Organ Donation

Recently I have heard an interesting podcast about organ donation. In 1954 the first successful living human to human organ transplantation took place. One of the twin brothers was dying and the other one donated him one of his kidneys. According to statistics, about half a million transplantations have been done so far.

Organs are a system of cells and tissues performing certain functions in a body. With age most organs tend to deteriorate. That is why during such operations young organs are preferred. I was very surprised to learn that doctors can transplant almost any organ: a kidney, a heart, a leaver, bones, blood. For example, in 2003 they transplanted a tongue, or in 2005 a woman had a face transplant (she got it from a suicide victim). I was surprised to learn that the leaver is the only organ which can regenerate itself. For example if it is split in halves, and one halve is transplanted, both halves will soon get the former size.

Some organs, such as the kidney, are relatively easy to get, but some others, such as the heart, are very hard to find. If a patient needs a heart transplant, he/she has to wait for about 6-7 years to get it.

Further, in the podcast I heard that there are special organizations, such as OPO (Organ procurement organization) which are responsible for organ recruitment and evaluation. There are also responsible for talking to the family members of the dead person whose organs are going to be transplanted, and get their agreement on paper. Some peoples, such as gypsies treat organ donation negatively. They think that a person’s body will be considered impure if it has an organ missing. In Japan, organ donation rate is very law, too.

Regional Variation

According to David Crystal's "Encyclopedia of the English Language", geographical origin is one of the most important factors that causes variety in  language use. In one of my previous podcast I have mentioned other factors affecting language use, such as social status and gender distinctions. 

When we talk to a person,often by his/her accent or the dialect he speaks, it is easy to say from which part of the country or which country he comes from. Different dialects and accents are usually formed when people are separated geographically or socially. It is important to note that accents and dialects refer to different aspects; by accent we usually mean pronunciation features. For example, in some regions people might drop the initial h in the word hold. 

A dialect refers to grammar and vocabulary features. For example, in some regions people say "They really good" instead of saying "They are really good", or " Is it ready you are?" instead of " Are you ready?".

people usually have different opinions and attitudes toward various accents and dialects.Some people speaking with a particular accent are treated negatively or are often mocked at by those who speak other dialects. However, I do not support this attitude, as each dialect has the right to be respected as they have their own grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation peculiarities.

There is also an interesting phenomenon called regional accommodation. When people from different regions communicate with each other their speech patterns tend to become alike.This mainly refers to accents. When you talk to a person speaking with a different accent you may pick it up.

Thus, it does not matter which part of the country a person comes from, as all the accents and dialects should be respected equally.

KARMA

According to the podcast about karma, in the eastern philosophy it is a religious concept of action or deed, which affects the entire life cycle of cause and effect.

 I used to think that karma is similar to fate. However, further in the podcast I learned that these are two different concepts. Karma is not fate, for humans act with free will, creating their own destiny. In eastern philosophy, they say, ''If one sows goodness, he will reap goodness; if one sows evil, he will reap evil''. I think, this can be interpreted in the following way; if a person does good things his karma will be positive. They say, '' Karma is going to bite you some day'', which means that sooner or later a person will have to pay for the evil actions in his past life.

In Hinduism, karma is usually considered to be a negative thing. However, one can get a positive karma. This is possible, if the person performs all the duties of his social status (cast). If he does this, in the next life he will get a higher social status. In Hinduaism, karma clings to the soul and undergoes transmutations. Your soul goes from body to body until it reaches its ultimate salvation. Karma is a universal law, independent of God or gods. No god can master one's karma. And an interesting thing I'd like to mention here is that even Gods are subjected to Karma.

In hinduism there are three types of karma: Prorabda, which are the experiences during a person's life, Sensida, which is a store of karma, which will come in future life, and Agmen, your actions which are going to be added to your store.

China's One-Child Policy

According to the podcast I have listened to, China’s one-child policy limits couples to one child. This policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 with the aim of limiting China’s population growth. Although initially it was designed as a temporary measure, it continues up to now. The policy has prevented 400 million births since then.

