English Is Official Language In U.S. Essay Example for Free

English Is Official Language In U.S. Essay Half the countries in the world have an official language. The US is not one of them. Recently some attempts were made to designate English as the official language of the United States, though this country is widely known for being multinational and, correspondently, multilingual. Nevertheless, at the present there are twenty seven states out of fifty that are claiming English to be their official language either by adopting a law or in their state constitutions. Thus, English language de facto occupies a position of the official language in the United States, and there are many supporters of the idea to set it in documents, de jure. The question arises: is this so vital? Should it be done by all means and at any cost? Definitely, there are some clearly stated advantages, pertaining mainly to the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal. Firstly, if English is designated as the official language, it will ensure that all the immigrants become more proficient in English, thus making communication and integration into the society much easier for all the parties. It is difficult to imagine any immigrant achieving the American dream without knowledge of English. This fact, though having little financial of physical impact, will incite people coming from other countries to learn English more zealously. Being forced to learn English, any immigrant will gain access to a full life of an American. Then, English as the default and official language will become a uniting factor for people from different parts of the world. They all came to America from divergent backgrounds, and English language is the tie that can bind them together. The last but not the least is the financial factor. Many states maintain language diversity thoroughly, which can not but call for extensive financial support. There are bilingual ballots, education, publications, and similar services provided at public expense. Massachusetts offers drivers tests in more than two dozen foreign languages. Federal voting rights laws provide for ballots in multiple translations. Internal Revenue Service forms are printed in Spanish. Elimination of need to translate these from one language into another may save a lot of money. On the other hand, all these advantages can easily turn into disadvantages if regarded from the other point of view. Thus, immigrants coming from all parts of the world will have to abandon their native language and most traditions. Of course, as it has already been mentioned, this would benefit to their integration into the American society, but at the same time weakening of cultural and historical bonds may result in loss of national identity. Moreover, the idea of ‘English-only’ implies the feeling of linguistic superiority and somehow exclusivity. It can definitely and can be upsetting to people whose native language is not English.   Its misuse would be intended to provoke an emotional reaction and in a way irritate anyone who favors making English the US official language, as well as those who simply want to protect its role as the common language of the United States. Designating English as the official language will also give trouble to bilingual education which is nowadays very popular in many states. Bilingual education programs use both the students native language and English for instruction. It is emphasized that native language development has the positive influence on second language proficiency. Lack of first language development has been shown, in some cases, to inhibit the level of second language proficiency and cognitive academic development. Successful bilingual education programs actually result in faster acquisition of English. Content matter taught in the native language can be transferred to the second language. In the regular classroom, confronted with both concepts and language that are not comprehensible to them, limited English speakers learn neither the content nor the language. Language acquisition occurs only when incoming messages can be understood. Again, to be successful, citizens need to be open to learning multiple languages. Business leaders and Europeans do it. Knowing multiple languages is a great asset. In a global economy, it is the monolingual English speakers who are falling behind. Along with computer skills, a neat appearance and a work ethic, Americans more and more are finding that a second language is useful in getting a good job. What is the most important, everybody knows that English is the official language already, even if it was not designated to be one. Its declaration as the official tongue would be nothing but a mere symbol. No matter how hard the proponents of designation try to officially establish a language for the US, it is in vain; such a language already exists and is predominant. Correspondingly, efforts to strive for it can be applied to maintain the country’s multilingualism. Outline: question of designating English as the official language in the USA is a debatable one. The arguments â€Å"for† are that it would encourage immigrants to learn the language, helping them to integrate into the society and become citizens of the United States.   It would also help to save the money spent on translations. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of such a step prevail: loss of language and culture of immigrants, problems with bilingual education, limitation of possibility to acquire new languages.   Nevertheless, the crucial factor â€Å"against† the designation is that it would mean nothing, as most benefits from such the step are already existent.

