Dorothy Parker Essay Example for Free

Dorothy Parker Essay Dorothy Parker was an extraordinary woman. Extraordinary in her writings and extraordinary in what she achieved with her writings. Her books of poems and her short stories were bestsellers and her columns in The New Yorker were extremely popular. She was one of the only women and a central figure of the Algonquin Hotel Round Table, where all the great literary geniuses of her time would eat their lunch. Newspaper columnists qouted her and two Broadway plays were written about her. Briefly,she was one of the most talked about woman of her time. What is striking is that her fame came from her writings. So much fame for a woman’s writings is unusual nowadays but let aside in her time. And besides that she was not a minor writer but her literary output in the end was quite small: two volumes of short stories and three of poetry. The last decade of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth was a time of large scale political movements and social changes among women. A new generation of women writers emerged with Dorothy Parker as their most famous one. More oppurtunities for writers existed before the dominance of radio film and television. The newspapers and magazines flourished and only the area of New York City alone published 25 daily newspapers. The â€Å"New Women† as they were labeled were worried with winning women’s rights: the vote, education, economic freedom, acces to a career and a public voice. These women were educated and progressive and wanted a break with the conservative past. Women writers of the era did not see marrying and having children as their ultimate goal in life. They rejected the traditional women’s sphere and claimed a the territory of arts that had been a complete male territory before. Many feared to be thought of as â€Å"women writers†. Dorothy Parker said that her most fervent prayer had been â€Å"Please, God, don’t let me write like a woman†. Parker’s writings on the other hand were for the most part confined to women and to what is important to them. What made Parker so succesfull? What made that era crave her writings? In order to understand Parker’s succes we need to view her works in the context of the time they were written. Dorothy Parker was born in 1893. The most striking evidence of change of the role of women in society at that time was the emergence of the college educated and self supporting new woman. By 1870 there were eleven thousand women students enrolled in higher education (21 procent of all students) and a decade later there were forty thousand women students enrolled in higher education (32 procent of all students). After they graduated they had to choose between a traditional role of domesticity and young marriage or a career of paid work. On August 26, 1920 women officially earn the right to vote by the 19th Amendment. Although women did not become a strong political force right after that the Amendment did increase the power of women to effect change. Another important aspect of the changes in women’s postion in society these years was the first world war. Although the United States participated in the war for a relatively short time and did people not really have a clue about what was going on in Europe the war did change American culture significantly. More than four million American men were were mobilized and sent off to Europe. One of the outcomes of this was that women entered the workforce in increasing numbers. Working not in only jobs that were particulary feminine jobs like nursing but also in offices and factories, in stores and governmental agencies and more. Women found themselves working in previously male-dominated fields and they were earning higher wages than in the past. These changes gave women a new notion of indepedence and self-confidence. In 1920 23.6% of the workforce was female with 8.6 million females, ages 15 and up, working outside the home. In 1920, for the first time in American history more people (54.3 million) live in cities than rural areas (51.4). As people became to move into the cities their lifesty les changed. Cities have more activities like going to the theater and nightclubs. Women in the cities were more likely to work in restaurants or offices and other locations that took them away from home. All these factors together created an environment of freedom that women had never seen in the past. One of the most visble outcomes of this freedom was the emergence of the Flapper girl. The breakdown of the Victorian sexual norms was a gradual process but slowely the American society was ready for newer ideas about sexual norms. The young working class woman had been known for her flamboyant dresses and love of nightlife and dancing. .They were relatively economically autonomous and freed either by work or school from intense familial supervision, and began to find a more individualistic culture for themselves. Women’s appearance changed to a slender and smaller silhouette no longer restricted by petticoats and corsets.When the war began women started to favor more practical, shirtwaist-style dresses. These dresses gave more freedom of movement and a greater exposure of skin. First they inched up to calf length then up to knee length. Flappers didn’t show their feminime curves, cut their hair short and wore dark eyeshadow. As the United States was becoming more and more urban, industrial production increased by 60 percent during this decade while population growth was 15%. Mass production requires mass consumption. Advertising became more important tempting people to purchase the latest fashions and newest cars and spend money on nightclubs and restaurants in the cities. For women this industrial production meant that they were more likey to have vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigarators and other household appliances that lightened their household work. This increased their leisure time. Advertisements targeted women in the 1920’s. Women seemed to have more economic power than before and seemed to be in charge of the households money. However these advertisements still reflected traditional thinking of the women’s role in society. These advertisements stressed domesticity and pleasing men over any message of independence. Dorothy Parker was born at the very start of this period of the â€Å"modern woman†. While men and women were now equal under the law, discrimination against women still persisted. Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s women were still struggling against restrictions. For example, in several states women were denied to serve on juries till 1940. The economic advances for women, too, were minimal. There was still a strong sexual division of labor. Discrimiantion in family responsibilities, education, salaries and promotions remained plentiful. During the depression women lost the gains made in the career world during the 1920s. And a renewed emphasis on the woman at home crushed the recently gained hopes for equality. More and more a stereoype emerged that women during the 1920s were sexually active (the Flapper) but politically apathetic. Parker’s work points a sharp finger at that stereotype and defies is. She keenly points out the ongoing struggles for women to break free. Parker began her professional life in 1915 when she went to work as a caption writer for Vogue at a salary of ten dollar a week. By 1917 she transferred to Vanity Fair and worked for editor Frank Crowninshield until 1920. From 1919 to 1923 Parker wrote poems, sketches, essays and columnd for more than thirty-five different literary journals and magazines. Parker’s first poem â€Å"Any porch† pubished in Vanity Fair in september 1915 presents nine different female voices who discuss various topics as the vote for women, a game of bridge, someones new haircut and the war in France. In 1916 she wrote a series of â€Å"hate songs†, satiric descriptions of husbands and wives, actors and actresses, relatvies and so on. These â€Å"hate songs† made Parker very popular. She soon began to build a reputation as a sophisticated young writer with a witty message. In 1926 her first collection of poems was published. Parker soon played a distinctive voice calling for equality and social independence for women. This distinctive voice calling for equality and social independence for women was not out there in a way the feminist movements of that era were calling for it. This voice was hidden between the lines of her poems and stories. â€Å"The Waltz† was published in The New Yorker in september 1933. The story reflects the thoughts and conversation of a girl who is dancing a waltz with a man who dances very badly. He steps al over her feet and kicks her in the shin every so often. She keeps saying that she’s not tired, that it didn’t hurt when he kicked her and when she gets past all feeling, the orchestra finally comes to a stop. When it does, she tells him that she wishes he’d tell them to play the same thing. She said that she would simply adore to go on waltzing even though she hates it. The two voices in this short story reflect the contrast between a polite public voice and a witty and angry private voice. These two voices reflect a clear statement of the w oman’s outward conformity and inward rebellion. In this way the two voices in â€Å"The Waltz† are metaphoric for the woman’s powerlessness. Right from the start of the story it is clear that the woman does not want to dance with this man. She does not want to dance at all but definitely not with this man. But still she gets up and dances with him. Parker is trying to point out that there is not that many young women out there who say what they think. There is not really an alternative for the woman in this story, how can she be rude? She can’t be rude to a man who asks her to dance. Women after all were supposed to please men. Parker does not judge the woman in this story for not saying what she thinks. She is not trying to bring young women who act like that down. She just simply wrote down how things like this work in a woman’s head and letting the world know that woman do not always smile from the inside when they smile from the outside. In 1929 Parker published another short story with an hidden message about gender roles. In â€Å"Big Blonde† Parker tells the story of a talented woman, Hazel Morse. Men seem to like her and as Parker wrote â€Å"Men liked her, and she took it for granted that