The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Creation of a Politicize

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Creation of a Politicized Female Reform Culture In 1879, a group of evangelical churchwomen, all members of the Illinois Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), presented to their state legislature a massive petition asking that Illinois women be granted the right to vote. The architect of this ambitious petition campaign, which resulted in 180,000 signatures of support, was Frances Willard, then president of the Illinois WCTU. In using her position as a prominent WCTU leader to agitate for enfranchisement of women, Willard went against the express commands of the National WCTU and its president, Annie Wittenmeyer, who had made clear only one year earlier that the WCTU would not involve itself in any way with the suffrage movement. Willard’s efforts to build support for suffrage within the WCTU were only a part of a larger pattern of change. During the 1880s, WCTU members constructed a highly politicized women’s reform culture that supported both women’s enfranchisement and political partisanshi p. This essay looks at the first four years of this culture through some of the people and events that were most crucial to its growth. Founded in 1874, the late nineteenth century WCTU quickly became one of the most powerful reform organizations in the United States. By the mid-1880s, the WCTU boasted a membership near 100,000 and chapters in every state and territory, making it the first truly national women’s organization in the country. The size and influence of the WCTU during this period was unprecedented; no other women’s reform organization had ever had its power and scope. For the first time, tens of thousands of women were entering the public sphere as agitators a... ...olitical—particularly in the South and, to a lesser extent, in small towns in the North—the national chapter’s unswerving devotion to politicized reform created a culture that encompassed—but minimally infringed upon—even non-political WCTUs. Although temperance women’s alliance with the Prohibition party failed to result in their enfranchisement, or in a influential political party led by women, (the party’s influence peaked in 1884, and by 1892 it was once again of negligible political importance), the WCTU nevertheless helped shape a distinct political sphere for women. And the extensive amount of â€Å"moral† legislation that WCTU women successfully agitated for at the state and local levels, such as prohibition, blue laws, age of consent, school suffrage for women, and scientific temperance education in public schools is evidence of how strong that culture was.

Applied linguistics Essay

Applied linguistics 1 History The term applied linguistics dates back at least to the 1940s in the USA when linguists applied analytical methods to the practical problems of producing grammars and phrasebooks and developing language courses. 2 What Is Applied Linguistics? Applied linguistics: (1) was interdisciplinary, drawing on psychology, sociology, and pedagogy as well as theoretical linguistics; (2) included a range of fields including lexicography, stylistics, speech pathol ogy, translation, language policy, and planning among others; (3) performed a mediating function between theory and practice. Ð pplied linguistics must take into consideration the nature of language and the nature of the particular world in which language is used, the beliefs, social institutions, and culture of its users, and how these influence language use. Ideally, the job of an applied linguist is to diagnose a problem in real-world language use, bring the insights of linguistics to bear on the problem, and suggest solutions. 3 Relation of Theory and Practice: the Case of Language Teaching The applied linguist stands at the intersection of theory and practice, but it is not always clear how the applied linguist mediates between the two. This suggests a one-way street in which theory is at the starting point, and the applied linguist directs traffic from theory to practice. Influenced by structuralism in linguistics and by behaviorism in psychology, applied linguists believed that language was a collection of discrete learnable structures, speaking was primary, and learning a language was a matter of correct habit formation. To inculcate correct habits, teachers drilled students incessantly in correct pronunciation and patterned practice of grammatical structures. Under the influence of the theoretical work of Noam Chomsky, applied  linguists saw language learning as a cognitive process of hypothesis testing, in which errors indicated the stage of the language learner’s interlanguage. Instead, knowing a language means knowing how to communicate in the language; it involves acquiring â€Å"communicative competence. † A richer model of the relationship among theory, practice, and applied linguistics sees it as a two-way street in which the applied linguist directs traffic from theory into practice and from practice into theory. Similarly in applied linguistics, practice provides a testing ground for theory,  but it is more than that: real-world language use provides new questions and issues requiring new theories. 4 Recent Range of Inquiry Nevertheless, the central characteristics of applied linguistics remain: (1) focus on contextualized language use; (2) application of theory to practice and vice versa; (3) practical problem-based approach; (4) multidisciplinary perspective. 4. 1 Second language teaching and cross-cultural linguistics 2Accurate description of language use with the ultimate goal of teaching has motivated research in cross-cultural discourse and pragmatics. Concentration on  spoken language, combined with speech act theory among others, has engendered numerous research projects in applied linguistics investigating specific speech acts such as making requests and apologies in different languages and cultures. Applied linguists have examined the development of pragmatic competence in second language learners and the possibilities for teaching pragmatics. 4. 2 Language use in context: contributions of discourse analysis Outside the area of language pedagogy, the burgeoning of discourse analysis has provided a means whereby linguistic insight can be applied to real-world situations. Other institutional and professional settings, too, have come under scrutiny from applied linguists using theoretical constructs to explain how language is used in real-world settings such as commerce, employment, and public services. A field that has developed considerably in recent years in response to societal concerns is the investigation of language and gender. Recent empirical studies have enriched understanding of the interrelationship of language and gender and demonstrated that generalizations about male and female speech are unreliable when the particular communicative contexts in which the speech occurs have not been examined. Other work has examined gender and language cross-culturally and in specific institutional settings. 4. 3 Language maintenance and endangered languages and dialects The work of applied linguists on endangered or minority languages and dialects brings together field linguistics, anthropology, sociolinguistics and education. For example, a longitudinal study of language use and cultural context draws together sociolinguistic research into language use, research in language socialization, and second language acquisition research into educational discourse. It is not only minority languages that are under threat, but also dialects. 2. Contemporary linguistic approaches: Clinical, forensic, computational linguistics ( Ð ²Ã'‹Ã'‡Ð ¸Ã' Ã »Ã ¸Ã'‚Ð µÃ »Ã'Å'Ð ½Ã °Ã'  )( 29, 30, 25) We have chosen to focus on four relatively popular areas of inquiry: †¢ syntactic parsing; †¢ discourse analysis; †¢ computational morphology and phonology; †¢ corpus-based methods. Parsing and discourse analysis have had the longest continuous history of investigation. Computational morphology and phonology began to grow as a separate discipline in the mid-1980s. Corpus-based approaches were investigated as early as the 1960s. 1 Parsing (Ã'€Ð °Ã ·Ã ±Ã ¾Ã'€) Parsing is the act of determining the â€Å"syntactic structure† of a sentence. The goal is to represent â€Å"who did what to whom† in the sentence. Parsing involves tagging 3the words with an appropriate syntactic category and determining their relationships to each other. Words are grouped into phrase-like constituents, which are arranged into clauses and sentences. Machine translation systems employ parsing to derive representations of the input that are sufficient for transfer from the source to target language at either the syntactic or semantic level. A great deal of attention – to the application of syntactic parsing models for language modeling for automatic speech recognition. 