...and define some key terminology that will be utilised for the means of this paper. According to Levinson (1983) “Conversation analysis (henceforward CA) is known as an approach to the study of natural conversation which covers both verbal and non- verbal interaction in everyday situations”. This notion was developed in 1960s by Harley Sacks when he was employed at “the Centre for the Scientific Study of Suicide in Los Angeles”. He discovered recorded phone calls that laid a fundamental framework for the new method later termed as CA (Have, 2007: 6). Have (ibid) further reveals the two ways of how CA utilised in studies: a ‘broad sense’ also known as ‘oral communication’ ; though, the outline of this concept is used in a ‘restricted sense’ as it traces to early 1960s when it was firstly introduced by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (ibid: 7) how interaction occurs. CA studies revealed that ‘casual daily talk’ with people is not a random dialogue but a “sequentially structured and interactively managed” (Firth, 1996: 238) conversation. The concept of CA was further defined and introduced by Emanuel Schegloff, Harvey Sacks, and Gail Jefferson in late 1970s. Since then, the role and focus of CA has dramatically expanded and rather than concentrating on the “casual conversational analysis” (Schegloff et al., 1977 : 361) it spread over the other fields, such as, speech and cross-cultural communication, linguistics, anthropology, psychology and sociology. ...
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...An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks is definitely unlike any book I have ever read before. The books that interest me are usually fiction/fantasy or romantic. I like to think of myself as quite skilled in the subject of English and Literature, so I figured I could just grin and bear it and get through this reading easily using my same old strategies. I immediately found out that this was not going to be the case. Sacks is clearly a well-educated and experienced man, and it shows in his writing. A lot of the vocabulary utilized stumped me to the point where it made grasping the gist of the reading difficult. Although I have to admit once I got past the boring introduction of Temple Grandin’s autism, I was quite interested in reading more. I was very interested in reading and learning about autism once I was able to focus. The reading is about Temple Grandin, a high-functioning autistic, who has accomplished a variety of things in her life. I had never heard of her before but after reading this chapter I was very interested in her and autism itself. I happen to know some people that are autistic so this reading definitely allowed me to empathize more with them now that I understood their condition. One specific thing I learned which I thought was interesting was that individuals with autism often experience other disorders. “The genetic form may be associated, in the affected individual or family, with other genetic disorders, such as dyslexia, attention deficit...
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...Critical Thinking Assignment 1 Trusting Your Senses We use our senses in everything that we do. We use our eyes to see, our nose to smell, our ears to hear and our tongues to taste. Those senses communicate with our brains by sending tiny amounts of chemical substances called neurotransmitters across a synapse , the microscopic space between” adjacent” neurons (Kirby & Goodpastor, 2007, p.68). The question is “can you really trust your senses and the interpretation of sensory data to give you an accurate view of the world?” Many factors like proper rest, medication, and ones mental state come into play when considering the trust of your senses. For example, someone who has not gotten the proper amount of rest, their ability to perceive and interpret their senses may not be as sharp as someone who is well rested and alert. Although each of them may be looking at the same thing, the rested individual will probably notice numerous details that the weary person will not. Next, several medications cause side effects that can weaken senses such as taste and sight. If you see a muffin that you eat on a regular basis, you already know what it tastes like, however, that same muffin may taste completely different if you are taking a medication that has diluted your capability to taste. The same thing applies for those who have an obstruction to the ear; they may have trouble hearing things at a higher frequency than someone...
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...evolution. Others may see it as creative or as a special gift bringing out special powers, something unimaginable in their aspect of life. Dr. Sacks, an extraordinary neurologist specializes in the exploration of mentally disordered people. He gets personal with these people engaging a relationship with them so that he can explore not just the neurological disease but also the person,” I don’t try to get outside the man. I try to get inside”(Oliver Sacks). Studying the case of each person he visits his patients by observing the way they live, the way they interact with other people and the way they develop their skills. A typical neurologist spend most of the their time in hospitals or clinics treating their patients, just like Dr. Sacks did for twenty five years. It was not until now, when he stopped treating patients in hospitals. The reason he chose to approach his patients this way is to explore his subjects’ lifestyles. Nevertheless, it gives him a better chance to get to know the different types of mental disordered people and how each and everyone of them develop other forms of life. However, his intentions are not only to explore the complexity of the mental disease; he connects with his patients in special ways. Like in the case of Temple Grandin, one of the most remarkable autistic person Dr. Sacks met; had and extraordinary mind but couldn’t express feelings nor understand it. She also presented fear...
