Carpe Diem Essay Example for Free

Carpe Diem Essay We live day to day working, paying bills, and not noticing what is truly out there in the world. We get caught up in drama with co-workers, friends, family and random people that we meet in our day to day activities. We stress over little things that shouldn’’t even be stressed over, because what’’s going to change from the time you’’re stressing from the next day to the next? The problem won’’t go away or get better or worse either way. So why stress? Life is too short to not enjoy what the world has to offer. Carpe Diem is a Latin phrase meaning â€Å"â€Å"Seize the Day†Ã¢â‚¬ . It can mean many different things to different people. Carpe diem really just means living life to the fullest because tomorrow may never come. Carpe Diem in Latin means seize the day but when you look at that what does it mean to you? To me it means living your life to the fullest. You need to enjoy every aspect of life as much as possible because when you really look at things in the big picture we are not on this planet very long. So it really isn’’t a phrase that means something, but it is a way of life. When you look at it you should ask yourself this question. If my life was a book, how interesting would it be and would anyone want to read it. When living life to the fullest a major aspect would have to be your family. How can you say you have no regrets if you are not in order with your family? Your family should be your life and you should enjoy everything you do with them. You should also strive to make sure they feel the same way about you. Making sure you’’re not too busy to enjoy your family and doing things with them will make you feel more fulfilled in life. You and your family’’s happiness will always be one of the biggest aspects when it comes to living your life to the fullest. Working is a big part of life because you spend the majority of your day doing it. You should work at a career that you enjoy not work just to pay bills. Working at a job that you enjoy will make many other aspects in life seem that much better and you will enjoy life much more. Money can’’t buy happiness, love, family, or friends. If you work just for a paycheck and don’’t enjoy what you do you will not enjoy all the other things in life as much. How do you think your daily life will feel if you spend eight of the sixteen hours you are awake doing something you don’’t enjoy? When looking back at your life in your older age you should want to feel that you have enjoyed your career and did it for the right reasons. Enjoying your job and doing what you live is a big part of living your life to the fullest. Life is also about going out having good experiences with good company. Whether good or bad, new experiences with good friends will always be a memorable and good time in your life. Remembering the good times around the camp fires and the nice ice cold beers with those that mean the most to you is a great example. Having the chance to explore the world and making memories is one of the most charitable things in life. Climb a mountain, swim a sea, what’’s the worst thing that can happen; your phone bill doesn’’t get paid. I’’m not saying quit your job and forget that you have responsibilities, but what should really come first? Everyone needs a break from work to enjoy life. Take the time out of working to go out for a god hunt or a day at the beach with friends. If you can look back and like a bigger part of your life than not you are seizing the day. So you might say that isn’’t what seizing the day means. You may feel that it means something completely different. But looking at your life, how accomplished would you feel if you didn’’t have any family or never had any fun memories about your life. You could not say with a clear conscience that you have lived your life to the fullest. No matter how you feel inside or what your definition may be on living life to the fullest you will always want to look back and say I had no regrets. You can look at your life in many different ways and see several different views on it. When looking at it in the big picture you want to feel that you lived it to the fullest with no regrets. When picturing the whole thing we call a life and reflecting on it you will see that family, what you do, and the people you do it with make up a huge portion of it. So make sure you live everyday to the fullest and never forget the saying â€Å"â€Å"Carpe Diem†Ã¢â‚¬ .

