Dedman 2010). Even after fifty years, the objectives of EU have not been achieved. The free movement of goods within the EU is still a complicated perspective. There are various hurdles which impede the free movement of goods in the European Union. The main hurdle among them is interpretating general provision of the technical barriers under Article 28 and 29 by the European Court of Justice (the ECJ). Another hurdle is related to the exceptions to the general provisions of Article 28 and 29 that is based on Article 30 and the mandatory requirements of Cassis de Dijon which is arising from the ECJ (Lelieveldt and Princen 2011). Furthermore, parallel import is one of the major phenomena in the international trade because on one hand, it follows market laws strictly and on the other, it is not completely controlled by the law. The dilemma is that producers want to maintain a difference in the prices of goods among different countries, whereas consumers want to pay same price. Here, parallel import can be defined as goods which are produced and sold legally and then exported. There is nothing illegal about the parallel imported goods but as native entrepreneurs sell same goods at higher price, they don’t like this completion. ... free movement of goods, services, capital and people. EU’s internal market is very favorable to increased competition, larger economies of scales and increased specialisation, hence factors of production and goods are freely moved in areas where they are highly valued. Free Movement of Goods One of the major principles of the European Union’s internal market is free movement of goods. This principle deals with removal of national barriers to the free movement of goods within EU. In various fields, such barriers have been removed through harmonisation, like medical devices, vehicles, gas appliances, pharmaceuticals, metrology, chemicals, electrical equipments, construction products, toys, textiles, pressure equipments, footwear, and cosmetics. Excluding special circumstances, harmonisation of legislation and provisions of Articles 28 and 29 of the EC treaty control the member states in relation to imposing intra-community trade barriers. These articles can exercise direc t effect and applied by national courts (Pitiyasak 2010). Mutual recognition principle also leads its way through these provisions. It implies that if the sector is non-harmonised then goods which are legally marketed and accepted in another member state must be accepted by every member state. The application of this principle can only be challenged in some exceptional cases, like environmental issue, health and public safety. In such cases, even the derogatory measures are considered to control the free movement of goods (Andenas and Roth 2002). All measures along with Article 28 and Article 29 are having equivalent effect between the member states in relation to imposing quantitative restrictions on imports, exports and

Economics of Business Strategy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Economics of Business Strategy - Case Study Example The managerial practices of the company are more products oriented so as to facilitate the customers, and provide them with different opportunities for making most out of their purchasing power. The company has also restricted itself from applying such policies where chances of bankruptcy are dominant, and have shifted towards consumer service. The management in particular operational management related to the decision making is widely practiced and encouraged by the company, the employees at the mediocre level, are involved with decision making, however such employees work within certain monetary limit. All this has made the company achieve laurels, 'We continued to strike what we believe is an appropriate balance between achieving our net income growth targets and investing in our future. In 2004, we delivered record earnings while increasing spending on marketing, promotion, rewards and card member services by 30 percent from a year ago. This increase came on top of a stepped-up l evel of investment spending in 2003' (Audit Repot 2004). American Express has incorporated different management strategies for optimization of their performance, and economic gain. The bank has implemented several different policies that minimized and reduced the indirect cost (goods and services other than raw materials, or "direct" expenses). The company's adopted policy has been to reduced and control expenses, such as office supplies, computer equipment, express delivery, and telecommunications. 'Our new survey and drafted policies shows that we as banking giant see the light at the end of the tunnel for an economic turnaround' (Anr Williams, senior vice president and general manager, U.S. Middle Market, American Express Corporate Services). The general manager further added that, 'At the same time, financial executives say that bank is challenged by rising expenses, and they're searching for new ways to control them - regardless of the economic climate'. The bank is involved in Expenses Management, and focused mainly upon corporate c ost-saving strategies. The company believed that cutting indirect costs and generating new revenue sources were equally important strategies in improving the financial health of their organization. The bank has encouraged and motivated their employees to participate enthusiastically towards compliance to those policies, the employees are urged to submit timely expense reports, desired employee adherence. 'Over the past several years, the institution have made strides in taking control of spending for travel, office supplies, computer equipment and other indirect expenses', (Anr Williams). 'But the push for profitability in these tough economic times has prodded the institution to expand their cost-control expertise and implement more effective solutions - such as new technology and innovative payment systems'. The web technology has emerged as an effective solution to cater for the surging expenses, the technology provided improved control and greater efficiency, and is being adopted by all the departments of the institution. The institution has adopted following practices for improving expenses management, and variety of strategies have been implied for streamlining the processes. The effective strategies are

What is good about stillwater Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

What is good about stillwater - Essay Example This is not possible in Kuwait due to the extremely hot weather. If my head is already aching due to study, I can take a walk outside which refreshes the mind seeing trees and greeneries while enjoying the weather. If I will do this in Kuwait, I will be toasted by the sun and will likely lose my mood to study again. It is not only me who enjoys the weather in Stillwater. My wife is beginning to love the outdoors which she used to avoid back in Kuwait because of the scorching heat. She can now walk with a stroller with our baby which was not advisable in Kuwait because of the baby’s sensitivity to heat. The population of students at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater comes from different countries and ethnicity and this gives me wonderful opportunity not only to learn the curriculum but also other people from different cultures. In a way, studying at Stillwater does not only expand my mind through its academic rigors but also expands my cultural perspective being to understand people from perspectives and backgrounds different from mine. This is called cultural agility which is necessary skill at the global economy. The interconnectedness of countries and economies will require us someday to work with other people of different nationality. This opportunity of learning other people of different cultures would be very limited had I studied in Kuwait. Colleges in Kuwait are also very good except that curriculums are taught in Arabic and this limits foreign students to enroll there. So in effect, Kuwait colleges does not provide an opportunity to be exposed in an international env ironment because most of its students came from Kuwait and Gulf countries. Studying in Kuwait would not expand my cultural horizon as it would if I will study at Stillwater. Having a diploma from Oklahoma State University at Stillwater will surely give me an

Financial Crisis and Recovery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Financial Crisis and Recovery - Essay Example As a result of higher spending, the US had significantly expanded the economy to be much longer and stronger than before. However, it can be argued that the structural change in the US economy did not influence the recessionary periods to be shorter and milder (Tseng, â€Å"Follow Canada? Only at Your Own Risk†) For instance, the US economy had to witness eleven recessionary instances since the great depression. Consequently, the average GDP growth for the ten recessionary instances until 2001 was recorded as -0.7% which signifies that the economic recession in the US was not at all mild. However, the records depict that the longest recession was witnessed by the US in 1973 and 2007 which continued for two years. This signifies that even though the US economic recession was shorter, the frequency of such instances had increased substantially (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, â€Å"The Financial Crisis and Recovery: Why so Slow?†). According to Keynesian theory, when the spending of an economy increases, the earning of people also increases. The basis of the theory is that whenever an individual spends a portion of his/her earning, it is likely to support the earning of other individuals (Greiner, â€Å"Models of Economic Growth†). This cycle of earning and spending can enable an economy to sustain its expansion. In response to the reason for slow growth of economy according to Keynesian theory, it can be stated that after the recession of 2007, the banks and the financial institutions had faced significant problems which had interrupted the flow of credit. In order to deal with the economic recession, the financial regulations in different nations have become much tighter and stricter than before, resulting in low access to finance.  