I have learned that there are more restrictions in urban areas than in rural ones. If you live in a rural area and your first child is a boy, you can apply for a permission to have the second child. And if you are an ethnic minority, you can get a permission to have 3 children. In order to prevent second pregnancy, there are fines and even pressures by the Chinese government to abort a pregnancy. In 2007, there were reports that in the south-western Guangxi Autonomous Region of China, officials were forcing pregnant women without permission to give birth to have abortions and levying steep fines on families violating the law. As a result, riots broke out and some may have been killed, including population control officials.

Now that millions of sibling-less people in China are now young adults in or nearing their child-bearing years, a special provision allows millions of couples to have two children legally. If a couple is composed of two people without siblings, then they may have two children of their own, thus preventing too dramatic of a population decrease.

As a result of this one child policy, the Chinese culture has been accused of preferring boys over girls and encouraging abortion. One of the reasons of preferring boys might be that in China there is a Patriarchal society. Besides, boys can earn more than girls. And of we take into account the fact that 70 % of the Chinese population does not have a pension, families neeed a boy to take care of them as they grew old. At present male-to-female sex ratios are high both in rural and urbun areas. This can lead to serious social problems, in future it will be very hard for a man to find a woman and make a family.

I think that this policy violates human rights, and couples are the only ones to decide on how many children they are going to have.The government is not supposed to prevent it.

Literacy and Reading

The podcast I have listened to deals with literacy and reading, in particular. We usually take it for granted that a five or six year-old child develops the ability to read to acquire knowledge about the word surrounding him. However, the actual history of literacy began about 6000 years ago when people started to use the first written symbols.Those were initially used for commercial purposes. It took rather a long time to end with written symbols used for communication.

 Various hieroglyphs, icons and other characters have been used as means of communication since ancient times. Later, most of these characters developed into an alphabet, where each letter encoded a particular sound. However, nowadays in some countries, for example in China, they still use hieroglyphs. Both using hieroglyphs and using alphabets have their own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of having an alphabet is that if you know how the word is spelled you can easily pronounce it. But communication is possible only if people share a common language. The advantage of having hieroglyphs is that people speaking different languages can communicate with each other by interpreting those hieroglyphs. For example, in China, which is a multicultural country, people speaking different languages can use and understand those hieroglyphs.

It was interesting for me to learn that Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, objected to reading and favoured a dialogue. Reading was like the internet of his time. He thought that it hinders critical thinking: people believe everything they read. In reading they have no chance of asking questions or arguing. He opposed reading to a dialogue saying that in face to face communication you can always have the chance to ask the speaker to explain something, or to argue something.

In my opinion Socrates was right, nothing can compare to real communication. Of course, books are great providers of information, but it does not mean that we should believe everything we read. We should always analyse any type of information we get, and also should be able to show a critical approach to what we read.

Creole Characteristics

 According to David Cristal’s “Ensyclopedia of the English Language”, all English based creoles share many common futures despite the geographical distances, political and cultural differences of the countries where the creoles are spoken. These similarities are especially observed in the grammar of the languages. The fact might be explained by the “creole hypothesis”, according to which all the creoles have developed out of the creole used by the first black slaves in America and the Carribbean. Originally this language was very different from English but later, as generations were in contact with white English population, it obtained many linguistic features from the standard variety.

I think, here it is worth mentioning the differences between a creole and a pidgin. A pidgin is a means of communication among people who do not share a common language but have to contact with each other, usually for commercial purposes. Such language has a reduced grammatical structure and a limited vocabulary. Pidgins are only used in circumstances where there is no other way of understanding each other.

When in multilingual community an increasing number of people began to use a pidgin as the main means of  communication, and then it is passed down to generations, it becomes a creole. So, we can see that a creole and a pidgin are two different stages of the same phenomenon.