the liking of men was a desirable thing†. Hazel Morse wants men to like her and â€Å"she never pondered if she might not be occupied doing something else†. She had been working for a couple years untill she met her husband. They got married and in the beginning everything seems fine. As the story goes on it becomes clear that Hazel Morse’s life revolves around pleasing her husband while she is so bored and unhappy at home. She gets divoced and gets married again a couple times but in the end in all her marriages and in the rest of her life she is never occupied with anything else than a desire for men to like her. One other desire Hazel Morse has is a desire for nice furniture and clothing. With every men that comes in to her life Parker describes wheter he is rich or not and what he buys for Hazel Morse. All this stuff does not make her happy either. At the end of the story Hazal Morse tries to commit suicide. What Parker tried to point out here is that women like Hazal Morse are only occupied by a desire for men to like them. This constant desire in the end makes women unhappy because they do not ask themselves what they want for themselves. She also targeted the new american consuming culture in this story. Parker stated that nice clothes and nice furniture are not going to make women happy in the end. Again, just as in â€Å"The Waltz† Parker does not judge Hazal Morse for her actions. But she does make very clear that the life of women who never ponder if they might be occupied with something else than pleasing men is not going to end well. In her stories on gender relations Parker did not criticize women directly but she does have short stories and poems in where she criticized women directly. In one of her early poems (1916) called â€Å"Women: A Hate song† she writes in the first paragraph of the poem how much she hates domestic women. She thought they were â€Å"the worst†. In her poem she groupes them together, there are no individual housewives they are all just as worse. They claim to all be always happy in Parkers view and all they do is hurry home to provide dinner for her family. The rest of their days are filled with making dresses and trying out recipes. Parker, by saying that she hates â€Å"the domestic ones† the most of all made a clear statement about the traditional role of women in society. She hated it. She hated the idea of women staying at home their whole lifes to take care of their families. Interesting is that she did not only criticize housewives but she also became known fo r her condemnation of the flapper. In her poem, â€Å"The Flapper† written in 1922 she starts her poem of by saying that flappers are innocent. Then she continues to say that flappers are not â€Å"what grandma used to be†. Women wanted to break from the traditions from the generations before them but in the way Parker said it in this poem it is not meant as a compliment. She also says that flappers are â€Å"girlish†. By saying this it becomes clear that Parker did not take them serious. They were not serious and grown up women but they were all young girls. She then continues to say that there is no more harm in them â€Å"than in a submarine†. Which clearly means that Parker thought they were capable of doing damage to the whole society. She also writes that the flapper girl is not â€Å"in control† and that people only focus on their pranks. They are only noticed for their unruly behaviour and not for any good that they do. She ends this poem by saying that the Flapper girls are young and that the life the live is a rough one. This poem makes clear that Parker did not agree with the way the Fl apper girls were trying to break with the past. The way the Flapper girls were trying to challenge the norm was not the best or most productive in Parker’s eyes. â€Å"Men seldom make passes, at girls who wear glasses† is one of Parkers most famous quotes. The quote was not actually written as a quote but as a poem in 1926 under the title â€Å"News Item†. In one line Parker was able to describe that men were usually not charmed by the smart women in society. (Since glasses are associated with intelligence or education). The modern woman had achieved more equality in education but as Parker describes men did not seemed to like these educated women. The major themes in Parkers writings are a lack of communication between women and men, disintegration of relationships, motherhood, women’s emotional dependency upon men, the selfishness of the wealthy and the danger of empitness in women’s lives. Her audience was broad. She managed to write for men and women of different social classes. The purpose of a writer was in Parkers opinion â€Å"to say what he feels and sees†. â€Å"Those who write fantasies† she did not consider artists. This nation of â€Å"to say what he feels and sees† made her stories extremely recognizable. In one of her short stories â€Å"A telephone call† Parker describes a woman waiting for a man to call her. The man had promised to call her at 5 and at 7 he still has not called. Parker described what goes through the woman’s mind. Anyone who has ever waited on a wanted telephone call knows exactely what the woman in the story goes trough because Parker sets out t he woman’s thoughts in so much detail. Her writings are satiric, which makes them fun and easy to read but behind and between the lines there is a clear message. A lot of the times this message were convictions on the existing gender relations in society. From her writings it becomes clear that Parker was a feminist. Later in her life she was quoted saying â€Å"I’m a feminist and God knows I’m loyal to my sex, and you must remember that from my very early days, when this city was scarcely safe from buffaloes, I was in the struggle for equal rights for women.† She did however never join one of the organized feminists movements. The feminist movements of her time convicted the gender relations in a more serious and less humourous way. Her talent to convict these gender relations in a humourous way are undoubtly one of the reasons of her succes. The majority of the people was not interested in reading serious and bitter comments on the gender relations. In her â€Å"New Item† poem she could have said: â€Å"Men are sexist pigs who want to hold women in the kitchen were they belong.† Instead of that she wrote a brilliantly witty poem that everyone knows untill today. Dorothy Parker might have been a feminist secretely fighting for women’s rights, she did not wanted to be associated with any sort of woman. In her short story â€Å"Women: a hate song† she basically stated that she hates every sort of woman. From the housewives to the Flappers. Parker wanted women to take advantage of the rights they had attained and she did not feel like enough women were doing that. What she rejected most of all were the standards for female writing and thinking. One of her biographers Marion Maede wrote that Parker did not presented herself so much â€Å"as a bad girl† but as a â€Å"bad boy, a firecracker who was agressively proud of being tough, quirky, feisty.† Parker’s writings satisfied a craving for comments on this â€Å"modern women† and the new gender relations that were a part of that. Women in American society on the one hand were happy on the one hand with their new achievements of equality between men and women. On the other hand, they were dissapointed in the actual changes. Not only were the achievements in equality by law, in economic advances and education not what they had hoped for, they were also dissapointed in the new image of a stereotype women who was sexually liberated but in every way was the minor in relationships between woman and man. These dissapointments and discriminations of the modern women were not out on the surface. No one would have probably even been able to explain at that time what these dissapointments and discriminations exactly were. Dorothy Parker could see the friction underneath the surface of a sophistication-thirsty, consumer-obsessed American society. In her short stories and her poems she was able to point a sharp finger at all these dissapointments and discriminations. She was able to do that in a humourous satiric way. Not in bold statements, but in a subtile way behind and between the lines of her writings. Her greatest achievement was that her writings were attractive to read for women and men. Popular writing for both sexes would be a great achievement nowadays but even more in that era in which the tensions between gender relations were at its sharpest. All these things combined made Parker succesfull in making her readers observe modern culture in a different way, and they all loved reading it. Bunkers, Suzanne L. Dorothy Parker as Feminist and Social Critic (1987). Evans, Sara M. Born for liberty. A history of women in America (New York 1989). Keats, John. You might as well live. The life and times of Dorothy Parker (New York 1970). Keyser, Catherine. Girls who wear glasses. In A New Literaty History of America edited by Wernes Sollors and Griel Marcus (Harvard 2012). Parker, Dorothy. Complete Poems (1999). Parker, Dorothy. Here Lies. The Collected Stories of Dorothy Parker (New York 1933). Sagert, Kelly Boyer. Flappers: A Guide to an American Subculture (2010). [ 1 ]. John Keats, You might as well live. The life and times of Dorothy Parker (New York 1970) 9. [ 2 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xvi. [ 3 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xvi. [ 4 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xvi. [ 5 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for liberty. A history of women in America (New York 1989) 147. [ 6 ]. Sagert, Kelly Boyer Flappers xiv. [ 7 ]. Sagert, Kelly Boyer Flappers xiv. [ 8 ]. Evans, Sara M Born for liberty 161. [ 9 ]. Evans, Sara M Born for liberty 161. [ 10 ]. Sagert, Kelly Boyer Flappers 15. [ 11 ]. Sagert, Kelly Boyer Flappers 20. [ 12 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xxv. [ 13 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xxvi. [ 14 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xxvi. [ 15 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xix. [ 16 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xix. [ 17 ]. Colleen Breese, introduction in Dororthy Parker Complete Poems (1999) xxvi. [ 18 ]. Catherine Keyser, Girls who wear glasses, in A New Literary History of America, edited by Werner Sollors and Griel Marcus (Harvard 2012).

