Literature and Society Essay

A general knowledge of the social and cultural setting in which a novel is written is important, for most novels mirror the customs and values of a particular society, often criticizing it. The Hertfordshire country town where the greater part of the novel is set is Longbourn, only a mile from the market town of Meryton and 24 miles from London. The neighborhood around the Bennets is large, for they dine with twenty-four different families, only three of which are named. The Bennet’s society is drawn largely from Meryton (which is the mother’s background) rather than from the country (which is the father’s), for she is more sociable than her husband. Mrs. Bennet, however, is without social ambition except for her desire to have her daughters marry rich men. Pride and Prejudice is, thus, set among the rural middle and upper classes who are landowners. None of the major characters works, for these moneyed classes live entirely on their income from rents and inherit ances. There are, however, petty distinctions among the landed classes, determined by the amount of wealth possessed by the members. For instance, Miss Bengali and her sister look down on the Bennets because they are not as wealthy. Class distinctions in Jane Austen’s time were in fact very rigid. The land-owning aristocracy belonged to the highest rung of the social ladder, and all power was in their hands. Next in rank came the gentry. The new, prosperous industrialists and traders (like Mr. Gardiner) were gradually rising as a class, but had still not won the right to vote. The lowest in English society were the workers and laborers. For the women of the time, life was largely restricted to the home and the family. For the poor and the lower-class women, there was ample work in the home and in the fields to keep them busy. But for the ladies of the landed upper-classes, life was one big round of dances, dinners, cards, and visits to friends and relatives. They were not required to do any household work. â€Å"Ladies,† thus, lived a life of ease and leisure, mainly concerned with society, children, and marriage. By the nineteenth century, the upper classes no longer arranged marriages. Instead, a girl was introduced to society (and eligible bachelors) at a reception hosted by a married woman who had herself been presented. Generally, a girl â€Å"came out† only after her elder sister was married. (No wonder Lady Catherine is shocked when she hears that all of Elizabeth’s sisters have started dating before she is wed.) Women’s education in the nineteenth century was restricted to the daughters of a few families of the upper classes. In most cases, it was thought to be a waste of time to educate girls. Rich and noble families (like that of Lady Catherine de Bourgh) engaged gove rnesses for educating their daughters or sent them away to boarding school, but most women were self-educated at home. Traveling in Jane Austen’s time was accomplished in horse-drawn carriages, and a family’s social status was determined by its kind of carriage. Because carriages were slow, travel was limited. Communication of mail and news was also slow, and there were no daily newspapers. As a result, the outside world does not play a part in Austen’s novels. Instead, she turns her attention in entirety to the things she knew: family and values. Essay on the connection between literature and society Literature means something that is written for refreshing and inspiring the mind. It records the thoughts and feelings of great minds. It attracts in two ways—through its matter and through its manner. The matter must be such that those who read it are interested in some way. The manner must be such as will be pleasing to the reader and adds to his fund of knowledge. We live in a society. That is, there are relations and interrelation between men who live in the society. We like to hear about our fellow men who live in society, their thoughts and feelings, their likes and dislikes. Naturally, if we have the power of language to express the feelings, we are well on the way to creating literature. In other words, the subject matter of literature is society in some form or other. The poet expresses his feeling and we who read his poetry are interested and feel at one with him and ourselves. After all, society is this bond of fellowship between man and man through communication that the poet or writer seeks. If literature expresses social sympathies, naturally it is bound to exercise some positive influence on our mind and attitude. Society reacts to literature in a living way. An inspiring poem creates general influence on society. It rouses our feelings and enthusiasm for welfare. Shelley has called poets the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. The function of a legislator is to lay down the law, a settled course of action that men may follow. Poetry and literature generally do this in a quiet and unobtrusive way. Novels are known to have changed the direction of the human mind and set in motion movements that have altered our ways of life. The influence of literature on society is felt directly or indirectly. Thus Miss Stowe’s â€Å"Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was directly responsible for a movement against slavery in literature and life in USA of those days. The novels of Dickens had an indirect influence in creating in society a feeling for regulating and removing social wrongs, calling for necessary reforms. Sarat Chandra’s novels have gone a long way in breaking conservatism as regards women in our society. It is, however, clear that if we are interested in literature, and its influence is bound to move us amply. Literature is made out of the lore of life. No doubt, the realistic artist brings to a focus the oddities and cruder aspects of life overmuch. But to know life fully, not only the bright side but also the seamy and dark side of life is to be known. Thus, society creates literature. It may be described as the mirror of the society. But the quality and nature of the reflection depends upon the writer’s attitude of mind, whether he is progressive in his outlook or reactionary. Naturally, conservative-minded writer will stress those aspects of social life, which put the traditional ways of life in the best possible way. For example, he will set a high value on reverence for age-old ideals, respect for religion, chastity of woman and so on. On the other hand, a progressive writer will tend to show how old ideals act as restraints on the natural freedom of the human mind, cripple the free movement of man and women in an unrestricted atmosphere, set for liberating new ideals and moving society that looks forward to newer ways of life.

Swan Lake Response

For my additional performance viewing, I attended a dance concert at The Ohio State University. Gene's Goings was choreographed by Rodney A. Brown. Performed by a group of Ohio State dancers, Gene's Goings was brought to life at Emerson Auditorium. The piece was choreographed to Ritual Union by Little Dragon and Suite for Ma Dukes by Miguel Atwood Ferguson and Carols Ion. Overall, Gene's Goings was a Journey that used the blending of images such as planting seeds, growing, and traveling to create a story for the audience.As the story unfolded, more intricate parts were noticed. For example, there was a leader on the Journey, which was the featured soloist throughout the piece of art. She had a distinct costume on and the other dancers seemed to follow her and mimic her movements. There seemed to be female dominance on this Journey that was clearly present with only 4 males on the stage throughout the entire piece. The tribal music gave it an African feel, later emphasized by the gran d hip rotations and grounded feel to the dancing. All of this was possible due to the use of a constant flip.Along with this, the entire piece had a funky and original feel to it. The costumes worn were normal, pedestrian clothing tit lots of neon colors. The girls had a constant blue and purple pattern, which pulled everyone together and gave the piece a feeling of unity. This also brought about a very vibrant and colorful vibe. Big movements using every part of the body portrayed the group of dancers changing along the Journey and growing into new people. Once they reached their destination, they were completely new individuals.Some of the movements remained throughout the piece, but as the Journey continued, new repetitive movements were also introduced. The group of 4 men in the beginning of the piece was acting as the starting force that began the Journey. The part where they were making sounds and building off of each other's movements was the chain reaction that started the v oyage. I also noticed that they were reappearing throughout the piece. After I noticed this, I realized that they came into the choreography once a new, signature movement was introduced.This represented the next step on their Journey. In the end, once the Journey was completed, the group of travelers exited the stage with their signature hip rotations and therefore ended their Journey in a similar fashion that they started it with. Commonplace was also performed in Emerson Auditorium. This piece was choreographed by Susan Hadley in 1996. The music being danced to was Forgotten Peoples by Evolve Tourism, but performed by the Estonian Chamber Choir. The music was in a foreign language and therefore required the audience to develop their own storyline for the performance.This piece was definitely a narrative, symbolizing a ritual of women in all places and times. The costumes worn were simple, black dresses, which gave the piece a very dim and dark setting. Each dress was unique with slightly different designs, showing the individual personalities of the women in this so-called community. The designs ere extremely modest, which gave the dance somewhat of a religious feel to it. At the same time, I got the vibe of some sort of witchcraft happening, symbolic of struggle and pain occurring among the women.The group of women almost resembled a sisterhood, Journeying through struggles and supporting each other along the way. The choreography had the group of all women moving together and in complete unison at the beginning of the piece. As the dance processed, there were many more levels and formations, including a circle where a single woman would be in the center while the remaining women stood around her as support. Partnering was a big aspect of this piece as the women carried and suspended one another as an act of creating.While in this circle, movements including shaking, convulsing, and seizing were happening to represent death, sickness, abuse, and any type o f struggle that women go through. This was a very emotional part of the piece because the women carried each other and supported one another. This showed courage and belonging as no one was left out or neglected because of their problems and struggles. The movement displayed was very intricate and detailed as the women moved together on their Journey of support and love.

Nuisance and Tresspass Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Nuisance and Tresspass - Essay Example This has caused David and his family to lose sleep through noise from the factory operations and noise from wagons coming to and leaving the factory. This is the background situation in this case where recent developments like the winning of many contracts for Harrington & Nephew Company has resulted in interference with the normal life for David and his family. David’s family has suffered a lot of harm from these recent developments. They include The rose tree that they were given on the day of their wedding has dried up. David’s wife has developed an allergy due to the dust that is emitted fro the factory. David’s family cannot sleep due to the noise that never ends day and night. The paintwork on David’s car has been destroyed because of the chemical smuts emitted from the factory’s chimney. As a result of the happenings described above, Wally, David’s son has stormed the factory and goes around searching for the manager so that he may giv e him apiece of his mind. Finding that the manager absent, he causes chaos and in the process a window breaks. The secretary insists that he leaves the factory but he defies. This paper is going to look at the liabilities that the construction company may have to David and his family and whether there may be any defences or remedies for the same. It is also going to explore whether the company may have any case against the family. The major concerns of the paper will be nuisance and trespass. After having explored what these two entail, we will advise Harrington & Nephew on any liabilities that they may have on David’s family. Nuisance Nuisance can be classified into either private or public. Private nuisance is committed where one person who is usually the defendant substantially and unreasonably interferes with another person’s right to use and enjoyment of their land. In our case, this is what happening to David’s family. Unlike trespass, interference can amo unt to a private nuisance even if it is not direct or intentional. A person’s use and enjoyment of their land might be interfered with by things such as dust, noise or vibration (Lemmon V. Webb (1894)). However, claims relating to an interference with privacy do not amount to nuisance as only Complaints about ordinary and reasonable uses of land are held viable. Private nuisance is therefore not available where the land is used for a particularly sensitive purpose or the one claiming to be affected is usually sensitive. In order to determine whether the interference is substantial and unreasonabl

