Abstract This paper explains that speakers of a language such as English in which the grammatical diminutive plays an insignificant part, the fact that other languages use the diminutive so frequently can seem rather quaint. The paper goes on to say that the diminutive is a highly useful grammatical structure, one that speakers of languages without a diminutive have to compensate for in various often less than elegant ways. This paper examines the grammatical diminutive in the Romance languages.
From the Paper "For speakers of a language such as English in which the grammatical diminutive plays an insignificant part, the fact that other languages use the diminutive so frequently can seem rather quaint. But the diminutive is, in fact, a highly useful grammatical structure, one that speakers of languages without a diminutive or with an anemic diminutive, as is the case in English, have to compensate for in various (often less than elegant) ways. This paper examines the grammatical diminutive in the Romance languages. We should begin by defining the grammatical..."
Abstract In this essay, the writer provides a short look at Congressman Lloyd Doggett. This writer discusses the Congressman's re-election campaign of the newly created 25th Congressional District in Texas. The writer also makes reference to the very impoverished area of the Rio Grande Valley that is included in the congressional area.
From the Paper "When the leaves turn and fall there is a chill in the air and Americans pull levers, mark boxes or even punch those notorious chads, it means it is election time. Each November, Americans to come together in the democratic process, to determine a new set of representatives who will govern the nation from local counties right up to the White House. It is one thing to talk about the political process each ... "
Tags: 2004 election, 25th Congressional District, Texas, Lloyd Doggett, Rio Grande Valley
Abstract This paper reviews Yann Martel's "Life of Pi", the historical and political influences, as well as the anthropological references to Indian practices. This paper attempts to analyze the philosophical, linguistic, and religious concepts of this book.
From the Paper "Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi' revolves around a sixteen year old Indian boy emigrating to Canada with his family on board a ship full of zoo animals which sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but the boy is able to escape the mishap and survive for 227 days on a lifeboat accompanied by an adolescent Royal Bengal tiger he fondly calls Richard Parker. However, before the reader embarks on this journey of a tale, he is greeted by an author's note. Ordinarily, readers skip through this section of a novel, wanting more to quickly get to the juicy part of the story, after all, that is the very reason why most people read: to be entertained, to read about a story. The presence of this author's note nevertheless proves to play a significant role in the shaping of Martel's telling of the story of Pi. When Martel writes: "If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams" (XII), he broaches on the "enduring irony at the heart of all good fiction, an irony identified in the 14th century great Dante as 'bella mensonge,' the beautiful lie" (Park). The writer is tasked with saving not only himself but everyone who reads him from believing in nothing as well as having worthless dreams. How does the writer do this? He creates a nothing, a dream, a story - which is the opposite of the crude reality we ought not to sacrifice our imagination on. The writer, in making this story, attains the beautiful lie and opens us to have "belief within our disbelief" and to replace our worthless dreams with "something of enduring value, something we recognize as possessing a kind of truth" (Park)."
Abstract This paper explains that computational linguistics, an interdisciplinary field of study, is the intersection between linguistics and computer science, which actually began in the 1950s, predating artificial intelligence's beginnings in the 1960s. The author points out that speech synthesis and speech recognition are opposites of each other because speech synthesis is the process of turning text or data into speech; whereas, speech recognition is the process of taking spoken language and converting it into text. The paper stresses that the task of making a computer understand spoken language is definitely not an easy one nor will it mastered in the near future.
From the Paper "Speech analysis is done in four basic steps: text analysis, phonetic transcription, prosodic analysis, and waveform generation. Text analysis consists of identifying sentence boundaries, proper names, abbreviations, acronyms, the accepted spelling of words, and other syntactic and semantic features. Next, for phonetic transcription, pronunciation must be found for every word, including exceptions to general rules (have and four don't rhyme with rave and sour) and heteronyms (words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently, like the verb 'to record' and the noun record)."
Abstract In this article, the writer looks at the Polish language which like other Slavic languages, represents an inflecting, or fusion type of language, in which single grammatical morphemes combine several functions: case, gender, and number in noun forms; person and number in verb forms. The writer claims that the Polish grammatical system closely parallels that of Russian.
