Tag Questions in English Spoken Discourse: Corpus-Based Linguistic and Pragmatic Analysis

Based on an integrative methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative methods of linguistic research, the authors consider grammatical forms, syntactic types and pragmatic functions of the tag question in British spoken discourse. The research material included samples of dialogues with tag questions taken from British contemporary fiction and the Spoken BNC2014. Drawing on the theory of linguistic metarepresentation and using corpus analysis tools the authors presented the model under study in structural-syntactic and functional-pragmatic perspectives and obtained reliable data on discourse realization of tag question models, specified their standard and common usage polarity status, distinguished bi- and monopolarity variations. An analysis of the tag question types that are distinguished as the combinations of the predicative and auxiliary parts shows that the most frequent type of tag question is the one formed with an affirmative predicative part and a negative tag. The corpus-based approach allowed obtaining quantitative data on frequencies of tag questions in British spoken discourse, retrieving the repertoire of tag questions with their grammatical representation. It is shown that in the corpus under study the most frequent form of the tag question is the form isn't it?. The least frequent forms of tag questions are the ones formed with the have verb, as well as the modal verbs will, may, can, which supports the thesis that tag questions are losing ground in British spoken discourse. Discourse-pragmatic analysis of utterance contexts with tag questions highlighted its discourse value in the British tradition of conversation, as they perform the following communicative functions: informational; etiquette; interpersonal-relation-corrective (focus-positive or focus-negative).

Yorùbá Ethics of Interpersonal Relations in Ọbasá’s Poetry

In the context of Yorùba interrelation, every human being is involved with ́ a clearly defined tradition laced with mutual benefits. The custom of human interpersonal relationship and the challenges thereof are critical issues in modern Yorùbá society. The themes of Yorùbá ethics as related to interpersonal relation are prominent in Obasa ̣’s poetry. In this essay, we identify and ́ analyze the ethical themes in Obasa ̣’s poetry and compare the poet’s engagement with the Yorùbá philosophy with a view to establish their relevance to the contemporary Yorùbá society. Wolfgang Iser’s (1996) principle on hermeneutics that “(texts) impacts information to the reader vis-a-vis the reader’s experience” is our model for the analysis of this paper (63). The ethical issues in Obasa’s poetry are anchored ́ to three sociocultural Yoruba concepts: communalism, cultural ideology on salutation, and conflict resolution. Tis paper affirms the poet’s rational reflection on the Yorùbá cultural ideology and pragmatic approach to ethical issues. As I argue in the essay, the poet’s perspectives affirm the basis of Yorùba ethical concepts on communalism and how it portrays human beings ́ as social “animals.”

Enjoying Every Moment: Improving Adolescent’s Subjective Well-Being Through Adolescent Mindfulness Program

Adolescents often deal with pressures either from the internal or external environment that might trigger psychological issues related to behavior, emotion, academic achievement, and interpersonal relation. Specific intervention is particularly needed to improve adolescents’ subjective well-being in such situations. This research aimed at measuring the effectiveness of the Adolescent Mindfulness Program (Program Mindfulness Remaja, known as PRIMA) on adolescent subjective well-being. This research employed an experimental study with a switching replication design. Twenty-eight late adolescents aged 17-21 years-old previously identified with low or moderate subjective well-being participated in the study and received 9 sessions of the Mindfulness Program. Kentucky Inventory Mindfulness Scale (KIMS) was used to measure mindfulness and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SwSL) and Positive Affect & Negative Affect (PANAS) were used to measure subjective well-being. Results depicted significant improvement in adolescent subjective well-being (p= 0.000; p<0.001) after the intervention, with a therapeutic effect lasting for more or less than 2 weeks. The result of qualitative analysis indicated that self-compassion meditation was the most meaningful meditation for participants.

Facial Expression Recognition with Appearance Based Features of Facial Landmarks

Artificial intelligence technology has been trying to bridge the gap between humans and machines. The latest development in this technology is Facial recognition. Facial recognition technology identifies the faces by co-relating and verifying the patterns of facial contours. Facial recognition is done by using Viola-Jones object detection framework. Facial expression is one of the important aspects in recognizing human emotions. Facial expression also helps to determine interpersonal relation between humans. Automatic facial recognition is now being used very widely in almost every field, like marketing, health care, behavioral analysis and also in human-machine interaction. Facial expression recognition helps a lot more than facial recognition. It helps the retailers to understand their customers, doctors to understand their patients, and organizations to understand their clients. For the expression recognition, we are using the landmarks of face which are appearance-based features. With the use of an active shape model, LBP (Local Binary Patterns) derives its properties from face landmarks. The operation is carried out by taking into account pixel values, which improves the rate of expression recognition. In an experiment done using previous methods and 10-fold cross validation, the accuracy achieved is 89.71%. CK+ Database is used to achieve this result.