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...after it is no longer playing. In Musicophilia Oliver Sacks applies many great rhetorical devices throughout his writing to teach his readers about these strange brainworms. Sacks includes many powerful anecdotes about people's’...
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...RICE AND BULLETS Hernando R. Ocampo Without taking his breakfast, Tura left the house very early in the morning with an old jute sack slung across his shoulder. Long ago the sack had contained rice for his family—for his daughters Ine and Clara, for his little son Totoy, and for his wife Marta. But now the jute sack was bulging with the sharp, hard edges of three big stones which he had gathered the night before. "What are those stones for"? Marta asked. "Mister Remulla said we must have three big stones in our sack. He said these stones would represent the three biggest islands in our country," Tura explained. "What are you going to do with them?" Marta asked. "I don't know," Tura answered, seemingly peeved. “Mister Remulla said that with these stones we'll soon have something to eat, and that is all I care about. He told us we ought not to be hungry. We have as much right to eat and live as the proprietarious have." Marta had ceased to ask further questions. At the mention of rice she had suddenly seemed satisfied. But this morning, before Tura left, she asked again, "Are you sure there will be no trouble?" "How could there be? Mister Remulla knows what he is doing. He said that is what they do in America. He came from America. He ought to know." And slinging the jute sack with the big stones across his shoulder, Tura left his wife on the threshold, while his three children, ill-clad and ill-nourished, looked sheepishly on. Out in the street Tura wondered how things...
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...second essay “The Last Hippie” in his collection titled An Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver Sacks writes about a patient named “Greg F.” Greg was a “rather gifted boy” that grew up in a nice home in Queens (42). Later when he was a teenager in the late 1960s, he became rebellious, grew to love rock music like the Grateful Dead, and got addicted to acid. A few years later, Greg turned to the Hindu religion and stopped dropping acid. He stayed at the temple in Brooklyn for a short time before being transferred to the New Orleans temple. It was at the New Orleans temple that Greg felt his eyesight fading and the swami told him that it was just a sign of his spiritual growth. Eventually, his parents visited him, noticed that he was extremely sickly looking, and checked him into the hospital. The hospital doctors found that he had a massive benign brain tumor and removed it. He was transferred to the Williamsbridge Hospital and that is where Oliver Sacks met him. Sacks noticed that Greg had anterograde amnesia which caused him to have no memory past 1970. In the end, Sacks takes Greg, wheelchair bound, to a Grateful Dead concert at Madison Square Garden. Greg had the time...
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...take responsebility for their own future. Due to this they have to perform well during their school time and get good grades, which will give them a chance to attend a fine university. This can be very demaning and many students would have to spend day and night preparing for exams. This late night studying can make the students very exhausted and overloaded, but this complex of problems seems to have got a solution and it is called “study drugs”, which David Sack criticizes in his blog article “Do 'Study Drugs' Breed a Nation of Winners – or Cheaters?”, broadcasted in July 19 2012.1 In the blog article David Sack writes that there are many consequences due to this particular form of drug abuse but purpose is to give the students a energy boost, which gives them the ability to study faster, and remember more. But there is also some side effects that David Sacks mentions. Some of them are depression, mood swings, exhaustion, heart rate and blood pressure irregularities, and psychosis. Another consequence that David Sacks thinks is very important but is often overlooked is the risk of addiction. This is a big problem because the American college students have no problem with using the drugs: “One in 10 teens has used Adderall or Ritalin without a doctor's prescription” (p. 1, l. 26) and “studies show 1 in 4 college studnts have misused ADHD medication” (p. 1, ll. 27-28). For them it is all about winning at all costs even if it means that they have to use unfair methods: ”Why work...
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...Even though our world has come a long way since the 1960´s, some things about society still remain the same. Racism and sexism are still a big part of the world around us even if we see it in our communities or not. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many topics such as racism are talked about creating a plot. In the book, Tom Robinson did not receive a fair trial because of racism and the stereotype that was placed towards him. Even though nowadays that is very unlikely, the jury can still convict an innocent man guilty because of stereotypes against that race, gender, or because of the look of the individual. ¨You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be...
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...In the human race, since the beginning of time , there have always been people who feel superior to others. In this case, African Americans have been the victims and first hand endurers of mans inhumanity to man. Taking on slavery, segregation, and the fight to be free. The battle between blacks and whites has been a long and tiring one, but with determination and negotiation, we have learned to co-exist. Slaves were not obtained in graceful humane ways. In fact, most were kidnapped straight from their villages in forceful and traumatizing ways. Kidnappers would gag their victims mouths, tie their hands, and throw them in sacks to prepare them for their treacherous journey ( 27). Brothers and sisters were separated as were parents and children. When the Africans arrived auctions, they were bought and...
