Discovering Cultural Models from the Analysis of Discourse Essay

Discovering Cultural Models from the Analysis of Discourse - Essay Example Members of any given culture create chunks of meaning, like the above, and use them in discourse. Finding, identifying and describing these cultural â€Å"chunks† is the purview of the ethnographer. Quinn searched for metaphors to identify cultural chunks. This eliminated a lot of processing, because almost all the sentences which contain metaphors have cultural models. Quinn used the same information in the models to verify the model. That is, the causal relationship between the model and its concepts will verify that it is a cultural model. To confirm this one only needs to talk with two or more informant about the model and verify that they use it in the same way and understand that it contains the same causal relationship and concepts. For example, saying that the bride could not wear white in the twentieth century western English speaking world meant that a woman had been married before or was not a virgin. People today still understand this concept, even though the signi ficance has vanished. Further, discourse transcripts can be used to identify the cultural models by identifying the causal relationship to the concepts. So a person using the previous phrase can be assumed to be a member of a culture which uses or used this model. Verifying requires that all alternatives be eliminated. Quinn uses the example of a watch in a box, which can be identified by opening the box and looking. Shaking the box is not enough, because it could be something else. However, if one could hear the ticking by placing the ear on the box, one might assume it is a watch quite safely, using the strong probability. Of course this only works with a watch which ticks. However, one should then corroborate it by looking in the box, or asking the person who has looked or who put it there if it is a watch. The most basic linguistic concepts seem to be universal: ideas like want, need, see, hear, think, know and feel.

Job Satisfaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Job Satisfaction - Essay Example Many studies acknowledge this either explicitly, by using questionnaire data but taking it as indicative rather than accurate, or implicitly by focussing on more reliably observable data like reasons cited for leaving, and incidences of non-productive and counter-productive work. Interestingly, many studies conclude that pay is not generally a factor in job satisfaction, but job type, sex, age, being married and education do seem to be relevant factors. (Clark, 1996). In an older study from the mid-1970s, Katzell and Yankelovich concluded that job satisfaction and productivity â€Å"do not necessarily follow parallel paths† (1975, p. 12). What this means is that workers may be very committed, and very happy with their jobs, but they do not necessarily channel this into goals that the company wants to achieve. With the passage of time, and the focus more and more on hi-tech and knowledge-based industries, the need for every growing creativity and commitment in workers is evident, but the divergence between individual and company needs seems to be growing too. Added to this is the uncertainty and risk of free-market economics, and the fact that workers can no longer count on a fixed career plan, or a permanent position in any one company. It is very tempting to conclude that â€Å"the degree of relationship between job satisfaction and job performance is so tenuous and variable that, if there is a causal connection, it must either be intrins ically weak or conditioned by other circumstances in the work situation.† (Katsell and Yankelovich, 1975, p. 124). Later research has fortunately delved a little more deeply into those ill-defined â€Å"other circumstances in the work situation† and has begun to look beyond simple productivity at attributes like commitment and creativity which are increasingly required.