E-business and e-commerce web applications Essay

Identify e-business and e-commerce web applications to support the proposed implementation First off e-commerce is one of the best things for business whether you have your whole business through the web or partly. If you have a physical store, you are limited by the area that you can sell your product or offer service. An ecommerce website opens your business to the world. In addition to these two drivers,online retail is also driven by traffic from search engines. One of the most important positives of ecommerce is the lowered cost. A part of these lowered costs could be passed on to customers in the form of discounted prices. Advertising and marketing is global and you get a better buying market. For personnel use the automation of checkout, billing, payments, inventory management, and other operational processes, lowers the number of employees required to run an ecommerce setup. Last but not least Real estate, the store does not need a prominent physical location. you can Locate the Product Quicker, eliminate travel time and cost, provide comparison shopping, also cross reference deals, bargains, coupons, and group buying.if you do open a e-business vulnerabilities that need to be taken into account if you decide to create an e-commerce site is security internal and external. Hackers attempting to steal customer information or disrupt the site or server containing customer information that is stolen. Also Imposters can mirror your ecommerce site to steal customer’s money. authorized administrators/users of an ecommerce website downloading hidden active content need to watch the attacks on ecommerce system. Scans should be frequently done on your server. this will help identify any malicious programs that may be running worms, viruses or Trojan horses. Limited user access will ensure that you know exactly who has access to your ecommerce system and ass ign each user with unique access authentication method.

Assess How Well Own Knowledge Skills And Understanding Meet Standards

SHC 22 Personal Development v1. 4 Title Level Credit value Learning outcomes The learner will 1 Understand what is required for competence in own work role Introduction to personal development in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings TWO 3 Assessment criteria The learner can: 1. 1 Describe the duties and responsibilities of own role 1. 2 Identify standards that influence the way the role is carried out 1. 3 Describe ways to ensure that personal attitudes or beliefs do not obstruct the quality of work 2 Be able to reflect on own work activities 2. Explain why reflecting on practice is an important way to develop knowledge, skills and practice 2. 2 Assess how well own knowledge, skills and understanding meet standards 2. 3 Demonstrate the ability to reflect on work activities 3. 1 Identify sources of support for own learning and development 3. 2 Describe the process for agreeing a personal development plan and who should be involved 3. 3 Contribute to drawing up own personal development plan 4. 1 Show how a learning activity has improved own knowledge, skills and understanding 4. 2 Show how reflecting on a situation has improved own knowledge, skills and understanding 4. Show how feedback from others has developed own knowledge, skills and understanding 4. 4 Show how to record progress in relation to personal development 3 Be able to agree a personal development plan 4 Be able to develop knowledge, skills and understanding Additional information about the unit NOS ref CCLD 204 GEN 12 HSC 23 Themes recur as knowledge requirements, performance criteria and core values throughout HSC and CCLD NOS Unit purpose and aims This unit is aimed at those who work in health or social care settings or with children or young eople in a wide range of settings. The unit introduces the concepts of personal development and reflective practice which are fundamental to such roles, and GEN 13 SHC 22 Personal Development v1. 4 ways to implement the se. Assessment requirements Additional information This unit must be assessed in accordance with the assessment strategy for health and social care.Standards may include: Codes of practice Regulations Minimum standards National occupational standards A personal development plan may have a different name but will record information such as agreed objectives for development, proposed activities to meet objectives, timescales for review, etc. Sources of support may include: Formal support Informal support Supervision Appraisal Within the organisation Beyond the organisation Who should be involved may include: The individual Carers Advocates Supervisor, line manager or employer Other professionals

The relationship between business and Psychological , and how the Research Proposal

The relationship between business and Psychological , and how the psychological influence on business - Research Proposal Example Psychology as a system of life experience is familiar to each human being (Franzoi, 1996). Social psychology stands apart among all other branches of psychological science. The combination of these two words itself is an indicator of the specific place of this science. Having emerged at the interface between two other sciences – sociology and psychology – social psychology still preserves its independent status. There are various reasons for it but the principle among them is existence of a certain set of social phenomena that cannot be explained either within psychology or within sociology. Sociology studied the society in general, psychology studied processes that took place inside human brains, but none of them was interested in influence of people on each other or influence of group on people. Social psychology is â€Å"†¦the scientific discipline that attempts to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others† (Allport, 1985, p.3). In other words this branch of psychology studies the logic of social behavior of separate people or groups and thus helps to define reasons or forecast their behavior under certain circumstances. Due to this social psychology can be effectively applied to nearly all spheres of human life and work. The management of employee relations is one of the most important spheres of modern business. Knowledge of the basic principles of social psychology can be very helpful in understanding major driving-forces of people’s behavior, their motivation, etc. These include the principle of social construction of reality, the persuasiveness of social influence, several motivational and processing principles. People always strive for mastery, which means they try to comprehend and forecast events in the social world in order to obtain encouragement. They enjoy feeling experienced and effective and will do their best to

Research Manuscript Critique Part 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Research Manuscript Critique Part 2 - Assignment Example The have also clearly identified the population, the demographic variables, the recruitment and the location of the study. For instance, the study takes place in the northeastern city and the surroundings. The women involved are Caucasian and are different in terms of age and other related demographics. On the recruitment, the researchers explain that fliers were used in order to assist them in the recruitment process. Given the nature of the research study, the researchers had no choice but to discuss the appropriateness of the sample size, which is quite small. For example, one of the important explanations of the sample size includes the need to detailed explanation of the sessions with the psychiatrists. Other important requirements of a research study such as research ethics, which includes consent and confidentiality, have also been catered for in this research. The researcher has also used clear articulate language that helps the reader through the research study. Although this is the case, the researcher has not clearly labeled the research questions and the hypothesis. All these have been left for the reader to figure out. The article Brinn-Pike et al., 1998 looks into the process of counseling pregnant adolescents. To achieve this purpose, the researchers used a mixed research method. The research has clear research questions and a specific question. There are also clear hypotheses and a sample size of 20 respondents and an explanation of the demographic variables that pertains to the sample. The study also identifies the population and clearly discusses the recruitment. For example, the researchers explain that the recruitment process and the data collecting process took 6 months whereby the participants involved were required to keep records. The sample, size and the results have also been discussed appropriately. Other

Renewable Energy Systems Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6500 words

Renewable Energy Systems - Research Paper Example astest power manufacturing segments of the world now and there is urgent necessity to minimise the maintenance and operation costs of electricity production. This research essay will make an earnest attempt to elucidate the wind and hydropower generation of manoeuvres of both Australian and Bangladesh government, in particular, to minimise the global warming and of that USA, China, Brazil, Russia and Canadian governments in general by giving unique attention to various empirical studies and eminent authors’ views on the subject. 1-Introduction Both wind energy and hydropower comprises of the renewable energy mix, these bring a lot of economic, technical and environmental advantages both to the developed and developing nations. Energy policy makers all around the world are now paying great attention to harness the renewable energy as they have a duty to safeguard the environment thereby by restricting greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Both wind energy and hydropower are resources which are abundantly available all around the globe, the technology has been well advanced and proven technology, are having longest plant life and lowest operating cost and the plant life can be extended at minimal costs .This research essay will analyse the hydropower and wind energy capabilities of Australia and Bangladesh in an exhaustive manner and that of USA, China, Russia, Brazil and Venezuela in a crisp. 2-â€Å"What is Hydropower?† As of date, hydropower is the largest renewable-energy source and about 16% of the globe’s electricity needs is catered by the hydropower and hydropower occupies about 80% of the globe’s renewable-energy resource. For 90% of their electricity needs, about 25 countries in the globe are now relying on the hydropower. For example, about 99.3%... This essay stresses that Australian government has set a target of 20% of Australian electricity needs to be catered from the renewable- energy sources by the year 2020. As this is an ambitious target, this can be achieved by developing and harnessing more percentage of energies from hydropower and wind farms. Hydropower is environmental friendly as it creates no pollution and maintains the stream flow of the rivers and the ecological balance. With the help of micro hydropower projects, tiny villages and remote hilly areas can be given electricity through off-grid, which would definitely help to enhance the socioeconomic growth of these remote regions. This paper makes a conclusion that Hydropower as one of the renewable energy helps to avoid about 225 million tons of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in the USA, and this is equivalent to taking about 42 million cars out of the American roads. According to satellite imagery , the pacific Northwest which is the home of the majority of the hydropower projects in USA is an island of low carbon emission, and this is conclusive proof that hydropower can reduce the CO2 emission into the atmosphere. Thus, renewable energy like wind energy and hydropower are the energies of the future and both Australian and Bangladesh government energy policy makers should give more priority in the near future to these sectors so as to afford a clean, economical and environmental friendly energy to its citizens.

Developing Cross-Cultural Capability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Developing Cross-Cultural Capability - Essay Example Despite the development made by Hall, the ideas were still discreet. Later, Hoftstede (1980; 2000) brought about actual developments in the idea of cross-cultural management. On one hand, five distinct cultural dimensions were identified by Hofstede (1991; 1993) that sets two countries apart. On the other hand, seven similar cultural dimensions were identified by Trompenaars (1993). The five of the seven common cultural dimensions as identified by the research scholars are individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, power distance and long-term versus short-term orientation (Hofstede, 1980; 2000). In the due course of working as an HR head for the company, the researcher has realized that the company is planning to take its first step in the international field and has no prior experiences of business expansions across borders. In addition, majority of the managers who have worked or are still working either belong to the European Union co untries or UK. Given the aforementioned fact, for a business expanding into countries like, Nigeria, China and Brazil, the five cultural dimensions may pose severe challenges as well as present with prospective opportunities, as far as the theory of cross-cultural management is concerned. For example, it has been witnessed in many empirical researches that majority of the European companies find it very hard to understand the aspect of collectivism followed by Chinese employees (Cheng, Jiang and Riley, 2003; Chen, Tsui and Farh, 2002).

Customer Service Management of Rogers Cable Inc of Canada Essay

Customer Service Management of Rogers Cable Inc of Canada - Essay Example The deregulation of the media and communication industry brought the major challenge before the monopolistic RCI. The Canadian Telecommunication Act of 1993 was governed by three principles; the universal service, fair treatment of the customers and interconnectivity of networks. This marked the arrival of a competitive market in the industry. There was a need for RCI to survive among the potential competitors like Bell Canada. As the customers of RCI will be thrown open to various options, there was an urgent need to retain them. Consequently the customer service of RCI was facing a severe test. Hence the company conducted a refined analysis in regard to its customer service. The analysis revealed the critical condition about RCI’s service issue. The analysis produced that there was a significant number of repeat service calls after the installation. An in-depth analysis conducted on a sample of 100 customers confirmed that 20% of them had a repeat work. After considering the historical data it was observed that 16% of the repeat works were done in the houses which had a new (within the previous 30 days) installation. This called for the need to revise the prevailing customer service system which threw light on the cause of such considerable repeat work. The prevailing system, which was followed by RCI in fixing the technical problems in households, involved outsourcing of service technicians. Since the demand for service technicians is seasonal, RCI opted for outsourcing.... The analysis revealed the critical condition about RCI's service issue. Cause of Poor Customer Service The analysis produced that there was a significant number of repeat service calls after the installation. An in-depth analysis conducted on a sample of 100 customers confirmed that 20% of them had a repeat work. After considering the historical data it was observed that 16% of the repeat works were done in the houses which had a new (within the previous 30 days) installation. This called for the need to revise the prevailing customer service system which threw light on the cause of such considerable repeat work. The prevailing system, which was followed by RCI in fixing the technical problems in households, involved outsourcing of service technicians. Since the demand for service technicians is seasonal, RCI opted for outsourcing. Among all the technicians only 18 % constituted RCI's cable employees. This caused a communication gap between the Cable technical Support area of RCI and the outsourced technicians. Due to this communication gap the technicians were unaware of the urgency of fixing the problem in the customer's house. The company lacked a central system that will connect the outsourced companies for technicians with RCI. While focusing on the outsourced technicians a major fault was noticed in their skill set and tools for problem fixing. The technicians were not educated about the new Roger products and didn't have sufficient technical tools to carry out a successful problem fixing. Solution to the Problem The company after analyzing the problem initiated a program across the organization named FTR (First Time Right). The objective of the program was to spread quality awareness about RCI. Trial The program was experimented over a team

Reading journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Reading journal - Essay Example The government sees the covering of face using veil, mask, or any other such thing as a threat to national security. The author has raised two questions for this stance of French government. First question is that whether all French people wearing masks and helmets be punished or restricted the same way as in case of veils? Second question is that will the government force the Arab tourists to bare their faces? When these questions are there, why the government is creating such a fuss for a very less number of face covering women? The answers seem to be the cultural, historical, and political facts. In the French culture, conversations between strangers and eye contact hold a key place but Muslim women do not do this because of which the French values are at risk. Sartorial rejection of French values because of veils is another reason for the government to put a ban on face covering. The author sums up the article by stating the fact that France is a country where uncovered bodies, breasts, and buttocks are cheered and celebrated. Covering the face by veil does just opposite to that because of which the government cannot allow it in any case. The issues that the article summarized above raises for me or my classroom community are personal preference and culture. For example, if I am from a culture where covering the face is essential for a woman when she is in public, then what will I do when the government will not allow me to do so? Similarly, it can be my own choice to cover my face or not. Does not it go against the self-independence or self-freedom? Although such questions can rise in the mind of any person, but the issues associated with veils, such as, threat to security cannot be ignored. Female terrorists have been reported to be using veils and burkas while carrying out the terrorist attacks in different parts of the world. They can hide their identities using veils and can carry out any violent attempt on any one. This article by

Analysis paper Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Analysis paper - Article Example He arguably concludes that western standards are being used in Arab programs. He believes that the show created by Saudi Arabians who emulated western ideals and wanted to convince the society that Islamic discourse is inferior over western discourse. Kraidy says that he used critical discourse and institutional research analysis which indicates that his response was negotiated. He came up with a conclusion based on the interviews and polling data that which reflected the thoughts of the citizens. He also interviews the elite in the society and compares it to the opinions of the public that indicates that his thoughts are purely negotiated (Kraidy 347). This negotiated response increases the trustworthiness of his study and conclusions. He does not consider all Islamic practices and hence his response is dominant. His major consideration is gender mixing, and he does not give any attention to Islamic cultures (Kraidy 346). Although most of his conclusions are based on research, he insists on his personal idea that women sovereignty should be valued, and hence his research is dominant and at the same time