Multilingual communities: Effects of code switching

Multilingual communities: Effects of code switching In multilingual communities, code-switching is a widespread phenomenon that happens from daily life and workplaces to classrooms in which specific languages have been instituted as the official languages of instruction. Malaysia is one of the nations that have multilingual communities that consists of three main races; Malay, Chinese and Indians. From 1957 to 1967, language was used as an important tool in order to achieve unity and Bahasa Malaysia becomes the national language. Previously, English was compulsory in all schools especially the vernacular schools and due to the lack of English educators at that time, the idea was off the hook. In 1967, English language status was removed but it was still used nationwide. 1.1 Background of Problem In 1956, the Education Review Committee aimed to establish multicultural education systems that support other languages since Malaysia have multilingual communities and English becomes part of it. Today, English had becomes an international language and unofficially second language in Malaysia since most people used it. English as a second language status in Malaysia has been complemented through wide use of English in the social setting as well as the education setting. Teaching of English has been greatly emphasised by the government through its ministry. Due to this matter, the declining level of English proficiency among students has brought about the need to find out how to tackle the issue. Teachers, consequently, have been employing code switching as a means of providing students with the opportunities to communicate and enhancing students understanding. Furthermore, code switching helps to facilitate the flow of classroom instruction since the teachers do not have to spend so much time trying to explain to the learners or searching for the simplest words to clarify any confusion that might arise. Code-switching should not be considered as a sign of shortcoming in the teacher. Instead, it is a careful strategy employed by the teachers. Code-switching should be allowed whenever necessary with some learners in specific situations. Richard (1985) suggests that code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to replacement between two or more languages in a single conversation, stretch of discourse, or utterances between people who have more than one language in common. Speakers of more than one language are known for their ability to code switch or mix their language during communication. This phenomenon occurs when the speaker substitutes a word or phrase from one language to a phrase or word from another language. Ayeomoni (2006) claims that many educators have attempted to define the term code switching and each understand the concepts from different points of view. Gumperz (1982) defined code-switching as the use of more than one code or language in the course of a single speech event, taken to refer to teacher utterances in the classroom. In other words, the teachers use code-switching in order to convey meanings to the students. Besides that, Numan and Carter (2001) stated that code switching as a pheno menon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse (p. 275). Appel Musyken (1987) mentioned that code switching can be divided into two categories which are intrasentential and intersentential. Intrasentential is a switch that occurs in the middle of a sentence. It was also known as code mixing. For example, my girlfriend suka ice cream. The word Suka means like in the Malay language. The real sentence is My girlfriend likes ice cream. A word from the Malay language is replaced by an English word in a sentence. The later is a switch of language that happens between sentences. A suitable example is I got an A for my drawing, awak macam mana, Farid?. Awak macam mana means what about you. The exact sentence should be I got an A for my drawing, what about you, Farid?. The first sentence uses English and the later is in Bahasa Malaysia. There is one more type of code switching which is extrasentential as introduces by Hamers and Blanc (1989), extrasentential switches include tags and fillers. An excellent example of a local extrasentential code switching that close to our culture is Later lah. Lah is a particle widely used by Malaysians and Singaporean in their speech. Holmes (2008) stated that the particle Lah is used to show intimacy or solidarity in a relationship. So, the term code switching in this study is the use of two languages within a sentence or between sentences. Intrasentential refers to the switch that occurs within a sentence while intersentential points to switches between sentences. Last but not least, extrasentential refers to the tags and fillers that do not exist in the word list of the language used. Statement of Research Problem Malaysian learners needs to become proficient English users in order to access knowledge and information available in English as well as to be able to communicate successfully, thus suggesting the important position the students may hold in the future. But before they can get to the targeted proficiency level, definitely they must get used to the English language itself. Since English acts as a second language in Malaysia, the lack of exposure is the pivotal factor that will hinders the students to become proficient in English. Thus, classroom instructions are the most valuable experience for learners because of the limited exposures to sufficient comprehensible input from the natural environment they might get. Therefore, in order to raise they proficiency level, they must gain sufficient comprehensible input. It means the students have to gain understanding towards what they learnt before thinking about raising the proficiency level. This is where a strategy to help them learn English as a second language must be applied by teachers. Code switching is a form of strategy that will solve these problems. It helps to facilitate the flow of classroom instruction since the teachers do not have to spend so much time trying to explain to the learners or searching for the simplest words to clarify any confusion that might arise. Teachers code switch when th e level of English used in the textbook or to be taught is beyond the learners ability or when the teachers have exhausted the means to adjust his speech to the learners level. Research Objective The purpose of this study is to investigate code switching in the teaching of English as a second language to secondary school students. There are several factors which are vital in determining the effectiveness of this study. Objectives of the study: To investigate the attitudes of teachers towards code switching The attitudes of teachers towards code switching The types of code switching Function of code switching in instruction Research Questions In more details, this study will answer the following question: What do teachers think about code switching in the English classroom? Do English teachers code switch in the English classroom? What types of code switching occur in the classroom? What is the function of code switching? Definition of Terms Specifically in this study, there are several terms which are used throughout the whole study, thus it is necessary to provide the definition of these terms for better understanding as well as reference to readers. The terms are: Learning It can be described simply as mental activity that includes receiving, storing, retrieving and using knowledge. This process requires interest and often demands effort. It depends heavily on memory process. Distance Learning It can be defined as formal education process in which the majority of the instruction occurs when students and instructors are not in the same place. It is a two way between teacher and students who are separated by a geographical distance and time where the communication support the educational process. Adult learners Individuals who are experienced, financially independent, working full time while enrolled in a learning programme, have other responsibilities and enrolled in the learning programme on their will. They are also experienced, achievement oriented, highly motivated, relatively independent and also required a degree of independence in learning. In this study, adult learners refer to adult students enrolling in PJJ Programme in Faculty of Education, UiTM Shah Alam. Intrinsic motivation Intrinsically motivated actions is that which occurs for its own sake, action for which the only rewards are the spontaneous affects and cognitions that accompany it. Intrinsically motivated behaviors require no external supports or reinforcements for their sustenance. Extrinsic motivation It refers to motivation that comes from outside an individual. The motivating factors are external or outside, rewards such as money or grades. These rewards provide satisfaction and pleasure that the task itself may not provide. Institutional barriers It can be defined as structural in nature as those barriers erected by organization that provide learning opportunities for adults or all practices and procedures that exclude or discourage working adults from participating in educational activities. Situational barriers It can be defined as problem that arises from ones situation in life at a given time. Dispositional barriers It can be defined as attitudes or self perception about one self as learners. PJJ students It can be defined as part time students who come to class on every weekend and most of them are adult learners who are working. Significance This study is apparently one of the first few attempts to investigate the code switching in the teaching of English as a second language to secondary school trainee English teachers in Mara University of Technology, at Malacca City Campus. Therefore, this study may provide a useful launching pad for further research in this area of interest towards teachers from other states. The findings of this study could provide some data for future research in this area. It could perhaps also help in the more effective teaching strategy in the teaching of English as a second language to secondary school students as code switching can be considered as one the teaching strategy. Limitations This study was conducted in Mara University of Technology, at Malacca City Campus and due to this matter; the results will not be the generalization of the whole population of English trainee teachers nationwide. CHAPTER TWO THE LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction Alternation between languages in the form of code switching is a widely observed phenomenon in foreign language classrooms. Numan and Carter briefly define the term as a phenomenon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse (2001:275). Following this definition, discourse will be handled as the students and teachers naturally occurring language use in classroom settings throughout this paper. Additionally, the languages between which alternation is performed are the native language of the students, and the foreign language that students are expected to gain competence in. While putting the phenomenon of code switching in context, the functions of code switching will be introduced in various aspects. Firstly, its function in bilingual community settings will briefly be explained by giving a sample authentic conversation which will help the reader deduce ideas about its possible applications in educational contexts. Secondly, the functionality of code switching in teachers classroom discourse will be introduced with its aspects as: topic switch, affective functions, and repetitive functions. Thirdly, the focus will shift to students code switching by introducing some basic functional perspectives as: equivalence, floor holding, reiteration, and conflict control. Lastly, weak and strong sides of code switching in foreign language classrooms will be discussed with a critical approach. This chapter outlines past research on code switching especially the main factor contributing the attitudes of teachers in the use of code switch, types and functions of code switching used in the classroom. This chapter will provide a clear idea of how code switching plays role in second language learning from the perspective of previous researches and the findings from past studies. 