6 Steps for Self-Discipline When You Study

6 Steps for Self-Discipline When You Study Have you ever heard the quote, Self-discipline is the difference between choosing what you want now and choosing what you want most? Its a quote that tons of people in the business world follow religiously in order to get exactly what they most desire from their companies. Its a theory that many people use to get themselves out of bed to get to the gym before going to work. Its a mantra that athletes use to do that last set of squats, even though their legs are burning and they want nothing more than to quit. But its message of endurance and self-denial is perfect for those students looking to gain an edge on their competition by acing the ACT in order to get into the college or university of their dreams or those students who simply want to score their highest on their midterm or final exams.   Why Self-Discipline Is Important According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of self-discipline is the  correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement. This definition implies that certain regulation or stopping of ourselves from certain behaviors is important if we are going to improve in some way. If we are relating this to studying, it means that we need to stop doing certain things or start doing certain things while studying in order to get the positive results we crave. Regulating ourselves in this way is incredibly important because it can build self-esteem. When we achieve the goals we set for ourselves, we get a boost of confidence which can improve many aspects of our lives. How to Have Self-Discipline When You Study Step 1: Remove Temptations Self-discipline is the easiest when things that distract you from your studies are out of sight, out of earshot, and out the window, if necessary. If you find yourself tempted by external distractions like your cell phone, then by all means, turn the thing completely off. Nothing is going to happen in the 45 minutes that you are going to sit down to study (more on that in a minute) that cannot wait until you have a scheduled break. Also, take the time to remove the clutter from your study area if clutter makes you crazy. Unpaid bills, notes to yourself of things you need to accomplish, letters or even pictures can pull your focus off your studies and into places it does not belong when you are trying to learn how to write a stellar essay for the Enhanced ACT test. Step 2: Eat Brain Food Before You Begin Studies have shown that when we are  exercising willpower (another word for self-discipline), our  mental energy tanks slowly get  emptied. Forcing ourselves to give up what we want in the now for what we want later physically zaps our reserves of glucose, which is the brains favorite fuel. This is why  when we are sitting diligently ignoring our cell phones and pushing back our need  to check Instagram, we are more likely to head to the pantry for a chocolate chip cookie than we would be if we were not practicing self-discipline at all. So, before we ever sit down to study, we need to be sure to indulge in some brain foods like scrambled eggs, a little bit of dark chocolate, maybe even a jolt of caffeine to make sure that our glucose is steady enough to NOT drive us away from the learning were trying to do. Step 3: Do Away With Perfect Timing There is never a perfect time to begin studying for your test. The more time you give yourself the better off you will be, but if you sit around and wait for the  perfect  moment to start studying, you will be waiting for the rest of your  life. There will  always  be something more important than reviewing the SAT Mathematics test questions. Your friends will beg you to go out to the movies to see the final showing of the seasons top film. Your family members will need to be driven on errands or your parents will need you to finish cleaning your room. If you wait until everything is just right- when everything else is accomplished and you feel  great  - you will never find the time to study. Step 4: Ask Yourself If I Had to, Could I? Imagine that you are sitting at your desk. Behind you is an intruder with a weapon pointed at your head. If the only thing between life and saying goodbye to the world as you know it was studying for the next several hours (with scheduled breaks), could you do it? Of course, you could!  