2 Discourse Analysis. The area of discourse analysis is concerned with inferring the intended meanings of utterances. In order for the dialogue participants to successfully carry out a dialogue, they must be able to recognize the intentions of the other participant’s utterances, and to produce their responses in such a way that will enable the other participant(s) to recognize their intentions. A recipe is a generic template for performing a particular action. The recipe library contains a collection of generic recipes, and during discourse understanding, the plan inference module attempts to infer utterance intentions and relationships using  information provided by this library. 3 Computational Morphology and Phonology Roughly speaking, the topics can be classified into computational morphology, which treats the analysis of word structure; and computational phonology, which, deals with the changes in sound patterns that take place when words are put together. 4 Corpus-based Methods The word corpus in linguistics is typically a collection of texts. Corpora have been widely used by linguists to identify and analyze language phenomena, and to verify or refute claims about language. However, a corpus also reveals important  quantitative information about the distribution of various language phenomena. 29 Clinical Linguistics Clinical linguistics is the application of the linguistic sciences to the study of language disability. 1 Identifying Linguistic Symptoms Attention has now come to be focused on important symptoms of language disability, and to those aspects of the problem which have been ignored or misdiagnosed. â€Å"Less noticeable† refers to any feature other than the audible qualities of pronunciation, the order and omission of surface grammatical elements, and the actual items which constitute vocabulary. These features exclude  most of the properties of phonological systems, the sense relations between lexical items, the constraints operating on discourse in interaction, and the many ramifications of underlying syntactic structure. All of these play a major part in identifying the various kinds of language disability. The use of a clinical linguistic frame of reference has also enabled people to make progress in identifying disorders of language comprehension. That requires careful testing and the controlling of variables. Disorders of a pragmatic kind, likewise, 4 have often remained undiagnosed, or have been misdiagnosed as problems of a  psychological or social behavioral type. 2 The Role of Clinical Linguistics 2. 2 Description A major area of clinical linguistic research has been to provide ways of describing and analyzing the linguistic behavior of patients, and of the clinicians and others who interact with them. 2. 3 Diagnosis An important aim of clinical linguistics is to provide a classification of patient linguistic behaviors. This can provide an alternative diagnostic model, and one which is more able to provide insights about intervention in cases where there is no clear evidence of any medical condition. 2. 4 Assessment (Ð ¾Ã'†Ð µÃ ½Ã ºÃ °). Clinical linguistics has also been much involved in devising more sophisticated assessments of abnormal linguistic behavior. A diagnosis tells us what is â€Å"wrong† with a patient; an assessment tells us just how seriously the patient is â€Å"wrong. † 2. 5 Intervention The ultimate goal is to formulate hypotheses for the remediation (Ð ¾Ã ·Ã ´Ã ¾Ã'€Ð ¾Ã ²Ã »Ã µÃ ½Ã ¸Ã µ) of abnormal linguistic behavior. Not all aspects of a patient’s problem are directly relevant to the need for linguistically based intervention, clinical linguistics can help clinicians to make an informed judgment about â€Å"what to teach next,† and to monitor the outcome of an intervention hypothesis, as  treatment proceeds. To a large extent, moving well beyond the patient’s language, to include an investigation of the language used by the person(s) carrying out the intervention, the kind of teaching materials used, and the setting in which the interaction takes place. 3 Linguistic Insights The chief aim of clinical linguistics is to provide the clinician with increasing levels of insight and confidence in arriving at linguistic decisions. The three pillars of any clinical linguistic approach: description – grading – intervention. All change needs to be regularly monitored, to demonstrate that progress is being made – this  is the task of assessment. The keeping of comprehensive linguistic records is a further priority, without which the efficacy of intervention can never be demonstrated. Forensic Linguistics Now linguists also have begun examining voice identification, authorship of written documents, unclear jury instructions, the asymmetry of power in courtroom exchanges, lawyer–client communication breakdown, the nature of perjury, problems in written legal discourse, defamation, trademark infringement, courtroom interpretation and translation difficulties, the adequacy of warning  labels, and the nature of tape recorded conversation used as evidence. 1 Trademark Infringement Typically, they respond to requests of attorneys to help them with their law cases. 2 Product Liability 5But the linguist, calling on knowledge of discourse analysis, semantics, and pragmatics, can determine the extent to which the message was clear and unambiguous and point out the possible meanings that the message presents. Once this is done, it is up to the attorney to determine whether or not to ask the linguist to testify at trial. 3 Speaker Identification Linguists have been used by attorneys in matters of voice identification. If the tapes are of sufficient quality, spectographic analysis is possible. If not, the linguist may rely on training and skills in phonetics to make the comparison. 4 Authorship of Written Documents Law enforcement agencies process provide a â€Å"psychological profile† of the person. Calling on knowledge of language indicators of such things as regional and social dialect, age, gender, education, and occupation, linguists analyze documents for broad clues to the identity of the writer. Stylistic analysis centers on a writer’s habitual language features over which the writer has little or no conscious awareness. 5 Criminal Cases Suspects are recorded with court authorized wire taps placed that none of the speakers is aware of being taped, or by using body microphones and engage suspects in conversation. If the law enforcement agency is concerned about the adequacy of the language evidence that they have gathered, they may call on a linguist to make transcripts of the conversations, analyze them. The tape recorded conversation itself points to the use of the other tools of the forensic linguist, including syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, dialectology, and discourse analysis. 3. Discourse analysis (17) Discourse analysis is concerned with the contexts in and the processes through which we use oral and written language to specific audiences, for specific purposes, in specific settings. 1 What Is Discourse? A Preliminary Characterization The big D concerns general ways of viewing the world and general ways of behaving, the small d concerns actual, specific language use. Discourse analysis emphasizes that language is not merely a self-contained system of symbols but a mode of doing, being, and becoming. Discourse research can be divided into 2 major types of inquiries: (1) why some but not other linguistic forms are used on  given occasions and (2) what are the linguistic resources for accomplishing various social, affective, and cognitive actions and interactions. 2 Communicative Motivations for the Selection of Linguistic Forms Language is inseparable from other aspects of our life and that the selection of linguistic forms should be explained in terms of authentic human communicative needs (i. e. , social, interactional, cognitive, affective needs). 2. 1 Context 6One of the first questions is what is happening in this stretch of talk, who the participants are, where they are, and why they are there. Linguistic choices are  systematically motivated by contextual factors. Context is a complex of 3 dimensions: First, the field of social action in which the discourse is embedded. Second, the set of role relations among the participants. And third, the role of language in the interaction. In this view, language is a system of choices made on the basis of a contextual configuration which accounts for field, tenor, and mode. 2. 3 Speech act What kind of speech act utterance is and whether this act is accomplished through direct or indirect means. Speech act theory says that language is used not only to describe things but to do things as well. Further, utterances act on 3 different levels: the literal level (locutionary act), the implied level (illocutionary act), and the consequence of the implied act (perlocutionary act). 