Speech Recognition free essay sample

Speech is the vocalized form of human Harvery Fletcher and Homer Dudley communication. It is based upon the ?rmly established the importance of the syntactic combination of lexicals and signal spectrum for reliable identi? cation names that are drawn from very large of the phonetic nature of a speech sound. (usually about 10,000 different words) Following the convention established by vocabularies. Each spoken word is these two outstanding scientists, most created out of the phonetic combination modern systems and algorithms for of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech recognition are based on the  speech sound units. These vocabularies, concept of measurement of the (time- the syntax which structures them, and varying) speech power spectrum (or its their set of speech sound units differ, variants such as the cepstrum), in part creating the existence of many thousands due to the fact that measurement of the of different types of mutually unintelligible power spectrum from a signal is relatively human languages [1]. We will write a custom essay sample on Speech Recognition or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page easy to accomplish with modern digital The speech is the quintessential form of signal processing techniques. Due the human communication, is what has drive increased on the processing power at the  the human race so far, talking about it on CPU on the modern computers this task technology is also and important subject become more and more every day, to study. On 1874, the experiments allowing to concentrated on the task of conduced by Alexander Graham Bell interpreting the speech and responding to proves that the frequency harmonics from actions from it than to await for an electrical signal can be divided, this processing the speech patterns. was the foundation that later on leads to The Problem with Automatic Speech the digitalization of the speech, entering. Recognition (ARS) is in writing computer  on the Speech Recognition era. programs that can comprehend a sound 1 wave and reproduced the same spectrogram or a spectrum analyzer, sequence of words that a person would though in vowels spoken with a high hear when listening to the same sound, fundamental frequency, as in a female or this means de? ne an association child voice, the frequency of the between the acoustic features of sounds resonance may lie between the widely- and the words people perceive. spread harmonics and hence no peak is visible. Speech Recognizers In 1952, Davis, Biddulph, and Balashek The ? st attempts to design systems for  of Bell Laboratories built a system for automatic speech recognition were isolated digit recognition for a single mostly guide by the theory of acoustic- speaker, using the formant frequencies phonetics. That is a sub? eld of phonetics measured (or estimated) during vowel which deals with acoustic aspects of regions of each digit [2], this system work speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics with the formant trajectories along the investigates properties like the mean dimensions of the ? rst and the second squared amplitude of a waveform, its formant frequencies for each of the ten duration, its fundamental frequency, or  digits, one-nine and 0, respectively. other properties of its frequency. These trajectories served as the spectrum, and the relationship of these â€Å"reference pattern† for determining the properties to other branches of phonetics, identity of an unknown digit utterance as and to abstract linguistic concepts like the best matching digit. phones, phrases, or utterances [3]. In another early recognition system Fry Another important term during the and Denes, at University College in process of speech recognition is the England, built a phoneme recognizer to formant o formants that in speech  recognize 4 vowels and 9 consonants. By science and phonetics, is used to mean incorporating statistical information about an acoustic resonance of the human allowable phoneme sequences in vocal tract. It is often measured as an English, they increased the overall amplitude peak in the frequency phoneme recognition accuracy for words spectrum of the sound, using a consisting of two or more phonemes, this through the supplying of the system with 2 previous entries or by basically training programming, in numerous variant forms the system to know the vowels and the as the Viterbi algorithm, this one is a  consonants by repetition as we do now dynamic programming algorithm for with the neural networks. This work ?nding the most likely sequence of marked the ? rst use of statistical syntax hidden states – called the Viterbi path – (at the phoneme level) in automatic that results in a sequence of observed speech recognition [2]. events, especially in the context of An alternative to the use of a speech Markov information sources and hidden segmenter was the concept of adopting a Markov models, has become an non-uniform time scale for aligning indispensable technique in automatic speech patterns. This concept started to speech recognition. In speech-to-text gain acceptance in the 1960’s through (speech recognition), the acoustic signal the work Speech Recognition by Feature is treated as the observed sequence of Abstraction Techniques by Tom Martin at events, and a string of text is considered RCA Laboratories in witch he recognized to be the hidden cause of the acoustic the need to deal with the temporal non- signal. The Viterbi algorithm   the uniformity in repeated speech events and most likely string of text given the suggested a range of solutions, including acoustic signal [4].  