Detroitism

Historical Oblivion John Patrick Leary’s essay, Detroitism  explores the most common rhetoric that Detroit as a city and a symbol often falls  victim  to the validity of ‘ruin porn’ which attempts to document but often exploits its history. Leary is an  American literature teacher  at Wayne State University in Detroit. His essay explores in-depth the shallowness of popular ruin pornographers, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, photographs from their book, The Ruins of Detroit,  as well as other popular photographers.He also  outlines the three â€Å"Detroit Stories,† which are typical  attitudes  regarding Detroit news and media discussion. He intends to reveal a point he thinks is of reasonable importance to readers’. His essay is one with a valid message. However it can be difficult to understand exactly what he means at times as he shifts from criticism to defence of the photographers he mentions, which can sometime confuse them in to getting to different conclusions. Nevertheless, he does eventually secure a crucial point that stands out to most readers.According to John Patrick Leary, â€Å"Detroit remains the Mecca of urban ruins. † Leary notes that ruin photography is often deemed â€Å"pornographic,† and questions how photographs of a crumbling city can really tell us why that city crumbles. Where ruin photography succeeds is â€Å"in compelling us† to ask the questions necessary to put this story together—Detroit’s story, but also the increasingly familiar story of urban America in an era of prolonged economic crisis. He adjusts his writing in an effort to unveil a different view of Detroit’s past to the readers.In Leary’s view, most people are completely blinded by the fascination conveyed in the photographs and are unaware of the events that actually took place in the city. One example of ruin-porn Leary chooses to criticize is an extract from The Britis h filmmaker Julien Temple’s   Ã¢â‚¬ËœDetroit: The Last Days’: â€Å"In their shadows, the glazed eyes of the street zombies slide into view, stumbling in front of the car. Our excitement at driving into what feels like a man-made hurricane Katrina is matched only by sheer disbelief that what was once the fourth-largest city in the U. S. ould actually be in the process of disappearing from the face of the earth. † Leary describes this style as the locally denounced â€Å"ruin porn,† as all the elements are present: the exuberant connoisseurship of dereliction; the unembarrassed rejoicing at the â€Å"excitement† of it all, hastily balanced by the liberal posturing of sympathy for a â€Å"man-made Katrina;† and most importantly, the absence of people other than those he calls, cruelly, â€Å"street zombies. † Leary’s point is that the city and its people aren’t properly mentioned for they mean nothing to Detroit authors; their only interest is to come up with something readers find fascinating.This is exactly what Leary disapproves of and is the main purpose of his essay. According to Leary, no photograph can adequately identify the origins for Detroit’s contemporary ruination; all it can represent is the spectacular wreckage left behind in the present, after decades of deindustrialization, housing discrimination, suburbanization, drug violence, municipal corruption and incompetence, highway construction, and other forms of urban renewal that have taken their terrible tolls.The point behind his writing is to, at which to some extent he succeeds, change the reader’s view of Detroit by explaining the reality of the city’s past and allowing readers to imagine themselves in the past citizens’ unpleasant positions, at the time of the city’s downfall. John mentions what is most unsettling to him—but also most troubling—in Moore’s photos is their res istance to any narrative content or explication.For example, he describes Moore’s shot of a grove of birch trees growing out of rotting books in a warehouse as being a sign of Detroit’s stubborn persistence, and that it could easily be a visual joke on the city’s supposed intellectual and physical decrepitude, a bad joke that does not need repeating. Leary seems to disapprove of every photographer he mentions but only to some extent. What he thinks makes this subgenre of urban expose particularly contemporary, though, is the historical and economic phenomenon it struggles to represent, a phenomenon the newness of which few of us can adequately comprehend.He tries to break things down to make it easier to understand his reasoning. Another issue Leary discusses is how the city fascinates as it is a condensed, emphatic example of the trials of so many American cities in an era of globalization, which has brought with it intensified economic instability and seemingl y intractable joblessness. The implied message here is that people don’t realize that they themselves are at risk of sharing Detroit’s fate caused by economic struggles we face today. It’s a clear example of how that term, these days at least, increasingly looks like an optimistic delusion.Leary thinks it may have always been this way, and shows that he’s not satisfied. In viewing  Detroit Disassembled  and  The Ruins of Detroit, according to Leary, one is conscious of nothing so much as failure of the city itself. Neither do the photographs communicate anything more than that self-evident fact. It is difficult to see through the pictures to discover the past. This is the meta-irony of these often ironic pictures: Though they trade on the peculiarity of Detroit as living ruin, these are pictures of historical oblivion.Leary emphasizes that Detroit figures as either a nightmare image of the American Dream, where equal opportunity and abundance came t o die, or as an updated image of it, where people from expansive coastal cities can have the one-hundred-dollar house and community garden of their dreams. Although not directly mentioned, it is clear that this essay was not written only for the sake of Detroit, but rather to introduce a more realistic view of the world, one that Leary thinks the most people misunderstand.Leary tries to support his personal perspective with examples of situations that seem almost identical, providing more opportunities for readers to grab his ideas. It seems he’s so determined to making sure the reader grabs the accurate idea of the events in his writing that he, although it’s not very noticeable, uses guilt to persuade the reader about what he considers to be wrong views of Detroit’s past, which does not work in every approach.This may be due to the drawn conclusion of Leary trying to change the reader, which is understandably taken in disapproval, as readers like to have their own thoughts on implied matters in a reading. Most readers like to be entertained instead of being informed, although it is those readers who need to be informed. This doesn’t mean that his writing is offensive; it just isn’t balanced in a way that makes sense to everyone. At the end of his essay, Leary lessens his criticism about the photography and actually states what they do right. He starts to show a bit of appreciation as well.At that point, he starts to explain his analysis of the photographers’ work as incomplete. He mentions how Photographers like Moore, Marchand, and Meffre succeed in compelling us to ask the questions necessary to put this story together, Detroit’s story, but also the increasingly-familiar story of urban America in an era of prolonged economic crisis. He believes that the fact that they themselves fail to do so testifies not only to the limitations of any still image, but our collective failure to imagine what Detroit’s future, our collective urban future, holds for us all.The decontextualized aesthetics of ruin make them pictures of nothing and no place in particular. Detroit in these artists’ work is a mass of unique details that fails to tell a complete story. â€Å"But it’s a bit more than that,† Leary says, as he tries to explain that their photographs aren’t necessarily wrong, but rather that they are missing an important side of Detroit’s history, one that is crucial to our understanding of its future.

Improve Own Practice in Learning and Development Essay

Why L&D practitioners must engage in reflective practice and continue CPD. Analyse own values, beliefs and attitudes and the impact on their practice. Engaging in Reflective practice is associated with the improvement of the quality of care, stimulating personal, professional growth and the closing gap between theory between theory and practice. J Dewey was among the first to consider the questions of psychology and the theory of knowledge, I liked Brookfield (1998) as his concept explained discussing and talking and contemplating through the learner’s eyes. The appeal of the use of reflective practice is that as teaching and learning are complex, and there is not one right approach, reflecting on different versions of teaching, and reshaping past and current experiences will lead to improvement. Schà ¶n’s (1983) reflection–in-action assists practitioners in making the professional knowledge that they will gain from their experience in the classroom an explicit part of their decision-making. Research base practices strongly supports the importance of the teacher/ facilitator being a highly trained, reflective professional. The importance of reflecting on what you are doing, as part of the learning process, has also been empathised by many investigators, for example the second stage of Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle, reflective observation. Reflective observation can be an important tool in practice based professional learning settings where individuals learning from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal teaching or knowledge transfer, maybe the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. Another way to look at it is through Lewin/Kolb’s single-loop learning, and the Argyris and Schà ¶n concept double-loop learning which were mapped from the works of Ashby (1960) while working on cybernetics. Single-loop learning is like a thermostat that learns when it is too hot or too cold and turns the heat on or off. The thermostat can perform this task because it can receive information (the temperature of the room) and take  corrective action. Double-loop learning occurs when an error is detected and corrected in ways that involve the modification of an organization’s underlying norms, policies and objectives. Double loop learning uses feedback from past actions to question assumptions underlying current views. Davies (2012) explained the benefits to reflective practice Increased learning from an experience for situation Promotion of deep learning Identification of personal and professional strengths and areas for improvement Identification of educational needs Acquisition of new knowledge and skills Further understanding of own beliefs, attitudes and values Encouragement of self-motivation and self-directed learning Could act as a source of feedback Possible improvements of personal and clinical confidence . There are a number of ways to monitor your performance regularly, capturing incidental/experienced learning by keeping a self-reflective journal, by reading it over and over again I can begin to analyse achievements however small they seem and develop a greater level of self-awareness. This is where I try to recognise the needs to enhance my own learning so that a bigger benefit for the learner to progress and achieve something in their future. Firstly I identified my own preferred learning style as everyone learns in different ways. There are many ways to establish your preferred way of learning and as supported by Reece and Walker (2009), â€Å"All students are individuals and no two students learn the same way†. To move forward in life, we all need to improve our ideas, broaden relevant knowledge and skills. Getting constructive feedback (for example, learners, peers, mentors and colleagues) are important aspects of reflection. Performance indicators of the organisation are identified, it shows whether I am current with the ways of facilitating and is it having an impact on learners. It will also show how I am performing, what is going well and where I need training or guidance i.e.  learning Microsoft office at college, enabling me to have computing vocational skills. Utilising the S.W.O.T analysis where I am able to identify my strengths: Supportive Judicious Communication skills Imaginative and observant I am able to identify my weaknesses: Inability to refrain from helping Being too talkative Too altruistic This ensures me I am performing to the best that I can and that I am meeting all the standards and expectations within the organisations policies and procedures. The guidance of a mentor is an advantage for they have had similar experiences and understanding of their issues with self-development. There will be times when I will need support and advice to move my career forward and achieve life goals, so it is best to have an effective relationship. Some factors that help to build an effective relationship; Mutual respect Honesty and direct communication Acceptance and flexibility Commitment Trust Some shared values Willingness, to work through obstacles â€Å"Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills,  improve their performance and become the person they want to be† (E Parsole, The oxford school of coaching & mentoring) I believe that all individuals are created equally, thus all have the ability to learn equally. Resisting from a classroom culture of control, with the correct amount of care and tutoring, learners would be able to participate in classes with simplified understanding. Providing adequate feedback is an important aspect, I always try to rephrase a question with learners so not only do they understand and try to answer correctly, they feel great when they receive feedback which motivates them to learn. When I provide learners with time and space to be aware of their own knowledge and their own thinking, student ownership increases. Research shows that metacognition can be taught (Visible Learning, 2009). Using reflective practice I am able to instil values that the learner can use in their life and work.

