The Woman Who Fathered Me: A Caribbean Womans Role in the Family Essay

The Woman Who Fathered Me: A Caribbean Woman's Role in the Family Female children born into low income families in Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean are burdened with a stereotype that their male counterparts will never know. When faced with the gender oppression their society has constantly been feeding, and the fact that so many women must act as the single financial heads of their families, many women of the Caribbean must settle for low paying occupations associated with 'female' or domestic labor. For women born into families at the bottom of the economic ladder, there is little hope of social mobility or escape from the fist of poverty. In most cases, the cycle continues to feed itself from mother to daughter. In my paper I will demonstrate this cycÀle by examining the Caribbean women's role in the family as head of the household and the education, employment and survival strategies characteristic to many of these women. I will conclude my paper by discussing some of the new organizations and movements that have surfaced in the C aribbean within the past thirty years that are fighting for women's empowerment. In his highly acclaimed novel In the Castle of My Skin, which he dedicates to his mother, in chapter three George Lamming eloquently describes what is actually a common scene among islands of the Caribbean: women gathered together in a common yard for the purpose of gossip. While it may seem to be an insignificant event, in a region where the responsibilities involved in raising a family fall mainly on women's shoulders, their bond with each other is essential. Miss Foster. My mother. Bob's mother. It seemed they were three pieces in a pattern which remained constant. Miss Foster had six children, th... .... 1998. 3. Ellis, Pat. Women of the Caribbean. New Jersey: Zeb Books Ltd., 1986. 4. Haniff, Nesha Z. Blaze a Fire. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1988. 5. Lamming, George. In the Castle of My Skin. USA: University of Michigan Press, 1991. 6. Massiah, Joycelin. omen as Heads of Households in the Caribbean: family structures and feminine status. Colchester: Unesco, 1983. 7. Senior, Olive. Working Miricles: Women's Lives in the English-speaking Caribbean. London: James Currey Ltd, 1991. 8. Shepherd, Verene. Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. 9. Walker, Susan."Rastafarian Women Speak Out"The Toronto Star 12 Aug. 1994: Pg. D12. 10. Yawney, Carole D. Moving with the dawtas of Rastafari: from myth to reality. pgs. 15--23; 33--55; and 65--73. (excerpts from Teresa Turner's New Society.)

To Kill A Mockingbird: Childhood Experience :: essays research papers

To Kill A Mockingbird: Childhood Experience   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Have you ever thought of an answer to reply to your children, when they ask you, â€Å"What was the world like when you were a child?†, â€Å"What things that happened that impressed you most when you were a child?† or â€Å"How interesting is your childhood experience?†. Everybody must have had their childhood. Some of the experiences may cause them to smile, or even laugh, while some of them may bring back bitter memories. It is always hard to express the childhood incidents or experience in a clear and interesting way, since they were past memories that happened long time ago. Moreover, when a person has grown up, they will never have the same feeling which they might have in their childhood. However, the authors Harper Lee and Mark Twain can express their own childhood inside the stories they created, in a lively and realistic way. The two novels To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer have a very similar characteristic. It is the way they describe a person's childhood experience, and their feelings and new knowledge that come out from those experiences. This characteristic, however, has given me a big revelation after reading the two novels. The novels show that the childhood experience of a person has a great positive influence on his personality, behaviour, and ways on dealing with others. This idea has been shown by the authors in both novels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  From the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, one could discover that innocent behaviour and misunderstanding can lead a child to view a person or thing incorrectly and incompletely. This behaviour can also lead a child to a wrong perspective. In the first part of To Kill a Mockingbird, the main characters Scout, Jem, and Dill thought that the Radley family and their member, Boo Radley, as strange and unnatural human beings. They described Radley's house as â€Å"That is a sad house....† (Harper Lee, 48). This is a â€Å"fact† they heard from their neighbours. Until one day, their neighbour Miss Maudie's house was found on fire. While Scout was standing outside in the cold watching the fire, someone from behind her and put a blanket around her shoulders. Later, Scout and Jem realized that there was only one person in town who had not fought to put out the fire -- Boo Radley. Scout asked, â€Å"Thank who?†(Harper Lee, 76). Jem replied, â€Å"Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn't know it when he put the blanket around you.†(Harper Lee, 76) It was then that Scout and Jem started