GIS design and technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

GIS design and technology - Essay Example The paper tells that Geographical Information System (GIS) was created with the ability to assemble, analyze, manipulate, update, store and display information which has been geographically referenced according to the location of the data. For it to function it requires a vast amount of data hence making the projects which use GIS very expensive. Its data originate from images of satellites, maps, GPS data from survey an all other instruments which can attribute data. Before the development of Internet GIS large amount of data of different field like road networks, sewer lines, telecommunication lines and natural resources were useless as they were available in large unorganized states which makes them hard to retrieve and analyze. The creation of GIS solved this problem hence the organization of GIS databases which had all the information needed. Elangovan attributes GIS development is to different disciplines like databases, computer science, computer mapping, Computer Aided Design , remote sensing, geography, Cartography and many more. Different discipline had different functions in the GIS. Databases is used to store, manipulate and retrieval of the data. Computer mapping is used to create maps in the computer while the remote sensing is used to take satellite images. Through the combination of these and other disciplines the GIS emerged a super field which is very helpful. The development of GIS can be generally grouped into four stages of development according to Elangovan (2006, p.10). Between 1960 and 1975 there was introduction of the GIS concept. Due to this fact only few people used in mainframe computers. In between 1973 and early 1980s though many experiment and practice were done, there was little information as individuals were the one doing the research hence duplication of work. There was development of many GIS software between 1982 and late 1990s. This improved the growth of GIS. The last stage is between 1990 and 2000. In this stage there was standardization of the GIS due to the easy availability of software both for ensuring user friendliness and for a platform for working. After 2000 GIS had multi use like virtual reality, mobile mapping and web based GIS. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965 was successful in the creation of processing of graphic data through computer aid. This fastened the development of GIS. Agencies in USA, Canada and the UK started using the GIS for the processing of large data amounts. The first to use GIS was the Canada government. The Canadian government used the GIS for management of land and other resources. The US government used the GIS for Geographical Retrieval and Analysis System (GIRAS) which is used to analyze data on the use of land and land cover. In 1970s the Swedish bank on land data used the GIS to make the registration of land and properties automatic. After the development of Geographical Information Mapping and Management System (GIMMS) by the University of Minnesota , in 1963, there was publishing of the Atlas of Britain through the use of information in the GIS. It was printed by the Bickmore and his team of cartography. In 1970 there was publishing of the first multicolour map in Britain. The production of commercial GIS was done by the Harvard Graphic labs in 1970. There was also creation of many cartographic packages like GIMMS, GRID, GEOMAP and MAP. Between 1970s and 1980s there was development of many GIS packages. In 1975 after the first academic meeting about GIS in the UK there was release of the

To What Extent Do You Think Was a Revolutionary Sculptor Essay Example for Free

To What Extent Do You Think Was a Revolutionary Sculptor Essay Kritios was an Athenian sculptor, whose style and technique during the late archaic period helped revolutionize the archaic period into the Classical period. He has two main statutes that I am going to examine the first of which being the Kritios boy. Also referred to as â€Å"the first beautiful nude art† it is very important as it is a precursor to the later classical sculptures. It depicts a young boy in an idea form (so sculpted in the nude if they where in the ideal form) and is possibly a reflection of the Athenian cultural obsession with Pederasty. Yet it is more important in the sense that it smashes the Korous pose. The Kritios boy is so important as Kritios has mastered a complete understanding of how the different parts of the body act together, the statue supports the weight on the left leg meaning that the right one is bent at the knee and relaxed, and forces a chain of events as the pelvis is pushed diagonally upwards on the left side this causes the right buttock to relax and the spine to be placed in an â€Å"S† shaped curve causing the shoulder line to dip left to counteract the action of the pelvis. his stance is referred to as contrapposto, and the Kritios boy is one of the earliest examples of it mastered. (One of the greatest examples of contrapposto in history was during the neoclassical period ‘David† by Michelangelo, 1504) but this could not have been achieved without Kritios. The kritios boy also shows a number of other innovations that distinguish it from any of the Archaic Kouroi or anythi ng from the Archaic period. The muscular and skeletal structure are depicted with an unforced life-like accuracy as well as having the rib cage naturally expanded. Almost as if he is breathing in. the statue’s hips are relaxed and another reason why it is revolutionary in the break though into the classical period is the â€Å"smile† of the archaic statues, has been changed to accurate lips and the face is completely emotionless. The second Kritios statue I am going to look at was not just made by him, He and Nesiotes combined their sculptures of Aristogeiton and Harmodius to make ‘The Tyrannicides’ (477-476BC). These statues were a replica of the climax of the story about the two men who killed the Tyrant Of Athens. The Tyrannicides story is told through their stances and the objects they were holding. Aristogeiton (Eromenos); the statue sculpted by Kritios was the older man and the one with all the experience and wisdom who has a beard. He managed to show this by the way Aristogeiton was standing with one leg in front of the other at a defence angle. His arm flat out holding a knife to show his weapon. That he used to stab Hippias to death, some drapery over his arm is shown, and it appears to be being used as some kind of defense, this illustrates that he is experienced. Once again Kritos has used details and the realism to help push sculptor and realism forward with Aristogeiton’s muscles, stance, facial features. As well as beard that course stands out (again illustrating how he is wise). Both statues have frontal emphasis with both having a leg in front and their attacking arms pointing out to the front. The use of frontal emphasis almost puts you in Hipparchus’ shoes because it is what he would have seen when he was getting attacked. Making this a very threatening and violent image. Aristogeiton’s partner Harmodius was sculpted by Nesiotes who followed Kritios’ example and decided to base Hamodius on the opposite of Aristogeiton and make him extremely inexperienced and reckless. Because of his youth, he lacked the experience that Aristogeiton had, therefore his pose was very reckless and he is open to be attacked as his arm in the air exposing the rest of his body,. These men were seen as heroes for the way they killed the King who was more of a tyrant, which opened up Athenian democracy. And they have been immortalized and shown as very strong powerful figures. Again the statues are both very realistic in the way all the joints and body work together (the fact more weight is on one left leg this causes the pelvises to rise ect) In conclusion I feel that Kritios was a revolutionary sculptor as he mastered how a human figure standing with most of it’s weight on one foot causes a compelete change throughout the body as the human form does causing his statues to look allot more realist. This caused a massive step forward in the art and ability to create lifelike sculptures that completely makes the stiff kouroi of the archaic period completely obsolete.

