Word Mouth in Advertising Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Word Mouth in Advertising - Dissertation Example From this discussion it is clear that positive word of mouth is perhaps what most companies like to hear because besides increasing the consumers' intensions to purchase innovative products; it helps company by creating a favorable brand image and that of the firm. This can subsequently lead to a reduction in the amount of expenditure by companied on promotions. Negative word of mouth on the other hand, dissuades potential buyers from a brand, product or a firm and consequently damages the firm’s financial position as well as and   more power than positive word of mouth communication.As the paper stresses while many authors have handled the impact of negative word of mouth communication in advertising, there is still a huge gap, especially when it comes to how this marketing tool can be used to influence campaigns that target social problems such as gender bias, smoking, poverty, respecting traffic signs, sexual harassments, and education. It is worth noting the fact that ne gative word of mouth communication, because of its influential power, can be used to achieve progress in a number of areas in the society. However, the previous researchers have only been delving on how word of mouth advertising has been influencing marketing and sales but failed to conduct a proper investigation on the impact it can have in solving social problems that the society faces today. There is no doubt that it would equally have a big influence in this area as well.

Experiment of Long Term Memory Retention

Experiment of Long Term Memory Retention Abstract: The purpose of this study was to test the retention of long term memory based on retrieval environments. Our research is based on Godden and Baddeley’s (1976) study that focused on the relationship between retrieval environments and learning. The technique known as context-dependency –which is defined as â€Å"the belief that what is learnt in a given environment is best recalled in that environment† –is tested and compared to previous research (Godden Baddeley, 1975). An experiment was conducted at Foundation Campus at the University of Central Lancashire with nine international student. Enlisting a repeated measures design and laboratory method, the participants are asked to learn and recall a list of 13 words in the same environment, then they were asked to learn and recall another list of 13 words in two different locations. The results corroborate and support the context-dependency memory effect. Introduction: This experiments is about assessing the effect of retrieval environments when it comes to long term memory (LTM) recall. LTM is described as stored information that can be recalled over a long period of time –e.g. days, weeks, etc. (Merriam-Webster, (2015). Godden and Baddeley (1995) decided to conduct an experiment to test this notion –also known as context-dependency memory effect. Context-dependency memory effect is defined as â€Å"the belief that what is learnt in a given environment is best recalled in that environment† (Godden Baddeley, 1975). The aim of Godden and Baddeley’s research was to examine the association between learning and retrieval environments (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). In order to carry out their experiment, Godden and Baddeley decided to enlist eighteen participants who were divers in Oban, Scotland (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). Furthermore, the divers were instructed to learn a list of forty distinct words on land or, fifteen feet under water (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). They were then asked to recall these words in a different location or in the same location (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). Specifically, half of the divers were directed to a different location when the time came for memory recollection, while the other half remain in the same environment for memory recollection (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). When partaking in Godden and Baddeley’s experiment, the list of 40 words were revealed to participants in groups –this all owed the divers to assume a relaxed/comfortable breathing rate in order to assure that the participants faced no obstacles when learning (Godden Baddeley, 1975). Additionally, each the list of words were revealed in blocks of three, and, the words were spaced at two second intervals (Godden Baddeley, 1975). When asked to recall, Godden and Baddeley found that â€Å"those who learned and recalled in the same location remembered the most words -12.5 on average† (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008:11). According to the aforementioned graph, Godden and Baddeley found that when participant learned on land an recalled the information under water, they could only recall -on average -8.6 words, while those who learned under water and recalled the words land, only remembered 8.4 words on average (Godden Baddeley, 1975). This study –based on Godden and Baddeley’s research in 1975 – will examine and delve into the connection between learning and retrieval environments. This study will utilize students with diversified ethnic backgrounds and ages. Contrary to Godden and Baddeley’s research, it will use two lists of thirteen simple words -–all within one to three syllables –in order to ensure comprehension. Aim: To examine the connection between learning and retrieval environments using Godden and Baddeley’s study on context-dependency retrieval. Hypothesis: Memory recollection in the same environment in which information was learned will yield higher recollections among participants. The hypothesis for this experiment is directional, meaning the independent variable (the retrieval location/environment) will directly affect the dependent variable (the accuracy/amount of words recalled). Method: Design A controlled laboratory experiment was utilised to elucidate a distinct cause and effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables. A controlled laboratory also enabled immense control over variables within the experiment, it also permitted unproblematic replication for