discourse

Discourse (L. discursus, "running to and from") means either "written or spoken communication or debate" or "a formal discussion or debate." The term is often used in semantics and discourse analysis.
In semantics, discourses are linguistic units composed of several sentences; in other words, conversations, arguments, or speeches. In discourse analysis, which came to prominence in the late 1960s, the word "discourse" is often used as shorthand for "discursive formation" meaning large heterogeneous discursive entities.
The Social Scientific Conception of Discourse

Modernism
Modern theorists were focused on achieving progress and believed in the existence of natural and social laws which could be used universally to develop knowledge and thus a better understanding of society. Modernist theorists were preoccupied with obtaining the truth and reality and sought to develop theories which contained certainty and predictability. Modernist theorists therefore viewed discourse as a being relative to talking or way of talking and understood discourse to be functional. Discourse and language transformations are ascribed to progress or the need to develop new or more “accurate” words to describe new discoveries, understandings or areas of interest. In modern times, language and discourse are dissociated from power and ideology and instead conceptualized as “natural” products of common sense usage or progress. Modernism further gave rise to the liberal discourses of rights, equality, freedom and justice however this rhetoric masked the substantive inequality and failed to account for differences.
Structuralism
Structuralism theorists, such as Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Lacan, argue that all human actions and social formations are related to language and can be understood as systems of related elements. This means that the “…individual elements of a system only have significance when considered in relation to the structure as a whole, and that structures are to be understood as self-contained, self-regulated, and self-transforming entities.” In other words, it is the structure itself that determines the significance, meaning and function of the individual elements of a system. Structuralism has made an important contribution to our understanding of language and social systems. Saussure’s theory of language highlights the decisive role of meaning and signification in structuring human life more generally.
Postmodernism
Following the perceived limitations of the modern era, emerged postmodern theory. Postmodern theorists rejected modernist claims that there was one theoretical approach that explained all aspects of society. Rather, postmodernist theorists were interested in examining the variety of experience of individuals and groups and emphasized differences over similarities and common experiences.
In contrast to modern theory, postmodern theory is more fluid and allows for individual differences as it rejected the notion of social laws. Postmodern theorists shifted away from truth seeking and instead sought answers for how truths are produced and sustained. Postmodernists contended that truth and knowledge is plural, contextual, and historically produced through discourses. Postmodern researchers therefore embarked on analyzing discourses such as texts, language, policies and practices.
French social theorist Michel Foucault developed an entirely original notion of discourse in his early work, especially the Archaeology of knowledge (1972). In Discursive Struggles Within Social Welfare: Restaging Teen Motherhood, [Iara Lessa summarizes Foucault's definition of discourse as “systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak." He traces the role of discourses in wider social processes of legitimating and power, emphasizing the construction of current truths, how they are maintained and what power relations they carry with them.” Foucault later theorized that discourse is a medium through which power relations produce speaking subjects. Foucault (1977, 1980) argued that power and knowledge are inter-related and therefore every human relationship is a struggle and negotiation of power. Foucault further stated that power is always present and can both produce and constrain the truth. Discourse according to Foucault (1977, 1980, 2003) is related to power as it operates by rules of exclusion. Discourse therefore is controlled by objects, what can be spoken of; ritual, where and how one may speak; and the privileged, who may speak. Coining the phrases power-knowledge Foucault (1980) stated knowledge was both the creator of power and creation of power.
Feminism
Feminists have explored the complex relationships that exist among power, ideology, language and discourse. Feminist theory talks about "doing gender" and/or "performing gender." It is suggested that gender is a property, not of persons themselves but of the behaviors to which members of a society ascribe a gendering meaning. “Being a man/woman involves appropriating gendered behaviors and making them part of the self that an individual presents to others. Repeated over time, these behaviors may be internalized as "me"—that is, gender does not feel like a performance or an accomplishment to the actor, it just feels like her or his "natural" way of behaving." Feminist theorists have attempted to recover the subject and "subjectivity." Chris Weedon, one of the best known scholars working in the feminist poststructuralist tradition, has sought to integrate individual experience and social power in a theory of subjectivity. Weedon defines subjectivity as "the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself, and her ways of understanding her relation to the world. Judith Butler, also another well known post structuralist feminist scholar, explains that the performativity of gender offers an important contribution to the conceptual understanding of processes of subversion.
Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics.
Each language has its own distinct grammar. "English grammar" is the set of rules of the English language itself. "An English grammar" is a specific study or analysis of these rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar". A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar, as opposed to linguistic prescription, which tries to enforce the governing rules of how a language is to be used.
Grammatical frameworks are approaches to constructing grammars. The standard framework of generative grammar is the transformational grammar model developed in various ways by Noam Chomsky and his followers from the 1950s onwards.
Development of grammars
