The Ineffectiveness Throughout The Beautiful And Damned By...

The ineffectiveness throughout The Beautiful and Damned The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott. Fitzgerald surrounds the fair uprising and utter downfall of a doomed marriage in the 1920’s. Anthony Patch, a self inflicted author who is known for his grandfathers wealth falls madly in love with Gloria Gilbert, the beautiful, yet egotistical lady who is a lot more than what Anthony bargained for. With a marriage that is held together solely by the expected inheritance of his grandfathers money, the Patches begin living the luxurious life of a wealthy couple in the middle of New York City. When it is discovered that Anthony’s name was not put into his grandfathers will, the lives of the two aristocrats begins to deteriorate before their eyes.†¦show more content†¦Considering the fact that neither Anthony or Gloria experience any type of growth throughout the story, it goes to show that there is not a proper plot shown throughout the novel. Finally, The Beautiful an d Damned has no type of story structure. There are three parts to the book, but no introduction, middle, or ending. The novel is told in third person, but it is hard to make sense of the material due to the fact that the lives of the Patch’s is being told through both Anthony and Gloria’s eyes. This would explain why it is a deeply flawed novel that lacks common characteristics. In other words, The Beautiful and Damned fails to produce any of the compelling criteria that is needed to grab the readers attention, and is therefore an ineffective novel. The Beautiful and Damned is a depressing, stagnant read that will make the reader question whether or not they should just stop. It is hard to decipher if the theme of this piece is explaining the weakness of Gloria’s Love or the power of Anthony’s money - or both. Either way, both characters fail to teach the reader anything at all, only presenting a negative view on their boring life in the 1920’s. Fi tzgerald fails to introduce any form of protagonist that a reader could draw emotion too, because both the main characters are undesirably miserable. In other words, there is nothing the reader can relate to or connect to as

Essay about Beloved - 1045 Words

Justin Vieira January 23, 2000 SUPA WRT 105 Mrs. Weiss I Love Mommy #3 â€Å"Inside, two boys [Howard and Buglar] bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman [Sethe] holding a blood-soaked child [Beloved] to her chest with one hand and an infant [Denver] by the heels in the other. She did not look at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (page. 149). One of the first things a baby sees when they are born is their mother. A baby can be certain their mother loves them more than anything because they are of the same flesh and blood. What is a baby to think when their own â€Å"face† decapitates them with a hacksaw? It is only natural for the baby to be confused as to how†¦show more content†¦Beloved has been amongst the living and the dead. According to her, the purpose of life is to become dead. Halle, the man on her face, has accomplished this through disappearing. Nobody knows an ything about him, so he is as good as dead. Contrarily, Beloved has always been on Sethe’s mind. Killing her own daughter is memory that she can not forget. Beloved is brought back to life because she can not be forgotten. â€Å"What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head† (page 36). It is impossible to forget the memory of Beloved because she was murdered in the shed right outside 124Bluestone Road. The memory stays right in the place where it happened. Halle’s death is back in Sweet Home since he never made it to 124Bluestone Road. Sethe has never gone back to there, so she can not pass by the place to bring back her rememory and so he stays dead. â€Å"her [Sethe’s] face is my own and I want to be there in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too† (page 210). Earlier in the chapter Beloved wants to be with her mother. She misses Sethe because, even after all Sethe has put her through, she is still her mo ther. She wants to look up to that familiar face that can be recognizable as her own. As Beloved thinks more about Sethe, her tone changes, â€Å"the woman is there with the face I want the face that is mine† (page 211). Beloved no longer wants to look up to Sethe, but to control her. This is what ends upShow MoreRelatedToni Morrison s Beloved And Beloved1376 Words   |  6 Pagesanother surprise to the story of Beloved. The addition of character Beloved conceals whole meaning Morrison tries to conduct to the readers. So far, character Beloved is portrayed as an innocent, pure, yet egotistic girl. Beloved also presumably the incarnation of Sethe’s dead baby, whose tomb is engraved Beloved. Morrison offers supernatural element in the story to create mysterious and spooky atmosphere, which raise curiosity and excite readers even more. Beloved is seen as the resemblance of Sethe’sRead More Beloved Essay593 Words   |  3 Pages Beloved, like many of the other books we have read, has to deal with the theme of isolation. There was the separation of Sethe and Denver from the rest of the world. There was also, the loneliness of each main character throughout the book. There were also other areas of the book where the idea of detachment from something was obvious. People’s opinions about the house made them stay away and there was also the inner detachment of Sethe from herself. The theme that Toni Morrison had in mind whenRead More Significance of the Ghost of Beloved in Toni Morrisons Beloved1376 Words   |  6 PagesIn Beloved, Toni Morrison frequently alternates between telling stories from Sethes past, to telling events in the present. Morrison introduces Beloved, who serves as the link between Sethe and Paul Ds past at Sweet Home as slaves, and the present, living in Ohio as a free family of three: Sethe, Paul D. and Denver. The character of Beloved allows Morrison to explain the experiences and characteristics of the three characters, and how they are reactions to their pasts. Up to Beloveds arrivalRead More Character of Beloved in Toni Morrisons Beloved Essays2510 Words   |  11 PagesThe Character of Beloved in Toni Morrisons Beloved Perhaps one of the most important issues in Toni Morrisons award-winning novel Beloved is Morrisons intentional diversity of possible interpretations. However the text is looked at and analyzed, it is the variety of these multiple meanings that confounds any simple interpretation and gives the novel the complexity. The debate rages on over many topics, but one issue of central and basic importance to the understanding of the novel is definingRead More Essay on Toni Morrisons Beloved - Symbol and Symbolism in Beloved1562 Words   |  7 PagesSymbolism in Beloved  Ã‚     In the novel Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, attempts to promote a variety of different themes and ideas by symbolizing them in minor events and situations.   This symbolism is evident throughout the entire novel and is very crucial to the understanding and analyzing of the text.   A good example of this is the ice skating scene.   Morrison uses this scene to represent the slow, but consistent, deterioration of the family living in 124 and to foreshadow the ultimateRead MoreCry, The Beloved Country994 Words   |  4 PagesJohn Harrison in Cry, The Beloved Country While a subsidiary character in Alan Paton s Cry, The Beloved Country , John Harrison offers a glimpse into the attitude of the younger generation toward the black population in South Africa, one that seeks change but isn t always willing to exert the necessary effort. Who is John Harrison? People enter our lives all the time. Some become close friends. Others are here one day and gone the next. There are some with whom we rarely speak, but when weRead MoreBeloved by Toni Morrison622 Words   |  3 Pages In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, Morrison has created two very powerful characters: Denver and Beloved. Denver and Beloved are sisters, but in a sense, they werent always. It used to just be Denver and her mother, Sethe, that lived together in a house. That house was passed down to them by Denvers grandmother, Baby Suggs, which was given to her by a white couple who were out to help the blacks. Sethe and Denver were very content with the way things were. Sethe had a paying job as a cookRead MoreMemory in Beloved Essay1897 Words   |  8 Pagesemotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s story Love Medicine, memory of death and the past is revealed carefully among the charactersRead MoreToni Morrisons Beloved Essays1058 Words   |  5 PagesIf ignorance is bliss, then why is it human nature to uncover the truth? In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Denver uses knowledge to feed her craving in hopes that it will fill the void her mother unsuccessfully tried to satisfy with the blood of the past and too little milk. To understand these truths one must accept that Beloved is a physical representation of the past, Sethe embodies the present, and Denver exemplifies the future. Throughout the novel these three characters interact onRead MoreAnalysis Of Toni Morrison s Beloved1615 Words   |  7 PagesIn her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison utilizes a circular narr ative to emphasize the similarities, or lack thereof, between her characters. In Philip Page’s article, â€Å"Circularity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,† he writes, â€Å"The plot is developed through repetition and variation of one or more core-images in overlapping waves... And it is developed through... the spiraling reiteration of larger, mythical acts such as birth, death, rebirth, quest-journeys, and the formation and disintegration of families†