future researchers and easy utilisation of equipment –e.g. videos, etc. A repeated measures design was employed in order to negate/remove differences that numerous samples would possess. Due to this design, differences in gender, linguistic ability, comprehension and age were avoided. The independent variable in this experiment was the retrieval environment or location in which the participant were asked to recall the words –i.e. the classroom or the canteen. The dependent variable was the quantity of words the participant could recall in each environment/location. A confounding variable could be the sound/noise of police cars driving past the laboratory environment. In agreement with research principles/ethics, written informed consent forms were distributed to all participants before this experiment commenced. Participants were given the right to withdraw at any time, and immense confidentiality with participant’s information and results was promised and delivered. Participants: There were ten participants –five male and four female participants. The participants were obtained from diversified backgrounds –non-native English speakers and English speakers. Participants that contributed to this experiment were between the ages of eighteen to forty-seven. An opportunity sample was enlisted for this experiment. This sample type allowed expediency when enlisting when procuring participants, it also enables replication for future research. Materials: Informed Consent (Appendix 1) Standardised Instructions (Appendix 2) Word List 1 (Appendix 3) Word List 2 (Appendix 4) Comical Video (Appendix 5) Procedure: Initially, the aforementioned materials were given to the participants. Secondly, in order to check for errors in our experiment, a pilot study was conducted to ensure validity in the experiment. After the pilot study, a classroom and canteen was procured for the experiment. A mixed-gender opportunity sample of nine individuals –ranging from 18 to 25 –was obtained and directed into the classroom. During this experiment, the participants were first given an informed consent form (Appendix 1), after signing and agreeing to the form, they were shown the standardised instructions (Appendix 2). After the standardised instructions, the participants were given a piece of paper –with â€Å"experiment 1† written on one side, and â€Å"experiment 2† written on the other side, -they were also given pens to document their answers. Firstly, the participants were then shown Word List 1 (Appendix 3), secondly, they were given one minute to study the words, then they were shown a four minute Comical Video (Appendix 6), and then they were given approximately one minute to write down the words they could recall. In the next stage of our experiment, the same participants were asked to flip their paper over, then they were given exactly one minute to study Word list 2 (Appendix 4), the participants they were asked to walk around the Vernon Building (located in the University of Central Lancashire’s campus) to a canteen. When the participants arrived at the canteen, they were promptly seated and given one minute to recall and write down the words they could recall in one minute. Results: The result of this experiment were harmonious to that of Godden and Baddeley’s in 1975. 66.67% of the participants recalled more words when their retrieval location was the same as the learning environment, while 11.11% percent of participants recalled more information when the recollection environment was not the same as the learning environment. Furthermore, 33.33% of the population recalled the same amount of words irrespective of the retrieval environment. These results were in accordance with the hypothesis and Godden and Baddeley’s research in 1975. The mean of the results was greatly corrupted by outliers with the sample’s results, in order to rectify this, the median was enlisted to portray a balanced assessment of the results. The median of recollection when the learning and recollection environments were the same is 9 words with a range of 6. When the learning and recollection were different, the median of the recollection data was 4, with a range of 9. Overall, it was quite evident that recollection in the same environment where information is learned yields better results. The results support context-dependency memory effect. Discussion: The result of this experiment were harmonies with Godden and Baddeley’s research, this fortified the immense reliability of their research, and proved that it could be replicated by others. The results of the experiment magnified the context-dependency memory effect, and supported the hypothesis: â€Å"Memory recollection in the same environment in which information was learned will yield higher recollections among participants.† A laboratory method was ideal for this experiment because it allowed for control over numerous variables, and, it permitted and enabled ease when measuring the dependent variable. Utilising a repeated measures design removed differences that individuals could possibly possess that would rob this experiment of credibility. It could also be argued that ‘the fatigue effect’ –which states that â€Å"work †¦[has] a general effect of running down the bodies limited energy supply† –adversely affected the participants recollection after walking around the Vernon Building (Hockey, 2013). Perhaps this is why only one out of the nine participants recalled more on the second experiment. The small sample size on nine indicates that this experiment is not generalizable to bigger populations. Albeit the sample had a plethora of nationalities and ages, this suggests that no definite proclamations can be made about nationality or age. Furthermore, a confounding variable could be the sound/noise of police cars driving past the laboratory environment, or, the limited linguistic ability of some participants. Any further research/study into this topic could be ameliorated by enlisting a grander sample size, or, using both locations as learning and retrieval environments; this provide a deeper insight into context-dependency memory effect. A longer list of words could also be employed to test retention in LTM. References: Cardwell, M., Clark, L. and Meldrum, C. (2008)Psychology AS For AQA A. 3rd edn. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Godden, D. R., Baddeley, A. D. (1975). Context-dependent memory in two natural environments: On land and underwater.British Journal of Psychology, 66(3), 325–331. Hockey, R. (2013) The Psychology of Fatigue: Work, Effort and Control. 1st edn. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Jansen, I. (2015). Charlie Chaplin The Lions Cage. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2dmV2-zxNg [Accessed 10 Mar. 2015]. Merriam-webster, (2015). Definition of Long-term Memory. [online] Merriam-webster.com. Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/long-term memory [Accessed 6 Mar. 2015]. Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Comical Video provided and republished by Jansen (2015). Appendix 6