Nothing in the world would mean more than your life at that moment. So, if you could do it then- drop everything and give studying everything you have in you- then you can do it in the safety of your own bedroom or library when the stakes arent quite that high. Its all about mental strength. Give yourself a pep-talk. Tell yourself, I have to do this. Everything depends on it. Sometimes, imagining a real life-death scenario works when youre staring at 37 pages of differential equations. Step 4: Give Yourself a Break And by giving yourself a break, we definitely dont mean abandoning all self-discipline and settling down in front of the TV. Schedule mini-breaks into your study session strategically. Set a watch or timer (not the phone - thats turned off) for 45 minutes. Then, force yourself to study for those 45 minutes, making sure that nothing interferes with your work. Then, at 45 minutes, take a scheduled 5- to 7-minute break. Use the bathroom, stretch your legs, grab some brain food, reorganize, and get back at it when the break is over. Step 5: Give Yourself Rewards Sometimes the answer to being self-disciplined lies in the quality of the reward you give yourself for exercising willpower. For many people, the practice of self-discipline is a reward in and of itself. For others, especially those who are just trying to learn to have some willpower when studying, you will need something a little more tangible. So, set up a reward system. Set your timer. Practice studying for that final  for 20 minutes with no interruptions. If youve made it that far, then give yourself a point. Then, after a short break, do it again. If you make it another 20 minutes, give yourself another point. Once youve accumulated three points- you have managed to study for a full hour without surrendering to distractions- you get your reward. Perhaps its a Starbucks latte, one episode of Seinfeld, or even just the luxury of getting onto social media for a few minutes. Make the reward worth it and withhold the reward until youve met your goal! Step 6: Start Small Self-discipline is not a natural thing. Sure. Some people are more self-disciplined than others. They have the rare ability to say no to themselves when they want to say yes. What you need to remember, however, is that self-discipline is a learned skill. Just like the ability to make a perfect free-throw with a high percentage of accuracy  only comes after hours and hours on the court, self-discipline comes from the repeated exercise of willpower. Dr. Anders Ericsson, a Florida State University psychologist says that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, but â€Å"You don’t get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal. You have to tweak the system by pushing,† he adds, â€Å"allowing for more errors at first as you increase your limits.† So, if you truly want to become an expert at having self-discipline while studying, you not only have to practice the skill, you have to start small, especially if you repeatedly give in to what you want now instead of waiting for what you want most. Start by forcing yourself to study (I have to style) for just 10 straight minutes with 5-minute breaks in between. Then, once that becomes relatively easy, shoot for fifteen minutes. Keep increasing the time you manage self-discipline until you are able to focus for the full 45 minutes. Then, reward yourself with something and get back at it.

Depression By Stephanie Roman essays

Depression By Stephanie Roman essays Many people have experienced a point in time in their life where he/she feels sad, lonely, or unhappy; having normal ups and downs with how he/she feels. For example, when you break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, or when you have a argument with someone close to you. However, some people experience these feelings on a much larger scale. Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects people of all ages, regardless of their color, race or economic status. Depression affects a persons eating habits, sleep, personal opinion about ones self, and their attitude towards life in general. This disorder is very common in the United States and it is affecting more than 17 million people each year. There are many different forms of depression, but first what is depression? Depression is the reaction of how the nerve cells work in the brain. Major depressed people contain an unusual amount of one hormone, cortisol, and several brain neurotransmitters, which may be inherited. This is why people who have depressed relatives are at greater risk of becoming depressed themselves. Depression is broken down into three different categories. The first being, Major Depression. Major Depression is the most severe category of depression. One single traumatic event in your life, or the development of many personal disappointments and lifes tribulations can cause someone to suffer from Major Depression. The following are symptoms of this disorder. According to the DSM-IV, if a person suffers from these symptoms for a period of two weeks or more, he/she suffers from Major Depression. Loss of interest in things that used to bring pleasure Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day difficulty in concentrating or making decisions ...