Art and Fashion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Art and Fashion - Essay Example This is after taking over the title from Spain which was the dominating power of Europe in the 16th century. Spain was Europe’s political and military controller spreading its court’s culture of dressing to Europeans courts. It spread its culture and political way of doing things all over Europe. During this period, powerful nations determined the fashion to be adopted by the nations they dominate.1 Europe and Paris in particular produced decorative, colorful, pretentious and stylish clothes that marked the Baroque era. From this time Paris has never lost its title of the world’s best producer of fashionable and high quality clothes. In the late 18th century, political, economic and cultural desire of Paris came to a standstill due to the French Revolution. The French culture was replaced by England’s simple and unfashionable styles. English tailors occupied some parts in London where they started making men’s wear and women outfit.2 England became the best producers of high quality men’s outfits. Today, fashion design and art is being practiced all over the world. Some of the leading countries in the fashion industry are United States, Italy, china, Japan, UK among others. The Second World War The impact of Second World War had a big influence in many fashion industries in the world. Paris as the world center for haute couture fashion was not in exception. ... Fashion industries in Paris faced hardships due to rationing of non-essential clothes and the occupation of Germans in France.4 Textile industries experienced shortages of fabrics as ordinary materials and dyes were on restriction while expensive materials like silk and lace were totally unavailable. Fashion houses which continued with their operations produced attractive designs of full skirts, hats, high-heeled shoes and marabou coats. The production of extravagant fashions by couture traders in Paris attracted critiques from Americans. Due to resentment, Germans carried out stiff campaigns with intentions to influence women to abandon Paris outfits which were termed as â€Å"whore-led† fashion. Women were advised to wear ascetic clothes that will maintain their dignity and do away with French design.5 Women were against this campaign and they continued to be fashionable with Paris products. These conflicting ideologies during the war marked the difference between the minori ty fashion influential of Paris and the aspiring fashionable group. The majority aspiring group could not afford Paris fashionable cloths due to different reasons. America took this advantage and sold their products to them as they did not face many restrictions and rationing like France. From 1939 to 1945, it was a period full of restrictions, manacles and common sens.6 Paris lost huge revenue from overseas customers as German’s could not allow them to continue with their fabric and fashion trade. These customers started using United States products as they were not involved in the war. After Second World War, Japan was able to access information relating to fashion and design from Europe and United States. This information could not be accessible

Jonathan pollard Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Jonathan pollard - Research Paper Example Having completed his high school and scored well, he joined Stanford University to study political science where he graduated with a degree, and later joined several graduate schools but did not finish a post graduate degree (Olive, 2006). During his high school years, he was a trouble maker and when he transitioned to the university he developed more interest in the Israel history and the Holocaust seemed to form art of his major interest, owing to the fact that his immediate family had been adversely affected by it. Pollard developed much interest in the intelligence career after his university studies, and he consequently applied for intelligence jobs both in the CIA and the US Navy, but the CIA turned down his application since he tested positive for drug use for the several past years (Goldenberg, 1993). However, the Navy Intelligence Command (NIC) found him suitable for intelligence gathering due to his interest in intelligence issues, thus was hired as an intelligence specialist in 1979 (Taylor, 2014). Pollard had indicated signs of inappropriateness for the intelligence career earlier in his employment, when his immediate supervisor had requested the termination of his employment after he was found to lie about issues related with the CIA involvement of his family. However, rather than terminating his employment, he was simply deployed to a different department of the NIC (Olive, 2006). Thus, he was recommended for termination or deployment to non-sensitive area of the intelligence service where he could not be involved in direct intelligence collection, but kept evading the arm of the recommending officers while transferring to different departments. In 1984, he applied for promotion to the position of naval intelligence analyst, and was subsequently accepted after the departmen t was reorganized (Shaw, 2001). John Pollard’s espionage started after he met an Israel Air force officer on leave, who was seeking to earn a

Resume and Cover Letter Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Resume and Cover Letter - Assignment Example I have worked as a management assistant at Booz Allen Hamilton and the professional experiences gained, in conjunction with the theoretical framework continuously being developed at George Mason University (GMU) would be appropriately honed through your internship program. My previous work experiences assisted in developing teamwork and working in a collaborative and cohesive atmosphere. My responsibilities as management assistant in Booz Allen Hamilton required working effectively with diverse teams to specifically ensure that team members are duly motivated towards the accomplishment of identified organizational goals. My proposal for innovative performance evaluation programs that recognize and acknowledge exemplary performers using merit based standards assisted in achieving higher productivity, higher morale and job satisfaction. I likewise envision assisting in motivating teams within the Net Social environment. I have acknowledged the importance of completing my degree in Accounting at GMU to augment the professional skills gained at Booz Allen Hamilton, and to make me more competitive and competent in a global environment. Currently, support from the faculty and administrative staff at GMU assist in the development of more leadership skills, as well as in gaining more expertise in interpersonal communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. The multidisciplinary approach to learning enabled me to effectively share the knowledge, abilities, and skills gained during the course and assist in addressing unique and distinct team requirements at Net Social. Enclosed is a copy of my resume for your review. I would be genuinely interested to be part of the internship program. I likewise look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship. I could be reached at Telephone Number or Email Address. Thank you for your time and

Americana Group Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Americana Group - Research Paper Example The group encompasses the most recognized brands globally and includes in its list of franchise brands worldwide known brands like Pizza Hut, KFC, Hardee’s Costa Coffee, Krispy Kreme, and TGI Friday’s; recently the group has took over the franchisee of Signor Sassi. In addition, with a proper understanding of the Middle Eastern taste the Americana Group has created 6 own brands which are also equally successful among its consumers as global counterparts of the aforementioned successful brands (Americana Group, 2012). The project critically evaluates the trends of marketing environment by using the PEST analysis, a complete market analysis is performed to gather information about the nature of product, market operations along with the type of strategy the firm has undertaken over the years and also determine the strategic option which is made available to the firm. Finally, a set of recommendation has been provided to America group stating the strategy that the company s hould adopt for its further operation considering the skills, resources and capabilities available to the firm. ... Americana Group deals in restaurants and holds franchise for some big brands globally and includes consumer food and food related products in its product category. It has been analyzed there exists a huge demand for Quick Service, Casual Dining and Fine Dining categories and with change in consumers taste and preference the fast food centers have gained a huge attraction and are expected to grow globally in the near future. Therefore, PEST analysis has been adopted to critically evaluate the marketing trends. PEST Analysis PEST is used to scan the general market environment and is referred to political, economical, social and technological factors. It helps to detect as well as monitor the weak signals that might affect the working of the organization (Henry, 2008, p. 51). Political Factor: Americana Group deals with restaurants and consumer food products and operates on international grounds and therefore the political factors plays an important role in dealing and setting up of fra nchise in foreign countries. Different countries impose different laws and it is important for the company to comply with the concerned rules and regulation to successfully operate in international countries. Economic Factor: When the countries perform well the business operating in the area also seems to have performed well and has an opportunity to increase its revenue and profit. Americana Group based in Kuwait has been operating in the MENA region and has tasted success over the years and has its operation franchised globally. It can be inferred that the economic condition are important while implementing the marketing strategies. For example, when Americana Group goes for international expansion along with the political factors

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market Essay

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market - Essay Example The problem of domestic surplus also has its solution in the global market. With a greater number of buyers, investors will be able to sell what no one in their country will be willing to buy. Simply put, with more buyers and sellers now more interlinked with each other, globalization has given the financial market a global scope. With a greater scope arise complexities and more risks and seemingly ironic instances. As countries have become more interlinked, they begin to share similar reactions to economic shocks. While similar reactions may make it easier for market analysts to determine how the world will react to different economic shocks, the presence of varying political and economic systems in the global financial market make external and internal economic forces more unpredictable. Greater unpredictability simply means greater risks. Again, the simple solution to this risk is the placing of eggs into different baskets. One could argue that it is pointless to diversify portfol ios in a financial market where countries almost always react in similar ways. However, as Bordo (2000) explains, emerging markets are more susceptible to fluctuations, â€Å"bust and booms† he calls them, as the result of â€Å"open capital markets.† This implies that while one emerging economy may offer huge returns in a couple of days or weeks, investors still need to diversify their investments because it is difficult to determine how emerging economies will do in the longer runs. The disadvantages of portfolio diversification.

Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Reform China Essay Example for Free

Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Reform China Essay After 1989 Tiananmen Square event, the new Chinese leaders have giventhe priority to the anti-corruption work on their agenda and strengthened the anti-corruptionefforts. But up to now, the corruption phenomenon is still very rife , and presentlyis seen as the second greatest public concerns(behind unemployment )? The abilityor inability of third generation political leaders to successfully curb corruptionwill play a major role in their political survival. This article will focus on theanalysis of the extent, forms and characters of corruption in current China, itscauses and effects, and the anti-corruption efforts of the Chinese Communist Partyand its government. 2 The extent, forms and characteristics of corruption in current China What is corruption? The notion of corruption varies with time and places. Accordingto Chinese official terminology , the core element of the definition of corruptionin current China is the notion of use of public power and public resources for privateinterests (Yi Quan Mu Si )? This is a very broad definition, which can includea series of phenomenon and behaviours and vary with time. Consequently, it canbe adapted to include new forms of corrupt practice. Corruption in current Chinais often links with negative phenomenon and unhealthy tendency within party andgovernment departments. As a result , anti-corruption effort also includes fightagainst all of these phenomenon and behaviours. This definition has three features. First , the core element of corruptionis not abuse or misuse of public power via-a-via legal norms or social standardsfor private benefits but the very use of public power for private benefits. Onthe one hand, this is a very strict standard for determining what behaviours canbe defined as corrupt since it can includes any behaviour utilising public powerfor private benefits. On the other hand , given that legal norms and moral standardsmay change with time, the definition may take some risks to exaggerate the extentof corruption or arbitrarily label some practice as corrupt. Another feature of this definition is the ambiguous of the term private interestsin contrast to public interests , i. e. the interests of whole nation and partyPrivate benefits include not only personal gains, but also the interests of workunits , departments and regions when they are given priority over public interests. Third , the definition leaves open the question of which the subject of corruptionis. It not only refers to individual public officials , but also can includes therelatives of public officials and retired public officials, and can also refersto some public bodies and their leaders (as legal rather than natural persons)? As mentioned above, in official terminology, corruption , negative phenomenonand unhealthy tendency are linked together. Although government officials andthe public generally agree on some practices as corrupt , there are fewer consensuseson other practices. Heidenheimers three-category classifications system providesa useful framework for understanding both the Chinese categories and the areas ofconsensus and lack of consensus. Heidenheimers framework includes three categories:(1 )? Class A or black corruption:The corrupt practices in this category,including graft , bribe, fraud, embezzlement , extortion, smuggling, tax evasion,etc. , Constitute an important part of economic crimes. Because they are obviouslyillegal and the main purpose of those involved in these practice is to increasetheir personal wealth , government officials and the public generally agree thatsuch practices are corrupt. (2 )? Class B or grey corruption : The key characteristicsof this category, into which more and more practices are being categorised , isleaders of public institutions using their institutional power to increase the oftheir institutions and improve the welfare of their staffs through various legal,semi-legal and illegal ways. Such practices includes public institutions makingprofits by engaging in business activities(such as public bank enter into the stockmarket, the bureau of environment protection selling environment protection facilitiesto their clients), setting up satellite companies , and imposing fines or collectingadministrative fees or charging the so-called service fee and then putting theincome into their own coffers. Class B also includes such unhealthy practicesas the extravagance and waste , e. g., spending public money to support luxuriouswork conditions and/or life style by senior officials. Such extravagance and wasteis manifested in many aspects : expensive entertainment, costly foreign cars forsenior officials, magnificent and tastefully furnished office buildings, domesticor foreign travel in the name of official business, etc. Such unhealthy tendenciesand the associated corruption , both significantly increasing the publics burden,have led to a significant public outcry. This has led Chinese authorities to attemptto stop these practices. However they have met strong resistance from these publicinstitutions which, in turn, justify their practices in terms of the purpose oftheir practice, the legitimacy of their institutional power and the work requirement. (3 )? Class C: or white corruption: Class C practices constitute a kind ofcommon practice of social life. They include the nepotism and favouritism in thepersonnel recruitment and promotion , bending the law in favour of relatives andfriends in law enforcement, preferential treatment in resource-allocations forrelatives and friends , etc. They are characterised by preferential treatment byofficials of relatives, friends, fellow-villager etc. much of which is, in fact,a way of reciprocating previously given favours. Such practices have penetratedwidely into public life , influencing the behaviour of government officials andordinary citizens as well , contributing to the operation and existence of networksof personal ties throughout China. Creating and maintaining the networks of personalties to seek and give favourable treatment is accepted by most people , includinggovernment officials, as a normal practice when they involved in these practice. However , such networks are condemned by those excluded from them although theywill not be hesitate to engage in such practice should they have an opportunityto do so. The late British China scholar Gordon White had also made a similar classification. 3 Inasmuch as the Chinese authorities combine all the above categories togetherin their anti-corruption work , in this paper I will treat them all as corruption. However by so doing , the Chinese authorities have set a difficult goal for themselvessince the limited consensus on white corruption may increase the difficulty of attackingthese practices. On the other hand, the labelling of some common practice falleninto the grey area from the white area and some common(white ) as corruptionmay help to delegitimize them and/or push them into the grey category , thuscontributing to anti-corruption and social and political progress. The extent of corruption has increased dramatically and sharply since 1978 withthe situation becoming even worse after in the 1990s. This tendency is apparentfrom the data on perception of corruption in developing countries provided by TransparencyInternational and summarised in table. The above table demonstrates a clear drop in the scores of corruption in Chinafrom until 1980 until 1995 reflecting the increase of corruption in China in thisperiod. The slight improvement is likely due to the strengthen of anti-corruptionefforts by the third generation political leadership and the deepening of market-orientedreform. But despite these slight improvements , the public and its deputies arestill very dissatisfied with the widespread corruption and the inadequate effortsat fighting corruption. The vote of nearly forty per cent of the deputies in the1997 session of National Peoples Congress against General procuratorators ZhangSiqings Annual work report is an indication of this dissatisfaction. In the 1990s , corruption has worsened and taken new characteristics withinthe above three categories:(1 )? Class A: corruption as a form of economiccrimes has increased with the following manifestations. First , the number of large-scalecorruption cases increased sharply.

My Grandparents Essay Example for Free

My Grandparents Essay One favorite place from my childhood that I remember fondly is my grandparents house. On one hand, its marvelous location is unforgettable to me. On the other hand, I have a lovely remembrance of all the fun activities my family and I did there. In addition, other memories include the delicious meals we enjoyed there. To begin, it had a marvelous location. My grandparents house was in Punta Cuna, one of the eastern beach cities in the Dominican Republic. The house was very near to the beach, on the top of a hill: for that reason, a fresh breeze was always blowing. It was surrounded by beautiful gardens and a huge back yard with many fruit trees on which lived a lot of birds that would delight with their trills. The view from all of the windows, which included the sea or the backyard, was marvelous. Also, my sisters and I could see the sunrise from the portal. Being a woken up by the sound of the neighbor rooster was my favorite. Not to forget the different aromas coming from the prevalent peddlers made you just want to savor all the different bouquets coming there my little pink bedroom window. In addition, my grandparents planned a lot of activities to keep us amused. We and our friends used to go to the beach every morning, and sometimes we went in the afternoons too. We played a lot of board games such as dominoes, canasta, continental and monopoly. Also, we used to play outdoors for example we did races, played hide-and-seek, and took refreshing hose showers at the backyard. My grandfather would send us out on mini scavenger hunts around the yard for different things he would hide. While we would search for them he would change them locate and then yell out â€Å" Your so freezing cold ; wrong direction† in creole, then start laugh. My grandmother would take us with her on occasion to the Marche aux Puces and we would go around and view the different Merchants who enticing fragrance would wake me up in the morning. At night we would lay under the stars in the backyard and enjoy what we bought from the Marche aux Puces. Last but not least, was the exquisite meals that we ate there. My grandfather was a wonderful cook, and he used to prepare tasteful dishes for us. We tried vegetables, seafood, and all kind of meat made for him. Sometimes, my grandparents and we went out to dinner and could taste a wide variety of meals. The beautiful location left indelible marks in our minds. The amusing time that we passed there is unforgettable. I never try again a meal with the delicious taste of my grandfathers meal. For all of that, my grandparents house was in my memory as the most favorite place that I visited during my childhood.