Message Boards and Their Abuse: Trolls :: essays research papers fc

Message Boards and their Abuse: Trolls Nowadays, anybody with and internet connection can go online and chat with a variety of peers. One of the most common places to chat is bulletin pages known as message boards. Messages written on these boards stay on the boards for everyone to view. Overtime, as people on the boards get to know each other, message boards usually end up being a part of a community.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Yet, with all the activity and chatter a message board supplies, there are nuisances as well. Adolescents who go on the computer usually want to start trouble or irritate others. These people are called trolls. Trolls are a very troublesome problem in the message board community. Trolls usually post beliefs that are not well respected within the message board community. Take a sports message board for example. A troll on a sports message board would usually say that the team that specific board supports â€Å"sucks† and the troll would go on to brag how his or her team is superior. Trolls usually do this on consistent bases to annoy the other members on the board.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Trolls also can abuse a message board by spamming or flooding the board. Some message boards have website problems where one can click the submit button a thousand times and then his or her message would be posted the amount of times the spammer clicked â€Å"submit.† Trolls can also find ways to exploit message boards into using censored words. If a message board censors out bad language, one can put message board code like [i][/i] between the censored word and it will bypass the censor system. Smart trolls can also program scripts to post a specific message during a specific time frame (every 30 seconds, for example). Egotistical trolls usually try to imitate other members on the board by making screen names that look similar to the members being impersonated. This can be done by such methods as putting an underscore before after the person’s name or exchanging syllables with letters ( for example, exchange the letter L with the number 1). When imp ersonating, a troll will usually try to act like the normal person at first to fool the community and then try to wreck that person’s image by posting obscene remarks. Trolls are just trying to cause trouble on the message boards.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Trolls are the main cause of message board abuse. They do not try to work with the community, but rather try to destroy it.

The Long Telegrams Impact on the Truman Doctrine

pThe long Telegram and It’s impact on the Truman Doctrine George Kennan’s long telegram had many impacts on the American foreign policy. Its influence can be seen directly through the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The Long Telegram influenced Truman’s doctrine of containment, and it opened the eyes of many Washington officials as to how dangerous the Soviets and more specifically communism was. George Kennan’s Long Telegram was a reply as to why the Soviets weren’t supporting the World Bank and the International Money Fund.At the time, the  American view of the  Soviet was friendly, yet cautious because the  Soviets had been  allied with the US in  WWII. The long telegram, which wasreleased to the public in 1947, basically created the foundation on which the Cold War stood from the US’ point of view. By claiming that the Soviets were completely against capitalism, would side with Marxists, and separated from reality, Kennan set up a stan dard system of beliefs  that the US would follow throughout the Cold War, and even gave ideas as to how to combat the Soviets if need be.The Long Telegram gave the US clear reason to consider war with Russia inevitable. It fostered further fear in America of the Soviets by talking  about how  Russia couldn’t be trusted and great lengths should be taken to ensure the absence of Soviets and their influence  in America. The Truman Doctrine was a contribution made to foreign policy by Harry Truman in 1947, after the Long Telegram had come into being. Truman declared, kind of like Wilson’s Moral Diplomacy, that it was the US’ duty to spread democracy and battle communism.Truman asked Congress to send aid to Greece and Turkey. After being ravaged by Germany in WWII,  Greece had been about to lose aid from Great Britain; Turkey had also depended greatly on the help of the US and Britain. The US would  have been  in danger of losing power over the Soviets and in Europe and Asia had Russia gained the two countries. This proves that what George Kennan wrote helped Truman realize that he needed to help other nations and create the foreign policy.Kennans telegram greatly impacted many other aspects of the Truman doctrine, for example the truman Doctrine all but promised that the United States would resist any Soviet expansion. This refects Kennan’s advise that the United States must carefully choose its points of resistance. Kennan's notion of containment which was expressed in the Long Telegram was also illustrartes in the Truman Doctrine. George Kennans writings inspired America and thanks to the Long Telegram and the Truman Doctrine, America opened their eyes and did what was necessary to not allow themselves to be over ruled by the soviets.