Modern Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Modern Philosophy - Essay Example Kant’s investigations into the Rationalists’ and the Empiricists’ definitions of the origin of knowledge led to what Kant described as his â€Å"Copernican Revolution† in philosophy wherein he refuted the long-held belief that the mind is passive; Kant, instead, credit the rational, thinking mind for providing us with a systematic structuring of a representation of the world that makes our experience of it possible (McCormick). That is, how the world appears to us depends on how our mind perceives it based on our position and movement, thus the reference to Copernicus’ revolutionary theory. Based on this definition, Kant struggled to answer the question of what can we know and what can we not know. Kant argued that our knowledge is then constrained to the universal laws of mathematics and the empirical sciences and cannot extend to speculative metaphysics because our mind cannot fathom beyond what it holds within the spatiotemporal framework. A good starting point in any in-depth discussion of Kant’s philosophy and, especially, how he revolutionized the way the world, in general, and philosophers, in particular, think is to revisit the series of events that led him to his thesis and resulting treatises. Kant was indoctrinated in Wolff’s modified dogmatic rationalism, the thought prevalent in Germany during Kant’s academic years between 1747 and 1781; he taught about reason being the basis of knowledge (Turner). Towards the end of that period though, Kant started to question this belief. There were contradictions in the physical sciences he could not reconcile using the rationalists’ point of view and he began to reject the validity of metaphysical reasoning because of its shaky foundations (Turner). On top of it all, Kant revealed that it was his careful reading of David Hume’s analysis of the principle of causation that "interrupted my dogmatic slumbers and gave my investigations in th e field of speculative philosophy a

Eczema Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Eczema - Essay Example It is worthwhile to give eczema attention because it can affect very young children who can carry the condition until adulthood. Moreover, anyone with chronic and acute eczema could suffer from frequent loss of sleep, loss of self-esteem (especially in children) due to unsightly sores and skin patches, and other stressful effects like loss of employment, difficulty in patient care and high medical costs. There are several causes of eczema, all resulting in the common symptoms of itchiness and rashes. Eczema can be caused by hypersensitivity or allergy to common compounds in the environment (atopic eczema), contact with irritants (irritant contact dermatitis), and contact with allergens (allergic contact dermatitis) (Brown and Reynolds). Understanding the causes of eczema can provide means to relieve symptoms and treat the condition. The most common form of eczema, atopic eczema is a genetic predisposition to become highly sensitized in response to allergens that are common in the environment. In the process, IgE antibodies are produced. Those with atopic eczema are highly sensitive to materials and elements that normally have no effect on most people. The condition afflicts mostly young children who have an increased chance of developing allergic asthma, hay fever and rhinitis later in life. In atopic eczema, itching is the most common manifestation accompanied by scaling and redness in patches of skin, the face included. Some people are mildly affected with only a few areas on their skin that are dry and scaly. Blisters and skin thickening become common in chronic cases (Brown and Reynolds). The prevalence of atopic eczema varies widely worldwide. However, increased prevalence has not been attributed to genetic factors, but more on environmental effects (Brown and Reynolds). Atopic eczema is more common in urban and industrial settings, and in families with higher

Position paper for 2020 tourism Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Position paper for 2020 tourism Strategy - Essay Example The ACT Government, under the auspices of VisitCanberra, prepared the 2020 Tourism Strategy. The strategy seeks to provide a framework within which the full potential of the tourism industry in Canberra can be realized (The ACT Government, 2013). Its goal is to increase the revenue from overnight visitors to Canberra spend from the current $1.58 billion to $2.5 billion by the year 2020. This goal is consistent with the National Tourism Strategy 2020 that seeks to double the amount of money overnight visitors in the whole of Australia spend from the 2009 figure of $70 billion to $140 billion by the year 2020. The basis of the 2020 Tourism Strategy was a thorough market research of the industry (The ACT Government, 2013). The research project profiled the current tourist products and experiences as well as potential for new ones. In the first short run, the strategy will seek to realize its goal through a raft of measures. The first measure is to invest in the marketing of tourist destinations in the Canberra region for both local and international visitors. The second measure is to realize direct international flights and to expand the local aviation industry. The third is to enhance the technological capacity of the industry. The fourth is to promote sectors that complement the tourism industry. These include transportation and commerce. The fifth measure is to create an enabling business environment by eliminating barriers to entry and keeping statutory requirements to a minimum. Finally, the Government shall invest in new tourist products development. The Government recognizes that the above actions cannot be realized single-handedly; they will require the cooperation and coordination of all stakeholders (The ACT Government, 2013). These include tourism enterprises, regulatory bodies and all the attractions that the Commonwealth funds. Another broad goal if the strategy is to promote the