South America

Introduction The continent of South America has about one-eighth of the Earth's land surface, situated between latitudes 12 °N-55 °S and longitudes 80 °-35 °W; no other continent has a greater latitudinal span. Eighty percent of its land mass is within the tropical zone, yet it extends into the subantarctic. The extensive zones of temperate and cold climates in the vicinity of the Equator, in the Andes, are unique. The land area of about 17,519,900-17,529,250 km? is under the jurisdiction of 13 countries (Table 49); French Guiana is governed as an overseas department of France.The region's 1995 population of c. 320 million people is estimated to reach 452 million people in 2025. Three of the world's 21 megacities are in South America: Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro (WRI, UNEP and UNDP 1994). Geological setting Although the neotropics may be conveniently considered as a single phytogeographic unit, the region is geologically complex. The neotropics include not only the South American continental plate but the southern portion of the North American plate, as well as the independent Caribbean plate (Clapperton 1993).The complicated geological history of the region, for example as these plates intermittently separated and collided through the Cretaceous and the Tertiary, provides the milieu within which plant evolution has been superimposed. South America has been an island continent during most of the period of angiosperm evolution, whereas Central America constitutes one of the two tropical parts of the Laurasian â€Å"world continent†. Both South America and North America have been moving westward, roughly in tandem, since the breakup of Pangaea in the Mesozoic.In contrast, the Antillean plate with its flotsam of Antillean islands formed only during the Cenozoic and has moved in a retrograde eastern direction, at least with respect to its larger neighbours. Whereas South America and North America have been widely separated through most of their geological histories, there has been generally increasing contact between them through most of the Cenozoic, culminating in their coalescence with formation of the Isthmus of Panama c. 3. 1 million years ago (Keigwin 1978).The date of this epochal event in neotropical geological history has been gradually estimated to be younger, with estimates of 5. 7 million years ago giving way to as recently as 1. 8 million years ago (Keller, Zenker and Stone 1989). In addition to their Pleistocene connection via the Isthmus of Panama, South America and North America apparently were more or less directly interconnected via the protoAntilles for a short time near the end of the Cretaceous, prior to formation of the Caribbean plate (Buskirk 1992).The outstanding geological feature of South America is the Andes, the longest mountain range in the world, which extends in a nearly straight line of over 7000 km from the north to the southern tip of the continent. The Andes have the highest mo untain in the Western Hemisphere, the highest mountain in the world's tropics, and as measured from the centre of the Earth (rather than metres above sea-level), the highest mountain in the world.The most important break in the north-south sweep of the â€Å"cordillera† is the Huancabamba Depression in northern Peru, where the eastern chain of the cordillera is entirely ruptured (by the Maranon River) and even the western chain dips to 2145 m (at the Abra de Porculla). The existence of this massive mountain range has had profound effects on plant and animal evolution in South America, and consequently has profound effects on essential conservation priorities.In essence, the Andes represent a classical plate tectonic upthrust of continental rock, as the leading edge of the westward-moving South American plate collides with the oceanic Pacific plates. The Southern Andes are the oldest, with significant uplift already present in early Cenozoic times, prior to the Oligocene. Most of the uplift of the Central Andes was in the Miocene or later, whereas most of the uplift of the northern portion of the cordillera has been Plio-Pleistocene (van der Hammen 1974).To the north the Andes become more geologically complex, breaking into three separate cordilleras on the Ecuador/Colombia border. Much of the north-western margin of South America, including Colombia's western and central cordilleras, appears to be amassed â€Å"suspect terrane† rather than an integral part of the South American continental plate (Juteau  et al. 1977; McCourt, Aspden and Brook 1984). Much of the rest of the South American continent consists of two great crystalline shields that represent the western portion of what was once Gondwanaland.The north-eastern portion of the continent constitutes the Guayana Shield, whereas much of Brazil south of Amazonia is underlain by the Brazilian Shield. These two major shields were formerly interconnected across what is today the Lower Amazon. They consist of a Precambrian igneous basement overlain by ancient mucheroded Precambrian sediments. The Guayana region has been the most heavily eroded, with basement elevations mostly below 500 m interrupted by massive flattopped table mountains, the fabled â€Å"tepuis†, typically rising to 2000 m or 2500 m.The peak of the highest of these, Cerro Neblina or Pico da Neblina on the Venezuela/Brazil border, reaches an altitude of 3015 m and is the highest point in South America outside the Andes. The tepuis and similar formations are highest and most extensive in southern Venezuela, becoming smaller and more isolated to the west and east where La Macarena near the base of the Andes in Colombia and the Inini-Camopi Range in French Guiana respectively represent their ultimate vestiges.The quartzite and sandstone of the Guayana Shield erode into nutrient-poor sands, and much of the Guayana region is characterized by extreme impoverishment of soils. The rivers draining this regio n are largely very acidic blackwater rivers, of which the Rio Negro is the most famous. The Brazilian Shield is generally higher and less dissected, with much of central Brazil having an elevation of 800-1000 m. The Brazilian Shield is mostly drained by clearwater rivers such as the Tapajos and Xingu.In contrast to these ancient shields, the Amazonian heartland of South America is low and geologically young. Prior to the Miocene most of Amazonia constituted a large inland sea opening to the Pacific. With uplift of the Central Andes, this sea became a giant lake that gradually filled with Andean sediments. When the Amazon River broke through the narrow connection between the Guayanan and Brazilian shields near Santarem, Brazil, Amazonia began to drain eastward into the Atlantic.Nevertheless, the region remains so flat that ocean-going ships can reach Iquitos, Peru, which is only 110 m above sea-level, yet 3000 km from the mouth of the Amazon and less than 800 km from the Pacific Ocea n. Most of Amazonian Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia is below 200 m in elevation. The process of Amazonian sedimentation is continuing, as the sediment-laden white-water rivers course down from the Andes, continually changing their channels and depositing and redepositing their sediments along the way.About 26% of Peruvian Amazonia shows direct evidence of recent riverine reworking (Salo  et al. 1986). With the lack of relief, it is not surprising that rather fine nuances of drainage, topography and depositional history are often major determinants of vegetation. Like Amazonia, some other distinctive geological features of the South American continent are relatively low, flat and geologically young, such as the chaco/pantanal/pampa region to the south, the Venezuelan/Colombian Llanos to the north and the trans-Andean Choco region of Colombia and Ecuador to the west.Large portions of these areas have been inundated during periods of high sea-level in the past, and large portions of all o f these regions are seasonally inundated presently. One aspect of the geological history of Latin America that has received much biogeographic attention is the series of Pleistocene climatic fluctuations and their effects on distribution and evolution of the present neotropical biota. It is clear from the palynological record that major changes in vegetation were associated with the cycles of Pleistocene glaciation (e. . van der Hammen 1974), although to what extent lowland Amazonia was predominantly drier (e. g. Haffer 1969; van der Hammen 1974), colder (Colinvaux 1987; Liu and Colinvaux 1988) or both, and how this affected the Pleistocene distribution of tropical forest, remain hotly contested (Colinvaux 1987; Rasanen, Salo and Kalliola 1991). Although most of the corroborative geomorphological evidence for dry periods in the tropical lowlands during the Pleistocene is now otherwise interpreted (Irion 1989; Colinvaux 1987), some new data look promising.There are also several other theories that attempt to explain aspects of present biogeography on the basis of past geological events, including river-channel formation and migration (Capparella 1988; Salo  et al. 1986; Salo and Rasanen 1989), hypothesized massive flooding in south-western Amazonia (Campbell and Frailey 1984), and the formation of a putative giant Pleistocene lake in Amazonia (Frailey  et al. 1988). Mesoamerica For its size, Middle America is even more complex geologically than South America (see Central America regional overview).Nuclear Central America, an integral part of the North American continent, reaches south to central Nicaragua. The region from southern Nicaragua to the isthmus of Darien in Panama is geologically younger and presents recent volcanism, uplift and associated sedimentation. Like South America, the northern neotropics have a mountainous spine that breaks into separate cordilleras in the north. In general the Middle American cordilleras are highest to the north in Mex ico, and lowest in Panama to the south-east.In Mexico, the geological picture is complicated by a band of volcanoes that bisects the continent from east to west at the latitude of Mexico City. This â€Å"eje volcanico transversal† is associated with the Mexican megashear, along which the southern half of the country has gradually moved eastward with respect to the northern half. In southern Central America, volcanism has been most intensive in Costa Rica, which has two sections of its Central Cordillera reaching above treeline. In northern Costa Rica and adjacent Nicaragua the volcanoes become gradually reduced in size and more isolated from each other to the north.Similarly in Panama the Central Cordillera is over 2000 m high to the west near the Costa Rican border but only about 500 m high in most of the eastern part of the country. In central Panama, the Panama Canal cuts through a continental divide of only 100 m elevation, and in the San Juan River/Lake Nicaragua area of Nicaragua the maximum elevation is even less. For montane organisms, these interruptions in the cordillera represent major biological discontinuities. The Yucatan Peninsula area of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize represents a geologically anomalous portion of Middle America.It is a flat limestone formation more like the Greater Antilles or Peninsular Florida than the mountainous terrain and volcanic soil of most of Middle America. Limestone is otherwise relatively rare in the continental neotropics, in contrast to many other parts of the world, with small outcrops like those in the Madden Lake region of central Panama or the Coloso area of northern Colombia being associated with peculiar floras. These areas, like the Yucatan Peninsula, tend to show distinctly Antillean floristic affinities, paralleling the geological ones.Caribbean The Antillean islands constitute the third geologic unit of the neotropics (see Caribbean Islands regional overview). The Antilles make up in geological co mplexity what they lack in size. The most striking geological anomaly is Hispaniola, which is a composite of what were three separate islands during much of the Cenozoic. In addition to being completely submerged during part of the midCenozoic, the southern peninsula of Hispaniola was probably attached to Cuba instead of Hispaniola until the end of the Cenozoic.Jamaica too was completely submerged during much of the mid-Cenozoic, and has a different geological history from the rest of the Greater Antilles, with closer connections to Central America via the nowsubmerged Nicaraguan Rise. Possibly a collision of the western end of the Greater Antilles island arc with Mexico-Guatemala fragmented its western end to form Jamaica. Also phytogeographically and conservationally important, some of the Antilles have extensive areas of distinctive substrates.In addition to large areas of limestone, most of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) have significant areas of serpentine and other ultrabasic rocks formed from uplift of patches of oceanic crust during the north-eastward movement of the Caribbean plate. The Lesser Antilles are small and actively volcanic. Most of the other smaller islands are low limestone keys with little or no geological relief. These patterns are clearly reflected in the Antillean flora. The most striking concentrations of local endemism occur in areas of ultrabasic rocks or on unusual types of limestone on the larger islands.The Lesser Antilles, Bahamas and other smaller islands have only a depauperate subset of the generally most widespread Antillean taxa. Vegetation The neotropics include a broad array of vegetation types commensurate with their ecological diversity. Along the west coast of South America are both one of the wettest places in the world – Tutunendo in the Choco region of Colombia, with 11,770 mm of annual precipitation, and the driest – no rain has been recorded in parts of the Atacama Desert of Chi le.The largest tract of rain forest in the world is in the Amazon Basin, and Amazonia has received a perhaps disproportionate share of the world's conservation attention. While the forests of Upper Amazonia are the most diverse in the world for many kinds of organisms, including trees as well as butterflies, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, other vegetation types have equal or greater concentrations of local endemism and are more acutely threatened.In particular, the plight of dry forests and of Andean montane forests are beginning to receive increased attention. Some isolated areas of lowland moist forest outside of Amazonia also have highly endemic floras and are currently much more threatened than Amazonia. In the following paragraphs are sketched the major neotropical vegetation types, followed by a conservation assessment of each. At the very broadest level, the lowland vegetation types of South America and the rest of the neotropics may be summarized as: 1.Tropical moi st forest (evergreen or semi-evergreen rain forest)  in Amazonia, the coastal region of Brazil, the Choco and the lower Magdalena Valley, and along the Atlantic coast of Central America to Mexico. 