Applied Linguistics Free Essays

string(93) " are systematically in order that makes us understand what the intention of the sentence is\." Language can be viewed as a social fact, as a psychological state (mental dictionary), as a set of structures (a grammatical system: a system to what orders the words have to come in if they are to make sense), or as a collection of outputs (utterances/ sentences: spoken or written). Language can be viewed as a set of choices (different ways of saying a sentence), a set of contrasts (an inversion of sentences). Idiolect (I-language: language of the individual): the language system of an individual as expressed by the way he or she speaks or writes within the overall system of a reticular language. We will write a custom essay sample on Applied Linguistics or any similar topic only for you Order Now In a broader sense, someone†s idiolect includes their way of communicating; for example, their choice of utterances and the way they interpret the utterances made by others. In a narrower sense, an idiolect might entail features, either in speech or writing, which distinguish one individual from others, such as o voice quality ( the overall impression that a listener obtains of a speaker†s voice or characteristics of a particular voice that enable the listener to distinguish one voice from another, such as when a person is able to identify a telephone caller) o pitch when we listen to people speaking, we can hear some sounds or groups of sounds in their speech to be relatively higher or lower than others) o speech rhythm (rhythm in speech is created by the contracting or relaxing of chest muscles). Many linguists prefer to use the term IDIOLECT for the language of an individual. So you do not speak English, you speak your idiolect. That seems simple enough until we ask what English† consists of. Presumably it consists of the sum of all the idiolect of people who we agree are speaking English. Do I-language: an approach to language which sees it as an internal property of the unman mind and as not something external or an attempt to construct grammars showing the way human mind structures language and which (universal) principles are involved. E-language: an approach to language which describes the general structures and patterns. E-language= Langue (Assure) = Competence (Chomsky): the system of a language, that is the arrangement of sounds and words which speakers of a language have a shared knowledge (agree to use). Langue is the ideal form of a language. Parole (Assure): the actual use of language by people in speech or writing. Competence: a person†s internalized grammar of a language. This means a person†s ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before. It also includes a person†s knowledge of what are and what are not sentences of a particular language. For example, a speaker of English would recognize I want to go home as an English sentence but would not accept a sentence such as I want going home even though all the words in it are English words. Competence often refers to the ideal speaker/hearer, that is an idealized but a not real person who would have a complete knowledge of the whole language. Performance: a person†s actual use of language. A difference is made between a person†s knowledge of the language (competence) and how a person uses this knowledge in producing and understanding sentences (performance). The difference between linguistic competence and linguistic performance can be seen, for example, in the production of long and complex sentences. People may have the competence to produce an infinitely long sentence but when they actually attempt to use this knowledge (=perform) there are many reasons why they restrict the number of adjectives, adverbs, and clauses in any one sentence. They may run out of breath, or their sterner may get bored or forget what has been said if the sentence is too long. In using language, people make errors or false starts. These may be due to performance factors such as fatigue, lack of attention, excitement, nervousness. Their actual use of language on a particular occasion may not reflect their competence. The errors they make are described as examples of performance. Keywords Language: the system of human communication which consists of the structured arrangement of sounds or written representation into larger unit e. G. Orpheus, word, sentence, utterance. A social fact, a kind of social contract, or a set of structure r as a collection of output. Idiolect: langue for specific group of people or language for individual; only the speaker of this language can understand. Utterance: a unit of analysis in speech which has been defined in various way but commonly as a sequence of words within a single person’s turn at talk that fall under a single intonation contour. Universal grammar: a thorny which claims to account for grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks. Langue: part of language which is not complete in any individual, but exists only in the collectivity. Parole: language that is used individually. (I-language) E-language: is the â€Å"external† manifestation of the â€Å"internally’ (mentally) represented grammar of many individual. It is appropriate for social, political, mathematical and logical statement. I-language: language viewed as internal property of human mind or a computational system in human brain. Answer Sq 1 . The author says, â€Å"A language is a social fact, a kind of social contract. † What does this mean? This means that language is the mean of communication which not only an individual but also all people in the community accept and understand it as a hole. People use language as a contract for their daily life, since language is a social fact that people use to understand each other and purposely set up the proof of their will or promise. 2. What do you understand from the examples that follow? A. Kim kissed crocodile. B. The crocodile kissed Kim. C. Kissed crocodile Kim the. Sentence A and B are understandable; that is, we can say that they are language which is seen as a set of choice and a set of contrast. A set of choice or contrast means that a group of word are systematically in order that makes us understand what the intention of the sentence is. You read "Applied Linguistics" in category "Papers" However, sentence C does not make sense at all, and it is not a language. 3. What is the difference between â€Å"speak a grammar† and â€Å"speak a language†? Speak a language means to speak a language that make other people understand; that is, it refers to when people in the society speak language of the society (E-language), which they use it as mean of communication. However, â€Å"speak grammar† refers to when an individual speak his or her own language sticking deep inside their mind or brain, and cannot be understood by others. This language is not for society, but for individual only. 4. Assure (1969) make an analogy as saying When orchestra plays a symphony, the symphony exists externally to the way in which it is performed: that existence is comparable to langue in language study. The actual performance, which may contain idiosyncrasies or errors, is to be comparable to parole. ‘ Use this analogy to explain what E-language and I-language are. This means that E-language is the same as langue, which refers to the language that is externally used in the society and it is accepted as the language of the society, which people use it as the mean of contract and communication. However, I-language s equalized to parole referring to the language existing only in the individual, and usually it is not understood by others and considered as the error of language for people in the society. 5. Language is a set of choice and a set of contrast, yet why cant we always choose to organize the word in utterances in our preferred way? Even though language is a set of choice and contrast, we cannot Just organize language as we want because our own organization of language can become l- language which is not understood by others. This is because I-language is the language for individual only, and only the speaker can understand it. Chapter 2: Components of Language Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. Phonology is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language rather than with the actual physical articulation of speech sounds. Phonology is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language that allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we hear and say. Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words or each one of these meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language. /p/, lb/ are homes of English. O Phoneme has contrastive property. If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes. O English is often considered to have 44 phonemes: 24 consonants and 20 vowels. Phone is the different versions of the phoneme regularly produced in actual speech ( in the mouth). Allophone is a group of several phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme. For example, the [t] sound in the word tar is normally pronounced with a stronger puff of air (aspirated) than is present in the [t] sound in the word star. Minimal pair is when two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound (one phoneme), occurring in the same position, and which also differ in meaning. For example, fan-van, bet-bat, site-side, put-shut are some examples of minimal pairs. The Sound Patterns of Language Minimal set is when a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position in the word). For example, bet-set-vet-get-let and big-pig-rig-fig-wig are examples of minimal set. Phonetics’s is the arrangements of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) in a language. For example, in English, the consonant groups /SSP/ and /star/ can occur at the beginning of a word, as in sprout, strain, but they cannot occur at the end of a word. Syllable is a unit in speech which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word. For example, the word terminology consists of five syllables: term-mi-no-lo- gay. O A syllable contains onset (consonant(s)) and rhyme which has two parts nucleus (vowel) and coda (consonant(s)). The basic structure of the kind of syllable found in English words can be C.V. (green), PVC (eggs), C.V. (them), etc. Consonant cluster is a sequence of two or more consonants. Consonants clusters may occur at the beginning of a word (an initial cluster), at the end of a word (a final cluster) or within a word (a medial cluster). Co-articulation is the process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next sound. Circulation has two well-known effects: assimilation and elision. O Assimilation occurs when a speech sound changes, and becomes more like another sound which follows or precedes it, or when two sound segments occur in sequence and some aspect of one segment is taken or copied by the other. O Elision is the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech. O Everyone†s normal beech entails assimilation and elision which should be regarded as some type of sloppiness or laziness. The point of investigating these phonological processes is not to arrive at a set of rules about how a language should be pronounced, but to try to come to an understanding of the regularities and patterns which underlies the actual use of sounds in language. Words and Word-formation Process -Etymology: the study of the origin and history of a word -Coinage: the invention of totally new terms (Ex: aspirin, nylon, Baseline) -Borrowing: words that is borrowed from other languages (Ex: Piano(lately), Sofa(Arabic), Yogurt(Turkish)) -Compounding: two separate words are Joint together (bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, textbook) -Blending: combination of 2 separate forms to produce a single new term. Ex: motel (motor/hotel), smog (smoke/haze) -Clipping: reduction of words more than one syllable to a shorter form. Ex: condo (condominium), bra (brassiere), ad (advertisement) -Facilitation: reduction of words which also change the function, usually from noun to verb. Ex: emote (from Emotion), donate (from Donation), babysat (from Babysitter) -Conversion: a change in the function of a word, esp. noun becomes verb without any deduction. Ex: Someone has to chair the meeting. Or We bottled the homebred – Acronyms: new words that are formed from initial letters of a set of other words. Ex: CD (compact disk), VS. (video cassette recorder), ATM (automatic teller machine), PIN (personal identification number) -Derivation: the affixes (prefix suffix) added to the beginning or the end of a word. Ex: unhappy, misrepresent, Joyful, careless Morphology: the study of forms Morphology Morpheme: a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. Lexical Free functional Morpheme derivation bound inflectional Free morpheme: morpheme that can stand by themselves as single word. – Lexical morpheme: set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs. For example: Car, red, drive. – Functional morpheme: functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronoun. For expo: and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in the, them. Bound morpheme: morpheme that cannot stand alone and must attached to another forms. – Derivation morpheme: the affixes that make words into a different grammatical category from stem. For expo: -full, -less, re-, UN- Inflectional morpheme: set of bound morphemes to indicate aspects of the aromatically function of a word. 2 inflections attached to nouns, -g’s (possessive) and -s (plural). 4 inflections attached to verbs, -s (3rd person singular), -inning (present participle), -De (past tense) and -en (past participle). Inflections attached to adjectives: -est. (superlative) and -re (comparative). Lymphoma: the group or set of different morphs, all versions of one morpheme OR any of the different forms of a morpheme. For example: -s, -sees, 0 (zero morph). They are all lymphomas of the plural morpheme. Grammar Traditional grammar: a grammar which is usually based on earlier grammar of Latin r Greek and applied to the analysis of newer† languages such as English. Ag reement: In English sentence, agreement is based on the category of number, whether the noun is singular or plural. It is also based on the category of person, that is, first person (involving the speaker), second person (involving the hearer) and third person (involving any others). The form the verb must also be described in terms of tense. The final category is gender. Gender vs. Grammatical gender: Gender† refers to the natural gender or biological gender, that is, male or female and what words agree with it. She, her) refer to female entities, whereas (he, his) refer to male entities. Grammatical Gender† refers to the types of nouns which is considered masculine and feminine. For example, in Spanish there are article to call a noun in feminine (la) or masculine (la) such el sol ( the sun), la ulna (the moon). It does not imply that the moon†s sex is female or the sun†s male. The grammar simply states this way to use article with different noun. The prescriptive approach: Grammarian in the eighteen century in English create rule for the proper use of English. For example: You must not split an infinitive. You must not end a sentence with a preposition. Therefore, traditional teacher would correct sentences like: Who did you go with? O With whom did you go? However, we should be skeptical of the origin of some of these rules and asking whether they are appropriately applied to the English language. Let†s study this traditional rule Mimi must not split an infinitive†. The book elaborates by using Captain Kirk†s infinitive. To boldly go, to solemnly swear, according to Traditional grammar, is inappropriate. To go boldly, boldly t o go should be the appropriate form. In Latin grammar, it is clear that infinitive cannot be separated from a word because Latin infinitives are single words. However, it is not appropriate to carry this idea over to English where the infinitive form does not consist of a single form, but of two words, to and go. The descriptive approach Analysts collected samples of the language they were interested in and attempted to describe the regular structure of the language as it was used, not according to some view of how it should be used. This is called the descriptive approach. Structural Analysis Structural analysis† main concern is to investigate the distribution of forms in a engage. The method involves The makes a lot of noise. I heard yesterday. The use of test-frame† that can be sentences with empty slots in them. For example: By developing a set of test-frames of this type and discovering which forms fit the slots in the test-frame, we can produce a description of some aspects of the sentence structures of a language. Immediate Constituent Analysis: is designed to show how small constituents (or components) in sentences go together to form larger constituents. One basic step is determining how words go together to form phrases. How to cite Applied Linguistics, Papers Applied Linguistics