Grammars evolve through usage and also due to separations of the human population. With the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend to appear also. Formal grammars are codifications of usage that are developed by repeated documentation over time, and by observation as well. As the rules become established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often creates a discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted, over time, as being correct. Linguists tend to believe that prescriptive grammars do not have any justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes; however, prescriptions are considered in sociolinguistics as part of the explanation for why some people say "I didn't do nothing", some say "I didn't do anything", and some say one or the other depending on social context.
The formal study of grammar is an important part of education for children from a young age through advanced learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense most linguists use the term, as they are often prescriptive rather than descriptive.
Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs) are more common in the modern day. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example, naturalistic Interlingua, schematic Esperanto, and the highly logic-compatible artificial language Lojban). Each of these languages has its own grammar.
No clear line can be drawn between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax to convey information that is encoded via inflection in synthetic languages. In other words, word order is not significant and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language, whereas morphology is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. Chinese and Afrikaans, for example, are highly analytic, and meaning is therefore very context – dependent. (Both do have some inflections, and have had more in the past; thus, they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time.) Latin, which is highly synthetic, uses affixes and inflections to convey the same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite (though not completely) self-contained, an intelligible Latin sentence can be made from elements that are placed in a largely arbitrary order. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax, while Chinese has the opposite.
Lexical functional grammar
Lexical functional grammar (LFG) is a grammar framework in theoretical linguistics, a variety of generative grammar. The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s, in reaction to the direction research in the area of transformational grammar had begun to take. It mainly focuses on syntax, including its relation with morphology and semantics. There has been little LFG work on phonology (although ideas from optimality theory have recently been popular in LFG research).
For example, in the sentence The old woman eats the falafel, the c-structure analysis is that this is a sentence which is made up of two pieces, a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP). The VP is itself made up of two pieces, a verb (V) and another NP. The NPs are also analyzed into their parts. Finally, the bottom of the structure is composed of the words out of which the sentence is constructed. The f-structure analysis, on the other hand, treats the sentence as being composed of attributes, which include features such as number and tense or functional units such as subject, predicate, or object.
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences. In most approaches to generative grammar, the rules will also predict the morphology of a sentence.
Generative grammar originates in the work of Noam Chomsky, beginning in the late 1950s. (Early versions of Chomsky's theory were called transformational grammar, and this term is still used as a collective term that includes his subsequent theories.) There are a number of competing versions of generative grammar currently practiced within linguistics. Chomsky's current theory is known as the Minimalist Program. Other prominent theories include or have included Head-driven phrase structure grammar, Lexical functional grammar, Categorial grammar, Relational grammar, and Tree-adjoining grammar.
Categorial grammar
Categorial grammar is a term used for a family of formalisms in natural language syntax motivated by the principle of compositionality and organized according to the view that syntactic constituents should generally combine as functions or according to a function-argument relationship.
Basics of categorial grammar
A categorial grammar shares some features with the simply-typed lambda calculus. Whereas the lambda calculus has only one function type A → B, a categorial grammar typically has more. For example, a simple categorial grammar for English might have two function types A/B and A\B, depending on whether the function takes its argument from the left or the right. Such a grammar would have only two rules: left and right function application. Such a grammar might have three basic categories (N,NP, and S), putting count nouns in the category N, adjectives in the category N/N, determiners in the category NP/N, names in the category NP, intransitive verbs in the category S\NP, and transitive verbs in the category (S\NP)/NP. Categorial grammars of this form (having only function application rules) are equivalent in generative capacity to context-free grammar and are thus often considered inadequate for theories of natural language syntax. Unlike CFGs, categorial grammars are lexicalized, meaning that only a small number of (mostly language-independent) rules are employed, and all other syntactic phenomena derive from the lexical entries of specific words.
Historical notes
The basic ideas of categorial grammar date from work by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (in 1935) and Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (in 1953). In 1958, Joachim Lambek introduced a syntactic calculus that formalized the function type constructors along with various rules for the combination of functions. This calculus is a forerunner of linear logic in that it is a substructural logic. Montague grammar uses an ad hoc syntactic system for English that is based on the principles of categorial grammar. Although Montague's work is sometimes regarded as syntactically uninteresting, it helped to bolster interest in categorial grammar by associating it with a highly successful formal treatment of natural language semantics. More recent work in categorial grammar has focused on the improvement of syntactic coverage. One formalism which has received considerable attention in recent years is Steedman and Szabolcsi's combinatory categorial grammar which builds on combinatory logic invented by Moses Schönfinkel and Haskell Curry.