Copper Mountain Essay -- Environmental Issues

It’s a sunny October afternoon and I’m listening to the breeze gently rustle the tree tops above me. I look down into the creek as I sit here munching on some cashews, and I see trout gliding effortlessly through the crystal-clear water. I revel in how incredibly lush the area is†¦although it’s been a dry summer the ground is still moist, plants are bright and colorful, and wildlife is abound. After I finish my snack and tuck my trash away into my backpack, I continue my hike up this parcel of land that is may soon become barren with towers of steel and wire draping the landscape. I wonder to myself what will become of these fish, or the fresh clean water that runs into the Reeder Reservoir, the source of Ashland’s drinking water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ski area expansions are the most ecological damaging task that an area can undertake. In a plan revision for the White River National Forest in Colorado, regarding the Copper Mountain Ski Resort expansion, the EPA hammers that point home when they say that â€Å"†¦no other land management prescription on the Forest directly results in more stream-water depletion, wetland impacts, air pollution, permanent vegetation change, or permanent habitat loss†¦ more wetland impacts and stream depletions resulted from ski area expansion and improvement than from all other Forest management activities combined, including many direct and indirect impacts that are permanent (irreversible and irretrievable).† Meanwhile, skier numbers nationally have only increased just two percent since 1978(source). Which begs the question, why have ski area sizes more than doubled in acreage to the tune of 107%(source)? Mt. Ashland’s future expansion surely isn’t needed due t... ...ts past development and expansion of the Copper Mountain ski area as major factor in the degradation of the watershed and local water quality. Impacts include: increased peak flows, increased water temperature, increased erosion and sediment transport, and decrease flow due to snowmaking activities. The USDA has taken exhaustive steps to help mitigate the damage caused by the expansion at a great financial cost to taxpayers. The USDA has had to redesign all stream crossings to allow for higher stream flows and to withstand expected floods. They also performed physical modifications of the stream patterns and stream geometry to improve long term stream health. Environmental Scorecard Concerned locals first brought attention to the Environmental Scorecard in November of 2008 after an article published in the local newspaper, Ashland Daily Tidings, appeared.