Features of Representational Meaning

Features of Representational Meaning While some, more or less radical, distinction between language and linguistic behaviour (between language and speech, language and communication, sentence and utterance) is universally assumed, the nature of the relation between them is less often addressed or characterised in a manner satisfactory in itself or consistent with the distinctions we wish to make. The more radical the distinction, the more urgent the question of their relation becomes. The paper sketches some of the problems and outlines a proposal. This takes the form of a Representational Hypothesis about the relation, designed to be consistent with (and render defensible) a very radical distinction between language and such behaviour. The discussion focuses on ambiguity both for itself and for illustrative purposes. It is suggested that ambiguity is not a linguistically semantic phenomenon and indeed not linguistic. 1. Rationale In the process of learning English, I have profoundly realized that English semantics is rather abstract with a large scope including word meaning, sentence meaning, utterrance meaning. Each type of meaning includes many different parts. For examples, sentence meaning has grammaticalitity, acceptability and meaningfullness, the principle of compositionality, variables in the function of sentence meaning, the representational meaning, the interpersonal meaning. It is rather complex and not used regularly in the fact. However, It is an essential part in syllabus for English major students. It provides the major knowledge of English language for the learners and help them deeply understand its characteristics and know the way to use it better and better, so they need to study it well but in fact, it is not easy at all. The learners have difficulties when using it. They spend much time on learning it, but the understanding of its characteristics is limmited. For the reason, a study on re presentational meaning one of basic part of English semantics has been chosen as the title of my assignment paper. 2. Aims of the study on the representational meaning Generally speaking, the representational meaning is abstract part in English semantics. It is not close to the fact. Therefore, the majority of learners have difficulties when using it. They make mistakes when distinguishing between types of the representational meaning. Therefore, this assignment paper focuses on the representational meaning with its scopes and characteristics to help learners well distinguish its types and use it flexibly and exactly in studying. 3. Scope of the study Semantics is large category in English language with its scopes such as word meaning, sentence meaning uterrance meaning. However, due to my limited knowledge, the writer only concentrate on the study on the representational meaning. It is particularized at the 3 main kinds of the representational meaning including processes, participants and circumstances with their definitions and characteristics. 4. The method of the study With the desire of making English representational meaning clear and specific, my methods of the study are data collection from having discussion with supervisors, friends, reading materials ( text books, referenceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) and collecting typical examples. 5. Design of the study This study provides a clear organization consisting of three main parts that help an easy exploration and practical benefits gained for readers as well: Chapter one is the introduction including rationale, scope of the study, aims of the study, the method and design of the study; Chapter two is entiled development and divided into three parts: Part I is the theoretical background, Part II is the representational meaning including definitions and characteristics of its types and Part III is implication including the difficulties of the learners when using it and suggested sollution; Chapter three is conclusion, summarizing what have been discussed in the previous. 1. Theoritical Background 1.1. Semantics 1.1.1. Definition of semantics There are many authors who define semantics. Some of the most typical definitions listed as follows: Semantics is the systematic study of meaning in language. In other word, it is the study of how language organizes and expresses meaning. ( Nguyen Hoa, 2004) Semantics deals with the literal meaning of words and the meaning of the way they are combined, which taken together form the core of meaning or the starting point from which the whole meaning of a particular utterance is constructed. (Lyons (1995: Xii)) 1.1.2. The approaches of semantics There are 3 main approaches of semantics including lexical semantics, formal semantics and cognitive semantics. 1.1.2.1. Lexical semantics Lexical semantics is a field which deals mainly with word meaning and relations between them. It covers various theories of the word structure, the diffferences and similarities in lexical semantic structure between different languages and relationship of word meaning to sentence meaning and syntax. 