Refinements of categorial grammar
Features and subcategories
Most systems of categorial grammar subdivide categories. The most common way to do this is by tagging them with features, such as person, gender, number, and tense. Sometimes only atomic categories are tagged in this way. In Montague grammar, it is traditional to subdivide function categories using a multiple slash convention, so A/B and A//B would be two distinct categories of left-applying functions, that took the same arguments but could be distinguished between by other functions taking them as arguments.
Function composition
Rules of function composition are included in many categorial grammars. An example of such a rule would be one that allowed the concatenation of a constituent of type A/B with one of type B/C to produce a new constituent of type A/C. The semantics of such a rule would simply involve the composition of the functions involved. Function composition is important in categorial accounts of conjunction and extraction, especially as they relate to phenomena like right node raising. The introduction of function composition into a categorial grammar leads to many kinds of derivational ambiguity that are vacuous in the sense that they do not correspond to semantic ambiguities.
Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of syntactic theories developed by Lucien Tesnière. It is distinct from phrase structure grammars, as it lacks phrasal nodes. Structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. Dependency grammars are not defined by a specific word order, and are thus well suited to languages with freer word order, such as Czech.
Algebraic syntax and Extensible Dependency Grammar are types of dependency grammar. Link grammar is similar to dependency grammar, but link grammar includes directionality in the relations between words, as well as lacking a head-dependent relationship.
Operator Grammar differs from other dependency grammars in that it is also a theory of semantics (information). This theory posits a large collection of reductions (small transformations) that map dependency structures into compact, variant forms. It also reverses the direction of dependency, by having operators (e.g. verbs) depend on their arguments