detection of utterance endpoints, which 4. Hidden Markov Model greatly enhanced the reliability of the The widespread popularity of the HMM recognizer performance and Speech framework can be attributed to its simple Discrimination by Dynamic Programming algorithmic structure, which is straight- by Vintsyuk in the Soviet Union, proposed forward to implement, and to its clear the use of dynamic programming for time performance superiority over alternative alignment between two utterances in recognition structures. As part of this a order to derive a meaningful assessment speech-recognition task is often  of their similarity. Others proposed taxonomized according to its different methods like dynamic time requirements in handling speci? c or warping, in speech pattern matching nonspeci? c talkers (speaker-dependent Since the late 1970’s, mainly due to the vs. speaker-independent) and in publication by Sakoe and Chiba, dynamic 3 accepting only isolated utterances or multiple acoustic features at a single ?uent speech (isolated word vs. point in time in a way that has not connected word). Systems based on previously been exploited in discrete- HMM have been demonstrated to be able  observation Hidden Markov Models. to achieve 96% word accuracy. These 6. Conclusion results sometimes rival human The DBN and HMM are the biggest ways performance and thus, of course, af? rm of working with Automatic Speech the potential usefulness of an automatic Recognition, those are the precursors of speech-recognition system in designated the neural networks that now a days are applications[7]. trying to make the switch of the old We also have to take in consideration systems that still pretty accurate. when we are talking about Hidden Markov Model, that this one is, one of the  most simple Dynamic Bayesian Networks, so using a more complex DBN we can achieve better result, just because the complexity found on those networks. Dynamic Bayesian Networks Over the last twenty years, probabilistic emerged as the method of choice for large-scale speech recognition tasks in two dominant forms: hidden Markov models (Rabiner b: Juang 1993), and neural networks with explicitly probabilistic interpretations (Bourlard Morgan 1994; Robinson Fallside 1991) [6]. This change is mainly due the fact that Dynamic Bayesian Networks are able to model the correlations among

Americas Pro-Imperialistic Views

Americas Pro-Imperialistic Views Free Online Research Papers Should the United States have intervened in foreign affairs in the early twentieth century? There are many opinions on this topic; however, I believe that imperialism, the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, was a smart decision for the United States. Imperialism was the correct decision for the US because of its mandating by legal documents, education of foreign countries, and increase in land and resources. Not only was imperialism an opinionated decision of the United States, but it was necessary as citizens to fulfill our American duties. President McKinley explains how he feels it is necessary to intervene, â€Å"In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there in Cuba, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate†¦We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property.† This does not state that we should go around fixing every little problem of the countries around us, but that we not let situations go beyond a critical state of impeding on any human’s natural rights. â€Å"Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention† (Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine). Ju st as important as intervention itself is the education of foreign communities, which can only be fulfilled with initial mitigation and stability. Once we have put a stop to all dictatorship or anarchy in foreign nations, it is crucial that we establish a democracy and educate the citizens of the country so that they may govern themselves. Goals of the US were to see neighboring nations stable, orderly, and prosperous which are achievable only after education. The US wished not to govern other nations forever, but to educate and them about the justice of having a democracy where they can govern themselves. â€Å"I answer, would not the natives of the Philippines prefer the just, humane, civilizing government of the Republic to the savage, bloody rule of pillage and extortion from which we have rescued them?† stated Senator Albert J. Beveridge summarizing the moral reasons and importance of intervention. Another benefit of imperialism was the expansion of our territories and increase in strategic locations along with resources. â€Å"The acquisition of the Dominican Republic is desirable because of its geographical position†¦It possesses the richest soil, best and most capacious harbors, most salubrious climate, and the most valuable products of the forest, mine, and soil of any of the West Indian Islands† stated President Grant. This demonstrates the success of the US in becoming imperialistic. Another important location for commerce was the Panama Canal. How would we be able to quickly ship goods between the Philippines and our eastern borders without the Panama Canal? If we had never gained this section of land from Panama, today we would still