1.1.2.2. Formal semantics Formal semantics is called formal since it attempt to adapt analytical techniques from formal logic to the study of meaning. It is concerned with relation between expressions especially sentences which express propositions. The basic tenet of formal semantics is that it considers proposition as the meaning of the sentence, which is identified with the set of possible words and it is concerned with its truth condition. The main focus of formal semantics is on truth conditions, entailment, reference, denotation, contracdition model, inference, quantification. 1.1.2.3. Cognitive semantics: Cognitive semantics is seen as mapping from linguistic expression to cognitive structures and laguage is seen as part of the cognitive structure. The main tenets of the cognitive semantics can be summarised as follows: a) Meaning is conceptualisation in the cognitive model. More precisely, it involves the mapping from the expression of the language to some mental entities and does not concern itself with such important concepts of formal semantics as reference and truth. Cognitive models are mainly perceptuallly determined as it happens cognitive structures are connected to our perceptual merchamisms either directly or indirectly. Thus, meaning are more or less perceptually grounded. Semantic elements are based on the spatial or to pological objects. Mental structures applied in cognitive semantics are the meaning of linguistic expression. Cognitive models are primarily image schematic. Semantics is primary to syntax and partly dermintes it . Concepts show prototype effect Cognitive semantics is concerned with important notions as perspective, imagery construal, figure ground organization, abstraction, conceptual metaphor. 1.1.3. Semantics properties Accepting the fact that the meaning of an expression can be viewed as combination of features, we can decompose the meaning of a word into what we call semantic features or properties. Consider the word mandate in the following example : E.g.:I think I have a mandate to make the government work again. Our adequate knowledge of the word mandate tell us that mandate is an authority given to somebody or organization by people who support. We will know that it is not like word responsibility which just means a duty, it is given to sombody or organization not an animal and especially by whose support it. Such features are called semantic features. They can used to define the meanings of a word. And the method involing the use of these properties is called componential method One and the same semantic feature may be part of the meaning of many different words. Female is a semantic property that helps to define: bich hen actress maiden doe more debutante widow ewe vixen girl woman We should also notice that the last word girl, woman are characterized by another property human. The following table shows how the componential method is employed to decompose the meaning of a number of word Property actress baby Girl bachelor mare human + + + + + female + . + + young + + (Fromkin et al, 1984: 167) There are many more properties which define the meaning of the word. Some scholar believe that it is possible to the limited number of these semantic properties that could be employed to defined the meaning of the lexicon of any language. However, there is much disagreement as to what constitues a semantic property. There are difficulties involved. For example, the word baby can not be defined either as male or female since a baby can be either sex. 1.1.4. Scopes of semantics 1.1.4.1. Word meaning 1.1.4.1.1. Form and Expression Word are also considered expression.Words and word form are distinguished from each other in terms of distinction between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning. E.g.:cook cooks, cooking, cooked . Different forms of the word will share the same lexical meaning but different grammatical meaning . E.g.:Lovely, lovelier, loveliest. Different words may share grammatical meaning but different lexical meaning . E.g.: love, hate, eat, drink. 1.1.4.1.2. Lexical and grammatical meaning revisted The lexical meaning of the word really means the individual and reflective meaning of a word. The grammatical meaning can be defined as relationships between words based on contrastive features of arragements in which they occur. 1.1.4.1. 3. Components of word meaning There are 4 major components of word -meaning: a) Denotation which includes: conceptual and referential meanings; Denotation exists by virtue of what it refers to. b) Conotation including stylistic, affective, evaluative and intensifying is the pragmatic communicative value the words acquires by virture of where, when, how and by whom, for what purpose and in what context it is or may be used. c) Structural meaning, which is the meaning a word acquires by virtue of its membership in a system or a set. It includes reflected meaning, collative meaning, associative meaning and themantic meaning. d) Categorial meaning is one part of grammatical meaning which words derive from being a number of one category rather than another ( nouns rather verbs and so on ). Word fall in to such categories as Noun, verbs, Adjectives, Prepositions, conjunction. 