2. 4 Scripts / plans Script is to describe the knowledge that we have of the structure of stereotypical event sequences. If such knowledge can be described in a formal way, then we may have a theory of how humans process natural language. 2. 5 Referentiality How entities (Ð »Ã ¸Ã'†Ð °) are referred to in utterances. Some analysts are interested in how referential forms make a stretch of discourse cohesive in form and coherent in meaning. 2. 6 Topicality and thematicity What is an utterance about, what is the starting point of a message, what is the focus of a message. Topic – the part of the utterance about which something is said. Prague School linguists developed the functional sentence perspective which says that word order has to do with how informative each element in the utterance is – communicative dynamism, or CD. A sentence begins with elements with the lowest CD and ends with those with the highest CD. Theme is the part of the utterance with the lowest degree of CD. 2. 7 Sequential organization The sequential context of the utterance. Discourse analysts have sought to explain linguistic choices in terms of ethnographic contexts, knowledge structure, rhetorical organization, communicative intentions, textual organization, information management and sequential organization, among others. Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, and More Discourse analysts research various aspects of language not as an end in itself, but as a means to explore ways in which language forms are shaped by and shape the contexts of their use. Further, discourse analysis draws upon not only linguistics, but also anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, and  other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences concerned with human communication. Discourse analysis promotes a view of language which says that 7 Resource Center Saved Recents Uploads My Answers Account Products Home Essays Drive Answers Texty About Company Legal Site Map Contact Us Advertise  ©2016 StudyMode. com HOME  > ESSAYS  > LINGUISTICS  > LINGUISTICS Linguistics Applied linguistics, Discourse analysis, Language By maor87 Apr 17, 2015 6489Words 150Views More info PDF View Text View PAGE8 OF 18 language use is not only reflective of other aspects of our lives but is also constitutive of them. As it draws insights from various disciplines, it also contributes to interfacing linguistics with other domains of inquiries, such that we might now investigate the construction of culture through conversation or program computers to generate interactive texts based on our understanding of the rules and principles of human interaction. It focusses on language as it is used by real people with real intentions, emotions. 4. Linguistics and pragmatics (16) The Puzzle of Language Use: How Do We Ever Understand Each Other? Pragmatics is the study of communication – the study of how language is used. This study is based on the assumption of a division between knowledge of language and the way it is used; and the goal of pragmatics is providing a set of principles which dictate how knowledge of language and general reasoning interact in the process of language understanding, to give rise to different kinds of effects which can be achieved in communication. Pragmatics as the Application of Conversational Principles to Sentence Meanings The starting point for studies in pragmatics is the mismatch between what words â€Å"mean, and what speakers â€Å"mean† by using them. There is the knowledge of  language, which dictates the meanings of words and the ways in which they can combine. This is called the encoded meaning. On the other hand, there are pragmatic principles which enable a hearer to establish some different interpretation – the nonencoded part of meaning. Moreover, given the full array of rhetorical effects such as metaphor, irony, etc. , all of which are uses of expressions in context in some sense, the proposed approach maintains a natural separation between literal uses of words, which are reflected in sentence-meanings, and the various non-literal uses to which they may be put. Knowledge of language: sentence-meanings as partial specifications of interpretation The problem for this â€Å"clean† view is that we use commonsense reasoning, whatever this consists in, not merely in working out why a speaker has said something, but also in establishing what she has said in using the words chosen. The overall picture of interpretation is that grammar-internal principles articulate both syntactic and semantic structure for sentences, a semantic structure for a sentence being an incomplete specification of how it is understood. Pragmatic theory explains how such incomplete specifications are enriched in context to yield  the full communicative effect of an uttered sentence, whether metaphorical, ironical, and so on. The Process of Reasoning: How Do Hearers ever Manage to Choose the Right Interpretation? Grice’s cooperative principle and the conversational maxims According to Grice who was the pioneer of the inferential approach to conversation, there is a general assumption underpinning all utterance interpretation that the interpretation of utterances is a collaborative enterprise. This 8collaborative enterprise is structured by a number of maxims, which speakers are presumed to obey: †¢ The maxim of quality: do not say that for which you lack evidence; do not say what you believe to be false. †¢ The maxim of relevance: be relevant. †¢ The maxim of quantity: make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more so. †¢ The maxim of manner: be perspicuous (avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly). Grice articulated the maxims as a means of simplifying the overall account of the relation between the use of language in logical arguments and the conversational use of language. Relevance theory This theory claims to characterize pragmatic phenomena in terms of a single  cognitive concept, that of relevance, replacing the social underpinnings of Grice’s cooperative principle. The principle of relevance Optimal relevance is getting the right balance between size and type of context and amount of information derived. The more information some stimulus yields, the more relevant it is said to become, but the more effort the interpretation of that stimulus requires, the less relevant it will become. And to be minimally relevant a stimulus must lead to at least one non-trivial inference being derived. However interpretation of an act of communication involves two agents – the  speaker and the hearer. The constraint of balancing cognitive effect with cognitive effort will also apply to what the hearer does, but here the task of interpretation is more specific because the hearer has to try and recover what the speaker intended to convey. There are two aspects to the task: 1 Decoding the information associated with an uttered expression– i. e. working out what words have been said and the information that they by definition carry. 2 Making choices which enrich that encoded information to establish what the speaker had intended to convey using those words. Relevance and speech acts  On the speech act view of language, language can best be understood in terms of acts such as these which speakers carry out in using language. The observation by speech act theorists that there is more to language than just describing things is quite uncontentious. Nonetheless, in relevance theory, where the type of implications that can be drawn is quite unrestricted, there is no need of any special discrete categories for such different kinds of act. 5. Linguistic typology and its directions (14) 1 The Diversity of Human Languages The field of linguistic typology explores the diversity of human language in an  effort to understand it. The basic principle behind typology is that one must look at as wide a range of languages as possible in order to grasp both the diversity of 9language and to discover its limits. Typology uses a fundamentally empirical, comparative, and inductive method in the study of language. That is, typologists examine grammatical data from a wide variety of languages, and infer generalizations about language from that data. The basic discovery of typology is that there are limits to linguistic diversity. By comparing diverse languages and discovering universal grammatical patterns, one can attempt to disentangle what is  universal about the grammars languages from what is peculiar to each individual language. 