Sentence (linguistics)
In linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language —a grammatical and lexical unit consisting of one or more words, representing distinct and differentiated concepts, and combined to form a meaningful statement, question, request, command, etc.
As with all language expressions, sentences contain both semantic and logical elements (words, parts of speech), and also include action symbols that indicate sentence starts, stops, pauses, etc. In addition, sentences also contain properties distinct to natural language, such as characteristic intonation and timing patterns.
Components of a sentence
A simple complete sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. The subject is typically a noun phrase, though other kinds of phrases (such as gerund phrases) work as well, and some languages allow subjects to be omitted. The predicate is a finite verb phrase: a finite verb together with zero or more objects, zero or more complements, and zero or more adverbials. See also copula for the consequences of this verb on the theory of sentence structure.
Clauses
A clause consists of a subject and a verb. There are two types of clauses: independent and subordinate (dependent). An independent clause consists of a subject verb and also demonstrates a complete thought: for example, "I am sad." A subordinate clause consists of a subject and a verb, but demonstrates an incomplete thought: for example, "Because I had to move."
Classification
By structure
One traditional scheme for classifying English sentences is by the number and types of finite clauses:
A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause with no dependent clauses.
A compound sentence consists of multiple independent clauses with no dependent clauses. These clauses are joined together using conjunctions, punctuation, or both.
A complex sentence consists of one or more independent clauses with at least one dependent clause.
A complex-compound sentence (or compound-complex sentence) consists of multiple independent clauses, at least one of which has at least one dependent clause.
By purpose
Sentences can also be classified based on their purpose:
A declarative sentence or declaration, the most common type, commonly makes a statement: I am going home.
A negative sentence or negation denies that a statement is true: I am not going home.
An interrogative sentence or question is commonly used to request information — When are you going to work? — but sometimes not; see rhetorical question.
An exclamatory sentence or exclamation is generally a more emphatic form of statement: What a wonderful day this is!
An imperative sentence or command tells someone to do something: Go to work at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
Major and minor sentences
A major sentence is a regular sentence; it has a subject and a predicate. For example: I have a ball. In this sentence one can change the persons: We have a ball. However, a minor sentence is an irregular type of sentence. It does not contain a finite verb. For example, "Mary!" "Yes." "Coffee." etc. Other examples of minor sentences are headings (e.g. the heading of this entry), stereotyped expressions (Hello!), emotional expressions (Wow!), proverbs, etc. This can also include sentences which do not contain verbs (e.g. The more, the merrier.) in order to intensify the meaning around the nouns (normally found in poetry and catchphrases).
Sentences that comprise a single word are called word sentences, and the words themselves sentence words.
Clause.
In grammar, a clause is a pair of words or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on the verb (this is especially common in null subject languages.) The most basic kind of sentence consists of a single clause; more complicated sentences may contain multiple clauses, including clauses contained within clauses.
Clauses are often contrasted with phrases. Traditionally, a clause was said to have both a finite verb and its subject, whereas a phrase either contained a finite verb but not its subject (in which case it is a verb phrase) or did not contain a finite verb. Hence, in the sentence "I didn't know that the dog ran through the yard," "that the dog ran through the yard" is a clause, as is the sentence as a whole, while "the yard," "through the yard," "ran through the yard," and "the dog" are all phrases. However, modern linguists do not draw the same distinction, as they accept the idea of a non-finite clause, a clause that is organized around a non-finite verb.
Functions of dependent clauses
One way to classify dependent clauses is by function; that is, by the roles they play in the clauses they are subordinate to. Since the same dependent clause might have different roles in different sentences, this classification must be applied on a per-sentence basis.
Under this classification scheme, there are three main types of dependent clauses: noun clauses, adjective clauses, and adverb clauses, so called for their syntactic and semantic resemblance to noun phrasea verb or preposition, as in these English examples:
"What you say is not as important as how you say it."
"I imagine that they're having a good time."
"I keep thinking about what happened yesterday."
(Note that the word that is optional in the second sentence, highlighting a complication in the entire dependent/independent contrast: "They're having a good time" is a complete sentence, and therefore an independent clause, but in "I imagine they're having a good time," it acts as a dependent clause.)
An adjective clause modifies a noun phrase. In English, adjective clauses typically come at the end of their noun phrases:
"The woman I spoke to said otherwise."
"We have to consider the possibility that he's lying to us."
An adverb clause typically modifies its entire main clause. In English, it usually precedes or follows its main clause:
"When she gets here, all will be explained."
"He was annoyed by the whole thing, which was unfortunate, but unavoidable (vague)."
The line between categories may be indistinct, and, in some languages, it may be difficult to apply these classifications at all. At times more than one interpretation is possible, as in the English sentence "We saw a movie, after which we went dancing," where "after which we went dancing" can be seen either as an adjective clause ("We saw a movie. After the movie, we went dancing.") or as an adverb clause ("We saw a movie. After we saw the movie, we went dancing."). Sometimes the two interpretations are not synonymous, but are both intended, as in "Let me know when you're ready," where "when you're ready" functions both as a noun clause (the object of know, identifying what knowledge is to be conveyed) and as an adverb clause (specifying when the knowledge is to be conveyed).
Structures of dependent clauses
The other major way to classify dependent clauses is by their structure, though even this classification scheme does make some reference to the clause's function in a sentence. This scheme is more complex, as there are many different ways that a dependent clause can be structured. In English, common structures include:
Many dependent clauses, such as "before he comes" or "because they agreed," consist of a preposition-like subordinating conjunction, plus what would otherwise be an independent clause. These clauses act much like prepositional phrases, and are either adjective clauses or adverb clauses, with many being able to function in either capacity.
Relative clauses, such as "which I couldn't see," generally consist of a relative pronoun, plus a clause in which the relative pronoun plays a part. Relative clauses usually function as adjective clauses, but occasionally they function as adverb clauses; in either case, they modify their relative pronoun's antecedent and follow the phrase or clause that they modify.
Fused relative clauses, such as "what she did" (in the sense of "the thing she did"), are like ordinary relative clauses except that they act as noun clauses; they incorporate their subjects into their relative pronouns.
Declarative content clauses, such as "that they came," usually consist of the conjunction that plus what would otherwise be an independent clause, or of an independent clause alone (with an implicit preceding that). For this reason, they are often called that clauses. Declarative content clauses refer to states of affairs; it is often implied that the state of affairs is the case, as in "It is fortunate that they came," but this implication is easily removed by the context, as in "It is doubtful that they came."
Interrogative content clauses, such as "whether they came" and "where he went" (as in "I don't know where he went"), are much like declarative ones, except that they are introduced by interrogative words. Rather than referring to a state of affairs, they refer to an unknown element of a state of affairs, such as one of the participants (as in "I wonder who came") or even the truth of the state (as in "I wonder whether he came").
Small clauses, such as "him leave" (as in "I saw him leave") and "him to leave" (as in "I wanted him to leave"), are minimal predicate structures, consisting only of an object and an additional structure (usually an infinitive), with the latter being predicated to the former by a controlling verb or preposition.