Gender Differences In Politeness

Gender Differences In Politeness Nowadays the difference between mens and womens use of language is one of the most important research subjects among sociolinguistic scholars as a result of its importance in communication. Understanding the different communication patterns which women and men typically use assists interlocutors to reach to better understanding and finally to achieve effective communication. Numerous studies have been widely and deeply conducted to come to conclusion that women and men are dissimilar in the way of interacting and communicating in terms of minimal responses, turntaking, changing the topic of conversation and self-disclosure. As a noticeable feature in cross-gender communications, politeness has begun to draw a lot of interests from many researchers during the past forty years. Therefore, there has been an upsurge in discussions, seminars, journals and researches in such fields as word choice, syntax and intonation to portray how dissimilarly men and women use politeness strategies. It is a high likelihood that gender differences in polite behavior will lead to failure in cross-sex communication. So as to get effective communication, speakers need to understand verbally politic behavior in different genders well. There is a general agreement that women are more likely to use politeness patterns than men in their speech. Lakoff, one of the most significant pioneers in this issue, distinguishes womens speech from mens speech in these striking features including the use of words related to their interests, empty adjectives, question intonation, hedges, hypercorrect grammar and superpolite forms (1975, p. 53-55). Based on Lakoffs commonsense beliefs and stereotypes about differences in the way of being polite between men and women in daily conversations, Montgomery concludes that womens speech is more polite than mens (1995, p. 151). This claim is supported by a great number of well-known empirical works. There is a substantial body of evidence supporting the view that, in general, womens linguistic behaviour can be broadly characterized as afliliative or cooperative, rather than competitive or control-oriented (Cameron (1985), Kalcik (1975), Smith (1985)) and as interactively facilitative and positive politeness-oriented (Holmes (1984b, 1986), Thorne, Kramarae and Henley (1983)) (as cited in Holmes, 1988, p. 451). In fact, every study makes a marked contribution in building an assumption on the difference between men and womens speech. In order to continue forming a clear sociolinguistic picture of gender differences in communications, this research is dedicated to a Vietnamese social setting. It will provide a profound study of whether female speakers are more polite than male speakers or not in foreign language centers. In this research, some linguistic politeness devices are focused to contribute to better understanding about dissimilarities in polite ways of talking between women and men. Methodology Based on the theoretical study in politeness-related differences between males and females, this project uses the noticeable findings as a data elicitation procedure to investigate the following question: To what extent do the male and female English learners from the foreign language center of Ho Chi Minh Technology University use similar or different politeness devices in daily conversations? Participants In this small-scale research, 50 male and 50 female speakers aged between 18 and 25 from the foreign language center are selected to answer some questions. The selection is carried out through the background questions in the first part of questionnaire given to 100 English learners at the foreign language center. All of chosen participants are native speakers of Vietnamese from different family, social and educational backgrounds. In details, the majority of objects are university students whose level is intermediate. They spend a lot of time studying English because they believe that a good command of English will provide a better chance of getting a good job in the future. Instruments The questionnaire used as the instrument for this project contains 3 opened-ended questions and 3 closed-ended questions. The reason why the questionnaire is used and there is no interview is that they can have more time to think about the answer and give response naturally in English. Most importantly, in this way, they can avoid losing their face when they encounter some confusing situations. First of all, the open-ended questions contain some common scenarios in day-by-day communication, namely making compliments and requests. In particular, every situation requires students to provide two responses in which one is for the same gender and the other is for the different sex. It is widely known that the level of politeness partly depends on many variables including age, social status, and relationship; therefore, two control settings are designed for aforementioned speech acts. Additionally, each part is set up to ask the participants to respond to friends or strangers. All the situations are divided into two main topics. Topic 1: Situation in which participants give a compliment. Topic 2: Situation in which participants ask a person to do a favor. Secondly, in the closed questions participants are asked to rate the level of politeness as well as the frequency of some functions according to their perceptions of using tag-questions and requesting in cross-sex conversations. These multiple-choice questions are created for categorizing and summarizing the results in any meaningful way. Procedures The data were gathered by employing questionnaire used to evaluate the participants politeness performances in their daily conversation. To strengthen the argument, each question asked them to write down their responses in either verbally or nonverbally. There is no time limitation so that they cannot suffer from the time pressure. Presentation and analysis of data After collecting the date, participants are classified into two main categories in terms of gender. One is the male group and the other is the female group. Next, under each group, their performance of politeness is analyzed in line with syntactic structure and lexical items among the same sex or different sex interlocutors. The result is gathered into three major parts, namely using tag-questions, complimenting, and making complaints. Tag questions It is widely acknowledged that the major grammar function of a tag question is seeking agreement from the listeners. Besides, tag questions are considered a kind of polite statement in which it does not force any agreement or belief on the addressees as in Lakoffs pioneering research, she concludes that womens speech sounds much more polite than mens in terms of linguistic forms like tag-questions and requests (p.17-19). Therefore, using tag questions is one of linguistic features which this research is primarily concerned to verify gender differences in politeness. The finding of question about the frequency of using tag-questions reveals that men tend to use more tags questions than women in communication. The number of male speakers who often use tag-questions doubles that of female speakers with 7 and 3 out of 30 respectively. Although the result is completely opposite to the description of womens speech given by Lakoff, one of the most significant pioneers in gender-difference research, that women have a tendency use more tag questions than men (1975, p. 53). However, it matches with Dubois and Crouchs surprising findings that in at least one genuine social context, men did, and women did not, use tag questions both formally and informally. In this context, the claim that tag questions signify an avoidance of commitment, and cause the speaker to give the impression of not being really sure of himself, of looking to the addressee for confirmation, even of having no views of his own, is open to serious doubt (1975, p. 294). A small number of people choose tag questions when interacting with other speakers is that they are not familiar with the structure of tag questions. For them, the grammatical rules are too complicated and various to acquire in a foreign language as it is a new terminology which does not exist in their first language. In fact, Zhang explains that mistakes arising in the process of learning English tag questions are caused by students incomplete application of rules. In order to produce some sentence structures, more than one rule should be used or a rule is used to some different degrees. But learners sometimes fail to understand or apply these rules completely. For example: She hardly plays with you, doesnt she? (does she) I never said she was wrong, didnt I? (did I) The learner knows the agreement rule of forming an English tag question. But when there are some words which denote negative without the word not, the learner has some difficulties in dealing with the whole sentence. Thus he produces the above sentences instead of correct ones. (2010, p. 580) Another reason for low level of frequency in using tag questions is the variation of intonations. In English, the intonation on the tag questions determines the function of the tag. In other words, communicators can change the meaning of a tag question with their pitch of voice. For instance, with rising intonation, tag questions sound like a real question. Notwithstanding, when the intonation falls they sound like a statement which does not require partners to give a real answer. If the tag is spoken with a rising intonation, as in a question, the function of the tag is much closer to that of an interrogative. The speaker indicates that he has made an assumption about the state of affairs but he is not sure as to the validity of that assumption. The listener is requested to indicate whether the assumption is valid. If the tag is spoken with a falling intonation, as in a declarative sentence, the speaker indicates that he has made an assumption and is requiring only confirmation of its validity from the listener (Mills, 1981, p. 643). In addition to the frequency of using tag questions, there is a big gap in the purpose male and female speakers use in daily conversation. The following table presents the result after investigating how similarly men and women use tag question. Function Men Women Expressing uncertainty 54% 30% Facilitative 23% 27% Softening 23% 43% It is clearly seen from the table that male and female interlocutors have completely different purpose in using tag questions. While numerous men use tag questions to signal doubt about what they are asserting and look forward to information confirmation, a large number of women consider them as facilitative devices and softening tools for negative comments. This finding is the same as Holmes summary in her research into tag questions as politeness devices. She identifies that women put more emphasis than men on the polite or affective functions of tags, using facilitative positive politeness devices. Men, on the other hand, use more tags for the expression of uncertainty (1992, p.320). This finding is mainly explained by the most widely-identified difference theory which reveals that men and women use language for different social purposes, having been socialized in different ways from earliest childhood (Edwards, 2009, p. 137). In his large-scale study, he clarifies that womens gossip traditionally focuses on personal relationships, experiences and problems in a generally supportive atmosphere. They consider the world as a network of connections and conversations as negotiations for closeness in which people seek support and reach consensus. Men, on the contrary, are more concerned with factual information, often in a competitive or combative format. They see the world in a hierarchical social order in which they are placed either up or down. For them, life is a contest and a struggle to achieve and maintain their power (Edwards, 2009, p. 137). Compliments In everyday life, there are a large number of speech acts we can use to show positive politeness like greetings, seeking agreements, avoiding disagreements, joking and showing sympathy. Among them, a compliment serves the function of not only positive politeness strategies but also potential face threatening acts (Holmes, 1988, p. 445). The questions four and five are designed with the intention of measuring how many politeness linguistic patterns both male and female speakers use when they pay their friends or a stranger a compliment. Response to friends Response to strangers From the two above bar charts, in general, women are more polite than men in paying and receiving compliments, which matches with Wardhaughs claim that women are reported to use more polite forms and more compliments than men (2010, p. 343). In details, in the scenario in which the participants is required to give a compliment on their same sex friends new clothes, the figure of female speakers choosing to compliment in an extremely polite way is four times more than that of male speakers. The percentage of the former is nearly 80% and the latter is 20%. They use some compliments such as It really looks good on you, doesnt it?, How pretty your dress is and What a pretty blouse youre wearing! as positive politeness devices. Another evidence is that when they compliment on a strangers a pair of shoes, men use less polite compliments than women to either the same sex or the opposite sex partner. The dominance theory is one of most significant explanations of the commonly held belief that women are more polite than men in cross-sex conversations. The relationship between gender-related difference in politeness and power has been investigated for the past a few decades. After OBarr and Atkins (1980) explore the complexity of the aforementioned relationship, they find out that the different language features particularly politeness strategies between males and females are related to the status rather than the sex of the speaker. They indicate that more females use polite linguistic forms than males in everyday interaction because they are more likely to be in lower-status positions (as cited in Kendall Tannen, 2003, p. 549). Thus, in the society women wish to gain higher status; for example social class, occupation, etc. by using more standard language and more polite forms in day-by-day conversations. As a result, they become more aware of the importance of linguistic politen ess in maintaining communication. In a word, higher speaker power will be associated with lower level of politeness. However, it is interesting to find that male participants use as many politeness linguistic strategies as females when they have a cross-sex conversation with both friends and strangers. It means that men tend to compliment more politely to women than to men. In addition to the belief that womens self-esteem is lower; hence, their face needs to be protected, females are more nurturant, more emotional, and more sensitive to the needs of others than males (Bern, Eagly, Piliavin and Unger, as cited in Durkin, 1995, p. 456). That is the reason why male participants pay much more attention to their use of words and speak more politely when having a talk with female partners in order to avoid the risk of hurting their feelings. In this case, gender plays an indispensible part in the choice of polite language forms. Requests Most sociolinguists remarkably appreciate the role of indirect requests in building up the politeness in conversation. Ervin and Tripp, for instance, illustrate that it is useful for speakers to use indirect interrogative requests because they give listeners an out by explicitly stating some condition which would make compliance impossible (as cited in Saeed, 2003, p. 234). In terms of requests, from the above data, not only female participants but also male interlocutors prefer using indirect and polite structures so as to reduce the risk of threatening the addressees negative face. Will you please close the door?, Wont you close the door? and I wonder if you could be so kind as to close the window are used by over 60% of men and women when they are required to ask a person to do a favor. The finding is partly against the general agreement that female communicators use more superpolite forms than male ones. This result offers some new insights into how gender influences the way men and women uses politeness strategies. Therefore, a new way of studying the gender difference in politeness-related linguistics is found in the 1990s. Many recent sociolinguists appreciate the social constructivist approach in explaining the variation of politeness behavior between men and women. A social constructivist approach shifts the emphasis to language as a dynamic resource used to construct particular aspects of social identity at different points in an interaction. Social categories are not fixed but are subject to constant change; talk itself actively creates different styles and constructs different social contexts and social identities as it proceeds. (Holmes, 2001, p. 14565) Additionally, in her research, Goodwin view activities rather than society as the relevant unit for the analysis of the data. She concludes that stereotypes about womens speech fall apart when talk is arranged in a range of activities. In order to construct social personae appropriate to the events of the moment, the same individuals articulate talk and gender differently as they move from one activity to another (1990, p. 9). In other words, speakers do not hold the same communication style across a wide range of activities. For example, a woman may choose linguistic forms which can contribute to the construction of a more feminine identity in a romantic date. Nonetheless, in a meeting in the role of a chairwoman, she will linguistically construct a powerful identity. When interacting with her children at home, she may use linguistic devices with the intention of creating a maternal identity. Therefore, the way speakers use structures to construct proper events changes in their comm unication activities. Criteria It can be clearly seen from the table that it is the relationship between the communicators that affects how politely participants speak, not the gender difference. Both men and women claim that they will take the relationship into consideration when they make a request (the figure of the former is 56% and that of the latter is 67%). The closer the relationship is, the more direct their request is. Their answer is supported by Samovar, Porter and McDaniels conclusion in their 2009 work. They find out that the closer the relationship between two persons, the less the power differential between them and smaller the magnitude of imposition the less likely it is that they will employ conversational indirectness (2009, p. 173). The implication in a language classroom All the results of this small-scale study not only confirm the previous findings discovered by numerous celebrated sociolinguists but also reveal some new findings from Vietnamese foreign language classrooms. These interesting findings about the differences in politeness use between male and female learners lead to some implications for the process of language teaching and learning. The first implication centres on the acquisition of tag questions in classrooms. From the survey, a great number of Vietnamese students whose level is intermediate or even advanced hardly use tag questions although they can adequately manipulate the form, usage as well as intonation when they are required to do so. Therefore, as an English teacher, a well-prepared presentation and a lot of intensive exercises and drills should be used in order to get students to apply them to real life situations. Besides the basic rules, some exceptions and complications should be introduced to learners so that they give a correct form of tag questions in no matter what conversation they have. More importantly, educators should help students recognize the importance of this grammar points in communication. Whenever learners know that tag questions are regarded as an extremely useful tool in daily conversations regardless of their complexity in the forms, meanings and intonations, they prefer using tag questions more often. For example, tag questions are not normal questions which are used for asking new information but powerful devices for addressers to confirm certain information, express uncertainty, facilitate and soften negative comments. Last but not least, owing to the complicated system of tag questions, Beardsmore (1970) recommends that the teaching should be undertaken from an easy to more difficult stage. The difficulties come on three levels including form, meaning, and intonation. To achieve a positive use of tags, the teaching should pay more attention to basic patterns and leave some anomalies to the end (p. 18). Another implication for English teaching and learning comes from the new results in complimenting and requesting. It cannot be denied that the gender difference plays an important part in selecting appropriate polite forms; nevertheless, there are other criteria such as age, social status, culture and relationship which communicators should bear in mind before making up their mind to use a certain politeness strategy. Accordingly, in their 1985 book, Tillitt and Bruder advise that in many cultures it is considered inappropriate to compliment babies while in the U.S it is common to say What a cute baby!. Moreover, when you are invited to a dinner in an English family, the host is happy to hear that you appreciate the food. Hence, you should compliment the food no matter how delicious the real food is. However, you do not need to compliment each dish separately. You can give a general compliment which is followed by a s specific one. For example, the meal was delicious, especially the lamb (p. 68). Additionally, based on many ELT researches into communicative approaches, Canale and Swain summarize that communicative competence consists of three components like grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. In their well-known work Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches, they write: In view of Chomskys (1965) strong claim that competence is to be associated exclusively with