2 The Nature of Language Universals: Word Order One of the first areas of grammar where it was recognized that there are limits to grammatical diversity was the order of words. Word order is probably the most immediately salient difference in grammatical patterns from one language to the next. First, one must examine a sample of languages in order to infer the range of grammatical diversity and its limits. A variety sample collects as broad a range of languages as possible from different geographical areas and different genetic  groupings. Its purpose is to ensure that all possible language types are identified. Second, one must be able to identify phenomena from one language to the next as comparable. The basic problem here is the great variety of grammatical structures used in the world’s languages. The solution to this problem is due to another insight of structuralism: the basic unit of the language is the sign, a form that conventionally expresses or encodes a meaning. The basis for cross-linguistic comparison is a particular linguistic meaning; once that is identified, we may examine the different structures used to encode that meaning. Third, we must identify a range of grammatical patterns or types used to express the linguistic meaning being examined, and classify languages according to what type(s) is / are used in them. For instance, in describing word order of the sentence, the relative position of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V) are used to classify language types. Language structure is determined by factors of language use, such as processing. Language structure is also determined by historical relationships among grammatical patterns, which themselves are due to similarity in meaning. However, these factors do not uniquely determine a language structure, but  compete with each other. Speech communities resolve the competing motivations in arbitrary, language-particular ways; this leads to the diversity of languages found in the world. 3 Language Universals and the Formal Encoding of Meaning Word order universals appear to be motivated in terms of processing of linguistic structure in the act of producing and comprehending language. Word order is a fundamental grammatical property of sentences. 3. 1 Typological markedness and morphological representation 10Some of the earliest work in typology examined the coding of grammatical and  lexical concepts in inflected word forms. The universals go under the name of (typological) markedness. Typological markedness represents an asymmetric pattern of the expression of meaning in grammatical categories across languages. Typological markedness has two central characteristics. First, typological markedness is a property of conceptual categories – e. g. singular and plural – or more precisely, how those conceptual categories are expressed in languages. For number, the singular is unmarked and the plural is marked. Second, unmarked status does not imply that the unmarked member is always left unexpressed and the marked member is always expressed by an overt morpheme. The presence / absence of an overt inflection encoding a conceptual category is only one symptom of markedness, namely structural coding. Typological markedness is found in another aspect of the coding of concepts in words and constructions. Most words in sentences express more than one conceptual category. Pronouns in English, for instance, can express gender as well as number. In English, neither the singular nor plural pronouns express number by a separate inflection; instead number is implicitly expressed by distinct forms such as he and  they. The grammatical coding of additional, cross-cutting, distinctions in the singular but not in the plural is an example of the second symptom of markedness, called behavioral potential. Behavioral potential is also represented by an implicational universal: If the marked member of a category grammatically expresses a crosscutting distinction, so does the unmarked member. A third property of typological markedness points to its underlying explanation. The unmarked member is more frequent than the marked member in language use. Concepts that occur more frequently in language use (e. g. singular) will tend to be expressed by fewer morphemes than less frequently occurring concepts (e. g. plural). This explanation for how meaning is encoded in grammatical form is a processing explanation, called economy or economic motivation. 3. 2 Hierarchies and conceptual spaces We can describe the cross-linguistic distribution of plural markings across classes of pronouns and nouns with the animacy hierarchy. The hierarchy is a succinct way to capture a chain of implicational universals: if any class of words has a plural, then all the classes to the left (or higher) on the hierarchy have a plural. These  patterns are defined over a conceptual space. The conceptual space describes a network of relationships among conceptual categories which exist in the human mind and which constrains how conceptual categories are expressed in grammar. Grammatical change must follow the links in conceptual space. For instance, a plural marking spreads from left to right in the animacy space. Conceptual spaces specify what grammatical category groupings are found in, and how constructions spread (or retreat) over time in their application to grammatical categories. If we compare absence vs. presence of case marking on nouns for the grammatical  11 relations hierarchy, we find that absence of case marking occurs at he higher end of the hierarchy, and presence thereof at the lower end of the hierarchy. The grammatical relations hierarchy also defines the distribution of verb agreement across languages. Verb agreement is associated with the higher end of the grammatical relations hierarchy – the ability to trigger verb agreement indicates the greater behavioral potential of the grammatical relation. These facts demonstrate that the two grammatical relations hierarchies in fact reflect a deeper cross-linguistic universal pattern, found in many different parts of the grammar of languages. 3. 3 Economy and iconicity Economic motivation: the more frequently used category is more likely to be reduced in expression or left unexpressed. Iconic motivation – the structure of language reflects the structure of concepts. In the example, each conceptual category, both singular and plural, are overtly encoded in the word form. A subtype of iconicity called isomorphism: the correspondence between forms and meanings. There are two ways in which isomorphism occur in human languages. The first way is in the correspondence of forms and meanings in the combination of words and inflections in a sentence. This is called syntagmatic isomorphism. Economic and iconic motivation compete to produce the range of attested and unattested correspondences between form and meaning. There are 3 predicted patterns. Overt expression is iconically motivated: there is a one-to-one correspondence between meanings and forms. However, it is only moderately economically motivated: it is more economical than expressing a meaning with more than one word or morpheme, but less economical than not expressing the meaning at all. Non-expression of a particular meaning, such as the singular of English nouns like car-O (vs.plural book-s), is economically motivated: zero expression breaks one-to-one correspondence between forms and meanings. The third possible option, zero marking of both singular and plural, corresponds to the absence of expression of the category. This option is economically motivated: either the meaning can be inferred from context, or it is not relevant to the communication. There is another economically motivated pattern of expressing meaning in form: the combination or fusion of discrete meanings in a single form. For example, the suffix -s in English run-s indicates 3rd person subject, singular  subject and present tense, all in a single suffix. In other languages, inflectional categories are found in separate suffixes, as in Turkish. The second type of isomorphism is the correspondence between form and meaning in the inventory of words stored in the mind; paradigmatic isomorphism. 12The possible means of expression of meanings in words are limited by economy and iconicity. Unmotivated possibility: the existence of more than one word with the same meaning, synonymy. It is not iconically motivated. A one-to-one match between a word and a meaning is called monosemy. It isiconic ally motivated but not that economically motivated: we would need very many words to express each discrete meaning. Homonymy is economically motivated, but it is not iconically motivated (many unrelated meanings are expressed by a single form). By far the most common state of affairs in languages, however, is polysemy: the grouping of related meanings under a single form. Polysemy is economically motivated because it subsumes several meanings under a single form, as with homonymy. It is iconically motivated, because the meanings are related. 4 The Dynamic Approach to Language Universals The most common word.