Comparative Study Of Politeness Strategies English Language Essay

Comparative Study Of Politeness Strategies English Language Essay Introduction Over the last three decades, politeness strategies have become one of the most active area of research in spoken and written discourse. This phenomenon began when Goffman published On face work in 1955 and other classical studies such as Lakoff (1973, 1977), Leech (1983) and Brown Levinsons (1987), who conducted extensive studies on politeness. These studies indicate that linguistic politeness is generally associated with social behaviour to avoid conflicts. The past few years the application of politeness studies has been extended beyond the verbal communication to include written material to engage conflict-free communication between writers-audience, started in 1989 when Myers published his article the pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles since then many scholars extended the concept of politeness strategies onto written context such as; current research issues (Kasper: 1990) business letter (Maier: 1992), written business discourse (Pilegaard: 1997), scientific text (Kwok: 1997), written persuasion (Cherry: 1988), thesis writing (Faridah Noor: 2000), and research article (Dahl :2009). Myers (1989) in his study found that the model proposed by Brown Levinson (1987) was applicable in how to interpret scientific culture found in scientific writing. Brown and Levinson (1987) found in their study four (4) categories of politeness strategies. These are proposed as universal as the striking parallels in politeness devices between three unrelated languages (Tzeltal, Tamil and English) were found. While politeness may be expressed differently in one culture to another, the basic hierarchy of politeness strategies is not a culture specific. (Brown Levinsons : 1987) Even though the majority study of the past studies in politeness strategies are closely related with verbal communication context. Many studies recently showed that it could also be extended onto written context, and somehow the politeness strategies in written discourse in line with the demands of the academic community that expects scientific language to be objective and formal. This present study is interested to study the kinds of politeness strategies find in economic journal writing as another field in written discourse. What makes economics special is that economics is consisted of the combination of soft science research issues related to human behaviour and the hard science mathematics economic models. The model represents the interaction between human being and market under specific conditions. Dahl (2009: 2). The other reason is how economist presents their thought in the research paper they write. Moreover, by using Myerss (1989) study that in line to what Brown and Levinson had proposed in their study. This present study tries to focus on the politeness strategies employed in economic journal articles. Concerning none of the past studies deeply focused to study the academic journals especially in economic field and comparing between local and international economic journals. By viewing that chances the researcher hopes that this present study able to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge on politeness strategies used in academic writing, particularly which in the writing of economic journal articles of two identified economic journals. Statement of the Problem Brown and Levinson (1987) construct a system to explain the nature of politeness phenomena in language. The major concept of politeness theory is an arrangement of politeness strategies along a continuum from least polite to most polite. Previous studies had shown that politeness strategies not only applied by many people via verbal communication but also through the medium of written material. Although, Politeness in both social and linguistic studies has shown a phenomenon of interest in the past decades, many past studies choose to draw on conversational data. Many scholars do not realize that politeness model can be extended beyond the verbal communication to include written materials. The extension of politeness models to some genres of scientific written texts such as economic journal could contribute to explain the application of politeness strategies. To identify sort of politeness strategies employed in economic journal somehow could be an interesting also a complex field to study as Holmes (2001) says that Economic field is a prototypical of the social sciences. To engage in this discourse in a meaningful and effective manner requires skilful handling of textual strategies. Moreover, the use of politeness strategies in economic journals by particular people from different culture background, age and economic expertise when making a claim, maintain face or employed other kinds of politeness strategies in their paper is an interesting matter to study. Based on that statement above the main purposes of this study beyond the limits of this paper, to give an exhaustive overview of politeness-related research are to identify sort of politeness strategies that employed and analyze the politeness strategies in economic journal articles of one local and one international economic journals selected for this study. Objectives of the Study In recent years there has been a steady increase in interest and research into economics discourse by both economists and linguists which has spawned an expanding body of work. the present study undertakes the task of looking at the use of the politeness strategies employed in economic journal and compare between one local and one international economic journals by proposing the objectives below; To investigate the use of politeness strategies in economics text To compare the use of politeness strategies in a local and international economic journals Research Questions The present study aims to answer the following questions: What kinds of politeness strategies are employed in economic text? In what ways are the politeness strategies found to be similar or different in local or international economic journals? The present study also proposes that it would be beneficial for the journal writers to know where they stand in the academic discourse community as this awareness can assists them in planning the strategies used to present their findings as new knowledge claims. Significance of the study Since the early 1980s, the discussion of various controversial issues in the economics discourse community has led to increasing debate among concerned economists about the ways that they communicate with each other, as well as with non-economists. In this exploratory study, the researcher chooses to focus on the existence of politeness strategies in economic journals. Hopefully this present study would contribute towards obtaining a set of politeness strategies in economic journals. The collection of strategies would encompass a sampling of strategies used by journal writer(s) within a span of six (6) years latest from the field of economy. Moreover this present study hopes to enhance the understanding of academic researchers, who are interested in the area of politeness strategies, especially in the use of politeness strategies in economic journals and to show the kinds of politeness strategies employed in both local and international economic journals. Furthermore, understanding the kinds of politeness strategies in written texts, especially in economic journals, could be useful when politeness strategies are employed in other genres in order to fit with the demanding of formality and objectivity of the academic writing. This study also hopes to clarify many ways that the economists use language to express themselves in a polite manner and to help the public to understand the politeness style of writing by the economist in written texts. In addition, the specific aim of this present study is also to show that there is an increasing awareness of the nature of economics discourse by both applied linguists and economists. To achieve the purposes above, this research studies two economic journals, one local and one international, published by Malaysian and American economic associations. Scope and Limitation of The Study This present study will limit its data from selected journals released by local and international economic associations to find out politeness strategies employed by the economists in two identified economic journals, namely Malaysia Journal of Economic Studies and Journal of Economic Growth, released by the Malaysian Economic Association and the American Economic Association respectively. The articles from these journals were chosen from the six years latest issues, starting from 2004 to 2009. This study limits its scope only on the contents of the articles. The areas of mathematical languages, formula, as well as footnotes in the articles will be not included as parts of the analysis. This study also does not attempt to look at the differences in the style of writing choice of politeness strategies based on gender, age or ethnic background, and strategies used by journal writers over a period of time. This research also tries not to focus on particular specific areas where some economists and linguists often argue about, but more on general issues of economic content in these journals, that the researcher feels provide examples of the existence of politeness strategies 1.5 Summary The focus of the present study is to investigate the use of politeness strategies in economic journals. It undertakes the task to identify and analyze politeness strategies employed in the articles and compares two economic journals local and international publication namely Malaysia Journal of Economic Studies and Journal of Economic Growth by using the theory of politeness from Brown Levinson (1978) and Myers (1989).