Attractiveness, Trust and Trustworthiness: An Experimental Study

Trust and reciprocating trust are two vital elements in any interpersonal relation. In a situation when there is no reputational information, people have been found to rely on physical cues, such as gender, race, attractiveness, facial expression and others to deduce trustworthiness of other parties. The present paper investigated this stereotype in a trust game by incorporating facial attractiveness. What we were interested in was the impact of attractiveness on trustors’ trust on trustees and trustworthiness of the trustees. The main contribution of the paper is that it investigated the associations using a five-person trust game and allowed the trustors to evaluate the attractiveness of the trustee. The design allowed us to establish the causal association between individuals’ perception on attractiveness and transfer more directly. The results showed male trustors ranked the same female trustees higher than female trustors in terms of attractiveness, and this was translated to higher transferred amount from male trustors to the trustees. Additionally, we find male trustors transferred significantly larger amount to more attractive female trustees than less attractive trustees, but there was no such difference among female trustors. However, the kindness extended by the male trustors to the more attractive female trustees were not reciprocated by the trustees. The trustworthiness as measured by the amount transferred back by trustees was not significantly different between less and more attractive trustees. The results highlighted systematic bias in decision making when prior information about the partners was not available.

IMPACT OF WORKFORCE DIVERSITY ON ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: A CASE OF UNIVERSITIES OF PAKISTAN

Purpose of the Study: The present research was undertaken to determine the impact of workforce diversity taxonomy like diversity climate, value, organizational justice, and identity on various dimensions of organizational culture. Methodology: A sample of 117 university teachers selected from the university and higher educational institutions in Pakistan. Convenient sampling techniques were used to collect the data through a Google survey, using workforce diversity. taxonomy inventory and organizational culture questionnaire. Data analyzed by using a t-test to compare the mean scores of various dichotomized groups to see the effect of workforce diversity taxonomy on organizational culture with the help of the SPSS package. Principal Findings: Results revealed that workforce diversity taxonomy like diversity climate, value, organizational justice, and identity significantly influenced organizational culture and its various dimensions. Perceived high and low respondents’ workforce diversity taxonomy differed significantly on organizational culture. Applications of the study: This study can formulate strategies to improve workforce diversity in universities and higher educational institutions in emerging economies like Pakistan. Novelty/Originality of this study: The present research contributes to the literature on perceived workforce diversity taxonomy and organizational culture in terms of autonomy, trust, communication, transparency, interpersonal relation, decision making, and overall organizational culture, particularly in university and higher educational institution’s teachers.

Gestation Period and Its Bio-Psychosocial and Economic Factors Analysis on Toddler Growth and Development

The growth and development of toddlers is influenced by hereditary and environmental factors. Genetic factors, biologically have strong influences on toddlers’ growth in their early years of life. While psychologically, a good interpersonal relation of pregnant women with their families will make them more ready to undergo the pregnancy and childbirth. On the other hand, socially, the level of parental education might affect the nutrition intake and parenting patterns. For the economic factor, the level of family income and their ability to provide sufficient nutrition input might affect the nutritional status during gestation. The nutrition input during pregnancy highly contributes to the fetus growth and development. A poor nutrition input during gestation might cause an Intrauterine Growth Retardation (IUGR) and growth and development disorder. This study aimed to analyze the bio-psychosocial and economic factors of gestation period on toddler growth and development. This is a correlational analytic study with 80 mothers and toddlers as the sample. The data was analysed using univariat, bivariate with Chi square and multivariate with logistic regression. The results show that the statistically significant independent variables which influence the growth and development of toddlers are the mother height (p = 0.001), LILA (p = 0.008), family income (p = 0.007), infant birth weight (p = 0.009) and family support (p = 0.013). While the statistically insignificant independent variable is the mother level of education (p = 0.086).

Comparison between Smoking and Nonsmoking Palestinian Medical Students in the Health-Promoting Behaviors and Lifestyle Characteristics

Objectives. This study was aimed at comparing the predictors of health-promoting lifestyle behaviors between smoking and nonsmoking medical students at An-Najah National University located in Palestine. Methods. A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed during the academic year 2017/2018. Medical students were asked to complete a self-reported questionnaire that involved the predictors of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II. With the use of a suitable available sample composed of a total of 430 medical students, 400 had successfully completed the questionnaire and were included in the study. The data was analyzed by using SPSS version 24 software. Results. The sample included 400 medical students with a mean age of 18.7 years, 311 (77.7%) were females, and 89 (22.3%) were males. The prevalence of smokers in the sample was 110 (27.5%). For the health status of over half the students, 211 (52.8%) were excellent. The total HPLP-II score for smoking students resulted to be significantly lower in comparison to nonsmoking students (131.2 versus 135.7). This significant difference was clear in the interpersonal relation subscale (25.6 versus 26.8) for smoking and nonsmoking students, respectively. The score differences in other subscales were generally lower in smoking students. However, these differences were not consistent with statistical significance. Conclusion. The significant lower total Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II score in smoking students necessitates the urgent need for awareness programs, not only towards smoking but also on how to enhance student health-promoting lifestyle behaviors.