The First Shopping Mall in America

The First Shopping Mall in America Malls are collections of independent retail stores and services conceived, constructed and maintained by a management firm. Occupants can include restaurants, banks, theaters, professional offices and even service stations. The Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota became the first enclosed mall to open in 1956 and several more innovations have come about since to make shopping easier and more efficient for both store owners and customers.   The First Department Stores   Bloomingdales was founded in 1872 by two brothers named Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale. The store rode the popularity of the hoop skirt to great success and practically invented the department store concept at the beginning of the 20th century. John Wanamaker follwed soon after with the  opening of The Grand Depot, a six-story round department store in Philadelphia in 1877. While Wanamaker modestly declined taking credit for inventing the department store, his store was definitely cutting edge. His innovations included the first white sale, modern price tags and the first in-store restaurant. He pioneered the use of money-back guarantees and newspaper ads to advertise his retail goods.   But before Bloomingdales and The Grand Depot, Mormon leader Brigham Young founded Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution  in Salt Lake City in 1868. Familiarly known as  ZMCI, some historians credit Youngs shop with being the first department store,  though most give the credit to John Wanamaker. ZCMI sold clothing, dry goods, drugs, groceries, produce, shoes, trunks, sewing machines, wagons and machinery sold and organized in all types of â€Å"departments.† Mail Order Catalogs Arrive Aaron Montgomery Ward sent out the first mail order catalog in 1872 for his Montgomery Ward business. Ward first worked for the department store Marshall Field as both a store clerk and a traveling salesman. As a traveling salesman, he  realized that his rural customers would be better served by mail order, which turned out to be a revolutionary idea. He started Montgomery Ward with only $2,400 in capital.  The first catalog was a single sheet of paper with a price list that advertised  the merchandise for sale along with ordering instructions. From this humble beginning, it grew and became more heavily illustrated and chock full of goods, earning the nickname dream book. Montgomery Ward  was a mail-order-only business until 1926 when the first retail store opened in Plymouth, Indiana. The First Shopping Carts Sylvan Goldman invented the first shopping cart in 1936. He owned a chain of  Oklahoma City grocery stores called Standard/Piggly-Wiggly. He created his first cart by adding two wire baskets and wheels to a folding chair. Together with his mechanic Fred Young, Goldman later designed a dedicated shopping cart in 1947 and formed the Folding Carrier Company to manufacture them. Orla Watson  of Kansas City, Missouri is credited with inventing the telescoping shopping cart in 1946. Using hinged baskets, each shopping cart was fitted into the shopping cart ahead of it for compact storage. These telescoping shopping carts were first used at Floyd Days Super Market in 1947. Silicon Valley inventor George Cokely, who also invented  the Pet Rock, came up with a modern solution to one of the supermarket industrys oldest problems: stolen shopping carts. Its called Stop Z-Cart. The wheel of the shopping cart holds the device which contains a chip and some electronics. When a cart is rolled a certain distance away from the store, the store knows about it. The First Cash Registers James Ritty invented the incorruptible cashier in 1884 after receiving a patent in 1883. It was  the first working, mechanical cash register.  His invention came with that familiar ringing  sound referred to in advertising as the bell heard round the world.† The cash register was initially sold by the National Manufacturing Company. After reading a description of it, John H. Patterson immediately decided to buy both the company and the patent. He renamed the company the National Cash Register Company in 1884. Patterson improved the register by adding a paper roll to record sales transactions. Charles F. Kettering later designed a cash register with an electric motor in 1906 while he was working at the National Cash Register Company.   Shopping Goes High Tech A Philadelphia pharmacist named Asa Candler invented the coupon in 1895. Candler bought  Coca-Cola  from original inventor Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist. Candler placed coupons in newspapers for free Cokes from any fountain to help promote the new soft drink. Several years later, the patent for the  bar code  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ U.S. Patent #2,612,994 – was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952.   All this would be for naught, whoever, if people couldnt get inside to shop. So credit goes to Horton Automatics co-founders Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt for inventing the automatic sliding door in 1954. The company developed and sold the door in America in 1960. These automatic doors used mat actuators. AS Horton Automatics explains on its website: The idea came to Lew Hewitt and Dee Horton to build an automatic sliding door back in the mid-1950s when they saw that existing swing doors had difficulty operating  in Corpus Christis winds. So the two men went to work inventing an automatic sliding door that would circumvent the problem of high winds and their damaging effect.  Horton Automatics Inc. was formed in 1960, placing the first commercial automatic sliding door on the market and literally establishing a brand new industry.   Their first automatic sliding door in operation was a unit donated to the City of Corpus Christi for its Shoreline Drive utilities department. The first one sold was installed at the old Driscoll Hotel for its Torch Restaurant. All this would set the stage for megamalls. Giant megamalls werent developed until the 1980s when the West Edmonton Mall opened in Alberta, Canada with more than 800 stores. It was open to the public  in 1981  and featured a hotel, amusement park, miniature golf course, a church, a water park for sunbathing and surfing, a zoo and a 438-foot lake.