2. Dry forest (intergrading into woodland)  along the Pacific side of Mexico and Central America, in northern Colombia and Venezuela, coastal Ecuador and adjacent Peru, the Velasco area (Chiquitania) of eastern Bolivia, a broad swath from north-west Argentina to north-east Brazil encompassing chaco, cerrado and caatinga, and with scattered smaller patches elsewhere. 3.Open grassy savanna  in the pampas region of north-eastern Argentina and adjacent Uruguay and southernmost Brazil, the Llanos de Mojos and adjacent pantanal of Bolivia and Brazil, the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, and the Gran Sabana and Sipaliwini savanna in the Guayana region. 4. Desert and arid steppe  in northern Mexico, the dry Sechura and Atacama regions along the west coast of South America between 5 °S a nd 30 °S, and in the monte and Patagonian steppes of the south-eastern part of the Southern Cone of South America. 5. The  Mediterranean-climate region  of central Chile. 6.The  temperate evergreen forests  of southern Chile with an adjacent fringe of Argentina. More complex montane formations occur along the Andean Cordillera which stretches the length of the western periphery of South America, in the more interrupted Central American/Mexican cordilleran system, in the tepuis of the Guayana region and in the coastal cordillera of southern Brazil. Moist and wet forests In general, forests receiving more than 1600 mm (Gentry 1995) or 2000 mm (Holdridge 1967) of annual rainfall are evergreen or semi-evergreen and may be referred to as tropical moist forest.In the neotropics, lowland tropical moist forest is often further subdivided, following the Holdridge life-zone system, into moist forest (2000-4000 mm of precipitation annually), wet forest (4000-8000 mm) and pluvial fore st (over 8000 mm). Nearly all of the Amazon Basin receives 2000 mm or more of annual rainfall and constitutes variants of the moist forest. There are also several major regions of lowland moist forest variously disjunct from the Amazonian core area. These include the region along the Atlantic coast of Central America (extending into Mexico), the lower Magdalena Valley of northern Colombia, the Choco egion along the Pacific coast of Colombia and northern Ecuador, and the coastal forests of Brazil. Lowland moist forest is the most diverse neotropical vegetation type, structurally as well as taxonomically. In most lowland moist-forest and wet-forest regions around a quarter of the species are vines and lianas, a quarter to a half terrestrial herbs (including weeds), up to a quarter vascular epiphytes and only about a quarter trees (Gentry and Dodson 1987; Gentry 1990b).To the extent that smaller organisms such as herbs and epiphytes may demand different conservation strategies than lar ge organisms like trees (or top predators), this habitat diversity assumes conservation importance. Diversity patterns are also important for conservation planning. There is a strong correlation of plant community diversity with precipitation – wetter forests generally are more botanically diverse. For plants the most speciesrich forests in the world are the aseasonal lowland moist and wet forests of Upper Amazonia and the Choco region.For plants over 2. 5 cm dbh in 0. 1-ha samples, world record sites are in the pluvial-forest area of the Colombian Choco (258-265 species); for plants over 10 cm dbh in 1-ha plots, the world record is near Iquitos, Peru (300 species out of 606 individual trees and lianas). Concentrations of endemism do not necessarily follow those of diversity. Local endemism appears to be concentrated in cloud-forest regions along the base of the northern Andes and in adjacent southern Central America (cf.Vazquez-Garcia 1995), and in the north-western sector o f Amazonia where the substrate mosaic associated with sediments from the Guayana Shield is most complex (Gentry 1986a). Overall regional endemism in predominantly moist-forest areas is greatest in Amazonia, with an estimated 13,700 endemic species constituting 76% of the flora (Gentry 1992d). However many of these species are relatively widespread within Amazonia. The much more restricted (and devastated, see below) Mata Atlantica forests of coastal Brazil have almost three-quarters as many endemic species (c. 500) as Amazonia and similarly high endemism (73% of the flora) (Gentry 1992d). Moreover a larger proportion of the Mata Atlantica species probably are locally endemic. On the other side of South America, the trans-Andean very wet to wet and moist forests of the Choco and coastal Ecuador are also geographically isolated and highly endemic (cf. Terborgh and Winter 1982). Estimates of endemism in the Choco phytogeographic region are c. 20% (Gentry 1982b). Probably about 1260 or 20% of western Ecuador's 6300 naturally occurring species also are endemic (Dodson and Gentry 1991).For the northern Andean region as a whole, including both the coastal lowlands of western Colombia and Ecuador and the adjacent uplands, Gentry (1992d) estimated over 8000 endemic species, constituting 56% of the flora. Moreover this is probably the floristically most poorly known part of the neotropics, perhaps of the world, surely with several thousand mostly endemic species awaiting discovery and description. Dry forests There are seven main areas of dry forest in the neotropics, and by some estimations this may be the most acutely threatened of all neotropical vegetations.The interior dry areas of South America are outstanding in their regional endemism, estimated at 73%. Two of the most extensive neotropical dry-forest areas represent manifestations of the standard interface between the subtropical high pressure desert areas and the moist equatorial tropics. In Middle America, th is area of strongly seasonal climate occurs mostly along the Pacific coast in a narrow but formerly continuous band from Mexico to the Guanacaste region of north-western Costa Rica.There are also outliers farther south in the Terraba Valley of Costa Rica, Azuero Peninsula of Panama, and even around Garachine in the Darien (Panama), partially connecting the main Middle American dry forest with that of northern South America. These western Middle American dry forests are made up almost entirely of broadleaved deciduous species. In addition, the northern part of the Yucatan and large areas of the Antilles are covered by dry-forest variants. Most of the Caribbean dry forests are on limestone, and their woody species tend to be distinctively more sclerophyllous and smaller leaved than are the Pacific coast dry-forest plants.In the driest areas, both these types of dry forest tend to smaller stature and merge into various kinds of thorn-scrub matorral. In South America, only the extreme n orthern parts of Colombia and Venezuela reach far enough from the Equator to enter the strongly seasonal subtropical zone. Floristically and physiognomically this northern dry area is very much like similarly dry areas of western Middle America. The strongly seasonal region of northern South America also includes the open savannas of the Llanos extending from the Orinoco River west and north to the base of the Eastern Cordillera of he Colombian Andes and the north slope of the Coast Range of Venezuela. Large areas of the lowlying, often poorly drained Llanos are seasonally inundated, especially in the Apure region. The main area of tropical dry forest in South America is the chaco region, encompassing the western half of Paraguay and adjacent areas of Bolivia and Argentina, south of 17 °S latitude. The â€Å"chaco† is physiognomically distinctive in being a dense scrubby vegetation of mostly smallleaved, spiny branched small trees interspersed with scattered large individua ls of a few characteristic species of large trees.To the south, the chaco gives way to the desert scrub of the Argentine monte. There is a distinctive but generally neglected area of dry forest at the interface between the chaco and Amazonia in Bolivia. The names Chiquitania and Velasco forest have been used locally in Bolivia to refer to this vegetation, which extends from the Tucuvaca Valley and Serrania de Chiquitos in easternmost Santa Cruz Department interruptedly westward to the base of the Andes and along much of the lower Andean slopes of the southern half of Bolivia.This region of closed-canopy dry forest is physiognomically similar to that of western Central America, with tall broadleaved completely deciduous (caducifolious) trees. Although it has been locally regarded as merely representing the transition between the chaco and Amazonia, it is a floristically and physiognomically distinctive unit that should be accorded equivalent conservation importance to the other major dry-forest vegetation types (Gentry 1994).The chaco is adjoined to the north by two large and phytogeographically distinctive areas of dry forest, the cerrado and caatinga, which cover a small portion of easternmost Bolivia and most of the Brazilian Shield area of central and north-eastern Brazil. The typical vegetation of the â€Å"cerrado† region consists of wooded savanna with characteristically gnarled sclerophyllous-leaved trees with thick twisted branches and thick bark, widely enough separated to allow a ground cover of grass intermixed with a rich assortment of woody-rooted (xylopodial) subshrubs.The cerrado also includes areas where the trees form a nearly closed canopy (â€Å"cerradao†), and large open areas of grasses and subshrubs with no trees at all (â€Å"campo limpio† and â€Å"campo rupestre†). Although the cerrado is appropriately considered a kind of dry forest, some cerrado regions actually receive more rainfall than do adjacent fores t regions; excess aluminium in the soil may be as important as the climate in determining its distribution. The even drier forest of the caatinga of north-eastern Brazil extends from an appropriately subtropical 17 °S latitude farther north to a surprisingly equatorial 3 °S.Why this region should have such low rainfall remains poorly understood. Another climatic peculiarity is the irregularity of its rainfall, not only with low annual precipitation, but also with frequent years when the rains fail almost completely. The typical vegetation of the â€Å"caatinga† – relatively low, dense, small-leaved and completely deciduous in the dry season – is physiognomically similar to that of the chaco. The final major South American dry-forest area is the coastal forest of north-western Peru and south-western Ecuador.Even more anomalous in its geographical setting than the caatinga, this dry-forest region is positioned almost on the Equator. The occurrence of dry fores t so near the Equator is due to the offshore Humboldt Current. While similar cold-water currents occur along mid-latitude western coasts of other continents, the Humboldt Current is perhaps the strongest of these and is the only cold current reaching so near the Equator. The dry forest of coastal Peru and adjacent Ecuador is (or at least was, see below) physiognomically similar to that of western Central America, tall with a closed canopy of broadleaved completely deciduous trees.There also are a number of scattered smaller patches of tropical dry forest and/or savanna in various interAndean valleys, around Tarapoto, Peru, the Trinidad region of Bolivia, Brazil's Roraima area, the Surinam/Brazil border region, on Marajo Island, and in the pantanal region of the upper Paraguay River. Grasslands and deserts Grasslands and deserts occupy smaller areas of the neotropics than they do in Africa or most higher latitude continents. The main grassland region of the neotropics is the pampas r egion between about 39 °S and 28 °S and encompassing most of Uruguay as well as adjacent eastern Argentina and southernmost Brazil.The other major grassland area is the llanos region of Colombia and Venezuela. Smaller predominantly grassland regions occur in north-eastern Bolivia (Llanos de Mojos) and the south-eastern Guayana region (Gran Sabana and Sipaliwini savanna). There are also areas with few or no trees and dominated by grasses in the cerrado and pantanal regions of Brazil, and scattered outliers associated with local edaphic peculiarities elsewhere. None of the major grassland regions has many endemic species, in contrast to the campos rupestres of the Brazilian Shield and the Guayana area whitesand savannas, which have many endemics.This contrast is especially marked in southern Venezuela where some savanna patches have clay soils and a llanos-type flora of widespread species, whereas others have sandy soils and a flora of Amazonian affinities with many endemic specie s (Huber 1982). The desert regions of Latin America are confined to northern Mexico, the monte (Morello 1958; Orians and Solbrig 1977) and Patagonian steppes of Argentina, and the narrow Pacific coastal strip of northern Chile and Peru. The 3500-km long South American coastal desert is one of the most arid in the world – most of it is largely devoid of vegetation.This region is saved from conservational obscurity, however, by the occurrence of islandlike patches of mostly herbaceous vegetation in places where steep coastal slopes are regularly bathed in winter fog. Although these â€Å"lomas† formations are individually not very rich in species (mostly fewer than 100 spp. ), they have a very high degree of endemism due to their insular nature. The overall lomas flora includes nearly 1000 species, mostly annuals or geophytes. Diversity and endemism in the lomas formations generally increase southward, where cacti and other succulents are also increasingly represented (M uller 1985; Rundel  et al. 991). Montane vegetation The main montane-forest area of the neotropics is associated with the Andes. A major but more interrupted montane-forest strip is associated with the mountainous backbone of Central America. Venezuela's Cordillera de la Costa phytogeographically is essentially an Andean extension, although geologically distinct from the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes. The tepui summits of the Guayana Highlands, though small in area, constitute a highly distinctive and phytogeographically fascinating montane environment.The Serra do Mar along Brazil's south-eastern coast is mostly low elevation but has a few peaks reaching above treeline with a depauperate paramo-like vegetation. The Andes may be conveniently recognized in three segments: northern – Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador; central-Peru and Bolivia; and southern-Chile