Internet Library Research Essay

The library is one of the best places wherein students can gather information for their assignments and researches. Libraries contain thousands of books that vary in subjects such as mathematics, sciences, arts, languages, and literature. In addition, it also provides students with other types of resources including periodicals, maps, CD-ROMs, and even the Internet. To say, therefore, that libraries are important in a student’s life is an understatement. As such, schools should make sure that students have constant access to the libraries even while at home. The North Central University is one of the many schools in the country that offers online access to its library. Students are able to search for resources that they need to complete their works even while not at the campus. They can talk to a librarian if they wish to. They can refer to guides if they encounter difficulty in using the online library or if they are confused in the writing process and cannot finish their research. The best feature of the university’s website is the abundance of resources it can provide for its students because of the numerous databases that it can access. The login page of the university is simple in that it does not require the students to search the page just to be able to log in properly. The login page also has options for first time users who have no account yet, for students who have forgotten their passphrase, and for those who need to reset their passphrases. An option to remember the user is also available on the page. The login button will take the student to the main page of the university’s website, which is the Learner Portal. Here, the student will be able to view his or her messages, announcements, and important events through the calendar. The portal has links to several other features, which include the library, writing center, and university documents. Clicking on the link for the library will direct the student to the main page of the North Central University online library. There are several options available for students in this area. One can ask a librarian about the availability of certain books. Students can search multiple databases for scholarly references. There are also guides in which students can refer themselves to if they have a hard time writing their researches. To perform a search that will yield scholarly references, students must click the NCU databases link and select their choice of database from here. The databases include EBSCOhost, LexisNexis Academic, ProQuest, and Sage. The database chosen for this activity was ProQuest, and the topic that searched was â€Å"ethical leadership in the 21st century. † Before performing the search however, there was an instruction to select the option â€Å"Database selected† so that the students will have the opportunity to select only the databases that are relevant to the search. The pre-determined databases include Career and Technical Education, Dissertations and Theses, ProQuest Computing, ProQuest Education Journals, and Research Library. The results of the search yielded seven documents from which only three were relevant. Among these three, only two was able to give full access to the document. The subjects that these documents fell under include counseling, organization behavior, anthropology, business ethics, psychiatry, and information science. Of these, only two were relevant to the topic being searched. The chosen citation reviewed was the one with the latest date of publication entitled â€Å"The Ethical Grounding to 21st Century Public Leadership. † There was a little difficulty experienced while searching for the author link because the document was full-text PDF format, which does not contain any links to the author. This was resolved by clicking the option to view the abstract of the document where the author’s name was hyperlinked to his other works. This particular document had two authors. Clicking the link for the first author (Niel R. Vance) gave five documents and only one was related to the original document because it discussed applied ethics. The second author (Brett V. Trani) did not have any other work aside from this document. Because there were only three relevant documents related to the search terms, another search was performed. This time, the word â€Å"21st† was replaced with â€Å"twenty first. † This yielded five results, two of which were relevant. The ProQuest database is user oriented in that it provides a Help link for people to find ways to enhance their search process. At the beginning of the search, the Help option allows students to learn how to improve their search. Students will learn how to limit their searches or exclude other options to refine their search. This would lead to better results and would take the students less effort when searching for their resources. Another Help link is also available after a search is completed. This will teach students how to read and mark a document, cite the document properly, and filter or sort the results. The database can also suggest topics and publications that are related to the student’s keywords. Overall, ProQuest excels in trying to provide scholarly and useful resources for the students of North Central University. The results were very relevant and close to the terms that were used to search the database. There were many helpful hints throughout the website for students to use so that they can experience the best while searching. These tips were also significant because the students are able to apply them in their papers, which would mean that they would commit fewer errors in their works. There was also an option for students to email a specific article if they want to share what they have found in their search. The references that the document used can also be viewed by the student to see if there are relevant information that can be used for his or her work. The experience provided new insights in performing searches. Although it was relatively easy, students need to know some tricks to yield better results like changing some keywords or using the suggested topics that the database provides. There is no doubt that technology has a big impact on everyone’s lives nowadays. Educational institutions have to keep up with the changing of times to meet the needs of their students even if it means having to set up websites and online libraries, and acquiring huge databases for their students. Online libraries are important because this would provide students reliable sources for their papers. This is in contrast to Internet articles that are freely available on the World Wide Web but are sometimes misleading and are questionable in terms of the content and the authority of the person who wrote it. While not all that can be found on the Internet is unreliable, it is better for students to not take the risk, especially if it is their grades that are on the line. Only trusted information should be used when doing academic research papers unless otherwise indicated by professors and instructors. It is essential to mention that students need to learn how to distinguish reliable sources from those that cannot be trusted. They should learn how to distinguish if a website has the requirements for it to be considered reliable. References Bahaudin G Mujtaba, Carol Griffin, Cuneyt Oskal. (2004). Emerging Ethical Issues in Technology and Countermeasures for Management and Leadership Consideration in the Twenty First Century’s Competitive Environment of Global Interdependence. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 9(3), 34-55. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1178660741). Kanungo, Rabindra N. (1998). Leadership in organizations: looking ahead to the 21st century. Canadian Psychology, 39(1/2), 71. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ProQuest Psychology Journals database. (Document ID: 390882341). M. Fleckenstein, Mary Maury, S. M. Patrick Primeaux, Patricia Werhane. (2006). Ethical Leadership in 21st Century Corporate America. Journal of Business Ethics, 66(2-3), 145-146. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1113480671). Neil R Vance, Brett V Trani. (2008). THE ETHICAL GROUNDING TO 21st CENTURY PUBLIC LEADERSHIP. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 11(3), 372-380. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1536919851). Rost, Joseph C. (1995). Leadership: A discussion about ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, 5(1), 129. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 4596738). Vivienne Collinson. (2008). Leading by learning: new directions in the twenty-first century. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(4), 443-460. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1506286921).