Intro to The Romantic Period Essay Example for Free

Intro to The Romantic Period Essay At the turn of the century, fired by ideas of personal and political liberty and of the energy and sublimity of the natural world, artists and intellectuals sought to break the bonds of 18th-century convention. Although the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau and William Godwin had great influence, the French Revolution and its aftermath had the strongest impact of all. In England initial support for the Revolution was primarily utopian and idealist, and when the French failed to live up to expectations, most English intellectuals renounced the Revolution. However, the romantic vision had taken forms other than political, and these developed apace. In Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800), a watershed in literary history, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge presented and illustrated a beneficial visual: poetry should express, in genuine language, experience as filtered through personal emotion and imagination; the truest experience was to be found in nature. The concept of the Sublime strengthened this turn to nature, because in wild countrysides the power of the sublime could be felt most immediately. Wordsworths romanticism is probably most fully realized in his great autobiographical poem, The Prelude (1805–50). In search of sublime moments, romantic poets wrote about the marvelous and supernatural, the exotic, and the medieval. But they also found beauty in the lives of simple rural people and aspects of the everyday world. The second generation of romantic poets included John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron. In Keatss great odes, intellectual and emotional sensibility merge in language of great power and beauty. Shelley, who combined soaring lyricism with an apocalyptic political vision, sought more extreme effects and occasionally achieved them, as in his great drama Prometheus Unbound (1820). Lord Byron was the prototypical romantic hero, the envy and scandal of the age. He has been continually identified with his own characters, particularly the rebellious, irreverent, erotically inclined Don Juan. Byron invested the romantic lyric with a rationalist irony. The romantic era was also rich in literary criticism and other nonfictional prose. Coleridge proposed an influential theory of literature in his Biographia Literaria (1817). William Godwin and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote ground–breaking books on human, and womens, rights. William Hazlitt, who never forsook political radicalism, wrote brilliant and astute literary  criticism. The master of the personal essay was Charles Lamb, whereas Thomas De Quincey was master of the personal confession. The periodicals Edinburgh Review and Blackwoods Magazine, in which leading writers were published throughout the century, were major forums of controversy, political as well as literary. - Although the great novelist Jane Austen wrote during the romantic era, her work defies classification. With insight, grace, and irony she delineated human relationships within the context of English country life. Sir Walter Scott, Scottish nationalist and romantic, made the genre of the historical novel widely popular. Other novelists of the period were Maria Edgeworth, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Thomas Love Peacock, the latter noted for his eccentric novels satirizing the romantics. The Romantic period The nature of Romanticism As a term to cover the most distinctive writers who flourished in the last years of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, â€Å"Romantic† is indispensable but also a little misleading: there was no self-styled â€Å"Romantic movement† at the time, and the great writers of the period did not call themselves Romantics. Not until August Wilhelm von Schlegel’s Vienna lectures of 1808–09 was a clear distinction established between the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"organic,† â€Å"plastic† qualities of Romantic art and the â€Å"mechanical† character of Classicism. Many of the age’s foremost writers thought that something new was happening in the world’s affairs, nevertheless. William Blake’s affirmation in 1793 that â€Å"a new heaven is begun† was matched a generation later by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s â€Å"The world’s great age begins anew.† â€Å"These, these will give the world another heart, / A nd other pulses,† wrote John Keats, referring to Leigh Hunt andWilliam Wordsworth. Fresh ideals came to the fore; in particular, the ideal of freedom, long cherished in England, was being extended to every range of human endeavour. As that ideal swept through Europe, it became natural to believe that the age of tyrants might soon end. The most notable feature of the poetry of the time is the new role of individual thought and personal feeling. Where the main trend of 18th-century poetics had been to praise the general, to see the poet as a spokesman of society addressing a cultivated and homogeneous audience and having as his end the conveyance of â€Å"truth,† the Romantics found the source of poetry in the particular, unique experience. Blake’s marginal comment on Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses expresses the position with characteristic vehemence: â€Å"To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the alone Distinction of Merit.† The poet was seen as an individual distinguished from his fellows by the intensity of his perceptions, taking as his basic subject matter the workings of his own mind. Poetry was regarded as conveying its own truth; sincerity was the criterion by which it was to be judged. The emphasis on feeling—seen perhaps at its finest in the poems of Robert Burns—was in some ways a continuation of the earlier â€Å"cult of sensibility†; and it is worth remembering that Alexander Pope praised his father as having known no language but the language of the heart. But feeling had begun to receive particular emphasis and is found in most of the Romantic definitions of poetry. Wordsworth called poetry â€Å"the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling,† and in 1833 John Stuart Mill defined poetry as â€Å"feeling itself, employing thought only as the medium of its utterance.† It followed that the best poetry was that in which the greatest intensity of feeling was expressed, and hence a new importance was attached to the lyric. Another key quality of Romantic writing was its shift from the mimetic, or imitative, assumptions of the Neoclassical era to a new stress onimagination. Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw  the imagination as the supre me poetic quality, a quasi-divine creative force that made the poet a godlike being. Samuel Johnson had seen the components of poetry as â€Å"invention, imagination and judgement,† but Blake wrote: â€Å"One Power alone makes a Poet: Imagination, the Divine Vision.† The poets of this period accordingly placed great emphasis on the workings of the unconscious mind, on dreams and reveries, on the supernatural, and on the childlike or primitive view of the world, this last being regarded as valuable because its clarity and intensity had not been overlaid by the restrictions of civilized â€Å"reason.† Rousseau’s sentimental conception of the â€Å"noble savage† was often invoked, and often by those who were ignorant that the phrase is Dryden’s or that the type was adumbrated in the â€Å"poor Indian† of Pope’s An Essay on Man. A further sign of the diminished stress placed on judgment is the Romantic attitude to form: if poetry must be spontaneous, sincere, intense, it should be fashioned primarily according to th e dictates of the creative imagination. Wordsworth advised a young poet, â€Å"You feel strongly; trust to those feelings, and your poem will take its shape and proportions as a tree does from the vital principle that actuates it.† This organic view of poetry is opposed to the classical theory of â€Å"genres,† each with its own linguistic decorum; and it led to the feeling that poetic sublimity was unattainable except in short passages. Hand in hand with the new conception of poetry and the insistence on a new subject matter went a demand for new ways of writing. Wordsworth and his followers, particularly Keats, found the prevailing poetic diction of the late 18th century stale and stilted, or â€Å"gaudy and inane,† and totally unsuited to the expression of their perceptions. It could not be, for them, the language of feeling, and Wordsworth accordingly sought to bring the language of poetry back to that of common speech. Wordsworth’s own diction, however, often differs from his theory. Nevertheless, when he published his preface to Lyrical Ballads in 1800, the time was ripe for a change: the flexible diction of earlier 18th-century poetry had hardened into a merely conventional language. Poetry BLAKE, WORDSWORTH, AND COLERIDGE Useful as it is to trace the common elements in Romantic poetry, there was little conformity among the poets themselves. It is misleading to read the poetry of the first Romantics as if it had been written primarily to express  their feelings. Their concern was rather to change the intellectual climate of the age. William Blake had been dissatisfied since boyhood with the current state of poetry and what he considered the irreligious drabness of contemporary thought. His early development of a protective shield of mocking humour with which to face a world in which science had become trifling and art inconsequential is visible in the satirical An Island in the Moon (written c. 1784–85); he then took the bolder step of setting aside sophistication in the visionary Songs of Innocence (1789). His desire for renewal encouraged him to view the outbreak of the French Revolution as a momentous event. In works such as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–93) and Songs of Expe rience (1794), he attacked the hypocrisies of the age and the impersonal cruelties resulting from the dominance of analytic reason in contemporary thought. As it became clear that the ideals of the Revolution were not likely to be realized in his time, he renewed his efforts to revise his contemporaries’ view of the universe and to construct a new mythology centred not in the God of the Bible but in Urizen, a repressive figure of reason and law whom he believed to be the deity actually worshipped by his contemporaries. The story of Urizen’s rise was set out in The First Book of Urizen (1794) and then, more ambitiously, in the unfinished manuscript Vala (later redrafted as The Four Zoas), written from about 1796 to about 1807. Blake developed these ideas in the visionary narratives of Milton (1804–08) and Jerusalem (1804–20). Here, still using his own mythological characters, he portrayed the imaginative artist as the hero of society and suggested the possibility of redemption from the fallen (or Urizenic) condition. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, meanwhile, were also exploring the implication s of the French Revolution. Wordsworth, who lived in France in 1791–92 and fathered an illegitimate child there, was distressed when, soon after his return, Britain declared war on the republic, dividing his allegiance. For the rest of his career, he was to brood on those events, trying to develop a view of humanity that would be faithful to his twin sense of the pathos of individual human fates and the unrealized potentialities in humanity as a whole. The first factor emerges in his early manuscript poems â€Å"The Ruined Cottage† and â€Å"The Pedlar† (both to form part of the later Excursion); the second was developed from 1797, when he and his sister, Dorothy, with whom he was living in the west  of England, were in close contact with Coleridge. Stirred simultaneously by Dorothy’s immediacy of feeling, manifested everywhere in her Journals (written 1798–1803, published 1897), and by Coleridge’s imaginative and speculative genius, he produced the poems collected in Lyrical Ballads(1798). The volume began with Coleridge’s â€Å"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,† continued with poems displaying delight in the powers of nature and the humane instincts of ordinary people, and concluded with the meditative â€Å"Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,† Wordsworth’s attempt to set out his mature faith in nature and humanity. His investigation of the relationship between nature and the human mind continued in the long autobiographical poem addressed to Coleridge and later titled The Prelude (1798–99 in two books; 1804 in five books; 1805 in 13 books; revised continuously and published posthumously, 1850). Here he traced the value for a poet of having been a child â€Å"fostered alike by beauty and by fear† by an upbringing in sublime surroundings. The Prelude constitutes the most significant English expression of the Romantic discovery of the self as a topic for art and literature. The poem also makes much of the work of memory, a theme explored as well in the â€Å"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.† In poems such as â€Å"Michael† and â€Å"The Brothers,† by contrast, written for the second volume of Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth dwelt on the pathos and potentialities of ordinary lives. Coleridge’s poetic development during these years paralleled Wordsworth’s. Having briefly brought together images of nature and the mind in â€Å"The Eolian Harp† (1796), he devoted himself to more-public concerns in poems of political and social prophecy, such as â€Å"Religious Musings† and â€Å"The Destiny of Nations.† Becoming disillusioned in 1798 with his earlier politics, however, and encouraged by Wordsworth, he turned back to the relatio nship between nature and the human mind. Poems such as â€Å"This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,† â€Å"The Nightingale,† and â€Å"Frost at Midnight† (now sometimes called the â€Å"conversation poems† but collected by Coleridge himself as â€Å"Meditative Poems in Blank Verse†) combine sensitive descriptions of nature with subtlety of psychological comment. â€Å"Kubla Khan† (1797 or 1798, published 1816), a poem that Coleridge said came to him in â€Å"a kind of Reverie,† represented a new kind of exotic writing, which he also exploited in the supernaturalism of â€Å"The Ancient Mariner† and the unfinished  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Christabel.† After his visit to Germany in 1798–99, he renewed attention to the links between the subtler forces in nature and the human psyche; this attention bore fruit in letters, notebooks, literary criticism, theology, and philosophy. Simultaneously, his poetic output became sporadic. â€Å"Dejection: An Ode† (1802), another meditat ive poem, which first took shape as a verse letter to Sara Hutchinson, Wordsworth’s sister-in-law, memorably describes the suspension of his â€Å"shaping spirit of Imagination.