Costco Wholesale Essay

1. Executive Summary Costco Wholesale Corporation founded in 1983 by Jim Sinegal in Seatle Washington with a vision & mission â€Å"to continually provide members with quality of goods and services at the lowest possible price control inventory.† Part of their strategy include direct buying relationship that ensures an efficient & strong SC management, high standard staffing plans, high quality products at lower prices and assessable to members who are considered more loyal. Efforts are made to develop strategic options in line with these strategies while focusing on the supply chain parameters that span from order placement to receipt of goods at the warehouse and made available to customers in the warehouse shop floor using the most cost effective processes in order to ensure they support the mission of the company. By assessing Costco’s external opportunities and threats as well as the internal strengths and weaknesses (using SWOT & Porter’s Five Forces analysis), one can infer they are doing well within their industry. More options were generated to increase sales and awareness of the retail warehouses. The report concludes with recommendations for Costco to sustain it’s market edge and advance by expanding into the European & Asian markets more as their presence is still very weak in these regions as well as add other services & goods to their already existing list. 2. Introduction Costco Wholesale Corporation founded in 1983 within the retail industry is the largest warehouse club in the world based on sales volume. A major wholesale business offering three levels of membership and the largest wholesale club operator in the US with membership/warehouse locations spread across Asia, Europe, North & South America with headquarters based in Washington, US. Their main competitors operating membership warehouses include Sam’s Club & BJ’s wholesale club. Jim Sinegal, the founder defines the company vision as â€Å"giving the best to the customer at the best value possible†. Here best value (in quality of goods & services offered) at low prices are the driving force. Costco backs up it’s products with a return policy within a time frame of average 90 days, a highly endearing attraction to it’s members. The business model focuses on low prices & volume purchase in order to achieve profit at low margin with stores offering discounts on an average of 4,000 products out of which roughly a thousand are ‘treasure hunt’ referring to goods that are scarcely available for purchase always. Volume purchase from few vendors yielding further reduction in price and lowers cost in marketing. With low prices, quality goods in limited selection based on forecast lead to quick turnover in inventory. The high volume purchase and efficient network distribution yield efficiency in operations for Costco. With a stipulated membership fee, Costco warehouses are designed to help small to medium size businesses reduce purchasing costs as well as serving large families with the goods packaged in bulk ranging from alcoholic beverages, electronics, fresh food/produce, household & office supplies, pharmaceuticals & tires. Also available are special memberships with services like car & home insuranc e, mortgage and real estate services, and packages for travels. 3.Purpose and Main Areas Of the Research (Concepts & Techniques) Analyzing the supply chain operations at Costco wholesales, in line with the business focus while limiting to it’s supply chain operations strategy for maintaining a competitive edge as it relates to SC operations (from sourcing to arrival on pallets and or display at their various warehouses racks), their challenges and options for improvement will be the focus of this report. The following issues will form questions that will give a frame for this report: †¢ What are the key issues facing Costco in line with (efficient) Supply Chain Operations? †¢ What would be options to compete with these issues?  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Which options best suits the business focus and would yield better growth financially? The sections thereafter will consider trying to answer the questions above by applying SWOT analysis (see appendix 1) and Porter’s five forces framework (see appendix 2). Areas needing improvement will be obvious from such, options that would generate better performance after localizing issues peculiar to Costco. These would ultimately lead to clear recommendations for Costco’s improvement. Due to inaccessibility of authentic and current data for successive years on sales, further analysis could not be carried out to compare Costco for accurate sales assessment in the last three years or compare with the other two leading club wholesalers (Sam’s & BJs). Identifying, analyzing key parameters with Supply chain operations processes at Costco and suggest areas of possible improvement. Inventory Management: Since good are moved straight to the selling floor and inventory is not held by Costco but managed by vendors, inventory & labor cost of handling is avoided. In their meat & grocery section for instance, they focus on low-price & high volume strategies hence, Costco carry very limited amounts of grocery & perishables whereas Wal-Mart is known to have weakness in the area of perishables (Petrak, 2006) Partnership/Collaboration with suppliers: Costco has buying relationships with many producers of national brands and are supplied directly from suppliers routing to the warehouses of docking points that serve as distribution points. Partnership market is an attribute of Costco, for instance by partnering with American Express to create a Costco-AMEX credit card, discounts & cash cards as offered to customers while Costco markets Amex cards, thereby helping them to acquire more customers. Distribution Strategies/Transportation: The redesign of product packages to fit into pallets and thereby maximize space has led to reduction of trucks used to transport goods. Cross-docking of goods by delivering directly to Costco stores while some are kept in the distribution centers saves a lot of time & cost along the SC. Utilization of buzzers for truck drives at delivery points to indicate when trucks have been unloaded can save time as against the truck driver’s physical movement within the warehouse is a time saver. Their warehouses are not situated on prime locations hence cost is saved from unnecessary high property cost; again, they own over 80% of the warehouses. Green Logistics: Costco Kirkland signature has launched eco friendly cleaning products. It maximizes the use of solar power in it’s warehouses, it’s delivery trucks are better packaged to allow maximization of space so as to reduce fleets of transportation and hence environmental pollution. Energy is better conserved with timed lighting and construction of warehouses that can maximize skylight during the day. Food products are packaged in recyclable and more environmentally friendly materials. Customers are paid to recycle their old electronics at the green sight. Information Technology: This retailer prides itself in it’s connection of all warehouses to the headquarters in Washington. By using the EFIM which provides real time information, manages control systems and inventory management system. The ECR is used to achieve profitability, improvement in efficiency, logistics, procurement and overall cost control. Kumar (2008) records that approximately $6 billion in a year is lost in the USA by supermarkets due to out of stock products among 25 top retailers as a result of inefficiency in their logistics. Vertical Integration: Costco practices a partial vertical integration with it’s cross-dock distribution. By gaining control of either its inputs or its outputs or both in sourcing directly from suppliers they have more control over innovation & delivery of those services. Cost is also reduced which is ultimately transferred to customers. Further optimization of operational performance through SC operations options that can sustain a competitive edge and improve customer satisfaction through service improvement and cost reduction. 