knowledge of rules of grammar, both Hymes (1972) and Campbell and Wales (1970) propose a broader notion of competence, that of communicative competence. This notion is intended by them to include not only grammatical competence (or implicit and explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar) but also contextual or sociolinguistic competence (knowledge of the rules of language use). Furthermore, Hymes (1972) explicitly and Campbell and Wales (1970) implicitly adopt the distinction between communicative competence and performance, where this latter notion refers to actual use (as cited in Canale Swain, 1980, p. 4) Therefore, I strongly suggest that the procedure of teaching and learning either compliments or requests consists of three following steps: Teaching and learning some possible patterns used in compliments and requests in line with the scale of politeness (from less polite to more polite and then to superpolite) Teaching and learning sociolinguistic competence of these patterns. Practising these patterns in real life exercise so that learners can get used to the patterns. As a result, they can use these politeness devices naturally. Lets take a clear illustration. Firstly, teachers ought to provide learners with the knowledge of requests especially the importance of indirectness of requests in maintaining politeness. For instance, the function, whom to request, what to request, how to request and how to reply to a request need to be presented in various situations in daily life. Next, social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately should be given for Vietnamese learners to acquire sociolinguistic competence. In this way, they can know when to use some superpolite forms or when to use less formal language. After that, they are given some authentic drills to practice how to give and reply to a request appropriately. Conclusion In summary, this paper gives a view on politeness gender difference between Vietnamese male and female learners. The findings make a positive contribution in portraying the picture of both similarity and difference in the way men and women use polite language. It can be concluded that women are not always more polite than men in Vietnamese context. Many interesting insights; for example, the gender of the listeners is one of crucial factors influencing polite behaviors of the speakers are found in this research. Besides, language educators can know that Vietnamese students see politeness as an effective way to avoid conflicts and to save face in conversations. Lastly, Vietnamese leaners politeness strategies change with the relationship between addressers and addressees. In this case, gender becomes less significant factor affecting the change of interlocutors politeness strategies. Thanks to the result of this paper, language planners can know more about their leaners communicative competence especially in using politeness linguistic devices in the process of language teaching and learning. Gender Differences in Politeness Gender Differences in Politeness From my experience and observation in teaching English in a great number of mixed-gender classes, there is a big gap in the way men and women use a certain language. For example, when both male and female students are asked to discuss one particular topic, men interrupt women more often than women do. The differences lead me to the wonder whether or not there is a correlation between language and gender. In fact, differences in the way men and women use a certain language have been of interest in the study of sociolinguistics. Therefore, there has been an upsurge in discussions, seminars, journals and researches in gender-related differences. A lot of issues such as word choice, syntax and so on have been taken into account so as to portray how dissimilar men and women use a language. Not understanding gender differences when interacting in either formal or informal situations will result in communication breakdowns. In order to communicate effectively, communicators need to make use of some appropriate politeness strategies as speakers always hope to obtain the respect from the counterparts. Hence, based on a great number of theoretical bases and empirical studies, my paper examines gender differences in conversations in in terms of politeness. My review comprises four sections. The first part looks at the definition and the function of politeness. There is an analysis and synthesis of differences in the way men and women use politeness strategies in the second section. From some explanations for these differences in section three, I suggest some implications for teachers to help learners to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation in conversations by using politeness techniques in the teaching process. The definition, genres and strategies of politeness A multitude of researches on politeness have been carried out to explore and expand the classic sociolinguistic work of Brown and Levinson (1987), who state that it is important to avoid causing offence in communication by showing deference to other interlocutors. They consider deferential responses as forms of politeness to avoid communication breakdown between individuals (as cited in Meyerhoff, 2006, p. 84). From the above definition, I assume that the focus of politeness is on the hearer. In this way, tactful consideration of other peoples feeling assists to avoid some potential conflicts, to gain better understanding and then to achieve effective communication. Conversely, modern linguists consider politeness as proper social behavior. In ordinary language use, according to Geyer (2008), politeness is associated with civil or well-mannered behavior and with social attributes such as good upbringing, status and formal etiquette. In addition, Watts (2003) adds his idea to validate the current conceptualization of politeness. Politeness is not something we are born with, but something we have to and be socialized into, and of politeness are available (p. 10-11). Accordingly, Holmes suggests that making decisions about what is or is not considered polite in any community involves assessing social relationships along the dimensions of social distance or solidarity and relative power or status (Holmes, 1992, p. 297). In order to be linguistically polite, communicators should choose some proper expressions which show the degree of social distance and the status difference. Based on two aforementioned dimensions, politeness is classified into two different genres. Positive politeness which is solidarity oriented emphasizes shared attitudes and values while negative politeness involves expressing oneself appropriately in terms of social distance and respecting status differences (Holmes, 1992, p.297). In terms of the social significance especially politic behavior, Lakoff (1989) distinguishes three kinds of politeness: (1) polite behavior, which is manifest when interlocutors adhere to politeness rules, whether expected or not; (2) non-polite behavior, amounting to non-conforming with politeness rules where conformity is not expected; and (3) rude behavior, where politeness is not conveyed even though it is expected. (as cited in Kasper, 1990, p.208) It is advisable to use some proper strategies in order to maintain politeness between speakers and listeners in the conversation. Following the above notion of politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987) point out that some linguistic strategies need to be realized in language to minimize the risk of losing face. They outline four main super-strategies such as bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record. Firstly, bald on-record strategies used in situations where the speaker has a close relationship with the addressee are direct and unmitigated. The next strategy is positive politeness one which is often utilized to make the hearer comfortable when communicators know each other rather well including using in-group identity makers, seeking agreement, joking, and raising common ground. In contrast, negative politeness strategies are chosen to avoid imposition on the audience through distancing styles like giving deference, hedging, questioning rather than asserti ng, and apologizing. Lastly, off-record or the indirect strategy explores conversational implicatures by using hints and involving irony. For example, a speaker may use a proverb A penny saved is a penny earned to serve as criticism You are always spending a lot of money instead of a piece of advice You should save money (p. 91- 227). Some politeness variations between men and women Differences in the ways that men and women use politeness language strategies have been one of the most important research subjects in sociolinguistic. Lakoff is one of the most significant scholars of gender-difference research for the past forty years. Her 1975 study into language and womans place plays a key role in launching the issue of gender-related differences in politeness. In her influential research, she concludes that womens speech sounds much more polite than mens sound in terms of linguistic forms like tag-questions and requests (p.17-19). In other words, in conversation females are more likely to use politeness strategies in their speech than males. One aspect of politeness strategies is that the speaker should not impose a viewpoint on other people. Thus a tag-question is a kind of polite statement in that it does not force agreement or belief on the addressees. Using tag-questions is a special linguistic feature of gender differences in politeness. Holmes agrees that in general the women use more tags than the men, as Lakoff predicts. She summarizes her findings in the following table after she carries out a research into a sixty-thousand word corpus containing equal amounts of female and male speech collected in a range of matched contexts. On the contrary, as it is clearly seen in the result that Holmes identifies that men and women do not use tag questions for the same purpose. Women put more emphasis than men on the polite or affective functions of tags, using facilitative positive politeness devices. Men, on the other hand use more tags for the expression of uncertainty (1992, p.320). In fact, women tend to consider tag questions as an indicator of politeness while men use them to express uncertainty in colloquial situations. The different conversational strategies of men and women can be analyzed in terms of compliments to demonstrate that women tend to be more polite than men. Like tag questions, compliments are regarded as exemplary positive politeness strategies as the apparently main function of compliments is to consolidate the solidarity between participants. The remarkable gender difference in politeness is the way women and men use compliments. From the obvious data given by Holmes (1988), it is clearly seen that women give and receive significantly more compliments than men do. Holmes does not only focus on the frequency of complimenting patterns but also the purpose men and women use compliments. Her study finds out that women generally perceive compliments as positively affective speech acts, while men may perceive them differently (Holmes, 1988, p. 451). This claim is supported by many well-known empirical works. There is a substantial body of evidence supporting the view that, in general, womens linguistic behaviour can be broadly characterized as afliliative or cooperative, rather than competitive or control-oriented (Cameron (1985), Kalcik (1975), Smith (1985)) and as interactively facilitative and positive politeness-oriented (Holmes (1984b, 1986), Thorne, Kramarae and Henley (1983)). Linguists describe womens contributions to interaction as other-oriented, and then come to conclusion that women regard compliments as positive politeness devices. Therefore, the assumption that women use more compliments than men is consistent with this orientation. (as cited in Holmes, 1988, p. 451) While many linguistic studies on gender and language agree with the hypothesis concerning that women are more polite than men, there are also some researchers who disagree. Based on the data drawn from voice mail messages in a legal setting, Hobbs argues that the frequency of male speakers negative politeness markers is roughly equal to that of womens whereas men prefers to use more positive politeness techniques than women (Hobbs, 2003, p.243). Hobbs collected 22 informational messages of which 11 were gathered from the males and 11were from the females to analyze the dissimilarities in the way men and women use politeness strategies. The findings indicate that the general claim about women being more polite than men turns out to be incorrect in the legal voice mail messages. Positive politeness strategies such as compliments, joking, claiming reciprocity, etc. were used almost exclusively by male speakers; only one female speaker used any of these strategies. Moreover, positive politeness was used only by attorneys; five of the six male attorneys, as well as the sole female attorney, used positive politeness in their voice mail messages. (Hobbs, 2003, p. 249) The research analysis mainly falls into two kinds of politeness including positive and negative ones. In contrast with positive politeness strategies which are used by the majority of male speakers, the 2003 study of Hobbs reports that men and women use an equal number of negative politeness strategies in their voice mail messages. Such strategies as thanking, taking blame and apologizing, softening the force of requests are frequently used by both male and female lawyers. (p. 252) Why women and men use differ in the way they use politeness strategies The commonly held belief that women are more polite than men in cross-sex conversations has been well documented in range of linguistic features from tag-questions to directives. This assumption enables innumerable scholars to undertake a number of researches to explain why this difference exists. Some researchers argue that innate biological differences account for gender differences in politeness while others place an emphasis differential distribution of power between men and women in society. First of all, dominance perspective is used to interpret gender variations in politeness. After OBarr and Atkins (1980) explore the complexity of the relationship between gender and language concerning with polite strategies, they find out that more females use polite linguistic forms than males in everyday interaction because they are more likely to be in lower-status positions.(as cited in Schiffrin, Deborah Heidi, 2003, p.549) Moreover, Edwards (2009) concurs that most explanations centre on womens allegedly greater status-consciousness. If women in the society are more status-conscious than men, they may wish to gain status by using more standard forms and polite strategies. Therefore, they are more aware of the social significance of linguistic politeness variables to make their speech a sort of surrogate status. If womens and mens speech differs because the status of the genders differs, then it is clear that large social issues of power and subordination are involved. As a subordinate social role implies less freedom of movement, greater insecurity, uncertainty and lack of confidence, womens speech is expected to be more polite than mens speech (p. 134-135). In fact, it is necessary for women to secure their social status linguistically especially through the use of politeness strategies. Thanks to politeness strategies in daily conversations, women avoid straightforward statements as politeness involv es an absence of a strong statement, and womens speech is devised to prevent the expression of strong statements (Lakoff, 1975, p. 19). Another answer to the questions why the way men and women use polite strategies varies is associated with the difference approach. This philosophy is mainly based on gender socialization. According to Edwards (2009), a great number of noticeable analyses of gender differences in speech reveal that womens features especially using greater politeness forms imply more about genuine facilitative and supportive desires than about insecurity and lack of confidence. In other words, men and women may use language for different social purposes, having been socialised in different ways from their early childhood. Women are traditionally expected to focus on personal relationships, experiences and problems in a supportive atmosphere in which networking is a key whereas men are more concerned with factual information often in a combative context. (p. 137) It can be clearly seen that two above theoretical explanations of gender-related differences in politeness are influenced from diverse philosophies. However, Weatherall (2002) discovers the connection of two assumptions by giving an obvious illustration. The interactional styles of women and men as co-operative and competitive, respectively, have also been viewed as reflecting mens powerful social position relative to women. Being polite and co-operative is likely to be most effective at promoting positive interactions for those who hold little power. (p. 80) Although these explanations come from two different strands of thinking, they have the same goal that is why in cross-sex interactions, polite strategies are used by more women than men. However, they are not an explanatory factor for Hobbs finding from his research. His surprising findings are elucidated by the social constructionist approaches. A social constructionist approach shifts the emphasis to language as a dynamic resource used to construct particular aspects of social identity at different points in an interaction. Social categories are not fixed but are subject to constant change; talk itself actively creates different styles and constructs different social contexts and social identities as it proceeds. (Holmes, 2001, p. 14565) For example, a woman may select linguistic forms contributing to the construction of a more feminine identity in a romantic dinner. Nevertheless, in a meeting she will linguistically construct a powerful identity, for she is a chairwoman. When interacting with her children at home, she may use linguistic forms so as to build a maternal identity. Therefore, the way members of a society use structures to construct proper events changes across the communication activities. The implication in a language classroom It is widely acknowledged that understanding the different polite patterns which women and men typically use makes speakers to achieve more effective communication. The fact that interlocutors make fewer attempts to involve politeness in daily conversations because they have been taught not to expect participation!, Stereotyping can have intense negative effects, especially The conception of gender-differentiated politeness use leads to some implications for language teaching and learning. The first implication for foreign and second language classroom centres on social power awareness. As an educator, we had better reduce the role gap between men and women by selecting materials that represent identity groups more equally, by reorganizing classroom interaction so that all students have the opportunity to talk and demonstrate achievement in their everyday conversations regardless of gender (McKay Hornberger, 1996, p. 261). Another implication for teaching focuses on gender difference in stereotype rather than on so-called dominance approach. Because womens interactional style is absolutely different from mens, the interaction between teachers and females students differs from males. While men consider conversations as negotiations to compete women regard as a social network to gain support. It is difference in interactional styles that teachers should take into account when they perform, monitor and conduct one certain activity in class. Due to their opposite viewpoint, teachers had better balance the number of male and female students when they ask students to cooperate to fulfill one task. A group of men is likely to be over-competitive whereas a women group tends to be more supportive. As a result, there will be an imbalance of arguments in a discussion or debate. Last but not least, teachers should design some tasks related to gender-related differences in politeness so that students can acknowledge what kind of polite linguistic form they use in a cross sex communications. It will result in a more effective interaction in their real life. Teachers help students to realize that stereotypes of womens speech cannot stay the same style from one activity to another activity. The question is that how and when male speech and female speech are similar or different depends on the conversational contexts, not gender. Conclusion As a result of womens liberation movements, researches on gender and language in politeness started dramatically in 1970s. During the past several decades, many investigators examine politeness variations between women and men in daily interactions. Based on many well-known studies of gender-specific language, this literature review leaps to the conclusion that women tend to be more polite than men through a range of differences in tag-questions, compliments, etc. Most of these linguistic forms are used by more females than males to maintain politeness in cross-sex conversations. Notwithstanding, there are some oppositions to this belief in sociolinguistics. Many researches into language and gender in term of politeness rely on three distinct approaches including dominance approach, difference approach social constructionist approach to give an explanation for these discrepancies. In summary, I have explored politeness variations between men and women and questioned the validity of the assumption that womens speech is more polite than mens. In an attempt to determine the truth of this statement I have concluded that in daily conversations, politeness is regarded as a social lubricant which helps to create rapport. Knowing the differences in polite behavior between men and women can be very helpful to achieve effective communication as well as to enhance relationship. Therefore, politeness plays an indispensible in todays modern world in which a lot of interactions take place at both personal and business-related level.

