Saturday, September 14, 2019

How far did Stalin’s social policies change

How far did Stalin's social policies change the lives of women and children In the years to 1945? Following Stalin's succession to power in 1929, once again, Russia was transformed. As part of Socialism In One Country, Stalin focussed his intentions internally. This involved the notorious industrialisation and collectivisation drives which were intended to reform the economy. Nevertheless, do so, Stalin realised he would have to create a more ordered and disciplined society.Consequently, as part of the Revolution from Above and what was deemed by Sheila Fitzpatrick as the â€Å"great etreat†, where Stalin turned away from the policies of his predecessor, Stalin embarked on numerous social policies which focussed on the reforms of education and family life. Consequently, Stalin's legislation on the one hand, changed the lives of countless Soviet women and children. Nevertheless, it is also argued that his policies were no similar to previous social legislation under the Tsar an d Lenin.Consequently the extent of change and the significance of Stalins policies remains in Following the Russian revolution, Lenin assumed the Premiership of question. Russia and redefined the social polices experienced by women and children. In terms of policies which affected women and the family, Lenin was comparatively Liberal compared to Tsarist Russia. He considered traditional marriage to be slavery, economic and sexual exploitation. Robert Service has argued that as a result, official spokesmen began to urge wives to refuse to give â€Å"automatic obedience to husbands. Lenin went against previously traditional conservative policy and legalised divorce as well as abortion. Lenin attempted to free women from their domestic roles under Tsarism by requisitioning large scale provision of facilities such as canteens, laundries and cr ©ches as party of what is argued by Corin and Fiehn as the â€Å"socialisation of domestic services. † Although, In retrospect, this po licy was unaffordable, costing well over the national budget and consequently, the socialisation was not universal, reducing overall change.Nevertheless, Lenin did Implement legislation previously unthinkable to allow free love. as well as the creation the Zhenotdel, which gave opportunity for the first time for women to be involved in the running of the state. Additionally, Lenin reformed the education ystem which ultimately Impacted heavily on children. Lenin focussed on an industrial education which made use of apprenticeship schemes, but to the detriment of a broad education. Yet, also as part of his liberalising of once Tsarist Russia, he took the power to discipline away from teachers and scrapped the examination and homework methods of education.He also denounced all university lectures as members of the bourgeoisie and members of a hostile class in the education was more liberal than anything previous children had ever seen. Under Stalin, the changing of social policies and their effect on women were numerous. Stalin as part of industrialisation put greater emphasis on Job opportunities for women, by 1940 for example, nearly 41% of heavy industry workers were women. Although, in retrospect, women were still underpaid, receiving only 60-65% of a mans salary in the same Job, reducing overall change.Nevertheless, in contrast to Lenin and Tsarist Russia, Stalin put even greater focus on educational opportunities for women, increasing places for the number of women in colleges and universities. Although, again, these courses were purely focussed on industry, reducing overall change from Lenin. Although, as part of urbanisation, women btained greater opportunities to work in agriculture and by 1945, 80% of workers on the collectives were female. Stalin also placed even greater emphasis on propaganda compared to Lenin and employed the Stakhanov spirit in the female working environment to ensure maximum potential.Women also saw greater opportunities to serve i n the armed forces and by 1945, half a million Soviet Women had served. However, Stalin did abolish the Zhenotdel, formed under Lenin, reducing women's ability to be involved in the running of the state once again, as under Tsarism, reducing the breath of change in overall opportunity. Additionally, Lynch argues that he increase in women into the armed forces, whilst increased their equality, increased their likelihood of â€Å"mistreatment† and â€Å"sexual abuse†, especially by senior officers.This bears similarity to pre-Leninism where abuse of women was commonplace, reducing overall significance of Stalin's social policies effect on changing the lives of women for the better. Although, the state under Stalin compensated the abuse of women in the home itself by introducing a series of social polices which championed the revival of marriage. For example, the state now promoted marriage, legalising wedding rings which had previously been made illegal nder Lenin. Stali n in contrast to Lenin who legalised divorce, limited the availability to end a marriage.This has the effect of reducing the number of women and children becoming impoverished, under Lenin and his policy of free love. Women and children would no longer be left to fend for themselves if a husband chose to divorce. Local Party officials would in addition seek out any husbands who absconded from their marital obligations ensuring this change would be successful and significant. Women were also encouraged more to increase their reproductivity. This was due to