4. Description Of The Separate Areas 4.1Description of The SC Operations Performance & Improvement. The measurement of SC performance can be based on profit, customer service or sales maximization (Chow, 1994). While the traditional method majorly measured product costs, identification of costs related to customer service is key. Elimination of various extraneous costs like plastic shopping bags, fewer shop floor staff, limited product variety & brands on shelf and also slowing down on capital expenditure like expansion, Costco has been able to focus on improving buying power for achieving greater output. Since inventory rates are quickly turned over, payments to suppliers is fast tracked hence they are able to benefit from discounted early payments. Cost is involved in sourcing products from suppliers, shipment to depots & warehouses, distribution to warehouses & storage in inventory. By considering the concept of avoidable cost (possibly considering packaging & storage), efforts can be made to improve on SC performance by implementing better SC integration program. Partnering with more suppliers and or service providers for better flow of operations as well as building keener competition can enhance better efficiency leading to more profit in the long run. More side business services can be added at Costco like money order and cash transfers to attract more customers and make Costco a one stop store. Aside from email messages being sent to existing members on promotions, greater awareness can create a more organized means to lure more customers on the expanding array of products & services such that new & more revenue streams are attained. 4.2 Issues Affecting Supply Chain and Possible Solutions Analysis of SC at Costco using SWOT analysis (appendix 1) reveals Costco is doing really well. Growth opportunities exist for business by entering the European & Asian markets as these have not been exploited. From present methods of operations, the high staff salary and low margins maintenance amongst other issues need to be looked into for future prospects. The aging and close exit of the CEO along with growing competition and other threats in intended foreign markets such as political and religious wars, foreign exchange & bank issues are threats to consider. In dealing with these issues, it will be important to assess briefly lead time management, product handling, transportation, quality, inventory as well as possible process solutions. Where possible, promotions should be done to enhance more sales though with the low prices and already highlighted low margin & high employee, this may eat into the profitability but if well planned can create more publicity for the company which can yield quick inventory turnover. Since low overhead & tight operation is the practice, better savings can be passed on to customers in form of promotion or otherwise. Exploration of overseas market is still a strong force and will yield greater profit considering the existing reputation Costco has and understudying how business is executed in such regions. Development of more private labels on wider product range and increased focus on customer loyalty programs are worth considering as well. It is advisable the board of management put in place a business plan before the exit/retirement of the CEO. Porter’s Five Forces analysis (see appendix 2) could identify an overall attractive industry, with the following power and threat situation: The buyer power was determined to have a positive potential impact on Costco business as it portray that buyers have the requisite level of expendable incomes to provide effective demand for goods & services. In a similar manner, low threat of new entrants and substitute products portray an attractive industry whereas moderate internal rivalry and supplier power have a positive impact on Costco operations as it kept the company alert and devoid of complacency. 4.3 Analyzing The Contribution Of SCOM to Competitive Business Performance To further highlight the role of SCOM in enhancing business performance and maintaining a competitive edge, a few activities like volume purchasing, efficient packaging & distribution, supplier integration & customer integration have contributed to give a close picture of Costco capabilities and business level performance with each activity having unique benefits and detriments. Again, constant review of SCM practices may further help management in Costco to further match demand with SC requirements like efficient, lean SC (Cook et al , 2011). Their Network design, JIT resource planning distribution, optimization of transport & replenishment policies have impacted positively and should be subject to constant review for sustaining a competitive edge. 5. Conclusion Finally, it is believed that some useful contributions are being developed to improve supply chain and it’s operation in line with the objective of Costco in delivering quality at lowest cost to customers on time with the aim of sustaining a more competitive advantage. Some useful SC options have been suggested above which support these objectives. While the ultimate goal remains to sustainably increase market share by achieving more qualitative growth and at the same time expand on the earning base through exploitation of the European market and already existing markets, Mascarehas et al (2004) adds that â€Å"competitive advantage must be won again and again† in other words, giving the current ever changing business world we live in, customer tastes and priorities are changing hence the need for Costco to be better positioned in order to respond always to it’s members needs while expanding on new fronts.

Effect Of Gangsterism Essay

2.0 Effect of Gangsterism Gangsterisms is a social phenomenon that occurs widely among the youth in our country. With the rapid rise of this problem, gangsterisms have much negative impact on individuals, families, and communities. 2.1 Individual In term of individual, student who involves themselves with gangsterism will face bad consequences in their life including having a dark future. Thus, their future might be threatened due to the result of their behavior. Most probably they will be detained because somehow they able to create chaotic scene in their surroundings. This will also affect their life as they unable to perform their study in higher level and they might spend their teenage years in juvenile school or rehabilitation centre. On the contrary, those with a bright future able to continue their study while they had wasting their precious life in prison.They also will give a bad impact or influence to the youngers. They will follow the foot step of the elder ones in family and causing them to follow the wrong path as the elder ones. From The Star online, Wan Junaidi, a former policeman, said the army and police had fought the communists and protected the country from grave danger in the 1960s and therefore, was confident that they could combat gangsterism. â€Å"In the past, we chased after communists in the jungles, but now the gangsters are there — they are not hiding. I can’t accept the excuse that because of gangsterism, we can’t enforce the law. â€Å"So what else next? Are we to allow gangsters to rule the country because they are gangsters?