and Argentina. In general the northern Andes are wetter, the central and southern regions drier. The main biogeographic discontinuity in the Andean forests is associated with the HuancabambaDepression in northern Peru, where the extensive system of dry interAndean valleys of the Maranon River and its tributaries entirely bisects the Eastern Cordillera and is associated with a topographically complex region having unusually high local endemism. Treeline in the tropical Andes occurs around 3500 m, depending on latitude and local factors. Above treeline, the wet grass-dominated vegetation of the Venezuelan, Colombian and northern Ecuadorian Andes is termed â€Å"paramo†; this drier vegetation, occurring from Peru to Argentina and Chile, is the â€Å"puna†.Colombian and Venezuelan paramos are characterized by  Espeletia  (Compositae) with its typical pachycaul-rosette growth form. The vegetation above treeline of most of Ecuador and northernmost Peru, locally called â€Å"jalca† in Peru, is ecologically as well as geographically intermediate; although generally cal led paramo in Ecuador, this region lacks the definitive  Espeletia  aspect of the typical northern paramos. While individual high-Andean plant communities are not very rich in species, many different communities can occur in close proximity in broken montane terrain.Thus the several high-Andean sites for which Florulas are available (Cleef 1981; Smith 1988; Galeano 1990; Ruthsatz 1977) have between 500-800 species, approaching the size of some lowland tropical Florulas. The moist Andean slopes generally show a distinctive floristic zonation, with woody plant diversity decreasing linearly with altitude from c. 1500 m to treeline. Below 1500 m Andean forests are generally similar both in floristic composition and diversity to equivalent samples of lowland forest. There are also structural changes at different elevations.For example hemi-epiphytic climbers show a strong peak in abundance between 1500-2400 m, epiphytes are usually more numerous in middleelevation cloud forests, and the stem density of woody plants is usually greater at higher elevations (Gentry 1992a). While the northern Andes have cloud forest on both western and eastern slopes, increasing aridity south from the Equator limits cloud forest to an ever narrower band on the Pacific slope. South of 7 °S latitude, forest on the western slopes of the Andes is restricted to isolated protected pockets, and the predominant slope vegetation becomes chaparral, thorn scrub and desert.One of the most striking features of the Andes phytogeographically is the high level of floristic endemism. In part this is associated with the discontinuity of high-altitude vegetation types, which are strongly fragmented into habitat islands. In addition to microgeographic allopatric speciation related to habitat fragmentation, it seems likely that unusually dynamic speciation, perhaps associated with genetic drift in small founder populations, may be a prevalent evolutionary theme in Andean cloud forests (Gentry and Dod son 1987; Gentry 1989).The combination of high local endemism (Gentry 1986a, 1993a; Luteyn 1989; Henderson, Churchill and Luteyn 1991) with major deforestation makes the Andes one of South America's conservationally most critical regions. As with the dry forests, the Andean forests have recently begun to receive greater conservation attention (Henderson, Churchill and Luteyn 1991; Young and Valencia 1992). Estimates of deforestation for the northern Andes as a whole are generally over 90%.Some areas are even more critical – perhaps less than 5% of Colombia's high-altitude montane forests remain (Hernandez-C. 1990) and only c. 4% of the original forest persists on the western Andean slopes of Ecuador (Dodson and Gentry 1991). Most of the northern Peruvian Andes are similarly deforested (cf. Dillon 1994). Although relatively extensive forests still remain on the Amazonfacing slopes of Peru and Bolivia, much of this area is being actively deforested, in large part to grow  "coca† (Erythroxylum coca) and opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). FloraFrom a conservation perspective, the neotropical region merits very special attention. Just as South America is sometimes called the â€Å"bird continent†, the neotropics might well be termed the â€Å"plant continent† in deference to their uniquely rich botanical diversity (Table 50). If current estimates are accurate, the neotropical region contains 90,000-100,000 plant species, twice to nearly three times as many as in either tropical Africa or tropical Australasia (cf. Prance 1994). The last great places for plant collecting are in the northern half of South America (J.Wurdack 1995, pers. comm. ), which is two to four times less documented by herbarium specimens than elsewhere in the tropics (cf. Campbell 1989). Some of the main relatively unexplored areas (according to Wurdack) are, in Brazil: Serra de Tumucumaque (Tumuc-Humac Mountains), along the border with Surinam and French Guiana; sl opes, especially the eastern slopes, of Pico da Neblina; in north-western Mato Grosso State, along the Linea Telegrafica; in Venezuela: slopes and talus forests of the tepuis; aramos west of Pinango (north of Merida); eastern slopes to Paramo de Tama (State of Merida, near border with Colombia); in Colombia: Paramo de Frontino (west of Medellin); Cuatrecasas' headwater localities of collection in western Colombia, particularly in the Department of Valle del Cauca (cf. Cuatrecasas 1958); upper elevations of the Serrania de La Macarena (Department of Meta); in Ecuador: Cordillera de Los Llanganates (which is east of Ambato) (cf.Kennerley and Bromley 1971); Cordillera de Cutucu (Province of Morona-Santiago); Cordillera del Condor, along the border with Peru; in Peru: elevations above 700 m of the Cerros Campanquiz, which are mostly in the Department of Amazonas; the eastern cordillera in the Department of Amazonas, Province of Chachapoyas (e. g. the Cerro de las Siete Lagunas east of C erro Campanario); portions of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba (which is north-west of Cusco), including the northern Cutivireni region (Villa-Lobos 1995); and in Bolivia: the easternmost Andes and granitic outliers in the Department of Santa Cruz.Floristic diversity is very asymmetrically distributed in South America (cf. Table 51). If the nine phytogeographic regions recognized by Gentry (1982a) for the neotropics are taken as a basis, Central America with Mexico (Mesoamerica) and Amazonia are the richest in species, with each of these two regions having about a quarter of the neotropical total. At the opposite extreme, the Antilles have an estimated 9% of the total neotropical flora and the Caribbean coastal region of Colombia and Venezuela has only 8%.The minuscule area of the Guayana Highlands (above 1500 m) accounts for only c. 2. 5% of the neotropical flora, but has one of the highest rates of endemism (65%) in the region (Berry, Huber and Holst 1995). The three main tropical Sou th American dry areas together include a relatively low 11% of the neotropical species total. Intermediate levels of regional plant species richness are found in the Northern Andean and Southern Andean regions and the Mata Atlantica area of Brazil, which each have between 16-18% of the tropical flora of the neotropical region.Regional endemism is greatest in Amazonia including lowland Guayana (76%), but almost as great in coastal Brazil (73%) and the chacocerradocaatinga dry areas (73%). In contrast, those two Andean subregions, Central America, and the Antilles have endemism levels of 54-60%, and the northern Colombia/Venezuela region only 24%. Farther south in the Southern Cone of South America, the monte of Argentina is estimated to include 700 species with 5% endemism, and Patagonia 1200 species with 30% endemism.Chile as a whole has 5215 species (Marticorena and Quezada 1985; Marticorena 1990), with 1800-2400 in the Mediterranean-climate area of central Chile where endemism is high, perhaps greater than for any of the equivalent tropical regions. The reasons for the unique floristic diversity of the neotropics as compared to Africa or tropical Australasia continue to be hotly debated. A popular theory is allopatric multiplication of species in habitat-island forest refugia during Pleistocene glacial advances (Haffer 1969; Prance 1973, 1982). Africa, which is higher and drier, would have had fewer refugia and more extinction.Tropical Asia was less affected, being buffered by the nearby ocean due to the island status of its components and by its proximity to a rain source from the Pacific (the world's largest ocean). Other theories, not necessarily mutually exclusive (cf. Terborgh and Winter 1982), focus on explosive speciation in the more extensive cloud-forest area of the neotropics (Gentry 1982a, 1989; Gentry and Dodson 1987); â€Å"Endlerian† speciation associated with habitat specialization in the uniquely complicated habitat mosaic of north-wes tern and north-central Amazonia (Gentry 1986a, 1989; Gentry and Ortiz-S. 993); speciation associated with riverine barriers to gene flow in the largest river system of the world (Capparella 1988; Ducke and Black 1953); or biogeographical phenomena associated with the Great American Interchange and stemming from the direct juxtaposition of Laurasian and Gondwanan elements via the Isthmus of Panama (Gentry 1982a; Marshall  et al. 1979). Social and environmental values, and economic importance The indigenous groups (nations) of South America (Gray 1987) are varyingly diverse peoples who often partly depend directly on the natural environment for their biological and cultural well or survival.Their approximate presence is shown inTable 52. As the site of one of the Vavilovian centres of domestication, South America has played an important role in providing plants useful to people. The Andean centre of domestication rivals the Indo-Malayan and Mediterranean areas as the region that has produced the most important crop plants. Tobacco, potatoes, grain amaranths, quinoa, peanuts, lima beans, kidney beans, tomatoes and perhaps sweet potatoes and pineapples all derive from the Peruvian Andes and immediately adjacent egions (Anderson 1952). Based on land-race diversity, western Amazonia was the centre of domestication of a series of less well-known but increasingly important crops, including â€Å"pejibaye† or peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), â€Å"biriba† or â€Å"anona† (Rollinia mucosa), â€Å"abiu† or â€Å"caimito† (Pouteria caimito), â€Å"sapota† (Quararibea cordata), â€Å"araza† (Eugenia stipitata), â€Å"uvilla† (Pourouma cecropiifolia) and â€Å"cubiu† or â€Å"cocona† (Solanum sessiliflorum) (Clement 1989).Of the 86 major crops and their more than 100 species included in a summary of crop plant evolution (Simmonds 1976), 24 crops are neotropical in origin either wholly (19) or partly (5). Also, a host of South American forest plants are used locally but have not reached world commerce. Amazonia is especially rich in wild fruits (e. g. Duke and Vasquez 1994). For example around Iquitos, Peru, 139 species of forest-harvested fruits are regularly consumed, 57 of them important enough to be sold in the local produce market (Vasquez and Gentry 1989).There are a multitude of other uses for neotropical plants. Gentry (1992b) notes that 38% of the Bignoniaceae species of north-western South America have specific ethnobotanical uses and suggests that this could be extrapolated to 10,000 species with uses in this part of the world alone. Many studies have shown that the direct economic value of such products can be very high (e. g. Peters, Gentry and Mendelsohn 1989; Balick and Mendelsohn 1992).In a single hectare of speciesrich tropical forest near Iquitos, 454 of the 858 trees and lianas of dbh 10 cm or more have actual or potential uses (Gentry 1986c), with the hectare of f orest potentially producing US$650 worth of fruit and US$50 worth of rubber per year. If the 93 m? of sellable timber worth US$1000 is included, the net present value of the hectare of forest is US$9000, far more than the net present value of managed plantations or cattle-ranching.Additionally, the major role of forested areas in controlling erosion, recycling rainfall and as a carbon sink are now well known. As the territory with the largest tropical forest remaining in the world, South America plays a major role in providing such regional and planetary environmental services. Return to Top Loss, threats and conservation Although the neotropical region has the most forest, it is also losing more forest each year than any other area of tropical forest (Myers 1982; Reid 1992).In western Ecuador only 4% of the original forest cover remains (Dodson and Gentry 1991). Much attention has focused on Brazil, which includes 48% of the South American area. Perhaps the most definitive satellit e analysis of deforestation in Amazonia to date (Skole and Tucker 1993) indicates that as of 1988 only c. 10% of Brazilian Amazonia had been deforested, but if allowance is made for a 1-km edge effect, fully 20% of Brazilian Amazonia had been impacted. Deforestation in Rondonia alone has been c. 4000 km? per year, reaching almost 40,000 km? r 15% of the state by 1989 (Malingreau and Tucker 1988; Fearnside 1991). In coastal Brazil estimates of surviving forest range from 2% (IUCN and WWF 1982) to 12% (Brown and Brown 1992). Burgeoning populations are the biggest factor in the ongoing losses, although political and economic instability in some areas, and short-sighted â€Å"development† programmes in other areas, also play significant roles. In most of the neotropics, unlike much of the Old World, commercial lumbering operations have played a relatively small role so far.Conservational awareness throughout the region has increased dramatically in the past few years. Not only ar e increasing numbers of National Parks and similar conservation units being set aside, but there is also rapidly growing interest in the possibility of sustainable use of tropical forests as a conservation strategy. Unfortunately many destructive and unsustainable uses of forest can masquerade behind the banner of sustainable use. Making this promising new concept fulfil its potential remains a major challenge.Similarly the growing appreciation of the potential value of biodiversity has been accompanied by too much political preoccupation and posturing about sovereignty over potential genetic resources. Despite such problems, it is clear that the diversity of rain-forest plant life is intrinsically valuable. South America, botanically the richest continent, is also the greatest repository of potentially useful plants. Conservation of South America's plant diversity is clearly a world conservational priority.