1.1.4.1.4. Semantic field ( lexical field ) 1.1.4.1.4.1. Definition of semantic field A lexical / semantic field is the organization of related words and expressions into a system which shows their relationships to one another. The value of a word is determined by defining it in relation to the value of neigbouring or contrasting words. Thus, the vocabulary of a language is viewed as an integrated system of lexems interrelated in sense. A semantic field is a set of interrelated senses based on a conceptual field or spectrum. E.g.:In terms of colour : 4 primary color terms: Blue, green, yellow, red. Environment : overfish, overexploit, pollute, contaminate, ozone depletion, rain forests. Beach : towel, umbrella, lotion, bikini, sand. Carpenter: lumber, nails, drills, saw, chisel. Dentist: filling, cavity, extract,pull. Degree of redness : red, Scarlet, orange, Crimson, rose. ( Arnold (1986) i.v) 1.1.4.1.4.2. Ways of grouping words Thematically Words of the same part of speech that cover the same conceptual field. E.g.: cooking: boil, bake, fry, broil, steam. Ideographically Words of different parts of speech but thematically related. E.g.: Holiday: to book ( a fight ), a package tour, hotel, luxurious, etc . 1.1.4.2. Sentence meaning 1.1.4.2.1 Definition of sentence meaning A sentence is a large unit of grammatical organization within which parts of speech (noun,verb, adjective ) and gramamatical classes ( word, phrase, clause) are said to function. In English, a sentence normally contains one independent clause. The meaning of a sentence is not the sum of the meaning of the word used in the sentence.It is what a sentence means regardless of context and situation in which it may be used . It is more correct to regard it as function of the meaning of the word used in the sentence, modality and structural meaning signaled by the way words are organized into sentence. 1.1.4.2.2. Proposition 1.1.4.2.2.1. Definition of proposition A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some states of affairs. A proposition is defined as the invariant meaning expressed by a sentence, devoid of any modality. E.g.: She is probably right. Proposition: she is right . Modality: Probable impossible In semantics, the letters p, q, r are often used as symbols of propositions. Proposition involves in the meanings of not only declarative, but also interrogative and imperative sentence. E.g.: Is she right ? Be careful. The state of the affairs typically involves person or things referred to the expression in the sentence. In uttering a declarative sentence, a speaker typically asserts a proposition. 1.1.4.2.2.2. Proposition content A proposition usually consists of: (a) something which is named or talked about known as argument or entity, (b) an assertion or prediction made about the argument. E.g.: The man bit the dog. The dog bit the man. Predicate : Bite Two argument : Man, Dog The meaning of a sentence consists of the predicate, argument (s) and role of each argument. Arguments refer to entities white predicates deal with events, properties, attributes and states.Those individuals that are independent and can stand alone are arguments. Things like qualities, relations, actions and processes that are dependent and can not stand alone are termed predicates . E.g.:My computer Break down, fast, new. 1.1.4.2.2.3. Common types of semantic roles Semantic role Examples Agent /does She opened the door Affected Marry kicked the dog Effected She took deep breath Locative We reached London by mid night Instrument /Means The key open the door Recipient She gave me two books Goal He kicked the dog Experiencer I like the play. Carrier She is happy. Identified Bill Gate is the president Identifier Bill Gate is the president 1.1.4.3. Utterance 1.1.4.3.1. Definition of uterrance Utterance meaning is what a speaker means when he makes an utterance in a cercain situation. Utterances consist of performative and constative ones. 1.1.4.3.2. Types of utterances 1.1.4.3.2.1. Performative utterance: A performative utterance is one that actually describes the act that it performs. It performs some acts and simultenously describes that act. E.g.: I promise to pay you tomorrow. A typical performative utterrance usually contains the first person pronoun E.g.: I promise; I congratulateà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. These are all verbs describing speech acts. We classify them and performative verbs. 1.1.4.3.2.2. Constative utterances A constative utterance is one which makes an assertion. It is often the utterance of a declarative sentence, but is not performative. Eg: I am trying to get this box with screwdriver. It is a constative utterance because because it makes an assertion about a particular state of affair but not performative. The utterance does not simultenously describe and perform the same act. 2. The representational Meaning 2.1. The representational meaning The representational meaning is rather abtract in English semantics. Therefore the learners need to pay much attention to its genneral characteristics as follows to approach and study it easily. According to Halliday, the experiential subcomponent of the representational meaning provides an acount of the underlying content of a sentence or an utterance. It handles within its scopes: Processes: actions, events, states, relations. Participating entities ( participants): persons, objects, abstractions. Circumstances: time, places, reasons, conditions, resultsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ which are associated with the process. We all know that the nominal group represents the various types of participants. The verbal groups denote the process. And other types of units like the prepositional phrases of adverbial clauses realize the circumstance component. E.g.: She kicked the dog out of the house. The participants realized by NPs: she and the dog The