Vocabulary in EFL/ESL Context: An Analysis of General English Textbook

<p style="text-align: justify;">Vocabulary plays an important part in an EFL/ ESL textbook. The language input contained in textbooks and the representation of dimensions in vocabulary activities may have various impacts on learners’ language acquisition and development. According to Webb and Nation, vocabulary development requires the establishment of certain learning situations. It is imperative to analyze whether the vocabulary exercises presented in the book serve the desired purpose or not. The present research analyzed present General English textbook to ensure that it fulfills the learning needs of students. During the analysis, it was found that most of the sections of the vocabulary are well presented with proper context. However, there were some sections which do not contextualize the vocabulary as presented in the book. These items need to be substituted. Certain sections of the vocabulary are above the level of learners and need to be replaced with the easy ones.</p>

Cyclones and disaster management

Disaster management needs to be a long-term, multi-sector responsibility which interacts with, and contributes significantly to, national development. It should be intimately concerned with the root causes of community vulnerability to hazards, and these root causes are inevitably the targets of development programmes. Expert knowledge gained through studies of cyclones is not only relevant to disaster management, but is an important component and crucial to its success. This article outlines some of the disaster management strategies that all of us should be trying to implement so that cyclones have less potential for harm. The article also shows the importance of cyclone related studies, in the proper context, to each of these strategies.

Beyond ‘A Clinical Lesson at La Salpêtrière’: a brief assessment of André Brouillet’s other paintings on medical subjects, life, and times

ABSTRACT André Brouillet’s (1857-1914) famous group tableau ‘A Clinical Lesson at La Salpêtrière’ (French: Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière) is possibly the most celebrated painting in the history of neurology. His depiction of one of Jean-Martin Charcot’s legendary “Tuesday Lessons” includes portraits of not only one of the master’s most famous patients, but also of his pupils, the heirs to the founder of modern neurology. However, the painter himself has long been neglected, and even his other paintings on medical subjects are little acknowledged. The authors aim to bring attention to Brouillet’s life and times, as well as the remainder of his notable works; and in giving a proper context to the famous painting, neurologists today may be able to appreciate better the early history of our field and its cultural impact.

Characterization of the employer and manager of SMEs caldas / Caracterización del empresario y gerente PYME de caldas

The project characterized the SME entrepreneur and manager in three basic aspects: the management level, Financial and marketing, allowing proper context the problem and possible features. Among the results it found that SMEs companies analyzed were distributed 64.1 % small, 33.7 % medium, most concentrated in Manizales, Villamaria and Chinchiná respectively, which may be showing as business and economic development has been concentrated in the capital and surrounding municipalities, the main economic activity is the marketing, most companies surveyed spent more than 10 years in the market that show some business maturity.

Способы репрезентации семантики запрета в тувинском языке

Introduction. The article discusses the linguistic manifestation of prohibition semantics in Tuvan, analyzes the grammatical and lexical means of its expression, determines the semantic differences of the prohibition indicators and their functional/stylistic features. Goals. The paper aims to describe the grammatical and lexical means of expressing the semantics of prohibition in modern Tuvan, to analyze their meanings, pragmatic and stylistic functions. Materials and Methods. The study employs the descriptive method, functional/semantic and communicative/pragmatic approaches. The research material was provided by examples from digital sources of Tuvan-language texts available at: http://www.tuvancorpus.ru/. Results. The research of Tuvan language materials confirms the data from typologically different languages that indicators of the negative imperative are stylistically universal transmitters of the prohibitive meaning. Other means of expressing prohibition — besides the negative form of the future tense –бас — are stylistically marked. When it comes to express a prohibition, intonation holds an important place since it interacts with the former’s formal indicators proper, context and communicative situation. The paper identifies several types of prohibition (the prohibitive) that have received grammatical and lexical expressions in the Tuvan language — the regulative, preventive, constative, and corrective. Semantically, a comparatively wider range of prohibition values is possessed by the analytical form Tv-п болбас ― a special grammatical indicator of prohibition expressing the regulative, preventive, and constative. For other grammatical means within this system of indicative indicators, transfer of prohibition values is not a key function of theirs. This is the case of the future negative -бас (regulative, preventive) and the past -ды. The latter conveys a value of the admonitive. The system of lexical and grammatical means of expressing prohibition is distinguished by the lexemes хоржок (preventive), болзун, адыр (corrective) that have no certain part of speech status within the modern language. The prohibition lexeme болзун is a grammaticalization of the verb бол- in the meaning ‘to finish’ for the third imperative. There are two verbs бол- and сокса- that implicitly express prohibition/correction. The considered lexico-grammatical and lexical means of prohibition belong to the colloquial style. The formal style employs a number of special lexemes with the meaning of the regulative formed from the stem хору-. This word-formation nest includes verbs, adjectives, adverbs. The results of the study in the functional/semantic field of prohibition in the Tuvan language shall be demanded in further research on modality in the Turkic and other languages.