Keeping the Air Flair Virgin Blue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Keeping the Air Flair Virgin Blue - Essay Example The various value additions to the core competencies of the airlines facilitate better response and provide the firm with necessary differentiating elements to gain leverage against the new entrants and other competitors.  The businesses across the regions have become highly competitive because the technology and rapid globalization have significantly altered the dynamics of business across the globe. Strategic marketing plans have become the crucial part of promoting products and services of an organization because they involve development and execution of goal oriented procedures to deliver value to the customers. Hence, to maintain competitive advantage, Virgin Blue Airlines needs to identify and analyze factors so as to meet the challenges of fast changing business environment.  Virgin Blue airline is one of the leading airlines that are facing stiff competition from other low-cost airlines. In the cutthroat environment of competitive business, the company needs to evolve the innovative business strategy to gain leverage over its competitors. The company has adopted creative communication strategy to promote the changes. The price war amongst the various airlines has significantly impacted the performance outcome of Virgin Blue. It also faces challenges from the rising cost due to inflationary trend and competition from new entrants in the industry. Thus, the highly competitive environment of global business has forced the Virgin to evolve new business strategies. The company has adopted more aggressive communication strategy to promote its strategic goals and value added product and services.  Virgin blue has realized the futility of entering into the price war and instead decided to change its business strategy to maintain its market position. It has adopted best-cost strategy that encompasses competitive pricing with distinct differentiating elements which would make it attractive to the customers. In a fiercely competitive business environment whe n the global economy is under tremendous pressure.