            As it has already been mentioned above, various creoles share some common characteristics. For example, there is no agreement between the subject and the predicate in the present tense in sentences in almost all creaoles: She sing a song. The auxiliary to be is not used: She a nice person. A verb can be brought in front of the sentence for emphasis: A talk Mary talk make she trouble. There is no case distinctions for pronouns: She see he come.

ATTACHMENT

                                   

Various psychologists tried to explain the phenomenon of attachment and love between a mother and her baby. According to the podcast about attachment (Psychology), from the time they are born, babies are especially sensitive to the social signals they get from other people. It is really very interesting how babies become the most important persons in their mothers’ lives, and how they develop this attachment. In psychology, I have come up with two explanations of attachment.

The first one is Freud’s drive-reduction explanation. According to this explanation, “attachment to the mother originates in the satisfied need for nourishment”. Babies are attached  to their mothers because they need their care and love. However, this explanation was not well-supported by research.

The second explanation was suggested by John Bowlby, who is considered the founder of   attachment theory. He thinks that attachment has evolutionary basis; “it provides sense of security and safe base from which to explore the world”. Babies are born helpless and dependent and they need to be protected and taken care of. It is part of their evolutionary background that parents take care of their babies and babies are attached to their parents. This theory was strongly supported by research.

There was an experiment with monkeys carried out by Harry Harlow. He separated baby monkeys from their mother but took care that all their needs were satisfied. As a result, the experiment had a negative effect on the baby monkeys’ psychological development; as they grew up they were easily scared and stressed. Besides, they were completely unable to raise new generation themselves. Harlow also discovered that there can be various substitutes for a mother. He did an experiment with two types of substitutes. One of them was a “wire mother” which gave food, the other one did not provide food but it looked much more like a real mother; it was covered with soft fur, it had a face like a monkey. And it was discovered that, although baby monkeys went to get food from the “wire mother”, they preferred spending most of their time by the second mother.

The experiment showed the evolutionary nature of attachment babies have towards their mother.

Bowlby found out that human babies tend to show two types of behavior as they start developing “clear-cut attachment”. One of them has security base; whenever babies are scared or stressed they run to their mother. The other one is “separation anxiety”. I have often noticed babies showing this separation anxiety when they are separated from their mothers; they feel distressed, they start to cry.

Gender Issues

Nowadays, some of the most debatable issues concerning the English language are those referring to gender differentiation. There have been a lot of criticisms concerning the way the language reflects social attitudes towards men and women. These criticisms mainly refer to the English grammar and vocabulary, where one is usually faced with the traditional male oriented view of the world. According to this view, men are considered to have a higher status in the society than women. The feminist movement in the USA gave rise to linguistic changes affecting English. These changes have affected both grammar and vocabulary.

In vocabulary, the “male” words were replaced by more neutral items; for example, “chairman” was changed into “chairperson”, “salesman became “sales assistant”. It was interesting to find out that in some job descriptions the use of sexually neutral words has become a legal requirement. However, in my opinion, these changes are hard to be applied to the whole vocabulary. For example, there is still certain disagreement on whether these changes should also affect traditional idioms such as “Neanderthal Man”.

In grammar, the linguists suggested using a sex-neutral third-person singular pronoun instead of he and she. The problem usually occurs when we need to replace a sex-neutral noun or an indefinite pronoun with a third-person singular pronoun.  I myself, have often come across such problem in my writing. And, usually, I prefer using one of the alternatives suggested in some textbooks, i.e. replacing such words by he or she.

All such changes in a language are usually more noticeable in writing than in speech. For example, nowadays, there have been published many guidelines that recommend that the authors should avoid using sexist language. However, when it comes to spoken language, it is usually hard to say whether it will really be affected by these changes. For example, in written language I try to avoid using sexist language, but in speech I often find it hard to use sex-neutral words. The reason, I think, is that speech is usually spontaneous and fast, and I often find it difficult to control its flow. 