Melancholy in Twelfth Night Essays

Melancholy in Twelfth Night Essays Melancholy in Twelfth Night Essay Melancholy in Twelfth Night Essay Essay Topic: Cymbeline Symposium By Plato Twelfth Night Twelfth Night is the merriest of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, it is also the saddest. The Christian associations of the title suggests the carpe diem theme which runs through the play. Epiphany, according to Christian mythology, is the time when the shepherds recognized the birth of Christ. The feast of epiphany is the last festival of the Christmas season, after which death takes over. This cycle of life is an extension of the ancient pagan fertility rituals. The mood is similar in Keats’s ‘To Autumn’, Hedge-crickets sing; and now with a treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. Only, Keats finds reassurance in the fact that swallows will return, but Shakespeare is concerned with the cessation of life which looms over the whole play. Here the recognition is of the transience of life, unlike in Cymbeline where the rediscovery of Perdita symbolises the rediscovery of one’s soul. Significantly, Twelfth Night is the last of the romantic comedies. After this Shakespeare moves on to the tragedies and the problem plays – this is the last play where joy is not alloyed with problems of evil and anti-life. Everything that is subject to time is valueless, this was the medieval conception. Thus during the middle ages all human activity was directed towards God. Man was given little importance. Then with Renaissance came yet undiscovered knowledge. The new astronomical discoveries allowed man to explore the universe independent of the scriptures. With this was born man’s pride in being man in the mortal universe. And thus man became conscious of the beauty and transience of life. This removed the concept of life everlasting from the framework of eternity. This introduced the prominence of mortality. The dance of death was now more feared than ever. New questions about human existence took form. Comedy seeks to find answers, a meaning of life; yet Shakespeare presents a frail shadowy background to his actions. One of the main governing thoughts in Twelfth Night is the fragility of life. This is the play of youth, almost all the characters are young, and this generates the sadness. Shakespeare asks all to enjoy fleeting life, make the most of the twelve days, scorning the Malvolios. A pattern emerges from all this lot which gives life some meaning. Twelfth Night, despite all its laughter, seems to play upon the keys of loss, affliction and deep bewilderment, which sounds through the gentle beauty of the romance convention and the festive humour. The bonded family words – father, brother, sister – signifies absence, loss of security and a longing. It is this sense of irreparable loss, and the mild apprehension that all this might prove to be a dream provides the poignant dream-like feeling which pervades the play. The loss is internal as well as external. The recognition of one’s self is a dominant theme, and almost all characters are haunted by this and hunt for their selves as well as their lost loves. Orsino’s languorously insatiable desire for love and ‘food of love’ in the first scene presents a parodic statement of the omnipresent sense of want. The hunting pun serves to express the search which is already begun. Nevertheless, Orsino’s words set the mood of the play, which, even through all the ‘caterwauling’ of the kitchen group, never fades. Orsino says That strain again, it had a dying fall: O, it came oer my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour Orsino’s appetite is soon satiated. The music loses its appeal and his love for love becomes evident. Even the hunting image takes on contemporary significance – Diana becomes the naked truth which makes Acteon wild. This is a parody of Petrarchan conceits and it is fittingly given to Orsino, who, like all in Illyria, is in a state of illusion. According to Plato’s Symposium love is a hole, an absence longing to be filled. So Twelfth Night is a play of pining: Orsino for Olivia, Olivia for Viola, Viola for Orsino, and comically Sir Andrew and Malvolio for Olivia. This emphasis on pining invokes the classical myth of Narcissus and Echo, and makes a narcissistic triad of self enclosed loneliness. Each of them playing simultaneously Narcissus and Echo with respect to others. They seek their own reflections in the other’s face and own echo in the other’s voice. But more melancholy than this ‘love-sorrow’ is the separation of loved ones by real or apparent death. This again can be traced to the sense of romantic lack as embodied in this state of primary loss. Nearly all characters bear traces of such loss – from the father-brother loss which provides similar traumatic experiences for Viola and Olivia, down to the farcical yet nostalgic exclamation of Sir Andrew: ‘I was adored once, too. ’ While Viola’s sorrow is genuine, Olivia’s vow to keep her face veiled for seven years seems more like a ploy to ward off Orsino’s unwanted advances. Otherwise her whole behaviour is comically excessive in place of being melancholy. Seven years in black violates the Elizabethan mourning etiquette which prescribed a period of one year for a brother. Olivia closely parallels Orsino – both in her reclusiveness more alleged than borne out – and as a willing victim of introspective melancholia. Olivia’s unnamed brother fades from the