† The work of both poets was directed back to national affairs during these years by the rise ofNapoleon. In 1802 Wordsworth dedicated a number of sonnets to the patriotic cause. The death in 1805 of his brother John, who was a captain in the merchant navy, was a grim reminder that, while he had been living in retirement as a poet, others had been willing to sacrifice themselves. From this time the theme of duty was to be prominent in his poetry. His political essay Concerning the Relations of Great Britain, Spain and Portugal†¦as Affected by the Convention of Cintra (1809) agreed with Coleridge’s periodical The Friend (1809–10) in deploring the decline of principle among statesmen. When The Excursion appeared in 1814 (the time of Napoleon’s first exile), Wordsworth announced the poem as the central section of a longer projected work, The Recluse, â€Å"a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society.† The plan was not fulfilled, however, and The Excursion was left to stand in its own right as a poem of moral and religious consolation for those who had been disappointed by the failure of French revolutionary ideals. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge benefited from the advent in 1811 of the Regency, which brought a renewed interest in the arts. Coleridge’s lectures on Shakespeare became fashionable, his playRemorse was briefly produced, and his volume of poems Christabel; Kubla Khan: A Vision; The Pains of Sleep was published in 1816. Biographia Literaria (1817), an account of his own development, combined philosophy and literary criticism in a new way and made an enduring and important contribution to literary theory. Coleridge settled at Highgate in 1816, and he was sought there as â€Å"the most impressive talker of his age† (in the words of the essayist William Hazlitt). His later religious writings made a considerable impact on Victorian readers. No other period in English literature displays more variety in style, theme, and content than the Romantic Movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Furthermore, no period has been the topic of so much disagreement and confusion over its defining principles and aesthetics. Romanticism, then, can best be described as a large network of sometimes competing philosophies, agendas, and points of interest. In England, Romanticism had its greatest influence from the end of the eighteenth century up through about 1870. Its primary vehicle of expression was in poetry, although novelists adopted many of the same themes. In America, the Romantic Movement was slightly delayed and modulated, holding sway over arts and letters from roughly 1830 up to the Civil War. Contrary to the English example, American literature championed the novel as the most fitting genre for Romanticism’s exposition. In a broader sense, Romanticism can be conceived as an adjective which is applicable to the literature of virtually any time period. With that in mind, anything from the Homeric epics to modern dime novels can be said to bear the stamp of Romanticism. In spite of such general disagreements over usage, there are some definitive and universal statements one can make regarding the nature of the Romantic Movement in both England and America. First and foremost, Romanticism is concerned with the individual more than with society. The individual consciousness and especially the individual imagination are especially fascinating for the Romantics. â€Å"Melancholy† was quite the buzzword for the Romantic poets, and altered states of consciousness were often sought after in order to enhance one’s creative potential. There was a coincident downgrading of the importance and power of reason, clearly a reaction against the Enlightenment mode of thinking. Nevertheless, writers became gradually more invested in social causes as the period moved forward. Thanks largely to the Industrial Revolution, English society was undergoing the most severe paradigm shifts it had seen in living memory. The response of many early Romantics was to yearn for an idealized, simpler past. In particular, English Romantic poets had a strong connection with medievalism and mythology. The tales of King Arthur were especially resonant to their imaginations. On top of this, there was a clearly mystical quality to Romantic writing that sets it apart from other literary periods. Of course, not every Romantic poet or novelist displayed all, or even most of these traits all the time. On the formal  level, Romanticism witnessed a steady loosening of the rules of artistic expression that were pervasive during earlier times. The Neoclassical Period of the eighteenth century included very strict expectations regarding the structure and content of poetry. By the dawn of the nineteenth century, experimentation with new styles and subjects became much more acceptable. The high-flown language of the previous generation’s poets was replaced with more natural cadences and verbiage. In terms of poetic form, rhymed stanzas were slowly giving way to blank verse, an unrhymed but still rhythmic style of poetry. The purpose of blank verse was to heighten conversational speech to the level of austere beauty. Some criticized the new style as mundane, yet the innovation soon became the preferred style. One of the most popular themes of Romantic poetry was country life, otherwise known as pastoral poetry. Mythological and fantastic settings were also employed to great effect by many of the Romantic poets. Though struggling and unknown for the bulk of his life, poet and artist William Blake was certainly one of the most creative minds of his generation. He was well ahead of his time, predating the high point of English Romanticism by several decades. His greatest work was composed during the 1790s, in the shadow of the French Revolution, and that confrontation informed much of his creative process. Throughout his artistic career, Blake gradually built up a sort of personal mythology of creation and imagination. The Old and New Testaments were his source material, but his own sensibilities transfigured the Biblical stories and led to something entirely original and completely misunderstood by contemporaries. He attempted to woo patrons to his side, yet his unstable temper made him rather difficult to work with professionally. Some considered him mad. In addition to writing poetry of the first order, Blake was also a master engraver. His greatest contributions to Romantic literature were his self-published, quasi-mythological illustrated poetry collections. Gloriously colored and painstaking in their design, few of these were produced and fewer still survive to the present day. However, the craft and genius behind a work like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell cannot be ignored. If one could identify a single voice as the standard-bearer of Romantic sensibilities, that voice would belong to William Wordsworth. His publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is identified by many as the opening act of the Romantic Period in English literature. It was a hugely successful  work, requiring several reprinting over the years. The dominant theme of Lyrical Ballads was Nature, specifically the power of Nature to create strong impressions in the mind and imagination. The voice in Wordsworth’s poetry is observant, meditative and aware of the connection between living things and objects. There is the sense that past, present, and future all mix together in the human consciousness. One feels as though the poet and the landscape are in communion, each a partner in an act of creative production. Wordsworth quite deliberately turned his back on the Enlightenment traditions of poetry, specifically the work of Alexander Pope. He instead looked more to the Renaissance and the Classics of Greek and Latin epic poetry for inspiration. His work was noted for its accessibility. The undeniable commercial success of LyricalBallads does not diminish the profound effect it had on an entire generation of aspiring writers. In the United State, Romanticism found its voice in the poets and novelists of the American Renaissance. The beginnings of American Romanticism went back to the New England Transcendental Movement. The concentration on the individual mind gradually shifted from an optimistic brand of spiritualism into a more modern, cynical study of the underside of humanity. The political unrest in mid-nineteenth century America undoubtedly played a role in the development of a darker aesthetic. At the same time, strongly individualist religious traditions played a large part in the development of artistic creations. The Protestant work ethic, along with the popularity and fervor of American religious leaders, fed a literary output that was undergird with fire and brimstone. The middle of the nineteenth century has only in retrospect earned the label of the American Renaissance in literature. No one alive in the 1850s quite realized the flowering of creativity that was underway. In fact, the novelists who today are regarded as classic were virtually unknown during their lifetimes. The novelists working during this period, particularly Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, were crafting dens ely symbolic and original pieces of literature that nonetheless relied heavily upon the example of English Romanticism. However, there work was in other respects a clean break with any permutation of Romanticism that had come before. There was a darkness to American Romanticism that was clearly distinct from the English examples of earlier in the century. Herman Melville died penniless and unknown, a failed writer who recognized his own  brilliance even when others did not. It would take the Modernists and their reappraisal of American arts and letters to resuscitate Melville’s literary corpus. In novels like Benito Cereno and Moby Dick, Melville employed a dense fabric of hinted meanings and symbols that required close reading and patience. Being well-read himself, Melville’s writing betrays a deep understanding of history, mythology, and religion. With Moby Dick, Melville displays his research acumen, as in the course of the novel the reader learns more than they thought possible about whales and whaling. The novel itself is dark, mysterious, and hints at the supernatural. Superficia lly, the novel is a revenge tale, but over and above the narrative are meditations of madness, power, and the nature of being human. Interestingly, the narrator in the first few chapters of the novel more or less disappears for most of the book. He is in a sense swallowed up by the mania of Captain Ahab and the crew. Although the novel most certainly held sway, poetry was not utterly silent during the flowering of American Romanticism. Arguably the greatest poet in American literary history was Walt Whitman, and he took his inspiration from many of the same sources as his fellows working in the novel. His publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855 marked a critical moment in the history of poetry. Whitman’s voice in his poetry was infused with the spirit of democracy. He attempted to include all people in all corners of the Earth within the sweep of his poetic vision. Like Blake, Whitman’s brand of poetics was cosmological and entirely unlike anything else being produced at the time. Like the rest of the poets in the Romantic tradition, Whitman coined new words, and brought a diction and rhythmic style t o verse that ran counter to the aesthetics of the last century. Walt Whitman got his start as a writer in journalism, and that documentary style of seeing the world permeated all his creative endeavors. In somewhat of a counterpoint to Whitman’s democratic optimism stands Edgar Allen Poe, today recognized as the most purely Romantic poet and short story writer of his generation. Poe crafted fiction and poetry that explored the strange side of human nature. The English Romantics had a fascination with the grotesque and of â€Å"strange† beauty, and Poe adopted this aesthetic perspective willingly. His sing-song rhythms and dreary settings earned him criticism on multiple fronts, but his creativity earned him a place in the first rank of American artists. He is credited as the inventor of detective fiction, and was likewise one of the  original masters of horror. A sometimes overlooked contribution, Poe’s theories on literature are often required reading for students of the art form. The master of symbolism in American litera ture was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Each of his novels represents worlds imbued with the power of suggestion and imagination. The Scarlet Letter is often placed alongside Moby Dick as one of the greatest novels in the English language. Not a single word is out of place, and the dense symbolism opens the work up to multiple interpretations. There are discussions of guilt, family, honor, politics, and society. There is also Hawthorne’s deep sense of history. Modern readers often believe that The Scarlet Letter was written during the age of the Puritans, but in fact Hawthorne wrote a story that was in the distant past even in his own time. Another trademark of the novel is its dabbling in the supernatural, even the grotesque. One gets the sense, for example, that maybe something is not quite right with Hester’s daughter Pearl. Nothing is what it appears to be in The Scarlet Letter, and that is the essence of Hawthorne’s particular Romanticism. Separate from his literary production, Hawthorne wrote expansively on literary theory and criticism. His theories exemplify the Romantic spirit in American letters at mid-century. He espoused the conviction that objects can hold significance deeper than their apparent meaning, and that the symbolic nature of reality was the most fertile ground for literature. In his short stories especially, Hawthorne explored the complex system of meanings and sensations that shift in and out of a person’s consciousness. Throughout his writings, one gets a sense of darkness, if not outright pessimism. There is the sense of not fully understanding the world, of not getting the entire picture no matter how hard one tries. In a story like â€Å"Young Goodman Brown,† neither the reader nor the protagonist can distinguish reality from fantasy with any sureness. As has been argued, Romanticism as a literary sensibility never completely disappeared. It was overtaken by other aesthetic paradigms like Realism and Modernism, but Romanticism was always lurking under the surface. Many great poets and novelists of the twentieth century cite the Romantics as their greatest inspirational voices. The primary reason that Romanticism fell out of the limelight is because many writers felt the need to express themselves in a more immediate way. The Romantic poets were regarded as innovators, but a bit lost in their own imaginations. The real problems of  life in the world seemed to be pushed aside. As modernization continued unchecked, a more earthy kind of literature was demanded, and the Romantics simply did not fit that bill.