Public Speaking Self-Reflection Essay

In order for public speaking to become a skill, there are a few areas in which I need to improve to make it a suitable strength. Public speaking is not a weakness for me but I would like to transform it into one of my strengths. During my two minute presentation, I found that in order to do this I need to improve my ability to perform long speeches without hesitation, maintain eye contact, and be energetic in front of an audience showing more overview what topic I am discussing. In class I plan to work on take the steps of improving my verbal communication in front of my peers. While talking I plan to avoid using filler words that will drag a speech on and draw less interest from my audience. Being able to talk among my peers by keeping good eye contact on them at all times. By doing this it allows me the freedom to walk around and not be completely immobile when giving a speech. Understanding how to organize my work to have a solid overview on what I will be saying when presenting. With this class I hope it takes me to a whole new level on how to talk to people and how to control my emotions when in front of any audience regardless who it is. By allowing myself this sense of understand and awareness will help give me a sense of calmness giving me the ability to stand up and say what I need to say when giving a speech or if I am in a crowd listening to someone speak to offer my views on what is being said. In order for myself to improve my weak areas to accomplish my goals I will have to do the following: first write a speech and review it, next go over the speech many times in a place I feel safe performing the speech. After this find a mirror, use this to help reduce my fear when speaking in front of people. If this doesn’t work for me I can always use my family to help me. This will be continued to repeat itself until I felt I was ready to give my p resentation. Once I have accomplished improving my shortcomings will have the tools needed to be successful in any  job related to my career field.