Hot Cross Bun Formulation

Hot Cross Bun Formulation The purpose of this study is to reflect on the package of care offered to a client and to critically evaluate the evidence base for the model which might be considered best practice for a specific client problem, or issue. This entails identifying a particular clients presenting issues while describing the evidence that is available for a suitable therapeutic approach, or model which would promote best practice. The study will reflect on a client who has been diagnosed with post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of a road traffic accident (RTI) and concentrates on the use of imaginal exposure therapy (IET) for the treatment of symptoms. Triggers and maintenance factors contributing to the clients deteriorating well-being will be explained using formulation as well as the protective and predisposing elements that were explored in therapy. Relevant literature will be cited throughout and appropriate research articles that have been critically reviewed will be discussed. Pre sentation, referencing and informed consent are consistent with the School of Health and Social Cares guidance and have been adhered to throughout this assignment. Introduction PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more terrifying events, in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. It is a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma. The trauma may involve someones actual death or a threat to the individuals or someone elses life. The PTSD sufferer is affected to a degree that usual psychological defenses are incapable of coping. Reports of battle-associated stress appear as early as the 6th century BC. PTSD-like symptoms have been recognised in many combat veterans in many conflicts since. These symptoms have been called shell shock, traumatic war neurosis, and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS). The modern understanding of PTSD dates from the 1970s, largely as a result of the problems that were still being experienced by Vietnam veterans. The term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was coined in the mid-1970s. Early in 1978, the term was used in a working group finding presented to the Committee of Reactive Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. The term was formally recognised in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. Although a controversial diagnosis when first introduced, PTSD has filled an important gap in psychiatric theory and practice. From an historical perspective, the significant change ushered in by the PTSD concept was the stipulation that the etiological agent was outside the individual him or herself (i.e., the traumatic event) rather than an inherent individual weakness (i.e., a traumatic neurosis). The key to understanding the scientific basis and clinical expression of PTSD is the concept of trauma. DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)(1). Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include a history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptom clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning. PTSD is unique among other psychiatric diagnoses because of the great importance placed upon the etiological agent, the traumatic stressor. In fact, one cannot make a PTSD diagnosis unless the patient has actually met the stressor criterion which means that he or she has been exposed to an historical event that is considered traumatic. Clinical experience with the PTSD diagnosis has shown, however, that there are individual differences regarding the capacity to cope with catastrophic stress so that while some people exposed to traumatic events do not develop PTSD, others go on to develop the full-blown syndrome. Such observations have prompted a recognition that trauma, like pain, is not an external phenomenon that can be completely objectified. Like pain, the traumatic experience is filtered through cognitive and emotional processes before it can be appraised as an extreme threat. Because of individual differences in this appraisal process, different people appear to have different trauma thresholds, some more protected and some more vulnerable to developing clinical symptoms after exposure to extremely stressful situations. Although there is a renewed interest in subjective aspects of traumatic exposure, it must be emphasised that exposure to events such as rape, torture, genocide, and severe war zone stress, are experienced as traumatic events by nearly everyone. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published guidance to help the National Health Service (NHS) recognise and treat people who develop PTSD after traumatic events. Recommendations include psychological treatment in the form of trauma-focussed cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and/or a course of anti-depressant medication while receiving therapy. Trauma-focussed CBT focuses on a persons distressing feelings, thoughts (or cognitions) and behaviour and helps to bring about a positive change. In trauma-focused CBT, the treatment concentrates specifically on the memories, thoughts and feelings that a person has about the traumatic event. Imaginal exposure therapy (IET) is a component of trauma-focused CBT and involves revisiting the traumatic memory or memories in a safe and controlled environment so that the intensity of the individuals anxious and fearful reactions (thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and behaviours) is reduced. Clients are exposed to the trauma memory by repeatedly describing the events of the trauma aloud until the anxiety response is reduced. This process is referred to as habituation. The treatment aims to eventually eliminate the fearful responses so that the client can face a feared situation without experiencing anxiety or fear. The goal IET is to process the trauma memories and to reduce distress and avoidant behaviours that the traumatic memory evokes. CBT, as we know it today, is a result of a group of modern related therapies that have empirical psychological support. There have been two main influences to modern CBT and these are behaviour therapy (BT), as developed by Wolpe, Skinner and others in the 1950s and 1960s and cognitive therapy (CT) as developed by Beck and others in the 1960s and 1970s (Westbrook, et al. 2011, p2). Freudian psychoanalysis had dominated the psycho-therapeutic world since the late 1800s, but in the 1950s, Eysneck and others in the psychological community questioned the lack of empirical evidence to support psychoanalysis. As a result, BT developed within the academic and scientific psychology community, basing its methodology on observable events between stimuli and response. Despite the success of BT, there was still some dissatisfaction with what was seen as the limitations of a purely behavioural approach (Westbrook, et al. 2011, p3). Beck and others were developing ideas about CT as early as the 1950s; these ideas focussed on mental processes such as thoughts, beliefs and our interpretation of events, and continued to maintain an empirical approach to validate its theory to the psychological world (Westbrook, et al. 2011, p3). Although Beck was not the first to link faulty behaviour with irrational thought and unhealthy emotions, his work revolutionised the psychology world a nd continues to be used today. Background to the Client Throughout this assignment the client will be referred to as T. Protecting the clients identity complies with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the British Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapies (BABCP) guidelines regarding client anonymity as described in the Ethical Framework for Good Practice and fulfils the requirements of the Universitys School of Health and Social Cares policy on confidentiality. T was seen in a primary care setting with a counselling service that offers short to medium term therapy for clients over the age of 16 years. She was referred to the service by her GP. She is a 25 year old female who is married with two boys aged 7 and 5 years. She is currently unemployed and lives in social housing with her husband who works in a local factory. T was raised and lived in an area where the 2007 Index of Deprivation (ID2007) indicates deprivation is 110.6% higher than the national average. There is a higher proportion of the working age population claiming incapacity benefit than the County average (Area Action Partnership). T first went to her GP shortly after being released from hospital after an RTA. She was a front seat passenger and received injuries to her face, arms and legs which included severe bruising, cuts and a temporal mandibular joint (TMJ) injury. Three months after the accident T continued to experience nightmares and flashbacks. The GPs letter to the service noted the clients deterioration and the original diagnosis of acute stress disorder (ASD) that had been diagnosed in the first month following the accident was amended to PTSD. Several studies have provided convincing evidence that early CBT treatment of ASD reduces the possibility of the development of PTSD (Moulds, et al. 2009, p16). ASD was introduced into the fourth edition of the diagnostic statistical manual (DSM) in 1994. The diagnostic criteria for ASD (Appendix A) are similar to those of PTSD, but differ in two fundamental areas. Firstly, ASD can only be diagnosed in the first month following the traumatic event and secondly, ASD includes a greater emphasis on dissociative symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). During their consultation, the GP noted that T had become withdrawn and distanced from her family and friends, she reported feeling like she was watching the world from inside a bell jar, this dissociative symptom is described as derealisation, and is common in ASD patients (Simeon and Abugel, 2006, p86). The GP assessed T using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ 9) and the General Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD 7) which resulted in scores of 15 and 19 respectively. These scores indicate that T was suffering with moderate to severe anxiety with depression. T was seen over a period of 13 sessions. The duration of each session lasted between 1 hour and 90 minutes. Longer sessions were included to provide sufficient time for sharing the trauma history and allow time for anxiety levels to decrease (Leahy and Holland, 2000, p197). The contract between the counselling service and T was explained. This included informed consent to tape sessions, confidentiality and its limitations and an evaluation of risk. Evaluation of risk is an important part of the therapeutic process and is done throughout therapy. It involves assessing the client, the environment and also the therapists own personal and professional limitations (Mueller, et al. 2010, p 65). CORE OM was used to calculate a risk score and also to assess Ts suitability for therapy. The Cognitive Therapy Rating Scale as developed by Safran and Segal was not available to the therapist during the first session, but subsequent reviewing of the scale indicated that T was a suitable candidate for cognitive behavioural interventions. CORE OM score is shown below in figure 1. Prior to developing a treatment plan, the therapist socialised the client to CBT explaining the evidence that supported using CBT interventions for PTSD. (Bryant, et al. 1999) and (Westbrook, et al. 2011, p81-83). First session therapist notes detailed Ts past history, the development of problems and the protective factors in her life (Appendix B). T was clear about what she wanted from therapy. Her problems fell into three main areas: (1) Nightmares, poor sleep, anxiety around bedtime, which resulted in an increased irritability with others; (2) Avoiding travelling in any form of transport, which resulted in her relying on others to take her children to school and other social or sporting events; (3) Withdrawing from friends and family, which led to her isolating herself socially. She believed that if she avoided all forms of transport and stayed inside, she would reduce the chances of experiencing any flashbacks or getting very panicky which she found extremely distressing and frig htening. T and the therapist created a Problem and Goal form to capture this information (Appendix C) and agreed to discuss the problems and goals again when the treatment plan was formulated. The specific client issue selected is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is defined as a common anxiety disorder that develops after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened (DSM-IV-TR: 463). The DSM-IV-TRs criteria are precisely written as: exposure to a traumatic event, persistent re-experience of the event, avoidance of the stimuli, persistent avoidance of increased arousal, duration of disturbance and impairment of social occupational or other important areas of functioning. Within the criteria there are subsets portraying greater detail of the types of symptoms that may be experienced by the client (Appendix A). T was seen over a period of 13 sessions. The duration of each session lasted between 1 hour and 90 minutes. Longer sessions were included to provide sufficient time for sharing the trauma history and allow time for anxiety levels to decrease (Leahy and Holland, 2000, p197). The contract between the counselling service and T was explained. This included informed consent to tape sessions, confidentiality and its limitations and an evaluation of risk. Evaluation of risk is an important part of the therapeutic process and is done throughout therapy. It involves assessing the client, the environment and also the therapists own personal and professional limitations (Mueller, et al. 2010, p 65). CORE OM was used to calculate a risk score and also to assess Ts suitability for therapy. The Cognitive Therapy Rating Scale as developed by Safran and Segal was not available to the therapist during the first session, but subsequent reviewing of the scale indicated that T was a suitable candidate for cognitive behavioural interventions. CORE OM score is shown below in figure 1. Prior to developing a treatment plan, the therapist socialised the client to CBT explaining the evidence that supported using CBT interventions for ASD. (Bryant, et al. 1999) and (Westbrook, et al. 2011, p81-83). First session therapist notes detailed Ts past history, the development of problems and the protective factors in her life (Appendix B). T was clear about what she wanted from therapy. Her problems fell into three main areas: (1) Nightmares, poor sleep, anxiety around bedtime, which resulted in an increased irritability with others; (2) Avoiding travelling in any form of transport, which resulted in her relying on others to take her children to school and other social or sporting events; (3) Withdrawing from friends and family, which led to her isolating herself socially. She believed that if she avoided all forms of transport and stayed inside, she would reduce the chances of experiencing any flashbacks or getting very panicky which she found extremely distressing and frigh tening. T and the therapist created a Problem and Goal form to capture this information (Appendix C) and agreed to discuss the problems and goals again when the treatment plan was formulated. The therapist asked T if she could recall her most recent experience of a flashback (Figure 2a). T reported that the pattern of events leading to feeling panicked or experiencing a flashback were the same. She would make an effort to do a certain activity, but flashbacks and panic were triggered by (in particular) smells or sounds that could not be avoided. The hot cross bun formulation in figure 2a tracks events from leaving the house, hearing cars and smelling petrol, which was the trigger point. On this occasion T reported having a clear memory of being trapped in the car (which was also her recurring nightmare), she could remember smelling petrol and hearing the screeching of brakes. Her brain misinterpreted these signs for an actual threat, creating distorted thinking: Ive got to get home something terrible is going to happen, hostile emotions; fear, anxiety and terror, unpleasant physiological reaction; heart pounding, shaking, feeling nauseous, which led to her avoidant behavi our to reduce her anxiety and escape her perceived fearful situation. Flashbacks are defined in DSM IV as a recurrence of a memory, feeling, or perceptual experience from the past (American Psychiatric Association,1994). Another example of a flashback involved T sitting in her garden when a neighbour was mowing the lawn with a petrol engine lawn mower. T could smell the petrol and this triggered a flashback to the events of the RTA. The therapist encouraged T to follow the formulation and create her own diagram based on her experience in the garden (Figure 2b). T and the therapist were able to look at both diagrams and see that the pattern was similar. A sound or smell was identified as the trigger in both examples. Her thought process, affect and physiology were similar, but crucially, this led again to her avoidant behaviour. Hot Cross Bun Formulation Event/Trigger: Walking to the shop to buy milk, hearing the cars and smelling petrol Flashback of being trapped in the car Thoughts: Im going to die, Ill never see me children again Ive got to get away from here Ive got to get home, something terrible is going to happen Behaviour: Emotions: Escape the situation Fear Tearful Terror Anxiety Physiology: Heart pounding, Nausea, Tense, Sweating, Shaking Based on Hot Cross Bun (Padesky, 1993) Hot Cross Bun Formulation (originally hand drawn by client) Event/Trigger: Sitting outside in the garden, having a cup of tea Hearing neighbour start up his lawn mower Smelling petrol from the lawn mower Flashback of fear of being burned alive Thoughts: Oh God! Its happening again Ive got to get inside the house. Ill be safe there Behaviour: Emotions: Tearful Fear Needing to get inside the house Terror Anxiety Physiology: Heart pounding, Nausea, Tense, Sweating, Shaking, Based on Hot Cross Bun (Padesky, 1993) T and the therapist discussed the process of recording details in this format and agreed that it gave them both a greater understanding of Ts situation. This collaborative approach is characteristic of CBT and was necessary when working towards a treatment plan for factors that needed to be targeted in therapy and homework setting. Padesky and Greenberger (1995, p6) explain the importance of the client and therapist working as a team, particularly as clients may have an expectation that the therapist is going to fix them. Milton (2009, p104) agrees adding that the therapist also plays the role of a trainer, encouraging the client to become an observer of themselves in order to challenge their thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Westbrook et al (2011, p238) cites Kazantzis et al (2002) in providing evidence of greater improvement in those clients who complete homework. T was keen to monitor any anxiety provoking scenarios at home using the hot cross bun model. She was aware that if her se cond goal was to be achieved (Appendix C) she needed to reduce and eventually eliminate her avoidant behaviour (Wells, 1997, p49-50). A treatment plan was discussed and agreed with T based on her problem list and goals for therapy (Appendix C). The treatment plan included the following elements: Pyscho-Education Grounding and Safety Work Imaginal Exposure Therapy Cognitive Restructuring Relapse Management The session on psycho-education gave T the opportunity to learn about her symptoms, and to recognise and anticipate them for effective management. Fisher, (1999) states that psycho-education is an essential element for stabilising a trauma client. Briere and Scott (2006, p87) agree, adding that psycho-education provides the client with accurate information about the nature of their trauma, which gives them a greater understanding of their situation. Psychoeducation involved justification of use of IET, a history of our learning experience and the fight or flight response. Regular reference was made to the clients formulation so that she could understand how and why her threat response had been activated. Once T understood her anxiety response in relation to her experiences, she felt ready to continue onto the next stage of therapy. Grounding and safety work was completed prior to IET. Herman (1997, p155) argues that the central task of the first phase of trauma therapy must be safety. The client needs to feel safe within themselves; learning grounding and safety skills gives the client the opportunity to manage potential uncontrolled flashbacks. This also formed part of Ts relapse management in the later stages of therapy. Once safety and grounding work was completed, the therapeutic process moved onto the trauma itself using IET. Throughout therapy there were opportunities to explore Ts present situation and past events. This information was initially written down in a mind map format and shared with T during the session. As additional information was gathered in subsequent sessions this was written in longitudinal format (Figure 3). From the information gathered, the client recognised how and why she had always been the rescuer in the family. This included an age inappropriate responsibility when her father had left the family home and T had taken on the role of carer to her distraught mother and siblings. She suffered an emotional breakdown at the age of 14, over whelmed by the pressure of doing well at school so that she could get a good job and support the family. T recognised how this belief system developed after her father left and how it was effecting how she saw herself in the present. During therapy T and the therapist discussed the importance of this belief and how it had allowed her to cope during those years growing up. The therapist asked what purpose this belief served in her life now when she was happy with her family and well supported by her husband. She no longer needed to be the rescuer. T and the therapist explored how this belief may be affecting what was happening to her when she was fearful of having a flashback. T concluded that she needed to add I must always cope to her beliefs in Figure 3 and I cant cope to her thought process. T recognised the contradiction between this thought and her rescuer belief. Longitudinal Formulation Early Experiences 5 years old, Dad leaves family home Oldest of four children, Takes on a helping role Later supports mother through depression Breakdown at school aged 14 years due to self- imposed pressure Met future husband aged 16,Pregnant at 17 years and married at 18 years old Beliefs Its my responsibility to take care of everyone and make things right I must always cope Assumptions and Rules I must be perfect and do everything right, otherwise I will let everyone down If something goes wrong it will be my fault Critical Incident Car Accident Activation of Beliefs Its my responsibility to save everyone Automatic Thoughts I should have got B out of the car. I didnt do everything I could have I failed. I cant cope with this Behavioural Emotions: Avoidance Fear Social withdrawal Anxiety Fearful to go outside Guilt Fearful to travel in any transportation Worry Physiology Poor Sleep Tense Heart Pounding Sweating The goal of IET is to expose the client to the memory of the trauma rather than to relive the trauma itself. Ts therapy involved her retelling the story initially in the past tense and then in the present tense. An important part of the healing process was encouraging T to bring those traumatic memories to mind, in a safe and trusting environment, while remaining in the present. The client learns through repetitive description, that the memory of the event is not dangerous and will also allow habituation to take place (Zayfert and Becker, 2008, p127). T decided that she would record the sessions on the voice recorder section of her mobile phone and listen to the recordings at home as part of her homework. Zayfert and Becker (2008, p130) emphasise how critical listening to the tapes at home is as the repetition is vital if the exposure is going to be successful. The therapist explained that T would be asked to close her eyes and describe the events of that day. Leahy and Holland (2000, p 198) suggest breaking the clients story down into smaller parts if there are a series of traumatic events. T was asked to recall the events of that day in terms of chapters; several chapters were listed (Appendix D). Ts experienced anticipatory anxiety at the thought of retelling the story and this was discussed. The therapist reassured her she would be experiencing the memory, that the RTA was not happening right now and that she was safe in the room and could open her eyes at any time. T began at a point in time when she felt safe and ended the narration at a point in time when again she felt out of danger. The therapist explained the Subjective Units of Distress (SUDS) Rating Scale and then T began narrating her story in the past tense and was allowed to do this uninterrupted; the therapist only intervening to check on Ts anxiety. Ts SUDS score was noted for each chapter (Appendix D col A). At the end of each session, T was given time to process her experience before leaving. T gave the therapist feedback on how she felt sessions had gone, and what, if anything she had learned. The next session involved the client narrating the story, but this time in the present tense. T found this difficult at first and often resumed the past tense. T and the therapist had discussed the likelihood of this happening and T agreed that the therapist would prompt her to return to the present tense. SUDS scores were again noted (Appendix D col B). T reported being surprised at the change in scores from the previous week. There were certain sections of the story that T found very difficult to narrate; these sections were narrated without much detail. After discussing this briefly, T and the therapist listened to the recording of the present tense narration. T recorded SUDS levels herself (Appendix D col C) and once complete, the three SUDS scores were examined and discussed. T noted how scores had both increased and decreased from first narration to second narration, but that all scores had reduced on her first listening to the tape. T was then asked to grade the chapters and chose five (the most anxiety provoking) to work on. The five chapters were listed chronologically (figure 4) and then in order of their anxiety rating (figure 5). For the next five sessions each chapter was narrated and listened to repeatedly until Ts SUDS rating had dropped; starting with the least and working towards the most anxiety provoking. The therapist asked questions relating to the clients senses and emotions and physiology so that her memories were fully activated (Leahy and Holland, 2000, p197). To Ts surprise, narrating in the present tense and sensory questioning produced additional memories that T had not remembered in the previous narrations. Figure 4 Chronological Order 1Â  Car flips over upside down smell of petrol 2Â  Wood coming towards the car 3Â  The car door wont open (Ts recurring nightmare) 4Â  B is not moving 5Â  G is screaming at T to get them out of the car Figure 5 Order of Severity Least to Worst 5 4 3 2 1 Wood coming towards the car Car flips over upside down smell of petrol G is screaming at T to get them out of the car The car door wont open (Ts recurring nightmare) B is not moving The therapist noted the five chapters as hot spots (Figure 6) and asked T what her thoughts were when she brought the scene to mind. These were also noted together with the emotion that went with them. The therapist was able to challenge Ts distorted thoughts through cognitive restructuring which included her rescuer belief that she was somehow responsible for getting everyone out of the car that day. Once SUDS levels had been reduced for all five chapters Appendix E), T was able to say out loud her re-evaluation statement for each chapter accepting and believing it. Fig 6 Re-Evaluation of Peak Experiences Hot Spot Thought Belief Emotion Re-Evaluation The car has flipped Ive survived the crash Fear I did not burn to death. Over onto its top; there but now Im going to burn I did not die, I did survive Is a smell of petrol to death the experience and I am safe now. Its over. THIS IS A FACT Wood from a fence is The wood is going to hit Fear The wood did not hit me or anyone else. Flying towards the car me. Ill never see my boys I did survive the experience. I am safe. again. My children are safe. Its over. THIS IS A FACT The car door wont open. Its not going to open, Terror I was not trapped. I did get out of the car. It just wont budge at all Im trapped. I am not trapped now, I am safe now. Its over. THIS IS A FACT B goes limp and his head Oh my God! B is dead Terror B did not die. He did survive the accident Falls forward He is safe now. Its over. THIS IS A FACT Sister G screams to T to I must break the window. Fear We all got out of the car. We did not die. Get them all out of the car I have to get us all out. We are all safe now and its over. If I dont break the window THIS IS A FACT Were all going to die Outcomes and Personal Reflection Ts post therapy CORE score of 31 (figure 7) represents a mean score of 0.912 (9.12) and falls within the healthy range of the Core measure. As there is a mean difference of over 5, this, according to CORE measurement indicates a clinical and reliable change (CORE ims). Fig. 7 Core OM Results Pre and Post therapy Pre Post Well Being 14 06 Functioning 21 05 Risk 02 00 Problems 42 20 Total 79 31 Ts presentation improved in the finals stages of therapy. Her cuts and bruises had healed well and she was no longer suffering with TMJ. T reported healthier sleeping patterns, but still with occasional dreams. She believed that she had spent so much time listening to her chapter on being trapped in the car that she became fed up of listening to it, rather than it provoking any anxiety. She was able to travel as a passenger in a car, and also to drive the car herself, but did not feel ready to drive on her own in the car. As a result understanding her an

