Slavery as a Cruel Institution essays

Slavery as a Cruel Institution essays Cruelty can be defined as an inhumane action done to an individual or group of people that causes either physical or mental harm. Slavery, at its very core, was a cruel and inhumane institution. From the idea behind it to the way that it was enforced, it degraded the lives of human beings and forbade the basic liberties that every man deserves under the Constitution of the United States. Three major areas where cruelty was especially prevalent were in the slaves working conditions, living conditions, and loss of fundamental freedoms. Working conditions for slaves were about as bad as can possibly be imagined. Slaves worked from dawn till dusk and sometimes even longer. Solomon Northrup describes his experience as a slave on his Louisiana plantation: The hands are required to be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning and with the exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not permitted a moment idle until it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often times labor till the middle of the night (Northrup 15). The slaves lived in constant fear of punishment while at work, and it was that fear that drove them to obey. Northrup continues to say that, No matter how fatigued and weary he may bea slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weightif he has not performed the full task appointed him, he knows he must suffer (10). He goes on to explain that after weighing, follow the whippings (10). This was not the end of the workday for a common slave though. Each slave had his or her own respective chores to do. One feeds the mules, another the swineanother cuts the wood, and so forth (Northrop 11). Then there were jobs to do in the slaves quarters, jobs that were necessary for their basic needs and surviva...

Parole Linguistic Definition and Examples

Parole Linguistic Definition and Examples In linguistics, the individual expressions of language in contrast to langue, language as an abstract system of signs. This distinction between langue and parole was first made by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics (1916). Etymology From the French paraula, speech Observations Can there be a science of language, if so, do we have to stomp on it first to make it amenable? Do we have to murder to dissect, to quote Wordsworth? There are several things the would-be linguistic scientist can do. One is to slice up language in such a way as to have one part that lives and moves about in crazy ways, and another that stays in one place and thus can be dissected to reveal its inner nature. This is essentially what Saussure did, when he distinguished parole (the unruly side) from langue (the quiet side). Parole refers to the actual language use of individual people in their everyday lives, and is too erratic to be studied, according to Saussure. Langue is the shared social structure of language, and is richly structured as a system of systems. The latter is what can be investigated scientifically.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹(Leo Van Lier, The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective. Birkhuser, 2004)Langue/ParoleThe reference here is to the distinction made by the Swiss linguist Saussure. Where parole is the realm of the individual moments of language use, of particular utterances or messages, whether spoken or written, langue is the system or code (le code de la langue) which allows the realization of the individual messages.  (Stephen Heath, Translators Note in Image-Music-Text by Roland Barthes. Macmillan, 1988) The Analogy of a Chess Game The langue-parole dichotomy was introduced into linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure (1916), who used the analogy of a chess game to illustrate what it entails. To engage in a game of chess both players must first know the langue of chessthe rules of movement and the overall strategy of how to play. Langue imposes constraints on, and provides a guide to, the choices each player can make in the act of playing the game. The actual choices characterize parolethe ability to apply the abstract knowledge of chess (langue) to a specific game-playing situation.  (Marcel Danesi, Second Language Teaching: A View From the Right Side of the Brain. Springer, 2003) Pronunciation: pa-ROLE