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...Are the SATS fair? If not how could us students change this and make the test fair for everyone? Is the SAT test fair for all races, genders and socioeconomic statuses? This question interested me because we discussed part of it for our first paper. In our first paper we didn’t go to in depth about the SATS but they were a part of the paper. This interests me due to how serious colleges take the SATS. With the SATS some colleges won’t even look at your application. If there are tricks to this test that allows some students to score higher than others this wouldn’t be fair. Dartmouth College had a large amount of wealthy students even though they offered free tuition to the students whose families made $100,000 or less. “At Dartmouth, free...
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...in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, faces peer pressure everyday about getting married or how she should treat certain people but sticks to what her beliefs are , likewise, Esperanza from Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, has given into peer pressure on some occasions, such as interacting with boys in ways she's not comfortable, but she doesn't let this change the way she thinks. Both, Cisneros and Stockett show how each character overcomes racial and gender inequality, while trying to maintain acceptance among others. In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza's faces many struggles and finds herself overcoming prejudice at a young age. Esperanza is downgraded in the eyes of society because she’s a Hispanic girl, living in poverty. Due to her race, Esperanza and her family are discriminated by many, including Cathy and her family. Cathy is a little girl around the same age as Esperanza; who promises to be her friend only until next Tuesday. From the time Cathy enters the story she has demonstrates racism, it's easy to infer that because she is at an impressionable age, that she is only repeating these comments that's she heard from her family and neighbors. Even though no racist slurs were said directly to Esperanza and her family, it is reasonable to say that people blame her and her family for why the neighborhood is going “bad”. Cisneros writes, “ In the meantime they’ll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us...
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...Race and Your Community Ethics 125 The analysis of different cultures is a very interesting thing this world is full of all kinds of people. No one is going to be exactly the same yet some a very similar. This paper will cover the impacts, differences and the effects that difference ethnic groups have on my life. The differences between ethnic groups make the world a place of challenges and variety. In my community I have to say that I do look like most of my immediate community. However I live in a part of Houston that is commonly called “the rich part of town” it is mostly a white neighborhood with very few ethnic varieties. If you look all over Houston there are many different cultures and ethnic groups, as I look across the city I have seen an abundance of Mexican Americans, as well as Asians, Indians and African Americans. These different ethnic groups tend to stay in separate regions of the city, although they are not separated by laws they tend to stay separated by choice. I feel like this is one of the only cities that I have lived in that feels very segregated. Leaders in my community often look like me, however after this past years election there now is the very first Hispanic Sherriff in Houston (Harris County Sheriff’s). I was ever excited for the different groups of Hispanics in the area, I am aware that many of these groups feel like they are underrepresented, and this was a major step in the advancement of there representation in the community. For the...
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...Boer Republics united with the British colony to become the Union of South Africa, there were nearly 300 reserves for natives throughout the country. By 1948, Dr. D.F. Malan, the prime architect of apartheid, led the National Party in the first campaign that centered on openly racist appeals to white unity. The Party promised that if elected it would make permanent these reserves under the joint fundamental principles of separation and trusteeship. The National Party swept into office, winning 80 seats (mainly from Afrikaner voters), compared to the United Party’s 64 seats. Soon afterwards the new government instituted a number of policies in the name of apartheid which sought to “ensure the survival of the white race” and to keep the different races separate on every level of society and in every facet of life. One of the first acts passed was...
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...Race/Ethnicity Institutional vs. Blatant Racism and Education and Race vs. Social Class Race has been a serious concern in the United States. More specifically, people have been treated differently according to their race. Different races have also had different levels of academic and professional success. Despite being illegal for several decades, segregation is still existent in many public schools in the United States. However, it has become institutionalized; it is hidden deep inside society. Many Black Americans live in poor communities. Therefore, they attend poorly equipped and worn out schools. Without the necessary materials and environment needed to learn, they lose interest in school. Consequently, many of these students drop out of school before graduation. In turn, their potential to achieve higher education and economic status severely diminishes. As discussed in class, prejudice and discrimination are closely related. Prejudice is the thought one has towards another group while discrimination is the action performed towards another group. Prejudice often leads to discrimination. Derogatory terms towards other races or ethnicites have been the cause for genocides, population transfer, and segregation (Witt 2010:302) Discrimination is a great obstacle for Black Americans who seek to achieve a higher economic status. More specifically, racial profiling has been an impediment towards Black American employment. Better known as the glass ceiling, this has caused...
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