Free Essays string(93) " are systematically in order that makes us understand what the intention of the sentence is\." Language can be viewed as a social fact, as a psychological state (mental dictionary), as a set of structures (a grammatical system: a system to what orders the words have to come in if they are to make sense), or as a collection of outputs (utterances/ sentences: spoken or written). Language can be viewed as a set of choices (different ways of saying a sentence), a set of contrasts (an inversion of sentences). Idiolect (I-language: language of the individual): the language system of an individual as expressed by the way he or she speaks or writes within the overall system of a reticular language. We will write a custom essay sample on Applied Linguistics or any similar topic only for you Order Now In a broader sense, someone†s idiolect includes their way of communicating; for example, their choice of utterances and the way they interpret the utterances made by others. In a narrower sense, an idiolect might entail features, either in speech or writing, which distinguish one individual from others, such as o voice quality ( the overall impression that a listener obtains of a speaker†s voice or characteristics of a particular voice that enable the listener to distinguish one voice from another, such as when a person is able to identify a telephone caller) o pitch when we listen to people speaking, we can hear some sounds or groups of sounds in their speech to be relatively higher or lower than others) o speech rhythm (rhythm in speech is created by the contracting or relaxing of chest muscles). Many linguists prefer to use the term IDIOLECT for the language of an individual. So you do not speak English, you speak your idiolect. That seems simple enough until we ask what English† consists of. Presumably it consists of the sum of all the idiolect of people who we agree are speaking English. Do I-language: an approach to language which sees it as an internal property of the unman mind and as not something external or an attempt to construct grammars showing the way human mind structures language and which (universal) principles are involved. E-language: an approach to language which describes the general structures and patterns. E-language= Langue (Assure) = Competence (Chomsky): the system of a language, that is the arrangement of sounds and words which speakers of a language have a shared knowledge (agree to use). Langue is the ideal form of a language. Parole (Assure): the actual use of language by people in speech or writing. Competence: a person†s internalized grammar of a language. This means a person†s ability to create and understand sentences, including sentences they have never heard before. It also includes a person†s knowledge of what are and what are not sentences of a particular language. For example, a speaker of English would recognize I want to go home as an English sentence but would not accept a sentence such as I want going home even though all the words in it are English words. Competence often refers to the ideal speaker/hearer, that is an idealized but a not real person who would have a complete knowledge of the whole language. Performance: a person†s actual use of language. A difference is made between a person†s knowledge of the language (competence) and how a person uses this knowledge in producing and understanding sentences (performance). The difference between linguistic competence and linguistic performance can be seen, for example, in the production of long and complex sentences. People may have the competence to produce an infinitely long sentence but when they actually attempt to use this knowledge (=perform) there are many reasons why they restrict the number of adjectives, adverbs, and clauses in any one sentence. They may run out of breath, or their sterner may get bored or forget what has been said if the sentence is too long. In using language, people make errors or false starts. These may be due to performance factors such as fatigue, lack of attention, excitement, nervousness. Their actual use of language on a particular occasion may not reflect their competence. The errors they make are described as examples of performance. Keywords Language: the system of human communication which consists of the structured arrangement of sounds or written representation into larger unit e. G. Orpheus, word, sentence, utterance. A social fact, a kind of social contract, or a set of structure r as a collection of output. Idiolect: langue for specific group of people or language for individual; only the speaker of this language can understand. Utterance: a unit of analysis in speech which has been defined in various way but commonly as a sequence of words within a single person’s turn at talk that fall under a single intonation contour. Universal grammar: a thorny which claims to account for grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks. Langue: part of language which is not complete in any individual, but exists only in the collectivity. Parole: language that is used individually. (I-language) E-language: is the â€Å"external† manifestation of the â€Å"internally’ (mentally) represented grammar of many individual. It is appropriate for social, political, mathematical and logical statement. I-language: language viewed as internal property of human mind or a computational system in human brain. Answer Sq 1 . The author says, â€Å"A language is a social fact, a kind of social contract. † What does this mean? This means that language is the mean of communication which not only an individual but also all people in the community accept and understand it as a hole. People use language as a contract for their daily life, since language is a social fact that people use to understand each other and purposely set up the proof of their will or promise. 2. What do you understand from the examples that follow? A. Kim kissed crocodile. B. The crocodile kissed Kim. C. Kissed crocodile Kim the. Sentence A and B are understandable; that is, we can say that they are language which is seen as a set of choice and a set of contrast. A set of choice or contrast means that a group of word are systematically in order that makes us understand what the intention of the sentence is. You read "Applied Linguistics" in category "Papers" However, sentence C does not make sense at all, and it is not a language. 3. What is the difference between â€Å"speak a grammar† and â€Å"speak a language†? Speak a language means to speak a language that make other people understand; that is, it refers to when people in the society speak language of the society (E-language), which they use it as mean of communication. However, â€Å"speak grammar† refers to when an individual speak his or her own language sticking deep inside their mind or brain, and cannot be understood by others. This language is not for society, but for individual only. 4. Assure (1969) make an analogy as saying When orchestra plays a symphony, the symphony exists externally to the way in which it is performed: that existence is comparable to langue in language study. The actual performance, which may contain idiosyncrasies or errors, is to be comparable to parole. ‘ Use this analogy to explain what E-language and I-language are. This means that E-language is the same as langue, which refers to the language that is externally used in the society and it is accepted as the language of the society, which people use it as the mean of contract and communication. However, I-language s equalized to parole referring to the language existing only in the individual, and usually it is not understood by others and considered as the error of language for people in the society. 5. Language is a set of choice and a set of contrast, yet why cant we always choose to organize the word in utterances in our preferred way? Even though language is a set of choice and contrast, we cannot Just organize language as we want because our own organization of language can become l- language which is not understood by others. This is because I-language is the language for individual only, and only the speaker can understand it. Chapter 2: Components of Language Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. Phonology is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language rather than with the actual physical articulation of speech sounds. Phonology is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language that allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we hear and say. Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words or each one of these meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language. /p/, lb/ are homes of English. O Phoneme has contrastive property. If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes. O English is often considered to have 44 phonemes: 24 consonants and 20 vowels. Phone is the different versions of the phoneme regularly produced in actual speech ( in the mouth). Allophone is a group of several phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme. For example, the [t] sound in the word tar is normally pronounced with a stronger puff of air (aspirated) than is present in the [t] sound in the word star. Minimal pair is when two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound (one phoneme), occurring in the same position, and which also differ in meaning. For example, fan-van, bet-bat, site-side, put-shut are some examples of minimal pairs. The Sound Patterns of Language Minimal set is when a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position in the word). For example, bet-set-vet-get-let and big-pig-rig-fig-wig are examples of minimal set. Phonetics’s is the arrangements of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) in a language. For example, in English, the consonant groups /SSP/ and /star/ can occur at the beginning of a word, as in sprout, strain, but they cannot occur at the end of a word. Syllable is a unit in speech which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word. For example, the word terminology consists of five syllables: term-mi-no-lo- gay. O A syllable contains onset (consonant(s)) and rhyme which has two parts nucleus (vowel) and coda (consonant(s)). The basic structure of the kind of syllable found in English words can be C.V. (green), PVC (eggs), C.V. (them), etc. Consonant cluster is a sequence of two or more consonants. Consonants clusters may occur at the beginning of a word (an initial cluster), at the end of a word (a final cluster) or within a word (a medial cluster). Co-articulation is the process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next sound. Circulation has two well-known effects: assimilation and elision. O Assimilation occurs when a speech sound changes, and becomes more like another sound which follows or precedes it, or when two sound segments occur in sequence and some aspect of one segment is taken or copied by the other. O Elision is the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech. O Everyone†s normal beech entails assimilation and elision which should be regarded as some type of sloppiness or laziness. The point of investigating these phonological processes is not to arrive at a set of rules about how a language should be pronounced, but to try to come to an understanding of the regularities and patterns which underlies the actual use of sounds in language. Words and Word-formation Process -Etymology: the study of the origin and history of a word -Coinage: the invention of totally new terms (Ex: aspirin, nylon, Baseline) -Borrowing: words that is borrowed from other languages (Ex: Piano(lately), Sofa(Arabic), Yogurt(Turkish)) -Compounding: two separate words are Joint together (bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, textbook) -Blending: combination of 2 separate forms to produce a single new term. Ex: motel (motor/hotel), smog (smoke/haze) -Clipping: reduction of words more than one syllable to a shorter form. Ex: condo (condominium), bra (brassiere), ad (advertisement) -Facilitation: reduction of words which also change the function, usually from noun to verb. Ex: emote (from Emotion), donate (from Donation), babysat (from Babysitter) -Conversion: a change in the function of a word, esp. noun becomes verb without any deduction. Ex: Someone has to chair the meeting. Or We bottled the homebred – Acronyms: new words that are formed from initial letters of a set of other words. Ex: CD (compact disk), VS. (video cassette recorder), ATM (automatic teller machine), PIN (personal identification number) -Derivation: the affixes (prefix suffix) added to the beginning or the end of a word. Ex: unhappy, misrepresent, Joyful, careless Morphology: the study of forms Morphology Morpheme: a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. Lexical Free functional Morpheme derivation bound inflectional Free morpheme: morpheme that can stand by themselves as single word. – Lexical morpheme: set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs. For example: Car, red, drive. – Functional morpheme: functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronoun. For expo: and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in the, them. Bound morpheme: morpheme that cannot stand alone and must attached to another forms. – Derivation morpheme: the affixes that make words into a different grammatical category from stem. For expo: -full, -less, re-, UN- Inflectional morpheme: set of bound morphemes to indicate aspects of the aromatically function of a word. 2 inflections attached to nouns, -g’s (possessive) and -s (plural). 4 inflections attached to verbs, -s (3rd person singular), -inning (present participle), -De (past tense) and -en (past participle). Inflections attached to adjectives: -est. (superlative) and -re (comparative). Lymphoma: the group or set of different morphs, all versions of one morpheme OR any of the different forms of a morpheme. For example: -s, -sees, 0 (zero morph). They are all lymphomas of the plural morpheme. Grammar Traditional grammar: a grammar which is usually based on earlier grammar of Latin r Greek and applied to the analysis of newer† languages such as English. Ag reement: In English sentence, agreement is based on the category of number, whether the noun is singular or plural. It is also based on the category of person, that is, first person (involving the speaker), second person (involving the hearer) and third person (involving any others). The form the verb must also be described in terms of tense. The final category is gender. Gender vs. Grammatical gender: Gender† refers to the natural gender or biological gender, that is, male or female and what words agree with it. She, her) refer to female entities, whereas (he, his) refer to male entities. Grammatical Gender† refers to the types of nouns which is considered masculine and feminine. For example, in Spanish there are article to call a noun in feminine (la) or masculine (la) such el sol ( the sun), la ulna (the moon). It does not imply that the moon†s sex is female or the sun†s male. The grammar simply states this way to use article with different noun. The prescriptive approach: Grammarian in the eighteen century in English create rule for the proper use of English. For example: You must not split an infinitive. You must not end a sentence with a preposition. Therefore, traditional teacher would correct sentences like: Who did you go with? O With whom did you go? However, we should be skeptical of the origin of some of these rules and asking whether they are appropriately applied to the English language. Let†s study this traditional rule Mimi must not split an infinitive†. The book elaborates by using Captain Kirk†s infinitive. To boldly go, to solemnly swear, according to Traditional grammar, is inappropriate. To go boldly, boldly t o go should be the appropriate form. In Latin grammar, it is clear that infinitive cannot be separated from a word because Latin infinitives are single words. However, it is not appropriate to carry this idea over to English where the infinitive form does not consist of a single form, but of two words, to and go. The descriptive approach Analysts collected samples of the language they were interested in and attempted to describe the regular structure of the language as it was used, not according to some view of how it should be used. This is called the descriptive approach. Structural Analysis Structural analysis† main concern is to investigate the distribution of forms in a engage. The method involves The makes a lot of noise. I heard yesterday. The use of test-frame† that can be sentences with empty slots in them. For example: By developing a set of test-frames of this type and discovering which forms fit the slots in the test-frame, we can produce a description of some aspects of the sentence structures of a language. Immediate Constituent Analysis: is designed to show how small constituents (or components) in sentences go together to form larger constituents. One basic step is determining how words go together to form phrases. How to cite Applied Linguistics, Papers

