"In the United States neither race nor ethnicity are factors in determining a person's opportunities in life".

A Negative Response to the Reaction Statement: "In the United States neither race nor ethnicity are factors in determining a person's opportunities in life" by Yvette M. Oneil Sociology - 101 Professor Carmella Marrone John Jay College March 3, 2001 African American, Latino American, Italian American, Mexican American, these terms were unrecognizable hundreds of years ago, and probably would gotten you shot for being blasphemous. The word American went hand and hand with the description "white," there were no any exceptions to this rule. Today many people believe that this prejudice no longer exists and that your race or ethnic background has no bearing what so ever on the opportunities that are given or presented to you in this day and age. It's the new millennium! Times have changed is what many believe, but history has a remarkable way of repeating itself and sometimes the actions of our forefathers though often loudly and publicly objected to are silently and covertly revered. People flock to the United States because of the gospel that in America you have an unlimited opportunity to achieve and become somebody, regardless of who you are, where your coming from and how will you get where you want to go. If this was so true then why does every person coming from another Country go directly to a designated base of "friendly" liaisons which have been erected to

  • Word count: 1161
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Summarise the main points of your chosen reading and evaluate, with reference to other material in the course so far, the extent to which it helps you understand how to identify creativity in everyday language.

Summarise the main points of your chosen reading and evaluate, with reference to other material in the course so far, the extent to which it helps you understand how to identify creativity in everyday language. Selected Reading: Reading B - Guy Cook 'Why play with language?' Maybin and Swann (2006) describe language creativity as comprising not only of 'textual artistry' (p.1) but also the ways in which we employ language to form our individuality and manage our interactions with others. Within this assignment I shall evaluate the points raised by Guy Cook (2006) in Reading B 'Why play with language?' in conjunction with other source material to determine the extent to which it helps us to identify creativity in everyday language. In one sense it useful to view Cook's reading as part of a jigsaw, made up of individual pieces which must be connected with other pieces (or in this case theories), in order to fully appreciate its meaning and value. Cook's primary focus is language-play. Ranging from the triviality of children's rhymes to serious political rhetoric, he examines how it can bring creativity and flexibility to everyday language. The first section of the reading explains that language originates from the need or desire to communicate information. For Cook, Robin Dunbar's 'There's a bison down by the lake' theory (2006, p.37) exemplifies the importance of

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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What do I think about the war in Iraq? This is both an easy and a difficult question to give an answer to.

MARINA NAZZARO Cell. 347.8159393 [email protected] Biennio di Specializzazione in Traduzione Letteraria THE WAR IN IRAQ What do I think about the war in Iraq? This is both an easy and a difficult question to give an answer to. Easy because war should be abhorred by everyone and should never be taken into account as a solution for whatever kind of problem may rise on the face of Earth. And this is my position. But it is also difficult because, unfortunately, when economical interests are at stake ? and this is true for this war as it was true for the wars of the past ? man seems to forget how terrible it is to bring death, destruction and devastation to many and many innocent people and he seems to keep just power and money in his mind. For it is clear that this is a war for oil, whose real reason has been well hidden behind an anti-terrorism propaganda, built ? in a quite disgusting way, I dare say ? on the wave of the feelings of anguish and fear born on September 11, when the Manhattan Twin Towers were destroyed. Even if terrorism was the real cause for this war, it would be a mistake to believe it can be destroyed through this kind of military action because ? and most experts assert this ? terrorism is not the expression of a centralized and hierarchical power which plans its actions, but it rather has its own characteristics, developing itself in a myriad

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Homosexual Etymology: The History, Terminology and Movements of Gay and Lesbian.

Homosexual Etymology: The History, Terminology and Movements of "Gay" and "Lesbian." The language of the gays has debuted immensely into society's vernacular in the past two decades. Words such as gay, homosexual, faggot, lesbian and dyke are at least known if not accepted throughout the entire country. Extensive work researching these words and this language has been appearing in such places as women's studies, anthropology, and speech communication since the 1940s. This essay will review the research that has been done on the etymology of the word gay and lesbian and the terminology involved with, around and inside the gay and lesbian culture. Homosexual is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "of or involving sexual activity with a member of one's own sex." The prefix homo is not from the Latin homo "man" but from the Greek homos, which means "the same," thus giving the word homosexual its definition of "same sex relationship." It seems that the word homosexual is not as highly accepted because it seems to emphasizes the word as just a sexuality but not as a cultural and social attitude which gay and lesbians considered themselves to have. (Safire). The Oxford English Dictionary does defines gay as a slang noun that originated in the United States meaning "homosexual." It originally meant "exuberantly cheerful." The word "homosexual" was coined in 1870 and

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Influences of Native American Languages on American English.

MARINA NAZZARO Cell. 347-8159393 [email protected] Biennio di Specializzazione in Traduzione Letteraria RESEARCH: INFLUENCES OF NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES ON AMERICAN ENGLISH American English is one variety of "World English", a term which comprehends the language spoken in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, India, the West Indies and in other countries that were once part of the British Empire. One major factor that distinguishes one variety of World English from another is the nature of the colonization. The United States resemble Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that the large indigenous populations in these areas were quickly conquered, economically oppressed, and subject to European diseases that decimated them. As a result, the people who speak English in these countries are largely descended from English immigrants and other immigrants who assimilated to the local variety of English. The relatively small native populations speak their own variety of English but have added little to Australian or American standards in the way of substrate. That is not the case in the other places mentioned. Ireland, India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa are among the major English-speaking nations of the world, but in each case the dynamic is one of a few colonists imposing their language on a large number of native people. In most

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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How to Speak Like a New Englander

