Design of a parklet for the handcraft artisians comunity development

The artisan is a representative of Mexican culture, his techniques for making handicrafts passed down from generation to generation and their craftsmanship tells the story of his past. Over the years, they have become a vulnerable group, since their only livelihood is the creation of handicrafts, in many cases devalued. This project is focused on a specific artisan community that is concentrated in the Indigenous Craft Development Center (in its Spanish acronym, CEDAI) located in the city of Querétaro, Mexico whose intervention is pertinent since, despite being a fixed point of sale, the influx of this space is low, indicative of reduced sales. The objective of this work is the design of a parklet outside of the CEDAI making use of social methodologies to provoke a greater influx of people. Constructivism and phenomenology being the pillars of the project, and the Design thinking as the development guide which suggests the steps to carry out the product design. This work is an example of how the use of social methodologies in conjunction with design methodologies are the guide for the construction of urban elements that are sustainable.

“Mexican Divertimento” by Joseph Brodsky: a Culture-TroughLanguage Analysis

Te article provides a comprehensive culture-through-language analysis of the poetical cycle “Mexican Divertimento” by Joseph Brodsky. It describes the basic principles of its poems’ construction, their stylistic features, interconnections between them, as well as with further elements of the poet’s creative heritage and other authors’ works. Te author of the article analyzes the place and role of the IberoAmerican theme in Brodsky’s poetry, which has not previously been reflected in experts’ works. Brodsky’s reception of Mexican culture and history episodes from different periods demonstrates his deep knowledge of these issues, which before the trip to Mexico could hardly have been familiar to him. At the same time, the author of the article outlines a number of inaccuracies and errors in history, toponymy, onomastics and other areas, wondering about their intentional or accidental character. Based on the results of the analysis, the article concludes that the cycle under study, while remaining self-sufcient and self-valuable in form and content, organically fts into Brodsky’s stylistic and ideological paradigm of the 1970s-1980s. At the same time, the analyzed text not only has a high artistic value, but also in linguo-cultural terms reflects the peculiarities of Mexican culture, its history, as well as Russian-Mexican cultural ties.

THE REPRESENTATION OF MEXICAN CULTURE IN DISNEY PIXAR’S MOVIE ENTITLED “COCO”

The aims of this research are (1) to find out the meaning of the day of the dead holiday (Día de Los Muertos) based on the movie; (2) to elaborate on the importance of the day of the dead holiday (Día de Los Muertos); and (3) to find out how to deal with a family conflict during the day of the dead holiday (Día de Los Muertos). This study uses a qualitative approach to address research problems as it enables the researcher to perform in-depth studies of a specific phenomenon. The findings or this research are (1) The meaning of the day of the dead holiday (Día de Los Muertos) based on Coco has some indicators such as symbols, heroes, and ritual (2) How the main character deals with his family conflict is that (a) The conflict which comes from the family culture is making the main character to become a rebel. Conflict is highly present in families; however, in general, the presence of conflict is not problematic by itself. (b) parents are making decisions about what they consider is best for all family members.

Suicide Risk Factors: A Language Analysis Approach in Social Media

Suicide represents a public health issue that requires new preventive strategies. Therefore, this study analyzes differences in language use between a themed posts group (suicide and depression) and a random posts group (non-specific topics) from different social media platforms. In addition, the similarity of the texts of themed posts group with the set of phrases linked to suicide risk factors is analyzed. Texts were processed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. A 95% bootstrap confidence interval (CI) was built for the difference in means for the resulting values per word category across groups. Significant differences in the use of language were observed between the themed post group and the random post group, whereas no differences were found between the themed post group and the set of phrases linked to suicide risk factors. These results can contribute to the development of risk-detection tools, which identify users at risk based on the analysis of language use embedded in social media. Such opportune detection would significantly increase the suicide prevention work. However, there is still a latent need for doing more research in this field, especially for the Mexican culture.

Maternal Cultural Orientation and Speech Sound Production in Spanish/English Dual Language Preschoolers

Empirical work has shown that maternal education is related to children’s language outcomes, especially in the societal language, among Spanish-English bilingual children growing up in the U.S. However, no study thus far has assessed the links between maternal cultural orientation and children’s speech sound production. This paper explores whether mothers’ orientation to American (acculturation) and Mexican culture (enculturation) and overall linear acculturation are related to children’s accuracy of production of consonants, of different sound classes, and of phonemes shared and unshared between languages in both English and Spanish at age 4;6 (4 years and 6 months). The results reveal a link between maternal acculturation and children’s segmental accuracy in English, but no relation was found between mothers’ enculturation and children’s speech sound production in Spanish. We interpreted the results in English as suggesting that more American-oriented mothers may have been using more English with their children, boosting their English production abilities and promoting English speech sound development. At the same time, we speculate that the results in Spanish were possibly due to the high and homogeneous levels of Mexican orientation among mothers, to language input differences attributable to distinct cultural practices, or to the status of Spanish as a minority language.