greater amounts of women in work as part of industrialisation.Stalin introduced incentives to women with a certain amount of children-7 would gain 2,0000 roubles per year for 5 consecutive years. However, this increased the likelihood of pressure being put on women from their male counterparts to terminate their babies as had been the case when Lenin previously legalised abortion, suggesting a reduction in overall change for the be tter. Although, Stalin did put in place laws to punish such offence with two years imprisonment and made termination illegal.However, ultimately the banning of abortion was an infringement on civil liberties, similar to that of Tsarism, reducing verall change. Additionally, Stalin reverted back to the traditional role of the women in the home. Whilst his changes meant they could work and could receive state support and were compensated by his promotion of the Women's Activists Movement their own family as a â€Å"good Communist† should rather than socialise the entire family as Lenin argued. Stalin therefore reverted back to the traditional view of the purpose of women. He however, gave them two roles.Essentially, as Geoffrey Hosking argues â€Å"the fruits of female emancipation became the building blocks of the Stalinists neopatriarchal society. In terms of Stalins social policies and it's effects on children for the better, they are arguably of less significance. Whilst S talin continued to run the education system via the state as Lenin condoned, Stalin controlled the education of children to a precedent unseen before. Stalin condoned the more extensive regulation of education in order to shape the next younger generation of society, whom could be easily influenced, into the Communist way of thinking.This was seen most notably in 1935, when Stalin brought the original Tsars Imperial Academy, or Soviets Academy of Sciences under direct state control forcing ersonnel to produce work only in line with Stalinist views. Stalin also reintroduced discipline into children's lives, giving power back to teachers which had previously been taken away under Lenin. He also further tightened the regulations imposed on children in terms of appearance, such as school uniforms, to surpass Lenin's attempts to create a truly egalitarian society.Stalin also changed the material in lessons, introducing a new curriculum in 1935 which was created by the state which was acc ompanied by State prescribed textbooks through which children would now earn; a valuable method in the influencing of the next generation of socialists. Although, in retrospect, it could be argued that state influence in children's education was not a vast change. Lenin himself had requisitioned a book entitled A Brief History of Russia by Bolshevik Pokrovsky which was acquired as the Soviet School Text Book. Although, state influence in education under Lenin was rather in terms of class struggle.Stalin changed this to an overall insight into the positive age of the Russian past, focussing on fgures such as Peter the Great. He also made it compulsory along ith homework and exams to in fact go to school. Whereas Lenin saw it as a mere obligation to learn the basic aspects of reading and writing, Stalin saw education as essential in breeding a new generation of productive and capable workers and consequently provided free schooling for the first time time up to the age of 15. For exam ple, between 1929 and 1940, the number of children attending school rose from 12 to 35 million.Although, in retrospect, whilst there were grants, most parents of children in secondary education were still expected to pay and certainly could not ttend higher education without such a financial contribution, reducing overall change in terms of opportunity for children. This change is made more insignificant by the fact that ironically, whilst the Russian revolutionaries had poured scorn on the bourgeoisie governing elites that monopolised power previously, Stalin continued to produce an equivalent and did not change this hypocrisy.Party officials were allowed the right for their children to have the best training to give them access to higher education and were often given the best places, similar to the Tsarist elite, and going against Lenin. For example, in the period from 1928-1932, a third of all undergraduates were Party nominees. Essentially, Stalin did not change the existence o f a ruling class which allowed their children to dominate the education system. Lynch even argues that, â€Å"it enhanced Stalins power by creating a class of his creatures. In conclusion, essentially, Stalin did make extensive changes in social polices which effected the lives of countless women and children. Authority, discipline and effort were now championed in a drive to become a truly independent Socialist State. In terms of children and their education, Stalin, although he continued ith state intervention, undeniably made changes to allow compulsory education to all which made the literacy rate rise significantly from 51% in 1926 to 88% in 1940, allowing a new breed of educated workers to run the economy.However, Stalins changes to the lives of children are however inevitably undermined by the fact that he did nothing to prevent an intelligentsia forming once again which was allowed to dominate the nomenklatura. Not only was education still streamlined as it had been under L enin and even under Tsarism in the universities, but ordinary children were till prevented from top posts and were confined to be â€Å"cogs† in the industrialisation process.