The Literacy Problem

According to David Crystal’s Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, literacy is a problem which is faced not only by the underdeveloped nations but also by many people in English-speaking countries. It is often difficult to estimate the exact number of illiterate people. The problem has to do with how we define the concept of  “illiteracy”. Thus, according to some surveys, in the UK 3-4 per cent of the population is illiterate. But other surveys suggest twice this number. In Canada estimates are 5-20 per cent; in the USA 10-20 per cent.

            Literacy is a long-lasting process which includes gradually increasing levels and domains of abilities. I think there are cases when it is difficult to say whether the person is literate or not. For example, he might be able to read and write but unable to spell; or he can be good at reading bur unable to write. There are also cases when a person can read only certain types of texts. So, we can see that illiteracy is not a single dimension of difficulty, but there can be many other possibilities within each level.

According to the definition of UNESCO in 1951, “A person is literate who can, with understanding, both read and write a short, simple statement on his everyday life”. This definition is appropriate when we mean absolute literacy.

However, in 1960 the concept of ‘functional’ literacy was used to estimate the problem.

Accordingly, we find the following definition: ‘A person is literate when he has acquired the essential knowledge and skills which enable him to engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning in his group and community”.

            I greatly support the second definition, as I think the level of a person’s literacy greatly depends on the community or group he is functioning in. In some groups the person may be considered very literate, but in another group, with higher level of literacy, the same person may be considered as illiterate. In my opinion, if a person is capable of using his knowledge and skills to satisfy his needs in a certain community, he can be considered literate.

             Very often it can be very difficult for illiterate or semi-literate person reach the acceptable level of literacy in a particular country. The reason is that in developed countries the standards of literacy are higher. I think, countries should organize various literacy campaigns in order to be able to satisfy their requirements and raise public awareness.

Jealousy

It was quite interesting to come across a podcast discussing an emotion called jealousy. According to the podcast (in Stuff You Should Know, N 105), jealousy is one of the most widely known triggers of domestic violence. And it is essential to note that some people consider women abuse out of jealousy to be less negative than women abuse out of any other motives. I think the reason is that the people who hold this view consider jealousy one of the ways of expressing care. They are of the opinion that in couple relationships jealousy is normal. However, I don’t share this view. In my opinion, jealousy leading to violence cannot be justified or treated less negatively.

Is jealousy different from envy? These two emotions might seem similar but in reality they are different. When you envy, you want something you do not have. And when you are jealous you are afraid to loose what you have.

In one of my previous posts, I described fear as one of the emotions typical of humans and most animals. Such emotions are usually considered primary. Other examples of primary emotions are anger, disgust, joy. Besides primary emotions, humans also possess secondary emotions, which are considered self-conscious emotions and are typical only of people. You must have an awareness of yourself in relation to others in order to experience secondary emotions. Thus, jealousy, pride, guilt, shame are all secondary emotions.

As I have already mentioned in my post about fear, all emotions are motivators. For example, joy motivates you to do something again; fear motivates you not to do something. Similarly, jealousy motivates you to prevent something.

Some researches on jealousy are based on gender distinctions. Women display more jealous characteristics than men. One reason might be that women are more open and freer to express their emotions than men. Besides, men are more upset about sexual infidelity, whereas women are more upset about emotional infidelity.  However, more recent studies suggest that jealousy is more individual. I agree with the latter statement, as there are many cases when men become very jealous because of emotional betrayal. Besides, jealousy may have some personal background. For example, if you have often been cheated on before you may become very suspicious of your spouse. Or, if you have often cheated before you are aware that others can cheat on you.  The fact itself can lead to jealousy.

Some other studies suggest that the roots of jealousy lie in the feeling of insecurity. For instance, you may have a sense of insecurity because of your outer appearance. It is interesting that according some research studies, tall men and women of average height are usually less jealous than those who are too tall or too short.

To sum it up, I would say that I support the opinion that one of the main reasons for jealousy is the sense of insecurity. If you are content with yourself, if you are loved and trust the one you love there must be no room for jealousy.