† he pointed out. (by Chan, Zora. February 5, 2012) In fact teenagers who usually have the desire to do something new, they would do some bad things without thinking about the possible effects of their actions in future. Teenagers involved in social causes them to be brings into contempt and ragtag. At this level of teen lacks direction or clear goals in the future and not an ambitious. Although they were repented, they still hard to earn the trust of the community and they will be stigmatized.  This makes it difficult for them to get the next job will ignored by family members could not tolerate their behavior causes them added life inevitably fluctuate. A gang offers protection to its members; to the uninitiated and insecure, a gang means security from racial harassment and law enforcement agencies. Some join gangs for fun, but are soon swept into a vicious cycle of violent crime and drugs. The prime targets for gangs are new immigrants who have language and cultural differences from mainstream communities. Troubled youth and rebellious teenagers may join gangs and directly or indirectly influence community life.In communities where gang activity dictates normal living, there are very few signs of healthy, progressive life or development. Community development projects are kept on hold as money is allocated to combat gang warfare. Law enforcement agencies take on a tough stance when it comes to these communities. As a result, innocent families also live backward, hopeless lives where there opportunities are severely curtailed by the terrifying presence of gangs. 2.2 Family In the context of family, parents need to receive the bad treatment as the result of their children behavior. Most probably, parents might be insulted or becoming the subject of hatred from people in their surrounding. They might be blame for what their children had done and through other people eyes they had to be responsible. Somehow, there are parents who try so hard, in order to guide their children back to the right path. However, some children are too stubborn and ignore the advice of their respectful parents. In addition, parents need to face with reality that their children are not turn into a good person and turn out differently from what they had expected. SB’s relationship with his mother was described as tumultuous. His gang involvement must have been the reason for many of their arguments, as it is clear that she consistently made her disapproval of his lifestyle known. She would remind him of the effects his lifestyle is having on her and his  younger brothers, though he ignored her. Once, however, there was a retaliation attack on his family home after he fought with another gangster. The rival gang threatened his mother with death and trashed his family’s home. This incident was SB’s first experience of the dangerous consequences that being a gangster could have for one’s family. As a gangster, his mother’s voice stayed in his head, admonishing him about his lifestyle. â€Å"My mother’s voice, yes †¦ Her voice was the only voice that even now helps. She was always there, even when I went to jail. She would always talk, even scold, and say ‘I am not putting you out because yo u are a gangster, it is because I do not agree with what you do.’ (Daniels, Doria and Adams, Quinton. July 1, 2010: 45-60) By the conduct of themselves, their families gangster actors also get impact. The community will lose faith in the family, but the family’s honor is scratched with teen action like ‘menconteng arang ke muka’. This may affect the future of other siblings and even worse if the affected family members who are emotionally and unable to handle the pressure from society. This problem will persist in the long term to be restored. Sub-economic areas, where gangsterism is the most prevalent and problematic, are good training grounds for would-be gangsters. In most instances, both parents are either unemployed or both are working, leaving their children unattended or with strangers. Gangs quickly exploit such situations. In fact, they thrive on it, offering youngsters a â€Å"surrogate family† setup which gives the youngsters a sense of belonging. In most cases, youths are used to commit the crimes – such as murder, rape, etc – effectively obscuring the leadership from being identified. Often, the order to commit a crime is filtered thorugh the ranks of a gang. Thus, the person committing the crime never knows who gave the order. The police, therefore, are never able to get hold of the leadership. 2.3 Society Gangsterism of all levels and types usually has a negative effect on society. Gangsterism also can bring down the property value of neighborhoods from the violence and vandalism involved with gangsterism life. Big money investors  may shy away from places where they feel that their properties and resources will not be used for fear of gang crimes. Gangsterism can also drive up prices of local groceries and commodities via their intimidating schemes that force businesses to pay them sums of money in exchange for â€Å"protection.† As for society, they will feel insecure and threatened over this matter because they felt that the surrounding is not the safe place anymore due to the violent act of gangster. Society would normally avoid to get out of the house. This is because, they afraid of been victims of terrorism. All their daily activities such as sports, recreation, and so on will be reduced or be stopped to ensure safety. Usually when the most feared society were involved in the fights between gangster groups. Their fights will usually result in serious injury or even worse death. The behavior of gangster might endanger their life because at some point, gangster can turn out to be a killer and some of them also fight among each other to show their power. In addition, this kind of phenomenon also spread widely in school. Futhermore, it had come to the stage where school compound cannot be considered as a safe place anymore due to the gangsterism activities that take place in school area They also will make the students be afraid to go to the school. Middleton-Moz and Zawadski (2002) argue that our own lack of awareness often causes us to be both deaf and blind to the pain experienced by our nation’s youth and, as a result, our young people too often become the prisoners of their sadness and depression, seeing little possibility for change and no way. Therefore, it show that our own lack of concern over what had happened make the matter of gangsterism getting worst until the victim of gangsterism are being abuse physically and emotionally. Society is no l onger felt peace and harmony in the country which they had resided. They cannot move out freely as they are afraid of those gangsters and worried about their safety. They will be a burden to the people or to the neighbourhood. ‘Predatory crime does not merely victimise individuals; it impedes and, in extreme cases, even prevents the formation and maintenance of community. By disrupting the delicate nexus of ties, formal and informal, by which we are  linked with our neighbours, crime atomises society and makes of its members mere individual calculators, estimating their own advantage, especially their own chances of survival amidst their fellows.’ (James Q. Wilson (1975) Thinking About Crime) In communities where gang activity dictates normal living, there are very few signs of healthy, progressive life or development. Community development projects are kept on hold as money is allocated to combat gang warfare. Law enforcement agencies take on a tough stance when it comes to these communities. As a result, innocent families also live backward, hopeless lives where there opportunities are severely curtailed by the terrifying presence of gangs.

