Exploring Pragmatic Transfers in Ayoade Okedokun’s Mopelola: The Tale of a Beauty Goddess: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

This research work investigates pragmatic transfers in Okedokun’s Mopelola: The Tale of a Beauty Goddess. It aims at identifying, analyzing and interpreting pragmatic features through which specific meanings are conveyed in the selected play. In the attempt to reach this goal, the data are randomly collected from the whole play on the basis of a quantitative method. Then, the statistical results are qualitatively discussed and interpreted in terms of their frequency distribution. The findings show a predominance of pragmatic transfer of loan words representing 33.33% followed by proverbs 32.14% and loan-blends 16.16%. Transfers of greetings, insults and apology are low as they represent respectively 3.57%, 3.57%, and 2.38% whereas other transfers such as request, gratitude, offer, blaming/reproaching and advice are almost nonexistent. The high proportions of loan words as well as proverbs suggest the author’s determination to value Yoruba culture and tradition. The almost important proportion of loan-blends constitutes a strategy for the author to attract readers’ attention on the various authentic Yoruba expressions. The presence of transfer in greetings stresses the peculiarity of Yoruba culture characterized by the expression of profound respect to elderly people. On the other hand, the presence of insults indicates that though Yoruba culture is characterized by the expression of profound respect, some Yoruba people, as the black sheep, do develop arrogance in contradiction to their culture.

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep Have You Any Wool? Developing the RBV Through a Study of the New Zealand Merino Clothing Industry

<p>This thesis explores how the traditional approaches to researching the Resource-Based View (RBV) do not fully address the heterogeneity within the participants of the research. Traditional approaches assume similar levels of knowledge, prioritisation, and value (awareness) are held across the participants. This thesis proposes that this similarity may not exist for every industry. Focused on the New Zealand merino clothing industry, this research employed two studies to determine the key characteristics and perceptions of the main players in the industry. Initially an industry profile is formed from secondary data sources, which covers the 30 years since the inception of the New Zealand merino clothing industry. This profile forms the basis for the interview sample and provides comparison for interview findings. Through the use of open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview process this thesis carried out interviews with the CEOs of thirteen New Zealand based merino clothing firms from throughout New Zealand. These interviews offered the participants the opportunity to express their perspectives on the resources they deem to be most important. The outcomes of these interviews are surprising; with the results questioning more assumptions of RBV research than just the similarity of awareness. Drawing together the analysis of the industry profile and the findings of the interviews, these two studies highlight a number of key findings. Most significantly, it is apparent that the majority of the interviewees do not perceive themselves as competing, though the industry profile indicates that the industry has a high level of competitive rivalry. Additionally, the firms do not appear to be differentiating themselves from one another, with few unique approaches utilised by the interviewees in regards to product, design, and business practice. Lastly, this thesis illustrates that these differences in perception between the industry profile analysis and the interview findings could be due to the ambition and future perspectives of the CEOs.</p>

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep Have You Any Wool? Developing the RBV Through a Study of the New Zealand Merino Clothing Industry

<p>This thesis explores how the traditional approaches to researching the Resource-Based View (RBV) do not fully address the heterogeneity within the participants of the research. Traditional approaches assume similar levels of knowledge, prioritisation, and value (awareness) are held across the participants. This thesis proposes that this similarity may not exist for every industry. Focused on the New Zealand merino clothing industry, this research employed two studies to determine the key characteristics and perceptions of the main players in the industry. Initially an industry profile is formed from secondary data sources, which covers the 30 years since the inception of the New Zealand merino clothing industry. This profile forms the basis for the interview sample and provides comparison for interview findings. Through the use of open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview process this thesis carried out interviews with the CEOs of thirteen New Zealand based merino clothing firms from throughout New Zealand. These interviews offered the participants the opportunity to express their perspectives on the resources they deem to be most important. The outcomes of these interviews are surprising; with the results questioning more assumptions of RBV research than just the similarity of awareness. Drawing together the analysis of the industry profile and the findings of the interviews, these two studies highlight a number of key findings. Most significantly, it is apparent that the majority of the interviewees do not perceive themselves as competing, though the industry profile indicates that the industry has a high level of competitive rivalry. Additionally, the firms do not appear to be differentiating themselves from one another, with few unique approaches utilised by the interviewees in regards to product, design, and business practice. Lastly, this thesis illustrates that these differences in perception between the industry profile analysis and the interview findings could be due to the ambition and future perspectives of the CEOs.</p>

Augmenting Black Sheep Neighbour Importance for Enhancing Rating Prediction Accuracy in Collaborative Filtering

In this work, an algorithm for enhancing the rating prediction accuracy in collaborative filtering, which does not need any supplementary information, utilising only the users’ ratings on items, is presented. This accuracy enhancement is achieved by augmenting the importance of the opinions of ‘black sheep near neighbours’, which are pairs of near neighbours with opinion agreement on items that deviates from the dominant community opinion on the same item. The presented work substantiates that the weights of near neighbours can be adjusted, based on the degree to which the target user and the near neighbour deviate from the dominant ratings for each item. This concept can be utilized in various other CF algorithms. The experimental evaluation was conducted on six datasets broadly used in CF research, using two user similarity metrics and two rating prediction error metrics. The results show that the proposed technique increases rating prediction accuracy both when used independently and when combined with other CF algorithms. The proposed algorithm is designed to work without the requirements to utilise any supplementary sources of information, such as user relations in social networks and detailed item descriptions. The aforesaid point out both the efficacy and the applicability of the proposed work.

Van prins tot zwart schaap en terug

From prince to black sheep and back. Royal prince Pippin in Carolingian historiography This article investigates the rather fluid process of character assassination of Pippin, nicknamed “the Hunchback”. In 792 Pippin joined a conspiracy led by more than a few noblemen against his father, Charlemagne. However, the plot came out just in time and Pippin was confined to a monastery for the rest of his life. His memory was subsequently besmirched by quite a number of writers, who walked the line between blackening Pippin while at the same time ensuring that Pippin’s misstep was never presented as a stain on the reputation of the Carolingian dynasty as a whole. As a result, the character assassination had to be modified time and again to constantly fit the present-day needs of the dynasty. As long as the Carolingians were safe and sound, as a ruling dynasty, Pippin could be blackened. But when the Carolingian family found itself in trouble with regard to securing the family bloodline, the literary Pippin made a spectacular comeback in order to contribute to the preservation of the Carolingian royal dynasty.