Marketing Strategies And The Positioning Of Hotels Tourism Essay

Marketing Strategies And The Positioning Of Hotels Tourism Essay A hotels positioning is a crucial determinant in developing its subsequent marketing strategies. Incorrect hotel positioning will lead to an unclear vision of the hotels development and eventually affect the profitability of the hotel (Ransley Ingram 2004, p.37). Our hotel has been positioned as a 3.5 start hotel that sits in the middle of the competition. This is a very strategic approach for our hotel to proceed with as it allows us to target upper-end of the market since our hotel has the resource and capability to do so and simultaneously attract other markets segments such as leisure and family holiday makers since our price and products are very competitive compared to other hotels in the same category. Hotels targeted market segments: Corporate Our hotel will continue to set company executives and business travellers as our priority of focus, since this market segment has always been a major proportion of the hotels business in terms of the number of rooms sold and incomes from the room sales. This market segment would also bring additional revenue to the hotel such as onsite dinning and purchase of other facilities. Therefore, meeting, business and conference related facilities needs to be developed to meet these customers needs. Leisure The city which our hotel is suited in is a destination of family and leisure vacations and our hotels location itself imposes a unique marketing advantage as it is located on the seafront and close to the main shopping centres. Therefore, with the competitive marketing advantage, if we could offer a mix of quality products and services, in fact, all of our hotels guests rooms are able to accommodate families and other services such as Pub and full service restaurant are integrated to deliver a desired level of convenience. Scale of economy is another critical element that attracts leisure and family holiday makers, however, simply reduce our room rate is not a strategic action to take. Therefore, special discount can be allowed for weekdays bookings in order to maintain the level of room occupancy rates and design various packages for the weekend in order to improve the sales of FB facilities. Tour Tourism has boomed in this region, there are various venues take place in the city throughout the year. This induces a great opportunity to improve our room occupancy rate and ultimately to increase our overall profitability. As tourists have similar features with leisure and family holiday makers in terms of scale of economy and convenience of hotels location. Our hotel should come up with different and differentiate packages to suit various venues so that our customers can receive and perceive added values from our hotel. For example, we can assist our customers in booking the tickets for some of venues such as the International Music Festival and International Dance Festival. Internally, we can offer special check-in and check-out channels for group tourists in order to diminish the hassles for them. Additionally, it is essential to have multi-lingual staff at the front desk as we expect group tourists from overseas. Weddings Frankly, we cannot host ant weddings prior to our conference facilities in place. Therefore, at this stage, with the available resources and capacities in terms of our rooms and restaurant, we can arrange Honeymoon specials for the new married couples. Once we obtain any honeymoon bookings, we can pre-decorate the rooms with romantic features and ambiences to provide a physical environment which allow those couples to have intimate times together. Additionally, we can also offer discount for new married couples to have dinner in our restaurant with the menu especially designed for the venue. FB Services It would pose a great impact on the operation of our FB department since the potential resignation of our Head Chef. However, we can take this opportunity to be innovative in terms of turning our restaurant into a completely different concept of dining. Nowadays, FB services are usually seen as an adhering service to the accommodation. However, the potential ability of FB services of generating revenue is significant. Therefore, providing we have sufficient financial founds, we can hire another Head Chef who is innovative in culinary arts and develop our restaurant as a dining destination of the region, it is implementable as the local population of over one million in the city ensures the demands of such service if we operate it successfully. Promotion: Promotion is a very vital element in the marketing mix (4Ps), as in it builds the hotels image and increases the hotels public awareness and helps the hotel to reach more markets (Kotler, Bowen Makens 2006, p.539). Our promotion mix will include a number of media such advertising, hotels website and join in marketing consortiums. Advertising: Our hotel will still adopt some of the traditional media such as newspaper, travelling magazines and advertising campaign on radio. These media can effectively reach a large group of audience even though involves costs and cannot receive instant response on the effectiveness until the guests actually come to our hotel. For that reason alone, our hotel should use on-line social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. These social networks has increasingly become the primary information sources for people especially for Gen Ys whose purchasing power has increased dramatically. The social networks allow us nearly zero-cost and can reach to more potential customers. Hotels website: Hotels website is the first impression we give to our potential guests when they intend to choose us as their hospitality provider. Therefore, a well-established, designed and managed website will effectively promote our hotel to those who are very likely to become our customers. Marketing consortium: Since we are an independent hotel and especially with limited budget, we are in a weak position in competing with those international chains in terms of spending money on marketing and promoting themselves. Therefore, join a marketing consortia is a strategic approach at this stage for our hotel. For example, The Leading Hotels of the world, will give us access to its worldwide reservation centre and they have more than 20 offices in the most important cities and this organization also participate in some of the most popular travel exhibitions and trades shows in the pursuit of promoting its members. However, it charges annual membership fees and additional shares for each room they have generated (The Leading Hotels of the World, 2010). Other marketing related strategies: Converting guests rooms into Conference facilities: Currently our hotel does not gain any business from this market segment due to the lack of conference facilities. Functions and banquets are very profitable to conduct as it requires intensive FB services which can generate significant profits and also impose the potential of room sales and long-term business relationships with the clients. Therefore, the next strategic projection for our hotel is to turn some of rooms into conference facilities (our average room occupancy rate was 20% which means 80% of the room inventory have not been generating profits, and hotel rooms are perishable products). This strategy will require additional financial founds to support, there will be risk involved, but it will be profitable in the long-haul. Merge to gain additional founds: Our hotel can merge with another non-hospitality establishment in order to get additional financial support as we are suffering for lack of funds. Although merge is not as fierce as acquisitions, it still poses a certain degree of risks to the management of the hotel in terms of the absolute authority and power over making business decisions (Beamish 2008, p.288). Budgeting for marketing department: There are two major areas that require enormous funds to complete. Projected Budget for Regency Hotel-Marketing Department Converting rooms into conferences facilities $1.5 million Advertising $2,000 per month Join marketing Consortia $200,000 per year Maintaining Website $1000 per year Labour costs $80,000 per year

