Saving Free Speech -- Harassment Freedom Rights Essays

Saving Free Speech It's difficult to imagine America as a country that tolerates open discrimination and harassment of people of different race or ethnicity. Yet, somehow it is also difficult to imagine America without considering its history scarred by racial intolerance and subjugation. It's strange how a country that was supposedly founded on the fundamental assertion that all people are created equal and have the basic right to freedom from oppression continues to deal with these problems. Racial and ethnic harassment has even spread to this country's institutions of higher learning. Iowa State University is not immune to this epidemic. Consider the following incident, which occurred as recently as fall of 2003, as described in the Iowa State Daily on November 5 by columnist Amy Peet. A certain individual of the ethnic minority found her room ransacked and vandalized. Hateful notes and phone calls were left in her dorm room, and there were "phantom knocks" on her door. This person and her close friends genuinely felt disturbed, angered, and threatened. This incident is only one example; several such cases have occurred at Iowa State and other institutions across the country. The argument concerning such cases focuses on the right to free speech guaranteed to every American citizen by the First Amendment. Our Bill of Rights guarantees each person the opportunity to voice his or her own opinions without repression from the executive powers. But is it still considered `free speech' if the things that are said are meant to cause harm, discomfort, or to threaten? Does the First Amendment still protect those who would use words to such a malicious end? In an effort to deal with the rising number of claims of verbal... ...done when words are spoken. The policy on harassment becomes effective only when those mere words become actual, physical actions that place the victim in danger or institute genuine fear and discomfort. The regulation of hate speech, therefore, does not represent an infringement on the First Amendment guarantee to freedom of speech. Rather, it ensures that open, intellectual dialogue can take place in universities where hate speech has continued to become a stronger and more malignant force. Incidents of harassment and abuse are capable of being dealt with in a manner that is fair and consistent with the doctrines enshrined in the First Amendment. The enforcement of Iowa State's policy on racial and ethnic harassment is a set of principles that need to be followed in order to maintain the atmosphere of education and equal opportunity this institution represents.

Lord of the Flies (Men are inherently evil) Essay

â€Å"Man produces evil as a bee produces honey† was a remark that was made by William Golding after his experience serving in the second world war. Lord of the Flies is a symbolic novel of his experience and this quote was his way of showing that all men were evil; it was as natural for a human to be evil as it was for a bee to produce honey. However, despite being within a bee’s natural instinct to produce honey, it isn’t within a human’s natural instinct to be evil. It is shown in Golding’s novel that society influences one’s morality. Lord of the Flies also shows that humans are self-serving, looking out for themselves and that sometimes it is necessary to be corrupt to survive. We also see that it is within a humans’ instinct to follow a leader whether they are moral or immoral. Lord of the Flies demonstrates that one’s morality is influenced by the society they are in. John Locke, an English philosopher, believed that humans were born clean and pure, but it was society that influenced the evil inside them. This is evident in Golding’s novel as even the most ‘evil’ character, Jack, has shown signs of being moral. In the second chapter, when he comes back from discovering that they were on an island, he states, â€Å"‘We’ve got to have rules and obey them.†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ The author uses irony to compare the difference of Jack’s behaviour from the start of the novel to the end. However, perhaps we see Jack as the most corrupt character because he was the first to realise that in order to survive, he would need to be more sadistic, more savage. It is obvious from then on that he tries not to show compassion, innocence or kindness. At times, he does not succeed. An example of this is on page fifty-five when Jack sa ys, â€Å"You can feel†¦you’re not hunting, but- being hunted.† This quote shows Jack’s uncertainty, and he explains that you have to be animal-like to survive and live as long as you can in a society without rules and laws, something Locke thought was absolutely necessary to sustain happiness. Here, Jack seems to relate to himself as an animal, which shows that he only acts the way he does because he saw the circumstances they were in, and decided that the only way to get off the island alive was to be beast-like. Humans are self-serving which is why they may be perceived as evil. In order  to fit in and feel safe, sometimes selfish acts will be pursued. Golding writes for the characters to become more savage. This attribute even reaches the symbol of goodness and order, Ralph. He realises that in order to survive, he could not always do the correct thing. On page one hundred and thirty-eight, Golding uses personification twice to create the drama in his message. â€Å"Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society†. He is trying to dramatise the evilness that Piggy and Ralph have succumbed to, melding with the others, however, all this quote proves is their common longing for a place with others and not any depth of evilness. We see that people who starting in the were following Ralph ‘the good side’ joined. It is within our human instincts to follow a leader, whether they are moral or immoral. Having a powerful leader gives the ‘weaker’ ones a sense of safety, and in Lord of the Flies, the two main leaders were Ralph and Jack. Ralph was the leader of the ‘good’ side, while Jack was the chief of the ‘evil’ side. The members of Jack’s tribe are not evil in nature, but are merely forced to follow his orders as he believes this is crucial for them to subsist. â€Å"With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands.† The use of imagery in this quote (shows) that when Ralph asks the young children who they would vote for for chief, the choir-boys felt obliged to vote for Jack. Jack can be compared to Adolf Hitler, a dictator in World War II. Hitler manipulated his soldiers, and alters their thinking. Similarly, Jack is doing the same thing. Leading the ‘evil’ side, he adjusts the minds of the choir-boys. The people who are fol lowing Jack are doing so for a sense of protection as he is powerful. Despite being first published fifty years ago, Lord of the Flies is still studied and read to this day as it shows that it is brutality of the second world war. Golding subtly passes through his message that what happened in Germany could occur anywhere and that sometimes, it is necessary to be evil. Throughout the novel, we see the lengths some of them, in particular Jack, go to for survival. We are shown that it is necessary to pursue evil acts in ‘life or death’ situations and that it is of human nature to choose a leader and follow his actions, even if they are immoral.