Linguistic Politeness Study

Linguistic Politeness Study Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Over the last three decades, politeness has become one of the central discussions in pragmatic and sociolinguistic researches. A large number of theoretical, empirical books and articles about linguistic politeness that have been published, shows that politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use. Although the interest of politeness in both social and linguistic phenomenon significantly increased, many recent studies choose to drawn on conversational data, it was surprised that is only small numbers of scholars focused to study politeness in written text such as scientific written text rather than on conversational data recently. Even though the main stream of linguistic politeness is generally associated with social behaviour as strategic conflict avoidance, and the major concept of politeness theory is an arrangement of politeness strategies along a continuum from least polite to most polite, also allows them to engage in conflict-free communication, and it usually found in the study of conversational using speaker-hearer model of interactions. Many scholars do not realize that this politeness model also can be extended to other medium not only through verbal communication but also in a written material in terms of the interactions of the or authors and audiences in scientific texts. Furthermore, the advances of politeness models to some genres of scientific written texts is somehow interesting and in the other hand complex field to study. Greg Myers[1] (1989) in his study found that the model proposed by Brown and Levinson was very useful to explain how he interpret some construction of the norm of scientific culture found in writing, particularly academic writing. Brown and Levinson (1978/1987) present their study as part of the linguistic project of showing universals in language usage; the striking parallels in politeness devices between three unrelated languages shows that while the expressions of politeness may vary enormously from one culture to another, and the basic hierarchy of politeness strategies is not a culture specific. Brown and Levinsons (1987: 58) constructed a system in which a model person is endowed with negative and positive face; roughly the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects. The model person also has a rational faculty for choosing the course of action that will give the highest pay-off with the least loss of face, evaluating three variables; the social distances (D); the relative difference in power between the speaker and hearer (P); the rank of imposition (R). These three basic variables seem still affective to help understanding the interactions of politeness between writers and readers in written text. Brown and Levinsons (BL) theory has been extensively used and also criticised. Although most of the scholars that studied politeness are agree that specific factors like power, social distance or status, influence the adoption of strategies, it is still difficult to provide definite conclusions. Moreover, by using Myers â€Å"room of thinking† above that linked to what Brown and Levinson had proposed in their study, this research tries to focus on the politeness strategies employed by the economists authors in academic journals, by concerning that at this time academic journals had reached a fabulous numbers both digital and printing material and also become a major references by scholars all over the world. On the other hand, the scholars that deeply focused to study the academic journals in the pragmatics or discourse analysis area says; politeness its still rare. By viewing that chances the researcher hopes that this study is able to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge on politeness strategies used in academic writing, particularly which in the writing of economic journal articles of two identified economic journals. 1.1 Statements of the Problem Started in the early 1950s, Schuler studied about the politeness in Germany and Goffman studied on â€Å"face work† in 1955. Nowadays, the study about politeness has become one of the major areas of pragmatics or sociolinguistics. Classical theories of linguistic politeness clarifies such as Lakoff (1973, 1977), Brown and Levinson (1987), Leech (1983) agree that linguistic politeness can be used as a strategic conflict avoidance. Linguistic politeness not only was applied by many people via verbal communication but also through the medium of written material both in academic or non academic fields, politeness persuasion in journal writing as a genre in academic writing somehow in line with the demands of the academic community that expects scientific language to be objective and formal. Further, the use of politeness persuasion or strategies in journal issues by particular people from different culture background, age and economic basic education is interesting field to discuss. Based on that statement above the main purposes of this study beyond the limits of this paper, to give an exhaustive overview of politeness-related research are to identify sort of politeness strategies employed by economist authors and analyze the politeness kinds of strategies in economic journal articles both local and international economic journal. 1.2 Objective of the Study In recent years there has been a steady increase in interest and research into economics discourse by both economists and linguists which has spawned an expanding body of work. The nature of this work in part reflects not only the varied academic backgrounds of the writers, but also the evolutionary development of linguistics in general and its sub-discipline of discourse analysis in particular. This body of work is not only in hope succeeding clarify many of the ways that economists use language to express themselves in polite way, but also can be use to help the public to understand the politeness style of writing from the economist in the scientific text. Furthermore based on the explanation above, this present study tried focused in identify politeness strategies employed by authors of economic journal communities both local and international economic journals, by proposing the objectives below; 1. To investigate how economists use language to present findings in polite way 2. To investigates the use of politeness strategies in economics text 3. To compare the use of politeness strategies in a local and international economic journals 1.3 Research Question Brown and Levinson (1987) have developed a theory of politeness to explain the nature of politeness phenomena in language. Through this exploratory study, the researcher will focus on the existence of linguistic politeness in economic articles. For this purpose the researcher study the selected local and international economic journals. The researcher focused on specific areas in these journals that the researcher feels exemplifies the existence of politeness strategies. Based on the explanation above, the present study aims to answer the following question: 1. What kinds of politeness strategies are employed by authors in local and international economic journal articles? 2. In what ways are local and international journals similar or different in the use of politeness strategies? 1.4 Significance of the study Politeness has become one of the fields of research to which more attention has been devoted in the last two decades. The connections of politeness studies with other domains, such as sociolinguistics, socio pragmatics, ethnography of communication, second language teaching/acquisition or conversational analysis, have definitely contributed to this growing interest and its exploratory study, the researcher choose to focus on the existence of politeness strategies n economic journals. Since the early 1980s, the discussion of various controversial issues in the economics discourse community has led to increasing debate among concerned economists about the ways that they communicate with each other, as well as with non-economists. Royce (1995) in his paper[2] mentions that; Although economics is considered to be a science and its language is often close to scientific language, within evidence the texts are often complemented by graphs. The influence of literary discourse is predominant. In 1986, Donald McCloskey published The Rhetoric of Economics and republished in 1998. McCloskey considers economic discourse as a language comprised of tropes; a word or phrase used in a sense not proper to it, tales and other rhetorical devices that are literary and rhetorical or persuasive rather than scientific or natural†. The specific aim of this research also to show that was an increasing awareness of the nature of economics discourse by both applied linguists and economists, For the purposes above, the research studies one locally and one international economic journal, published by economic associations from Malaysia and USA. This research try not to deeply focus on particular specific area what economist and linguist arguing about, but more on general issues of economic that become content respectively in these journals, that researcher feels exemplifies the existence of politeness strategies. 1.5 Scope and Limitation of The Study This present study will limit its data from selected journals released by economic associations from local and international to find out politeness strategies employed by the economists in two identified Economic journals, namely, Malaysia Journal of Economic Studies and the Journal of Economic Growth released by Malaysian Economic association and American economic association respectively. The corpus from those journal were chosen from the five year latest issues, start from 2004 until 2008 whereas this present study start it work. Here the study also limits its scope only on the content of the articles. The areas of Mathematical language, formula as well as footnote in the articles will be not included to analyze in this present study. 1.5 Theoretical Framework The present section presents the theoretical framework of the present study. Brown and Levinson (1987) have developed a theory of politeness to explain the nature of politeness phenomena in language. According to them, it is possible to define generic types of politeness strategies to explain and predict the adoption of politeness in oral or written discourse. Since the present study tries to focuses on the analyzing a politeness in written material that is academic journal both from local or international well known economic journals. The writer tries to use a formula that construct by Greg Myers (1989) in his articles â€Å"The Pragmatic Of Politeness In Scientific Articles† in line with what Brown and Levinson (1987) proposed in their book â€Å"Politeness; Some Universal in language Usage as underlying theoretical structure. Chapter.2 Review of Related Literature 2.0. Introduction The phenomenon of interest in politeness both social and linguistic has been significance increase over the last three decades as evidenced by the numbers of paper have appeared on the subject in international journal and monographs. The present research mostly, still based on Brown and Levinsons politeness theory (1978, 1987). The recent published literature on Brown and Levinsons model concerns two main aspects, which are the concept of politeness itself and the claims for universality on the one hand, and diverse criticism or modification of one of the elements of the model on the other; mainly the concepts of face, face-threatening act, and the factors that determine the production and interpretation of politeness, in the other hand. The notions of face, face threatening act (FTA) and politeness as well as the ways in which the phenomenon of politeness is realized in language usage have been extensively exploited who are concerned with linguistic pragmatics; Leech, 19983; Kasper, 1990; Brend 1978; Brown; 1988; Schmidt, 1980; Carrel and Konnoker, 1981; Ferguson, and many other scholars have explore the notions of face. Since the main focus of this present study is trying to put economic issues written by economist in economic journals related with politeness strategies as a main topic to discuss, the researcher in this chapter, will try to discuss about the theory of politeness, and explains about the terms related to the main topic, such as the different forms of face, FT[3]A and the factors seems to be interrelated in politeness system that also useful in studying politeness strategies in written material such as academic journal. 