Frontiers of an Arab Woman :: Culture Cultural Marriage Essays

Frontiers of an Arab Woman â€Å"When you spend a whole day among the trees, waking up with walls as horizons becomes unbearable (Mernissi, 59).† One would assume that in the face of woman’s liberation-access to an equal and higher education, choice of a husband and access to a prosperous/independent future-that a woman would be positioned to escape gender oppression. However, this is not the case for the Arab women of Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass and Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun. The two main characters of these novels-Asya and Mernissi herself-enable the reader to understand how gender inequality is rooted in the frontiers and accepted social norms that are defined by the community and adhered to by the individual. Although these woman have access to an equal education with the hopes of becoming an enlightened, liberated women, education does not guarantee that they will ever become truly liberated. This paper will discuss the differences between the educated and seemingly liberated women of Dreams of Trespass, and In the Eye of the Sun, in hopes to understand whether cultural and educational frontiers are the only characteristics which govern a woman's right to escape the gendered Arab hierarchy. Why do some women, with access to westernization and an equal education still fall victim to the subservient expectations of an unliberated and uneducated female in the Arab world? Why are these women maintaining such domination when they are surrounded by tools of liberation? What are the causes of such oppression? The maintained traditional frontiers that continue to define gender roles in these stories, Islamic traditional values, familial expectations? Using the frontiers that guide the lives of Fatima Mernissi and Asya, we will seek to understand the causes of the differences between the two characters--one woman is liberated, the other, for most of her life, remains oppressed-- when both are from progressive, wealthy and educated families. Although both Fatima and Asya grew up in privileged families, these two women evolve into very different characters--one oppressed the other liberated. Asya and Fatima were surrounded by very different frontiers (see pg 2), which ultimately led to the development of two very different women. Fatima was raised within the rigid confines of a walled city harem, but emerges a strong woman that is left unscathed by her oppressive childhood. As a child she was surrounded by strong feminist role models, who lived in the harem with her, that taught her to maintain dreams of trespass because they eventually would set her free.