2.1 Theoretical Background Multilingual communities have the tendency to switch code either with or without their consciousness and Malaysia is a good example of a community that practice code switching. People sometimes switch code varied within a domain or social situation. For example, when there is some obvious change in the situation, such as the arrival of a new person, it is the obvious reason why people switch code. In most cases, a speaker may similarly switch to another language as a signal group of membership and shared ethnicity with an addressee. The code switch occurs from the first language to the second language or vice versa. In addition, switches motivated by the identity and relationship between the participants often express a move to show solidarity and it may also referred as the status relations between people or the formality of their interaction. The main focus here is to examine code switching in the field of education, in other words, the correlation between code switch and English t eacher in school especially in secondary school. In order to gain a better insight into code switch and it roles in terms of education, the main concern should be focused on the fundamental concept of code switching. According to Marasigan (1983), the use of two languages in the same discourse is referred to as code-switching. Ayeomoni (2006) stated that many scholars have attempted to define the term code switching and each understands the concept from different points of view. A search of the Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts database in 2005 shows more than 1,800 articles on the subject published in virtually every branch of linguistics. However, despite this variation or perhaps in part because of it, scholars do not seem to share a definition of the term. A useful definition of code switching for sociocultural linguistic analysis should recognize it as an alternation in the form of communication. It also signals a context in which the linguistic contribution can be understood. The context so signaled may be very local (such as the end of a turn at talk), very general (such as positioning), or anywhere in between. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that this signaling is accomplished by the action of participants in a particular interaction. That is to say, it is not necessary or desirable to spell out the meaning of particular code switching behavior. Rather, code switching is accomplished by parties in interaction, and the meaning of t heir behavior emerges from the interaction. This is not to say that the use of particular linguistic forms has no meaning, and that speakers make it up as they go. Individuals remember and can call on past experiences of discourse. These memories form part of a language users understanding of discourse functions. Therefore, within a particular setting certain forms may come to reappear frequently. Nonetheless, it is less interesting (for the current author at least, and probably for the ends of sociocultural linguistic analysis) to track the frequency or regularity of particular recurrences than to understand the effect of linguistic form on discourse practice and emergent social meanings. In earlier studies, Bokamba (1989) suggests that code switching is the mixing of words, phrases and sentences from two distinct grammatical (sub) systems across sentence boundaries within a speech event (p. 279). The term code switching (or, as it is sometimes written, code-switching or code switc h) is broadly discussed and used in linguistics and a variety of related fields. Code mixing on the other hand, is the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes (bound morphemes), words (unbound morphemes), phrases and clauses from two grammatical (sub) systems within the same utterance and speech event (p. 279). Numan and Carter (2001) define code switching as a phenomenon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse (p. 275). To recapitulate, code switching is a practice of parties in discourse to signal changes in context by using alternate grammatical systems or subsystems, or codes. The mental representation of these codes cannot be directly observed, either by analysts or by parties in interaction. Rather, the analyst must observe discourse itself, and recover the salience of a linguistic form as code from its effect on discourse interaction. The approach described here understands code switching as the practice of individuals in particular discourse settings. Therefore, it cannot specify broad functions of language alternatio n, nor define the exact nature of any code prior to interaction. Codes emerge from interaction, and become relevant when parties to discourse treat them as such. In a more recent publication, Unanumo (2008) regards code switching as the use of more than one language in a conversation. Appel and Musyken (1987) suggest that code switching can be categorized as intrasentential or intersentential. Intrasentential is a switch of languages which occurs in the middle of a sentence. This type of switching is often called code mixing. An example of a Malaysian intrasentential switch is My youngest sister ambil Biology. Ambil means take in the Malay language. The sentence should be My youngest sister takes (studies) Biology. A Malay word is embedded in an English sentence. Intersentential, on the other hand, is a switch of language which occurs between sentences. An example of intersentential would be I quit all my jobs already. Christie tak beritahu?. Tak beritahu means did not tell. The sentence should read Christie did not tell you? The second sentence uses the Malay language while the former is in English. Poplack (1980, as cited in Hamers and Blanc, 1989) introduces extrasentential switches which include tags and fillers. These would also include an exclamation a parenthetical statement or particle from another language. An example of a local extrasentential switch is Nothing lah. Lah is a particle widely used by Malaysians in their colloquial speech. McArthur (1998) describes the multi-purpose lah as a token especially of informal intimacy and solidarity. Such a particle also exists in the Singaporean variety of English. Wee (2003) explains that it is typically found in clause-final position. It is monosyllabic and used for discourse pragmatic functions. The term code switching in this study adopts Clynes definition (Clyne, 2000) as the alternate use of two languages either within a sentence or between sentences. Intrasentential in this study refers to switches within a sentence while intersentential refers to switches between sentences. Extrasentential refer to tags and fillers which do not exist in the lexicon of the base language used. 2.2 Attitudes of Teachers in the use of Code Switch Within the world of languages use, code-switching has often been perceived as being of lower status, a strategy used by weak language performers to compensate for language deficiency. This view of code-switching and bilingual talk in general is more normatively based than research-based as pointed by Lin( 1996) who added that such a view conveys little more than the speaker or writers normative claims about what counts as standard or legitimate language. An extensive body of literature studies reported that code switching in classrooms not only just normal but useful tool of learning. Cook (2001) referred to code switching in the classroom as a natural response in a bilingual situation. Furthermore, in the same study, Cook considered the ability to go from one language to another is highly desirable not only among learners but teachers. Moreover, in eliciting teachers reflections to their classroom teachings, Probyn (2010) noticed that most notable strategy that teachers used was cod e switching to achieve a number of communicative and metalinguistic ends. Cooks studies were mainly in the second language classroom context. Rollnick and Rutherfords (1996) studied the science classrooms and found the use of learners main languages to be a powerful means for learners to explore their ideas. They argue that without the use of code switching, some students alternate conceptions would remain unexposed. Amin (2009) mentioned about the recognition to switch codes goes beyond switching between languages; it also recognizes the value of using the vernacular which believes to allow students to draw on useful sense-making resources. Cook (2001) stated that researchers see by using code switching in the classroom as a legitimate strategy (p. 105). Skiba (1997) added that no matter how it might be disruptive during a conversation to the listener, it still provides an opportunity for language development. However, historically, researchers believe that code switching occurred in many countries, which made Ferguson (2003) to conclude that ideological and conceptual sources of suspicion all often attached to classroom code-switching, suggesting that deep rooted attitudes may not be easy to change. Cheng and Butler (1989) list the following as some of the motives a speaker may have to code switch: conversational topic, role of the speaker, setting of the interaction, familiarity of the two speakers, age, sex, race, ethnic, linguistic background, etc (p. 295). Wardhaugh (2006) stated that, when done consciously, switching languages may also allow a speaker to assert power; declare solidarity; maintain certain neutrality when both codes are used; express identity; and so on (p.110). For example, if a group of bilingual Malay-English speakers are conversing in both Bahasa Malaysia and English and a monolingual, Malay speaker enters the conversation, the group will most likely begin speaking only Bahasa Malaysia, in order to allow the monolingual to participate in the conversation, thereby expressing their solidarity with the monolingual. Or, if the bilingual group wishes to assert linguistic power over the monolingual, they might continue speaking only in English to exclude him or her. Unfortunately, code-switching is often wrongly misinterpreted as evidence of a lack of a linguistic ability of the speaker or deterioration of one or both languages. However, sociolinguistic research confirms that code-switching plays an important role in social functions, and does not necessarily indicate linguistic incompetence. So, the main concern here is reasons of code switching used by the English teachers during their lessons in the classroom. In order to discuss further into this matter, the scope will be correlated with the roles of English teachers in the English language classroom. English as a second language status in Malaysia has been agreed through wide use of English in the social setting as well as the education setting. Teaching of English has been greatly emphasized by the government through its ministry. In classroom practice, teachers have been instructed to teach by using high quality English in the classrooms. The second or foreign language learning can only accept the presence of high quality input in the classroom for learners acquisition. Cook (2001) stated that all language classroom input must be in the target language, an effective model of language use can ensure that the intended learning was successful. Classroom instructions, therefore, are the most valuable experience for learners because of the limited exposures to sufficient comprehensible input from their natural environment. Hence, the decreasing level of English proficiency among students is the main reason to the need in finding out how to tackle this issue. Teachers have been employing code switching as a means of providing students with the opportunities to communicate and enhancing students understanding. Furthermore, code switching helps to facilitate the flow of classroom instruction since the teachers do not have to spend so much time trying to explain to the learners or searching for the simplest words to help clearing the students understanding. According to Norrish (1997), teachers code-switch when the level of English used in the textbook or to be taught is beyond the learners ability or when the teachers have exhausted the means to adjust his speech to the learners level. 