Prescriptive Approach to the Language

According to the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language by David Crystal, prescriptivism in grammar is an authoritarian view based on the assumption that one variety of a language should be valued higher than others. Adherents to this approach are certain that this one variety should be imposed on the whole speech community. Prescriptivists value the standard written language or the formal spoken language reflecting literary style, which is mostly encountered in dictionaries and grammar books.

According to the speech by Dr John McWhorter on Prescriptive grammar, that I have recently listened to in the You Tube, there are a lot of people who make mistakes in their spontaneous speech, and  prescriptive approach to the language states that people should always be careful so as not to make mistakes in their speech. This approach prescribes rules to the language. Further in his speech, McWhorter opposes the Prescriptive approach to the Descriptive approach, the aim of which is to describe the language. Followers of this approach describe and explain the patterns of usage found in all varieties of the language, and they think it natural that there are variation in language usage as language is always changing. They do not think that dialects that don’t follow the recognized rules are “incorrect” or “illogical”. It is interesting to mention that Crystal thinks that the notion of absolute correctness is inadequate to explain the cases when one person varies in usage on different occasions (for example, in case of formal vs informal speech). Instead, he brings forward the notion of absolute appropriateness, i.e. the suitability of a usage to a situation. For example, contracted forms are widely acceptable in informal speech and writing, but they are unacceptable in formal writing. Thus, we can conclude that the context greatly influences the usage of certain patterns.

Crystal assumes that most people hold a mixture of prescriptive and descpriptive views. For example, linguist-parents often forbid their children to use language they do not like. Similarly, a prescriptivist-tourist might admire a dialect non-standard speech.

How Fear Works

Having listened to the podcast about fear (Stuff You Should Know, N 36), I have come up with interesting ideas on what fear is, how it works, whether it is an inherent emotion or not, and also some interesting examples from history referring to fear.

According to the Online Webster Dictionary, fear is "an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger and accompanied by increased autonomic activity". In other words, when you are afraid of something certain chain reactions take place in your brain that lead to an autonomic response.Nervous scientists distinguish between two types of responses:a low road response and a high road response. In the process of fearing these two responses take place at the same time.A low road response is a quick response, and sometimes, as the speaker in the podcast states, it can be a false response.The high road response takes longer and it allows much more thoughtful analysis of the situation. Let's imagine the following situation; a man is sitting on the sofa and is watching TV. Suddenly. the door starts rattling.First the low road response takes place, and the man starts to fear. At the same time, the high road response is being activated by the brain, and it engages the memory to analyse the situation.He switches on his memory trying to find out if anything similar has happened to him before.And he comes to the idea that it is probably the wind.This thought makes him calm down.

Fear is similar to other emotions that the humans possess, such as anger, joy, disgust, sadness. And I would like to point out to an interesting fact; fear, as well as the other emotions, is survival motivator.For example, the speaker in the podcast goes back to the history and analyses the following situation; two cave men are sitting and talking. Suddenly they see a snake. One of them touches it. As a result he is bitten by the snake and dies. Next time, the other man, seeing a snake, becomes scared as the case with his friend showed that snakes might be very dangerous.So,If you fear the right things, such as snakes, lightening, spiders, you have more chances to survive and you will become wiser. In this way the man develops his fear memory which he passes down to his next generations.

Darwin was the first scientist suggesting that fear can be an inherent emotion.He came to this idea when he was once attacked by a snake in the Zoo. Although the snake was behind the glass, he was very scared. Besides, Darwin had never been bitten by a snake before.This example illustrates that fear is an inherent emotion. 

Another interesting point about fear is that we can anticipate being afraid. We don't have to be bitten by each new snake to fear them all.We can anticipate that all of them can bite us. Thus, we are afraid of snakes in general. Or, a person might be scared of the plane being crashed even if he has never flown before.

Also, fear can be conditioned. One can teach somebody being afraid of something or not being afraid of something. 
There are different types of fear that are named differently: claustrophobia, agoraphobia, sociophobia. And I have also heard of an unusual type of fear called phobophobia (when a person is afraid of being afraid).