Expansion of the Atlantic World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Expansion of the Atlantic World - Essay Example One of the leading factors that led to the expansion of the Atlantic world was the interest of European entrepreneurs to establish colonies in the new world. Majority of the merchants were moving to new regions seeking to establish colonies that would concentrate on agricultural production. These merchants had seen the benefits of growing sugar in neighboring islands. Sugar plantations on these islands were proving very productive. They were zealously seeking new regions to establish sugar plantations. The triangle travel in the Atlantic sea seemed to favor their intents because it allowed them to move to new regions expanding the new world. Sugar was the most significant crop in the Atlantic world. More merchants needed to venture into growing of sugar after witnessing its potential economic benefits. It is worth noting that the drive to establish colonies came because of the introduction of capitalism. The theory and practice of capitalism was a new thing that drove majority of the merchants to seek every opportunity of being able to establish an economic centre. The rise of mercantilism thinking brought about the idea of capitalism (Evans and Ryden 222). Capitalism emphasized the process of increasing wealth for each nation through economic colonies. The drive to establish capitalism was strong as it translated to power in the European setting. Nations that established more colonies were powerful than those who did not venture into expansion. Each of the nations struggled to establish new nod different trade opportunities in order to increase the national total wealth and power. Even when they moved to new regions, European nations embarked on a vigorous scramble for new territories. It is in this venture that the Europeans established colonies in America. In addition, slave system is one of the crucial factors that hastened the pace at which the Atlantic world expanded (Searing 27). With increasing demand for labor, the Europeans initiated a salve trade tha t provided cheap and continuous labor in most of the American colonies. Slave trade helped most of the colonies succeed increasing the flow of goods in most of the established colonies. Shipping of colonies was from Africa to the American colonies. Slaves formed part of the triangle trade that exported raw materials from America to Europe. The Europeans, driven by the capitalist expansion indulged in manufacturing of goods. These goods targeted the market in Africa. Shipping of slaves occurred from Africa to America to work in the colony plantations (Evans and Ryden 25) Religion was another factor that led to the expansion of the Atlantic world. there was a religious revolution in Europe that led to the oppression of the adherents of some religions. On moving to new regions, they found new economic ventures. Some moved to establish new religious converts to the new world but indulged in trade later. Some of those motivated by religious factors also caught up with the capitalism spir it. The religious revolution was an opposition of the powers of the archbishop in Europe at the time. In the spirit of creation of new economic ventures, European settlers reached North America in 1620s (Mancall 20). After their arrival, they set out to establish colonies in the region. The first of these settlers arriving at Plymouth were Protestants. These endured hardships in North America and their persistence attracted other settlers to start

Child labor in the U.S. and around the world Research Paper

Child labor in the U.S. and around the world - Research Paper Example On the other hand, in sub-Saharan Africa this age stands at 18 years in most countries. This age is normally enshrined in the law of a given country and employers are expected to consider it when providing employment opportunities. Nonetheless, employers capitalize on the cheap labor provided by children leading to abuse and exploitation. This development has triggered many international human rights organizations to protest about the practice as it is both inhumane and exploitative (Whittaker, 2004, p. 13). History of Child Labor in U.S Child labor in the US dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries when children provided labor in family farms, industries, mines, and plantations. This was most rampant during the industrialization process when industries needed large labor supply. Industrialization implied that adult strength was no longer a per-requisite to the operation of the machines (Child Labor in U.S. History). Factory owners realized that they could effectively and economical ly utilize the services of children in their factories in order to cut down on the cost of production. This is because hiring children was much cheaper as compared to hiring adults (Hindman 25). Plantation farming and mining were other economic sectors attracting child labor. By the mid of 19th century, child labor was widespread across the world. Children were used mainly to provide labor in farms and factories. Most of these children worked for estimated 12-18 hours per day, six days a week, as a way of earning income. In addition, it most of these children began working before they attained the age of 10 years. They engaged in activities such as tending of machines in spinning meals or hauling heavy loads. At this time, most of the factories had not implemented... Child labor in the U.S. and around the world Economic disparity between the rich and the poor has pushed many children out of school in a bid to secure some income for their families. It is currently estimated that there are 215 million child laborers globally. Of this total, 114 million (53%) are in Asia and Pacific, 14 million (7%) are in Latin America, and 65 million (30%) are in sub-Saharan Africa (ilo.org). These working conditions violate the minimum age laws in the affected and involve abuse such as child trafficking, forced labor, and illegal activities. Children providing labor are deprived the opportunity to engage in children activities such as play and education. Child labor is fuelled by rising cases of poverty, which forces children to look for alternative sources of income. This draws them to provide labor especially in commercial agriculture, mining, domestic service, manufacturing, and fishing. Illegal activities involving child labor include prostitution, child soldiers, and drug trafficking. In this research paper, I seek to explore on the child labor as a practice. My primary objective is to indicate that child labor is both inhumane and less significant to economic growth and development and, therefore, should be discouraged at all costs. Child labor is inhumane and should be discouraged at all costs. It remains an illegal activity that every individual should stand up in arms against. It deprives the children the right to education in addition to lowering their self-esteem.