Rebel Without A Cause Film Studies Essay

Rebel Without A Cause Film Studies Essay For as long as film has been around, it has been an art form that is a representation of society and the culture from which it breeds. One of the most popular and critically acclaimed which represented the times around it was that of Rebel Without a Cause(1955), which challenged the ideas of masculinity in society and it was a reflection of many teenagers of that generation. It also broke grounds for the portrayal of its characters. How exactly did Rebel Without a Cause(1955) change the perception of masculinity in society and why is the film considered to be the poster child film of the 1950s youth rebellion? Masculinity at the time in the 1950s was in a state of uncertainty. Men were returning from war and did not know how to readjust to society. Many men were forced to become the bread winner of the family again as well as be the stereotypical father of the household. Rebel Without a Cause(1955) was a movie that was ahead of its time in terms of its symbolism and its direction. Wh at many considered to be taboo, the film challenged the boundaries of societys rules and yet reflected what so many had tried to keep hidden. It challenged the ideas of masculinity and it was a social commentary on the men returning home from World War II and it was a movie about the commonalities that still perforate today of teen angst. To analyze the masculinity in the film, one must first look at its actors as well as its characters. Christopher Castiligia wrote an article entitled Rebel Without a Closet: Homosexuality and Hollywood in which he examines the in depth relationships of the characters within the movie and the connections it had to homosexuality as it was reflected upon society. James Dean who starred as Jim Stark and whos career spanned only three movies blossomed into a full blown star overnight and after his tragic death, his role in Rebel Without a Cause(1955) has turned him into an icon of cinema and he has become idolized ever since. He himself, was a gay male, not openly, but was very much the effeminate man that he portrayed on screen which is also possibly why it was done so effectively using a style of method acting. Jim Stark, was a rebellious teen who was strong and mysterious, yet also had deep feelings and emotions, which was unheard of at the time to even mention such a thing. His charac ter is saddled by the fact that he has to be a tough character in order to conform to societys demands. This is shown several times throughout the film in which he is swayed into fights that he doesnt want to get into by being called a chicken. He has to fight back because that is what a man is supposed to do. On the other side of the spectrum is Sal Mineo who starred as the character Plato, was an openly gay male who in turn portrayed a gay character on screen even though it is not explicitly stated. The character of Plato openly pines for Jim, whom he looks up to and shows affection for. One could argue that it was the first portrayal of a gay man on screen. Jims father Frank is shown as a very effeminate man, one who is constantly put down by his wife and cannot control his son. This was a reflection of many fathers of the time, who were emasculated perhaps by not going to war or because of the societal pressures caving in. The characterization of these characters completely alte rs the archetype of what it is to be a manly man on screen and instead show emotion. Their characters have conflicting and yet very similar personalities. Jim takes the role of a father, whereas Plato takes the role of the son. One could argue that is the true extent to what the relationship takes, although the distinct camera shots seem to suggest otherwise. Men are a complex breed, men have to act tough, yet still be emotional enough to connect with their family. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) brought about an important social issue in which many men had just come home from World War II and an important feature that men had to live up to was their propensity to act as tough bread winners who provided for their family. This male stereotype is played differently in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) as Jim Starks father was a man who didnt live up to that stereotype. He lacked the leadership characteristic that was typical of what a man was supposed to be. In doing so, it became evident that Jim was searching for a father figure and in turn found his parent to be switched to some degree as his mother was acting like a father and his father was acting like a mother. This gender disassociation creates such a friction within Jim that all he can do is act out. He demonstrates this numerous times and all he is looking for is a father figure to set him straight in line. Instead he has to take up the mantle himself and become his own father. The stylistic effects used within the film are some of the most iconic in history and contributes to the representation of the time with the music and the cinematography. The music within the film is a now classic soundtrack by Leonard Rosenman set the scenes of the film with its uses of Jazz music which reminds one of the 50s. The cinematography used within the film which was composed by Ernest Haller could be described as some of the coolest shots in the history of film. Many of the most iconic shots within the film are done with close-ups such as in the beginning of the film where we are first introduced to Jim Starks character as well as shots which focus solely on the character. By employing this effect, it showcased the brilliance and delivery of the acting. How is the film a representation of teenage culture of the time? Rebellion was a very common trait in many young men and women in the early 1950s. Many of their fathers has been serving during World War II and thus were not able to be at home with their families. This left a hole in the young peoples lives as they wanted so much to have a father and yet end up turning against them as soon as they returned. This feeling of abandonment so to speak is what drove much of this rebellion of the 1950s. Such is the case when the three main characters within Rebel Without a Cause(1955) are introduced for the first time. The characters are so drastically different in terms of social class, status, yet eerily so similar in the case of their parents. Jim Stark whos dad is not the father whom he needs to be. Judy whose father is completely distant and cold to her and then there is Platos parents who just arent there at all and whose father abandoned him. They all struggle with a similar paternal issue of fathers who just arent able to adjust to the new generation of the time. The family structure of each of these kids is all very confusing for them. They grew up with this notion of family and the fathers being perfect, that when they grow up and see that this is not the case, they have to find their own personal identity. Rebel Without a Cause(1955) created a new archetype for its generation. It created the James Dean character of a rebellious youth looking for a direction in life. One of the most iconic fashions of all time is James Dean in his red jacket and jeans which epitomized this sense of rebellion. Delia Konzett wrote an article entitled Rebel Without a Cause: Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork about Rebel Without a Cause in which he explains the films everlasting qualities throughout generations. She states This legacy with its foregrounding of the radical potential of internal or self critique is what has appealed to the films diverse audiences over the years, who have continued to see Rebel Without a Cause (1955) as a touchstone for imagining anxieties over coming-of-age, traditional values of family and community, threats from abroad, and the provocations of mass or consumer society (20). Within the article she explains how specific scenes deal with the trials of an average teenager havi ng to prove his masculinity and himself to his peers or else be picked upon as if it were as primitive as survival of the fittest. She analyzes one of the most important scenes in the film, The chicie race scene as one of the most important in which she explains This scene centers upon a dangerous competitive car race that can be constructively interpreted as rite of existential and social bonding or more negatively as a Darwinian survival of the fittest in an era of late consumerism and capitalism with absurdity and chance as its major elements. It also captures the distinctly American fascination with the automobile and the liberating experience of driving and being on the road. One of the most intriguing aspects of his analysis is the Americans fascination of cars. They have to be fast, powerful and in that sense, it has to be a representation of power and masculinity. This scene is one of the most important within the film about having to prove ones masculinity in order to be th e leader of the pack. The film ultimately culminates in Jim Stark finding his masculinity so to speak. In the end is quite a picture perfect sight of a traditional family structure as Jim, Judy and Plato all sit around an abandoned house, pondering their lives going forth. They act out living as children in a fantasy life. As soon as something tries to disrupt this perfect fantasy life, Plato goes crazy to an extent. The life he wanted is threatened and he essentially breaks down, brandishing a gun on everyone he sees. He succumbs to the desolate life of a teenager unable to cope with the problems around him, his familial structure failing him. The film has remained one of the most iconic films of all time because of how relatable it is to this day. To this day, Rebel Without a Cause(1955) could just as easily have as much of an impact as it did fifty years ago. Now more than ever society is changing where changes in masculinity are more accepted. Not only has Rebel Without a Cause(1955) become a voice fo r its generations, but in some ways a voice for many generations to come.

Christina Rossettis Goblin Market Essay -- Christina Rossetti Goblin

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market One of the strongest emotions inherent in us as humans is desire. The majority of the time, we are unable to control what we crave; however, with practice, we learn not all things we want are necessary. As a result of this mature understanding, we are able to ease our feelings and sometimes even suppress our desires. Something even more mature is understanding that when we give in to our desires, we become vulnerable. In a harsh, brutal world, vulnerability will not work to our advantage. In Christina Rossetti’s â€Å"Goblin Market,† she writes about a sister who succumbs to her desire and pays dearly for it while the other sister resists her desires and receives the ultimate reward of her sister’s life. By creating such a spectacular tale, Rossetti stresses the importance of being in touch with one’s desires and being able to prevail over their strong hold because in the harsh world we live in, we cannot afford to let our desire get the best of us. Of the two sisters Lizzie and Laura, Laura is the one whose curious desires get the best of her. She and her sister encounter the goblin men and Lizzie just â€Å"thrust a dimpled finger / In each ear, shut her eyes and ran† (67 – 68); however, Laura’s curiosity gets the best of her and she chooses to stay: â€Å"Curious Laura chose to linger / Wondering at each merchant man† (69 – 70). These goblin men are selling fruit, and once Laura gets her hands on it, she is hardly able to stop herself. Quenching her desire is overwhelming for her, so much so that when she is finally done she â€Å"knew not was it night or day† (139). When she arrives home later, she tells her sister, â€Å"I ate and ate my fill, / Yet my mouth waters still; / Tomorrow night I ... ... men’s fruit. Because of this, she suffers premature aging. Rossetti is conveying the importance of being aware of the possible peril that waits in the outside world, and controlling one’s desires in order to keep oneself from being vulnerable. If one gives in to their desires and makes oneself vulnerable, one will ultimately suffer. Lizzie does not succumb and does not do what the goblin men want her to do. As a result of this refusal, she has the power to bring her sister back to normal and take away her premature aging. Christina Rossetti is conveying the importance of maintaining control over one’s self: if one keeps oneself from becoming vulnerable, resists desires, and chooses the right path, one will remain safe and be rewarded handsomely. Works Cited Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market. Illustrated by Laurence Housman. 1893. New York: Dover, 1983.

Stress And Its Influence On The Mortality Rate in Eastern Europe :: Society Eastern Europe Death Rate Essays Papers

Stress And Its Influence On The Mortality Rate in Eastern Europe Death rates are associated with many complex, multifaceted issues in every society. The world is rapidly changing politically, socially and environmentally. With the fall of communism and the subsequent, dramatic social and political changes no other region in the world exemplifies global change like Eastern Europe. Specifically, the death rates of Eastern Europe countries have been increasingly fluctuating away from the norm. This has been caused by a wide array of interesting, sometimes obscure factors. Stress is a major factor, however, it is not the primary cause, as has been argued, of the increased mortality rates in Eastern Europe. Globally, death rates have been drastically decreasing. People are living much longer with the advent of better health care and improved nutrition. The lowest morality rates are all in well-developed, industrialized countries. The Soviet Union was formally one of the most powerful and industrialized countries. It held vast resources and enormous political power. Health care and nutrition in the Soviet Union was very good as is typical of a developed, industrial nation. Further, The Soviet Union possessed so much power and influence it supported many Communist, Eastern European countries. With the fall of the Soviet Union the region underwent an extremely dramatic change. Surprisingly, the birth rate in the Eastern Europe began to fall and the death rate began to steadily increase. Stone states: Soon after the former Eastern Block nations tossed off communist rule in the late 1980s and the Soviet Union imploded, people throughout Eastern Europe began dying in droves. Life expectancy plummeted. By 1994, for example, reaching the age of 57 was enough to put Russian men on the right side of the Bell curve (2001, 1). This is truly an alarming figure. There are many explanations for these changes. By understanding the multiple explanations and factors one can begin to better comprehend the problems affecting mortality. Stress, and its subsequent effects, has been found to be one of the most lethal killers of Eastern European men. Obviously, in a region where conditions are generally poor, stress is very high. After the Soviet Union collapsed most industry and leadership in subsequent Eastern European countries collapsed, leading to these poor conditions. "On one level, the main culprit is clear: coronary heart disease" Stone 2001, 1). Many societies exhibit high degrees of stress, so why are the effects in Eastern Europe so morbid? Many people believe that Eastern European citizens feel dejected and condemned to a poor life.

All The Kings Men :: Jack Burden

"But in the end the truth gave the past back to me." Jack Burden pg. 436 To understand the inferential validity of the above quotation, I think it is important to first establish a literal comprehension of the quotation. Furthermore, Jack uses the facts and truth he has gathered in his life up to 1939 to better understand and explain the occurrences and consequences that have also occurred up to 1939. The most important secrets of the past that are finally uncovered are the truth about his father's, Ellis Burden and Judge Irwin, and his relationship with Anne Stanton. From the beginning of the book the Burden family structure is shaky and confusing at best, the first mention of the mother on pg. 37 describes a love confused women next to her new young husband, her fourth. Then we finally get to meet the myth, the man Ellis Burden. Ellis' status is catalyzed on pg. 200 when Jack addresses him as father and the Scholarly Attorney responds querulously, "What - what did you say?" and on those same pages the old man stubbornly refuses to comment on the questions about Monty Irwin. Furthermore on that page Jack, to himself, calls the old man a "fool,... who wasn't man enough to run his own house". Coupled with numerous All-American quotes of the upstanding Judge as Jack's father figure, pg. 121 "the Judge was a brave man", pg. 438 "... he was a man and I loved him.", the reader becomes confused about whom the father really is. This is the hidden past, and as Jack completes the "Case of the Upright Judge" , he "broke the ice" and found out the truths and facts that would give him his past back. "The Judge won't scare easy", is a quotation rapidly forgotten as Jack uses one heck of a Louisville slugger to bust this boy. The Judge, with both his frightened ticker and shortly his reputation on their last few diminishing beats, leaves this world trying to talk fast to Jack. The very next page the mystery is solved as Jack's mother hysterically falls to the floor screaming "your father and oh! you killed him." and the next line states the numbness and closure for Jack, "That was how I found out." These truths uncovered the past and their truths and weeded out the confusion that was the past. "It was always Monty", his mother says on 429, her love for him and his political dislike of the Judge caused dispute between Jack and his mother.