process realized by the verb: kicked The circumstance realized by the PP : out of the house. The relationships between processes, participants, and their circumstance are expressed through what Halliday terms transitivity network. Transitivity really means going through or extending to another entity. On the dimension of transitivity, clauses may be organized in to two types : The transitive and the ergative sentences to accommodate better the situation regarding the catual occurrence of sentence patterns. In transitive sentence, the most prominent roles are actor, goal, if the process is one of the action E.g.: I bought my wife a cake. Or they are attributor and attributantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸. If the process is one of ascription ( attribution ) E.g.:Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. In the ergative type, the central roles are the causer of the process and the affected the participant affected by the process. E.g.: Everyone likes the play. It is possible to rephrase it into the play pleases everyone or the play causes him to like itself . Those sentences involving action process as defined above are called extensive, and those concerned with ascription ( attribution ) as termed intensive. Halliday also introduces another basic distinction between effective and descriptive extensive transitive sentences. (a) Effective sentences The action is goal directed or targed at another object called goal. This means that the sentence has to involve at least two participants. E.g.: I bought a car. Some sentences may have three participants. E.g.:I gave her a flower. (b) Descriptive sentences It involves non directed action since the sentence is associated with just one participant. E.g.: The recruits marched. Actor the recruits, Process marched . Halliday speaks of another type called nuclear. (c) Nuclear setences It is the one associated with the either one or two participants. E.g.: Mary open the door. The door opened. The door was opened (by Mary). However there exists a possibility of transforming The recruits marched into the sergeant marched the recruits. To account for this sentence, Halliday uses another role, which is that of initiator, discretely from the actor role. Thus, we have: Initiator the sergeant process marched Actor recruits And the logical subcomponent handles logical relations between various types of elements of sentence and such relation as subordination and apposition. 2.2. Functions of the representational meaning The representational meaning can be defined in terms of experiential and logical functions. 2.2.1. The experiential function is to communicate ideas It is the main fucntion by which a speaker expresses the content elements of his utterance, by refering to people, objects, states of affairs, events, qualities, places, actions and circumstances, all of which are parts of the world we live in. E.g.: Bill Gates gave me books to read after each session. 2.2.2. The logical function relates ideas to each other on an equal or subordinate basis: E.g.: I came, I saw and I conquered. ( equal) The rise in Microsoft stock in 1996 meant that he made on paper about $30 million a day. (subordinate) 2.3. Scopes of representational meaning 2.3.1. The process Process is a powerful concept which represents the possible world as consisting of going on: doing, happening, feeling and being. Halliday (1994: 106-107 ) states that the processes in a language like English are constructed by the transitivity system. He also makes a distinction between what humans experience as going on out there, in the world around us and what we experience as going inside ourself. Thus the main type of the process that expresses out outer experience is called material process as opposed against the mental one that expresses our inner experience. But there is a third important element to be added. We learn to genneralize to relate or connect our experience. This process is termed relational. According to Halliday, the bounderies of the three main types of process are further ones not clearly set apart, but nevertheness recognizable as intermedinate between the different pairs. Thus, between material and mental processes, we find behavioural process: those that represent outer manifestation of our inner working, the acting out of processes of conciousness and physiological states. The borderline of mental and relational processes are verbal processes that represent symbolic relationship constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of the language. The last one is the existential processes between the material and relational which are concerned with existtence [Halliday, 1994:107] 2.3.1.1. Types of processes: 2.3.1.1.1. Material processes: processes of doing2.3.1.1.1.1. Definition of material processes: Material processes are those that express our outer experiences. 