Politeness and Culture Essay

1.1 What is politeness? Politeness is a kind of socio-cultural phenomenon in human communication. It has been defined in diverse ways. For Kochman (1984), politeness has a protective mission exercised in putting things in such a way as to take account of the feelings of others: Polite conversation is†¦ a way of showing consideration for other people’s  feelings, that is, not saying or doing anything that might unduly excite or arouse. The ‘gentleman’s agreement’ (though, hardly just confined to adult males) is and was ‘ you don’t do or say anything that might arouse my feelings, and I won’t do or say anything that might arouse yours’†¦ (1984:204) Watts (1992) defines polite behaviour as â€Å"socio-culturally determined behavior directed towards the goal of establishing and/or maintaining in a state of equilibrium the personal relationships between the individuals of a social group, whether open or closed, during the ongoing process of interaction† (1992:50) Therefore, the term â€Å"politeness† may be generally defined as adequate social conduct and tactful consideration of others aiming to avoid interactional conflicts. Politeness can be realized in a number of ways, among which the use of language concerns us most in the present discussion. Politeness is then taken to be the various forms of language structure and usage which allow the members of a socio-cultural group to achieve their conflict-avoiding goals. If politeness is seen as the adequacy of linguistic behavior, then all speakers of different languages are equally polite, since they all have linguistic means at their disposal, which according to their rules of application are adequate in different situations. The concept of politeness, therefore, is universally valid. 1.2 Motives of Being Polite Why do people apologize when they have done something wrong? Why do they compliment on their friend’s hairstyle? In one word, why do people behave appropriately, hence politely? The explanation of such diverse communicative behaviors lies in the consideration of â€Å"face†. Face is thus viewed as a positive public self-image that is maintaining in society. That is, in newly formed contacts the individual engages in establishing a public image for himself. In continued contacts he engages in sustaining and improving the face he has encouraged the others to develop for him. A fundamental preoccupation of people around the world is maintaining or protecting face. Threats to face, whether intended, accidental, or only imagined, are the basis of most interpersonal conflicts. They arise when people feel that their right to a positive self-image being ignored. One conventional way of avioding threats to face in all cultures is to be linguistically polite. To secure this public self-image, people engage in what Goffman calls â€Å"face work†, performing action â€Å"to make whatever they are doing consistent with face†(1967:12), while trying to save their own face as well as the other’s. Goffman (1967) specifies two kinds of face-work: the avoidance process (avoiding potentially face-threatening) acts and the corrective process (performing a variety of redressive acts). However, he says little about how face can be maintained linguistically while damage is occuring. As implied above, face wants are reciprocal, i.e. if one wants his face cared for, he should care for other people’s face. The reason is that, while the individual is absorbed in developing and maintaining his face, the others also have similar considerations for themselves. It is clear that one way of ensuring the maintenance of their own face is to keep everybody’s face undamaged. Normally, the participants during interaction work on the understanding that one will respect the other’s face as long as the other respects his. This point is best expressed by the concise rule in Scripture: Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you. Since face wants are reciprocal, politeness naturally concerns a relationship between two rational participants or interlocutors, whom we may call self and other. In a conversation, self may be identified with speaker or addresser, and other with hearer or addressee. Also it is possible that  speakers show politeness to a third party that is related to interlocutor’s face. 2.0 Language and Culture 2.1 Defining Culture Culture is a large and evasive concept. Sapir (1921) holds that culture may be defined as what a society does and thinks, and language is a particular way of thought. Language, in this way, is part of culture. Culture is also interpreted in the sense of Goodenough’s definition: As I see it, a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one had to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members†¦ Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological heritage, must consist of the end-product of learning: knowledge, in a most geneal†¦ sense of the term (Goodenough,1954:167). Culture is thus whatever a person must know in order to function in a particular society, including language and conventional behavioral norms that a person must follow or that other people in the society expect you to follow, to get through the task of daily living. When we study a culture, it is not enough to merely learn the knowledge of a language and behavioral norms, as Steinmetz, Bush and Joseph-Goldfare (1994) point out: Studying culture does not mean looking only at customs, insititution, and artifacts†¦, but also studying people’s values, beliefs, and attitudes and how they influence or are influenced by interaction among people. Culture should be studied as a process as well as a product (1994:12). As a combination of these views, culture consists of not only language, behavioural norms, which can be observed, but also values and beliefs underlying them. The famous metaphor of the â€Å"culture iceberg† (Hall & Hall,  1990) indicates that many aspects of culture, such as certain beliefs, world views, and values, are below the surface of consciousness ( in the submerged part of the iceberg). Other aspects of culture, like language, eating habits, customs, are in the conscious area ( above the waterline). It is often the less conscious cultural aspects that influenced the way people communicate with each other. 2.2 Language and Culture We are now in a position to see language and culture in a dialectical relationship. Every language is part of a culture. As such, it cannot but serve and reflect cultural needs. This does not necessarily go against Saussure’s thesis that the signified of a language are arbitrary and hence derive their exact identity from systems of relationships. What needs to be added, however, is that this arbitrariness is not as absolute as he suggested, but is limited by the particular cultural setting from which a language extracts its signified. Within the broad limits set by the specific needs of a culture, a language is free to make arbitrary selections of signifieds. This element of arbitrariness is brone out by the fact that there is of a speech community and its linguistic resources. Thus neither linguistic determinism nor cultural determinism can adequately explain why a language should select its unique system of signs, for these selections are made partly in response to cultural needs and partly owing to the inherent ( limited ) arbitrariness of the process. There is yet another sense in which language is not a passive reflector of culture. Even assuming that culture is in many cases the first cause in the language-culture relationship, language as the effect in the first link of the casual chain will in turn be the cause in the next link, reinforcing and preserving beliefs and customs and conditioning their future course. 3.0 Politeness and Culture 3.1 The Concept of Face In Chinese and English The central to B & L’s politeness theory is the concept of face, and its two concimitant desires—– negative face and positive face, which are defined from the perspective of individual’s wants. B & L maintain that notion of face constituted by these two basic desire is universal (1987:13). This section thus aims to examine whether their notion of face is applicable in Chinese culture. Since they acknowledge deriving their formulation of face from Goffman’s classic account of face and from the English folk notion of face (1987:61), these two sources will be dealt with first. 3.1.1 The Source of B & L’s † Face† The first source is Goffman’s account of face. Goffman characterizes face as â€Å"the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact†. He sees face not as a private or an internalized flow of events, supported by other people’s judgments, and enclosed by â€Å"impersonal agencies in the situation† (1967:7). Seen in this light, face becomes a public image that is on loan to individuals from society, and that will be withdrawn from them if they prove unworthy of it (1967:10). B & L say that their other sources is the English folk concept of face, which is linked to notions like â€Å"being embarrassed of humiliated, or ‘losing face'† (1987:61). But in fact, such notions of face seem to be Chinese in origin. The word â€Å"face† is a literal translation of the two Chinese characters and ( Hu,1944;Ho,1975). Presumably informed of these two sources, B & L characterize face as image that intrinsically belongs to the individual, to the self. This seems to part with their first source considerably. Here, the public characteristic that is essential to Goffman’s analysis of face seems to become an external modifier rather than an intrinsic constituent of this image. 