have to sail around the tip of South America to transport goods. These decisions have impacted how we live today in accordance with our surrounding nations. During the early twentieth century, imperialism led to America realizing that our industry was dependant on foreign markets and that it needed to move away from a self-centered mindset and focus on the prosperity of ourselves along with surrounding nations. If any person were to state that these suggestions were contrary to the law that we may not govern people without their consent, then they would be going against how they live today because of what Senator Albert J. Beveridge depicts, â€Å"I answer, the rule of liberty that all just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, applies only to those who are capable of self-government. We govern the Indians without their consent; we govern the territories without their consent; we govern our children without their consent.† Overall, imperialism was a way for America to help other incapable nations develop, while expanding our own relations and resources as well. Research Papers on America’s Pro-Imperialistic ViewsThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationBringing Democracy to AfricaAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropePETSTEL analysis of IndiaDefinition of Export QuotasAppeasement Policy Towards the Outbreak of World War 219 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraTwilight of the UAWInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesHip-Hop is Art

Obama Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Obama Care - Essay Example Obamacare, as the act came to be more popularly known, wanted to take away the decision making process about insurance details from the hands of the coverage holder, the American public, and rest that power in the hands of the federal government instead. The idea being that if the government controlled the health insurance industry, then costs would be lowered fro coverage. This would then make health insurance more affordable for all concerned. But the wording of the healthcare act is so confusing that the Duck Dynasty cast would probably have enjoyed using the bill for target practice. Insurance companies would have been expected to undergo a reform in their policies and procedures pertaining to patient coverage as they would now be forced to cover pre-existing conditions for patients who required medical treatment. Obamacare was supposed to be the defender of the patient's rights. Siding with the patient on every issue pertaining to the use of health insurance while the insurance companies would be compelled by the federal government to do their jobs properly every time from the moment the bill was passed. While President Obama held lofty goals and ambitions for his rock-star health care act and defended it like Bret Bielema trying to get his quarterback to score a touchdown, he failed to review the actual and minuscule content of the bill before he signed it. With over 319 pages of reading material, his opponents saw the flaws of the bill but the president and his cronies in the legislative body of the country turned a blind eye to it. Without realizing that their over-confidence and lack of regard for the American people would eventually come back to haunt them. With the country already reeling from the effects of a double recession, Obamacare was still passed by congress. A move that left the president smug and happy as he stood with his cohorts on the day that he signed the bill. Like a spoiled brat, he got what he wanted without regard for the people wh ose lives are directly affected by the act. Arguments against Obamacare were quite solid and with evidence. The oppositionists reminded the public and the pro-Obamacare supporters that the bill would actually end up killing American jobs because insurance plans would need to be changed and the employer-employee division may be too steep for either party to cover using their meager income during a time of nationwide financial hardship and lack of available job opportunities. Although the president promised that people would get to keep the healthcare plan that they had, enjoyed, and needed, the GOP said that would not be the case because the health insurance costs would skyrocket. That would happen even with the healthcare rationing system in the hands of the federal government (â€Å"Background on Obamacare†). Right now, Obamacare is in a state of disarray and is utterly unenforceable due to the technical glitches the sign up website is constantly experiencing, the fact that people lost their existing healthcare plans when the president said they would not, and various states, in an act of rebellion and defiance ala Hunger Games refuses to implement the program. In an ironic way that art imitates life, the novel by Suzanne Collins actually

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Group, Ltd Essay