Constant Critics of Monopolies

Monopolies are under constant critics from the public and other producers of being polutive, straining to competition and they are accused of worsening resource allocation. Whether this is true or not, depends on the specific company, but certain characteristics are possible to define. It is these I will describe in the following, and hence conclude if monopolies worsen or improve It is important to distinguish between competition and monopoly before describing advantages and disadvantages of both. Many monopolies are government owned. This means that the incentive to trive for more profit, better conditions etc. is gone. This is due to the fact that, if there is a loss, the government will cover it, and government owned companies seldom strive to achieve maximum profits. A lot of the characteristics are also seen in privately owned monopolizing firms. When they become so big, that competition is practically gone, the incentive to make even more profits, and In a competitive industry this is not the case. The fear of loosing your job, not being able to compete, your products becoming obsolete etc. re important factors, which stimulate productivity. It is therefor obvious that the competitive industry will try harder to allocate their resources in the most efficient way. To land, the external costs in a competitive industry will often be pollution, seeing that the firm will strive hard to diminish their costs resulting in the firm ignoring ‘unnecessary' costs. The monopoly owned by the government, would never be able to ignore such a serious matter, and they would have to pay the costs. A monopoly would also have to be careful not to damage its image, seeing that is, in many cases, already is unpopular. Capital, on the other hand, is often to the benefit of a monopoly, since they produce at a large scale. To fully utilize capital, a lot of labour is needed, labour which a monopoly is expected to have, and a smaller competitive firm may lack. For example, a blast furnace might need a crew of 24 men working night and day, to fully utilize it. The monopolizing company may be able to provide the men, but the smaller firm might not have the money to hire all the 24 men at night, seeing wages are much higher at then. The question then is if the competitive company is so much more efficient due to ard work, that they still can produce more than the monopoly. When it comes to labour, it is obvious that a competitive industry will strive to utilize the workers at a maximum level, due to the desire of minimizing costs, and workers will in general be very efficient due the reasons mentioned above. The workers in a monopoly, often loose the feeling, that their work makes a difference in the firm, making it hard for managers to fully In my opinion, the characteristics described above are not as valid any more. Companies, which enjoyed monopoly status in the eginning of the 80's, like IBM, are now realizing that nothing lasts forever, and they have be innovative, even if the competition is not a great threat. Bill Gates, owner of MicroSoft, has very admirable policies concerning this. His firm is not a monopoly, but it is definably a cutting-edge firm, which is shaping the future. One rule he has, is that every six months the bottom five percent of the company's workforce (in terms of performance) get firedo. It is his goal to make his own products obsolete, not letting others do it, and it seems he is achieving that goal.

A Critical Expose of the Effects Of 1914 Amalgamation on Nigeria

Chinua Achebe citing an Igbo proverb in his â€Å"There was a country† tells us that a man who does not know where the rain started to beat him cannot say where he dried his body. The rain that beat Nigeria began more than a decade ago, from the resolutions of the Berlin conference of 1884/1885 to the economic–driven amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates of Nigeria in 1914 by Lord Lugard. When the British set foot on the area presently known as Nigeria, it was a cacophony of many nations; nations which the British preferred to call â€Å"tribes†.Encouraged by the western anthropological binary of the â€Å"self† and the â€Å"other†, the British colonialists saw themselves as destined and equipped to rescue these African peoples from deep-scaled savagery, superstition and statelessness. They could not acknowledge that these peoples had any form of civilization or system of governance. Even if they did, they did not see the need to encourage the maturity and crystallization of such institutions.Theirs, they thought was a superior and more authentic civilization, and history especially that of slavery, had perhaps taught them that the need for European to conquer and â€Å"pacify† the â€Å"other†, the rest of the world, especially Africa was a divinely ordained enterprise (Davison 1991:21-51). Little wonder that when the British came to Nigeria in the 19th century, first as traders and merchants, they did not hesitate to bring along their religion and later, government.With a conjunction of force, tact and artifice, they set up administrative machinery which was later to become a metaphor for the suppression and annihilation of indigenous political and socio-religious structures; machinery which was designed to proclaim and establish the superiority of the European â€Å"self† over and above the African â€Å"other†. For easy administration more than for any other reason, British co lonialists banded several nations together in 1914 to create Nigeria: one of the liveliest housewives composed a national anthem for the new nation.In recognition of the artificiality of the concept of Nigeria, the anthem’s author wrote inter alia: †¦though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand†¦ Throughout the existence of Nigeria, the second line of the stanza above evokes hypocrisy; it represents one of the major falsehoods on which the British founded Nigeria and on which modern Nigeria thrives. Then the questions as to why do the British merge culturally diverse peoples to forge Nigeria? Was it not possible for them to allow these nations (which they called tribes) to evolve with minimum external influence and interference?Amalgamation of 1914; Reasons and ProspectsThe primary aim of the British in amalgamating the northern and the southern protectorates in Nigeria was simply economic. Compared with the colony and protectorate of southern Nigeria , the protectorate of northern Nigeria proved relatively poor neighbor. The entire south was very viable and richly endowed with surplus resources. The north was not as rich as the south, and was costing Britain money since it was not generating enough revenue to sustain itself.It was in the bid to offset the cost of the northern Nigeria that Lord Lugard who was the governor appointed a committee to recommend ways of running the almost barren north at a minimal or no cost to Britain. The group recommended the amalgamation of the southern to northern; to join the two vast areas as one country. On January 1, 1914, northern and southern Nigeria were amalgamated into one country and named the colony and protectorate of Nigeria. The amalgamation hence, was purely for administrative convenience and economic exploitation and as Chinweizu (1978) stated, British profit was too important to be allowed to suffer.The above summary indicates the making of Nigeria and we can observe that the amal gamation of the northern and southern Nigeria was not in the interest of Nigerians as they were not consulted before the amalgamation.Consequences of the Amalgamation: a Toddler After Hundred YearsWhatever Europe did in Africa in those twilight days, she did them solely for her own advantage and almost always at the detriment of the African. The amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 is no exception. It was a political blunder; much of the history of Nigeria supports this thesis, although no one would acknowledge this in modern Nigeria.Before independence, the shadow of ethnicity had grown so tall that even the contradictory colonial national anthem could not exorcise it. When the British granted us independence in 1960, it was certain that they have left not a truly â€Å"pacified† and unified federation built on love and mutual respect and equity but a mere â€Å"geographical expression† as Awolowo, one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria, put it. When Tafawa Balewa r eceived the independence charter at racecourse in 1960, he, perhaps, also received the charter for instability and disaffection.The history of Nigeria between 1960 and 1967, when the civil war finally broke out, is a testimony. Generally, amalgamation preserved the difference among peoples and their administration. The adverse national issues were now looked at from local interests. Closely related to this was the unhealthy rivalry which developed between respective administrations as they struggle for different group interest which they represented. So that even in Lugard’s time, Nigeria was divided along north-south lines. Thus, the way the amalgamation was implemented left a legacy of tension among component parts of Nigeria.Also, the boundary adjustment which accompanied the amalgamation left some geographical in-balance between the north and south thereby creating same adverse impact on subsequent nation-building efforts. Furthermore, in spite of all efforts since the fa mous amalgamation of the northern Nigeria and the southern Nigeria hundred years ago, an act which the northern leaders to this day consistently and publicily condemn as a mistake, Nigeria as a united country was nothing but a fiction. Certain basic features mark a country out as united. Some of these features are:Common or similar culture, as well as social system.Common citizenship, with equal rights and privileges for all men anywhere in the country.Common laws and a common judicial system.A common electoral system.Equal rights of all citizens before the law.Rights to acquire property and make a living anywhere in the country.Equal rights to employment anywhere in the country.Equal rights to protection of life and property.Most of these features or even more are completely found lacking in our â€Å"dear† country Nigeria.No thanks to ethnic consciousness among Nigerians.Any Way  Forward?To get the right answers presupposes asking the right questions. Amalgamation of Nige ria is in itself not intrinsically evil. The problem is that many critics of this very concept tend to be more emphatic in its exposition of the ills of this principle, relegating to the periphery and obliterating it good aspects. We tend to sound and resound the trumpets of disparity among Nigerians but prefer to be myopic about things that are fundamental to us as Africans.It is true as some critics may choose to argue that our amalgamation was an â€Å"unconsulted† one as against the United States of America’s voluntary amalgamation. As an Igbo proverb will have it â€Å"anyukoo amiri onu o gba ufufu† (igbo proverb portraying that unity is strength), the merging of the northern and southern protectorates of Nigeria could if utilized devoid of ethic sentiments and prejudice will make Nigeria a formidable force in its leadership role as the â€Å"giant of Africa†. This could only be possible when national interest is placed foremost as against ethnic int erests.Furthermore, Nigerians at all level should learn to imbibe and assimilate more readily the African spirit of â€Å"Ujamaa socialism† as propagated by Julius kambarage Nyerere. This brotherly spirit of communalism will help to eliminate every form of division against tribal lines and foster that brotherhood that is deeply rooted in â€Å"Black consciousness†, In conclusion, Nigeria constitutional arrangement should be re-visited and made in such a way that it reflects true federalism by restoring more powers to the regional governments as this will â€Å"de-intensify† the unhealthy struggle to control the center: that led Nigeria where it is today.