An Investigation and a Report into the Customer Services at Sainsburys :: Business and Management Studies: Case Studies

An Investigation and a Report into the Customer Services at Sainsburys Introduction For my business report on customer service I have chosen to investigate Sainsburys. Sainsburys is a leading UK and US food retailer; although Sainsbury's main business activity consists of food sales they also have interests in financial and property markets. The Sainsbury's group consists of Sainsburys supermarkets and bank in the UK and Shaws supermarkets in the US and employ a total of 172,900 people throughout their company. What is Customer service? Customer service is very important to every company and keeping customers satisfied can lead to a big increase in profit. A survey carried out by NOP showed that reducing customer defections can raise profits by 25-85% and in 73% of cases the organisation in question made no attempt to persuade dissatisfied customers to stay with their company, despite 35% of them saying a simple apology would prevent them from moving to their competitors. Another survey carried out by HENL showed that a 1% cut in customer service problems could generate a 16 million pound profit for a medium sized business over 5 years. This shows that customer satisfaction can actually generate money. Another example of the benefits of keeping current customers satisfied are the surveys produced by TARP and PriceWaterhouseCooper. This TARP survey showed that 68% of customer defection takes place because the customer feels that they have been poorly treated and that it can cost up to five times more to buy new customers than to retain existing ones. Customer satisfaction not only benefits sales of goods and services but can also lead to bills being paid earlier by the customer. PriceWaterhouseCooper and the university of Bradfordsurveyed 3000 businessmen and the results show that if there was high customer satisfaction then bills were paid up to 14 days earlier than where there was poor customer satisfaction. All of this evidence shows that customer service is an integral part of a successful company. The importance of customer service to Sainsburys is reflected in their mission statement: 'Our mission is to be the customers first choice for food, delivering products of outstanding quality and great service at a competitive cost through working faster, simpler and together'. Types of customers There are many different types of customer and they fall mainly into two categories; external and internal. Â · External customers These are people who visit the store to buy their products or services and they all have different needs to be catered for. They are people such as the. Children (families)- Their need is equipment to be designed with their children's safety in mind. There will be a lot of families visiting Sainsburys to purchase

Tienanmen Square: Where was the Violence? :: essays research papers

Were civilian casualties more extensive inside or outside of Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989? A) Plan of Investigation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The bloodshed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing shocked the world. As a result of large-scale Chinese cover-up the public knew little about the deaths that occurred on the morning of June 4th 1989. The aim of this investigation is to find out where the casualties were most extensive. The information needed to answer this question would not be provided for 11 years after which documents began to surface helping explain the unknown tragedy. U.S. government documents surrounding the event were finally declassified. But even more importantly a collection of Chinese documents known as The Tiananmen Papers were leaked out of China. The research for this investigation comes from these two sets of documents. By analyzing both the US and China accounts, similarities and inconstancies will be identified and examined in an effort to find the most plausible answer. B) Summary of Evidence 1. On the Brink On the night of June 3rd, 1989 the communist nation China was on the brink of collapse. For months the capital city was saturated with millions of pro-democracy demonstrators. Students, intellectuals, and civilians had set up their democratic stronghold in the symbolic center of the country, Tiananmen Square. The overwhelming animosity against the communist party had shut down the nation, and embarrassed its leaders. The senior members of the Chinese politburo demanded that this uprising be subdued and disbanded. After months of fruitless efforts to resolve the matter peacefully the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was dispatched to clear Tiananmen Square and to put an end to the ever expanding trouble. The soldiers were instructed to be extremely disciplined, opening fire as the last resort (Liang, 370.) Additionally no bloodshed would be allowed in the Square itself because of its important symbolism. 2. To the Square The United States first received news about the violence in Beijing in a message from the US embassy in Beijing on the night of June 3rd 1989. The document reported that the PLA was using violent force to remove protestors as they moved on Tiananmen Square. Chinese tanks, APCs, trucks, and soldiers had met sizable civilian resistance. Thousands of protestors blockaded the PLA pelting the army with rocks, bottles, and molotov cocktails (Evans, Document 12.) Some proceeded to overturn and destroy military vehicles. Soldiers using automatic weapons fired into the mass of protestors. Demonstrators fell back slowly, continuing to fight for seven hours.