2.1 The Theory: A Brief Overview Brown and Levinsons (1978, 1987) theory of politeness has become the â€Å"model against which most research on politeness defines itself†. Central to BLs theory is the concept of face, as proposed by Goffman (1967) who defined face as: â€Å"†¦the positive social value of a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes -albeit an image that others might share, as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself .(Goffman 1967: 5) BL define (1978:66) face as something that is emotionally invested and the face can be lost, maintained or enhanced and it must be constantly attended to in interaction, BL categorize politeness as either positive politeness or negative politeness and tie both strategies to the importance of face in every culture. They define ‘face as â€Å"the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself† Furthermore The main focus of BL (Brown and Levinson)[4] study as part of the linguistic project of showing universals in language usage; They construct a system in which a model person is endowed with negative and positive face; and tie both strategies to the importance of face in every culture. They define ‘face as â€Å"the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself† roughly the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects (1987: 58). According to Brown and Levinson, â€Å"face wants† may consist of negative or positive face. When speakers appeal to positive face wants (i.e. the desire to be appreciated and approved of), they employ positive politeness language that emphasizes â€Å"in-group identity, shows concern, and seeks areas of agreement†. Compliments represent typical positive politeness strategies. When speakers appeal to negative face wants (i.e. the desire to be free from imposition and distraction), they use negative politeness strategies that seeks to reduce any imposition, such as apologies that represent the type negative politeness strategies. Further, basically in most situations, everyone seeks â€Å"to maintain each others face†. Thus, communicating effectively involves saving face-both for the speaker-identified by Brown and Levinson as (S) and for the addressee (H) or speaker and hearer. However, Brown and Levinson point out that S and H are mitigated by three other factors: power, social distance, and imposition. For example, S will speak more politely when the target (H) has more power than S, when the social distance between the two is great, and when the imposition is high. Before going further the following section tries to explain the first four politeness strategies of Brown and Levinsons with some examples, based on several studies done in the past that are related to the present study of politeness. Brown and Levinson identify five â€Å"super strategies† used to communicate. They list strategies from the most direct/impolite (bald-on-record) to the least direct/impolite (being silent). 2.1.1 Politeness Strategies According to Brown and Levinson (1978:65), certain acts can damage or threaten another persons face and these acts are referred to as face threatening acts (FTAs). An FTA[5] has the potential to damage the hearers positive or negative face or the act may damaged the spakers own positive or negative face. In order to reduce the possibility of damage to the hearers or the speakers face s/he may adopt certain strategies ; these strategies BL call politeness strategies (1978: 65). Politeness strategies can be divided into four main strategies: Bald-on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record strategies. Being polite therefore consists of attempting to save face for another, although all cultures have face as Brown and Levinson claim, all cultures do not maintain face in the same way. Brown and Levinson also claim that understanding cultural norms of politeness enables communicators to â€Å"make strong predictions† about communicating effectively within a culture, also politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers face. Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that self-esteem in public or in private situations. The functions are to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable. Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with FTA. Next each of the strategies of BLs theory will be presented separately first Bald on record, then positive politeness, next negative politeness and finally off record strategies 2.1.1.1 Bald on record According to Brown and Levinson(1978: 74), Bald on record strategy is a direct way of saying things, without any minimisation to the imposition, in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way, for example â€Å"Do.X!†. Bl claim that the prime reason for bald on record usage may be stated simply: in general, whenever the speaker wants to do FTA with maximum efficiency more than s/he wants to satisfy hearers face, even to any degree, s/he will choose the bald on record strategy. There are different kinds of bald on record usage in different circumstances, because the speaker can have different motives for her/his want to do the FTA with minimum efficiency. The motives falls into two classes where the face threat is not minimised, where face is ignored or is irrelevant and 2) where in doing the FTA baldly on record, the speaker minimises face threats by implication. BL (1978: 100) Brown and Levinson (ibid,. 1978: 100) give examples of bald on record strategy and say that direct imperatives are clear examples of bald on record usage. Imperative are often softened with hedges or conventional politeness markers, eg: â€Å"please send us the offers†. Verb â€Å"do† is used with imperatives, like in â€Å"Do call us†. What BL call bald on record strategies might involve simply following the Gricean maxims, whereas politeness strategies would involve violating the maxims in specific way (Watss, Ide and Ehlich 1992:7) 2.1.1.2 Positive politeness Unlike negative politeness, Positive politeness is not necessarily redressive of the particular face infringed by the FTA; that is whereas in negative politeness the sphere of relevant redress is restricted to the imposition itself, in positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of alters want in general or to the expression of similarity egos and alters want. The positive politeness is usually seen n groups of friends, or where people the given social situation know each other fairly well, it usually tries to minimize the distance between them, by expressing friendliness and solid interest in the hearers need to be expected (minimize FTA) According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 106) positive politeness is redress directed to the addressees positive face, his/her perennial desire to the his/her wants or actions acquisitions, values resulting from them -should be thought of as desirable. BL describe that the redress consists in partially satisfying that desire that ones own wants or some of them are in some respects similar to the addressees wants. BL also notes that unlike negative politeness, positive politeness is not necessarily redressive of the particular face want infringe by the FTA. In other words whereas in negative politeness the sphere of relevant redress is restricted to the imposition itself, in positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of alters wants in general or to the expression of similarity between egos and alters wants . â€Å". . .the linguistic realizations of positive politeness are in many respects simply representative of the normal linguistic behaviour between intimates, where interest and approval of each others personality, presuppositions indicating shared wants and shared knowledge, implicit claims to reciprocity of obligations or to reflexivity of wants, etc. Are routinely exchanged. Perhaps the only feature that distinguishes positive politeness redress from normal everyday intimate language behaviour is an element of exaggeration; this serves as a marker of the face-redress aspect of positive politeness expression by indicating that even S cant with total sincerity say â€Å"I want your wants† he can at least sincerely indicate â€Å"I want your positive face to be satisfied Brown and Levinson (1978: 106) BL add the element of insincerity in exaggerated expressions of approval or interest [6] As in : â€Å"how absolutely marvellous and exquisite your roses are ,Mrs.Pete† is compensate for by the implication that the speaker really sincerely wants Mrs. Petes positive face to be enhanced. This perspectives of intimacy is interesting when considering articles in economic journal between authors and audiences is not usually very intimate and if it were, intimacy would be disregard while doing a scientific claim. In this sense, it could be expected that not many strategies of positive politeness would be used or are used rarely in article economic journals BL also explain that the association with intimate language usage gives the linguistic of positive politeness its redressive force. They claim that positive politeness utterances are used as a kind of metaphorical extensions of intimacy, to imply common ground or sharing of wants to a limited extension of intimacy, to imply common ground or sharing of wants to a limited extent even between strangers who perceive themselves for the purposes of the interaction as somehow similar. This is true when considering economic articles, in fact some times authors and audience[7] has similar knowledge in general or purpose in common. BL also point out that the positive politeness techniques are usable not only for FTA redress but in general as a kind of accelerator, where S, in using them, indicates s/he wants â€Å"to come closer† to H or audiences. BL divide positive politeness into three strategies; claiming the common ground, conveying that sender and receiver are co-operators and fulfilling receivers want. . 2.1.1.3 Negative Politeness When Brown and Levinson define negative politeness, they say that it is a redressive action addressed to the addressees negative face: addressees want to have addressees freedom of action unhindered and addressees attention unimpeded. Furthermore According to BL (1978:134) Negative politeness is the heart of respective behaviour, just as positive politeness is the kernel of â€Å"familiar† and â€Å"joking† behaviour. Negative politeness corresponds to the rituals of avoidance. Where positive politeness is free-ranging, negative politeness is specific and focused; it performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidable effects, BL also argue that negative politeness is the kind of politeness used between acquaintances whereas positive politeness is used between closer friends. Negative politeness is the most elaborate and the most conventionalized set of linguistic strategies for FTA redress; it fills the etiquette books although positive politeness gets some attention. Further according to BL (1987: 135) the linguistic realization of negative politeness conventional indirectness, hedges on illocutionary force, polite pessimism[8], the emphasis on hearers relative power are very familiar and need no introduction. In addition , BL say that the negative politeness outputs are all forms usefull in general for social â€Å"distancing†[9]: they are therefore likely to be used whenever a speaker or sender wants to put a social brake on the course of interaction. BL, see five main categories as the linguistic realization of negative politeness; communicating senders want not to impinge the receiver, not coercing receiver, not presuming/assuming, being (conventionally in) direct and redressing receivers wants. 