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Group, Ltd - Essay Example The company has ventured into varied business, and it has more than two hundred conglomerates that operate across the globe. The company has about 50 thousand employees, and it receives approximately 20 billion dollars in annual sales. Many people admire the Virgin brand and Branson always believes that by treating employees effectively, they will become productive; thus attract customers who in turn would reward stakeholders. Branson believes that effective communication and teamwork competences will yield better results. He devotes himself towards motivating and rewarding employees as well listen actively to them in order to create organizational value. Branson employs a mixture of leadership styles in order to improve the organization value; thus achieving organizational goals effectively. First, Branson employs authentic leadership because he is genuine with his work. He is always ready to offer a solution in a genuine way to any employee who approaches him. Hellriegel and Slocum (2010, p. 291) argue that authentic leaders have the highest integrity and are always committed towards improving organization performance. Branson is one of the leaders who are committed towards constructing enduring organizations and  who are  genuine to the company core values. He develops his own leadership styles that are consistent with his personality. For instance, many organizations concentrate in designing innovative brands that meet the expectation of customers and they treat customers as the king in the market. However, Branson does opposite by treating employees first, and the customers follow later. This is because he believes that by motivating employees, they will work hard and become productive; thus meeting the expectations of customers. Therefore, Branson is an authentic leader because he holds on the beliefs he espouses; thus revealing ethical behaviors in business. This is essential because it will lead to successful organizational performance. Secondly, Br anson employs transactional leadership because he pays attention to his subordinates and he cooperates with them through agreements. Transactional leadership styles are among the valuable leadership management styles in an entity. This leadership style acknowledges leadership dynamics and recognizes leaders as being responsible for the actions of their subordinates (Hellriegel and Slocum (2010). In this case, leaders motivate employees through offering them bonuses as a way of motivating them to work hard. Branson focuses on teamwork performance, and he focuses on the supervision roles in an organization. This is essential because a transactional leader is a leader who is focused to keep things alike, but they are not ready to change anything in the future. This leader pays attention to employees or the followers in order to solve any problem that might arise. Branson employs transformational leadership model and this style is of significant benefit in the company. This is because t his leadership style emphasizes on unity and joint effort in creating organization change. Branson encourages employees to work together and introduces a new set of goals that can enable an organization to create change. Transformational style emphasizes on shared values and joint efforts towards increasing performance level (Hellriegel and Slocum 2010, p. 329). Branson works hard in order to solve the problem of each employee, and he always makes sure that he has the answer for every problem.

The legal and ethical issues surrounding Solyndra Essay

The legal and ethical issues surrounding Solyndra - Essay Example Businesses and organisations must look at the legal issues surrounding their operations. Failing to do this will most likely land the firm in a situation where they have to deal with law suits which may lead to the firm closing its doors from the public (Shaw, 2007). Legal issues as well as ethical issues must especially be considered in a very careful way in cases where public funding is concerned. Failing to do this can lead to inquiries which may lead to criminal prosecution in court. Yet, there are so many firms today which ignore these issues. A good example is Solyndra which died only about five years after its founding. The Solyndra Scandal The Solyndra scandal raises a number of both legal and ethical issues. Scandal like this cost the tax payers hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars. One of the ethical issues which arises from the Solyndra case is the fact that the involved officials were aware of the big financial risk but continued with the project anyway (Leonnig & Stephens, n.d.). According to emails retrieved from correspondence between the Solyndra officials and the White House officials who were aiding in the acquisition of the loan, it was clear that there was little chance of the project breaking even and succeeding and the officials knew it. According to investigation done by the FBI, there were a number of issues which indicated that the officers involved were engaging in unethical or illegal affairs. White House Aide is actually revealed to have warned officials not to have any official communication through their personal email accounts as this would make the personal email accounts to be subpoenaed in case of a legal enquiry (Leonnig & Stephens, n.d.). This was one indicator that the officials, even prior to the over $500 million loan, already knew that things were not working out for Solyndra and that sooner than later it would have to collapse. Why officials of such high ranks would engage in such casino-like transactio ns with public funds in case a case of official negligence and abuse of power and office. While there may not be a directly illegal issue with the aide telling the officers to watch the way they communicate because they could be subpoenaed, it does show that these people were operating way outside the ethical thresholds. The actions of the