Linguistics and Language Teaching.

Grammatical mistakes made by non- native English language speakers. Introduction Language  may refer either to the specifically  human  capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of  communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called  linguistics. Linguistic theory has traditionally considered native speakers as the only reliable source of linguistic data (Chomsky 1965). It is therefore not surprising to ? nd only a limited number of works focusing on non-native speakers prior to the 1990s.The ? rst attempt to put‘(non)nativism’ onto the centre stage of linguistic inquiry by challenging current undisputed assumptions on the  matter was Paikeday’s (1985) The native speaker is dead  , in which it is argued that the native speaker ‘exists only as a ? gment of linguist’s imagination’ (Paikeday 1985: 12). Paikeday suggested using the term ‘pro? cient user’ of a language to refer to all speakers who can successfully use it. A few years later, Rampton (1990) similarly proposed the term ‘expert speaker’ to include all successful users of a language.Davies (1991, 2003) further delved into ‘native speaker’ identity, and thus formulated the key question of whether a second language (L2) learner can become a native speaker of the target language. His conclusion was that L2 learners can become native speaker of the target language and master the intuition, grammar, spontaneity, creativity, pragmatic control, and interpreting quality of ‘born’ native speakers. Generally, English educated Malaysians of all ethnic and family language background speak and move alike.However, with the implementation of the national language policy of Bahasa Malaysia  as the national language of Malaysia and as the language of instruction, (except in the cases of Chinese or Tamil medium pr imary schools), the status of English Language in Malaysia is different from the earlier years. The English language covered a continuum from first language through second language to a foreign language. Bahasa Malaysia  is replacing English in most of its previous functions, but English may be expected to remain as a continuum from second language to foreign language according to the background and occupation of the speaker.In Malaysia, presently the use of English is less common than in Singapore and is likely to decrease steadily with the implementation of the national language policy. However, English still remains as a language of considerable importance and is still being used in various spheres of everyday activity. The role of English has changed from its earlier status as the precise language of the colonial era and the decades after the Second World War to a second language.At the moment, it is still considered as an international code to be used for diplomatic and comme rcial negotiations and as a language necessary in many fields of tertiary study and research. Not surprisingly, the non-native English language speakers among Malaysians make grammatical mistakes from time to time. These usually happened among Malaysian adult students and even among some Malaysian English teachers. 1. The transcript of a recorded conversation. The following excerpt is a recorded conversation among teachers and will be analysed of the mistakes made by some teachers during discussion.Our discussion was on the quality and effectiveness of a programme called ‘Program Penutur Jati’ or English Language Teacher Development Project (ELTP). Briefly, the aim of the project is to enhance the lower primary ESL teachers’ ability to plan and deliver quality English lessons based on the new National English Language Curriculum in 600 schools across East Malaysia. The teachers involved in discussion come from various races, ethnic groups, ages and teaching exper iences. Kamel : That is my opinion. I don’t know yours. Ok. Chairperson : I agree †¦. augh Kamel : But , as I said just now. I don’t like that the fixture.. ok. For example aaaa as my mentor come to our school .. every Monday ok.. my class start at nine o’clock†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 7. 30.. that mean one and half hour include the preparation for my lesson, so I don’t think that I have an ample time for me to prepare the things†¦ ok . Moreover, the one hour and one and half hour is the .. for all to prepare.. the whole week not only , the one day. So I don’t think that will be effective. Chairperson: Emmmm Kamel : So Chairperson : Did you tell him about it?Kamel: Aaaaaa†¦ So far not yet. Chairperson : Do you have the chance to talk about it. Kamel : Because, I don’t have any.. I don’t have the opportunity to.. Chairperson : Then, you should tell him. Kamel ; I was thinking. Why don’t the mentors like them to be .. have q ualification in teaching, so that they can come to the trainee teachers training college rather than†¦ Chairperson : For your information, ahh Chairperson : Overall, it seems to be working with you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Naga : The ideas (cough)†¦ is good and different†¦ he is friendly. Chairperson : So.. ahh.If supposing .. You have a mentor to this.. who doesn’t speak.. doesn’t speak like Morrocan. Alright Naemah : Yehhh Chairperson: Right.. Alright, if.. Chairperson: Who? Chairperson : Madam Soya? She is from where? Others : Bulgaria.. (together) Chairperson : Bulgaria? Does she have the accent? Chairperson: What do you think? Do you think†¦ | 2. Common grammatical mistakes and errors by non-native English speakers. The types of errors can be categorised into two: descriptive and surface structures. Descriptive errors include noun phrase, verb phrase and complex sentence.While surface structure errors include omission, addition, misinformati on, misordering and blends. After analysing the recorded conversation, there are few mistakes or errors made by Mr. Kamel during the said discussion. a. The use of unmarked forms instead of marked forms is far more frequent, as can be seen in the examples as follows. * I don’t know yours. * I don’t know about you. * .. as I said just now. * .. as I have said just now. One possible cause of these errors is merely interlingual errors which is the result of mother tongue influences ‘Saya tak tahu awak punya’ and ‘†¦ seperti yang saya kata tadi. respectively. In his article, ‘A Role for the Mother Tongue’ in ‘Language Transfer in Language Learning’, Professor Corder (1981) reinvestigated the phenomenon and questions the term ‘transfer’. He suggests that mother tongue influence as a neutral and broader term to refer to what has most commonly been called transfer. Corder says that since most studies of error were made on the basis of the performance of learners in formal situations where it appears that errors related to mother tongue are more frequent, it was natural that an explanation of the phenomenon was of considerable concern to the applied linguistic.It was out of this concern that the whole industry of contrastive studies arose. He also claims that as far as the acquisition of syntactic knowledge is concerned, no process appropriately called interference takes place, if by that we mean that the mother tongue actually inhibits, prevents, or makes more difficult the acquisition of some feature of the target language. The term ‘interference’ is now most often used to mean what is no more than the presence in the learner‘s performance in the target language of mother-tongue-like features which are incorrect according to the rules of the target language. b.Obviously. Mr. Kamel has the problem in pronouncing certain words especially in the pronunciation of the initial sound of common words like the, there, then and that. It is also the middle consonant sound in feather and the final sound of bathe. These sounds are formed with the tongue tip behind the upper front teeth. The initial sound of that and the final sound of both are both voiceless dental. This problem arises because Mr Kamel’s tongue is not merely touches the teeth. Thus, his pronunciation of these particular words are incorrect. Besides, difficulty in phonology can caused by mother tongue interference.Eltrug (1984) affirmed that mother tongue interference can contribute to a large number of pronunciation errors made by students. An English sound does exist in the native language, but not as separate phonemes. This simply means the first language speakers do not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes difference to meaning. For example The sound /? / does exist in Malay, but whether the vowel is long or short does not make any difference in meaning. For instance, the English phonemes/? / and /i:/ differ very much in meaning as in the words ‘leave’ and ‘live’, ‘sheep’ and ‘ship’.The great amount of vocabulary of English really makes the second language learner suffer in reading. There is a lot of words unknown and the most confusing point is even the second language learner know the meaning but they can’t really understand the meaning of the whole sentence. It is because an English word gives different impressions in different situations. This makes things so confusing about the meaning of the word. Grammatical interference is defined as the first language influencing the second in terms of word order, use of pronouns and determinants, tense and mood.Interference at a lexical level provides for the borrowing of words from one language and converting them to sound more natural in another and orthographic interference includes the spelling of one language altering another. In Malay grammar, it doe s not require one to have any form of determiner in front of instruments like computer, piano, internet. English grammar, however, requires the instruments mentioned above (computer, piano, internet) to be preceded by determiners and if neither a possessive determiner nor a demonstrative determiner is used, the use of either a definite article or an indefinite article is necessary.Thus, the ungrammatical sentences in could be the result of interference of the cultural transfer from Malay language structure on English. Erroneous form| Correct form| She plays piano while I sing. Malay: Dia bermain piano sementara saya menyanyi. | She plays the piano while I sing | She stay at home. Malay : Dia tinggal di rumah | She stays at home. | Table 1 : Examples of interference from the learners’ first language. c.Subjects also exhibited errors in subject-verb agreement as is shown in the examples as follows: * Every Monday, my class start at nine o’clock†¦. * Every Monday, my class starts at nine o’clock†¦. The omission of â€Å"-s† can be attributed to the fact that Bahasa Malaysia does not require verbs to agree with subjects. However, the ending free form is generalised for all persons to make the learning task easier and this is a common intralingual made by people with diverse native languages like Mr Kamel. 