2.1.1.4 Off Record Brown and Levinsons (1978:216) define off record strategy as a communicative act which is done in such a way that is not possible to attribute one clear communicative intention to the act. In this case the actor leaves her/himself an â€Å"out† by providing her/himself with a number of defensible interpretations, s/he cannot be held to have a committed himself to just one particular interpretation of her/his act. In other words, BL claim, the actor leaves it up to the addressee to decided how to interpret act. Further, BL continue that such off record utterances are essential indirect uses of language. One says something that is either more general (contains less information in the sense that it rules out fewer possible states of affairs) or actually different from what one means (intend to be understood). BL continue claim that in both cases the hearer must make some inference to recover what was in fact intended. For example, if somebody says: â€Å"it is hot in here†, the hidden meaning of the utterance can be request to open the window or to switch on the fan. BL, (1978: 230-232), list inviting conversational implicatures as one main strategy of off record-ness and its subcategories are; giving hints, giving association clues, presupposing, understating, overstating, using tautologies, using contradictions, being ironic, using metaphors, and using rhetorical question. The other main strategy of going off record is being vague or ambiguous and its subcategories are being ambiguous, being vague, over-generalising, displacing hearer and being incomplete. 2.1.2 Face Politeness theory states that some speech acts threaten others face needs. The concept of face has come to play an important role in politeness theory. Brown and Levinson, for example, have chosen it as the central notion for their study of universals in language usage and politeness phenomena (1978, 1987). Brown and Levinson says that they have derived the notion of face from Ervin Goffman in social interaction. Our notion of face is derived from that of Goffman and from the English folk term, which ties up face notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, or losing face. Thus face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people cooperate (and assume each others cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being based on the mutual vulnerability of face (1987:63) In 1963, Erving Goffman published the article On Face Work where he first created the term â€Å"face.† He discusses face in reference to how people present themselves in social situations and that our entire reality is constructed through our social interactions. Face is a mask that changes depending on the audience and the social interaction (Goffman, 1967). Face is maintained by the audience, not by the speaker. We strive to maintain the face we have created in social situations. Face is broken down by Goffman into two different categories. Positive face is the desire of being seen as a good human being and negative face is the desire to remain autonomous. Moreover he argues that there is a limited amount of strategies to maintain face. Face in communicative events is a universal concept, but it is employed in culture specific ways. It is defined in psychological, philosophical and symbolic terms, â€Å"the term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume s/he has taken during a particular contact†. Face generally involves interlocutors mutual recognition as social members of a society. Face can be lost, maintained, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction. Brown and Levinson (1978; 1987), presented politeness as a formal theoretical construct based on earlier work on face by sociologist Goffman, (1963) as already mentioned above, BL said that we are all motivated by two desires: (positive face), and (negative face). The working definition and examples on both negative and positive face presented below. 2.1.2.1 Negative Face The negative face is the maintenance and defence of ones territory and freedom from imposition. The negative face is an inalienable. Negative face is the desire to be autonomous and not to infringe on the other person. Negative politeness is designed to protect the other person when negative face needs are threatened. Thus there are different strategies to handle face threatening acts and these strategies are put into a hierarchy of effectiveness. 2.1.2.2 Positive Face The positive face, on the other hand, is the claim for the recognition and appropriate validation of ones social self-image or personality. The positive face is the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some other members of the society. Also is the desire to be liked and appreciated. Positive politeness is designed to meet the face needs by performing an action like complimenting or showing concern for another person (Held 1989 and ODriscoll 1996) 2.1.2.3. FTA Holtgraves and Yang (1992) defines politeness as phrasing ones remarks so as to minimize face threat. Here, Face Threatening Act (FTA) is acts like promises, apologies, expressing thanks, ven non verbal acts such as stumbling, falling down or any utterance that intrinsically threatens anothers face (positive or negative) and includes disagreement, criticism, orders, delivery of bad news, and request. For examples; simple request threaten the targets negative face because the targets compliance with the request interferers with his/her desire to remain autonomous. Criticism threatens his/her desire for approval Furthermore, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose that when confronted with the need to perform a FTA, the individual must choose between performing the FTA in the most direct and efficient manner, or attempting to mitigate the effect of the FTA on the hearers positive/negative face. The mitigation strategies are what BL labelled as politeness strategies. 2.1.3 Politeness Systems Since Goffmans (1967) work, politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use. The literature on the subject is mammoth-like, the research on politeness falls into three categories: (1) work that constructs theories of politeness, such as Lakoff (1973, 1977), Brown and Levinson (1987), Leech (1983), Fraser (1990), and Escandell-Vidal (1996); (2) work that investigates cultural- specific concepts and strategies of politeness, such as Hill et al. (1986), Gu (1992), Lindenfeld (1990), and Sherzer (1983); (3) work that applies existing theories to data from various cultures, such as Chen (1993, 1996), Garcia (1989), Rhodes (1989), and Holmes (1990). Although these researchers differ in important ways, they share a common focus on politeness system, that specific factors influence the adoption of strategies. Similar with Scollon and Scollon (1981) proposed the face relationships into three politeness systems namely; Difference, solidarity and hierarchical. An explanation on those politeness systems presented below. 2.1 Linguistic Politeness Study Linguistic Politeness Study Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Over the last three decades, politeness has become one of the central discussions in pragmatic and sociolinguistic researches. A large number of theoretical, empirical books and articles about linguistic politeness that have been published, shows that politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use. Although the interest of politeness in both social and linguistic phenomenon significantly increased, many recent studies choose to drawn on conversational data, it was surprised that is only small numbers of scholars focused to study politeness in written text such as scientific written text rather than on conversational data recently. Even though the main stream of linguistic politeness is generally associated with social behaviour as strategic conflict avoidance, and the major concept of politeness theory is an arrangement of politeness strategies along a continuum from least polite to most polite, also allows them to engage in conflict-free communication, and it usually found in the study of conversational using speaker-hearer model of interactions. Many scholars do not realize that this politeness model also can be extended to other medium not only through verbal communication but also in a written material in terms of the interactions of the or authors and audiences in scientific texts. Furthermore, the advances of politeness models to some genres of scientific written texts is somehow interesting and in the other hand complex field to study. Greg Myers[1] (1989) in his study found that the model proposed by Brown and Levinson was very useful to explain how he interpret some construction of the norm of scientific culture found in writing, particularly academic writing. Brown and Levinson (1978/1987) present their study as part of the linguistic project of showing universals in language usage; the striking parallels in politeness devices between three unrelated languages shows that while the expressions of politeness may vary enormously from one culture to another, and the basic hierarchy of politeness strategies is not a culture specific. Brown and Levinsons (1987: 58) constructed a system in which a model person is endowed with negative and positive face; roughly the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects. The model person also has a rational faculty for choosing the course of action that will give the highest pay-off with the least loss of face, evaluating three variables; the social distances (D); the relative difference in power between the speaker and hearer (P); the rank of imposition (R). These three basic variables seem still affective to help understanding the interactions of politeness between writers and readers in written text. Brown and Levinsons (BL) theory has been extensively used and also criticised. Although most of the scholars that studied politeness are agree that specific factors like power, social distance or status, influence the adoption of strategies, it is still difficult to provide definite conclusions. Moreover, by using Myers â€Å"room of thinking† above that linked to what Brown and Levinson had proposed in their study, this research tries to focus on the politeness strategies employed by the economists authors in academic journals, by concerning that at this time academic journals had reached a fabulous numbers both digital and printing material and also become a major references by scholars all over the world. On the other hand, the scholars that deeply focused to study the academic journals in the pragmatics or discourse analysis area says; politeness its still rare. By viewing that chances the researcher hopes that this study is able to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge on politeness strategies used in academic writing, particularly which in the writing of economic journal articles of two identified economic journals. 1.1 Statements of the Problem Started in the early 1950s, Schuler studied about the politeness in Germany and Goffman studied on â€Å"face work† in 1955. Nowadays, the study about politeness has become one of the major areas of pragmatics or sociolinguistics. Classical theories of linguistic politeness clarifies such as Lakoff (1973, 1977), Brown and Levinson (1987), Leech (1983) agree that linguistic politeness can be used as a strategic conflict avoidance. Linguistic politeness not only was applied by many people via verbal communication but also through the medium of written material both in academic or non academic fields, politeness persuasion in journal writing as a genre in academic writing somehow in line with the demands of the academic community that expects scientific language to be objective and formal. Further, the use of politeness persuasion or strategies in journal issues by particular people from different culture background, age and economic basic education is interesting field to discuss. Based on that statement above the main purposes of this study beyond the limits of this paper, to give an exhaustive overview of politeness-related research are to identify sort of politeness strategies employed by economist authors and analyze the politeness kinds of strategies in economic journal articles both local and international economic journal. 