3.1.2 Chinese â€Å"Face† As pointed out above, two Chinese characters and are used to convey the denotative meaning of the word â€Å"face† ( that is, † the front of the head†); they also encode connotative meanings, which have to do with reputable, respectable images that individuals can claim for themselves from communities in which they interact, or to which they belong (Ho,1957). More specifically, stands for prestige or reputation, which is either achieved through getting on in life (Hu, 1944:45), or ascribed by other members of one’s own community. refers to † the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation†; it embodies † the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character†, and it is † both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and internalized sanction† (Hu, 1944:45). Chinese speakers, therefore, will be seen as being polite if they know how to attend to each other’s and and to enact speech acts appropriate to and worthy of such an image. 3.2 Difference Between Chinese â€Å"Face† and B & L’s â€Å"Face† The first difference is concerned with their overall conceptualization of face—-a difference that has been briefly alluded to above. B & L focus their notion of face primarily upon the individual—-rather than the communal-aspect of face; that is, the self is the principal constituent that contextualizes the concept of face. The self is â€Å"public† only to the extent that it depends on other’s face being manifested (B & L, 1987:61). The self depends on the public only to preserve its own interests. In short, the overall composition of this self-image, with its negative and positive aspects, only concerns the individual’s wants and desires. In contrast, Chinese face encodes a reputable image that individuals can claim for themselves as they interact with others in a given community; it is intimately linked to the views of the community and to the community’s judgment and perception of the individual’s character and behaviour. Chinese face emphasizes not the accommodation of individual â€Å"wants† or â€Å"desires† but the harmony of individual conduct with the views and judgment of the community. Chinese face, to quote Goffman again, is â€Å"on loan†¦from society† (1967:10); it belongs to the individual or to the self only to the extent  that the individual acts in full compliance with that face. The second difference is related to the content of face. B & L conceive of face as consisting of negative face and positive face. Their negative face refers to, and values, an individual’s need to be free of external impositions, a desire to be left alone to enjoy a sense of one’s â€Å"territorial integrity†. â€Å"Privacy† is a particular term used to describe this typical value, which is much more treasured in English culture than in Chinese; whereas Chinese face emphasizes one’s dependence on society’s recognition of one’s social standing and of one’s â€Å"reputable†existence, and subsequently, on society’s endorsement of one’s attending to it. Relatively speaking, Chinese â€Å"face† does not comprise the element of what B & L term â€Å"negative face†. 3.3 Cultural Assumption In this section, the differences of politeness in English and Chinese will be elaborated in terms of the different historicity that the concept of politeness can be traced back to, and of the fundamental cultural assumptions underlying the two different notions of English and Chinese â€Å"face†. 3.3.1 A Historical Review As we have known, privacy is a value derived from B & L’s notion of face. It is a notion embracing at once the freedom, rights, and the independence of action of man. Such a value is closely associated with the emancipation of man from the yokes of the church on the European continent, and with the opening up of the New World on the other side of the Atlantic—-North America. Consequently, showing respct to an individual’s liberty, his rights, his independence in Anglo-American culture, will be considered polite; lack of it will be improper, hence impolite. On the contrary, Chinese culture has had a 2000-year-long history of feudalism. Chinese civilization has been established on agriculture, and †Ã‚  Generations of peasants were tied to the land on which they lives and worked. Except in times of war and famine, there was little mobility, either socially and geographically† (Hu & Grove,1991:1). From this historicity resulted the collective (group-oriented) nature of Chinese value, which was reinforced ideologically in the Confucian tradition, a tradition that advocates subordinating the individual to the group or the community, and maintains that the ultimate goal of human behavior is to achieve harmony, which leads the Chinese to pursue a conflict-free and group-oriented system of an ever-expanding circle of human-relatedness (Chen, 1993). Namely, an individual is presumed not to satisfy the desire for freedom, but to gain self-esteem in harmony with group. Just as English culture values privacy, Chinese culture values harm ony. In modern Chinese, the equivalent of politeness is believed to have evolved in history from the notion of Li . The ancient philosopher and thinker Confucius (551—479 B.C.), in order to restore the harmony of society when there were constant wars between feudal states, advocated restoring Li. Derived from this book are four basic elements of politeness, or what count as polite behaviors: respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement. â€Å"Respectfulness† is the self’s positive appreciation of admiration of the other concerning the latter’s face, largely identical with the need to maintain the hearer’s positive face. â€Å"Modesty† can be seen as another way of saying â€Å"self-denigration†; though â€Å"modesty† varies in the importance attached to it in different cultures, it is to a large extent universal, her to interpret it as self-denigration is uniquely Chinese. â€Å"Attitudinal warmth† is the self’s demonstration of kindness, consideration, and hospitality, the speaker runs the risk of infringing on the hearer’s personal freedom, viz. privacy, thus threatening his negative face. Finally, â€Å"refinement† refers to the self’s behavior to the other which meets certain moral standards laid by society; it represents the normative character of politeness in addition to the instrumental aspect. These four essential elements of politeness are believed to manifest themselves in many Chinese speech events. 3.3.2 Two Construals of the Self: Interdependent and Independent If we examine the â€Å"deep structure† from which the two different notions of English and Chinese â€Å"face† can possibly be derived, them they can be said to have been informed metarphorically by two divergent underlying forces (Mao,1994): the centripetal force, which leads Chinese â€Å"face† to gravitate toward social recognition and hierarchical interdependence, and the centrifugal force, which enables English â€Å"face† to spiral outward from individual desires or wants with the self as the initiating agent. The centripetal force and centrifugal force represent two different face orientations, which correspond to two distinct construals of the self: an interdependent construal of the self and an independent construal of the self respectively(Markus and Kitayama, 1991). The independent construal of the self, endorsed by English culture and most Western countries, builds on † a faith in the inherent separateness of distinct persons â€Å". The normative imperative of this culture is to become independent of others and to discover and express one’s unique attributes (Miller, 1988). Thus achieving the cultural goal of independent requires construing oneself as an individual whose behavior is made meaningful primarily by reference to one’s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions, rather than by reference to those of others; whereas the interdependent construal of the self, favoured by Chinese culture and most East Asian countries, insists on † the fundamental connectedness of human beings to each other†(Markus and Kitayama, 1991:227). A normative imperative of this culture is to maintain this interdependence, therefore, entails seeing oneself as part of an encompassing social relationship and recongnizing that one’s behavior is organized by what the self perceives to be the thoughts, feeling, and actions of others in the relationship, so that the self within such a construal becomes most meaningful and complete. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blum-Kulka, S. et al. 1984. Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech acts realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics 5(3):192-212 Brown, R. & S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge:CUP. Chen, Guoming. 1993. A Chinese perspective of communication competence. Paper presented at the annual convention of the speech communication association, Miami Beach, FL. Goffman, E. 1967. Interactional Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Goffman, E. 1972. Interactional Ritual. London:Penguin. Goffman, E. 1971. Relations in Public: Macrostudies of the Public Order. Harmondsworth:Penguin Goodenough, W. H. 1957. Cultural anthropologh and linguistics. In Garvin, P.L.(ed.) Report of the 7th Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study. Washington: Georgetown University Press Hall, E. & M. Hall. 1990. Understanding Cultural Differences. Yarmouth, ME: International Press. Ho, D.1975. On the concept of face. American Journal of Sociology 81(4):867-84 Hu, Wenzhong & C. L. Grove. 1991. Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans Yarmouth, ME: International Press. Mao, L. R. 1994. Beyond politeness theory: â€Å"face† revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics 21:451-86 Markus & Kitayama. 1991. Culture and self. Pshchological Review 98(2):224-53 Miller, J.G. 1988. Bridging the context-structure dichotomy: culture and the self. In M.H. Bond (ed.) The cross-cultural Challenge to Social Psychology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 266-81