Cultural Ecofeminism in Pat Mora's Poetry

Eco-feminist writers, in general, investigate the relationship between the oppression of women and the degradation of nature. Cultural ecofeminism, as a branch of ecofeminism, reclaims the twinning of nature with women in terms of productivity and bounty. Cultural eco-feminists emphasize a kind of affinity between elements of nature such as land, woods, desert….etc. and women, in an attempt to reach out to a better cultural community. They try to integrate their views of nature with culture. With such perspective, the current study approaches the poetry of the Mexican American poet, Pat Mora (1942-). Mora's attachment to the Mexican environment and culture greatly influences her literary output which is imbued with images of the desert stressing the cultural concept of the desert as a mother who is endowed with a healing power. She believes that one's culture and environment knit one's heritage and the process of recovering heritage conditions reviving cultural traditions, concepts, practices, values, beliefs and character of place. Thus, her writings focus on the cultural value of land, of communal identities and the Latino mythologies. She depicts Latino people who dwell in a harsh desert from which she unearths the stories of the past to heal the present with special emphasis on the role of land/ desert as a healer by exploiting the image of the curandera, the woman healer in the Mexican culture.

When Eating “Correctly” is not so Healthy: Factor Analysis of the ORTO-15 in University Students from Mexico City

Background: The objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the ORTO-15 questionnaire, in Mexican university students. This questionnaire was designed to assess the presence of Orthorexia Nervosa (ON). Method: The sample consisted of 911 Mexican university students (65.4% women) aged between 18 and 28 years (M=21±1.9) who answered the Spanish version of the ORTO-15. Results: The results of the factor analysis with a varimax rotation yielded a structure of 14 test items made up of four factors, which explained 52.4% of the variance. Likewise, an adequate internal consistency was obtained (Cronbach’s alpha=0.78). Conclusion: The psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the ORTO-15 are supported as a reliable tool for the evaluation of orthorexia nervosa in the Mexican population; however, it is important to consider the influence of the Mexican culture. Its use is expected to contribute significantly to a better understanding of the impact these behaviors have on Mexican population.

Prototipos mexicanos y el conflicto migratorio en el filme Coco, de Walt Disney

In the present paper, we propose to analyze a filmic text that, supposedly, was created for a children’s audience, it is the recent Walt Disney’s work Coco (2017), by directors Lee Ulrich and Adrian Molina. We will be guided by sociosemiotic notions and the critical analysis of discourse in order to study certain semantic marks related to the migratory phenomenon that is recorded along the border between Mexico and the United States. These semantic marks, due to their constant presence in other texts and situations, are assumed to be prototypical. According to the above, far from “paying tribute” to Mexican culture, Coco stigmatizes certain practices of that culture. The “media machine” with which Disney supports this product allows the “naturalization” of such prototypical vision.

A COGNITIVE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE GAME “LAUNCHA LIBRE”

Playing games are the common activities among teenagers nowadays, especially when smartphone becomes massive devices for every communication. Playing games on smartphone can be either a killing-time activity or a wasting time activity depends on the people who use that facility. However, games nowadays can be used for educational learning materials which make the students more engaged to the class. This analysis offers an insight to use the game as the one of materials in teaching linguistics. By analyzing the language use in the names of the game characters and the conceptual system of the game, this research can be brought into the linguistic class. This research not only focuses on the names of the game characters but also to the game’s conceptual system which is used to promote the Mexican culture. The research method uses the screenshot feature of smartphone to collect the data and then the data were analyzed using cognitive stylistics. The names of the characters are created mostly by using puns and the game conceptual system is built basically by using metonymy.

Acculturation and Campus Carry: Examining the Effect of Mexico Versus United States Cultural Orientations on College Students’ Support for Campus Carry

Several U.S. states have authorized carrying concealed firearms on campuses. These measures are controversial, with support falling along ideological lines. This study examines whether cultural proximity to the U.S., relative to Mexico, influences support for campus carry. Using a random sample of 1,447 college students from two Texas public universities, structural equation modeling results revealed that individuals more oriented toward U.S. culture were more likely to support campus carry than individuals oriented more toward Mexican culture. Besides this direct effect, acculturation also indirectly influenced support for campus carry through public attitudes toward the police. Specifically, individuals more oriented toward the U.S. held more favorable views of the police, which in turn predicted greater support for campus carry. Collectively, these findings suggest that cultural values influence support for public policies such as campus carry.