Jennifer Chung (2005654208) ENGL2104 - Rowe 6 May 2008 Research Paper How to Speak Like a New Englander Many people assume that the New England accent is basically the Boston accent as the city is considered to be the life of the region, but this is a false assumption. There are in fact several accents and varieties which can be found and the Boston accent is only one of them. Granted, the famous accent in Massachusetts is the most prominent and influential accent but it does not completely represent the neighbouring five states which includes Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island. This essay will delve into the history of New England and how it affected the phonological and lexical development of New England speech. . History and Geography of New England The New England expansion all started with Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. The English Puritans fled Lincolnshire due to religions persecution and sailed to the United States on the Mayflower. They were later joined by the English Separatists who situated themselves in the Massachusetts Bay Colony about a decade later. The population then was only around a few hundred. By the second half of the nineteenth century, masses of immigrants flooded New England. The Irish fled to Boston because of the potato famine and they were soon joined by Italians, Russian, Polish, Lithuanians, Greeks, Armenians

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Misogyny in Hamlet

Misogyny in Hamlet In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, accuses women of being unfaithful, uncaring, and incestuous creatures. These feelings are reflected towards his mother, Gertrude. Hamlet becomes a misogynist mainly because he witnesses the manner in which his mother behaves throughout the course of the play. Queen Gertrude's relationship with Hamlet's murderous uncle Claudius, leads Hamlet to abhor women and female sexuality, and long for a misleading, wholly righteous mother figure (Heilbrun 1957). Her ability to be easily manipulated help influence Hamlet's prejudiced beliefs about women. Hamlet's attitude and feelings towards his mother, Gertrude, illustrates central importance to the play with regards to the motif of misogyny. Hamlet most definitely believes that his father was indeed a better husband and king towards his mother Gertrude. In Hamlet's first soliloquy of the play, aside from suffering over his father's death, he is shown praising his father's life, "...So excellent a king, that was to this / Hyperion to a satyr" (I.ii.139-140). By comparing his father and Claudius to the sun god Hyperion and the half human half goat called the satyr, Hamlet is clearly implying how inferior he feels Claudius is as king in comparison to his father. By calling Claudius a satyr he is also insisting his lustfulness. As Hamlet proceeds to

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Bilingual Lexical and Conceptual Memory Representation

Bilingual Lexical and Conceptual Memory Representation: A Critical Review Abstract The major purpose of this review is to critically evaluate the asymmetry model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) concerning whether word translation is based on a lexical level or is achieved through conceptual mediation. This model assumes that forward translation (from the first language to the second language) is mainly conceptually mediated, whereas backward translation (from the second language to the first language) is comprehended through direct lexical path. Variables that condition conceptual/semantic processing will therefore have a larger effect on forward than backward translation. This paper first describes the main features derived from the asymmetry model with an overview of various evidence-based sources. It then considers the generalizability of the model with a critical appraisal of controversial evidences due to different experimental paradigms and semantic variations. Further, it illustrates semantic variations in word translation process by comparing and contrasting performances of bilinguals in different orthographic systems, namely Chinese and English. Finally, the paper proposes other experimental paradigms for testing Chinese-English bilingual lexical and conceptual representations. Key words: word translation, lexical activation, conceptual mediation, bilingual memory

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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It may be easier for infants to communicate in a visual method such as sign language as opposed to spoken language, but what difference, if any, is made in the long term? Teaching typically developing infants to sign as an aid has been known to be success

From the earliest moments of a baby's life, it is common for parents to want the best for their child. On the contrary, there are the parents who want their babies to be the best. In the 1981 book, The Hurried Child, author Dr. David Elkind warns that children were being asked to grow up too fast. This was the premise of the book, the fact that parents were pushing their children too far, and too fast. Dr. Elkind's book became an instant classic, and it seems that recently the trend of "super babies" has only intensified (The Hurried Infant). There are various studies, theories, trends, products, and techniques aiming to expand the powers and abilities of the infant brain. The popular trend of brain enrichment practices for infants can be linked back approximately 15 years ago, when the parenting community started to learn about something called the "Mozart Effect" (Mitchell 28:3-4). The "Mozart Effect" was a conclusion of one study of college students who had listened to ten minutes of a Mozart sonata before taking a test, and appeared to score slightly higher marks in doing so (Mitchell 28:3-4). Through this conclusion, parents were encouraged to play classical music for their babies, to help enhance spatial-reasoning and memory. The "Mozart Effect" was controversial, as there were many attempts to replicate the results of the original test, but most were unsuccessful.

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Discuss the implications of the global spread of English for the learning and teaching of the language.

eTMA 06 (Units 17-23) (1500 words) Wednesday, April 13th 2011 Question Part 1 Explain the meaning of the following terms, using examples from the U211 materials and any relevant examples of your own. Lingua franca is a language that is used as a medium of communication by people who do not usually speak that language themselves, for instance, English is a lingua franca used by Chinese people doing business with Germans or Italians. Numerous Lingua Francas of the world are pidgin or trade languages, such as Tok Pisin, which came to be the official language of Papua New Guinea. The development of a specific language as a lingua franca depends on the socio-economic and political conditions of the time. For example, during the middle ages, Latin was the lingua franca of Europe which was later succeeded by French. Today English has become a global lingua franca due to colonization, technological developments, improved communications and the forces of globalization. According to Nelson (1999) 'The status of English is such that it has been adopted as the world's lingua franca for communication in Olympic sport, international trade, and air-traffic control. Unlike any other language, past or present, English has spread to all five continents and has become a truly global language'. Word Count: 175 Standard English is the type of English that is in its grammar, syntax,

  • Word count: 1688
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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