Contents:
Introduction
Syntax in Polish Literature
Consider the Following Polish Examples (Giejgo 1981)
The Study and Results
Works Cited
From the Paper "Because Polish retains a rich inflectional system, morphology is the main device for expressing syntactic distinctions. Word order has grammatical functions only to a limited extent, and hence it can serve other purposes, namely, it performs pragmatic functions. Deviations from the standard (unmarked) SVO order serve the purposes of topicalization; and combined with focal stress, word order expresses special emphasis on certain elements, in a way independent from discourse structure. Furthermore, the rich inflectional system makes it possible to apply ellipsis to a much larger extent than in English. Passive participles are used in passive voice constructions. In spoken language, however, these have a limited range of use, as word order flexibility is sufficient for expressing focus, and a number of subjectless active constructions can be used for subject downgrading. Those occurring in spoken language typically involve perfective participles, used in order to refer to a resulting end state of some action, performed by an unspecified agent which is either unknown or evident or simply irrelevant. These cannot be called truncated passives, as full passives are practically never used. They are rather a subclass of attributive sentences making statements about objects."
The paper discusses the importance of written exercises as part of a more comprehensive and diversified approach to teaching English as a second language in the classroom.
Abstract This paper discusses the relevance of various writing exercises to the student's mastery of English as a second language (ESL) and argues in favor of more writing activities within ESL classrooms. The paper argues that written exercises are a vital component of the language acquisition process. For ESL students, or any other student attempting to learn another language, to fully embrace the language and adopt comprehensible and meaningful communication strategies they must routinely incorporate written exercises into daily instruction. Students who combine written exercises with reading comprehension and oral civilities are far more likely to acquire successful language acquisition than those who focus on one method or another.
From the Paper "Incorporation of various writing exercises is vital toward promoting adequate language acquisition for students learning English as a second language. Writing exercises help students learn how to initiate and create comprehensible communication, and help close the gap between oral, verbal and written communication. Students who do not engage in consistent written exercises are less likely to master English as a language than students who consistently engage in written exercises inside of and outside the classroom. This paper will discuss the relevance of various writing exercises to student's mastery of English as a second language and argue in favor of more writing activities within ESL classrooms."
Abstract This paper demonstrates the veracity of the following statement: All the other ways of knowing are controlled by language. In order to illustrate that this is in fact the case, the author examines the works of Jacques Derrida, Ludwig Wittgetnstein, and others in order to show that all thought, speech, and discourse is entirely dependent upon language and as such no epistemological framework can exist outside the confines of a linguistic tradition.
From the Paper "lAll the other ways of knowing are controlled by language. What does this statement mean with regard to the relationships between perception, emotion, reason, and language? In other words, what does language have to do with the way that human beings understand and interpret the world around them? The above assertion would have us believe that all ways of knowing, or epistemologies, are controlled in some part by language. It means that is impossible to perceive the world without language. It is impossible to experience an emotional response without language."
This paper uses the proverb "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" to demonstrate how proverbs can be used to assist with direction in certain events in life.
675 words (approx. 2.7 pages), 0 sources, 2005, $ 26.95
Abstract In this article, the writer discusses that moments in life can often be categorized by the maxims or proverbs that have come before. The writer points out that hindsight allows one to see how these really surmise different events throughout a person's history, and, sometimes, maxims and proverbs can be used to give direction to a person's life. The writer explains that the maxim, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", came into play when the writer took up a new position at Acme Manufacturing.
From the Paper "Moments in life can often be categorized by the maxims or proverbs that have come before. Hindsight allows one to see how these really surmise different events throughout a person's history, and, sometimes, maxims and proverbs can be used to give direction to a person's life. The maxim, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", came into play when the writer took up a new position at Acme Manufacturing. The writer had applied for the customer service position, knowing that Acme Manufacturing was a perfectly suitable type of company. After a series of interviews with not only the departmental manager, but also some of the other customer service team members, the writer wanted the position even more."
This paper looks at five passages by five different poets to demonstrate the preoccupations of each of the poets and to show how each passage fits in to its relevant poem.
1,125 words (approx. 4.5 pages), 5 sources, 2005, $ 44.95
Abstract This paper offers a discussion of five passages to show how they fit in the works of which they are a part and what they say about the preoccupations of the poets who produced these works, these being Gerard Manley Hopkins and "The Windhover," William Morris and "The Defense of Guenevere," Dante Gabriel Rosetti and "The Burden of Nineveh," Christina Georgina Rosetti and "Goblin Market," and Robert Browning and "Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church.
From the Paper "In this poem, the poet celebrates the power and sacrifice of Christ. The windhover of the title is a type of kestrel, a bird, and the free soaring bird represents Christ and his dominion over the heavens and the earth. The passage in question demonstrates many of the interests of Hopkins, including his creative use of rhythm, with the rhythm enhanced by alliteration and repeated sounds. Each line contains a specific alliterative sequence, repeating "pl" in the first line as well as "s" sounds, the second repeating "bl" sounds, and the third "g" sounds, giving each line its own separate identity while linking all together in a creative play of sounds and words."