surface of the play. But his spirit continues to haunt. For no sooner has the theme of brother loss been sounded in the minor key than it recurs in the major. The ‘eye-offending brine’ of tears gives way to the sea. Olivia’s brother fades into Viola’s. In a drama greatly concerned with wholeness of identity, the twinned heroines are each presented as halves of a pairing, cloven away from the male counterpart with whom she started life. In Jungian terms, when Viola assumes the male disguise, it is as if she recapitulates in her own person the lost other, dressing exactly like Sebastian, and as if Olivia also locates her own in Viola. Herein lies the fact that both of them are in an illusory world, it is only the presence of Sebastian which allows a happy resolution, otherwise the imminent result was definitely tragic. There might be an autobiographical element in this brother-sister separation theme. Shakespeare himself was the father of boy-girl twins of whom the boy died before the composition of this play. The twins were eleven and half years old when death separated them. Shakespeare must have felt at heart the wistful sadness in the eyes of Judith the surviving child, which he endowed to viola. Twelfth Night contains a calm, loving elegy, and a myth of rebirth. It feigns that Hamnet, the boy twin, is not dead, but lingers in the unknown, washed up on the shores of Illyria, the land of illusion and lyricism. Prove true, imagination, O prove true This is not only Viola’s, but also Shakespeare’s heartfelt cry. Thus Viola’s sadness resounds with a new meaning. Her exclamation at her entry is, And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. Her brother comes back to her, but Hamnet does not. Unlike Sebastian, Viola controls herself and centres her thoughts on immediate problems. Her wit allows her to obtain a shelter in an alien and unfriendly world. But her wit also has a touch of the autumnal – in keeping with the autumnal note of the play. And even in her sorrow she can sympathise with others. She understands Olivia’s plots instantly in place of scorn, shows tender understanding, she says, Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. Her identification with Olivia is appropriate in more ways than one – not only both of them are lovesick, but also they long for a brother figure. But Viola’s pathos is more touching. She has to bear messages to her rival from the man she loves. This she does without a murmur and with all sincerity. Her praise of Orsino comes straight from her heart. She is pained to the extreme, and almost reveals herself when Orsino calls women less faithful and lacking in depth of emotion. She tells the Duke: My father had a daughter lov’d a man, As it might be perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. Thus secretly professing her love. But her suppressed agony is felt when she tells Orsino the supposed ending of her non-existent sister’s love whose history was, she tells Orsino, A blank, my lord: she never told her love For she never expects to have Orsino and she dares not aspire to the impossible. As when her brother’s name is mentioned she fears to hope for the best. Shakespeare saves the play from ending in total disaster by bringing in Sebastian and thus allowing Viola to have a happy end, in an union with Orsino. In the first scene orsino begins with an imagery of flowers. And the scene ends with flowers: Away before me to sweet beds of flowers! Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers. The image of flowers comes again and again throughout the play. Flowers symbolise transience – momentary beauty, something that does not last. So Feste tells Olivia: As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower. Reminding her that times are never always bad, thus to keep on mourning for something that is past is to waste precious time and no one has world enough and time. Orsino talks about woman’s beauty, asking Cesario to fall in love with some woman younger than he, For women are as roses, whose fair flower Being once displayd, doth fall that very hour. Viola has to agree. She admits that death comes when one has just reached perfection. Speaking not only for women but for all mankind. The flower imagery stresses the carpe-diem theme of the play – cease the day before it ends. This theme is also propagated through the music of the play. In Twelfth Night music plays a vital role, establishing the tone of the play. Through music the emotive basis of human existence is emphasised, which is to be felt rather than perceived cerebrally. There is rare music in Viola. She does not sing, but her words carry poetic inspiration. She echoes Shakespeare’s sonnets when she tells Olivia: Lady, you are the cruellst she alive If you will lead these graces to the grave And leave the world no copy. Like the early marriage sonnets the theme here is of beauty perpetuated through marriage. But the character who is full of music and is truly melancholy, though not in his attitude or expression, is Feste. Feste is the first true fool of Shakespeares plays. One of the functions of the clown is to sing. He sings to Toby and Andrew: What is love? Tis not hereafter, Present mirth hath present laughter: Whats to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me sweet and twenty: Youth’s a stuff will not endure. The fragility of youth and shadow of death – this is in line with the play’s theme and mood and also Feste’s character. His other