Gift Box

How to Personalized Gift Box

Everyone loves to receive gifts - kids, teens, adults and other yes, even the aged.

Wrapping a gift is an art. The easiest and most convenient way to do it, however, it is simply buy ready - made, same - designed bags and boxes that are available almopst anywhere.

But how about setting aside some minutes in making a personalized box or bag to place your gifts

Not only will the receiver appreciate it because of the time and effort you put in making it, it will also enhance your creativeness.

For a starter, try this simple you love - filled creation.

Materials:

Flip - top box (big enough to hold your surprises)

color paper

pictures of receiver's favorite items from old newspaper

1/2 x 4' color ribbon

fancy ribbon for bow

scissors

construction paper for the card

glue

tape

color pens or pencils

chocolates, candies, cuteitems, or anything that serves as your gift.

HERE are the steps / procedures on how to personalized gift box.

Step 1. Wrap your box with color paper.

Step 2. Decorate box with pictures.

Step 3. Cut out any shapes, glue one to top end of 1/2"x4' ribbon.

Step 4. Tape your surprises - chocolates, candies, etc - on ribbon with shapes as background.

Step 5. Write your message on a personally made card from a construction paper. Glue card to bottom end of ribbon. Wait for glue to dry.

Step 6. Put your string of surprises inside the box, card first.

Step 7. Tape glued shapes - on a string to flip - top of box close the box.

Step 8. Tie box with fancy bow.

Practices and Traditions of B'laan Tribes

What are the Practices and Traditions of B'laan Tribe?

Marriage

Parents arrange the marriage of the children. They are the ones who decide for their future partners. Children are suppressed of their right to refuse.