2.3 Types of Code Switching used in the Classroom Richard (1985) suggests that code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to replacement between two or more languages in a single conversation, stretch of discourse, or utterances between people who have more than one language in common. Speakers of more than one language are known for their ability to code switch or mix their language during communication. This phenomenon occurs when the speaker substitutes a word or phrase from one language to a phrase or word from another language. Ayeomoni (2006) claims that many educators have attempted to define the term code switching and each understand the concepts from different points of view. Gumperz (1982) defined code-switching as the use of more than one code or language in the course of a single speech event, taken to refer to teacher utterances in the classroom. In other words, the teachers use code-switching in order to convey meanings to the students. Besides that, Numan and Carter (2001) stated that code switching as a pheno menon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse (p. 275). Appel Musyken (1987) mentioned that code switching can be divided into two categories which are intrasentential and intersentential. Intrasentential is a switch that occurs in the middle of a sentence. It was also known as code mixing. For example, my girlfriend suka ice cream. The word Suka means like in the Malay language. The real sentence is My girlfriend likes ice cream. A word from the Malay language is replaced by an English word in a sentence. The later is a switch of language that happens between sentences. A suitable example is I got an A for my drawing, awak macam mana, Farid?. Awak macam mana means what about you. The exact sentence should be I got an A for my drawing, what about you, Farid?. The first sentence uses English and the later is in Bahasa Malaysia. There is one more type of code switching which is extrasentential as introduces by Hamers and Blanc (1989), extrasentential switches include tags and fillers. An excellent example of a local extrasentential code switching that close to our culture is Later lah. Lah is a particle widely used by Malaysians and Singaporean in their speech. Holmes (2008) stated that the particle Lah is used to show intimacy or solidarity in a relationship. So, the term code switching in this study is the use of two languages within a sentence or between sentences. Intrasentential refers to the switch that occurs within a sentence while intersentential points to switches between sentences. Last but not least, extrasentential refers to the tags and fillers that do not exist in the word list of the language used. 2.4 Functions of Code Switching used in the Classroom Code switching has a variety of functions which vary according to the topic, people involved in conversation and the context where the conversation is taken place. Baker (2006) have discussed the topic of code switching from a sociolinguistics perspective, in which he listed twelve main purposes of code switching, which are relevant to bilinguals talks in general. Some of these functions can be observed in classroom environment and in relevance to teachers and students interactions. According to Baker (2006) code switching can be used to emphasize a particular point, to substitute a word in place of unknown word in the target language, to express a concept that has no equivalent in the culture of the other language, to reinforce a request, to clarify a point, to express identity and communicate friendship, to ease tension and inject humor into a conversation, and in some bilingual situations, code switching occurs when certain topics are introduced. In the substituting a word in anot her language, Man and Lu (2006) found that in Hong Kong schools, both teachers and students major reason for code switching was that there was no direct translation of words between English and Cantonese, additionally, the same study of Man and Lu found that teachers in Hong Kong schools use code switching also to ease tension and inject humor in to conversations. In a previous study, Eldridge (1996) has listed four purposes in which student code switching as equivalence, floor-holding, reiteration and conflict control. Equivalence which is a strategy that bilingual used to find the equivalent of the unknown lexicon of the target language in the speakers first language to overcome the deficiency in language competence in second language. The second purpose of code switching is for floor holding which is a technique used by bilingual students during conversing in the target language to fill in the stopgap with words in native language in order to maintain the fluency of the conversation. The third purpose of is reiteration, as it implies, it is emphasizing and reinforcing a message that has been transmitted firstly in the target language but then students rely on repeating the message in first language to convey to the teacher that the message is understood. The last function is conflict control, which is used to eliminate any misunderstanding when the accurate meaning of a word is not known in the communication. These researches shown that, the teachers and students used of code switching is not always performed consciously; which means that the teacher which is the main concern for this study is not always aware of the functions and outcomes of the code switching process. Therefore, in some cases it may be regarded as an automatic and unconscious behaviour. Nevertheless, either conscious or not, it necessarily serves some basic functions which may be beneficial in language learning environments. Mattson and Burenhult (1999) stated that all of these functions are listed as topic switch, affective functions, and repetitive functions. (p. 61). In order to have a general idea about these, it will be appropriate to give a brief explanation about each function. In topic switch cases, the teacher alters his/her language according to the topic that is under discussion. This is mostly observed in grammar instruction, that the teacher shifts his language to the mother tongue of his students in dealing with particular grammar points, which are taught at that moment. In these cases, the students attention is directed to the new knowledge by making use of code switching and accordingly making use of native tongue. At this point it may be suggested that a bridge from known (native language) to unknown (new foreign language content) is constructed in order to transfer the new content and meaning is made clear in this way as it is also suggested by Cole (1998): a teacher can exploit students previous L1 learning experience to increase their understanding of L2. In addition to the function of code switching named as topic switch, the phenomenon also carries affective functions that serve for expression of emotions. In this respect, code switching is used by the teacher in order to build solidarity and intimate relations with the students. In this sense, one may speak

Key Communication Issues Of Interracial Relationships Cultural Studies Essay

Key Communication Issues Of Interracial Relationships Cultural Studies Essay What are some key communication issues of interracial friendships? Interracial friendships provide a context of equality in which intergroup differences may be addressed to reduce prejudice and conflict. Measures of the extent of interracial friendships also reflect the state of race relations in a society, capturing the positive feelings between group members rather than the negative sentiment so often emphasized in studies of racial attitudes. When friendships cut across racial lines, they represent a form of bonding capital and a form of bridging capital (Samovar Porter, 1994). There are several communication issues which arise in interracial friendships, and these may cause communication barriers among friends (Samovar Porter, 1994). The first issue is language, and this may prove to be a communication barrier if interracial friends do not adequately understand each others language. This may serve to affect the friendship, as they will not be able to understand each other. Another issue that may arise relates to culture. Differences in perception of culture, especially if friends see issues from different viewpoints, may be a barrier to communication. This issue is more pronounced when there are inherent differences in religious views, by friends from different religions. Finally, differences in ideologies of perception of life between interracial friends may act as a barrier to effective communication. Some people are conservative while others are liberal, and when such friends are having conversation, this might degenerate into conflict due to different views and opinions. This happens if the friends are not accommodating the other person s opinions. 2. What are some key communication issues of interracial romantic relationships? Although interracial and intercultural romantic relationships have been present throughout history, they have rarely been culturally encouraged or even accepted. In fact, these relationships have often been prohibited. Ultimately, however, an increase in racial and/or ethnic diversity within the United States should cause a corresponding increase in interracial and intercultural dating and marriage, eventually promoting greater acceptance of these relationships (Gudykunst Kim, 1992). There are several communication issues which arise in interracial relationships , and these may cause conflicts among couples (Gudykunst Kim, 1992). Similar to interracial friendships , language can prove to be a communication barrier if interracial couples do not adequately understand each others language . They may be unable to communicate effectively , and this may harm their relationship . Similarly , differences in perception of culture may be another communication issue in interracial romantic relationships. Although many communication issues are the same across all romantic relationships, these relationship must also contend with issues of discrimination and identity. In interracial romantic relationships, the partners are aware of social disapproval. In some instances they are alienated from friends and families. They are required to consider social and historical forces concerning race and sexual identity in ways that other couples are not. Their communication behaviors reflect these concerns. Romantic relationships and the communication that occurs within them vary widely. Cultural scripts guide how people conduct conversations in romantic relationships, too. The factors include individual differences like love style and the degree of security or certainty about the relationship, as well as contextual considerations like geographic distance and social sanctions. 3. How can computer mediated communication (CMC) can both facilitate and hinder intercultural relationships? Computer-mediated communication (CMC) refers to human-human interaction via the computer. Some of the popular applications of CMC are email, instant messaging (IM), chat rooms, bulletin boards, and newsgroups. Compared to face-to-face (FtF) communication, CMC liberates communicators from the need to be physically co-present and thus from the consequent influence of nonverbal cues. Although some theorists and researchers argue that CMC-based intercultural relationships cannot be as rich as those formed in FtF encounters, others have identified ways in which CMC can actually increase intimacy among intercultural relationships. Research findings suggest that under Computer-mediated communication (CMC), intercultural contact can lead to reduced prejudice and positive attitude change (Klak Martin, 2003; Rubin Lannutti, 2001). These kinds of discussion facilitate person to fully describe and interpret the intercultural world and experiences in which they live. online discussions can provide a dialogic starting point for connecting with persons lived experiences- their own and others. online discussions facilitate dialogic learning is that they provide a comfortable venue in which people can explore controversial and/or ambivalent feelings about intercultural topics. People may not offer their true voices and experience on these issues in face-to-face discussions due to the fear of creating incommensurable or irreconcilable differences or because of a social desirability issue. However, the filtering out of nonverbal cues, not being able to see the reactions of others, or the identity characteristics (age, gender, race etc) that may hinder communication-makes everyone feel more at ease. 4. Define popular culture. Popular culture could be defined as sets of values, beliefs, trends or modes of symbolic expression readily available to and acknowledged by the masses (McCluskey, 2006). Popular culture is opposite from high culture which is widely accepted by high class and usually considered of great value and does not attempt to appeal the crowds attention. on the contrary, popular culture is wildly liked and propagated by the public, with the aim of attracting publics attention and making profits. As Williams (1976) expounded, popular means being seen from the point of view of the people rather than from those seeking favour or power over them. In addition, popular culture is different from folk culture which is more ethnic and traditional while popular culture usually has nothing to do with outmoded and it only deals with what is in fashion. Popular culture was spread by commercial need. The products from popular culture such as films, magazines and fashionable dress are all goods merchants use for profit-making. From this point of view, commercial destination is a distinct from other forms of culture among popular cultures identities. Since popular culture was born, an indispensable friend of it which is so-called mass media has been accompanying with it, including newspapers, television, radio and internet. obviously, people have to use, at least one kind of mass media when they feel like learning news, searching something in the latest fad and keeping in touch with others. It infers that mass media is something like ligament and support of popular culture. Another characteristic of popular culture is that it is often adopted by young people, almost the monopoly of the youth. Consequently expressions of popular culture in everyday life are always exciting and fashionable, such as Hip-hop and Bungee jumping. Also, most enthusiasts of fast food, short text message and rock n music are youth. Young people enjoy themselves in popular culture with no doubts. 