song, which he sings to please Orsino, is equally sad, Come away, come away death, And in sad cypress let me be laid. Fie away, fie away breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. This song continues to reveal Feste’s own bleak future. He is outside the action, an objective onlooker. There is no involvement. He is poor, has no security. He begs to acquire money. For a man of his intellectual capacities this must be disgusting. He has no past, no future and no considerable present. He is a relic of the past, from Olivia’s father’s time. He is constantly threatened with discharge which is as bad as hanging for him. But he lets summer bear it out. Only his song betray his state. Thus in his songs the thought of hereafter is subordinated. In the final scene everyone leaves except Feste, who stays to give the audience a song. A song in which he is transformed from the character to the actor. His final song marks the ending of the play, the ending of the twelfth night. Death’s reign starts from the next day. Feste’s song is nostalgic, he recalls when folly was not as unacceptable or threatening. He also gives a cynical view of marriage as an unwanted responsibility. This casts an oblique perspective on the centrality of marriage in the play as a symbol of concord and resolution. A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But thats all one, our play is done, And well strive to please you everyday. That’s all one’ signifies from one perspective that since nothing is really important enough to worry about, pleasure and folly are the only activities worth undertaking. From another, similar, perspective the phrase can be read as hopeless, despairing resignation, pleasure and folly are doomed attempts to escape from an intolerable consciousness of futility . In ‘our play is done’, it is more about the innocent activities than about the play itself. It is a nostalgic recognition of the post innocence state. Feste’s song probably takes place on a dark, empty, silent stage, encapsulating Feste’s loneliness. His life is really as empty. He is as much an outcast as Malvolio, only he is not embittered. He is the artist. Isolated, presenting life, but not belonging to it. His song is a very cynical comment on human existence. To Feste the world does seem like a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. The song is a reminder of the theme of the play – youth and its subjection to time. The question which arises is whether this kind of existence is worth the strife. With this question the curtain descends on Shakespeare’s romantic world. The final song, which brings together all the melancholy passages in the play, leaves a yearning in the reader’s mind. A tinge of sadness which fills the heart and leaves a deep impression, is given to the whole play. This song marks a turning point in the world of Shakespearean drama. The playful attitude is done, now it is time for serious businesses of life, which involves the greatest of calamities. Perhaps at the moment Shakespeare himself identified with Feste. He who even with his immeasurable height of mind had to be the public’s jester and servant. Perhaps for an idle moment he wondered, if all this is worth the complications or not.

Definition and Discussion of Middle English

Definition and Discussion of Middle English Middle English was the language spoken in England from about 1100 to 1500. Five major  dialects of Middle English have been identified (Northern, East Midlands, West Midlands, Southern, and Kentish), but the research of Angus McIntosh and others... supports the claim that this period of the language was rich in dialect diversity (Barbara A. Fennell, A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach, 2001). Major literary works written in Middle English include Havelok the Dane,  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,  Piers Plowman, and  Geoffrey  Chaucers Canterbury Tales. The form of Middle English thats most familiar to modern readers is the London dialect, which was the dialect of Chaucer and the basis of what would eventually become standard English. Examples and Observations Chaucers Canterbury TalesWhan that Aprill, with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the rooteAnd bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the flour...[When the sweet showers of April have piercedThe drought of March, and pierced it to the rootAnd every vein is bathed in that moistureWhose quickening force will engender the flower...](Geoffrey Chaucer, General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, late 14th century. Translation by David Wright. Oxford University Press, 2008)Many Middle EnglishesMiddle English varied enormously over time and by region; Angus McIntosh notes that there are over a thousand dialectically differentiated varieties of Middle English. Indeed,  some scholars go so far as to say that Middle English is not... a language at all but rather something of a scholarly fiction, an amalgam of forms and sounds, writers and manuscripts, famous works and little-known ephemera. This is a little extreme, but certainly prior to the later fo urteenth century Middle English was primarily a spoken rather than a written language, and did not have official administrative functions in either a secular or religious context. This has resulted in a critical tendency to place English at the bottom of the linguistic hierarchy of medieval England, with Latin and French as the dominant languages of discourse, instead of seeing the symbiotic relationship between English, French, and Latin...By the fifteenth century Middle English was extensively used in the written documentation of business, civic government, Parliament, and the royal household.