Cat in the Rain – Woman the Inequality

CHAPTER TWO SEMANTICS AND STRUCTURE OF VERBAL PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS The subject matter of our graduation paper is semantics and structure of verbal phraseological units . The English language is extremely rich in verbal phraseological units due to their grammatical features and the diversity of their structural types. It is known that the verb is endowed with the richest grammatical categories in the system of the parts of speech. The same grammatical features pass from the verb to verbal idioms. Becoming a component of an idiom, the verb endows its idiom with its grammatical and functional characteristic features.The classification system of phraseological units suggested by Professor A. V. Koonin is the latest outstanding achievement in the Russian theory of phraseology. The classification is based on the combined structural – semantic principle and it also considers the quotient of stability of phraseological units ( ?. ?. , ?. ?. , ?. ?. , , 2008 ). Phraseological unit s are subdivided into the following four classes according to their function in communication determined by their structural – semantic characteristics. 1.Nominative phraseological units are represented by word – groups, including the ones with one meaningful word, and coordinative phrases of the type wear and tear. The first class also includes word- groups with a predicative structure, such as the crow flies, and, also, predicative phrases of the type see how the land lies, ships that pass in the night. 2. Nominative – communicative phraseological units include word- groups of the type to break the ice – the ice is broken, verbal word- groups which are transformed into a sentence when the verb is used in the Passive Voice. 3.Phraseological units which are neither nominative nor communicative include interjectional word- groups. 4. Communicative phraseological units are represented by proverbs and sayings. Thus, verbal idioms belong to the class of nomin ative and nominative – communicative phraseological units, due to the fact that some of them are word – combinations, while others can be both word –combinations and sentences. Word- groups may be generally described through the pattern of arrangement of the constituent members. The term â€Å" syntactic structure â€Å" implies the description of the order and arrangement of member – words as parts of speech.We may, for instance, describe the word – group as made up of an Adjective and a Noun ( clever man, red flower, etc. ), a Verb – a Noun ( take books, build houses , etc. ) , or a Noun, a Preposition and a Noun ( a touch of colour, a matter of importance, etc. ). The syntactic structure of the nominal groups â€Å" clever man† and â€Å" red flower† may be represented as A+ N, that of the verbal groups â€Å" take books† and â€Å" build houses† as V+ N. These formulas can be used to describe all the possibl e structures of English word – groups. We can say , e. . , that the verbal groups comprise the following structural formulas: V+N ( to build houses), V+ prp +N ( to rely on somebody ), V+ N+ prp +N (to hold something against somebody ), V+N+V ( to make somebody work), V+V (to get to know ). The structure of word-groups may be also described in relation to the head – word, e. g. the structure of the same verbal groups ( to build houses, to rely on somebody ) is represented as to build +N, to rely +on +N. In this case it is usual to speak of the patterns of word – groups but not of formulas.The term â€Å" pattern â€Å" implies that we are speaking of the structure of the word – group in which a given word is used as its head. The interdependence of the pattern and meaning of head – words can be easily perceived by comparing word – groups of different patterns in which the same head-word is used. For example, in verbal groups the head †“ word mean is semantically different in the patterns mean +iV ( mean something ) and mean + V ( inf. ) ( mean to do something). Three patterns with the verb get as the head – word represent three different meanings of this verb, e. g. get +N ( get a letter, information, money, etc. , get +to +N( get to London, to the Institute, etc. ) , get + N+V (inf. ) (get somebody to come, to do the work ). Broadly speaking we may conclude that as a rule the difference in the meaning of the head – word is conditioned by a difference in the pattern of the word – group in which this word is used. In the same way as we speak of word patterns, the structure of phraseological units is also based on certain patterns. We are going to focus on verbal phraseological units which compared to free word –groups discussed above have structural stability, semantic unity and figurativeness.The structure of the English phraseological units is much more variegated. Within English ve rbal idioms the following syntactical relations are observed: 1. Verb + direct object 1) To beat the air – to do nothing 2) To crack the whip – Coll. To use one’s power or influence over other people in a vigorous or severe manner; be in control 3) To ride the storm – to control or deal with a situation of great disorder or violence 4) To bell the cat – Coll, rather old- fash . To take a risk or do something that is dangerous, esp. for the good of others 5) To give the chop – Coll. To dismiss someone from his job ; to destroy a plan, idea 2.Verb + prepositional object 1) To clutch at a straw – Coll. To be willing to try anything to get out of a dangerous, difficult situation 2) To strain at a gnat – Not fml. To trouble oneself about a matter of no importance 3) To cut with a knife – Not fml. To be able to feel the emotions and opinions of the people in a room, esp. when these are unpleasant 4) To play with fire – Not fml. To take risks, esp. when these are foolish and unnecessary 5) To fall on deaf ears – to be or remain unnoticed or disregarded 3. Verb + direct object + prepositional object 1) To kill two birds with one stone – to fulfill two purposes with one action ) To keep the wolf from the door – Coll. Often humor. To prevent hunger 3) To put the kibosh on – Coll. To spoil or prevent a plan from happening or being successful 4) To get a kick from – Coll. To get a feeling of pleasure, excitement, or enjoyment from 5) To get one’s hands on –Not fml. To get hold of something or someone violently; seize 4. Verb + indirect object + direct object 1) To give his head – Not fml. To allow someone do what he wants 2) To give her the gun – Coll. To increase speed when driving a vehicle, esp. a car 3) To show a clean pair of heels – Not fml. To run away as fast as possible from someone or something ) To do justice – to sh ow the true value of a person or thing; treat a person or thing as he /it deserves 5. Verb + adverb 1) To sweep under the carpet – Not fml. To hide or forget something shameful, unpleasant 2) To drive into a corner – Not fml. To put a person into a difficult or awkward situation 3) To throw down the gauntlet – to invite someone to fight, argue, defend himself or his opinions 4) To sit on one’s hands – Not fml. To do nothing; be inactive 6. Verb + object + adverb 1) To build castles in the air – to have dreams, hopes, or desires that are unlikely to become reality ) To have a finger in every pie – Not fml. To be concerned in some way with a large number of different plans, arrangements at the same time 3) To keep one’s finger on the pulse – Coll. To know exactly what is happening in an organization, society, etc. 4) To have one foot in the grave – Coll, often humor. To be very old or ill; be near death 5) To have a frog in one’s throat – Not fml. To be unable to speak clearly because one needs to cough or has a sore throat From the point of view of their grammatical structure verbal idioms are divided into the following groups: ) To be functioning as a link verb and the whole unit expresses state, e. g: 1) To be on a friendly footing with somebody – to behave towards or deal with each other in a friendly way 2) To be the tops – Coll. To be the best of one’s kind; be of very high quality 3) To be between the devil and the deep sea – having two possible courses of action open to one, both of which are dangerous, unpleasant 4) To be one jump ahead of – Not fml. To foresee what a person is likely to do next or what is about to happen and be prepared for it; to keep slightly ahead of something 5) To be at loggerheads – to disagree or quarrel with someoneIdioms beginning with the verb to have also belong here, e. g: 1) To have someone’s blood on one’s hands – to be responsible for someone’s death 2) To have on one’s brain – Not fml. To be continuously thinking or worrying about something 3) To have a maggot in one’s brain – Coll. rare. To have strange ideas or desires 4) To have light fingers – Not fml. To have an ability or a tendency to steal things 5) To have a brain like a sieve – Not fml. To be unable to remember things correctly or keep information in one’s mind b) Idioms beginning with other notional verbs and the whole unit expresses action, e. g: ) To gain ground – to advance, make progress; become more important or powerful 2) To lead a charmed life – Not fml. To have continuous good fortune in avoiding accidents or harm 3) To hit the hay – Coll, To lie down to sleep; go to bed 4) To make a clean breast of smth. – Not fml. To admit to something Verbal phraseological units may be classified in accordance with their structure into : a) One – summit phraseological units They are composed of a notional and a form word , and have one semantic centre , such as : 1) To ask for it – Coll. To behave in a way that causes trouble, anger, etc. , esp. hat causes another person to be violent 2) To come it over – Coll. To show by one’s behavior that one believes oneself to be better than someone 3) To have it in for – Coll. To be determined to cause harm or injury to a person, organization, etc. 4) To jump to it – Coll. To show immediate and rapid willingness, e. g. to obey an order or request b) Many summit phraseological units They are composed of two or more notional words and form words ,and have two or more semantic centres , such as : 1) To take the bull by the horns – Coll. To deal with something difficult boldly or without delay 2) To ill the goose that laid the golden eggs – to destroy the chief cause of one’s profit or success 3 ) To know on which side one’s bread is buttered – Coll. To know what to do in order to be liked or approved of by the people in power 4) To have a millstone round one’s neck – to cause much and continuous trouble to someone 5) To get hold of the wrong end of the stick – Coll. To misunderstand something completely Academician V. V. Vinogradov spoke of the semantic change in phraseological units as â€Å" a meaning resulting from a peculiar chemical combination of words†.This seems a very apt comparison because in both cases between which the parallel is drawn an entirely new quality comes into existence ( ?. ?. , ?. ?. , ?. ?. , , 2008 ). The factors accounting for semantic changes may be subdivided into two groups: Linguistic and Extra-linguistic causes . By extra – linguistic causes we mean various changes in the life of speech community, changes in economic and social structure, changes of ideas, scientific concepts, way of lif e and other spheres of human activities as reflected in word meanings.Although objects, concepts, etc. change in the course of time , yet in many cases the words which denote them are retained, but the meaning of such words is changed. E. g: The phraseological unit â€Å" blow one’s own trumpet – Coll. To praise one’s own ambitions â€Å" arose from the fact that in medieval times heralds welcomed the sound of the trumpet of the knights, coming into the competition. When the social practice had disappeared and the phrase was reinterpreted, the communication between the meaning of the phraseological unit and the literal meanings of its components disrupted.Now the phraseological unit â€Å" blow one’s trumpet† and variable word –combination â€Å"blow one’s trumpet – to play on one’s trumpet † are homonyms. Another phraseological unit is â€Å"show the white feather – Not fml,( becoming rare) to reveal on e’s fear or cowardly feelings. Referring to a cock ( a male chicken) that has been bred for fighting as a sport. If the chicken had any white feathers, it was thought to be badly bred. The phraseological unit â€Å"show the white feather† had spawned in England and Australia, the custom of which is to send a white feather to faces, evading from military services.There are phrasal verbs specific to the English language ,e. g: 1) Give up – to leave ; abandon 2) Let on – to pretend; to tattle. With regard to the nature of these verbal complexes, opinions of linguists differ. They called them compound verbs, verbs with a postposition, postpositive verb with a prefix. These verbs in the English language are usually called phrasal verbs. Recently, a successful term post-verbs has appeared for the second component of these formulations. What is a post-verb? It cannot be a preposition, as it is used only in the verbal complex, and unlike the preposition it is alw ays under the stress.It cannot be an adverb , as it is not marked as a part of the sentence. Consequently, it cannot be a prepositional adverb. To understand the nature of a post-verb , we should mention Smirnitsky’s important statement, that post-verbs are words, as it combines with verbal components, having a paradigm of changing words. Thus, all verbal complexes â€Å" give in, give up, let on , take in † and so on, are stable phrases. The semantic shift affecting phraseological units does not consist in a mere change of meanings of each separate constituent part of the unit.The meanings of the constituents merge to produce an entirely new meaning : e. g. to have a bee in one’s bonnet means â€Å" to have an obsession about something; to be eccentric or even a little mad â€Å". The humorous metaphoric comparison with a person who distracted by a bee continually buzzing under his cap has become erased and half-forgotten, and the speakers using the expressio n hardly think of bees or bonnets but accept it in its transferred sense : â€Å" obsessed, eccentric â€Å". That is what is meant when phrasological units are said to be characterized by semantic unity.It is this feature that makes phraseological units similar to words : both words and phraseological units possess semantic unity. Most Russian scholars today accept the semantic criterion of distinguishing phraseological units from free word – groups as the major one and base their research work in the field of phraseology on the definition of a phraseological unit offered by Professor A. V. Koonin: â€Å"A phraseological unit is a stable word – group characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning. † The definition clearly suggests that the degree of semantic change in a phraseological unit may vary.In actual fact the semantic change may affect either the whole word – group or only one of its components. Thus, according to the semantic s tructure , verbal idioms are divided into two groups: a) idioms with completely transferred meaning, e. g: 1) To skate on the ice – Coll. To do something dangerous 2) To wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve – Not fml. To allow other people to know what one is feeling; show one’s emotions 3) To have one’s heart in one’s boots – Coll. To feel discouraged or fearful 4) To have one’s heart in one’s mouth – To feel afraid or anxious, e. . when waiting for something to happen 5) To make a mountain out of a molehill – to worry about or become excited about matters that are not really important at all b) idioms with partially transferred meaning in which one of the components preserves its current meaning, the other is used in a transferred meaning, e. g: 1) To break new ground – to do something new, make a discovery 2) To change horses in midstream – Not fml. To change one’s opinion in midd le of something, esp. to decide to support the opposite or a different side 3) To know one’s onions – Coll.To know properly all the information, facts, etc. , concerned with one’s work; be experienced 4) To save one’s skin – Coll. To escape or help someone to escape from a danger Some of the verbal idioms are clearly hyperbolic, for example: 1) Eat out of smb’s hand – Not fml. To have ( a person) in one’s power so that he will do whatever one wishes, esp. because he admires one: Then, having had the fans eating out of his hand he admitted: â€Å"I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t consider myself in show business after just one professional act†. 2) Flog a dead horse – Coll.To keep trying to get satisfaction from something that cannot or can no longer give it : You are flogging a dead horse by asking him to lend you money – he hasn’t even got enough for himself. The idiom refers to a person who beats a horse to make it go even though it is dead, thus to doing something that is completely useless. In many verbal hyperbolic idioms, including borrowed ones , there aren’t corresponding word – combinations and they are based not on real, but imaginary situation. Etymological research provides an opportunity to throw some light on the rigin of some idioms, and then to establish its metaphorical character. So, an idiom â€Å"give smb. the cold shoulder – to be unfriendly to someone, esp. by refusing to speak to or meet him, usually because one is angry , offended †. Unfriendly is not related to people’s shoulder. It means to behave towards someone in a way that is not at all friendly, sometimes for reasons that this person does not understand. Metaphorical character of verbal idioms has been established by comparing the components of verbal idioms with the same words outside the idiom, e. : 1) Hitch one’s wagon to a star – Lit. To have noble or morally improving aims or desires: He was a boy from a poor family who had hitched his wagon to a star and was determined to get a good education for himself. 2) Twist round one’s little finger – Coll. To have the ability to persuade ( a person) to do exactly as one wants : She’ll have no problem getting permission to go on holiday with a friend because she can twist her father round her little finger. Metonomical transformations occur much less in verbal idioms, than metaphorical ones, e. g: 1) Get one’s hand in – Not fml.To obtain or keep one’s skill in a particular activity by practicing it: If you are reasonably clever it won’t take you long to get your hand in at cards. 2) Make a clean breast of smth. – Not fml. To admit to something ; confess: â€Å" Mrs. Lyons, â€Å" said I †¦ â€Å" you are taking a very great responsibility and putting yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean breast of all that you know†. ( Conan Doyle) . From the semantic point of view English verbal idioms may express: 1) Success, happiness, luck 2) Emotions and feelings 3) Relations between people 4) Behaviour 5) Intellect ) Death 7) Features of different phenomena Success, happiness, luck It is known that human life is not cakes and ale as a person has to meet a lot of hardships, which he has to overcome on his way to success. This idea is rendered by such verbal idioms as: 1) To carry the day – Rather rhet. To win in a competition, argument, etc. ; be successful in one’s efforts 2) To be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth – Not fml. To have wealthy parents; be born into a rich family 3) To kill two birds with one stone – to fulfill two purposes with one action 4) To set the Thames on fire – Not fml.To do something wonderful that causes much excitement and gains a wide reputation 5) To gain ground – to advance, make p rogress; become more important or powerful Emotions, feelings 1) To jump out of one’s skin – Coll. To show or have feelings of great shock, fear, or surprise , esp. by moving very suddenly 2) To hang one’s hand – to feel ashamed about something; feel or look guilty, sorry 3) To take it on the chin – ?oll. To suffer ( a misfortune , disappointment) with courage 4) To break smb’s heart – to make or become very sad 5) To have butterflies in one’s stomach – Coll. To feel nervous, anxious, etc. , esp. hen waiting for something Relations between people 1) To be on a friendly footing with somebody – to behave towards or deal with each other in a friendly way 2) To greet somebody with open arms – Not fml. To welcome somebody in a generous way 3) To give somebody the cold shoulder – Coll. To be unfriendly to someone, esp. by refusing to speak to or meet him, usually because one is angry , offended †. 