Department of Energy also show a number of ethical issues. For instance as Stephens, Leonnig and Leonnig (2011) say, the DOE failed to warn the state house about the failing of Solyndra. In fact as the firm continued to fade and sink into its own operating costs, the DOE failed to pull the plug and instead additional funds were given to a failing firm even when it was very clear that the firm was failing drastically. Legal issues To understand the legal issues surrounding the Solyndra case scandal, it is important to revisit how the scandal unfolded. First, Solyndra had managed to secure conditional loan from the government in line with the depart ment of energy regulations. The loan failed to work and this is where the firm sought to get another loan in order to make up for the fact that the first loan did not help the firms to be able to get on its feet. However, due to the risk issues surrounding the restructuring of the loan, the loan restructuring would have to get approval by the justice department. In other words, Solyndra would have to get clearance from the department of

From a social psychological point of view

From a social psychological point of view Group behaviour (how the individual affects a group and vice-versa) has been widely studied in social psychology but has been hard to theorise (Brown, 2007). Within social psychology there are many social psychological perspectives that have used different theoretical frameworks to study group behaviour. Although each perspective is in agreement that social categorisation (the way an individual and others are classified part of the same or different social groups) and social identity (the way that being part of a social group can give individuals a sense of self) are important in group membership (Phoenix, 2007), the way they are both treated in each perspective varies. This essay will show this by using the cognitive social perspective (namely the social identity theory-SIT) and the critical discursive perspective and explain their ontological assumptions and different approaches to social categorisation and social identity. This essay will argue that from a social psychological poi nt of view, group membership is not primarily a cognitive matter. It will also argue that social and individual sides of group membership should not be seen as dichotomies but as interactive, dynamic and influenced by power relations. The cognitive social approach has an ontological assumption that people are information processing individuals (Hollway, 2007) whose thought processes are shaped by and create the world that they live in (The Open University, DVD 1, 2007). There are many different traditions within this approach, although this essay will concentrate on the social identity tradition. The social identity tradition was designed to break away from previous cognitive miser traditions of the approach that assumed that the social was just something that affected the individual (Brown, 2007). Although it shared the same ontological assumption as the cognitive miser tradition and assumed that individuals had limited and fixed cognitive mechanisms (Dixon, 2007), it also differed from it because it saw individuals as socialised thinkers where group membership played a part in structuring the individuals thoughts (The Open University, DVD 1 2007). The social identity tradition led Tajfel and Turner (1979, cited in Brown, 2007) to develop the social identity theory (SIT). SIT attempted to use a combined social and cognitive approach to studying inter-group relations; it saw the social as more than just something that affects individuals. It attempted to find out how people identified with groups and how this affected their judgements (Brown, 2007). SIT explained how group membership and inter-group relations are based on self categorisation, social comparison and the construction of a shared self definition (Brown, 2007). SIT is currently one of the leading theories in group processes; although this has led to power relations where group identification is still seen as mostly a cognitive process. The focus on cognitive mechanisms also stresses that group processes are still seen as individualistic and so misses out a lot of the influence that society has on the individual or group. In contrast to SIT, the critical discursive perspective argues that discourse and social practices are what make up an individual and their social world; individuals are seen as socially constructed, continent and situated (The Open University, DVD 1, 2007). Unlike SIT that studies how cognitive mechanisms allow an individual to identify with a group; the critical discursive perspective looks at how groups and group identities are created by the individual through discourse and the different ways that these groups are dynamic, flexible and changeable. Categorisation is therefore seen as an active and out there rather than a process that is internal (Brown, 2007). Akin to the cognitive social perspective, there are different approaches in the critical discursive perspective, for example, some researchers accept the reality of given categories (Billig, 2002, cited in Brown, 2007) whilst others argue that categories are socially constructed (Potter and Reicher, 1987, cited in Phoenix, 2 007). Power relations also blight the critical discursive perspective as discourses can be interpreted differently and each discourse available within each culture is politically and ideologically