(Rachel E. Moss,  Fatherhood and Its Representations in Middle English Texts. D.S. Brewer, 2013) The Vocabulary of Middle English- In 1066, William the Conqueror led the Norman invasion of England, marking the beginning of the  Middle English  period. This invasion brought a  major influence  to English from Latin and French. As is often the case with invasions, the conquerors dominated the major political and economic life in England. While this invasion had some influence on English grammar, the most powerful impact was on vocabulary.(Evelyn Rothstein and Andrew S. Rothstein,  English Grammar Instruction That Works!  Corwin, 2009)- The core vocabulary of [Middle] English comprised the monosyllabic words for basic concepts,  bodily functions, and body parts inherited from Old English and shared with the other Germanic languages. These words include: God,  man, tin, iron, life, death, limb, nose, ear, foot, mother, father, brother, earth, sea, horse, cow, lamb.Words from French are often polysyllabic terms for the  institutions of the Conquest (church, administ ration, law), for things imported with the Conquest (castles, courts, prisons), and terms of high culture and social status (cuisine, fashion, literature, art, decoration).(Seth Lerer,  Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language. Columbia University Press, 2007) French Influence on Middle English- From 1150 to 1500 the language is known as Middle English. During this period the inflections, which had begun to break down during the end of the Old English period, become greatly reduced...By making English the language mainly of uneducated people, the Norman Conquest [in 1066] made it easier for grammatical changes to go forward unchecked.French influence is much more direct and observable upon the vocabulary. Where two languages exist side by side for a long time and the relations between the people speaking them are as intimate as they were in England, a considerable transference of words from one language to the other is inevitable...When we study the French words appearing in English before 1250, roughly 900 in number, we find that many of them were such as the lower classes would become familiar with through contact with a French-speaking nobility: (baron, noble, dame, servant, messenger, feast, minstrel, juggler, largess)... In the period after 1250,... the upper classes carried over into English an astonishing number of common French words. In changing from French to English, they transferred much of their governmental and administrative vocabulary, their ecclesiastical, legal, and military terms, their familiar words of fashion, food, and social life, the vocabulary of art, learning, and medicine.(A. C. Baugh and T. Cable, A History of the English Language. Prentice-Hall, 1978)- French continued to occupy a prestigious place in English society, especially the Central French dialect spoken in Paris. This prompted an increase in the numbers of French words borrowed, especially those relating to French society and culture. As a  consequence, English words concerned with scholarship, fashion, the arts, and foodsuch as college, robe, verse, beefare often drawn from French (even if their ultimate origins lie in Latin). The higher status of French in this [late Middle English] period continues to influence the associat ions of pairs of synonyms in Modern English, such as begin-commence, look-regard, stench-odour. In each of these pairs, the French borrowing is of a higher register than the word inherited from Old English.(Simon Horobin,  How English Became English. Oxford University Press, 2016) A Fuzzy Boundary[T]he transition from Middle to early modern English is above all the period of the elaboration of the English language. Between the late 14th and 16th centuries, the English language began increasingly to take on more functions. These changes in function had, it is argued here, a major effect on the form of English: so major, indeed, that the old distinction between Middle and modern retains considerable validity, although the boundary between these two linguistic epochs was obviously a fuzzy one.(Jeremy J. Smith, From Middle to Early Modern English. The Oxford History of English, ed. by Lynda Mugglestone. Oxford University Press, 2006)Chaucer on Changes in the Forme of SpeecheYe knowe ek that in forme of speeche is chaungeWithinne a thousand yeer, and wordes thoThat hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straungeUs thinketh hem, and yet thei spake hem so,And spedde as wel in love as men now do;Ek for to wynnen love in sondry ages,In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.[You k now also that in (the) form of speech (there) is changeWithin a thousand years, and words thenThat had value, now wonderfully curious and strange(To) us they seem, and yet they spoke them so,And succeeded as well in love as men now do;Also to win love in sundry ages,In sundry lands, (there) are many usages.](Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, late 14th century. Translation by Roger Lass in Phonology and Morphology. A History of the English Language, edited by Richard M. Hogg and David Denison. Cambridge University Press, 2008)