Darkness Is Coming, for Me, and You…

Chapter One: Sunday, October 20th, 1998 In the small town of Bloomberg's, 16 year old Caddis lived on Sunstroke. Suspicious and mysterious things were always going on in Bloomberg's. For example, Caddie's school, Crucified Hall, there are rumors going on there like: eerie echoes, flickering lights, dark shadows, and, believe it or not, some of the students told the principal that, well†¦ They saw ghosts! They say the ghosts walk the halls, moaning, and haunting†¦ But at night it's even freakier.Imagine going to a school, no lights, no one there, you hear eerie noises, the lights flicker where ever you go, then, you start engine dark and shadowy shadows. Freaky huh? Who would ever want to do that? Especially at night time? Well, guess what? This Just described Caddis perfectly! She always risks it. Let me tell you about Caddis. Her favorite color is neon green, she says it's soothing and it calms her. Her favorite cereal is Cheerios she will eat them every single breakfast i f she could! She loves bunnies, â€Å"They're fluffy and their nose is adorable when it twitches! † She exclaimed.She's shy but has lots of friends, and of course enemies! Who doesn't have enemies, right? Her friends were at a sleepover once with Caddis and wanted to play truth or dare, one of the girls named Lea gasped and said, â€Å"Guys! Did you see that? † They looked around, not realizing Lea was Joking but then Koala spoke in a quivering voice, â€Å"Oh my gosh, guys I saw it, I'm scared. † Then the other girls, except Caddis got freaked out, some not too scared not too calm, others were freaking out, Caddis was the only one not freaked out, and said â€Å"Guys, this happened last time, Lea always Just tries to spook us out! The girls then felt a cold chill up and down their spine. â€Å"Guys†¦ Did you feel that too!! † Gig asked, reeking out more, pulling a blanket over her head. â€Å"It might have Just been our minds playing tricks on us. † Caddis announced to the shivering girls under their blankets. There was a big bang somewhere in the room, Lea reached for her flashlight, grabbed it and turned it on. She turned it this way and that way looking all over the room under her blanket. The other girls peaked from under their blankets while Caddis sat next to Lea inspecting the room with the flashlight. See guys, it's nothing! † They all let a bunch of air out like they were holding their breath. â€Å"Um, Caddis, do you think you can turn on the light†¦ Yeastiness asked. Caddis took the flashlight, got up and saw the light switch across the room. She took a deep breath, held her breath and started walking toward the light switch, kind of scared. All the girls screamed when she turned off the flashlight, but in a flick of 5 seconds the light switch was on. They all let out a bunch of air again, relieved. â€Å"Thanks so much Caddis! What would we do with out you? † Gig thanked and asked. Eh, I' m not sure, probably sit in the darkness all night waiting for someone to walk in, but then you'd all scream. † Caddis giggled. Then everyone giggled. What a sleepover! Chapter 2: Monday, October 21st, 1998. She plopped her hand on the alarm clock for it to stop. She got up and rubbed her eyes, when she opened them she saw a girl sitting at her window sill, but in a blink of an eye she was gone. â€Å"Ham, Oh well. † Caddis said. She rushed downstairs starving, and saw her mom making waffles, bacon, eggs, and saw a cup of milk on the table. Caddis sat at the table and took a sip of her milk. Goodling Cat, who'd you sleep? † Caddie's mom always called her Cat as her nickname. â€Å"Great, thanks for the breakfast. † Caddie's mom smiled, a sign of saying yourself and placed Caddie's restart in front of Caddis on the table. Caddie's mom then put her plate of breakfast across from Caddie's plate on the table. She sat down and started eating like Caddis was. The re was a long silence and then Caddis spoke, â€Å"Mom†¦ Do we have any visitors? Like†¦ In the house? Maybe looking around the house? † Caddie's mom sat there thinking. â€Å"No sweets, I don't think so†¦ Why did you ask? Caddie's mom asked Caddis, worried. â€Å"Oh um no reason†¦ † Caddis told her, trying to calm her. Caddis finished breakfast and went up to her room when she heard a girl's laughter. It was spooky, like the laughter was laughing at Caddis like her pants fell down. Caddis looked around and saw nothing, she shrugged and continued up the stairs. She went into her room and got dressed for school. The usual Scares, t-shirt, light Jacket, and sneakers. She brushed through her brown curly hair. She fixed her hair, grabbed her backpack and went down stairs. â€Å"Bye mom, I'm walking, I know you have to work and I hate the bus. Caddis told her mom. â€Å"k honey, see you later, have fun! † Caddie's mom said. Caddis walked, head d own watching where she steps and saw her school ahead. As she walked in the school she realized she was late. Everyone was already in their classrooms learning, while she was Just arriving. She walked through the halls looking for her classroom. Caddis always gets mixed up with the classrooms. Before she went into her classroom she decided to go to the girl's restroom to wash her face, she was really tired. She swung open the door to the restroom and walked in, the door shutting by itself.She put her backpack down next to the sink and turned on the faucet. She put her hands under the water and looked in the mirror about to splash her face but noticed a child in a long white dress that as torn, her hair was a blond mess, her teeth were Just starting to get yellow, and she had marks under her eyes. Caddis splashed her face and looked behind her at nothing. The girl was gone and she wasn't in the mirror. Caddie's heart was beating fast. â€Å"It was nothing Caddis, Just get to classâ € ¦ † Caddis told herself unsure. She grabbed her backpack and saw two pale feet under a stall.The pale feet was bruised and Caddis could tell they were not sitting, actually it looked like they were standing, maybe peaking an eye in between the cracks in the stall at Caddis? Caddis walked UT of the restroom not very calm and marched to her classroom. She opened her classroom door and walked in but, was she ready to learn? Or ready to figure out what was going on? Chapter 3: Monday, October 21st, 1998, Cafeteria Caddis and the classes came out of their classrooms talking, laughing and heading all around the school while Caddis and her class headed to the Cafeteria.Caddis grabbed a plate of food and went to sit at a table with her friends, Lea, Gig, Yeastiness, Koala, and Brian or Bri for short. She sat down and picked at her food. â€Å"Caddis, why so quiet? † Koala wondered. The other girls looked at Caddis waiting for â€Å"k, guys, I keep on seeing this girl. Firs t when I woke up she was sitting on my window sill, Then I saw her in the restroom, she had a long white dress that was ripped, no shoes, her feet and skin were so pale. She had blond messy hair, and her teeth were Just starting turning yellow. † Caddis explained. The girls looked at catheter and got scared. W-what if it was a ghost? † Yeastiness asked shaking, no longer hungry for chicken nuggets. The girls sat there, letting everyone else around them fill their silence. â€Å"Guys†¦ We can't be serious. There is Just no way. Caddis told them. Caddis thought about it. â€Å"But what about the girl you saw? † Lea wondered. Caddis again thought harder. â€Å"Look guys, she wasn't a ghost, next time I will talk to her†¦ OK? † They started picking at their food. Brittany spoke, â€Å"She was a demon†¦ † There it was again, a long silence. Whatever was going on here, Caddis was determined to figure it out.Caddis got up and left the Cafete ria, leaving behind all the faces of her friends. Chapter 4: Monday, 11:00 P. M, 1998. Caddis was running, fast, running from a girl in a torn white dress, her hair was blond and a big mess, she was giggling spooky. Caddis went up to a cliff, stopped and turned around, having no where to go. The girl came up to her, stopped and giggled crazily at the sight of Caddis could fall any minute. â€Å"WHO ARE YOU! † Caddis screamed. The girl smiled, her eye twitching. â€Å"All I wanted was to play with you. † The girl said giggling. The girl got closer, while Caddis stretched back farther. I meant a name! † Caddis told the girl. The girl giggled again. â€Å"My name is Amine. † The girl answered. Caddis got unbalanced and almost fell off the cliff. â€Å"What do you want with me you demon! † The girl stopped smiling, her face transformed into a furious ace. She screamed, â€Å"NO NO! YOU SHALL NOT CALL ME THAT! † Narrate pushed Caddis off the cliff , giggling happily. Even though Amine was a demon, she had feelings, feelings that could never be described, maybe she didn't want to be like that. Caddis fell and screamed one last word, â€Å"DEMON! † When she hit the ground she woke up terrified from the nightmare.Caddis breathed deeply, frightened from the nightmare. â€Å"Amine†¦ † She whispered. Once she said that name her window swung open and her curtains flew in the wind coming into her room. Caddie's eyes widened when it happened and her heart was beating vastly. Caddis Jumped up to close her window, when she did there was a shadow behind the curtains. Caddis tried to see behind them without touching them, but she had to touch them, she grabbed it and swung it around looking behind it. There was nothing. She felt a cold breath on her neck. â€Å"Hi†¦ Amine. † Caddis whispered.Caddis heard moaning, that turned to echoing. The next step†¦ Haunting. Chapter 5: Tuesday, October 22nd, 1998 Ca ddis rushed downstairs again starving, ready to eat. She Just remembered her mom had to go to work early, she left an hour ago. Caddis grabbed a bowl and poured cheerios in her bowl. She grabbed the milk Jug in the fridge and poured it in her bowl of cheerios. She turned around with the milk Jug in her hand, screamed, and dropped the milk on the floor, the milk went all over the floor. Amine, the demon, was holding a bowl of strawberries. â€Å"Need strawberries? † Amine asked giggling.Caddis looked at the floor and gasped, when she looked up Amine was gone, leaving the strawberries on the counter. Caddis grabbed a rag and cleaned up thought. She took her bowl of cheerios to the table, set it down, and sat in a chair. She ate slowly, feeling like something was watching her†¦ Or someone. Caddis got a chill suddenly up and down her spine and right at the moment that happened, she heard foot steps upstairs. Caddis got up slowly, freaking out, her heart pumping right out of her chest and stepped back against the wall away from the stairs. The foot steps stopped and Caddis heard something breaking.She gasped and ran up the stairs. She looked all over the upstairs floor and finally in her room where she saw her room TRASHED! She heard spooky giggling. â€Å"What do you want with me, Amine? † Caddis wondered, sobbing. Amine then came out and appeared inferno of Caddis. Amine smiled a little. L want to re-create the picture of my death but†¦ † Amine walked around the room, light on her feet and continued, â€Å"The picture will be different, the picture wont have me included . It will have someone else in my spot. † Amine picked up a Jerry box and opened it, she touched a ballerina inside of it and it twirled slowly, dancing to music.Amine smiled a bit. â€Å"But I didn't kill you. † Caddis argued. Caddis looked at what Amine was doing and stepped back a bit. â€Å"Yes but, this house†¦ Your room, well†¦ † A mine said that and stopped trying to find the right words. â€Å"WELL? † Caddis started to get impatient. This room used to be my room, and I figured out the girl who pushed me†¦ † Amine told Caddis again stopping. Caddis was starting to get really impatient and stomped her foot. Amine looked at Caddis and smiled, her eye started to twitch again. â€Å"Your cousin killed me! She came up to me and Just pushed me! We were the besters friends†¦ Amine told her. Caddis thought about what Amine said and repeated the words that Amine said to herself in her head. Caddis spoke, â€Å"It was probably an accident, she would never do such a thing†¦ † Some how Caddis knew which cousin Amine was talking about. Amine was furious. â€Å"You don't get it! I need to kill you because then it's a freebie! Your cousin Nicole will be so depressed you're gone, her favorite cousin, she will kill herself to be with you! You're like a sister to her†¦ Besides, you sto le my room. † Amine explained. Amine slammed the Jerry box closed, the ballerina snapping and