Edward Said’s Memoir Out of Place: Postcolonial Tenets, Dissonant Voices, and Divided Loyalties

Edward Said’s Out of Place (1999), a memoir written after his diagnosis with leukemia in 1991, was begun in 1994 to document his sense of cultural displacement and imminent death. This article examines the divided loyalties and dissonant voices Said vents in this book through the lens of cultural theories. It argues that such a conflicting vision can provide a proper context for understanding Said’s contributions to cultural studies and literary theory via the construction of the other, the out of place, at the levels of language, religion, environment, and homeland. Said presents himself as a postcolonial subject par excellence with divided loyalties and “unhomely” feelings. He uses a confessional mode to convey a constant sense of exile and identity crisis. Said’s life negotiated the postcolonial parlance he preached in his academic life, which offers a unique case on the relationship between theory and practice. The memoir emerges not only as an autobiographical text but equally as a contribution to literary theory and overlapping postcolonial discourses. Thus, this autobiographical memoir is useful for the literature classroom due to its theoretical value as well as non-fictional import.

Karl Popper’s Critique of Thomas Kuhn’s Concept of Normal Science: An Evaluation

This article focuses on an evaluation of Karl Popper’s critique of Thomas Kuhn’s concept of normal science. Kuhn describes normal science as paradigm-based research in which scientists conduct their research within the theoretical and conceptual provisions of the accepted paradigm. His idea of normal science is very controversial, and as such was criticized by many philosophers of science, especially Karl Popper. The basic questions are: What actually does Kuhn mean by normal science? What are the major occupations of scientists during normal scientific research? What are the major criticisms Popper made against Kuhn’s normal science? Is Popper right in his assessment of Kuhn’s idea of normal science? This article, employing analytical and critical methods of inquiry, examines Popper’s critique of Kuhn’s normal science. The researcher observes that Popper’s major problems with Kuhn’s idea revolve around the issues of uncriticality and dogmatism. However, this article argues that Kuhnian normal scientists seem not to be as ‘dogmatic’ and ‘not-too-critical’ as Popper claims. Popper’s fundamental problem in his assessment of Kuhnian normal science is that he assessed Kuhn’s normal science in isolation without taking adequate cognizance of its proper context. Nevertheless, Popper’s non-dogmatic approach to the scientific investigation could be said to be very necessary for the development of science in general.

Analysis of Feature Influence on Covid-19 Death Rate Per Country Using a Novel Orthogonalization Technique

We have developed a new technique of Feature Importance, a topic of machine learning, to analyze the possible causes of the Covid-19 pandemic based on country data. This new approach works well even when there are many more features than countries and is not affected by high correlation of features. It is inspired by the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure from linear algebra. We study the number of deaths, which is more reliable than the number of cases at the onset of the pandemic, during Apr/May 2020. This is while countries started taking measures, so more light will be shed on the root causes of the pandemic rather than on its handling. The analysis is done against a comprehensive list of roughly 3,200 features. We find that globalization is the main contributing cause, followed by calcium intake, economic factors, environmental factors, preventative measures, and others. This analysis was done for 20 different dates and shows that some factors, like calcium, phase in or out over time. We also compute row explainability, i.e. for every country, how much each feature explains the death rate. Finally we also study a series of conditions, e.g. comorbidities, immunization, etc. which have been proposed to explain the pandemic and place them in their proper context. While there are many caveats to this analysis, we believe it sheds light on the possible causes of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Politeness and Indirectness in Donald Trump’s Intercommunication

This paper elaborates the notion of politeness as a pragmatic concept and attempts to find answers regarding the strategies followed to achieve a polite act within a course of communication. Both the speaker and the hearer tend to act politely (in accordance to their beliefs regarding a polite act) and expect to be treated alike. However, the type of politeness considered in this paper is different from that of a culture-based concept. Pragmatic Politeness consists of following a number of principles and maxims in accordance to a particular context. Both types of the concepts are connected to the notion of ‘face’ which refers to the image that both the speaker and hearer desire to save, whenever they are intercommunicating. The face saving of interlocutors requires the adaptation of Leech’s Politeness principle and maxims. This paper examines both ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ strategies to approach politeness in Donald Trump’s political intercommunications verify or nullify common claims that politeness is achieved throughout indirect methods. The paper hypothesizes that both strategies are applicable to fulfill a communicative polite behavior on the basis of proper context.

Rapid Evidence Review 1 on the Critical Appraisal of Third-Party Evidence

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) always seeks to ensure that itsrecommendations are made on the best-available evidence. Following a request from the FSA Chair, the Science Council have sought to provide a framework that can guide those seeking to submit uncommissioned evidence to the FSA on its scientific principles and standards.The Science Councils proposed framework is based on the principles of quality, trustand robustness. By being transparent about the FSA’s minimal expectations, we aim to help those who wish to submit evidence, typically in an effort to fill a perceived evidence gap orchange a relevant policy or legislation. The framework also seeks to provides assurance to others on the processes in place within the FSA to assess evidence it receives.When the FSA receives evidence, it will: be transparent about how the evidence is assessed and used to develop its evidence base, policy recommendations and risk communication; assess evidence in its proper context using the principles of quality, trust and robustness; seek to minimise bias in its assessments of evidence by using professional protocols, its SACs, peer review and/or multi-disciplinary teams be open and transparent about the conclusions it has reached about any evidence submitted to it.