Successful after-school program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 20750 words

Successful after-school program - Essay Example Considerable attention and resources have been directed to after-school programs, particularly those that serve urban students and even more specifically those that serve at-risk students in urban schools. However, little is known about the origin, mission, or goals of after-school programs (Halpern, 2002), and even less is known about the impact on academics of the students who participate in these programs. More attention is being presently focused on these programs because there is a growing awareness that all students, including those who differ in some way from the â€Å"average† student, must be provided with an equitable, non-stigmatizing education (Montgomery and Rossi, 1994). Academic-based after-school programs may be one way that professionals can supplement the traditionally under-achieving at-risk students’ knowledge, skills, and abilities and help them reach and remain at-grade-level performance. Neither student diversity nor after-school programs are new to America’s school system. One account suggests that these programs emerged at the start of the 20th century as a result of an economic and ideological shift in the United States from using children as laborers to placing children in classrooms (Halpern, 2000). Children are no longer working with their parents in a factory or in the fields. As the century progressed, other trends, such as women working outside the home (and the subsequent â€Å"latch-key kid†), emerged (Lopoo, 2005)... 5 Summary 6 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 6 Introduction 6 History of After-school Programs 7 No Child Left Behind 9 Federal Role of Out-of-School Learning 12 At-Risk Students 13 Computer Usage in After-school Programs 14 Attendance and Academic Success 16 Benefits of Math After-School Programs 17 Summary 17 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 18 Introduction 18 Research Questions and Hypotheses 19 Research Questions 19 Hypotheses 19 Background and Purpose 19 Methodological Design 20 Participants 22 Data Collection and Analysis 23 Consent and Confidentiality 24 Assumptions and Limitations 25 Summary 25 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS 27 Introduction 27 Description of Participants (Demographics) 27 Students’ Academic Performance 28 Analysis of responses to questionnaire 1: Student participation 31 Detailed analysis of each part 31 Further analysis through categorization of the responses 37 Identification of strengths and weaknesses of the program 39 Analysis of responses to the second questionnair e: Open-ended questions 40 2-1 Where the students went after school before the program 40 2-2 How often the students were alone before the program 42 2-3 Improvement in schoolwork after attending the program 43 2-4 Classes that would help to get a job in future 43 2-5 Usefulness of the computer lab at the program 45 2-6 Usefulness of the program in scoring better on the report card 45 2-7 Main language spoken at home 45 2-8 Affect of program on liking to attend school 45 2-9 Willingness to attend another program 47 2-10 Future goals since attending the program 47 2-11 How participation in the program could help to achieve future goals 50 2-12 Whether the program would be recommended to friends 52 Analysis of results from the parental evaluation 53 Detailed analysis of each response 53 Summary

An Introduction to Theory of Constraints Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

An Introduction to Theory of Constraints - Essay Example TOC is very significance in the fields of management and engineering when it comes to finding solutions to problems in the most accurate, simple and consistent. It helps in reduction of inventory levels, lead and cycle times while improving revenue and reducing time. Significant researches have been done in the field of TOC. Elyahu Goldraft and Jeff Cox in their book â€Å"The Goal: Process of ongoing improvement† highlighted various TOC processes like identification and exploitation of system constraints and goals. They also came up with the classification of constraints as market, policy and physical. These constraints were further subdivided into sub constraints and theories of constraints discussed. Mindset constraint is based on culture and frame of mind, measures is based on the relationship between constraints and achievement of organizational goals and method constraint based on relationship between procedures and technique to achieving actions incompatible with the or ganizational goals. Application of TOC in the Manufacturing example indicates understanding of redefinition of systems goal, thru put, inventory and operating expenses. TOC also helps in calculation of profits and making production decision. Financial Management, Cash Flow and Accounting Principles The objective of this topic would be to comprehend the creation and usage of the accounting information, understanding of accounting language and application of financial accounting in an organization. This would be summarized in the following paragraphs. Finance and accounting have varied roles within an organization. Some of these roles are applied internally within an organization while others are used externally outside an organization. Finance and accounting helps in provision of financial position of an organization, taxation of an organization by the state, federal and the local government. ES-4910 Survey of Engineering Management presents (1) Organizational financial report is als o used by external organs in investment regulation and valuation. Organizational management uses finance and accounting in budgeting, setting product prices, checking of organization performance as well as in general operation of an organization. Understanding of accounting information is very vital to the organizational management. Recording of cash versus accruals forms basics of financial entries. Cash is always entered when there is transfer of cash whereas accruals are entered there is revenue earned or expenditure is incurred. Accrual is a record of transactions over the same period whereas cash records are not time dependent. Other accounting basics include the understanding of business assets, liabilities equity ledger, revenue, expenditure and profit. Accounting entries like the principle of double entry in an accounting is very important in making account receivables and expenditure occurring at the same time. Rules of making entries in journal and using it in calculation of profit and loss are very important. Financial statements help in understanding of different activities in a business. They include cash flows, owner’s equity, business financial position and operational statements. Financial analysis involves comparison of financial information based on period, company changes whereas ratio analysis involves comparison of assets and liabilities. There are current ratio and quick ratio. In the analysis of profits the following are considered; asset return, equity return, gross margin, earning per share. Analysis of ratios involves calculation of; turnover ratio on assets, average turnover ratio and turnover ratio of inventory. In the analysis

George Gordon Byron Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

George Gordon Byron - Research Paper Example Poem 1- She Walks in Beauty 6 A. Personal Analysis 6 A.1. How the Poem Fits into the Era 6 A.2. Literary Analysis 7 V. Poem 2 – The Destruction of Senacherib 8 A. Personal Analysis 8 A.1. How the Poem Fits into the Era 8 A.2. Literary Analysis 8 VI. Poem 3 - Darkness 9 A. Personal Analysis 9 A.1. How the Poem Fits into the Era 9 A.2. Literary Analysis 9 VII. Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 I. Introduction A. Thesis Statement What seems to stand out from the poetry and from the life of the man, is that of Byron like his poems depicting a kind of beauty that is detached from ordinary reality, and yet so much more beautiful for being so, detached yet somehow real and palpable, and utterly heroic. This seems to represent in one way what Romanticism is all about (Byron; Brooklyn College English Department; Academy of American Poets; Poetry Foundation). B. Brief Overview B.1. Literary Era The literary era to which Byron and his poetry belongs is the era of Romanticism (Brooklyn College English Department). B.2. Biography The poet was born into royalty, and was able to inherit a title, so that by age of 10, he became Baron of Rochdale. His father died at a young age, and he was full of resentment for his mother. He died at the age of 36 (Academy of American Poets) B.3. ... that we inherit the convenient set of terminal dates for the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year of the first edition of  Lyrical Ballads  by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of  Hymns to the Night  by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. (Brooklyn College English Department) B. Defining the Era, Characteristics of the Poetry There is an emphasis on the individual, the individual as a hero, where the personality is supreme, elevated. Imagination has a central place in Romanticism too, which also likewise was put up in a pedestal as being the best part of the human mind and consciousness. Symbols and symbolism, as they pertain to nature, for instance, were also highly valued. Feelings were given emphasis, especially as with regards to the expression of feelings in poetry (Brooklyn College English Department) C. Era in the Context of British History 1798 marked the year of the Irish Rebelliion , marked by a period of intense conflict between Britain and its neighbor, culminating in union (Bartlett). This period was also marked by the turn of the century struggle between Napoleon on the one hand and Britain on the other, all the way to 1802 (History World). C.4. Era in the Context of World/Global History and Events Elsewhere in the world Napoleon was brought down also during this period, at Waterloo in 1815, and the slaves were finally emancipated in New York around 1827, when slavery was outlawed in that state (Taylor) C.5 How Byron Fits Into This Era Byron was a leading voice of the Romantic era. He is credited with having a large influence on the movement and on the Romantic poets and artists in general, especially with his poem â€Å"Don Juan†. The term â€Å"Byronic hero† is also