5. How can cultural group portrayals in popular culture forms influence intercultural communication? In the international arena, scholars have turned to the notions of cultural imperialism developed in 1920s in the critique of popular culture, especially U.S. domination of the resources and media market in the world and its implications on intercultural communication (Condon Yousef, 1975). These scholars believe that people are informed about other cultures from popular media and cultural products. The media representations of other cultures can be used to remove the misconceptions and stereotypes of other cultures. one of the incredible uses of popopular culture as medium of intercultural communications is hidden behind its own cultural icons. The cultural role-models, could be distinguish to be based on two types real and fictitious (Gudykunst Kim, 1992) Popular culture icons can penetrate in the cultural communication on a multi-ethnic multi-cultural level. The first level is the representation of the real life, success stories, of a few dozens of people who are incredibly blessed and through their work and dedication had managed to achieve an international fame and glory. The vast wealth that they had acquired in the process is there just there to complement their stardom stature. Their real power, at lest in the context of pop-culture, is their ability to communicate and moreover to reach their followers through the world, a loyal army of supporters ready at all times to spend parts of their often moderated income on products or memorabilia with which to add to the financial wealth of their role-models, celebrities of different status ex: actresses musicians etc. The perfect example of the popular icons could be the one of the most controversial celebrities Madonna. She had undergone, different image transformation, form a boy-toy playgirl in the 80s through a flamboyant queer/gay culture supporter to a loving and down to earth mother in a matter of few decades. However, throughout all stages of her constant image change she had mange sharply to influence cultural change trough out the globe and to raise and promote and established new ideas and social values. The role of the popular icons as a role models, should not been underestimated, as that power is by far the most useful tool which the pop culture posses as the means of intercultural communication. 6. How does the media portray racialized others? Through media people are taught and reminded of their social position by all three kinds of representation-race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Gender, race, and sexuality are all part of an interlinked system of representation that helps describe and define who has power in relationship to others. In this interlocking system, some are constructed as having power and dominance, and others are depicted as being powerless and submissive, and sometimes subservient. The subordination of some is requisite for the empowerment of others. In this world of media representations, visible differences are highlighted and some time accentuated so as to clarify who has power and who does not. Whiteness comes to having meaning in relation to the representation of racialized others. As the late Ruth Frankenberg suggested, whiteness is a product of negative difference; people come to understand themselves as white through a process by which they know who they are by what they are not. Another way of saying this in relation to Asia and Asian Americans is that whiteness becomes meaningful when contrasted to Asianess. Whiteness is therefore a default racial identity, an identity that does not come from the inside so much as being define by what is not observed to be constitutive of the other. 7. What are some recommendations to increase diversity in media, particularly according to gender, race, ethnicity, and physical ability? Historically, the media relied on stereotypes to attract the largest possible audience, thus they reinforced rather than challenged the attitudes of society. The left maintains stereotypical depictions and coverage emphasizing minorities are problems that remain. Studies show African Americans and Hispanics are still more likely to believe the media are biased in their coverage of race and ethnicity than whites, supporting the notion the media are skewed right (Gonzalez et al., 2004). Native Americans are often portrayed as stoic warriors. News and entertainment coverage of Native Americans reinforces the notion that their cultures are almost dead, as current issues are rarely addressed and they are often depicted in traditional garb. Asian men are most often depicted as martial arts experts, while Asian women suffer from too-frequent portrayals as geishas. Women in all media are portrayed as being in relationships rather than careers and as seeking romance more frequently than male characters on television and in film; in essence, the media stresses their domestic interests. The dominant ideology of gender coverage is patriarchal. Today, the representation of many minority groups in media remains small for the population and representation of all groups remains somewhat inaccurate or restricted but strides continue. 8. What are the characteristics of intercultural conflict? Intercultural conflict occurs because of an individuals lack of knowledge regarding external cultural norms and values. Neither of these individuals communicated effectively with each other and the messages conveyed were not as the communicator intended. This created a sense of vulnerability and frustration for both the parties involved (Jameson, 2007). The major characteristics of intercultural conflict are the following: (1) conflict involves intercultural perceptionsperceptions are filtered through our lenses of ethnocentrism and stereotypes, and perceptions color our conflict attribution process; (2) conflict involves interactionconflict is sustained and managed via verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and verbal and nonverbal behaviors are culture-bound concepts; (3) conflict involves interdependencefor a conflict to arise, the behavior of one or both parties must have consequences for the other, for otherwise the conflict parties can walk away from each other easily; (4) conflict involves both self-interest and mutual-interest goalsconflict is a mixed-up and incomplete jigsaw puzzle, both parties needing something from each other in order to complete the entire picture; and (5) conflict involves the protection of intergroup imagesin an intercultural or intergroup conflict situation, conflict parties have to worry about protecting b oth individual and group-based images. 9. What are the contextual sources of interracial/ethnic conflict? Interracial/ethnic conflict is a dynamic process; any one episode is typically the result of multiple sources of conflict (Hall and Mildred, 1987). In other words, conflict can simultaneously involve personal and cultural issues. In order to provide insight into how conflict often becomes racialized, we describe various sources of interracial/ethnic conflicts. Improper communication is a key source of intercultural anxiety and disagreement. The communication process is quite different among other cultures by how, when and why something is said. Communicating to one group may have different meaning to another based on tone, facial expression or nonverbal indicators. These ideas consist of a persons communication style. Miscommunication can happen when an individual communication styles are unique from someone else. In todays diverse workplace, we may have to deal with a co worker whose communication style differs from ours. Learning effectively to communicate among all different cultures is essential regardless of our line of work. For example, arguing, in some cultures is normal, others it is an unfriendly behavior, and for some the argument is highly emotional. Some cultures characteristics might be more reserve while another tends to be more forward in communication. In some cases, a cultures frankness, and values, such as telling it like it is while other groups maintain harmony. A persons accent varies greatly especially within the same language. We should not pre judge ones accent and make assumptions about that persons background. 10. What is the relationship between ethnicity, gender, religion, and conflict communication? Conflicts often arise in any form of relationship. Whether be in an intimate relationship between a husband and wife, employee with a co-employee, superior officer and employee, friend and friend, parents and children, teacher and student, brother and brother, and so many other relationships. In our lives, we often face many conflicts and disagreement on certain issues (Gudykunst and Young, 1992). These conflicts and disagreement are often based on different ethnicity, gender or religion. But even with the existence of conflicts, there are good ways for conflict communication resolution. Conflict communication does not mean that you have to sacrifice your principles; it simply requires one to come to a point to recognize the other persons view, respect it and to further avoid another conflict communication in the future. Any conflict communication must be resolved at the earliest time to prevent further injury to both parties. Although at times, this is not easy for either party, it is still the best way to do it. When there is an impending conflict communication, the best remedy is to talk and not to wait for any future time to settle a conflict. Because of the busy lives of most persons today, conflict communication is often times unavoidable. However, this could be solved and apprehended immediately as long as you keep an open mind to it. Conflict communication should be seen as a means to enhance relationships by finding out a conflict, giving solutions to it and building stronger and better relationships between two different ethnicities, genders, religions.

Study Of Blue Eye Technology

Study Of Blue Eye Technology Blue eye is the technology to make computers sense and understand human behavior and feelings and react in the proper ways. The blue eye technology aims at creating computational machines that have perceptual and sensory ability like those of human beings. It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing the most modern video cameras and microphones to identify the users actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities. The machine can understand what a user wants, where he is looking at, and even realize his physical or emotional states. This paper outlines the system over view, design features besides hardware part. The concept of the technology is the system recognizes through its various modules the basic emotions and feelings evinced by the user. This paper brings out the features of this technology, the various methods of giving the inputs to the system, design challenges and the emerging trends. Application of this technology in areas like automobile, surveillance system etc. is also dealt with. THE TERM BLUE EYE: BLUE in the term stands for Bluetooth, which enables reliable wireless communication. EYE, because the eye movement enables us to obtain a lot of interesting and important information. BASIC IDEA: In general, the blue eye technology aims at : creating interactive computer. computer acts as partner (and friend) to the user. realizes his physical or emotional states. gives computer human power. provide technical means for monitoring and recording operator physiological conditions Design smarter devices . Create devices with emotional intelligence . Create computational devices with perceptual abilities. BLUE EYE TECHNOLOGY: The complex solution for human-operator monitoring: Visual attention monitoring Physiological condition Operators position detection Wireless data acquisition using Bluetooth Real time user defined alarm triggering Recorded data playback Gesture recognition, Facial recognition, Eye tracking, Speech recognition, Doesnt predict nor interfere with operators thoughts Cannot force directly the operator to work SYSTEM OVERVIEW: Blue eye system provides technical means for monitoring and recording the operators basic physiological parameters. The most important parameter is saccadic activity ( Saccade is a rapid eye jump to a new location assigned by the conscious attention process), which enables the system to monitor the status of the operators visual attention along with head acceleration, which accompanies large displacement of the visual axis (saccades larger than 15 degrees). Complex industrial environment can create a danger of exposing the operator to toxic substances, which can affect his cardiac, circulatory and pulmonary systems. Thus, on the grounds of lethysmographic signal taken from the forehead skin surface, the system computes heart beat rate and blood oxygenation. The blue eye system checks above parameters against abnormal (e.g. a low level of blood oxygenation or a high pulse rate) or undesirable (e.g. a longer period of lowered visual attention) values and triggers user-defined alarms wh en necessary. Quite often in an emergency situation operators speak to themselves expressing their surprise or stating verbally the problem. Therefore, the operators voice, physiological parameters and an overall view of the operating room are recorded. This helps to reconstruct the course of operators work and provides data for long-term analysis. This system consists of a mobile measuring device and a central analytical