Contrasting Cities. Miami and Charleston Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Contrasting Cities. Miami and Charleston - Essay Example This vast collection of states and the cities within them offer huge variety of language, culture, food habits, dressing style and ethnicity. Among all such variances, it was really confusing to select the appropriate city for the present report. After a lot of brainstorming, I decided to compare the cities of Miami within the state of Florida and Charleston belonging to South Carolina. The cities are totally opposite to each other. While Miami is highly contemporary in their style, Charleston exhibits a conventional manner of lifestyle. Both the cities have their own charm. Culture and Tradition Miami is one of Florida’s and the entire world’s most well-liked vacation destinations. It offers several temptation and interests to several group of people from all around the world. The city consists of stylish nightlife, extremely caffeinated liveliness of the Little Havana and the remarkable secrete of the Coral Gables. The city even offers facilities for the activities like fishing, golfing, football, hockey, baseball, basketball and playing tennis for the sports lovers. The presence of over 25 beaches makes the city a perfect spot for spending leisure time and getting relief from anxiety and stress of the daily work life. On the other hand Charleston is seemingly opposite to Miami. It is the oldest and the most ethnic city of USA. Charleston is also known to be one of the most gracious and has been voted as the warmest city of America through the various opinion polls conducted by several magazines. The city comprise of a hospitable and well mannered group of people who exhibit a blend of British, French and West African culture. The city offers an ambience encircling art festivals, history, music and culture. Neighborhood and Food Miami has got an assorted neighborhood. The city has got the giant pouncing banyan tree at the Coral Gables with wide-open paths that makes the place as one of the most attractive and traditional neighborhoods of the city. Shoppers look for superior boutiques and elegant stores for bridal wears and leather goods at the Coral Gables. The Coconut Grove on the other hand offers an altogether different feel with the presence of the galleries, sidewalk cafes and the boutiques. T he little bohemian village ambience is further supported by small cafes and college bars standing in a line by the street. The rural west neighborhood in Coconut Grove is the historic enclave of the present era depicting the early civilization of the African-American and Bahamian descendants. This place is home to several admired annual events. The Sunny Isles Beach forms a relatively jovial neighborhood of Miami. The atmosphere in this place is very casual displaying funky motels of the 1950s style and the hotels of the beachfront which facilitates an entirely luxurious lifestyle. This place has the provisions for swimming and sunbathing. The Cuban effect on the foods can be significantly felt for the lamb or chicken dishes. In Miami, meat is generally prepared with vegetables and tomato sauce and is served with rice. The most important dishes of the city includes    grilled fish, fried pork chops, onions and peppers served with sausage or ham with tomatoes. The regional influenc e can be seen in the colors and flavors of the desserts of Miami. Thus it can be concluded that Miami is a diverse city which has got everything for everyone (PriceTravel.com n.d.). Charleston being one of the oldest towns of the US offers charm and history along with its other features. The Mt. Pleasant is located across the Cooper River on the middle of Charleston. There is an old village that includes historic houses which seems to be the most attracti

Review of Cornel West's Malcolm X and Black Rage for a college-age Essay

Review of Cornel West's Malcolm X and Black Rage for a college-age audience - Essay Example The issues of cultural hybridity, psychic conversation, authoritarian organizations, black supremacy, boundaries and borders in sexuality and other issues looms large in the present society. West states that, ‘ In order to build the best out of Malcolm X’ s ideologies, we must expand and preserve the notion of psychic conversion that cement the groups and networks in which black community, care, love, humanity and concerns grows and take root (West, 170). West has employed pathos, ethos and logos to make his message persuasive to the readers. Cornel west tries to clarify how Malcolm’s Black rage was not only directed to the white population but also to the black Americans, minds. He explains that Malcolm’s psychic conversation will promote blacks to appreciate and love their self worth and culture. Malcolm X was a revolutionary figure and anti-thesis of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi who utilized non-violent ideologies to achieve the same goals as his predecessors. He wanted to put an end to the oppression that targeted the black people. West describes Malcolm X as an ideological leader for the black radicalism including Black Nationalism (collective actions and institutional building), black religion (morality and spirituality), socialism (justice/ freedom and anti-imperialism) as well as panafricanism (internationalism and identity) (West, 172). Malcolm X’s deep pessimism targeted the possibility and the capability of the white Americans to shade their racism led him to downplay the present and past bonds between the whites and the black people. West explains that Malcolm ideologies focused on freedoms of the black population even though he was aware that the majority of the population was racist. Malcolm X questioned the American democracy stating that it had made the black people non citizen. Ideally, constitutional

Consumer behavior apply to e-dating Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Consumer behavior apply to e-dating - Essay Example The study will take an investigative approach, which involves the use of conceptual models aimed at boiling down to the aptitude to endow with appropriate matches through successful business to customer services enhanced by the internet and based on the sound customer relations administration practices. The models used in this survey include the Nicosia model, the HowarthSheth Model, and Bettman processing model, which facilitate privacy and secure oriented environment for customers. It is imperative to note that the whole study of consumer behaviour blends diverse opinions and views from sociology, social science and anthropology, psychology and economics (Rosenthal & Knighton, 2002). On the other hand, consumer behaviour can be defined as the process or study aimed at understanding diverse decision-making procedures embraced by buyers at dissimilar situations. Similarly, the buyer’s individual features are included in the consumer study (Conti, 2009). Such characteristics in clude demographics and other variables correlated to the behavioural variables aimed at determining what the consumer wants. It is observed that the customer behaviour analysis has re-discovery of the real meaning of marketing through the reaffirmation of the significance of the buyer (Out of Pocket, 2009). For instance, a lot of emphasis is given in the customer relationship management, customization and consumer retention. Nicosia model Consume e dating refers to courting a partner with an anticipated aspect over the internet. The Nicosia model describes the relationship amid the firms and the consumers. The model focuses on the conscious decision making behaviour of the consumers, where the act of purchasing is only one stage of the wholly ongoing decision process of consumers. The flowcharting perception by Nicosia simplifies and systemizes the variables, which affect the consumer decision making. Consider the illustration below, which help in understanding the process of e dati ng Courtesy of HAINES, G. H. (1969). Consumer behaviour: learning models of purchasing. New York, The Free Press [etc.]. The internet complements the conventional business strategy in business to customer relations establishment, and this is particularly the online dating. The web-enabled expertise does not eliminate the need to design a sustainable cutthroat benefit and does not revolutionize the configuration of an industry (Gao, 2005). It is imperative to note that, the internet and online business fits well in the Nicosia model. The internet serves well in as a tool and firms are required to share this perspective for the successful application and maximum benefits. This study establishes that, five forces determine the configuration of any industry (Gao, 2005). They include the level of rivalry amid contenders’ barriers to entry, peril of proxy products, the bargaining power embraced by buyers and the bargaining power of suppliers. It is observable that, numerous compani es, which have been, designed exclusively on the internet, with no authentic value and lofty price ratios have remained dotcoms, which have failed miserably (Gao, 2005). On a similar note, a couple of successful online companies have fallen victims of similar situations,

The Effects of Environmental Change Essay Example for Free

The Effects of Environmental Change Essay A changing environment can have many effects on our lives, being good or bad. The environment can change as a result of many things such as change over time, human intervention or natural disasters. Bushfires are a very significant natural disaster. Bushfires change the environment when they burn through forests and urban areas. They have many effects before they occur such as the way we live and how we prepare for a bushfire, and then there are the after-effects of the destruction caused when a bushfire burns through an area. Living in a bushfire prone area requires us to change the way we live because we must prepare our properties for protection against fires. Gutters must be kept clear and trees overhanging houses must be cut down. Many people also burn off around their land to save leaf litter and bark build-up. For many people living in the Hawkesbury area, these activities are a weekend routine, however, people living in urban areas dont need to make this change to their lives because of the threat of bushfires. When a bushfire burns it releases huge amounts of smoke and ash into the air above and surrounding it. This thick, heavy haze pollutes the air to a major extent, making it hard to breath in, settling on rooves and in gutters of homes with water tanks, and can even effect the operation of engines as their air intake is compromised. Also, pollution can be carried into many areas far from the actual blaze by the wind. This just multiplies the smoke affected area. Read more:  Effect of Haze on Environment Bushfires are one of the most destructive natural disasters in the world, they destroy everything in their paths, most that lies in the way of a bushfire is bushland however bushfires also destroy homes and other buildings such as sheds/garages. Once the fire is upon the owners property, there isnt really much that can be done to protect houses from burning. For anyone to lose their home to a bushfire would no doubt be one of the most  significant turning points of their life, having a major effect on many aspects of their life immediately and in the long term. In the recent fire disaster in California, a total of 2,125 homes were destroyed (as of October 31 2003), including one whole town overnight [Sydney Morning Herald]. Although a rare effect on our lives, Fires are the cause of many deaths to humans and animals. Humans and animals stand no chance whatsoever against a bushfire, the only way that we can survive one is if we get out of its way. Many people have died trying to save their houses and possessions, creating an enormous effect on their families and friends. When and even before bushfires strike, they can have many effects on our lives, especially to many of us who live in rural areas of the Hawkesbury region.