Project Management for Large Assets

Question: In this course you are required to complete a weekly portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this course. Your portfolio provides an account of your learning based on your prior and current learnings and your critical reflection. A portfolio is increasingly being used in Universities as a means of: Being able to tell much more about you than exam results; As a means of reflecting your development through the course; To reflect your attitude and values as well as your skills and knowledge. (Race 2010, p. 58) Timmins states that A portfolio is a cohesive account of work based learning that contains relevant evidence from practice and critical reflection on this evidence. Its primary purpose is to display achievement of professional competence or learning outcomes and knowledge development (Timmins 2008: p. 115). Youll find much more information about the use and application of portfolios on the Internet. However, it will need you to take some time to think through how you are going to complete the portfolio on a weekly basis. It is very easy to trivialise the portfolio and write nearly the same thing each week. But that wont gain you many marks. Instead you should try to focus on the topic and learning outcome for the week and your reflections regarding them. Task Your task is to write a weekly portfolio reflecting upon your learnings from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify: The learning outcomes and module/topic of the course; A description of your experience, including reading samples or records; Your learning from your experiences; Answer: Weekly Portfolio Learning Reflection Particulars Description Learning experiences Topic of the Discussion- Project Management of Large assets 1. Assets are physical, human, financial or intangible. Project management of larger assets include system integrated manufacturing process, equipments and many others. The approach to the larger assets management has been specifically designed in this course to put one in the position to proactively manage and reduced the risks, while cost optimization activities and managing the performance improvement activities associated with each asset. By going through the underlying concepts, the practical implications and business benefits, this main elements of these assets are as follows: Leadership- The asset management objectives suppose to be tied with the strategies of the organization. It is not just about to provide all the important resources for the management of larger assets but I need to be dedicated one within the associated business. Planning: Planning for a good asset management policy by defining, designing, building and maintaining large assets, I can efficiently manage assets management information Support: Having the right support in place can help in defining the resources for accomplishing the objective of large asset project management. Furthermore, the management must identifying the changes and associated risks which impacts the achievement of the assets management objectives. Additionally, the operation needs to incorporate organizational performance monitoring process and outsource the management activities. Operation: Here the common feature should enable the direction, implementation and control of the entire asset management. Evaluation: Another common feature of the large asset management is to monitor and review the performance. Improvement: The pro-actively promote and continual improvements for ensuring the end results to the stakeholders is last element of the large asset management. Being participated in this course, I have learned how to define, build and maintain large assets of the organizations while associated with the key project process related to the identification, justification, and selection of projects. This content of the course is indeed useful for exploring the means by which assets can ensure its profitability. While undergoing the course module, I understand that organizations generally followed five processes to design the framework of project management. For instance, I would initiate a budget considering the market demand. The course gives me the idea that in the project planning process I need to know the organizational objectives for implementing an effective asset management policy. During the process of project execution, the operational effectiveness, the most vital part of the asset management is to identify the risks and thus early and appropriate decision needs to be taken by myself. Moreover, the evaluation of the project is another responsible part for plan, establish, implement and maintain the audit programs. 2. The things that owners of large assets needs to do are: i) Determination of assets to be monitored and evaluated on frequent basis. ii) Monitor and ensure that assets are in good considered and function properly. iii) Record the assets performances 3. The problem with assets is that they: a. improper operation: organizations may suffer from lack of understanding of inherent design capabilities of their larger assets b. ineffective risk management: default in identification of assets performance and ineffective management and control often create risks c. over or under maintenance: Maintenance is often considered as the expense of the business and thus results ineffective assets management system. References: Hastings, N.A.J., 2015. Asset Management Personnel. In Physical Asset Management (pp. 43-57). Springer International Publishing. Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.