constructed. But, the critical discursive perspective does go beyond the individual-society dualism to look at how the individual and social come together to construct groups. SIT and the critical discursive perspective see categorisation and group membership differently. SIT sees categorisation and group membership as distorted and individualistic. It was developed from Tajfels (1957, cited in Brown, 2007) early coin experiments which led him to conclude that by combining a continuous dimension of judgement (coin value) with a clear-cut category dimension (size difference) would resulted in a cognitive bias and therefore a faulty judgement within and between the categories. Tajfel (1959, cited in Brown, 2007) saw that this bias could be used to explain how individuals perceive others using cognitive variables, like intelligence, for the continuous dimension of judgement and social variables, like nationality, for the clear-cut category dimension. Like the coins, Tajfel (1959, cited in Brown, 2007) hypothesised that individuals would stereotype group members and exaggerate inter-group differences. Tajfel and Turner (1970, cited in Brown, 2007) undertook some minimal group experiments to test this hypothesis. These experiments were purely cognitive; there was no reason for the groups to dislike or be competitive towards each other and therefore this shows how the cognitive bias and distortion can occur. The groups were formed by dividing participants according to a random preference. Participants were asked to distribute money to one of two participants; they only knew of each others group membership. Like hypothesised, the participants tended to reward people who belong to the same group as themselves at the expense of those who belong to the rival group, even if this was at the expense of maximising their own groups profit. So, in SIT individuals categorise themselves and others into groups then identify with the groups that heighten their self esteem and then compare their group with other groups by contrasting the good things about their group to the bad things about the other groups (Brown, 2007). Tajfel and Turner (1969, cited in Brown, 2007) argued that if an individual identifies themselves as being part of a category and consider themselves as part of that category then they are part of that category. But, biases are inevitable in SIT because the categories an individual uses serve a purpose (to preserve self esteem). As the categories used in SIT are social, this means that where the individual lives can affect their categorisation mechanisms (Brown, 2007). For example, to heighten the individuals self esteem, the group the individual sees him/herself as having membership to have to select a relevant out-group to compare itself favourably with. The selection of this out-group depends on what is important to the society that the individual is living in at the time (Brown, 2007). Therefore group membership is created by categorisation, a cognitive mechanism, and the social merely interacts with this mechanism. So therefore SIT emphasises individual, internal processes of group membership and how group membership occurs is primarily a cognitive matter. The critical discursive perspective, however, sees categorisation and group membership as more as something individuals do through language in everyday interaction. This can be seen in the way that social categories are constructed in discourse, for example, Potter and Reicher (1987, cited in Phoenix, 2007) undertook discourse research using communities. They used the social categorisation theory as a basis for their research which argued that if an individual perceived themselves to be part of a group, they behaved as a stereotypical member of the group when with the group; their personality shifted from an individual emphasis to a social emphasis which would be reflected in their discourse. Potter and Reicher (1987, cited in Phoenix, 2007) analysed discourses of community that circulated after the St Pauls riot in Bristol in the 1980s and saw that and saw that many different discourses were given of the same event; they called these different versions community repertoires. In these different community repertoires they saw that the use of the term community and who was a member of this group was very fluid, inconsistent and flexible. The same account could construct the term community in different ways, for example, the police could be constructed as being part of the community (which makes the riot an intra-group conflict) or the police could be seen as outside of the community (which makes the riot an inter-group conflict). The community could also be seen as a reference to things like lifestyle or the local residents or even as another term for the black community (Potter and Reicher, 1987, cited in Phoenix, 2007). This approach sees groups in terms of individual and social relationships which move away from the individual-social dichotomies of the cognitive social approaches. Therefore group membership is created by discourse which is not a cognitive mechanism, so groups are constructed. So therefore the critical discursive perspective emphasises external, individual and societal processes of group membership and so how group membership occurs is not a cognitive matter. How SIT and the critical discursive perspective study prejudice can expand on how they each view group processes, how they see the individual and society and how they