Plagiarism: The Illegal Recycling of Information Essay -- Plagiarizing

Plagiarism: The Illegal Recycling of Information Plagiarism is defined as using others people’s ideas, writings, and quotes without giving credit to the author by citing the material in the paper. Plagiarism can come from copying many things including charts, graphs, text, and music. Even paraphrasing an author’s work without citing it can be considered plagiarism. Plagiarism certainly has been around long before the first research project was assigned. One of the most famous scientists Gregor Mendel had his work plagiarized by another scientist Hugo de Vries in the 19th century.[1] Mendel had come up with breakthroughs in genetics, but no one realized what he had accomplished. Later in the early 1900’s, de Vries published a paper with very similar to Medel’s work. It was not realized until a third scientist Carl Correns was doing some similar experiments and read the works of both Mendel and de Vries. In his paper, he gave credit to Mendel and discredited de Vries’ work.[2] The problem of plagiarism has increased drastically over the years with all of the new electronic sources. Now, all that the student has to do is to copy an article, highlight it and paste it into a word processing program. It was not much harder for a student to plagiarize before the Internet. A lazy student could easily copy an entire section out of a book word for word and conveniently â€Å"forget† to cite the reference from which it came. It would take the professor forever to find this source especially if it was not well known. With just some quick manipulating of words, professors can be tricked into believing that they are looking at a new original work. There are several reasons why students... ... forced to stop selling term papers over the Internet. As long as professors stand strong in their fight against this illegal recycling of information, plagiarism will be cut down. [1]More, Randy. Rediscovery of Mendel’s Work. Bioscene, 27. 16-20. [2]More, Randy. Rediscovery of Mendel’s Work. Bioscene, 27. 16-20. [3]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [4]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [5]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [6]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [7]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [8]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [9]http://rbs2.com/plag.html [10]http://rbs2.com/plag.html [11]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [12]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [13]http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm [14]www.wordcheck.com, www.plagiarism.org [15]www.plagiarism.

Masters, Slaves, and Subjects Essay -- Robert Olwell Charles Towne Ess

Masters, Slaves, and Subjects In his book â€Å"Masters, Slaves, and Subjects†, Robert Olwell examines the complex relationships and power structures of colonial-era Charles Towne. Charles Towne, as Charleston was known in the years between its founding and its independence from the British Empire, is portrayed by Olwell as dominated by a rigid agrarian slave society which served as an intermediary in a more complex power structure that extended from the royal halls of London to the plantation fields of the Lowcountry. In examining the complicated web of relationships between London and the colony, and Masters and Slaves, Olwell argues that the economic and political structure of Charles Towne was based upon a successive series of carefully-maintained power-based relationships. CHARLES TOWNE: A GATEWAY TO POWER Power in Charles Towne was centralized at what became known as the Four Corners of Law, at Broad and Meeting Streets, and radiated outward across the Lowcountry. The Four Corners were home to the State House, where the Colonial Assembly met, St. Michael’s Church, the heart of the Church of England in the colony, the Town Watch House, which kept the slave population in check, and the public marketplace, where the commerce that was vital to the colony’s economy took place (19). One could easily see power was centralized within Charleston, not just over the local area, but also statewide. Of the forty-eight members of the colonial Assembly, twenty-eight lived within a day’s horse ride of the city. Half of the justices of the colony, who took an oath to defend â€Å"King and Country†, were either sitting or former members of the Assembly, and all of the justices were slave owners (... ...constitution officially separated church and state, ending the power of the Anglican Church forever (282). With this, the last ties to Mother England were cast off, and the elite were secure as Masters of their world, and Subjects to none. CONCLUSION Colonial Charles Towne had evolved into a sort of fuedal city-state governed by power-based relationships, which established roles for everyone from the lowest slave to the economic and political elite who ruled the colony. These relationships were vital to the success and stability of the city and the lands and the people over which it held power. In his book, Robert Olwell clearly identified defines the roles of Master, Slave, and Subject, and made a strong argument that, right or wrong, this system of power-based relationships was the key to the success, prosperity, and security of the colony.