Is There Nowhere Else Where We Can Meet ?

The story begins with a clever prophetic metaphor, ‘reversal of elements' where the white sky is blackened by smoke. This speaks of the role reversal that is about to take place between the races of the boy and the girl. It warns us that there is going to be meeting and it won't be a particularly pleasant one. The title itself incurs thoughts of a romantic meeting, similar to the title of a Hollywood film. This gives the reader a clue that there is a sexual theme in this story.II)an initiation story1) Little red riding hood : journey/ hostile nature / sexual threat / big bad wolf Particular attention should be drawn to smells, they play vital role inthis story. e.g. the strong smell of old sweat burned at her nostrils, a filthy rag,a dusty green scent, he was clean, unhuman, the smell of him choked her.2) A regression process : turning into an idiot (absence of speech)3) Balance and imbalanceViolence is contained by fear.III) (south-african white) girl meets (black) boy : a tale of racial, spacial, sexual, social segregation :1) Irrational instinctive reaction on the girl's part2) Sense of place/displacement3) Fear of the UnknownThe story gets complicated with every minute, the heroine sees some red eyes, she does not knowwhether they belong to a dog or to a person. These red eyes evoke fear andsome interest, her hurt starts beating faster and faster. The author on purpose did not give any names because she wanted to generalize thatsituation and foreground some oppositions: white and black ( racial  context ), educated – uneducated, civilization – veld.