2.3.1.1.1.2. Characteristics of material processes: The matreial processes usually involve one or two enties : An actor + a goal If there is one enties, it is the actor E.g.: The lion sprang. Jack fell down. If there are two enties, they are the actor and goal. In this case: The actor can do something to the goal. E.g.:She hit the ball. The lion caught the tourist. The actor can create or bring about the goal. E.g.:He has built a fortune along away. Material processes are processes of doing. They express the notion that some entity does something which may be done to some other entity. So we can ask about or probe material processes by using the verb do E.g.: what did the lion do?. What did the lion do to the tourist?. If there is goal of the process, as well as an Actor, the representation may come in either of two forms : either active, the lion caught the tourist, or passive, the tourist was caught by the lion. 1.The the 2.The by the lion lion Caught tourist tourist was caught Actor Process Goal Goal process Actor Figure 1: active and passive clauses. Material process are not necessarily concrete, physical events; they may be abstract doing and happening E.g.:The mayor resigned. ActorProcess The presidentdissolvedthe committee. Actor processgoal 3. Implication: The Difficulties of Learners When Using Representational and Suggested Sollution 3.1.The difficulties of learners when using representational meaning Due to the abstract, complex characteristics of the representational meaning, the learners particularly the students of English department have the difficulties in the processing of studying and using it in some following cases: 3.1.1. Distinguishing between attributive and identifying: Intensive type of relational processes is rather complex. It comes into two distinct modes: attributive and identifying with characteristic of each mode. Therefore, the learners have difficulties distinguishing between them. E.g.:He is a smart boy. In the above sentence, they misunderstand between two characteristics of attributive and identifying. They particulaly consider a smart boy as a characteristic of identifying but in fact, a mart boy is attributive. It has an indefinite article a, a typical feature of attributive. In addition, the line between the attributive and identifying modes is less clear in the circumstantial than in the intensive type of relational clause. It is less obvious whether an expression such as on the mat designates a class (that has members the class of things that are on the mat) or an identity (the thing that is identified by being on the mat.). 3.1.2. Distinguishing between types of relational processes in the following cases The relational processes have complex, large characteristics. The English system of relational processes operates with three main types: intensive, circumstantial, processive. Each of these come in to distinct modes: Attributive: a is atrribute of x Identifying : a is the identity of x In circumtantial processes atrributive , circumstance is expressed in the form of the attribute and the form of process. In circumstantial processes identify, the circumstance takes the form of a relationship between two entities. The relationship is expressed either as a feature of the participants or as a feature of the process. In possessive processes attributive, the possessive relationship may be expressed either as attribute or as process. In possessive processes identifying, possessive relationship is expressed either as a feature of participants or as a feature of process. With these complex, large charateristics, the learners make mistakes when distinguishing between the types of relational processes. E.g.: Peter has a piano. Peter owns the piano. The learners always make mistakes between 2 two verbs has, owns. They consider them as possessive attribute. But only the verb has is one of possessive attributive, the verb own is the case of possessive -identifying. Therefore, they incorrectly identify entities : carrier attributive, identified identifier. 3.1.3 Distinguishing between mental and behavioural processes: Participant of behavioural processes who is behaving, label

Cathers Death Comes for the Archbishop - A Narrative :: Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop

Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop - A Narrative As I was gathering information on the World Wide Web for my discussion for class, I encountered snippets of the debate as to the classification of Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. Having "thumbed through" a few arguments and some reader responses to her books and having read the work, I have come to a safe conclusion: If Cather would like her book remembered as a narrative, then we should respect her wishes and let it lie at that. The reason? It's not a novel. At least not a good one. Cather can write and what she did in DCA proves her talent. Her descriptions are intriguing and she can paint a wonderful landscape with words that any reader can feel completely encompassed in. Her characters are solid; you love them or hate them and you have a number of reasons to defend your position. All the bits and pieces of DCA are sound. No, the problem is not with her technical style so much as her overall composition. There's no plot. What Cather has essentially given us is a collection of anecdotes about a couple of Catholic priests spreading religion in newly acquired plots of American soil. It's true that by the end of the book, the stories ebb themselves together and remarkably even make a strong impression, however, the last quarter of a book is not the strongest locus to begin a plot. The reader would like a reason or even a clue or mild suggestion as to what the book is going to be about by the time he is half way through it. I was pretty sure it had something to do with those mules as they seemed to work themselves back into the story a number of times. (I was quite positive of this when the one time Father Latour decided not to take his pearl-colored mule on an emergency trip and instead opted for the larger army mule, it died in the snowstorm, thus saving noble Angelica.) Alas, it wasn't about the mules. One loose definition of a narrative is simply the telling of a series of events.