Graduate Unemployment in Malaysia

Unemployed graduates have become a cause of concern in Malaysia. The findings of a Graduate Tracer Study in 2006 involving 132 900 graduates from institutions of higher learning all over Malaysia indicated that 30.7% of graduates remained unemployed six months after graduation, while 5.7% were still awaiting job placement (Tan, 2007). The Minister of Human Resources revealed that more female graduates in this country were unemployed because they lacked the relevant skills required in the labor market despite having excellent academic results. The number was much higher in comparison to male graduates (Nor Hartini, 2007). As there are so many unemployed graduates at present, we need to find out why this problem exists and what can be done to overcome it. One reason for this problem is that the focus of higher education institutions and the needs of the labor market for graduates are not as compatible as they were twenty years ago. The labor market is now more competitive and volatile. As a result, graduates, face difficulties in getting jobs because they are not ready for the industry (Tan, 2007). For instance, the knowledge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) acquired by students does not quite meet the expectations of the industry. Lack of experience and skills are also causes of graduate unemployment. Generally, most organizations prefer to employ graduates with experience. Furthermore, in Malaysia, the private sector today is not interested in recruiting local graduates because they lack essential skills, such as proficiency in English and interpersonal skills (Nor Hartini, 2007). There appears to be a disparity between what employers require and what skills graduates have. In view of this, the government has implemented several measures to reduce the problem of graduate unemployment. One such measure is the introduction of several training programmes for fresh graduates. For instance, the Ministry of Human Resources, through their training agencies, has introduced the ‘Unemployed Graduates Training Scheme’ in order to equip graduates with certain skills and experience (Chapman, Chew & Tan, 2007). The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry, likewise, has initiated a programme where established retailers have started recruiting graduates and diploma holders as management trainees. This scheme aims to not only provide employment opportunities for fresh graduates but also to expose them to fields in the private sector other than the ones they specialized in (Chin, 2007). Another measure involves a review of the tertiary education system. Soft skill development should be incorporated into the education curriculum where students can participate in extra curricular activities to enhance soft skills such as personal qualities, interpersonal skills and critical and creative thinking (Nor Hartini, 2007). These soft skills should be acquired through participation in extra curricular activities while they are studying for their degrees. A lecturer, for instance, can develop students’ skills and knowledge by stimulating their minds with discussions and case studies. According to Nor Hartini, these skills will enable them to communicate effectively, manage relationships, lead a team, solve problems and succeed in the job market. Thus, it is evident that lack of skills and experience are the main causes for graduate unemployment. To overcome this problem, the Ministry of Higher Education must ensure that the tertiary education system is relevant and up-to-date. It should continually evaluate the tertiary programs to help produce quality graduates who meet the needs of industries. Also, industries need to play their part by providing more opportunities for training fresh graduates while the graduates themselves need to be more open and take up these offers.