system. The mobile device is integrated with Bluetooth module providing wireless interface between sensors worn by the operator and the central unit. ID cards assigned to each of the operators and adequate user profiles on the central unit side provide necessary data personalization so different people can use a single mobile device. DESIGN FEATURES: It has a personal area network for linking all the operators and the supervising system. It has two major units DAU (data acquisition unit ) CSU (central system unit ) The basic block diagram is shown below: DATA ACQUISITION UNIT: The DAU consists of the following components ATMEL 8952 microcontroller BLUE TOOTH MODULE supports synchronous voice data transmission PCM CODEC -used to transmit operators voice and central system sound feedback UART -communication between bluetooth module and microcontroller (115200 bps) MAX232 -level shifter ALPHAUNUMERIC LCD display LED indicators ID CARD interface In creating the hardware part of the DAU a development board is built, which enables the operator to mount, connect and test various peripheral devices cooperating with the microcontroller. During the implementation of the DAU a piece of software is needed to establish and test Bluetooth connections. Therefore a tool called BlueDentist is created. The tool provides support for controlling the currently connected Bluetooth device. Its functions are: local device management (resetting, reading local BD_ADDR, putting in Inquiry/Page and Inquiry/Page scan modes, reading the list of locally supported features and setting UART speed) connection management (receiving and displaying Inquiry scan results, establishing ACL links, adding SCO connections, performing link authorization procedure, sending test data packets and disconnecting). To test the possibilities and performance of the remaining parts such as computer, camera and database software, BlueCapture is created. The tool supports capturing video data from various sources (USB web-cam, industrial camera) and storing the data in the MS SQL Server database. Additionally, the application performs sound recording. After filtering and removing insignificant fragments (i.e. silence) the audio data is stored in the database. Finally, the program plays the recorded audiovisual stream. The software is used to measure database system performance and to optimize some of the SQL queries (e.g. replacing of correlated SQL queries with cursor operations). Also a simple tool for recording Jazz Multisensor measurements is created. The program reads the data using a parallel port and writes it to a file. To program the operators personal ID card we use a standard parallel port, as the EPROMs and the port are both TTL-compliant. A simple dialog-based application helps to accomplish the task. DAU FEATURES: The data acquisition unit has the following features. Lightweight Runs on batteries low power consumption Easy to use does not disturb the operator working ID cards for operator authorization Voice transmission using hardware PCM codec CENTRAL SYSTEM UNIT: The CSU consists of the following components. CONNECTION MODULE main task to perform low-level blue tooth communication DATA ANALYSIS MODULE performs the analysis of the raw sensor data in order to obtain information about operators physiological condition DATA LOGGER MODULE provides support for storing the monitored data. VISULAIZATION MODULE provides user interface for the supervisors CSU FEATURES: The central system unit has the following features. Accessverification System maintenance Connection management Data processing Visualization Data recording AFFECTIVE COMPUTING The process of making emotional computers with sensing abilities is known as affective computing. Steps include:- Giving sensing abilities Detecting human emotions Respond properly ASPECTS OF AFFECTIVE COMPUTING There are two aspects of affective computing: giving the computer the ability to detect emotions and giving the computer the ability to express emotions. Not only are emotions crucial for rational decision making, but emotion detection is an important step to an adaptive computer system. An adaptive, smart computer system has been driving efforts to detect a persons emotional state. An important element of incorporating emotion into computing is for productivity for a computer user. By matching a persons emotional state and the context of the expressed emotion, over a period of time the persons personality is being exhibited. Therefore, by giving the computer a longitudinal understanding of the emotional state of its user, the computer could adapt a working style which fits with its users personality. The result of this collaboration could increase productivity for the user. INPUTS CONSIDERED Heart pulse rate Facial expressions Eye-brows and mouth lines primarily Eye movements As a pointing device Also to determine the emotion Voice METHODS: 1. AFFECT DETECTION: One way of gaining information from a user non-intrusively is by video. Cameras have been used to detect a persons emotional state. The basic block diagram of the facial expression detection is shown below. THEORY ON FACIAL EXPRESSION Based on a facial expression work, there is a correlation between a persons emotional state and a persons physiological measurements. Paul Ekman, a scientist performed an experiment which involved participants attached to devices to record certain measurements including pulse, galvanic skin response (GSR), temperature, somatic movement and blood pressure. He then recorded the measurements as the participants were instructed to mimic facial expressions which corresponded to the six basic emotions. He defined the six basic emotions as anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy and surprise. Thus from this experiment it was determined how physiological measures could be used to distinguish various emotional states. The measures taken were GSR, heart rate, skin temperature and general somatic activity (GSA). These data were then subject to two analyses. For the first analysis,a multidimensional scaling(MDS) procedure was used to determine the dimensionality of the data. Thus it can be concluded that most of the information is extracted from the position of the eye-brows. Detection Geometric facial data extraction Basic emotion-specified facial expression 1 2 3 4 5 6 disgust fear joy surprise Sadness anger 2. MAGIC POINTING: Magic Pointing stands for MANUAL AND GAZE INPUT CASCADED (MAGIC) POINTING. This work explores a new direction in utilizing eye gaze for computer input. Gaze tracking has long been considered as an alternative or potentially superior pointing method for computer input. It is believed that many fundamental limitations exist with traditional gaze pointing. In particular, it is unnatural to overload a perceptual channel such as vision with a motor control task. Therefore an alternative approach of dubbed MAGIC (Manual And Gaze Input Cascaded) pointing is proposed. With such an approach, pointing appears to the user to be a manual task, used for fine manipulation and selection. However, a large portion of the cursor movement is eliminated by warping the cursor to the eye gaze area, which encompasses the target. Two specific MAGIC pointing techniques are Conservative magic pointing and Liberal magic pointing. The pros and cons of the two techniques are discussed in light of both performance data and subjective reports. IMPLEMENTATION The MAGIC pointing program takes data from both the manual input device (of any type, such as a mouse) and the eye tracking system running either on the same machine or on another machine connected via serial port. Raw data from an eye tracker can not be directly used for gaze-based interaction, due to noise from image processing, eye movement jitters, and samples taken during saccade (ballistic eye movement) periods. Therefore filters are used. The goal of filter design in general is to make the best compromise between preserving signal bandwidth and eliminating unwanted noise. In the case of eye tracking, eye information relevant to interaction lies in the fixations. The key is to select fixation points with minimal delay. Samples collected during a saccade are unwanted and should be avoided. In designing the algorithm for picking points of fixation, the tracking system speed (30 Hz) is considered, and that the MAGIC pointing techniques utilize gaze information only once for each new target, probably immediately after a saccade. The filtering algorithm was designed to pick a fixation with minimum delay by means of selecting two adjacent points over two samples. Advantages of magic pointing: The both the liberal and the conservative MAGIC pointing techniques offer the following potential advantages: Reduction of manual stress and fatigue, since the cross screen long-distance cursor movement is eliminated from manual control. Practical accuracy level. In comparison to traditional pure gaze pointing whose accuracy is pointing fundamentally limited by the nature of eye movement, the MAGIC pointing techniques let the hand complete the task, so they can be as accurate as any other manual input techniques. . A more natural mental model for the user. The user does not have to be aware of the role of the eye gaze. To the user, pointing continues to be a manual task, with a cursor conveniently appearing where it needs to be. Speed. Since the need for large magnitude pointing operations is less than with pure manual cursor control, it is possible that MAGIC pointing will be faster than pure manual pointing. Improved subjective speed and ease-of-use. Since the manual pointing amplitude is smaller, the user may perceive the MAGIC pointing system to operate faster and more pleasantly than pure manual control, even if it operates at the same speed or more slowly. Problems related to magic pointing: In addition to problems with todays eye tracking systems, such as delay, error, and inconvenience, there may also be many potential human factor disadvantages to the MAGIC pointing techniques we have proposed, including the following: 1. With the more liberal MAGIC pointing technique, the cursor warping can be overactive at times, since the cursor moves to the new gaze location whenever the eye gaze moves more than a set distance (e.g., 120 pixels) away from the cursor. This could be particularly distracting when the user is trying to read. It is possible to introduce additional constraint according to the context. For example, when the users eye appears to follow a text reading pattern, MAGIC pointing can be automatically suppressed. 2. With the more conservative MAGIC pointing technique, the uncertainty of the exact location at which the cursor might appear may force the user, especially a novice, to adopt a cumbersome strategy: take a touch (use the manual input device to activate the cursor), wait (for the cursor to appear), and move (the cursor to the target manually). Such a strategy may prolong the target acquisition time. The user may have to learn a novel hand-eye coordination pattern to be efficient with this technique. Gaze position reported by eye tracker Eye tracking boundary with 95% confidence True target will be within the circle with 95% probability The cursor is warped to the boundary of the gaze area, along the initial actuation vector Previous cursor position, far from target Initial manual actuation vector 3. With pure manual pointing techniques, the user, knowing the current cursor location, could conceivably perform his motor acts in parallel to visual search. Motor action may start as soon as the users gaze settles on a target. With MAGIC pointing techniques, the motor action computation (decision) cannot start until the cursor appears. This may negate the time saving gained from the MAGIC pointing techniques reduction of movement amplitude. Clearly, experimental (implementation and empirical) work is needed to validate, refine, or invent alternative MAGIC pointing techniques. SUITOR SUITOR stands for Simple User Interface Tracker. Computers would have been much more powerful, had they gained perceptual and sensory abilities of the living beings on the earth. What needs to be developed is an intimate relationship between the computer and the humans. And the Simple User Interest Tracker (SUITOR) is a revolutionary approach in this direction. By observing the Webpage a netizen is browsing, the SUITOR can help by fetching more information at his to desktop. By simply noticing where the users eyes focus on the computer screen, the SUITOR can be more precise in determining his topic of interest. It can even deliver relevant information to a handheld device. The success lies in how much the suitor can be intimate the user. A cue to exploit nonverbal cues to create more effective user interfaces c is gaze-the direction in which a person is looking. A new technique for tracking a persons eyes has been created and this gaze-tracking technology has been incorporated into two prototypes. One, called SUITOR (Simple User Interest Tracker), fills a scrolling ticker on a computer screen with information related to the users current task. SUITOR knows where the user is looking, what