Source Of Errors In Learning English Language Essay

Source Of Errors In Learning English Language Essay Introduction Errors are integral part of language acquisition. The phenomenon of error has long interested SLA researchers. In a traditional second language teaching situation, they are regarded as the linguistic phenomena deviant from the language rules and standard usages, reflecting learners deficiency in language competence and acquisition device. Many teachers simply correct individual errors as they occur, with little attempt to see patterns of errors or to seek causes in anything other than learner ignorance. Presently, however, with the development of linguistics, applied linguists, psychology and other relevant subjects, peoples attitude toward errors changed greatly. Instead of being problem to be overcome or evils to be eradicated, errors are believed to be evidence of the learners stages in their target language (TL) development. It is through analyzing learner errors that errors are elevated from the statue of undesirability to that of a guide to the inner working of the language lea rning process (Ellis, 1985,p 53) In the field of SLA, there have been three influential approaches to errors with a general movement from approaches emphasizing the product, the error itself, to approaches focusing on the underlying process under which the errors are made. The analysis of error sources has been regarded as a central aspect in the study of learner errors. Researchers believe that the clearer the understanding of the sources of learners errors, the better second language teachers will be able to detect the process of L2 learning. Error Making errors is the most natural thing in the world and it is evidently attached to the human beings. But, how do we define error? There are different definitions of the word as Ellis explains learners make errors in both comprehension and production, the first being rather scantly investigated. All learners make errors which have a different name according to the group committing the error. Childrens errors have been seen as transitional forms, the native speakers ones are called slips of the tongue and the second language errors are considered unwanted forms (George 1972). We use the term error to refer to a systematic deviation from a selected norm or set of norms. According to Lennon (1991) an error is a linguistic form or combination of forms which in the same context and under similar conditions of production would, in all likelihood, not be produced by the speakers native speakers counterparts. On one hand, it was considered to be a sign of inadequacy of the teaching techniques, something negative which must be avoided, and on the other hand it was seen as a natural result of the fact that since by nature we cant avoid making errors, we should accept the reality and try to deal with them. The error-as-progress conception is based on the Chomskys idea that a child generates language through innate universal structures. So, using this symbolic code, one can have access to different pieces of knowledge not as something mechanically learned but as mentally constructed through try and error. The idea is now that the second language learners form hypotheses about the rules to be formed in the target language and then test them out against input data and modify them accordingly. There is an approach which concerns error as being the result of social-cognitive interaction. This means that the error implicitly carries a social norm as well as cognitive process. The error also carries a social and cultural component which makes it different in different societies. Cultural differences in the error Previous research has shown that cultural differences exist in the susceptibility of making fundamental attribution error: people from individualistic cultures are prone to the error while people from collectivistic cultures commit less of it (Miller, 1984). It has been found that there is a differential attention to social factors between independent peoples and interdependent peoples in both social and nonsocial contexts: Masuda and his colleagues (2004) in their cartoon figure presentation experiment showed that Japaneses judgments on the target characters facial expression are more influenced by surrounding faces than those of the Americans; whereas Masuda and Nisbett (2001) concluded from their underwater scenes animated cartoon experiment that Americans are also more likely than Japanese participants to mark references to focal objects (i.e. fish) instead of contexts (i.e. rocks and plants). These discrepancies in the salience of different factors to people from different cultu res suggest that Asians tend to attribute behavior to situation while Westerners attribute the same behavior to the actor. Consistently, Morris Peng (1994) found from their fish behavior attribution experiment that more American than Chinese participants perceive the behavior (e.g. an individual fish swimming in front of a group of fish) as internally rather than externally caused. One explanation for this difference in attribution lies in the way people of different cultural orientation perceive themselves in the environment. Particularly, Markus and Kitayama (1991) mentioned how (individualistic) Westerners tend to see themselves as independent agents and therefore prone themselves to individual objects rather than contextual details. in the second language teaching/ learning process the error has always been regarded as one of the most generally known approaches concerning the error throughout human history is to consider it a negative effect or result, even worth to be punished. According to Corder (1967): A learners errors then, provide evidence of the system of the language that he is using. They are significant in three different ways: first to the teacher, in that they tell him is he undertakes a systematic analysis, how far towards the goal the learner has progressed. Second, they provide the researchers with evidence of how language is learned or acquired. Third they are indispensible to the learner himself because he can regard the making of errors as a device used in order to learn. The sources of error might be psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, epistemic or residing in the discourse structures. Richards(1971),when trying to identify the causes of competence errors he came up with three types of errors: interference errors, which reflect the use of elements from one language to the other, intralingual errors, subdivided into errors due to overgeneralization, or to ignorance of rules restriction, which is incomplete application of the rules, or finally due to the false concept hypothesis, which demonstrate the general characteristics of rule learning and third developmental errors when the learner builds hypothesis about the target language based on limited experience. Assuming a term hierarchy of errors, Burt and Kiparasky (1974) suggest that there is a difference between global and local errors. They say: Global mistakes are those that violate rules involving the overall structure of a sentence, the relations among constituent clauses, or, in a simple sentence, the relations among major constituents. Local mistakes cause trouble in a particular constituent, or in clause of a complex sentence. They claim that global errors are more serious and rank higher in the error hierarchy than local ones, and they should be corrected prior to all others in language classrooms. Accordingly, errors in tense and aspect are regarded as local errors. They may be minor errors, for they may not cause grave breakdowns in communication. However, they are extremely common mistakes among second language learners of English and very much worth investigating since tense and aspect represent one of the most essential parts of English grammar. Corder (1967) goes a step further to propose different terminologies for these two kinds of errors and stresses that we must make a clear distinction between mistakes and errors; the former refers to non-systematic performance errors of chance circumstances, whereas the latter can be defined as the systematic errors of the learner from which we are able to reconstruct his knowledge of the language to date. In the following discussion, the analysis focuses on competence errors: There are two major approaches to analyzing errors committed by a target language learner. Contrastive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA). Theoretical base of CA lies in Behaviorist Learning Theory; while the EA is closely related with the emergence of Interlanguage Theory (Ellis, 2005) Behaviorist learning theory accounts of errors: The behaviorist learning theory illustrates the TL learning is a mechanical process of habit formation. Habits entail over-learning, which ensures that learning of new habits as a result of proactive inhibition. Thus, the challenge facing the L2 learner is to overcome the interference of L1 habits. Basing on the habit formation, contrastive analysis sought to identify the features of the L2 that differed from those of the L1 so that learners could be helped to form the new habits of the L2 by practicing them intensively. Most errors made by L2 learners were the result of differences between L1 and L2 structure. (Martin 1996) Interference, the CA insists, is the result of unfamiliarity with the rules of a TL and psychological causes, such as inadequate learning (Swan, 2001). Transfer can be positive or negative: linguistic features of the L1 that are similar to those of the TL will facilitate learning (positive transfer); those aspects of the L1 that are different to the TL grammatical and phonological system will hinder SLA and cause the learner to make numerous production errors(negative transfer). Thus difference between the L1 and L2 create learning difficulty which results in errors, while the similarities between them facilitate rapid and easy learning (Ellis, 1985 cited Corder). According to behaviorist learning theory, both types of transfer are the outcome of automatic and subconscious use of old habits in new learning situations (Dulay, Burt Krashen) Rod Ellis (1985) assesses, errors, according to the theory, were the result of non-learning, rather than wrong learning. By comparing the L1 with TL, differences could be identified and used to predict areas of potential errors. The idea of the error as an effect to be avoided has been especially supported by behaviorism, being considered an obstacle to language learning. To them error has been a symptom of ineffective teaching or as evidence of failure and they believed that when they occur they are to be remedied by provision of correct forms; that is to say, use of intensive drilling and over-teaching. It was also believed that interference takes place whenever there is a difference between native mother tongue and the target language. A hypothesis based on Lados suggestion in linguistic across cultures where he states in comparison between native and foreign language lies the key to ease all difficulties in foreign language learning (Lado, 1957) 2. Interlanguage (IL) theory accounts of errors (i) Selinker (1972) coined the term interlanguage to refer to the systematic knowledge of an L2 which is independent of both these learners L1 and the target language. The term has come to be used with different but related meanings: To refer to the series of interlocking systems which characterize acquisition To refer to the system that is observed at a single stage of development To refer to particular L1, L2 combinations. Other terms that refer to the same basic idea are approximate system and transitional competence. (ii) Interlanguage is the type of language produced by second and foreign language learners who are in the process of learning a language, whose errors are caused by several different processes. These include: Borrowing patterns from the mother tongue. Extending patterns from the target language Expressing meanings using the words and grammar which are already known from Richards, Jack et al (1992). (iii)Interlanguage refers to the separateness of a second language learners system, a system that has a structurally intermediate status between the native and target language. Interlanguage is neither the system of target language nor the system of the native language, but instead falls between the two; it is a system based upon the best attempt of learners to provide order and structure to the linguistic stimuli surrounding them. By gradual process of trial and error and hypothesis testing, learners slowly and tediously succeed in establishing closer and closer approximations to the system used by native speakers of the language. (iv)Rod Ellis (2005, 54) views Error Analysis as being based on emergence of IL theory, that is known to be used to explain effectively the errors committed in SLA processes. Slinker (1972) tried to find a way to explain the errors that some students make, have nothing to do with their foreign language; for example a Spanish speaker, an Arabic speaker and a Japanese speaker might all make the same mistake in English which was not related to their respective languages. According to Slinker, L2 learners go through a process of making and testing hypotheses about the target language. They begin with knowledge about language in general, gained from their native language, and move toward the target language. Bit by bit, they readjust their mental model of the new language, improving their communicative competency in that language. Successful hypotheses become mental constructions that correspond to the rules of the new language. Brown(1993) viewed ,truly successful students make the journ ey to a high level of competency in the target language, while less successful students become fossilized somewhere along the IL continuum. For around 35 years Selinker has viewed learners errors as evidence of positive efforts by the learner to learn a new language. This view of language learning allowed for the possibilities of learners making deliberate attempts to control their own learning and, along with theories of cognitive processes in language learning. Errors are indispensable to learners since the making of errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn. A modern definition of language transfer is provided by Slinker (1992): language transfer is best thought of as a cover term for a whole class of behaviors, processes and constraints, each of which has to do with CLI (Cross Linguistic Influence), the influence and use of prior linguistic knowledge, usually but exclusively native language knowledge. Selinker (1992) pointed two highly significant con tributions that Corder made: that the errors of a learner, whether adult or child, are not random, but are in fact systematic and are not negative or interfering in any way with learning a TL but are, on the contrary, a necessary positive factor, indicative of testing hypothesis. In 1994 Gass and Slinker defined errors as red flags that provide evidence of the learners knowledge of the second language. The learners developing knowledge of second language may have characteristics of the learners native language, characteristics of the second language, and some characteristics which seem to be very general and tend to occur in all or most interlanguage systems. Interlanguages are systematic, but they are also dynamic, continually evolving as learners receive more input and revise their hypotheses about the second language.L2 learners process through an interlanguage, which is an independent knowledge of L1 and L2 system. Interlanguage Is systematic, because the learner selects the rul es systematically, learners bases plans on the rule system, in the same way as the native speaker bases on the internalized knowledge of L1 system. (iv)One of the crucial contributions of IL was its underlying assumption that the learners knowledge is integrated and systematically reorganized with previous knowledge of the native language. By a gradual process of trial-and-error or hypothesis testing, learners slowly and tediously succeed in establishing closer approximations to the system used by the native speaker of the language. The characteristics of IL are described by many researchers as follows: Permeable, in the sense that rules that constitute the learners knowledge at any one stage are not fixed, but are open to amendment(Ellis1985:50) Dynamic, in the sense that L2 learner slowly revises their variable interim systems to accommodate new hypothesis about the TL system. Systematic, in that L2 learners IL is rule-governed, that is, the learner bases his performance plans on his existing rule system much the same way as the native speaker bases his plans on his internalized knowledge of the L1 system. The variable shape of interlanguage The concept of interlanguage has had a major impact on the field of second language acquisition, studies on interlanguage focus on the linguistic and psychological aspects of second language acquisition research. I will first outline how the interlanguage assumption developed .since the interlanguage concept is not only important for the development of the students grammar system; I will then explore how it applies to other components of language. I will also focus on the consequences of the concept for the teacher and his work in the classroom. Before the 1960s language was not considered to be a mental phenomenon. Like other forms of human behavior language is learnt by processes of habit formation. A child learns his mother tongue by imitating the sounds and patterns he hears around him. By approval or disapproval, adults reinforce the childs attempts and lead the efforts to the correct forms. Under the influence of cognitive linguists this explanation of first language acquisitio n was criticized. Language cant be verbal behavior only since children are able to produce an infinite number of utterances that have never heard before. This creativity is only possible because a child develops a system of rules. A large number of studies have shown that children actually do construct their own rule system, which develops gradually until it corresponds to the system of the adults. There is also evidence that they pass through similar stages acquiring grammatical rules. Through the influence of cognitive linguists and first language acquisition research the notion developed that second language learners, too, could be viewed as actively constructing rules from the data they encounter and that they gradually adapt these rules in the direction of the target language. However wrong and inappropriate learners own language system, they are grammatical in their own terms, since they are a product of the learners own language system. This system gradually develops toward t he rule-system of the target language. The various shapes of the learners language competence are called interlanguage. This draws to the fact that the learners language system is neither that of his mother tongue nor that of the second language, but contains elements of both. Therefore, errors need not be seen as signs of failure only, but as evidence of the learners developing system. While the behaviorist approach led to teaching methods which use drills and consider errors as signs of failure, the concept of interlanguage liberated language teaching and paved the way for communicative teaching methods. Since errors are considered a reflection of the students temporary language system and therefore a natural part of the learning process, teachers could now use teaching activities which did not call for constant supervision of the students language. Group work and pair work became suitable means for language learning. A brief review of approaches to analyses of errors Contrastive Analysis (CA) Contrastive analysis is an approach generated from behaviorist learning theory. Through CA applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners first and second languages to predict errors. The basic concept behind CA was that a structural picture of any language could be constructed which might then be used in direct comparison with the structural picture of another language. Through a process of mapping one system onto another, similarities and differences could be identified. Identifying the differences would lead to a better understanding of the problems that a learner of the particular L2 would face. (Corder , 1983). CA stresses the influence of mother tongue in learning a second language in phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic levels. It holds that L2 would be affected by L1. Here, language is taken as a set of habits and learning as the establishment of new habits, a view sprung from behaviorism, under which langu age is essentially a system of habits. In the course of language learning, L1 learning habits will be transferred into L2 learning habits. Therefore, in the case of L1 transfer into L2, if structures in the MT have their corresponding structures in the TL and L1 habits can be successfully used in the L2, learners would transfer similar properties successfully used in the L2, learners would transfer similar properties successfully and that would result in positive transfer. Contrastively, in the case of negative transfer or interference, certain elements of the MT have no corresponding counterparts in the TL, L1 habits would cause errors in the L2 and learners would transfer inappropriate properties of L1. CA places the environment as the predominant factor in SLA, while learners are believed to play only a passive role in accepting the impositions of the environment. We must not forget that there are numbers of errors made by language learners seem to be unrelated to the learners na tive language. According to SLA researchers non-interference errors were more pervasive in learner performance than CA were ready to recognize. Dulay and Burt (1973) studied the errors made by Spanish-speaking children learning English as an L2 and claimed that all of the learners errors had collected, 85% were developmental (non-interference), 12% were unique and only 3% were results of L1 interference. Primary tenets of CA are: Prime cause of difficulty and error in foreign language learning is interference coming from the learners native language. Difficulties are chiefly due to differences between the two languages The greater the difference s, the more acute the learning difficulties will be The results of a comparison between the two languages are needed to predict th e difficulties and errors which will occur in learning the target language What needs to be taught is discovered by comparing the languages and subtracting what is common to them. (Corder, 1981) 3. Error analysis (EA) It is defined as the study of linguistics ignorance, the investigation of what people do not know and how they attempt to cope with their ignorance, by James (2001).Error analysis was first introduced by Fries (1945) and Lado (1957) who have claimed that foreign or second language learners errors could be predicted on the basis of the differences between the learners native and second languages. They have also suggested that where the aspects of the target language are similar to those of the learners native language, learning will be easy; otherwise, it will be difficult and second language learners are expected to make errors .The field of error analysis in SLA was established in the 1970s by S. P. Corder and colleagues. A widely-available survey can be found in chapter 8 of Brown (2000). Error analysis was an alternative to contrastive analysis, an approach influenced by behaviorism through which applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners first an d second languages to predict errors. Error analysis showed that contrastive analysis was unable to predict a great majority of errors, although its more valuable aspects have been incorporated into the study of language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has been that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the new language. This is the examination of those errors committed by students in both the spoken and written medium. Corder, who has contributed enormously to EA, writes this: The study of error is part of the investigation of the process of language learning. In this respect it resembles methodologically the study of the acquisition of the mother tongue. It provides us with a picture of the linguistic development of a learner and may give us indications as the learning process. Error analysts distinguish between errors, which are systematic, and mistakes, which are not. Corder(1967) made use of Chomskys the competence versus performance distinction by associating errors with failures in competence and mistakes with failures in performance. In his view, a mistake occurs as the results of processing limitations rather than lack of competence. It signifies L2 learners failure of utilizing their knowledge of a TL rule. They often seek to develop a typology of errors. Error can be classified according to basic type: omissive, additive, substitutive or related to word order. They can be classified by how apparent they are: overt errors such as I angry are obvious even out of context, whereas covert errors are evident only in context. Closely related to this is the classification according to domain, the breadth of context which the analyst must examine, and extent, the breadth of the utterance which must be changed in order to fix the error. Errors may also be cl assified according to the level of language: phonological errors, vocabulary or lexical errors, syntactic errors, and so on. They may be assessed according to the degree to which they interfere with communication: global errors make an utterance difficult to understand, while local errors do not. In the above example, I angry would be a local error, since the meaning is apparent. From the beginning, error analysis was beset with methodological problems. In particular, the above typologies are problematic: from linguistic data alone, it is often impossible to reliably determine what kind of error a learner is making. Also, error analysis can deal effectively only with learner production (speaking and writing) and not with learner reception (listening and reading). Furthermore, it cannot account for learner use of communicative strategies such as avoidance, in which learners simply do not use a form with which they are uncomfortable. For these reasons, although error analysis is still used to investigate specific questions in SLA, the quest for an overarching theory of learner errors has largely been abandoned. In the mid-1970s, Corder and others moved on to a more wide-ranging approach to learner language, known as interlanguage. Error analysis is closely related to the study of error treatment in language teaching. Today, the study of errors is particularly relevant for focus on form teaching methodology. EA emphasizes on the significance of errors in learners IL system, Brown (1994) may be, carried out directly for pedagogic purposes. Carl James (1998) viewed, EA developed out of the belief that errors indicate the learners stage of language learning and acquisition.th learner is seen as an active participant in the development of hypotheses regarding the rules of the target language just as a young child learning the first language. Errors are considered to be evidence of the learners strategy as he or she builds competence in the target language. These errors are defined as global which inhibit understanding and local which do not interfere with communication. Error analysis has been criticized as being an inefficient tool for studying the way second language learners develop their target language. It is argued that error analysis deals with the learners productive competence rather than the receptive one, and it is also an imperfect instrument for categorizing errors and explaining them. In the book Error and Interlanguage written by Pit Corder, he stated that various classifications of these error systems have been developed by error analysis researchers, three of which can be helpful for the teacher and are as follows. Pre-systematic; errors occur before the language learner has realized any system for classifying items being learned; the learner can neither correct nor explain this type of error. Systematic; errors occur after the learner has noticed a system and error consistently occurs; learner can explain but not correct the error. This classification relies on three major groups: (1) interference errors; (2) intralingual errors; (3)development errors. Interference errors are caused by the influence of the native language, in presumably those areas where the languages differ markedly. Intralingual errors originate with the structure to TL itself. The complexity of language encourages over-generalization, incomplete application of rules, and the failure to learn conditions for rule application. Development errors reflect the students attempt to make hypotheses about the language from the native language. Post-systematic; errors occur when learner is consistent in his or her recognition of systems; can explain and correct the error. The following steps are distinguished in conducting an EA: collection of a sample of learner language; identification of errors; explanation of errors; error evaluation (Ellis cited in 2005) Richards (1971) focused on the intralingual and developmental errors observed in the acquisition of English as a second language and further classified them into four categories: (i) Overgeneralization; covering instances where the learners create a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structure of the TL. (ii)Ignorance of the rule restriction, occurring as a result of failure to observe the restrictions or existing structures (iii) Incomplete application of rules, arising when the learners fail to fully develop a certain structure required to produce acceptable sentences (iv) False concepts hypothesized, deriving from faulty comprehension of distinctions in the TL. from the analyses of errors to the practice of error correction We know that in traditional classroom instruction is laid on accuracy, errors frequently corrected because the teacher thinks the error as a thorn in his/her flesh. Yet with the understanding of IL theory, the role of error correction has changed. Errors are considered natural products in language learning and in fact reflect the modes of learners developing system. What are the sources and causes of Errors? The following factors are identified as the source and causes of Errors Mother tongue interference Wilkins (1972) observes: When learning a foreign language an individual already knows his mother tongue, and it is this which he attempts to transfer. The transfer may prove to be justified because the structure of the two languages is similar-in that case we get positive transfer or facilitation- or may prove unjustified because the structure of the two languages are different- in that case we get negative transfer- or interference. Loan Words