3. Causes and sources of errors and mistakes Interlingual errors  are the result of mother tongue influences.Learners transfer/borrow some forms but not others due to two factors such as proto-typicality and language distance (Kellerman, 1979). Malay learners of English commonly make errors in negative sentences. For example: Adryna no coming today. [Adryna tak datang hari ini. ] Such errors are common in pre-verbal negation using  no, the same negative construction as in their L1. In order to determine whether transfer is the cause for the occurrence of errors, James (1998), demonstrates that learners with a particular L 1 make an error that those with a different L1 do not.He provides a useful summary of these strategies which includes the following; a. False analogy b. Misanalysis c. Incomplete rule application exploiting redundancy d. Overlooking co-occurrence restrictions e. System-simplification It is not clear which strategy is responsible for a particular error. Errors can also be viewed as ‘natural’ or as ‘induced’. For example: a. He  played  football yesterday. b. He  goed  home at six. c. He  drinked  milk. d. He  eated  dinner. e. He  sleeped  at eight. ConclusionTo conclude, learners’ errors are a part of the learners’ language learning process. Hence, teachers should not penalise students for the errors they made. Instead, teachers should note those errors and devise ways to assist learners to overcome their problems in language learning. It is difficult to decide whether grammatically or acceptability should serve as the crit erion for error analysis. If grammatically is chosen, an error can be defined as ‘breach of the rule of the code’ (Corder, 1967).Defining errors in terms of grammatically also necessitates giving consideration to the distinction between overt and covert error: In the field of methodology, there are two schools of thought with regard to learners’ error. Firstly, the school which maintains that if we were to achieve a perfect teaching method, the errors would have never be committed and therefore the occurrence of errors is merely a sign of inadequacy in our teaching techniques. The philosophy of the second school is that we live in an imperfect world and consequently errors will always occur in spite of our very best teaching and learning ethods. One effect has been perhaps to shift the emphasis away from a preoccupation with teaching towards a study of learning. The differences between the two are clearly defined: that the learning of the mother tongue is natural , whereas, we all know that there is no such inevitability about the learning of a second language; that the learning of the mother tongue is part of the whole maturational process of the child, whilst learning a second language normally begins only after the maturational process is complete.A child’s incorrect utterances can be interpreted as being evidence that he is in the process of acquiring language and the errors provide these evidences. Brown and Frazer (1964), point out that the best evidence a child possesses construction rules is the occurrence of systematic errors, since when the child speaks correctly, it is quite possible that he is only repeating something that he has heard. In the case of the second language learner, it is known that we do know some knowledge of what the input has been which we call as the syllabus.The simple fact of presenting a certain linguistic form to a learner in the classroom does not necessarily qualify it for the status of input, for the reason that input ‘is what goes in’, not ‘what is available’ for going in, and we may reasonably suppose that it is the learner who controls this input. This may well be determined by the characteristics of his language acquisition mechanism and not by those of the syllabus. References Mariam Mohd Nor, Abdul Halim Ibrahim, Shubbiah, R (2008). OUM-Linguistics and Language Teaching. Seri Kembangan, Selangor.Open University Malaysia. Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners’ errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics,  5, 161-70. Corder, S. P. (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ames, C. (1998). Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis. London: Longman. Kellerman, E. (1979). Transfer and non-transfer: Where are we now? Studies in Second Language Acquisition,  2: 37-57. Eltrug, N. S. (1984). Analysis of the Arab Learners' Errors in Pronunciation of English Utterances i n Isolation and Context.Ph. D Dissertation. The University of Kansas. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of  the theory of  syntax  . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Paikeday, T. (1985). The native speaker is dead! Toronto: Paikeday Publishing. Rampton, M. B. H. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, af? liation, and inheritance. ELT  Ã‚  Journal   44. 2, 97–101. Davies, A. (1991). The  native speaker in  applied linguistics  . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Davies, A. (2003). The native speaker of World Englishes. Journal of Pan-Paci? c Association of Applied  Linguistics   6. 1, 43–60