applications he/she is running, and what Web pages the user may be browsing. For example, If a Web page about IBM, is being read for instance and the system presents the latest stock price or business news stories that could affect IBM. If the headline off the ticker is read, it pops up the story in a browser window. If the story is also read then , it adds related stories to the ticker. Thats the whole idea of an attentive system-one that attends to what you are doing, typing, reading, so that it can attend to your information needs. EMOTION MOUSE: One goal of human computer interaction (HCI) is to make an adaptive, smart computer system. A non-invasive way to obtain information about a person is through touch. People use their computers to obtain, store and manipulate data using their computer. In order to start creating smart computers, the computer must start gaining information about the user. The proposed method for gaining user information through touch is via a computer input device, the mouse. From the physiological data obtained from the user, an emotional state may be determined which would then be related to the task the user is currently doing on the computer. Over a period of time, a user model will be built in order to gain a sense of the users personality. The scope of the project is to have the computer adapt to the user in order to create a better working environment where the user is more productive. . One obvious place to put sensors is on the mouse. Through observing normal computer usage (creating and editing documents and surfing the web),people spend approximately 1/3 of their total computer time touching their input device. Because of the incredible amount of time spent touching an input device, the possibility of detecting emotion through touch can be explored. Mouse is embedded with sensors that can sense the physiological attributes like Temperature Body pressure Pulse rate Touching style etc. The computer determines the users emotional states from these inputs. BLUE EYE EMOTIONAL MOUSE sensors in the mouse ,sense the physiological attributes which are correlated to emotions using correlation model -by simply touching the mouse ,the computer will be able to determine a persons emotional state. BLUE EYE enabled TELEVISION could become active when the user makes an eye contact incorporated. 5. SPEECH RECOGNITION: It is important to consider the environment in which the speech recognition system has to work. The grammar used by the speaker, noise level, noise type, position of the microphone, and speed and manner of the users speech are some factors that may affect the quality of speech recognition . Artificial intelligence comes into place where an automatic call-handling system is used without employing any telephone operator. THE TECHNOLOGY: Artificial intelligence (AI) involves two basic ideas. First, it involves studying the thought processes of human beings. Second, it deals with representing those processes via machines (like computers, robots, etc). AI is behavior of a machine, which, if performed by a human being, would be called intelligent. It makes machines smarter and more useful, and is less Expensive than natural intelligence. Natural language processing (NLP) refers to artificial intelligence methods of communicating with a computer in a natural language like English. The main objective of a NLP program is to understand input and initiate action. The input words are scanned and matched against internally stored known words. Identification of a key word causes some action to be taken. In this way, one can communicate with the computer in ones language. No special commands or computer language are required. There is no need to enter programs in a special language for creating software. The user speaks to the computer through a microphone, which, in used; a simple system may contain a minimum of three filters. The more the number of filters used, the higher the probability of accurate recognition. Presently, switched capacitor digital filters are used because these can be custom-built in integrated circuit form. These are smaller and cheaper than active filters using operational amplifiers. The filter output is then fed to the ADC to translate the analogue signal into digital word. The ADC samples the filter outputs many times a second. Each sample represents different amplitudes of the signal .Evenly spaced vertical lines represent the amplitude of the audio filter output at the instant of sampling. Each value is then converted to a binary number proportional to the amplitude of the sample. A central processor unit (CPU) controls the input circuits that are fed by the ADCS. A large RAM (random access memory) stores all the digital values in a buffer area. The pictures represent the basic schemes of the speech recognition process. This digital information, representing the spoken word, is now accessed by the CPU to process it further. The normal speech has a frequency range of 200 Hz to 7 kHz. Recognizing a telephone call is more difficult as it has bandwidth limitation of 300 Hz to3.3 kHz. As explained earlier, the spoken words are processed by the filters and ADCs. The binary representation of each of these words becomes a template or standard, against which the future words are compared. These templates are stored in the memory. Once the storing process is completed, the system can go into its active mode and is capable of identifying spoken words. As each word is spoken, it is converted into binary equivalent and stored in RAM. The computer then starts searching and compares the binary input pattern with the templates. t is to be noted that even if the same speaker talks the same text, there are always slight variations in amplitude or loudness of the signal, pitch, frequency difference, time gap, etc. Due to this reason, there is never a perfect match between the template and binary input word. The pattern matching process therefore uses statistical techniques and is designed to look for the best fit. The values of binary input words are subtracted from the corresponding values in the templates. If both the values are same, the difference is zero and there is perfect match. If not, the subtraction produces some difference or error. The smaller the error, the better is the match. When the best match occurs, the word is identified and displayed on the screen or used in some other manner. The search process takes a considerable amount of time, as the CPU has to make many comparisons before recognition occurs. This necessitates use of very high-speed processors. A large RAM is also required as even though a spoken word may last only a few hundred milliseconds, but the same is translated into many thousands of digital words. It is important to note that alignment of words and templates are to be matched correctly in time, before computing the similarity score. This process, termed as dynamic time warping, recognizes that different speakers pronounce the same words at different speeds as well as elongate different parts of the same word. This is important for the Speaker-independent recognizers. APPLICATIONS OF SPEECH RECOGNITION One of the main benefits of speech recognition system is that it lets user do other works simultaneously. The user can concentrate on observation and manual operations, and still control the machinery by voice input commands. Another major application of speech processing is in military operations. Voice control of weapons is an example. With reliable speech recognition equipment, pilots can give commands and information to the computers by simply speaking into their microphones-they dont have to use their hands for this purpose. Another good example is a radiologist scanning hundreds of X-rays, ultrasonograms, CT scans and simultaneously dictating conclusions to a speech recognition system connected to word processors. The radiologist can focus his attention on the images rather than writing the text. Voice recognition could also be used on computers for making airline and hotel reservations. A user requires simply to state his needs, to make reservation, cancel a reservation, or ma ke enquiries about schedule. 6. EYE TRACKER: Eye tracker is a device which tracks the movement of eye. This system is much more compact and reliable. Available commercial systems, rely on a single light source that is positioned either off the camera axis, or on-axis. Illumination from an off-axis source (or ambient illumination) generates a dark pupil image. When the light source is placed on-axis with the camera optical axis, the camera is able to detect the light reflected from the interior of the eye, and the image of the pupil appears bright. This effect is often seen as the red-eye in flash photographs when the flash is close to the camera lens. The Almaden system of eye tracking uses two near infrared (IR) time multiplexed light sources, composed of two sets of IR LEDs, which were synchronized with the camera frame rate. One light source is placed very close to the cameras optical axis and is synchronized with the even frames. Odd frames are synchronized with the second light source, positioned off axis. The two light sources are calibrated to provide approximately equivalent whole-scene illumination. Pupil detection is realized by means of subtracting the dark pupil image from the bright pupil image. After thresholding the difference, the largest connected component is identified as the pupil. This technique significantly increases the robustness and reliability of the eye tracking system. The Almaden eye tracker is shown in the figure. The above picture an ON AXIS infrared illumination The figure explains the OFF AXIS infrared illumination. APPLICATIONS 1. Surveillance systems: A large retailers have implemented surveillance systems that record and interpret customer movements, using BlueEye software. BlueEye software makes sense of what the cameras see to answer key questions for retailers, including, How many shoppers ignored a promotion? How many stopped? How long did they stay? Did their faces register boredom or delight? How many reached for the item and put it in their shopping carts? Blue Eye works by tracking pupil, eyebrow and mouth movement. When monitoring pupils, the system uses a camera and two infrared light sources placed inside the product display. One light source is aligned with the cameras focus; the other is slightly off axis. When the eye looks into the camera-aligned light, the pupil appears bright to the sensor, and the software registers the customers attention. This is way it captures the persons income and buying preferences. BlueEye is actively been incorporated in some of the leading retail outlets. 2. Automobile industry Blue Eye can be applied in the automobile industry. By simply touching a computer input device such as a mouse, the computer system is designed to be able to determine a persons emotional state. For cars, it could be useful to help with critical decisions like: I know you want to get into the fast lane, but Im afraid I cant do that. You too upset right now and therefore assist in driving safely. 3. Video games We could see its use in video games where, it could give individual challenges to customers playing video games. Typically targeting commercial business. The integration of Childrens toys, technologies and computers is enabling new play experiences that were not commercially feasible until recently. The Intel Play QX3 Computer Microscope, the Me2Cam with Fun Fair, and the Computer Sound Morpher are commercially available smart toy products developed by the Intel Smart Toy Lab in. One theme that is common across these PC-connected toys is that users interact with them using a combination of visual, audible and tactile input output modalities. The presentation will provide an overview of the interaction design of these products and pose some unique challenges faced by designers and engineers of such experiences targeted at novice computer users, namely young children. 4. An alternate to keyboard The familiar and useful come from things we recognize. Many of our favorite things appearance communicate their use; they show the change in their value though patina. As technologists we are now poised to imagine a world where computing objects communicate with us in-situ; where we are. We use our looks, feelings, and actions to give the computer the experience it needs to work with us. Keyboards and mice will not continue to dominate computer user interfaces. Keyboard input will be replaced in large measure by systems that know what we want and require less explicit communication. Sensors are gaining fidelity and ubiquity to record presence and actions; sensors will notice when we enter a space, sit down, lie down, Pump iron, etc. Pervasive infrastructure is recording it. 5. A better future scenario Current interfaces between computers and humans can present information vividly, but have no sense of whether that information is ever Viewed or understood. In contrast, new real-time computer vision techniques for perceiving people allows us to create Face-responsive Displays and Perceptive Environments, which ca