Improve Your Comments With These WordPress Comments Plugins

If you want to get your visitors engaged and coming back to your site, a vibrant comments section will go a long way towards achieving your goal. But to create engaging, back-and-forth discussions, youll likely need the help of some WordPress comments plugins.In this post, Ill discuss two ways in which you can improve the WordPress comments section with plugins. First, Ill show you how to enhance the default comments section with some helpful WordPress comments plugins. Then, Ill show you some cool third-party solutions which can completely replace the default WordPress commenting system.Use WordPress comments plugins to improve native commentsNative WordPress comments are the default commenting system that comes with any fresh install of WordPress. Unless youve installed a new comments plugin, your site is currently using native WordPress comments.The default WordPress comments system is adequate, but doesnt offer much in the way of added functionality. The following plugins change that by adding some cool new features to your WordPress comments section.Let readers comment via email with PostmaticOne of the major hurdles youll encounter with comments sections is engagement. Readers may leave one comment after they finish a post, but theyre unlikely to come back and check that comments section at a later date. That means creating an ongoing discussion is an uphill battle.By using the Postmatic plugin, you can let readers subscribe to comments via email. Replyable Subscribe to Comments and Reply by Email Author(s): PostmaticCurrent Version: 2.2.5Last Updated: June 20, 2019postmatic.zip 94%Ratings 76,266Downloads WP 4.4+Requires And heres the unique part readers can respond to comments directly from their email inbox. No need to force them to come back to your site.Your readers can also get notifications when you publish new posts and similarly comment on fresh posts directly from their email.In short, Postmatic is a great way to boost engagement by mak ing it easier for your readers to actually comment on your posts.Allow readers to edit their comments with Simple Comment EditingEveryone makes mistakes. And thats especially true when it comes to informal comments sections.Help your readers out by allowing them to edit their commentsfor a limited time. The Simple Comment Editing plugin lets anonymous readers edit their comments for up to five minutes after publishing. Simple Comment Editing Author(s): Ronald HuerecaCurrent Version: 2.3.8Last Updated: October 9, 2019simple-comment-editing.2.3.8.zip 98%Ratings 58,096Downloads WP 5.0+Requires Five minutes is a good number because it allows readers time to catch mistakes, but doesnt let them change the context of the comment after other commenters have already responded.Just be aware that if youre using a theme which changes WordPress comment hooks (like Enfold or Thesis), the plugin might not work. It should be fine for most WordPress themes, though.Send first time commenters to a thank you page with Yoast Comment HacksThis is one of my favorite tweaks for boosting engagement and one of my top WordPress comments plugins. Whenever a reader leaves their first comment, you can redirect them to a custom thank you page using the Yoast Comment Hacks plugin. Yoast Comment Hacks Author(s): Team YoastCurrent Version: 1.6Last Updated: June 17, 2019yoast-comment-hacks.1.6.zip 86%Ratings 32,079Downloads WP 4.5+Requires All you need to do is select any page on your WordPress site from a dropdown in the plugins settings:This allows you to generate leads, boost your social followers, push readers to check out more posts, or anything else you want to accomplish.As an added bonus, the plugin also allows you to set a minimum length for comments in order to avoid low effort comments.Enable image uploads to comments with Comment Images ReloadedFirst, a caveat use this feature carefully. Its definitely possible for this feature to be abused. But allowing image uploa ds can be a fun way to add some multimedia to your comments.Its especially helpful if youre running a contest which requires visual submissions. Comment Images Reloaded Author(s): WP PuzzleCurrent Version: 2.2.1Last Updated: June 23, 2016comment-images-reloaded.zip 98%Ratings 11,119Downloads WP 3.2+Requires Comment Images Reloaded allows you to enable image uploads. The plugin will automatically resize images to your chosen max dimensions so dont worry about breaking your layout. It also adds a new Comment Image column to the comment moderation tab, so that you can moderate images before they display on your live site:Add Reddit-like upvotes with Comment PopularityIf your site is already getting a high number of comments, you need a way to separate high quality comments fromnot so helpful comments.Thankfully, Reddit has already figured out a great way to do that: upvotes.You can bring similar functionality to your WordPress comments section by using the Comment Popularity p lugin. Comment Popularity Author(s): Human Made LimitedCurrent Version: 1.5Last Updated: February 7, 2018comment-popularity.1.5.zip 82%Ratings 9,331Downloads WP 4.9+Requires It adds upvote and downvote buttons next to each comment. Comments with higher scores (more upvotes than downvotes) will be displayed at the top of the comments section.All you need to do is install the plugin and it will start working. If you want, you can also configure a few basic settings regarding default scores for expert commenters:Let people post using their social information with Social CommentingIf you want an easy way to authenticate users, you can let them fill in their comment information via their social profiles. Postmatics Social Commenting plugin lets users click on their social network of choice to automatically authenticate their comment. Postmatic Social Commenting Author(s): Postmatic, ronalfyCurrent Version: 1.1.1Last Updated: March 11, 2016postmatic-social-commenting.1.1.1.zip 86%Ratings 5,745Downloads WP 3.0+Requires Its lightweight and doesnt require creating actual WordPress accounts all it does is place a cookie on the commenter to remember them.Use a third-party WordPress comment systemIf you want to completely overhaul your WordPress comments section (instead of using WordPress comments plugins), you can turn to a third-party solution. Theres a number of them out there, but Ill stick with the two most popular options. Check out CodeinWP for a more detailed discussion of third-party WordPress comment systems.DisqusIf youve ever left a comment here (might I suggest that you break the ice by leaving one on this post!), you know that Disqus is what we use here on the ThemeIsle blog.Disqus offers a new interface, threaded comments and replies, social mentions, and optional features to expose your site to the broader Disqus network if you want to expand your reach.Like I said, if you want to see Disqus in action, just scroll down to our comments sec tion.  You can leave a comment and play around with Disqus to see everything it offers.If you do decide to use Disqus, youll definitely want to lazy load Disqus comments to optimize your sites page speeds.FacebookIts never a bad idea to piggyback off whats popular. And boy is Facebook popular. Weve already discussed some general ways to integrate Facebook with WordPress, but using Facebook for your comments section is another great way to connect the two.Item not found:"facebook-comments-plugin"does not exist.Using the Facebook Comments plugin offers several advantages:Users who are already signed into Facebook can immediately comment.Comments are threaded to easily differentiate between comment chains.No anonymous comments can improve quality by removing anonymity.Comments are sorted by number of likes.Just be aware that you are requiring all of your commenters to have Facebook accounts. If your audience isnt the type to be active on Facebook, this might be something you want to consider.Wrapping things upIf you like the native commenting system, you can use some of the WordPress comments plugins in the first section to add fresh functionality. All of the plugins are easy to install and wont take much time to set up.If you want to completely change things up and shift away from native WordPress comments, then Disqus or Facebook Comments are definitely the two most popular options. Disqus is a good general purpose commenting system, while Facebook Comments is great if you have a Facebook-savvy audience.How do you handle comments on your WordPress site? Using any other WordPress comments plugins?

Shawshank redemption Essay Example

Shawshank redemption Essay Example Shawshank redemption Paper Shawshank redemption Paper Essay Topic: The Shawshank Redemption Miss en Scene to explore aspects of human nature. Discuss. The film The Shawano Redemption, Immensely displays the beneficial effects Dartboard was able to obtain through the complex use of Miss en Scene. Throughout the entire film, Dartboard consistently enforced features of human equation which major influence the audiences interpretation. The director accomplishes this by including key themes of human kind such as hope, the simplicity in the different ways/uses of camera angles and the intense representation f lighting and how it is used for a greater understanding of characters. Without ambition humans are most likely to settle for fatalism, granting themselves no expectations throughout their life. Dartboard was able to explore both negative and positive aspects of hope. The context provided in the film, supports the idea of how important desire is within humans. The director depicts this by having Red give in to fatalism, which is conveyed when Red is strung upon the parole board, giving the same testimony expecting to be declined. In opposition to Red, Dartboard portrays Andy as optimistic demonstrated through the lengthy period of time It took him to reach his goal to escape. Andes perseverance developed from his desire for freedom. As the film progresses, director Dartboard extends Antas characteristics to be influential to other prisoners (Red especially), which in terms allows the audience to gather any loose accusations of Andy optimistic impersonation. Viewers are able to make complex observations and assumptions even by the way Dearborn had directed scenes to be shot. Within the film, Dartboard expressly accounts camera angles In order to expand and support prime events, also providing a more sophisticated understanding of characters. The chosen camera angles by the director, allows the audience to distinguish which characters possess authority or weakness. During Antas first night being imprisoned, the guards brutally beat a prisoner, whilst dragging him from his cell the guards are filmed at a low angle, representing how superior they are. In entrant to low angles, high camera angles are also significant throughout the film. At a high angle, Dartboard films the Warden Norton studying Andy being incarcerated in the infirmary cell. This particular scene, conveys how useless Andy is under the Wardens heinous acts. As to both high and low camera angles, the prisoners are recognized to be set at eye level to one another, suggesting nature or equality amongst them. Lighting is a major aspect in a film, as it contributes accordingly too characters thoughts and feelings. An audience Is able to determine what state of mind the character Is In, optimizing the perception of the film. It Is exceptional how unnoticed the lighting in a film is, until the director wants to make a statement. Dartboard intentionally has the opening scene shot with Andy in the car, with extremely weak lighting with only the natural lighting from the background. As Andy is concealed in dark shadows, they mirror his dark contentions on that particular evening interpreting his unsteady state. Another scene where Dartboard conveys a own, at that point the audience is first introduced to the Warden Norton. The Warden is exposed with only half his face visible, the other half shadowed darkly. This optimizes the idea of a discouraging side that viewers are yet unaware of. In the outcome of exploring the ways in which the film The Shawano Redemption applies Miss en Scene, we are given the ability to recognize more profound interpretations behind the context. Dartboards use of camera angles, lighting and characteristics all have monumental effects on the way the audience deciphers the film.

Natural Selection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Natural Selection - Essay Example The world is going through the process of changes at different levels and most of them are related to human activity that goes on without intermission. Evolutionary biology provides perfect understanding and increases awareness. Regina Bailey argues that â€Å"Biological evolution is defined as any genetic change in a population that is inherited over several generations. These changes may be small or large, noticeable or not so noticeable. In order for an event to be considered an instance of evolution, changes have to occur on the genetic level of a population and be passed on from one generation to the next.†(Bailey†¦)It helps to predict short and long- term results of variations in the environment, global warming and results of application of pesticides. Interaction between adaptation and chance are the conflicting agents in the process of natural selection. When we say variation is the key concept, the role of lineages that are engaged in competition goes to prove th e importance of natural selection. Biological species are not unchangeable entities and they are ever on the flux. Regina Bailey further states, â€Å"Natural selection is the process by which biological evolutionary changes take place. Natural selection acts on populations and not individuals†¦.. Evolution suggests that all life is connected and can be traced back to one common ancestor. A literal interpretation of biblical creation suggests that life was created by an all-powerful, supernatural being.†(Bailey)The Process of Natural Selection, as propounded by Darwin has four components. They are â€Å"variation, inheritance, high rate of population growth and differential survival and reproduction.†(2011, Medical†¦) Viewed from any angle, natural selection is an important concept in evolutionary