Friday, September 13, 2019

Basic Hazardous Waste Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Basic Hazardous Waste Management - Essay Example It is clear that there is a need to remove petroleum products and refill the well with pure water for human consumption as they are hazardous in nature (Blackman, 2001). The key and first issue, in this case, is to determine the level of hazard in these tanks and the well of water. This should be done after evaluation of various factors. Experts in the petroleum industry will be involved in this case to determine whether by any chance that the content in these tanks can have some economic value and hazards they may contain. Secondly, it would be an important decision to determine whether the tanks can still be in use as storage or they have some hazards such as linkages. This will assist in making a decision on whether the tanks will be replaced. Thirdly, it is important to ensure that all required procedures for disposal of such substances. It is important to obtain the required hazardous waste disposal permit from an authorized body. This will assist in the determination of where and how to dispose of the content in these tanks and in the water well.

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Critical Reasoning (The Personal Characteristics that enable leaders Essay

Critical Reasoning (The Personal Characteristics that enable leaders to be Effective ) - Essay Example Thesis: effective leadership is based on different features and not only professional features are important, but also personal characteristics matter a lot. Employees are members of a team, who are able to implement innovative and creative ideas of a leader. Consequently, there is a need for stable and trustful relations between them. Taking into account modern researches and studies in business filed, it is evident that the main attention of researchers and scientists concerns effective leadership. Elving (2005) claims that effective leader can establish changes by means of communication. Basically, the employees are not ready for changes and perceive innovations or changes from a negative perspective. It is on behalf of the effective leader to enable employees to accept organizational changes. In accordance with Elving, there are five basic steps to be taken by leaders: a humane attitude to employees; communication in a friendly and a simple atmosphere; individual treatment for every employee; joking and easy-going manner of communication. In this case, changes and innovations in organizations are perceived â€Å"as is†, because organizational changes will be perceived as self-evident (Bovey 2001, p. 536). Caldwell (2003) claims that â€Å"leaders are transformed managers† (Caldwell 2003, p. 285). Change managers embody ideas and practices of change leaders. Actually, effective leaders invent and embody organizational changes and effective managers have implemented these actions at different organizational levels. Nevertheless, there are different leaders in the Western and the Eastern worlds. Consequently, in order to determine the effective leadership and change management in the Eastern world and Western world, it is relevant to take into account cultural and social peculiarities of different businesses, which are rooted in historic contexts of

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Korean Movie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Korean Movie - Essay Example The connection between the two movies was very obvious, I do not know if the director retained on purpose the actors who played Kim Yu Shin and the farmer guy, but the continuity was even more felt because of this. I enjoyed the Kim Yu Shin character because he was already crazy in Battle of Hwangsanbeol and even funnier in Pyongyang Castle. But even if he was portrayed as a funny guy, I saw how he became Korea’s hero based on the things he did from the two movies. The moral of the story of Pyongyang Castle was different from that of the Battle of Hwangsanbeol. Pyongyang Castle was more of a love story and showed the love for family, compared to the other movie, which showed that honor and name of the family is the most important thing in the Korean culture, even if honor will be gained through death. Overall, the movie Pyongyang Castle was entertaining and informative at the same time because it showed a glimpse of the Korean history and the colorful culture that it has. The movie portrayed good moral and family values, even if the theme was about war. After watching the movie, I thought of having my friends watch the movie also, because I found it worth-watching though they have to make do with the subtitles just like I

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The entry strategy mode for NEXT to Expand into China Essay