4) To look down one’s nose at somebody – Not fml. To regard somebody or someone with scorn or dislike 5) To rub someone’s nose in it – Not fml. To keep on reminding someone about something he has done wrong, esp. n an unkind manner Behaviour 1) To hold one’s head high – to act proudly or bravely, in front of people, esp. when one has suffered misfortune 2) To put one’s foot down – Coll. To be firm in one’s purpose or desires , e. g. not to allow another person to do something 3) To keep one’s hair on – Coll. To keep calm; not become angry, excited, etc. 4) To keep one’s chin up – Coll. Not to show feelings of fear, sadness, etc. , when faced with disappointments, worries, or difficulties 5) To behave like a bear with a sore head – Coll. To behave impatiently, in a bad – tempered way Intellect ) To have an old head on young shoulders – Rather old–fash. To have the wisd om, judgment, etc. , that is ordinarily found only in an older and more experienced person 2) To rack one’s brains – Not fml. To think hard about something, esp. to try and work out the answer to a difficult problem 3) To have a level head – Not fml. To be calm, sensible and able to judge well, esp. in difficult situations 4) To have one’s head screwed on the right way – Not fml. To be sensible; not silly Death 1) To give up the ghost – Coll. To die ; to stop putting any effort into doing something 2) To be on one’s last legs – Coll.About to die or to fall down from tiredness or illness 3) To go the way of all flesh- Pomp. To die 4) To be called to one’s eternal rest – Euph. To die 5) To kiss the dust – Coll. To die or become ill, or to stop making or being useful 6) To turn up one’s toes – Coll, humor. To die 7) To pay the debt of nature – Old-fash, rather rhet. To die Failure 1) To bu rn one’s fingers – Not fml. To suffer from something that one has done or been concerned with, esp. because one failed to consider the possible results 2) To come a cropper – Coll. To fall badly or heavily, e. . from a horse; to suffer failure or sudden misfortune 3) To be on one’s bones – to be in a difficult situation 4) To get into hot water – Coll. To fall in trouble 5) To get off on the wrong foot – Not fml. To begin something badly Risk 1) To carry( or take) one’s life in one’s hands – to risk one’s life 2) To skate on thin ice – to put oneself in a dangerous position; to take risks 3) To send to his long account – Euph, old-fash. To kill someone 4) To play with fire – Not fml. To take risks, esp. when these are foolish and unnecessary 5) To put all one’s eggs in one basket – Not fml.To allow all one’s hopes for the future to depend on one event or person; to risk all one’s money, time, interest, etc. in one business or effort 6) To risk one’s neck – Not fml. To take a great risk in doing something Deception 1) To hand smb. a lemon – to cheat, deceive somebody 2) To throw dust in someone’s eyes – Coll. To confuse someone or take his attention away from something that one does not wish him to see or know about 3) To play cat and mouse with – Not fml. To confuse someone unintentionally; deceive someone, esp. by keeping him from realizing what is actually happening to him 4) To pull one’s leg – Coll.To make fun of a person in a friendly way, e. g. by trying to make him believe something that is not true 5) To make a fool of smb. – Not fml. To cause oneself to appear stupid or foolish Euphemism plays an important role in the creation of idiomatic synonyms among verbal phraseological units. For instance synonyms of the verb to die are very numerous: 1) To breathe oneâ€℠¢s last – Rather rhet. To die 2) To give up the ghost – Coll. To die 3) To join the great majority – Old-fash, euph. To die 4) To pay the debt of nature – Old-fash, rather rhet. To die 5) To turn up one’s toes – Coll, humor.To die Another example is the synonyms of the verb to irritate, to annoy : 1) To get smb’s goat – Coll. To cause someone much annoyance 2) To make smb’s blood boil – Not fml. To cause someone to be angry 3) To rub the wrong way – Coll. To annoy or cause offence to a person According to Professor A. V. Koonin verbal idioms are divided into non-comparative and comparative idioms. Non–comparative verbal idioms are phraseological units with subordinate or coordinative structure. The number of verbal idioms with coordinative structure is very few. Their characteristic feature is the two-term structure.In phraseology there are two types of coordinative connections: connective – c oordinative and separative – coordinative connection. Connective – coordinative connection : Verbal idioms of this type are usually pairs of synonymous idioms: 1) Bill and coo – Not fml. , rather old-fash. To show love in a playful way, esp. by kissing and whispering to each other: He took his girlfriend home after the party and they stayed in the car billing and cooing for a long time before she went into her house. 2) Hum and haw – Coll. To speak without saying exactly what one means , e. g. hen one needs more time to consider a matter: He always hums and haws before taking a firm decision. Separative – coordinative connection: There are very few verbal idioms of this type. They include such idioms as: 1) Sink or swim – Not fml. To be safe , succeed, etc. , or suffer complete failure or loss: He has refused to give us any more help, and has left us to sink and swim by our own efforts. 2) Stand or fall – to be completely dependent on ( a principle, the result of uncertain situation, etc. ) for one’s continued existence, good fortune, etc. : We stand or fall by our belief in free speech.Idioms with subordinate structure can have the objective or the objective – adverbial functions. Verbal idioms, expressing objective relations, may have different structures. The simplest form is a combination of a verb with a noun. Below are given examples: 1) Eat crow – Coll. To be forced to change what one has said, admit that one was wrong , etc. , esp. in order to appear more humble: I was cheered up when a letter arrived from Luria that the situation might be smoothed over if we appeared to eat crow. ( James D. Watson) 2) Raise Cain – Coll. To make a noise or trouble, esp. y complaining or arguing: Somewhere to the left of me Sebastian and Mulcaster were raising Cain. Sebastian †¦. seemed in a frenzy and was pounding the door, and shouting†¦( Evelyn Waugh) Nouns can be used both with def inite and indefinite articles: 1) Bear a cross – Not fml. To support or tolerate a heavy weight of sorrow, inconvenience, suffering, etc. : The poor woman has to bear a cross – her husband is too ill to work. 2) Drop a brick – Coll. To make a mistake, esp. to do or say something wrong or unsuitable in a particular situation: I was dismissed from my job because I had dropped a few bricks in front of some important customers.Many verbal idioms, consisting of a noun , which have the forms of singular and plural numbers are denoted by their real phenomena. For example: 1) Keep one’s head above water – Not fml. To keep out of debt : I need 50$ this month to keep my head above water. 2) Set one’s cap at smb. – Coll, rather old- fash. To try to make ( a man) notice her, esp. in order to make him marry her: They had a chauffeur who was about 18 or 19 and undoubtedly set her cap at him and he became her boyfriend. Plural number of nouns is oft en used in one of the components of phraseological units.So, the word â€Å"spurs† in an idiom† win one’s spurs – to show one’s true ability or courage for the first time; gain fame † can be used only in the plural form, because when a man was made a knight , the king would give him not one , but a pair of golden spurs. There are several examples of verbal idioms, in which noun is used only in plural form, because they stand for the action, carried out not by one person or entity designated by them, e. g: 1) Be on pins and needles – Not fml. To be in a state of excitement and anxiety: He was on pins and needles while he was answering my questions . 2) Burn one’s fingers – Not fml.To suffer from something that one has done or been concerned with, esp. because one failed to consider the possible results: â€Å" Anyone who wants to leave this nice warm market , and go out into the blizzard , will get his fingers burnt. 3) Dr aw in one’s horns – Coll . To hold back or control one’s actions, e. g. to spend less money : And if we don’t get some extra money from somewhere we shall have to draw our horns in pretty sharply. ( Iris Murdoch) In some verbal idioms the plural number of a noun does not depend on the number of a person, carrying out the action, denoted by this idioms, it epends on the number of objects. Sometimes in idioms, where the action is carried out by several people, the plural form is not definitively established, and the idiom also occurs in the singular. This phenomenon has been observed in such idiom, as: 1) Cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face – Coll. To do something because of anger, hurt pride, etc. , that harms oneself or one’s own interests: By refusing to work they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces because the company will close down.There are several examples of verbal idioms, in which the noun is always used only in singular form, not depending on the number of persons, carrying out the action, indicated by the phraseological unit, e. g: 1) Carry a stiff upper lip – Not fml. Refusal to complain or show emotion or fear when faced with difficulty or danger; calmness: The old general praised the boys for keeping a stiff upper lip in time of trouble. 2) Cook smb’s goose – Coll. To ruin the chances of success of a person, organization, etc. : My boyfriend has cooked his goose with me – I don’t want to see him again. ) Not to have a leg to stand on – Not fml. To have no good defence for one’s actions or opinions: After the results of the test had shown that his plan would not work, he hadn’t a leg to stand on. Several verbal idioms are used only in the negative forms: 1) Not to see a wood for the trees – not to have a clear and complete understanding of something because of the great number of small and unimportant details that d emand one’s attention: The main purpose of education is too often forgotten – because of all the present arguments about different types of schools we are in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. ) Not to know whether one is on one’s head or one’s heels – Coll. To be in a very uncertain and confused state : not to know what to do next : At the end of a Saturday morning when his shop was very busy the poor shopkeeper didn’t know whether he was on his head or his heels. There are a lot of verbal idioms in English mostly with prepositions expressing objective – adverbial relations. E. g: 1) Have a millstone round one’s neck – to cause much and continuous trouble to someone: You know how selfish your brother is – if he comes to live with us he ‘ll be a millstone round our neck. ) Beat ( knock or run) one’s head against a brick (or stone) wall – Coll. To try to do or obtain something difficul t with very little hope of success: It is like knocking your head against a brick wall to try to keep the house tidy while the children are at home from school. Non – prepositional idioms of this type are very few: 1) Hold one’s head high – to act proudly or bravely, in front of people, esp. when one has suffered misfortune: I have boasted in my youth and held my head high and gone on my way careless of consequences†¦( Evelyn Waugh) 2) Put one’s foot down – Coll. . To be firm in one’s purpose or desires, e. g. not to allow ( another person) to do something 2. To increase speed when driving a vehicle, esp. a car: I don’t like driving fast , so I get really afraid when he puts his foot down. Alternants are pronouns – â€Å" one, one’s, oneself, somebody, smb’s, something â€Å" , which usually make up an idiom. Alternants can be replaced by other pronouns, nouns or word – combinations in accordance wit h the requirements of the speech situation.The pronoun â€Å" one â€Å" is usually replaced by one of the personal pronouns in the objective case, the pronoun â€Å" one’s â€Å"- by one of the possessive pronouns, the pronoun â€Å" oneself â€Å" – by one of the reflexive pronouns, the pronoun â€Å" somebody â€Å" – by one of the personal pronouns, a noun or a variable word – combination, the pronoun â€Å" smb’s â€Å" – by one of the possessive pronouns, a noun in a genitive case , the pronoun â€Å" something â€Å" – by a noun, a variable word – combination, or by a sentence . Below are given several examples , which illustrate different uses of alternants: ) Take one’s time – not to hurry; be slow and careful: Don’t rush . Just take your time and tell me clearly what happened. 2) Take oneself in hand – to take ( a person or thing ) under one’s control, esp. to try to make improvements: You ‘ve been very badly behaved recently. I can see I shall have to take you in hand. 3) Get smb. ’s goat – Coll. To cause someone much annoyance: The way he refuses to admit his mistakes gets my goat. 4) Give smb. the cold shoulder – Coll. To be unfriendly to someone, esp. by refusing to speak to or meet him, usually because one is angry , offendedIndefinite pronoun â€Å" smth. â€Å" is often replaced by a noun, a substantive word – combination or less subordinate clauses: 1) Know smth. from A to Z ( or like a palm of one’s hand) – Not fml. To know from the beginning to the end: thoroughly and completely : The teacher knew his subject from A to Z. Indefinite – personal pronoun â€Å" one’s â€Å" is used in the case , when the action is performed by a particular person , directed to him , for example: 1) Put one’s tail between one’s legs – Not fml. To put someone in a sad and unh appy manner.Replacing the pronoun â€Å" one’s â€Å" with a pronoun â€Å" smb’s â€Å" in such idiom is impossible. The pronoun â€Å" one’s† is also used in those verbal idioms, which represent the action of a particular person, directed to something, for example: 1) Play one’s cards right – Coll. To act in a correct or clever way in order to gain an advantage in a particular situation: If you play your cards right you may get an increase in pay . The pronoun â€Å" one’s† can be used in idioms, denoting the state of a particular person or object, for example: 1) Be on one’s last legs – Coll.To die or to fall down from tiredness or illness; ( of an organization) close to ruin; about to stop operating: Godspell was on its last legs until the influx of tourists postponed its demise until October. The pronoun â€Å" smb’s† is also used in such cases, when the act , done by one person, directed to another person, for example: 1) Pull smb’s leg – Coll. To make fun of a person in a friendly way, e. g. by trying to make him believe something that is not true: Many people have phoned in to report seeing the kangaroo†¦ â€Å" We thought people were pulling our legs when they first reported seeing him, â€Å" a police spokesman said yesterday.Usefulness of such a distinction, especially from the lexicographic point of view , one can see from the following examples: 1) Keep one’s nose to the grindstone – Coll. To keep working, esp. hard and without a rest Keep smb’s nose to the grindstone – Coll. To make somebody work without a rest 2) Stay one’s hand – Rather old- fash. To stop or delay from taking an action Stay smb’s hand – Rather old- fash. To stop or delay someone from taking an action. Predicative verbal idioms occur not only among substantives, but also among verbal idioms. They have both completely and partially transferred meaning.Below are given several examples of predicative verbal idioms: 1) Bite off more than one can chew – Not fml. To try to do too much or something that is too difficult: John bit off more than he could chew when he decided to have a race with the best runner in the school. There is a comparative subordinate clause . in the second part of phraseological unit. 2) Know how many beans make five, know what o’clock it is, know what is what – Not fml. To understand what the situation is or how a system works: He ‘s a man who knows what’s what in the world of business – he’s sure to get rich.Predicative verbal idioms are not only characterized by an antecedent, expressed in one word, – know, see, strike, watch, but an antecedent expressed in a combination, – bite off more, know or see (on) which side, see or watch how (or which way). Some of above mentioned idioms have one literal meaning , as thei r antecedent retains its literal meaning, for example â€Å" watch how the cat jumps† , but it can also be completely transferred , for example â€Å" bite off more than one can chew, strike while the iron is hot†.Thus, predicative verbal idioms are characterized by semantic complexity of two types: first is a combination of non transferred antecedent with transferred relative clause, second is a combination of both transferred antecedent and transferred relative clause. Predicative verbal idioms have a characteristic expressive – evaluative function. Morphological features of non- comparative verbal idioms: Words in phraseological units have different features compared with the same word outside a phraseological unit, e. g: Pull smb’s leg – Coll. To make fun of a person in a friendly way, e. g. y trying to make him believe smth. that is not true: Many people have phoned in to report seeing the kangaroo †¦Ã¢â‚¬  We thought people were pulling our legs when they first reported seeing him , â€Å" a police spokesman said yesterday. The verb of this idiom is used in the following forms: Present Continuous, Present Perfect Continuous, Past Continuous, Past Perfect Continuous, Past Perfect ( Passive Voice). Undoubtedly, the above mentioned forms are the commonest . Thus, the verb in this idiom is used predominantly in several forms, while as a separate word the verb â€Å"pull† can be used in all forms.The imperative mood is possible, but it occurs in negative forms: Don’t pull my leg. You went to the theatre (A. J. Cronin). In several verbal idioms verbs are used only in the passive voice: 1) Be gathered to one’s fathers – euph. To die 2) Be thrown on one’s beam-end – Coll. To be in a difficult situation, esp. one in which one has no money : Many organizations are on their beam ends at the moment because of a lack of public support. But there are idioms which are never used in the passive voice : 1) Make bricks without straw – Rather old – fash.To attempt to do or make something without having the necessary materials 2) Steal a march on smb. – to gain an advantage over someone by doing something earlier than expected : The government had intended to limit the wage increases of all workers to a reasonable amount , but several trade unions stole a march on them by receiving very large increases before the new laws came into existence. Alliteration is widely used in verbal idioms. There can be repetition between two sounds and they are divided into three groups: 1) In the first and the last lexemes: 1. Burn one’s boats – Coll.To go so far in a course of action that one cannot turn back: I changed my mind about giving up my job, but unfortunately I had burnt my boats by telling my boss that I was leaving. 