Behind Closed Doors at WorldCom Essay

1.Two General Accounting employees—Dan Renfroe and Angela Walter—made journal entries in the amount of $150 million and $171 million, respectively, without detailed support. It was noted that this was not out of the ordinary at WorldCom. In your opinion, was this a proper accounting practice? Explain. Though this may not be out of the ordinary for WorldCom, this is not a correct accounting practice. The way the entries were made does not comply with the proper account practice according to GAAP. Detailed support is an important part of providing support to a journal entry and it explains the reason or purpose as to why the journal entry was created. 2.Based on GAPP, describe the propriety or impropriety of releasing of $150 million in line cost accruals in the Wireless division over Deloris DiCicco’s objections. Support your position using the authoritative accounting literature. When instructed to reduce the Wireless Division’s line cost by $150 million due to savings from the prior period, DiCicco refused because there was no support for the entry.   WorldCom would prepare an adjusting entry each month to recognize the estimated cost of the period as period expense, by capitalizing the expense as an accrued interest. According to GAAP, a line item cost must be reported as an expense on a company’s income statement. WorldCom capitalized the line expense, instead of expensing it and placed it on the balance sheet as an accrued liability rather than on the income statement as an operating expense. 3.On the topic of capitalizing line costs, critique the rationale included in CEO Scott Sullivan’s White Paper. Based on your own analysis of GAAP, explain the propriety or impropriety of capitalizing line costs in the telecom industry. In the White Paper presented to the Board of Directors, the CEO Scott Sullivan supported the decision to capitalize line costs. Sullivan provided that the White Paper was in line with the company’s goal of maintaining strong growth rate through increasing its capital investment. Management noted that the treatment of the E/R cots as an asset was in no way in any contradiction of the definition of an asset as per FASB Concept Statement No. 6 which states, â€Å"Assets are probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events†. However, as per GAAP, line costs must be reported as an expense in the company’s income statement as these are fundamentally,  ope rating expenses. It was put in the Balance Sheet as an accrued liability rather than in the income statement as an accrued expense. This resulted in falsely projecting income and profits; and concealing huge losses by wrongly capitalizing the line costs. 4.Consider journal entry that recognized $35 million of revenue in 2001 from the EDS contract based on WorlCom’s expectation that the five-year required cumulative minimum payment would not be met. Based on your own analysis of GAAP, explain the propriety to impropriety of this journal entry. This is not in compliance with the provisions of GAAP or SAB 101. Revenue should not be recognized until it is realized or becomes realizable and earned. If we followed this statement the company did not have realized revenue Furthermore, the penalty payments if enforced could not be paid till the year 2005 as stated in the contract. Also, the journal entry resulted in recognizing revenue when it was not earned or realized and thus, overstated the profits. 5.Why do you think the professionals in this case, most of whom are CPA’s, would agree to record a material journal entry contrary to their best professional judgment? I think that in many situations employees were able to twist statements which follow GAAP guidelines. May employees were convinced they were doing the right thing and those that were unwilling to participate were overlooked. Most of the material journal entries which were made contrary to best judgment were so done with a view to mask the declining profits and to show increasing profits, which in turn would increase stock prices. 6.In general, how does the role of Internal Auditing differ from the role of Independent (or External) Auditing? What is the role of Internal Auditing in a well-run corporation? When performed by internal auditors, what is a financial audit versus an operating audit? Do you think WorldCom’s Internal Audit Department was functioning as it should have been? Explain. Internal auditors work within an organization and report to its audit committee and/or directors. They help to design the company’s organizing systems and help develop specific risk management policies. External auditors are independent of the organization they are auditing. They report to the company’s shareholders. They provide their experienced opinion on the truthfulness of the company’s financial statements and perform work on a test basis to monitor systems in place. Internal Auditing  is designed to look at the key risks facing the business and how the business is managing those risks ef fectively. It usually results in recommendations for improvement across departments. Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization’s operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes. A financial audit is an audit or examination of the financial reporting process, determining the reliability and integrity of the financial statements and preparation of such statements. It also involves an appraisal of the internal controls related to the finance function of the enterprise. An operational audit, on the other hand, is a systematic review and evaluation of an operational unit in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency of operations, accomplishment of its laid down objectives and goals, and determining its appropriateness in the use of various resources. It is clear that the WorldCom’s Internal Audit department was not functioning as it should have been. It was concentrating only on operational audits and totally avoiding financial audits. On the cause of cost-saving, it clearly avoided any and every function which could overlap with the role of the external auditors.