The entry strategy mode for NEXT to Expand into China - Essay Example Their sufficient answers equipped me with in-depth knowledge and better understanding of NEXT Plc, the fashion industry, and the Chinese clothing market. Their shared knowledge enabled me to critically analyse the issue in consideration. NEXT Plc is the UK third-largest clothing retailer operating through 400 retail stores across the UK and Ireland, more than 50 stores in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_plc). It is a prominent retailer, whose strategy is aimed at capturing new markets through global expansion. This research project investigates the current literature on the internationalisation process and reviews alternative modes of market entry strategy. Various primary and secondary sources provide the necessary data to sufficiently asses the internal health and the external market of NEXT PLC. These data are then carefully analysed in order to gauge the company's capability to expand internationally. Alternative expansion options are evaluated and recommended for the company's successful expansion into the Chinese market. The research concludes that the Chinese market is a fertile ground for the expansion of a foreign apparel retailer. However, the existence of various environmental, industry specific-forces, and the current resources limitations of the Inditex group, requires the establishment and employment of an optimal expansion strategy. It should be noted that due to certain limitations imposed by environmental and internal factors, the findings of this research cannot be utilized in terms of all market expansions, although they can be amply used as an example for further theory building in the area related to the Chinese market entry and expansion strategies. Table of Contents 1.1 Background to Study The rapid growth of the textile industry in China which is facilitated by the continuous economic reforms, improving living standards, and increasing demand conditions has been widely recognized (USINFO, 2004). Furthermore, the emergence of the Chinese middle class gives way to the development of a very attractive and large market (Wang et al., 2004). However, the earlier attempts to enter the Chinese market reveal that various multinational corporations (MNCs) have not fully gained adequate knowledge of the population. Their generalisations have underestimated Chinese consumers by treating them as a homogeneous group (Jagersma & Van Gorp, 2003). In reality, China's unique political andsocial environment creates a very fragmented market with the existence of various segments (Wang et al., 2004). 1.2 Research Aim and Objectives Based on the findings of the study, the researcher will attempt to draw recommendations for NEXT PLC on its entry and expansion to the Chinese market. Several objectives are set to support the research process: Define and investigate present and future key environmental factors present in the Chinese market which are likely to affect the performance and success of NEXT Plc should it decide to operate in the geographic region; Assess the financial and strategic capability of NEXT Plc to expand in the new market; Evaluate alternatives for the successful market expansion and identify main issues involved; and Recommend the best option

Monday, September 9, 2019

Image of masculinity through tv program such as two and a half men, Research Paper

Image of masculinity through tv program such as two and a half men, - Research Paper Example a. Charlie Sheen  as  Charlie Harper  (season 1–8)- the archetype of hedonistic bachelor to the mould of Hugh Hefner of Playboy. In the sitcom, Charlie works as jingle/children songwriter and makes more money than his brother Alan who is always in dire straits due to the alimony that he has to pay to his wife Judith. Charlie is the dominant male figure in the sitcom. b. Jon Cryer  as  Alan Harper – Alan’s character articulates soft version of masculinity although it was portrayed as subordinate to the hedonistic type of masculinity with Charlie’s inordinate sarcasm and banter with Alan. c. Angus T. Jones  as Jake Harper – Jake portrays the underachieving son of Alan and Judith. Although Jake is Alan’s son, Jake mirrors the behavior of his uncle Charlie more than his father Alan. The character of Jake provides the subtle approval of Charlie’s hedonistic behavior in the sitcom. Masculinity has always been associated with a powerful social position that is based on class, race, and sexuality, wage structure and other parameters of manhood that spells dominance. This is reinforced through gender order within societies where men are usually ranked as more powerful and more prestigious than others. Although most of this stereotyping is structured through men’s dominance over women or the latter’s dependence on men, it can also be the case of male dominance over other males with other males also dependent to the dominant male. This structure is also present in the animal kingdom with the presence of the Alpha Male. The three characters in the television sitcom Two and a Half Men  makes an interesting case about images of masculinity in contemporary American society. Each of the characters performs their role and acts them out in accordance with how such character relates to the world and how it perceives the world. Often, the expression of