2. Get smb’s goat – Coll. To cause someone much annoyance: The way he refuses to admit his mistakes gets my goa t. 2) In the last two lexemes : 1. Be on one’s last legs – Coll. To die or to fall down from tiredness or illness; ( of an organization) close to ruin; about to stop operating: Godspell was on its last legs until the influx of tourists postponed its demise until October. . Put one’s best foot forward – Coll. To be firm in one’s purpose or desires, e. g. not to allow to do something: When are they going to let Matt put his foot down and bring the twins back where they belong ? 3) In the lexemes, which occupy other positions in an idiom: 1. Keep one’s cards close to one’s chest – Coll. To be very secretive; not make known one’s advantages all at once : He had to keep his cards close to his chest in order to get the best possible contract. We come across repetition of three sounds very rarely, for example: ) Cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth – Coll. To remain within the limits of what one has or w hat one can afford, esp. when spending money: They have had another baby; They will have very little money and will have to cut their coat according to their cloth. 2) Make a mountain out of a molehill – to worry about or become excited about matters that are not really important at all: I’m sure he’ll give you the money back when he gets paid, so there’s no need to start making mountains out of a molehills.Comparative verbal phraseological units : The first components of comparative verbal idioms are used in their literal meaning, while other components are intensifiers and qualifiers, semantic differentiators of the first components. As comparative verbal idioms are not used in the passive voice, so they can’t be transformed into sentences, they are always phrasemes. These verbal idioms always have a subordinate structure. Comparative verbal idioms are divided into three groups from the semantic point of view: 1) Verbs of negative evaluation â₠¬â€œ hate, lie, swear ) Verbs of positive evaluation – fit, get on 3) Verbs of a neutral evaluation – drink, eat, feel, follow, sleep, speak, spread, talk, treat, work and so on. Attention should be paid to the predominance of verbs with a neutral evaluation. In verbal idioms with the verbs of positive and negative evaluation, the second component only emphasizes it: 1) Hate smb. like poison – to hate smb, very much: The general was more interested in his personal glory than in the comfort of the ordinary soldiers, and he was hated like poison by all his men. 2) Swear like a trooper – Coll, rather old-fash.To use bad language in an unrestrained manner: He swore like a trooper when I complained about his work. 3) Fit smb. like a glove – to fit ( a person) perfectly: It was clever of you to guess my size correctly – the new coat that you bought fits me like a glove. In comparative verbal idioms a second component is expressed by animal names, names of birds, fish and real or imaginative phenomena by which the basis of comparative idioms are expressed: 1) Die like a dog – Not fml. To die in conditions of great shame, pain, etc. : They were in prison for weeks without food and then died like dogs. ) Eat like a horse – Coll. To eat a great deal: †¦I am underweight and worry about it†¦ and although I eat like a horse , it doesn’t seem to help . 3) Fight like cat and dog – Coll. To quarrel or argue fiercely , esp. very often : Flood says : â€Å" We still love each other very much . But we fight like cat and dog. There are several comparative verbal idioms which refer to people: 1) Have a head like a sieve – Not fml. To be unable to remember things correctly or keep information in one’s mind : I was introduced to her twice, but I still can’t remember her name – I’ve got a head like a sieve.Several verbal idioms never refer to people, for example : 1) Se ll like hot cakes – Coll. To be bought or taken quickly, e. g. because of being very popular or cheap: Last year she contributed 40 pointings†¦Ã¢â‚¬  They sell like absolute hot cakes if you only ask 25$. 2) Spread like wildfire – to spread from one person to another very quickly: The news of his success spread like a wildfire among all his friends. Nature of meaning of idioms, including comparative verbal idioms, may vary depending on whether it applies to one object or more than one object. So, a verbal idiom â€Å" hate smb. like poison – to hate smb, very much. in the sentence â€Å" She hates him like poison. † It means that she mortally hates him, but he certainly didn’t hate her. His attitude towards her is specified in the context. Plurality of objects means mutual hatred. In all the above mentioned comparative verbal idioms , except the idioms with the verbs â€Å" feel â€Å" and â€Å" look† , the second component is a le xeme. In several comparative verbal idioms , as a second component, appears not a lexeme, but a combination of lexemes, for example: 1) Fight like cat and dog – Coll. To quarrel or argue fiercely , esp. very often : Flood says : â€Å" We still love each other very much .But we fight like cat and dog. 2) Drop smb. or smth. like a hot potato – to get rid of something dangerous, unmanted as quickly as possible: When he found out she had no money after all he dropped her like a hot potato. 3) Go ( go off or sell) like hot cakes – Coll. To be bought or taken quickly, e. g. because of being very popular or cheap: Last year she contributed 40 pointings†¦Ã¢â‚¬  They sell like absolute hot cakes if you only ask 25$. In some cases, the connection between the first component and combination of lexemes is non – motivated , for example: 1) Fight like Kilkenny cats – Not fml.To fight fiercely: Those two children will fight like Kilkenny cats if I leave t hem alone in the house. Referring to a story that some soldiers in the Irish town of Kilkenny once tied two cats together by their tails and made them fight. The fight was so fierce that all that was left of the cats was their tails. The fight lasted until the end of 19 century and led to a mutual destruction. Legend, being the basis for this expression, has been forgotten for a long time, which has created non motivation of the whole phrase in Modern English, since the expression has no meaning in literal sense.Conclusion After analyzing semantics and structure of verbal phraseological units , we come to the following conclusions: 1) Idioms, characterized by structural stability and completely or partially transferred meaning , are widely used in the language conducting expressiveness, colour to the thought expressed. The notion of idiomaticity represented by phraseology is of special significance for linguistic survey for it appears in many structural varieties and yields certain distinct patterns – some perhaps universal, others characteristic of one specific language only . ) There is a great difference between free word- groups and idioms. It is considered to be the most controversial problem in the field of phraseology. In an idiom words are not independent. They form set-expressions, in which neither words nor the order of words can be changed. Free word-groups are formed in the process of speech according to the standards of the language, while phraseological units exist in the language side by side with separate words. In a free word-group each of its constituents preserves its denotational meaning.In the case of phraseological units however the denotational meaning belongs to the word group as a single semantically inseparable unit. 3) The English language is extremely rich in verbal phraseological units. Verbal idioms belong to the class of nominative and nominative – communicative phraseological units, due to the fact that some of the m are word – combinations, while others can be both word – combinations and sentences. Verbal idioms can have completely or partially transferred meaning and they are divided into non – comparative and comparative idioms. ) The structure of the English verbal phraseological units is variegated. Word – groups and phraseological units possess not only the lexical meaning, but also the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of their constituents. Not only the order , but also the substitution of one of the elements may lead to semantic differences or to entirely different phraseological units. 5) Free word – combinations can never be polysemantic, while there are polysemantic verbal phraseological units. 6) Among verbal phraseological units there are two – top units ( ) .The grammar centre of such units is the verb , the semantic centre in many cases is the nominal component. In some units the verb is both the grammar and the sem antic centre. These verbal phraseological units can be perfectly idiomatic as well. Bibliography 1. ?. : : ?.?. , 1986. 2. ?. . , 1973 3. ?. . , 2009. 4. ?. ?. . . , 1963 5. ?. ?. . , 2008. . ?. ?. , . , 1980 7. . . , 1983 8. ?. ?. ? . , 1971 9. ?. ?. , ?. ?. , ?. ?. , 1974 10. ?. ?. . , 1996 11. ?. ?.. . , 1987 12. ?. ?. . , 1998 13. ?. ?.. , 1966 14. Antrushina G. B. , Afanasyeva , O. V. , Morozova, N.N. English Lexicology. Moscow, 1985 15. Arnold I. V. The English word. Moscow, 1986 16. Ginzburg R. S. , Khidekel S. S. A course in Modern English Lexicology. Moscow, 1979 17. Koonin A . English Lexicology. Moscow, 1948 18. Makkai A. Idiom structure in English. The Hague , 1972 19. Minaeva L. English Lexicology and Lexicography. Moscow, 2007 20. Palmer . F. R. Semantics. A new outline , Moscow: 1982 Dictionaries 21. ?. , ?. . , 1975 22. ?. ?. – . , 1967 23. Longman dictionary of English idioms.Printed by Butler and T anner, LTD. London, 1984 24. Oxford dictionary. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007 CHAPTER ONE GENERAL OUTLINE OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS ( PROBLEMS, CLASSIFICATIONS, DEFINITIONS ) Idioms have always attracted the attention of linguists, literary critics, sociologists and philosophers. Enriching the literary language, representing a bright example of purity, accuracy of content and sharpness of language, idioms are of great importance in the treasury of culture and have become of genuine interest for linguists and researchers of various spheres of communication.If synonyms can be figuratively referred to as the tints and colours of the vocabulary, then phraseology is a kind of picture gallery in which are collected vivid and amusing sketches of the nation’s customs, traditions and prejudices, recollections of its past history, and fairy-tales. Being an inseparable part of the language, idioms have a special position within it. They represent what can probably be described a s the most picturesque, colourful and expressive part of the language’s vocabulary ( ?. ?. , ?. ?. , ?. ?. , 2008 ).The stock of words of the language consists not only of separate words , but also of set expressions, which alongside with separate words serve as means of expressing concepts. There exist two terms which are to denote set expressions: â€Å"idioms† and â€Å"phraseological units†. An idiom or idiomatic phrase, is often defined as a phrase, developing a meaning which cannot be readily analyzed into the several distinct ideas which would ordinarily be expressed by the words composing the phrase. It transcends the ordinary syntactical constructions and must be studied as grammatical unit, or entity ,in itself.On the other hand, â€Å"idiom† is a very broad term and includes all the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of the language –its peculiar syntactical constructions, and other conventional practices of unusual character. The ter m â€Å"idiom† is widely used by western scholars, mainly English and American linguists. N. N. Amosov? defines phraseological units as units of fixed context, i. e. phrases with a specific sequence of certain lexical components and peculiar semantic relations between them. In these terms , phraseological units are classified into phrasemes and idioms.Phrasemes are binary phrases in which one of the components has a phraseologically bound meaning dependent on the other. Idioms as distinguished from phrasemes are characterized by integral meaning and idiomaticity of the whole word-group ( ?. ?. , ?. ?. , ?. ?. , , 2008 ). According to Rosemarie Glaser’s theory a phraseological unit is a lexicalized, reproducible bilexemic or polylexemic word group in common use, which has relative syntactic and semantic stability, may be idiomatized, may carry connotations and may have an emphatic or intensifying function in a text (Glaser R. 998:125). Glaser includes both word-lik e and sentence-like units in the phrasicon, terming word-like units â€Å"nominations†, which designate a phenomenon , an object, an action, a process or state, a property in the outside world, and sentence-like ones â€Å"propositions†, which designate a whole state of affairs in the outside world. She further subdivides nominations into idioms and non-idioms having transparent meanings, and including technical terms, cliches, etc. ( ?. , , 2009 ).Attempts have been made to approach phraseology in different ways. There is a divergence of opinions as to the nature and essential features of phraseological units, how to distinguish them from free word groups, how to define and how to classify them. This is probably the most discussed and one of the most important problems in the field of phraseology. The complexity of the problem may be largely accounted for by the fact that the borderline between free word-groups and phraseological units is not clearly defined.The s o –called free word-groups are but relatively free as collocability of member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and grammatical valency which makes at least some of them very close to set-phrases. Phraseological units are but comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. Between the extremes of complete motivation and variability of member-words and lack of motivation combined with complete stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure there are innumerable borderline cases. However, the existing terms, e. g. et-phrases, idioms, word-equivalents, reflect to a certain extent the main debatable issues of phraseology which centre in the divergent views concerning the nature and essential features of phraseological units as distinguished from the so-called free word-groups. The term â€Å"set-phrase† implies that the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups. The t erm â€Å"idiom† generally implies that the essential feature of linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity or lack of motivation.This term habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated as synonymous with the term â€Å"phraseological unit†. The term â€Å"word-equivalent† stresses not only semantic but also functional inseparability of certain word-groups, their aptness to function in speech as single words. The criterion of stability of lexical components and idiomaticity of word-groups are viewed as not necessarily coexisting in phraseological units. It is argued that stability of lexical components does not presuppose lack of motivation.It follows that stability and idiomaticity are regarded as two different aspects of word-groups. Stability is an essential feature of set-phrases both motivated and non-motivated. Idiomaticity is a distinguishing feature of phraseological units or idioms which comprise both stable set-phras es and variable word-groups. The two features are not mutually exclusive and may be overlapping, but are not interdependent. Word-groups are structurally complex units consisting of formally separable elements, which are functionally equivalent to separate words.So they are independent parts of the sentence. Whereas in an idiom words are not independent. They form set-expressions, in which neither words nor the order of words can be changed. Free word-groups are formed in the process of speech according to the standards of the language, while phraseological units exist in the language side by side with separate words. In a free word-group each of its constituents preserves its denotational meaning. In the case of phraseological units however the denotational meaning belongs to the word group as a single semantically inseparable unit.It’s worth mentioning that idiom is a complex phenomenon with a number of features, which can therefore be approached from different points of vi ew. Hence, there exist a considerable number of different classification systems devised by different scholars and based upon different principles. The oldest principle for classifying idioms is based on their original content and is known as â€Å"thematic† (this term however is not universally accepted). On this principle, idioms are classified according to their sources of origin. The word â€Å"source† refers to the particular sphere of human activity, of life, of nature.The â€Å"thematic† principle of classifying idioms has a real merit, but it does not take into consideration the linguistic features of the idioms. The first classification system, which was based on semantic principle, was suggested by acad. V. V. Vinogradov, who developed some points first advanced by the Swiss scientist Charles Bally. Acad. V. V. Vinogradov spoke of the semantic change in idioms as a â€Å"meaning resulting from a peculiar chemical combination of words†. He descri bed idioms as lexical complexes which cannot be freely made up in speech, but are reproduced as ready-made units.The meaning of such expressions as distinguished from the meaning of free combinations is idiomatic. The classification is based on the motivation of the unit. According to the degree of idiomatic meaning of various groups of idioms ,V. V. Vinogradov classified them as follows ( Arnold V. , The English Word, 1986 ) : Phraseological fusions – units whose meaning cannot be deduced from the meanings of their component parts, the meaning of phraseological fusions is unmotivated at the present stage of language development. The meaning of the components is completely absorbed by the meaning of the whole.The metaphor, on which the shift of meaning is based , has lost its clarity and is obscure. Phraseological unities – units with a completely changed meaning. They are motivated units or, putting it another way , the meaning of the whole unit can be deduced from th e meanings of constituent parts. The metaphor, on which the shift of meaning is based, is clear and transparent. Phraseological combinations – traditional units which are not only motivated, but contain one component used in its direct meaning, while the other is used figuratively. Prof.Smirnitsky considers a phraseological unit to be similar to the word because of the idiomatic relationships between its parts resulting in semantic unity and permitting its introduction into speech as something complete. He differentiated three classes of stereotyped phrases ( ?. ?. , , 2008 ) : 1) Traditional phrases 2) Phraseological combinations 3) Idioms Traditional phrases, which are characterized by reproducibility, are not regarded as word-equivalents. They are usual collocations whose inner form is transparent. They are distinguished as follows: 1)Verbal ) Substantive 3) Adjectival 4) Adverbial 5) Interjectional Smirnitsky’s notion of word-equivalence actually allows another p erspective on phraseological units too. Namely, proceeding from the classification of words into derivatives and compounds, the linguist seeks to find similar structural and semantic features in phraseological units as well, correspondingly singling out units with one semantic centre(one summit units) on the one hand, which he compared with derived words, and with two or more semantic centres (two summit and multi-summit units), on the other, which he compared with compound words.Each of the two groups of this structural – semantic classification is further subdivided according to the part of speech to which t