World Food Programme Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

World Food Programme - Essay Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that the European Union is the major donor and it plays an integral part in the WFP. This includes proving support to the organization in order to help them meet their stated goals. However, there are other various organizations that are dedicated to disaster assistance, and among them is the American Red Cross, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services and many other organizations. WEP work in various areas where there is problems of weather and other disaster issues. The mission of WFP is based on their strategic goals; thus there is mission is to regard as a living document that is reviewed occasionally. The main aim of the program is to promote food security and help the populations that have been impacted by a disaster. The first role is to provide food to help the victims to maintain a healthy life. They have a policy that governs them and these include poverty and hunger eradication across the globe. They target intervention is to improve the li ving standards of people. They work in order to improve life of people living under absolute poverty and those that have been impact by crisis. WFP respond to the disaster issues by providing disaster relief to improve the socio and economic growth of the country or the population that have been impacted by disaster. They meet refugees and offer emergency food security to the victims. They also help in emergency situation in case the victims need special medical attention. Lastly they support the victims through promoting self-reliance especially to the poor people or communities through labor-intensive programs. Their operating budget is used for developmental activities and saving the lives of people being impacted by disasters. They partner with the government in areas that have being impacted in order to allocate relief id effectively. This organization concentrates on emergency cases and utilizes the available resources effectively in order to deliver humanitarian aid effective ly across the areas that need their help. Another organization dedicated to disaster assistance is American Red Cross (ARC). The Washington D.C established this organization in 1881 and it is a global organization that dedicates them toward saving the lives of people.  ARC is a humanitarian organization, which offers relief emergency and education within the U.S. It helps the needy and dedicates themselves towards distributing blood to those who require blood. This is in most cases where accidents have occurred and offer education on disaster preparedness. They also educate people on the way they can maintain health and offer safety as well as relief programs. The mission of the organization is to avert and alleviate people suffering from any disaster issues; thus they offer emergency though mobilizing volunteers and donors. The vision statement is working with the network of volunteers and donors in any emergency cases; thus turning action to help the affected people. They operat e their budget by setting aside relief emergency resources for using during the emergency cases. They utilize their resources in ensuring that the nation access to health, safe and blood products. Their program is voluntary and they work together with those who volunteer themselves to maintain unity; thus they work without discrimination of age, sex or race.

A critical appraisal and evaluation of the constraints and legal Dissertation

A critical appraisal and evaluation of the constraints and legal protections for foreign investment - Dissertation Example It is for this reason that states and international communities strive towards organizing transactions with the objective of extracting the maximum from foreign investments. Moreover, states and businesses aim at protecting their investments because of the fact that foreign investment is characterized with the internal and external movement of capital turnover and exploitation. Many developing countries believe that foreign investment is an urgent need for achieving economic growth and adopting better technology in their production processes. Developed nations can exploit their technical expertise by investing their capital in developing countries and thus make optimum use of the resources available in these countries. But this need cannot be effectively achieved unless an appropriate environment is created for foreign investments. This implies that foreign investments cannot be made efficient unless a stable process is applied to carry out actions and transactions in a suitably crea ted environment that is free from fear and uncertainty. Additionally, such needs require the implementation of the initial provisions in terms of the existence of such circumstances in order to effectively deal with hurdles that could result in scaled investments and contractions. This is necessary in order to alleviate the intensity of such problems, which is possible only if a legal framework is determined in carrying out the required operations. This paper aims at achieving this goal by examining the varied constraints that obstruct or prevent the smooth flow of foreign capital. It is also important to examine and search for protective measures in terms of legal security for domestic investments. This is best done by balancing conflicting commercial interests independently and without bias and without violating the legitimate rights of the contracting parties. In considering the given perspectives, a critical appraisal and evaluation of the constraints and legal protections for f oreign investment will be made by making a descriptive and analytical appraisal of different issues. The paper will first analyze the phenomenon of foreign investment in terms of legal and economic concepts. Next, an investigation will be done of the emergence and the development of the phenomenon of foreign investment. Finally, the role of foreign investment in the development of trade and the economics in different countries will be discussed. An acknowledged belief in regard to foreign investments is that the advantages accruing from them depend on how they are dealt with by the host country. Researchers have made qualified propositions to the effect that properly regulated foreign investments have the potential to create economic growth, employment, technology advancements, skilled manpower, market accessibility and development of the economy. It is necessary to balance the negativities of foreign investments with their positive effects by adopting applicable systems of control and taxation. Thus, it can be said that foreign investments can be good or bad for any economy, depending on how they are dealt with. This viewpoint is being increasingly accepted in many countries. It is believed in this regard that foreign investments are indispensable for the development and growth of developing economies, no growth is possible without foreign inflow of capital, foreign investments bring efficient ways of managing resources, technologies, competition and accessibility to international markets. Developing countries are not being forced by any entities to seek foreign investments but their governments need them. The private sector is