1.2 Objective of the Study In recent years there has been a steady increase in interest and research into economics discourse by both economists and linguists which has spawned an expanding body of work. The nature of this work in part reflects not only the varied academic backgrounds of the writers, but also the evolutionary development of linguistics in general and its sub-discipline of discourse analysis in particular. This body of work is not only in hope succeeding clarify many of the ways that economists use language to express themselves in polite way, but also can be use to help the public to understand the politeness style of writing from the economist in the scientific text. Furthermore based on the explanation above, this present study tried focused in identify politeness strategies employed by authors of economic journal communities both local and international economic journals, by proposing the objectives below; 1. To investigate how economists use language to present findings in polite way 2. To investigates the use of politeness strategies in economics text 3. To compare the use of politeness strategies in a local and international economic journals 1.3 Research Question Brown and Levinson (1987) have developed a theory of politeness to explain the nature of politeness phenomena in language. Through this exploratory study, the researcher will focus on the existence of linguistic politeness in economic articles. For this purpose the researcher study the selected local and international economic journals. The researcher focused on specific areas in these journals that the researcher feels exemplifies the existence of politeness strategies. Based on the explanation above, the present study aims to answer the following question: 1. What kinds of politeness strategies are employed by authors in local and international economic journal articles? 2. In what ways are local and international journals similar or different in the use of politeness strategies? 1.4 Significance of the study Politeness has become one of the fields of research to which more attention has been devoted in the last two decades. The connections of politeness studies with other domains, such as sociolinguistics, socio pragmatics, ethnography of communication, second language teaching/acquisition or conversational analysis, have definitely contributed to this growing interest and its exploratory study, the researcher choose to focus on the existence of politeness strategies n economic journals. Since the early 1980s, the discussion of various controversial issues in the economics discourse community has led to increasing debate among concerned economists about the ways that they communicate with each other, as well as with non-economists. Royce (1995) in his paper[2] mentions that; Although economics is considered to be a science and its language is often close to scientific language, within evidence the texts are often complemented by graphs. The influence of literary discourse is predominant. In 1986, Donald McCloskey published The Rhetoric of Economics and republished in 1998. McCloskey considers economic discourse as a language comprised of tropes; a word or phrase used in a sense not proper to it, tales and other rhetorical devices that are literary and rhetorical or persuasive rather than scientific or natural†. The specific aim of this research also to show that was an increasing awareness of the nature of economics discourse by both applied linguists and economists, For the purposes above, the research studies one locally and one international economic journal, published by economic associations from Malaysia and USA. This research try not to deeply focus on particular specific area what economist and linguist arguing about, but more on general issues of economic that become content respectively in these journals, that researcher feels exemplifies the existence of politeness strategies. 1.5 Scope and Limitation of The Study This present study will limit its data from selected journals released by economic associations from local and international to find out politeness strategies employed by the economists in two identified Economic journals, namely, Malaysia Journal of Economic Studies and the Journal of Economic Growth released by Malaysian Economic association and American economic association respectively. The corpus from those journal were chosen from the five year latest issues, start from 2004 until 2008 whereas this present study start it work. Here the study also limits its scope only on the content of the articles. The areas of Mathematical language, formula as well as footnote in the articles will be not included to analyze in this present study. 1.5 Theoretical Framework The present section presents the theoretical framework of the present study. Brown and Levinson (1987) have developed a theory of politeness to explain the nature of politeness phenomena in language. According to them, it is possible to define generic types of politeness strategies to explain and predict the adoption of politeness in oral or written discourse. Since the present study tries to focuses on the analyzing a politeness in written material that is academic journal both from local or international well known economic journals. The writer tries to use a formula that construct by Greg Myers (1989) in his articles â€Å"The Pragmatic Of Politeness In Scientific Articles† in line with what Brown and Levinson (1987) proposed in their book â€Å"Politeness; Some Universal in language Usage as underlying theoretical structure. Chapter.2 Review of Related Literature 2.0. Introduction The phenomenon of interest in politeness both social and linguistic has been significance increase over the last three decades as evidenced by the numbers of paper have appeared on the subject in international journal and monographs. The present research mostly, still based on Brown and Levinsons politeness theory (1978, 1987). The recent published literature on Brown and Levinsons model concerns two main aspects, which are the concept of politeness itself and the claims for universality on the one hand, and diverse criticism or modification of one of the elements of the model on the other; mainly the concepts of face, face-threatening act, and the factors that determine the production and interpretation of politeness, in the other hand. The notions of face, face threatening act (FTA) and politeness as well as the ways in which the phenomenon of politeness is realized in language usage have been extensively exploited who are concerned with linguistic pragmatics; Leech, 19983; Kasper, 1990; Brend 1978; Brown; 1988; Schmidt, 1980; Carrel and Konnoker, 1981; Ferguson, and many other scholars have explore the notions of face. Since the main focus of this present study is trying to put economic issues written by economist in economic journals related with politeness strategies as a main topic to discuss, the researcher in this chapter, will try to discuss about the theory of politeness, and explains about the terms related to the main topic, such as the different forms of face, FT[3]A and the factors seems to be interrelated in politeness system that also useful in studying politeness strategies in written material such as academic journal. 2.1 The Theory: A Brief Overview Brown and Levinsons (1978, 1987) theory of politeness has become the â€Å"model against which most research on politeness defines itself†. Central to BLs theory is the concept of face, as proposed by Goffman (1967) who defined face as: â€Å"†¦the positive social value of a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes -albeit an image that others might share, as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself .(Goffman 1967: 5) BL define (1978:66) face as something that is emotionally invested and the face can be lost, maintained or enhanced and it must be constantly attended to in interaction, BL categorize politeness as either positive politeness or negative politeness and tie both strategies to the importance of face in every culture. They define ‘face as â€Å"the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself† Furthermore The main focus of BL (Brown and Levinson)[4] study as part of the linguistic project of showing universals in language usage; They construct a system in which a model person is endowed with negative and positive face; and tie both strategies to the importance of face in every culture. They define ‘face as â€Å"the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself† roughly the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects (1987: 58). According to Brown and Levinson, â€Å"face wants† may consist of negative or positive face. When speakers appeal to positive face wants (i.e. the desire to be appreciated and approved of), they employ positive politeness language that emphasizes â€Å"in-group identity, shows concern, and seeks areas of agreement†. Compliments represent typical positive politeness strategies. When speakers appeal to negative face wants (i.e. the desire to be free from imposition and distraction), they use negative politeness strategies that seeks to reduce any imposition, such as apologies that represent the type negative politeness strategies. Further, basically in most situations, everyone seeks â€Å"to maintain each others face†. Thus, communicating effectively involves saving face-both for the speaker-identified by Brown and Levinson as (S) and for the addressee (H) or speaker and hearer. However, Brown and Levinson point out that S and H are mitigated by three other factors: power, social distance, and imposition. For example, S will speak more politely when the target (H) has more power than S, when the social distance between the two is great, and when the imposition is high. Before going further the following section tries to explain the first four politeness strategies of Brown and Levinsons with some examples, based on several studies done in the past that are related to the present study of politeness. Brown and Levinson identify five â€Å"super strategies† used to communicate. They list strategies from the most direct/impolite (bald-on-record) to the least direct/impolite (being silent). 2.1.1 Politeness Strategies According to Brown and Levinson (1978:65), certain acts can damage or threaten another persons face and these acts are referred to as face threatening acts (FTAs). An FTA[5] has the potential to damage the hearers positive or negative face or the act may damaged the spakers own positive or negative face. In order to reduce the possibility of damage to the hearers or the speakers face s/he may adopt certain strategies ; these strategies BL call politeness strategies (1978: 65). Politeness strategies can be divided into four main strategies: Bald-on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record strategies. Being polite therefore consists of attempting to save face for another, although all cultures have face as Brown and Levinson claim, all cultures do not maintain face in the same way. Brown and Levinson also claim that understanding cultural norms of politeness enables communicators to â€Å"make strong predictions† about communicating effectively within a culture, also politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers face. Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that self-esteem in public or in private situations. The functions are to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable. Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with FTA. Next each of the strategies of BLs theory will be presented separately first Bald on record, then positive politeness, next negative politeness and finally off record strategies 2.1.1.1 Bald on record According to Brown and Levinson(1978: 74), Bald on record strategy is a direct way of saying things, without any minimisation to the imposition, in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way, for example â€Å"Do.X!†. Bl claim that the prime reason for bald on record usage may be stated simply: in general, whenever the speaker wants to do FTA with maximum efficiency more than s/he wants to satisfy hearers face, even to any degree, s/he will choose the bald on record strategy. There are different kinds of bald on record usage in different circumstances, because the speaker can have different motives for her/his want to do the FTA with minimum efficiency. The motives falls into two classes where the face threat is not minimised, where face is ignored or is irrelevant and 2) where in doing the FTA baldly on record, the speaker minimises face threats by implication. BL (1978: 100) Brown and Levinson (ibid,. 