Definitions of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

The term English as a lingua franca (ELF) refers to the teaching, learning, and use of the English language as a common means of communication  (or contact language) for speakers of different native languages.Although most contemporary  linguists  regard English as a lingua franca (ELF) as a valuable means of international communication and a worthwhile object of study, some have challenged the idea that ELF is a distinct variety of English. Prescriptivists  (generally non-linguists) tend to dismiss ELF as  a kind of foreigner talk  or what has been disparagingly called BSE--bad simple English.British linguist Jennifer Jenkins points out that ELF is not a new phenomenon. English, she says, has served as a lingua franca in the past, and continues to do so nowadays, in many of the countries that were colonized by the British from the late sixteenth century on (often known collectively as the Outer Circle following Kachru 1985), such as India and Singapore. . . . What is new about ELF, however, is the extent of its reach (English as a Lingua Franca in the International University, 2013).   Examples and Observations As well as being used--often in a very simple form--by tourists, ELF is prominent in international politics and diplomacy, international law, business, the media, and in tertiary education and scientific research--which Yamuna Kachru and Larry Smith (2008: 3) call ELFs mathetic function--so it is clearly not a reduced lingua franca in the terms original (Frankish) sense. Yet it usually differs from English as a native language (ENL), the language used by NESs [native English speakers]. Spoken ELF contains a huge amount of linguistic variation and non-standard forms (although formal written ELF tends to resemble ENL to a much greater extent).(Ian Mackenzie,  English as a Lingua Franca: Theorizing and Teaching English. Routledge, 2014)ELF in Local and International SettingsEnglish operates as a lingua franca at a number of different levels, including local, national, regional and international. Apparently paradoxically, the more localised the use of English as a lingua franca, the mo re variation it is likely to display. This can be explained by reference . . . to the identity--communication continuum. When used in a local setting, ELF will display identity markers. Thus code-switching and the explicit [use] of nativised norms can be expected. When used for international communication, on the other hand, speakers will consciously avoid the use of local and nativised norms and expressions.(Andy Kirkpatrick,  World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 2007)Is ELF a Variety of English?Whether ELF should be called a variety of English at all is an open question, and one which cannot be answered as long as we do not have any good descriptions of it. It is well known that divisions between languages are arbitrary, and therefore those between varieties of a language have to be as well. Once descriptions are available of how speakers from different linguacultural backgrounds use ELF, this wi ll make it possible to consider whether it would make sense to think of English as it is spoken by its non-native speakers as falling into different varieties, just as is the English spoken by its native speakers. . . . It is likely that ELF, like any other natural language, will turn out to vary, and to change over time. It does not make much sense, therefore, to talk about a monolithic variety as such: a variety can be treated as if it were a monolith, but this is a convenient fiction, for the process of variation itself never stops.(Barbara Seidlhofer, English as a Lingua Franca in the Expanding Circle: What It Isnt.  English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles, ed. by  Rani Rubdy and Mario Saraceni.  Continuum, 2006)Two ApproachesSeeing as the movement to bring forth the conceptualization of English as a lingua franca is gaining momentum worldwide, and more specifically for Europe, it is imperative that an analysis is made of the implications of the two differing appr oaches . . .. One is the (traditional) idea that English is a lingua franca for a non-native speaker constituency which should pursue knowledge of the language as if it were a foreign language. The other, upheld by those who have bought into the world Englishes paradigm, is to see English as a lingua franca for interlocutors who use it with others in multicultural settings (and thus see English in its diversity as opposed to viewing English as a prescriptive entity defined by idealized inner-circle speakers). It should be made clear, moreover, that my own position here is that a lingua franca must be inclusive as opposed to exclusive. That is to say, it is imperative that our understanding of how English is used in Europe is integrated with a vision of a communicatively viable use of the language internationally.(Marko Modiano, EIL, Native-Speakerism and the Failure of European ELT.  English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogical Issues, ed. by  Farzad Sharif ian. Multilingual Matters, 2009)