threw it.Amine moaned deeply and went through the wall and left a cold gust of wind behind. Caddis knew Amine was gone†¦ For now. She realized the time and gasped. â€Å"I'M AN HOUR LATE FOR SCHOOL! † She screeched. Caddis got dressed, a t- shirt, Scares, and sneakers. She brushed through her naughty, curly, brown hair, and axed it up, rushing. She brushed her teeth, grabbed her backpack and ran out the door heading for the school. She was breathing deeply when she arrived. She went into the school and was not ready to learn at all, actually she needed to figure out what Amine had in mind for Caddis.Chapter 6: Tuesday, October 23rd, 1998, Cafeteria Caddis stared at the floor and walked slowly to the Cafeteria. She walked in and grabbed a plate of food. She went to sit with her friends. Caddis stared at her food, daydreaming. â€Å"Hey Caddis! † Gig said. Lea snapped her fingers in front of Caddis and Caddis looked up. â€Å"Oh†¦ Hey. † Caddis said. The girls looked at catheter and knew something was wrong with Caddis. â€Å"Caddis, hey what's wrong? † Yeastiness asked worried. Caddis played with her food and began to sob. â€Å"Oh guys it's terrible! The demon, her name is Amine!She wants to kill me because my cousin, Nicole, the picture of her death? Oh guys, what do I do! † Caddis sobbed into her napkin. They all stared at Caddis not knowing what to say. â€Å"Caddis†¦ ‘ don't know what to tell you, I'm really sorry†¦ † Lea said feeling bad. â€Å"Caddis is there a way to stop her or something? † Brian wondered. Caddis thought about it, she had no idea when Amine would do it. I-I have no idea when Amine will re-create the picture†¦ But I have a plan. Meet me at Broomstick's Park tomorrow after school. † Caddis said that, got up and left the Cafeteria. Chapter 7: Wednesday, Oc tober 24th, Bloodstain's Park.Caddis arrived at Broomstick's Park and was surprised to see a familiar face there. Guess who, Amine†¦ What a surprise. Caddis walked slowly toward her. Amine was looking at her surroundings as she was sitting on a bench. She looked at a few birds, flowers and other children playing. Amine looked up and smiled at Caddis, she waved to Caddis and patted on the bench next to her. Caddis didn't move, she didn't blink, she didn't even breathe. Amine stopped smiling, and 5 seconds later smiled again. She got up and floated to Caddis, grabbed her hand and yanked her to the bench, forcing her to sit down.Amine sat down and Caddis sat as far away as possible from Amine. â€Å"Awful, isn't it? † Amine said looking around her. Caddis looked down at her feet like she wasn't supposed to hear that. Amine continued, â€Å"l used to love this park. It was my favorite place when I was alive. Ah, I remember when I use to hide behind that particular tree and scare the little children. † Amine told Caddis pointing at the tree. Caddis looked up at the tree, it was odd-looking. A dark shade of green and it had no sun any where near it. Caddis knew why Amine was so wicked, she was Just as wicked when she was alive. Caddis looked at the trees' surroundings.A few dead flowers, dark and dead grass, and most of all, no one ever went near that tree. It always gave you a cold chill up and down your spine, like if you touched it you'd be haunted. Everyone always believed that and it is true because of Amine. â€Å"l think I'm ready to know†¦ How did you die? † Caddis wondered looking at Amine waiting for a respond. Amine stopped smiling. She sighed. â€Å"It all started at Insole's house, your devilish cousin, an-† Caddis cut her off, got up and said â€Å"Nicole wasn't devilish! She was an angel. † Amine clenched her teeth and said â€Å"You wouldn't understand, do you want to hear the story or not†¦ Caddis s at back down and listened. â€Å"Anyway, I wanted to climb the roof with her, she said it's too dangerous we could be killed and if we do live through it, my parent's would kill me. I said so what, take a chance! She was still not sure about it but she agreed to me, she admitted she only did it because she was afraid of me, surprisingly. We went up to he roof, I climbed it first and then she climbed it slowly. The roof was a triangle shape. I dared her to walk it, she said no. I did and I said now you have to do it because I did it. She sobbed while I yelled at her to do it.She started walking, I came closer to help her. She almost fell and tried to push me away, yelling not to help. When she did that she pushed me and I fell backwards screaming. I saw her last expression, her hands were covered over her mouth and she sobbed more. I absolutely hate her, I Just despise her now and however was in her family. † Amine explained this all in 1 minute, Caddie's eyes widened. Nicole was really upset because-† Amine cut Caddis off and shouted, â€Å"NO, NO SHE WASN'T! I visited her the day after I died, there she was throwing out memories of us! She was ripping pictures know what she said?She said she didn't want to remember me because of two reasons, one it was too sad and two she was scared of me realizing she killed me. † Caddis sat there clueless of what to say while Amine growled and flew into the sky leaving a gust of cold chills up and down Caddie's back. She then heard talking and laughter, she looked up and saw her friends. She smiled a bit to see them. â€Å"Hey Caddis!!! Gig waved. They all came and sat next to Caddis on the bench. Caddis stopped smiling and looked down. â€Å"Guys†¦ Amine told me how she died†¦ So now I know exactly what she is going to do to me†¦ Caddis told them and continued, filling in everything Amine told her. â€Å"Wow†¦ Lam so sorry Caddis, do you got an idea? † Lea apologized and ask ed. Caddis then explained a good plan, but she told them the only flaw to it is she doesn't know when Amine will kill her. â€Å"k, let's Just settle down and we can think of something tomorrow. † Yeastiness decided. Caddis nodded, got up, and walked away, heading for home. Caddis said to herself in her head two words, I'm dead†¦ Chapter 8: Thursday, October 25th, 1998. Caddis woke up from a nightmare about the place of where Amine would take her.Caddis got out of bed and went downstairs, ready for breakfast. She saw her mom getting ready for work. â€Å"Cat honey, you'll going have to make yourself breakfast again, they called me in early for work. † Caddie's mom told her rushing to get ready. Caddis nodded and got out a bowl, and then a box of cheerios. Caddie's mom looked at Caddis and felt her cheeks and forehead. â€Å"Sweetheart, you're sick you have to stay home today. † Caddie's mom told her. Caddis moaned, wanting to go to school where there is a l ot of people, instead, she has to be home†¦ And not exactly alone. Amine would be with her of course.Caddis heard giggling. Caddie's mom checked Caddie's temperature and said, â€Å"Yep, looks like you're staying home. † She showed Caddie's temperature. It was 100. 3†¦ Great. Caddis thought. Caddie's mom smiled, kissed Caddis on the forehead, grabbed her purse and left, blowing a kiss goodbye. Caddis poured milk into her cereal and started eating it, leaving the milk on the counter and she stood while she ate it. Amine yanked Caddis up the stairs ND opened a secret door in the ceiling that led to the attic. Caddis climbed the ladder into the attic and saw old, dusty boxes. â€Å"Open this one. Amine said pushing it close to her. Caddis sat down crisis-crossed and tore it open, she gasped when she saw tons of beautiful white silk dresses, all with different designs and different length. She took out the one on the top, it was designed with beautiful white roses, the length was down to her ankles and it was white and silky. Amine smiled, her eye was twitching. â€Å"This one was my favorite, go ahead, put it on. † Amine demented nicely but it seemed she didn't really. Caddis hesitated, she didn't want to put on a dress of a dead girl but she did so she wouldn't make Amine angry.Amine then told Caddis to open another one. Caddis did and when she did, she saw a box full of at least two dozen dolls. She searched through it and pulled out a doll that was wearing her dress. She hugged it but she didn't mean to. She had no idea what she was thinking when she hugged Amine's doll and put on Amine's dress. â€Å"Come, let's fix your hair. † Amine suggested, sitting Caddis down in front of a mirror. Amine twisted and pulled at Caddie's hair then she wrapped it in white ribbon. Perfect, you almost look as beautiful as I do. † Amine assured Caddis. Caddis shut.I will name this doll Sophia. Thought Caddis. â€Å"This doll was my most fa vorite, so was the dress, her name is Hated. You've heard McDonald, well this is Hated. Get it? Spell it backwards. † Amine told her, smiling. Caddis took a minute to think about it. D-e-a†¦ -t-†¦. H. Death†¦ Caddis thought. Caddis dropped the doll on the floor. Amine smiled, grabbed the doll and floated through the window, leaving behind Caddis unanswered. Caddis ripped off the dress roughly, seriously ripping it. She goosed it in the box and along with the ribbon. She closed the boxes, left the attic and went to her room.When she entered her room she saw something familiar on her bed staring at the doorway and now Caddis. It was†¦ Hated. Chapter 9: Friday, October 28th, 1998. Yesterday, Caddis put Hated in the attic. Amine didn't show up since then. Caddis got out of bed, there was no school today. It was teacher's day. Caddis went downstairs and saw breakfast made on the counter with a note. It read: Had to go to work early. Love you! Caddis took the bre akfast, strawberries, bacon, eggs, and a banana. She set it on the table and ate. Amine came and sat down across from Caddis.She snatched a strawberry off Caddie's plate and ate it. â€Å"l love strawberries. † Amine said eating the Juicy red strawberry. Caddis was done eating and put her plates on the counter. â€Å"When will you kill me Amine. † Caddis asked afraid. Amine floated around the room. â€Å"Ham, let's go right now, it's supposed to rain today. † Amine answered. Amine grabbed Caddie's hand and pulled her out of the house, through the woods, and arrived at Insole's house. Caddis tried to pull away but it was no use. Amine dragged her into Insole's house, up the stairs and onto a bedroom.Amine opened the window and climbed onto the ledge of the roof. â€Å"Let's go! † Amine yelled, climbing the roof. Caddis hung onto the ledge and pulled herself up, it was the same as monkey bars except she was going upwards diagonal. Caddis arrived at the top of the triangular roof and held onto the chimney as she stepped onto the roof. She saw clouds coming with thunder and lightning. All of a sudden rain poured down like a waterfall in the town. Amine looked up and spread her arms out like she was absorbing the rain. Amine looked at Caddis and giggled at Caddie's terrified face. k, so it's very simple.Just walk from this chimney to that chimney. † Amine told Caddis pointing at the chimney that was on the other side of the house. Amine started to walk to the other side, her arms spread out balancing herself. She touched the chimney on the other side. â€Å"k! Now you do it! † Amine yelled over to Caddis. Caddis started to bawl saying, â€Å"l can't do it! I can't do it, please Amine! † Amine giggled and walked over to Caddis, grabbed her hand and pulled her a little. Amine let go and stepped back. Caddis took one step and almost slipped from the rain on the roof that made it slippery.Amine took Caddie's hand seeing h ow Caddis was very unbalanced leaning this way and that way. Caddis tried to take her hand away. â€Å"Stop, don't help me! † Caddis screamed frustrated. She tried to push Amine away thinking if she did push Amine nothing would happen but Caddis was wrong. She pushed Amine and Amine fell backwards Just as before when Nicole did it. Amine fell screaming and fell in a puddle. Caddis climbed down from the roof, ran down the stairs and out the door of where Amine fell. She didn't see Amine there. Caddis ran through the forest not minding her face was being mound Amine's grave and read it.Here lies Amine. The wicked one who will return. Chapter 10: Friday, April 28, 1999. Six Months Later†¦ Caddis kneeled at Amine's grave inspecting it more. Caddis had a feeling inside of her that Amine was gone†¦ For good. Caddis got up and left, heading for home. There was a gust of wind that surrounded the grave, leaves flew in the air following the wind, and suddenly stopped. Amine's head popped out of the soil and she smiled her teeth were yellow. She dug her nails into the soil and yanked herself out of the ground and stood up. Amine was back and ready for revenge.