CBN and FDI Outflows to China

CBN and FDI Outflows to China Introduction and Research Problem Since its economic opening in 1979, China has become one of the worlds largest recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2007, inflows to China totalled over US$82 billion, bringing Chinas cumulative FDI to almost US$700 billion for the period 1979 to 2007 (CSB 2007). But what has particularly captured both academic and popular attention is the extent to which Chinas massive levels of FDI may be attributable to diasporic ethnic Chinese capital, what Harvard academic John Kao famously termed the Chinese commonwealth (Kao 1993: 24). It has often been asserted that some two-thirds of all the foreign investment that has poured into China originated from ethnic Chinese living outside of China (e.g., Wolf 2002: 134). This unprecedented level of intra-ethnic investment presents something of a headache to mainstream FDI theories, which, at the level of the firm, tend to explain internationalisation as an incremental process resulting from, variously, the pursuit of market power, an internalising of technological improvements, and the accumulation of foreign market knowledge and experience. Protesting against this type of theorizing as under-socialised and Western-centric, many Asia scholars (who are frequently also Asian) developed an alternative account drawn upon insights from network theory and some sociological studies of Chinese firms done in the 1990s. Their account—which in this dissertation is referred to as the Chinese Capitalism corpus—spans a variety of disciplinary frameworks including anthropology, economic geography and sociology, development economics, management, and Southeast Asia Regional studies, but has at its heart the premise that ethnic Chinese enterprises domin ate the economic activity of East Asia and FDI flows into China in large part because of their ability to draw upon dense, interlinked networks of social/family/political relationships that span national boundaries. These linkages are commonly known as Chinese business networks (CBN). The assertion that ethnic Chinese engage in pervasive networking on an international scale has become so ubiquitous in popular and academic literature that it is usually considered a stylized fact. But is it true that—despite citizenship in countries with differing social structures, political economies, and histories—the Chinese diaspora is linked by transnational webs of strong personalistic ties? And have these webs actuated and facilitated massive flows of FDI to China? If so, this would suggest that ethnic Chinese business operates in a distinctive manner, that it is proper to speak of a Chinese Capitalism in which flexibly linked Chinese enterprises might even form a competitive substitute for formally structured Western and Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs). Alternatively, it has been suggested that the concept of CBN might simply be a cultural myth which obscures, possibly exaggerates and distorts, the internationalisation of ethnic Chinese enterprises (Mackie 2000). If so—if intra-ethnic networking is ill-defined, over-stated and under-researched—what should we make of the prevalence of the CBN discourse in economics-based discipline s? And, if they are not advantaged by networks, how should mainstream FDI theories be amended to account for the fact that at the turn of the 21st century we find so many Singaporean enterprises in China? The main purpose of my research was to move this debate forward. I did so by investigating claims of extensive intra-ethnic networking among the ethnic Chinese with an eye toward enhancing mainstream internationalisation theorising. More specifically, I tested whether evidence of CBN could be found in the transnational expansion into China of randomly-selected Chinese-Singaporean small-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This chapter has two main objectives. The first is to present my dissertations research question and to explain why it is important. The second is to provide an overview of how and why I investigated it as I did. To this end, the following section discusses the general context of my research problem and reviews the conventional theoretical frameworks that address the phenomenon of internationalisation. Section 1.1.2 explains why it is important that claims of extensive intra-ethnic networking be investigated. Next, the focus is narrowed to the specific research question that was tested. The concept of CBN is carefully defined in Section 1.1.3, and it is conceptually operationalised into testable sub-hypotheses in Section 1.1.4. Background of CBN Claims With some US$30 billion cumulative FDI invested in China between 1979 and 2006, Singapore ranked as Chinas seventh largest source of foreign investment, after Hong Kong, Japan, the Virgin Islands, the United States, Taiwan, and South Korea (CSB, 2007). In 2006, about 70% of the Association for East Asian Nations (ASEAN) FDI originated in Singapore, and between 1990 and 2006, over 15,000 Singaporean projects were set up in China. These figures are all the more remarkable given Singapores small size. Furthermore, as significant as Singapore now is as an investor to China, it is likewise true that China has become important to Singapore as an investment market. Since 1997, China—a vacuum cleaner for foreign direct investment, as Lee Kuan Yew has frequently called it—has each year received the largest share of FDI by Singaporean entities, replacing Malaysia as Singapores top investment destination (Hamlin 2002). In 2002, FDI to China accounted for over 17% of total Singaporean investment abroad (Department of Statistics 2002). It is clear from these figures that not only are Singaporean transnational enterprises (TNEs) a significant force in the rearticulation of China into the global economy, but that China has become an important factor in the regionalisation of Singaporean firms. How can we account for this tremendous and unprecedented diasporic transnational investment? Two corpuses of literature that purportedly shed light on this phenomenon are critically examined in this dissertation: the mainstream internationalisation construct and what I refer to as the Chinese Capitalism perspective. Three strands within the mainstream internationalisation literature are highlighted in this dissertation. The first is theories of the MNE, which grew out of Stephen Hymers seminal work on post-war multinational investment in Europe and has its roots in the utilitarian tradition of classical and neo-classical economics. This corpus of literature has expanded over the decades to encompass a range of views, but at its core is some version of the argument that MNEs are enterprises which, in response to market imperfection and a desire to exploit proprietary advantages, have internalised activities by investing abroad. A distinctive sub-group of these theories has arisen in response to the spectacular increase in developing-country MNEs since the 1970s. Within Developing-Country MNE theories, the leading argument is that emerging MNEs from developing countries follow an incremental internationalisation process driven by gradual internal technological accumulation. Internationalisation Process Models is the second important strand within the mainstream approach. With its roots in behavioural theories of the firm, it offers a more explicitly dynamic approach to understanding the process by which firms engage in FDI. Though there is some variation in the explanation employed in the models—for instance, some stress learning and others focus on technological accumulation—and though the process is variously described as cyclic, stage-based, or evolutionary, a key premise is that internationalisation is incremental by nature, as the firm acquires knowledge necessary for further internationalisation. A third major strand within the mainstream approach has explicitly incorporated the concept of network into internationalisation theorisations. It is important to note the schism in the network literature between viewing networks as a form of governance structure versus focusing on networks as social relationships. This has caused a number of definitional problems and contributed to a seemingly irreconcilable divergence between mainstream economics/business theories and an approach that has grown out of the sociology discipline. Of the former, perhaps the most important for this thesis is the Late Industrialisation framework, which treats the concept of networks as a distinctive mode of organisation through which learning and the adaptation of borrowed technology were combined to promote economic development in a number of late industrialising countries in the 20th century. These three strands within the mainstream internationalisation construct dominate much of the research on MNEs and FDI but they have their shortcomings. In particularly, many Asia scholars (who were frequently Chinese-speaking Asians) have objected that mainstream internationalisation theories, with their under-socialised and Western roots, cannot adequately explain the phenomenon of ethnic Chinese investment in the motherland (Yeung 2000: 10). These scholars have instead drawn upon the insights of network theory and several sociological studies of ethnic Chinese enterprises (that were done in the 1990s) to develop an alternative account—the Chinese Capitalism perspective—to elucidate the specific case of ethnic Chinese transnational expansion. As its name suggests, this large corpus of literature is exclusively concerned with ethnic Chinese enterprises because it is argued that they differ in important respects not only from Japanese and Western firms, but from other d eveloping-country enterprises (Kao 1993). Central to the Chinese Capitalism perspective is the premise that ethnic Chinese firms dominate FDI flows into China, and indeed much of the economic activity of East Asia, because of their ability to form and draw upon dense, interlinked webs of social/family/political relationships that span national boundaries and rest on trust and reciprocation (Hamilton 1996a: 17). These relationships—Chinese business networks (CBN)—are variously ascribed to cultural and/or institutional factors and ostensibly give ethnic Chinese TNEs a strong advantage, especially when entering culturally Chinese markets such as China, while non-ethnic Chinese businesses meet with less success (EAAU 1995). As Hamilton-Hart wrote: Investment and trade flows linking Southeast and Northeast Asia have been promoted by network-like relationships among firms and individuals. These relationships have fostered regionalization by reducing the costs and risks of transnational investment (Hamilton-Hart 2002: 1). Describing this advantage in an especially enthusiastic manner, Redding wrote that ethnic Chinese capitalism is essentially an economic culture characterized by a unique capacity to co-operate (emphasis added: Redding 1990: 79). And Hamilton, concluding that the Chinese diaspora will elbow out non-Chinese entrants in the China market, wrote: Many Westerners honestly believe that they have a real chance to sell to the one billion plus Chinese consumers, but I do not believe it will work out this way (Hamilton 1996a: 19). Journalists and management gurus have similarly embraced the concept of Chinese business networks (e.g., Seagrave 1996; Backman 1999; and Drucker 1994). The concept of CBN has historical roots in the centuries of mass migration that have fostered transnational ethnic Chinese communities which span the world. Many historians have argued that commercial and financial networks based on fictive and agnatic familism, pang or speech-group solidarities, and regionalism, were historically important social channels in some settings, such as for those emigrating to Southeast Asia from southern China. But the Chinese Capitalism literature, taking new life from the treatment of networks within the sociology discipline, extended this historical observation further. It not only asserted that CBN remained important at the turn of the 21st century, but it emphasized CBN as a distinctive characteristic or skill of the ethnic Chinese. Research Significance The skill or special ability to combine a firms resources with the complementary resources of its partners can no doubt be an important organisational capability. Among the benefits, networks lower business transaction costs, provide for better risk assessment, and lead to prompt decision-making. But is there evidence that networking has been a primary factor in ethnic Chinese transnational expansion? Does it explain why Singaporean FDI has flowed so far afield to China? My research contributes to academic understanding in a number of ways. It adds to the scarce academic research that has been published to date on Southeast Asian SMEs, and it contributes to a more rigorous definition of CBN and some of the terms associated with it, such as guanxi. But its most significant contributions are to the following three areas: 1) theorizing on internationalisation and FDI in general, and ethnic Chinese businesses in particular; 2) assessments of whether Singaporean FDI outflows to China represent actual or faux economic development, and what that implies for evaluations of Singaporean state developmentalism; and 3) the use of CBN as a small state strategy to facilitate economic development and to accommodate an ascendant China. Chinese Capitalism and Internationalisation Theorising Further research into CBN is necessary to enhance theorising in both the Chinese Capitalism and mainstream internationalisation corpuses. As discussed in detail in Chapter 3, the Chinese Capitalism literature has to date suffered from a serious lack of empirical evidence. Articles that discuss CBN do often reference prior academic works, but when checked these references typically are revealed to be rather insubstantial. There is also a marked tendency to repeat, mantra-like, the same three or four original works on the subject, but because these studies were largely descriptive and based on a tiny sample size, they do not provide an adequate buttressing for the claim of extensive intra-ethnic business networking. Moreover, there have been virtually no rigorous cross-cultural comparative studies, and little consideration has been given to the drawbacks and costs of operating through networks. My investigation into CBN also speaks to the appropriateness of the academic niche that has developed for Chinese Business. A virtual phalanx of Chinese business experts has popped up since the late 1990s, and it is common to find universities that have dedicated a Chair—or even a department—to the business practices of this specific ethnic group. In contrast, one is less likely to find similar attention to Russian or Indian business studies. Of course, this is due in part to the staggering market potential represented by Chinas 1.3 billion population, but it can also be traced to the essentially culturalist assumption that ethnic Chinese have unique business practices such as CBN. In fact, CBN has become so widely accepted that much of the academic discussion has shifted away from directly considering ethnic Chinese ties towards as pseudo cross-comparative approach that is problematic because it contrasts the fact of CBN with the lack of networking in other cultures. Research into how, for example, Nordic or Indian networks are not as strong as CBN have become common. In short, though some of the details of CBN may be contested, the general premise of the Chinese Capitalism literature has largely been accepted and is influential. This has been especially true in the international business rubric, but references to CBN abound in economics-based disciplines as well. For example, in an Institute for International Economics special report describing the lessons South Korea should learn