see power relations within group processes. SIT argues that categorisation encourages individuals to see the good in their in-group and compare it to the bad in the out-group which leads people to prejudiced thinking (Dixon, 2007). SIT recognises that there are social aspects of inter-group processes, like assimilation, but at the heart of SIT are the cognitive aspects of group processes (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). SIT suggests that individualistic cognitive mechanisms are the cause of prejudice and inter-group processes. Power relations also occur with SIT as its dominance may have affected how inter-group relations are viewed. The critical discursive perspective, however, argues that how individuals talk about groups and construct group identities is a better way to view the different ways that individuals categorise e ach day (Brown, 2007; DD307 Course Team, 2007). The critical discursive perspective takes into account how an individual uses discourses and how society is involved in inter-group processes (DD303 Course Team, 2007). The critical discursive perspective argues that how an individual makes sense of their reality is affected by their culturally available linguistic resources (Potter and Wetherell, 1987, cited in Dixon, 2007). In this approach, individuals can only categorise and form prejudice because their society shares a language which enables them to construct identities and social relations (Dixon, 2007). Power relations are created in this approach depending on the discourses used by individuals and groups to construct a reality that is of best interest to them (Cooper and Kaye, 2007). This approach does not believe that stereotypes are caused by cognitive mechanisms (Hamilton and Troiler. 1986, cited in Dixon, 2007) they believe that collective belief systems causes the conflicts seen between groups (Eidelson and Eidelson, 200 3, cited in Dixon, 2007). Billig (2002, cited in Brown, 2007) moved from SIT to the critical discursive perspective and began to find limitations within SIT. For example, he saw that SIT assumed that categories that individual used to self categorise were fixed, stable and universal, whereas he argued that the categories used in SIT for prejudice were culturally determined, active, flexible, dynamic and constructed through language so cannot be explained in terms of psychological processes. SIT also assumes that the way individuals identify with groups is to help their self esteem when Billig (2002, cited in Brown, 2007) argued that this could not provide an explanation of extreme hate or the motivation for violence, hate or bigotry. But there have also been criticisms with the critical discursive perspective approach to groups, for example, Dixon (2007) noted that it neglects emotion and cognition in favour of language details, this does not make sense to psychology which is about the mind. It would also be difficult to believe that strongly felt emotions are only social constructions through interaction with others via language. The critical social perspective also does not explain how new groups are formed, for example, Emos, nor can they explain social change. There must also be a cognitive process that produces discourse as that is where meaning comes from; it cannot only come from external discourse. SIT (representing cognitive social psychology) and critical discursive perspective have shown the extent to which group membership can be seen as primarily a cognitive matter from a social psychological point of view. SIT seems to rely on inner cognitive mechanisms for group membership whereas the critical discursive perspective seems to rely on outer constructions. As SIT suggests, the cognitive mechanisms of group membership seem to be important for understanding the world, although like the critical discursive perspective suggests, how categories are constructed using discourse processes are important for this understanding too. So therefore, from a social psychological point of view group membership is not primarily a cognitive matter, but instead group membership can be seen as both a combined cognitive and social matter. This essay has also shown that social and individual sides of group membership should not be seen as dichotomies but as dynamic, interactive and influenced by power relations. Word Count: 2157 (excluding title). Brown, S. D. (2007) Intergroup processes: Social Identity Theory in Langdridge, D. and Taylor, S. (2007) (eds) Critical readings in Social Psychology. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. DD307 Course Team (2007) DD307 Project Booklet in Horton-Salway, M. (2007) (ed), Social Psychology: Critical Perspectives on Self and Others, Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Dixon, J. (2007) Prejudice, conflict and conflict reduction in Hollway, W., Lucy, H. and Phoenix, A. (2007) (eds) Social Psychology Matters. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Hollway, W, (2007) Social psychology: past and present, in Hollway, W., Lucy, H. and Phoenix, A. (2007) (eds) Social Psychology Matters. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Phoenix, A. (2007) Intragroup processes: entitativity in Langfridge, D. and Taylor, S. (2007) eds Critical readings in Social Psychology. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. The Open University (2007) in Social Psychology: Critical Perspectives on Self and Others, DVD 1, DD307 (2007), The Open University.