1978: 100) give examples of bald on record strategy and say that direct imperatives are clear examples of bald on record usage. Imperative are often softened with hedges or conventional politeness markers, eg: â€Å"please send us the offers†. Verb â€Å"do† is used with imperatives, like in â€Å"Do call us†. What BL call bald on record strategies might involve simply following the Gricean maxims, whereas politeness strategies would involve violating the maxims in specific way (Watss, Ide and Ehlich 1992:7) 2.1.1.2 Positive politeness Unlike negative politeness, Positive politeness is not necessarily redressive of the particular face infringed by the FTA; that is whereas in negative politeness the sphere of relevant redress is restricted to the imposition itself, in positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of alters want in general or to the expression of similarity egos and alters want. The positive politeness is usually seen n groups of friends, or where people the given social situation know each other fairly well, it usually tries to minimize the distance between them, by expressing friendliness and solid interest in the hearers need to be expected (minimize FTA) According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 106) positive politeness is redress directed to the addressees positive face, his/her perennial desire to the his/her wants or actions acquisitions, values resulting from them -should be thought of as desirable. BL describe that the redress consists in partially satisfying that desire that ones own wants or some of them are in some respects similar to the addressees wants. BL also notes that unlike negative politeness, positive politeness is not necessarily redressive of the particular face want infringe by the FTA. In other words whereas in negative politeness the sphere of relevant redress is restricted to the imposition itself, in positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of alters wants in general or to the expression of similarity between egos and alters wants . â€Å". . .the linguistic realizations of positive politeness are in many respects simply representative of the normal linguistic behaviour between intimates, where interest and approval of each others personality, presuppositions indicating shared wants and shared knowledge, implicit claims to reciprocity of obligations or to reflexivity of wants, etc. Are routinely exchanged. Perhaps the only feature that distinguishes positive politeness redress from normal everyday intimate language behaviour is an element of exaggeration; this serves as a marker of the face-redress aspect of positive politeness expression by indicating that even S cant with total sincerity say â€Å"I want your wants† he can at least sincerely indicate â€Å"I want your positive face to be satisfied Brown and Levinson (1978: 106) BL add the element of insincerity in exaggerated expressions of approval or interest [6] As in : â€Å"how absolutely marvellous and exquisite your roses are ,Mrs.Pete† is compensate for by the implication that the speaker really sincerely wants Mrs. Petes positive face to be enhanced. This perspectives of intimacy is interesting when considering articles in economic journal between authors and audiences is not usually very intimate and if it were, intimacy would be disregard while doing a scientific claim. In this sense, it could be expected that not many strategies of positive politeness would be used or are used rarely in article economic journals BL also explain that the association with intimate language usage gives the linguistic of positive politeness its redressive force. They claim that positive politeness utterances are used as a kind of metaphorical extensions of intimacy, to imply common ground or sharing of wants to a limited extension of intimacy, to imply common ground or sharing of wants to a limited extent even between strangers who perceive themselves for the purposes of the interaction as somehow similar. This is true when considering economic articles, in fact some times authors and audience[7] has similar knowledge in general or purpose in common. BL also point out that the positive politeness techniques are usable not only for FTA redress but in general as a kind of accelerator, where S, in using them, indicates s/he wants â€Å"to come closer† to H or audiences. BL divide positive politeness into three strategies; claiming the common ground, conveying that sender and receiver are co-operators and fulfilling receivers want. . 2.1.1.3 Negative Politeness When Brown and Levinson define negative politeness, they say that it is a redressive action addressed to the addressees negative face: addressees want to have addressees freedom of action unhindered and addressees attention unimpeded. Furthermore According to BL (1978:134) Negative politeness is the heart of respective behaviour, just as positive politeness is the kernel of â€Å"familiar† and â€Å"joking† behaviour. Negative politeness corresponds to the rituals of avoidance. Where positive politeness is free-ranging, negative politeness is specific and focused; it performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidable effects, BL also argue that negative politeness is the kind of politeness used between acquaintances whereas positive politeness is used between closer friends. Negative politeness is the most elaborate and the most conventionalized set of linguistic strategies for FTA redress; it fills the etiquette books although positive politeness gets some attention. Further according to BL (1987: 135) the linguistic realization of negative politeness conventional indirectness, hedges on illocutionary force, polite pessimism[8], the emphasis on hearers relative power are very familiar and need no introduction. In addition , BL say that the negative politeness outputs are all forms usefull in general for social â€Å"distancing†[9]: they are therefore likely to be used whenever a speaker or sender wants to put a social brake on the course of interaction. BL, see five main categories as the linguistic realization of negative politeness; communicating senders want not to impinge the receiver, not coercing receiver, not presuming/assuming, being (conventionally in) direct and redressing receivers wants. 2.1.1.4 Off Record Brown and Levinsons (1978:216) define off record strategy as a communicative act which is done in such a way that is not possible to attribute one clear communicative intention to the act. In this case the actor leaves her/himself an â€Å"out† by providing her/himself with a number of defensible interpretations, s/he cannot be held to have a committed himself to just one particular interpretation of her/his act. In other words, BL claim, the actor leaves it up to the addressee to decided how to interpret act. Further, BL continue that such off record utterances are essential indirect uses of language. One says something that is either more general (contains less information in the sense that it rules out fewer possible states of affairs) or actually different from what one means (intend to be understood). BL continue claim that in both cases the hearer must make some inference to recover what was in fact intended. For example, if somebody says: â€Å"it is hot in here†, the hidden meaning of the utterance can be request to open the window or to switch on the fan. BL, (1978: 230-232), list inviting conversational implicatures as one main strategy of off record-ness and its subcategories are; giving hints, giving association clues, presupposing, understating, overstating, using tautologies, using contradictions, being ironic, using metaphors, and using rhetorical question. The other main strategy of going off record is being vague or ambiguous and its subcategories are being ambiguous, being vague, over-generalising, displacing hearer and being incomplete. 2.1.2 Face Politeness theory states that some speech acts threaten others face needs. The concept of face has come to play an important role in politeness theory. Brown and Levinson, for example, have chosen it as the central notion for their study of universals in language usage and politeness phenomena (1978, 1987). Brown and Levinson says that they have derived the notion of face from Ervin Goffman in social interaction. Our notion of face is derived from that of Goffman and from the English folk term, which ties up face notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, or losing face. Thus face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people cooperate (and assume each others cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being based on the mutual vulnerability of face (1987:63) In 1963, Erving Goffman published the article On Face Work where he first created the term â€Å"face.† He discusses face in reference to how people present themselves in social situations and that our entire reality is constructed through our social interactions. Face is a mask that changes depending on the audience and the social interaction (Goffman, 1967). Face is maintained by the audience, not by the speaker. We strive to maintain the face we have created in social situations. Face is broken down by Goffman into two different categories. Positive face is the desire of being seen as a good human being and negative face is the desire to remain autonomous. Moreover he argues that there is a limited amount of strategies to maintain face. Face in communicative events is a universal concept, but it is employed in culture specific ways. It is defined in psychological, philosophical and symbolic terms, â€Å"the term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume s/he has taken during a particular contact†. Face generally involves interlocutors mutual recognition as social members of a society. Face can be lost, maintained, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction. Brown and Levinson (1978; 1987), presented politeness as a formal theoretical construct based on earlier work on face by sociologist Goffman, (1963) as already mentioned above, BL said that we are all motivated by two desires: (positive face), and (negative face). The working definition and examples on both negative and positive face presented below. 2.1.2.1 Negative Face The negative face is the maintenance and defence of ones territory and freedom from imposition. The negative face is an inalienable. Negative face is the desire to be autonomous and not to infringe on the other person. Negative politeness is designed to protect the other person when negative face needs are threatened. Thus there are different strategies to handle face threatening acts and these strategies are put into a hierarchy of effectiveness. 2.1.2.2 Positive Face The positive face, on the other hand, is the claim for the recognition and appropriate validation of ones social self-image or personality. The positive face is the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some other members of the society. Also is the desire to be liked and appreciated. Positive politeness is designed to meet the face needs by performing an action like complimenting or showing concern for another person (Held 1989 and ODriscoll 1996) 2.1.2.3. FTA Holtgraves and Yang (1992) defines politeness as phrasing ones remarks so as to minimize face threat. Here, Face Threatening Act (FTA) is acts like promises, apologies, expressing thanks, ven non verbal acts such as stumbling, falling down or any utterance that intrinsically threatens anothers face (positive or negative) and includes disagreement, criticism, orders, delivery of bad news, and request. For examples; simple request threaten the targets negative face because the targets compliance with the request interferers with his/her desire to remain autonomous. Criticism threatens his/her desire for approval Furthermore, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose that when confronted with the need to perform a FTA, the individual must choose between performing the FTA in the most direct and efficient manner, or attempting to mitigate the effect of the FTA on the hearers positive/negative face. The mitigation strategies are what BL labelled as politeness strategies. 2.1.3 Politeness Systems Since Goffmans (1967) work, politeness has become one of the most active areas of research in language use. The literature on the subject is mammoth-like, the research on politeness falls into three categories: (1) work that constructs theories of politeness, such as Lakoff (1973, 1977), Brown and Levinson (1987), Leech (1983), Fraser (1990), and Escandell-Vidal (1996); (2) work that investigates cultural- specific concepts and strategies of politeness, such as Hill et al. (1986), Gu (1992), Lindenfeld (1990), and Sherzer (1983); (3) work that applies existing theories to data from various cultures, such as Chen (1993, 1996), Garcia (1989), Rhodes (1989), and Holmes (1990). Although these researchers differ in important ways, they share a common focus on politeness system, that specific factors influence the adoption of strategies. Similar with Scollon and Scollon (1981) proposed the face relationships into three politeness systems namely; Difference, solidarity and hierarchical. An explanation on those politeness systems presented below. 2.1