Abstract In this article, the writer points out that traditional teaching of language has students vainly searching for the "point" of the story, the meaning, the theme, the plot. The writer maintains that such tactics are ultimately reductive and do not foster critical thinking among students. Further, the writer discusses that in order to challenge students to become more aware of the intricacies of language and become better readers and writers, educators must challenge them to approach language from a more deconstructive position.
From the Paper "When confronted with possibility of incorporating deconstruction into pedagogical discussions, it is almost possible to hear a host of teachers everywhere shudder in a mix of disapproval and disgust. Traditional language pedagogy has not been especially forgiving of deconstructive methods, especially on levels other than the university. Nevertheless, it is at the earlier stage that deconstruction can be the most useful in language education. At its heart, deconstruction demonstrates the feeling of the inescapable and the suspicion of language."
Abstract This essay concerns Leo MacKay Jr.'s novel entitled 'Twenty Six', and it evaluates a review of the same novel. In this case, the review was taken from Quill and Quire magazine. The essay concludes, that the review does not really do the novel justice or present it adequately, as is also the case with other reviews of this novel. The writer points out that the central conflict is poorly represented.
From the Paper "A review of a book, movie, play or other art form has to straddle a delicate balance- on the one hand, an accurate and objective view of the work must be presented, but on the other hand, the author of the review also has to make his or her own unique point. He has to really be saying something original about the book in order to make the review worthwhile. A common difficulty, therefore, is when reviewers seem to struggle for things to say that are unique and original, and the review itself ends up being either an overly negative criticism or a retelling or summarizing of the plot of the story."
Abstract This essay considers whether modern language teaching methods - namely, communicative methodologies -are really any better than older methodologies in facilitating language acquisition. The writer claims that these methods are better. Further the writer points out that this can be measured according to the learner's age, aptitude and motivation to learn another language. The writer concludes that communicative methods are more like real communication.
From the Paper "In one way, it might seem clear from the outset that communicative language teaching methodologies are superior to earlier methodologies in all measurable aspects; after all, if they were not better, there would have been little sense in deviating from the older methods. Furthermore, in terms of the three learner variables - aptitude, age and motivation - it seems as though communicative language methodologies are indeed superior. However, this is particularly the case with two of these three variables, age and motivation. This is probably because communicative methods of teaching language offer much greater flexibility, and as such, they can accommodate a range of student ages and can also go a long way toward stimulating motivation where it may not previously have existed."
Abstract In this article, the writer looks at how Hillary Clinton's speech regarding abortion as a tragedy, is intended to be an emotional appeal to the people. The writer notes that she uses Roe v. Wade as a benchmark in time, perhaps to give the speech legitimacy by associating it with that successful court case. The writer further points out that in her opening paragraph, Clinton sets the tone for the rest of her speech. This paper identifies some of the areas in which Clinton seeks to influence the thinking of her audience through emotions rather than facts.
From the Paper "From its very opening, Hillary Clinton's speech is intended to be an emotional appeal to the people. She uses Roe v. Wade as a benchmark in time, perhaps to give the speech legitimacy by associating it with that successful court case. In her opening paragraph, Clinton sets the tone for the rest of her speech. She refers to the Roe v. Wade decision as being a "landmark decision that struck a blow for freedom and equality for women". Clinton speaks of people on "the front line," of Roe v. Wade as being "in jeopardy." She also equates Roe v. Wade with "quality healthcare". All of these words and phrases are intended to elicit the listener's emotions. Many such words and phrases populate Hilary Clinton's speech."
Abstract In this article, the writer discusses the short story "Thank You, M'am" by Hughes. The writer analyzes this work and focuses on the language used throughout the story. The importance of the opening words of the story "She was a large woman" are examined. The writer discusses the reasons for the use of specific words and terminology. The writer concludes that terminology used in the book was important in giving it the meaning of the story.
From the Paper "She was a large woman" is the beginning five words from "Thank You, M'am." Why were these words important? What is a large woman? Does this mean that she is fat? Does it mean that she is tall with large bones? Why did Hughes begin the story with these specific words? Hughes wrote this short story by trying to understand the feminine side of the story. Writing a critical response to this story will focus on the language Hughes uses throughout the story and why he used the specific terminology that he used."
Abstract This paper evaluates the importance of metaphors in literature of various types, which present a number of challenges to writers and readers alike. The paper points out it is evident that no matter what type of literature that is being discussed, metaphors provide a number of opportunities to discuss and present concepts in unique and interesting ways.