Use of Imagery in Daddy by Sylvia Plath Essay -- Poetry Analysis

As a modern female poet, Sylvia Plath played many roles in her art: she was the fragile feminist, the confessional writer, the literary innovator. As a woman, Plath found herself with one foot in her past and the other in an uncertain future, her present an often uncomfortable combination of the two. She was at once a daughter desperate to make her parents proud and a wife eager to please her husband; an overworked, depressed teenager and a lonely, sick mother; a child who lost her father and an adult who lost her hope. Plath’s confusion between her memories and her fantasies produced the creative inspiration that spawned much of her work; the losses she suffered had the same effect. The death of her father became a theme in her poetry on which Plath would often spin her words. In the poem â€Å"Daddy,† Plath uses imagery to compare her father to a shoe, God and a vampire, to establish similarities between her father and her husband and to describe the lack of communica tion between her and her father. â€Å"You do not do, you do not do/Anymore, black shoe,† proclaims Plath in the opening lines of â€Å"Daddy† (222), introducing the world to her father, ominous in the color black and consistent in his inability to â€Å"do† anything for Plath â€Å"anymore.† This depiction of the father as an shoe instead of a man also presents Plath’s deft use of imagery to color the character of her father, this time with the shade of a black shoe. This image makes the father sound â€Å"stifling† (â€Å"Slayer† 1). The imagery of the black shoe is also powerful in explaining the nature of Plath’s posthumous relationship with her father. Shoes usually protect the foot, provide warmth for it (Goelzhaeuser 1). Shoes in the poem, however, do not invoke the sheltering, caring ... ...ountry. However, it seems likely that she died as she lived, haunted by a combination of the two, her deceased father pointing out her failures from far away in her childhood and her substitute husband becoming another one of those failures from another woman’s apartment. The imagery of â€Å"Daddy,† of her father and her husband, each her protector and her abuser in one, stands a testament of words to just that. Works Cited Barnard, Caroline King. Sylvia Plath. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Goelzhauser, Nicola. â€Å"Imagery in Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy.’† Online. http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/8984/daddy.htm. â€Å"Oedipus Complex.† Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1993. Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. NewYork: Harper Perennial, 1972. â€Å"Sylvia the Vampire Slayer.† Online. http://members.aol.com/raisans/plath.htm. Use of Imagery in Daddy by Sylvia Plath Essay -- Poetry Analysis As a modern female poet, Sylvia Plath played many roles in her art: she was the fragile feminist, the confessional writer, the literary innovator. As a woman, Plath found herself with one foot in her past and the other in an uncertain future, her present an often uncomfortable combination of the two. She was at once a daughter desperate to make her parents proud and a wife eager to please her husband; an overworked, depressed teenager and a lonely, sick mother; a child who lost her father and an adult who lost her hope. Plath’s confusion between her memories and her fantasies produced the creative inspiration that spawned much of her work; the losses she suffered had the same effect. The death of her father became a theme in her poetry on which Plath would often spin her words. In the poem â€Å"Daddy,† Plath uses imagery to compare her father to a shoe, God and a vampire, to establish similarities between her father and her husband and to describe the lack of communica tion between her and her father. â€Å"You do not do, you do not do/Anymore, black shoe,† proclaims Plath in the opening lines of â€Å"Daddy† (222), introducing the world to her father, ominous in the color black and consistent in his inability to â€Å"do† anything for Plath â€Å"anymore.† This depiction of the father as an shoe instead of a man also presents Plath’s deft use of imagery to color the character of her father, this time with the shade of a black shoe. This image makes the father sound â€Å"stifling† (â€Å"Slayer† 1). The imagery of the black shoe is also powerful in explaining the nature of Plath’s posthumous relationship with her father. Shoes usually protect the foot, provide warmth for it (Goelzhaeuser 1). Shoes in the poem, however, do not invoke the sheltering, caring ... ...ountry. However, it seems likely that she died as she lived, haunted by a combination of the two, her deceased father pointing out her failures from far away in her childhood and her substitute husband becoming another one of those failures from another woman’s apartment. The imagery of â€Å"Daddy,† of her father and her husband, each her protector and her abuser in one, stands a testament of words to just that. Works Cited Barnard, Caroline King. Sylvia Plath. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Goelzhauser, Nicola. â€Å"Imagery in Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy.’† Online. http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/8984/daddy.htm. â€Å"Oedipus Complex.† Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1993. Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. NewYork: Harper Perennial, 1972. â€Å"Sylvia the Vampire Slayer.† Online. http://members.aol.com/raisans/plath.htm.