The B'laan practice giving of sunggod or bride price wherein the bride price wherein brides family especially the father and close raltives demand valuable things and animals such as agong, carabao, horse from the grooms family. The wedding is officiated by a Fulong with the presence of the elders in the community. For them, wedding is the merriest celebration which usually lasts for four days. The people in the community enjoy the saf kain, aparty prepared by the groom's family at the bride's wife.

A muli agno ( welcome party) is also being held by the groom for his wife.

The men especially the Bong Fulong and the Dad Tua are polygamous, men are allowed to have many wives for as they are capable to give sunggod (dowry) and can feed his family/ies. Having many wives is a symbol of power and influence. To be a Bong Fulong's wife who is able to give birth to many sons symbolizes prestige and high status.

Birth

Fulong ad malol is a person who assists the B'laan woman in giving birth. Before delivery, the pregnant woman sits in closed young banana or cogon leaves for easy delivery. The umbilical cord is cut using a shapened bamboo or bagakay/ pawa. The child can only be named after cutting the umbilical cord. The mother takes a bath after giving birth. She takes herbal medicine as boiled roots of different herbal plants to avoid strain.

Death

The B'laans do not use chemicals to preserve their dead instead the dead body is wrapped with tadtad or broken bamboo then tied with uway (rattan) and hang in the tree. It should be done within 24 hours from the time the person dies. They believe that hanging the cadaver in a tree is a form of respect to the dead person because if it is buried underground, the earthworms and other soil organisms will feed on the flesh of the person while if it hanged the cadaver will decompose in a natural way.

3 wordz

Have you ever been inlove? How often you say the word i love you?

I Love You..... this romantic words that always comes out in our mouth and a universal words can decieive us and can teach us now to live happy.

Love is difficult to define because, love is love itself. But let us try to give words that are synonymous to LOVE.....

Love is a matter of ACCEPTANCE and Love is a matter of CHOICE.

Acceptance and Love for me is synonymous to each other. When you love, you also accept fffor what he is inside and out. You may always hear when people say that " Love is blind". But actually they refer that word blind to acceptance.

Inspite of this shortcoming you still love the person that means, when you love him you accept all of his whole being. It's not love when just love him because of his physical structure or his attitude, its admiration.

Admiration and Love is a different word but when you love the person, you admire him but not all admiration is love. we can'y sometimes deny that one facotr or reason that we love him is his physical aspects, we mostly search for a BEAUTIFUL partner or HANDSOME partner. but we are not aware that looks can be deceiving. he may look so innocent and so gentle but when you dig deeper into his personality, you may notice that his not the guy you've been dreaming to spend your life with.

In this situation ACCEPTANCE comes in, if we found out that there is something wrong with him but inspite of this, you can love him though he is not perfect.

Always put in your mind that nobody's perfect, but let us try to be perfect for the one we love.....

LOVE is a matter of Choice. God gave us the freedom to choose, whether bad or good, not all of us chooses to be good because when you choose to be good its really hard. It's like when to follow God, its not that easy. Look at the 12 disciples, they choose to follow God. They chose to be holy before God. And now, look what happened. Stephen, one of the follower of God, he was stoned by the people because he was preached the Gospel. Though its so risky/ dangerous, still they choose to follow and love God because god is our creator and He gave His begotten son just to save us (John 3:16) GOD IS LOVE. God accept us though we are sinners and sometimes we don't want to follow Him. but His Love is infinite we can't phantom it. We choose to follow God because of His promise and His unfailing promise to us that if we chose to follow Him, we have this eternal life that He promised.

When you love well, its your choice and when were hurt it is also your choice to be hurt. you can't teach your heart to love him but if it is your choice to love him, yes you can but if not you can do so.

Life in this wolrd is a matter of choice. we can choose to be happy and other's not. You cannot blame others if they chose to be bad because they have their reason why they prefer to choose such things that makes their life miserable.