from CBN, Young argued: In the 1990s, they [the Chinese diaspora] formulated an international strategy to form a global network of overseas ChineseThe experiences of overseas Chines e networks would be good models for Korea (Young 2003: 50). And how did Young define CBN? They are led by the unique Chinese personal network, guanxi, which links individuals, hometown associations, business associations in the same industry, and associations of people with the same family name (Young 2003: 53). Mainstream internationalisation theories also have significant shortcomings. The economics discipline has a long history of neglecting—often completely omitting—the social, political, and historical context in which firms are embedded. A large gulf between mainstream economics and other social sciences has developed, making each seem increasingly irrelevant to the other. Economics many insights and strengths are too often viewed as inapplicable to other disciplines, and disciplinary cross-fertilisation has been hampered. Sloppy theorisations arise and thrive in such an environment. One of the most significant ways that evidence for CBN affects mainstream theorising lies in its suggestion that informally-linked enterprises might serve as functional substitutes for Western and Japanese MNEs. Large firms, especially multinationals, enjoy significant benefits of scale and scope as well as learning and productivity advantages that are unavailable to smaller, isolated firms (Nolan 2001). In contrast, the relatively small size of ethnic Chinese firms, which tend to be family-owned and -controlled, is considered by mainstream theorists to limit their competitiveness in international business. But perhaps the 21st century will indeed be a network age in which the economies of scale that dominated in the previous period seem to have given way to network economies (Young 2003: 33). If so, then the concept of CBN suggests that ethnic Chinese firms are informally bound together in such a way that they can duplicate, and maybe exceed, the benefits derived from the larger sco pe of MNEs (Borrus 1997). This intriguing possibility—that the limitations on competitiveness inherent in a family-controlled firm may be overcome by networking—provides a further reason for why my research into claims of extensive CBN is significant. Moreover, as my results demonstrate in Chapter 5, irrespective of whether extensive intra-ethnic networking is taking the place, the effects of the CBN discourse are profound and have affected FDI decision-making. Mainstream economic theory would be improved if economists took a more open-minded and sophisticated approach to appreciating, understanding, and incorporating such social dimensions. Singaporean Development(alism): Actual or Faux? My research contributes in another key way. Empirical evidence (or its absence) of CBN should factor into evaluations of Singapores level of economic development and, hence, assessments of the states developmental policies. FDI from Singapore to China has not only been large but it continues to grow. Though this transnational expansion has been actively promoted by the ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP) through various policies, programmes, and an official discourse on creating an external economic wing, the state would have us interpret Singaporean investment in China as growing economic maturation, a sign that Singapore is moving away from MNE-led development to a stage in which home-grown capitalists diversify into new areas. Outward direct investments are beneficial to both firms and the home country as they provide access to strategic assets, technology, skills, natural resources, and markets. It is especially important for a small state with limited market size and resources to be able to access international markets and connect with global production/knowledge systems. The degree to which Singapore has experienced the social and technological progress associated with economic development has been a contentious subject for the PAP-state (e.g., Krugman 1994), and it is perennially anxious to demonstrate its effectiveness. As discussed in Chapter 8, signs of declining popular support for the PAP in election results since 1988, in conjunction with a series of accumulation crises over the past two decades, have the state very worried. Though recognized as highly intrusive, the state has largely been given credit for developing Singapore from a sleepy entrepà ´t into a major communications hub with a population that enjoys one of the worlds highest per capita incomes. Since the 1990s, the Singaporean state has to a striking degree officially embraced and propagated a (selectively Confucian) culturalist discourse alongside calls for the development of an external sector to help insulate the country from downturns in the world economy. Is this yet another sign of an enduring comprehensive developmental state (Pereira 2007) cheerleading the march towards the next stage in Singapores economic development, this time, in part, by encouraging latent networking capabilities in its ethnic Chinese population? This might imply that after years of neglect, the PAP-developmental state has reached a stage where it is prioritising the engagement of local capitalists in its economic strategies (Haggard and Cheng 1987). For while the developmental state is expected to be the most powerful political and economic player during much of development, at some point state strategies should pay off and produce a vigorous and competitive domestic capitalist class (Periera 2007: 3). But what should we make of Singaporean FDI to China, and the states insistence that these flows are rooted in Chinese exceptionalism, if evidence suggests that CBN claims are over-stated? Justifications for Singapores domineering one-party state have always pointed to the Republics strong economic performance. If public proclamations about Chinese business networking turn out to be rather more wishful thinking than actual practice, then the government may be judged to have taken a serious mis-step, especially considering its own massive investments in China and the problems associated with some of them (, The New Frontier, Far Eastern Economic Review, December 6, 2001, BY Ben Dolven e.g., the Suzhou Industrial Park). The implication would be that Singaporean investment in China represents, at least in part, something other than the cool, independent economic rationalism upon which PAP political legitimacy rests; concerns might be raised about the optimum use of resources and the degr ee to which political considerations have lead the state to invest heavily in China itself, push its GLC sector to do so as well, and create a discourse in which local capitalists are encouraged to make the risky move to China. More importantly, high levels of Singaporean FDI to China might not represent maturation out of the MNE-dependency that is widely recognized to now seriously limit economic growth and make the island-state exceptionally vulnerable to fluctuations in a world economy beyond its control. And it may hint that the hither-to developmental PAP-state is losing some of the political insulation, technocratic skills, and discipline it needs to continue to lead Singapore. In summary, my research contributes to assessments of the PAP-developmental state. Should Singaporean FDI to China be interpreted as a sign of economic development, with all the benefits this implies for a small state that has to date been extremely exposed to world economic conditions? Or, alternatively, is it at heart a sort of faux development that does not bring the social and technological progress that accompanies actual development? This important topic—the role of the PAP-states CBN discourse in FDI decision-making—is discussed at length in conjunction with the results of my research in Chapter 8. CBN as a Small State Strategy My research also contributes to an understanding of how CBN and the discourse surrounding can be used by a small state wishing to punch above its weight in its engagement with the international environment, especially an ascendant China. By this I am referring to Singapores strategic use of culture and ethnicity to further its economic and national security/foreign policy goals. Chinas growing economic and military strength is increasingly presenting a dramatic challenge to world, particularly East Asian, power relations. Tapping into (or manufacturing) the Chinese-ness of a states population or subgroup may be an excellent strategy for accommodating a rising China, especially for small states such as Singapore which are looking for ways to compensate for their power deficit. A small state faces an integration dilemma when it considers Chinas growing markets and reach (Goetschel 1998: 28). It can insist on economic and security independence but risk being abandoned or isolated, with the disadvantages this would like cause. Or it can accept a constraint on its freedom to act in ways that are contrary to Chinas economic and security goals and instead try to accommodate, identify with, even in some sense integrate with, China. Stressing as it does not just civilisational fluency but actual networks with China, the CBN discourse functions as a novel way of enabl ing Singapore to do the latter. Whether Singapores strategy might successfully be imitated by other small states remains to be seen. It is interesting to speculate how, for example, Africas over 7 million ethnic Chinese and Perus 1.3 million, might factor into their states strategic possibilities for engaging China (e.g., Mung 2008). Singapore has tried to modify the international environment through its cultural discourse in another sense. As discussed in Chapter 8, this former British colony has for the two decades heavily marketed itself as the Gateway to the East. Its stated goal since Singapores regionalisation drive was announced in 1993 has been to be the regional hub, a place where MNEs locate their headquarters and higher value-added operations (such as research and development), while situating lower value-added parts in China and other areas of East Asia where labour is cheaper. The clear implication of the self-orientalising discourse of CBN is that Western firms are unlikely to be successful if they invest directly in China. They need instead to engage a mediating force, such as Singaporean firms, in order to become part of the transnational networks in which Chinese business is accomplished, or so the story goes. As a Singaporean government minister put it: Those who have knowledge of the culture and cultural nuances are able to lower business risks [for foreigners]. The Chinese overseas understand Chinese culture because they are ethnically Chinese themselves, but they also understand the world outsideThey are like modems. They modulate and demodulate and add value in the process. (George Yeo, quoted in Crovitz 1993: 18). With its middleman familiarity with both East and West and its purportedly dense transnational networks with China, the CBN discourse therefore places Singapore in the enviable niche position of knowledge arbitrageur (Tan, K.B. Eugene 2006). It is a striking example of the claiming of territoriality over knowledge (Brown and Menkhoff 2006), in both a conceptual and quite literal sense. Defining the Concept of CBN Unfortunately, a clear-cut definition of the concept of Chinese business networking does not currently exist. Much of the Chinese Capitalism literature is largely descriptive rather than theoretically precise, and to the degree that a definition is specified it varies significantly from author to author. Some scholars discussing networks have stressed their origin in qiaoxiang (usually defined as ancestral homeland ties), kinship, religious, and/or school ties (Hamilton 1996; Liu 1998, 1999; Yeung 2000d). Other scholars have used a broader definition that characterises Chinese business networks as long-term, but extensible, personalized networks, based on trust and upheld by the indispensability of reputation within such a system (Tracy et al. 2001: 262). These are contrasted with what are characterised as the generally weak, situational, and non-enduring ties of the West (Zahra et al. 1999: 45). A particular problem with the fuzziness surrounding CBN is that this concept is often—and unhelpfully—confused with guanxi. Like CBN, the latter term suffers from a lack of definitional rigor. Guanxi has commonly been translated as both connections and relationships, but neither of these terms adequately gives a sense of how this multi-faceted concept is commonly understood by Chinese. A more sophisticated definition is, the concept of drawing on connections in order to secure favors in personal relations (Luo 2007: 2). There are obvious similarities between the concepts of CBN and guanxi, but closer scrutiny of the academic literature as well as the results of my fieldwork led me to a conclusion, shared with a few researchers (e.g., Fan 2002), that guanxi is not identical to CBN. For example, it is not generally considered to be something that is exchanged between family members or childhood friends, nor is it usually described as having any sense of qiaoxiang or ancestral homeland sentiment. Also, unlike CBN, guanxi has on occasion been described quite negatively by a few researchers. Fan, for example, argued that guanxi and corruption are inextricably intertwined in 21st century China (2002). This assessment was supported by my fieldwork, as most of the SME owners I interviewed ascribed negative qualities to the practice of guanxi. Some of them described guanxi as a payment—on occasion they used the term bribe—that must be paid to local government officials as a cost of doing busine ss in China. Others equated it with an obligation to pay for lavish dinners and parties for customers or suppliers in the (frequently forlorn) hope of receiving enough business in return to justify these outlays. When one of my interviewees was asked to define guanxi, he summed it up as, If you want to do business in China, you must pay to play (Interviewee #6). In summary, though any attempt to definitively delineate these two unwieldy and messy terms (Luo 2007) is beyond the scope of this dissertation, the results of my research, combined with a close scrutiny of the academic literature, led me to the conclusion that they are not identical. While creating guanxi with someone may lead to a close networking relationship, it should not be confused with the networking relationship itself. So, though these concepts overlap, it is important to carefully define and distinguish between them. Yet in many accounts of Chinese business practices these two terms—guanxi and CBN—are used as though they were interchangeable. As discussed further in Chapter 5, the frequent conflation of what are actually two separate concepts adds to the confusion surrounding intra-ethnic networking and has important ramifications for my research conclusions. In light of the definitional jumble surrounding CBN, it was important in this thesis that the concept be defined in such as way as to convey the general intent of the Chinese Capitalism literature, yet be specific enough to be rigorously tested. To this end, I chose to draw upon the definition of Chinese business networking suggested by Gomez and Hsiao (2001). They argued that the Chinese Capitalism literature is characterised by an emphasis on Chinese exclusivity, a special conception of trust, and an explicit challenge to existing theories of transnational expansion. Thus, contrary to the very broad definitions typically put forth or assumed, the concept of CBN must necessarily imply a precise, strong connection among businessmen that goes beyond the common, and casual, use in the West of the term business networking (Gomez and Hsiao 2001). More specifically, Gomez and Hsiao claimed that the concept should be reserved for: The e