The Internet Movie Database :: The Internet Movie Database

â€Å"The Internet is a communications tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another† (Smith, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back). Society uses the Internet as a way to shout out their opinions about any particular issue. The entertainment industry is commonly scrutinized by these online vocalists; thankfully for their sake, although sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, the Internet audience does provide positive feedback as well. Movies are commonly dissected online; viewers like to explain every little thing that they liked about a particular movie as well as tear a movie limb from limb. The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) is one of the most popular sites for such movie critiquing. The site has many features that satisfy the needs of most movie buffs, and because of this site, people can come together and share their opinions of movies as if they were Roger Ebert themselves. It is the complet e experience that one can have on the Internet Movie Database such as the involvement and the amount of information that can be explored (not just read) that make the Internet such a major part of many people’s lives. The Internet Movie Database is a website that allows the user to find a seemingly infinite amount of information. You can type in the name of your favorite actor or actress and find out everything that they have ever done in the movie industry, whether it be acting, producing, writing, special effects, or anything else that you can think of. The site also provides any information available for future projects. Beyond the world of movies, you even get information of the television shows that they may have been a part of and even what video games they may have provided a voice for. Many of the actors and actresses also have a small section that provides trivial information about their lives. These are all some pretty cool features; however, the best parts of this website are the movie rating system and the message boards. The rating system is based on a 1 – 10 scale, and it uses a weighted average. The ratings section also provides charts of ratings for different age groups, sex, and the combination thereof, along with US and non-US citizens, Top 1000 voters, and the staff of imdb.com. The message boards provide lots of commentary about any particular movie, the stars of the film, or any social issue that may be represented in it.

Blindness and Sight - Nothing and Blindness in King Lear :: King Lear essays

Themes of Nothing and Blindness in King Lear Many of the passages of King Lear, particularly those between the characters of Lear, Kent, the Fool, and Cordelia, all share a common theme. The theme of nothing, as well as the theme of blindness, echoes throughout the play. King Lear is in many ways about nothing. However, Kent, the Fool, and Cordelia make him more than nothing by serving faithfully, speaking bluntly, and loving unconditionally. The first occurrence of the imagery of nothing takes place between Lear and Cordelia. In this particular scene, Lear asks his three daughters to profess their love for him. When Cordelia is prompted to speak, she replies "Nothing, my Lord" (1.1.87). Here, Cordelia acknowledges that her other sisters are only putting on an act for Lear. Since she truly loves him the most, she cannot bring herself to praise him falsely. Instead, she says "I love your majesty according to my bond, no more no less" (1.1.92-93). In this short dialogue between Lear and Cordelia, the word "nothing" is said four times. What's notable is that each time it is said, it implies a different meaning. The purpose of this repetition is to show the audience its importance in the text and to make the ideas and imagery that go along with the word to be clear. By replying "nothing" when posed with the question of her love for Lear, Cordelia implies that there is nothing left to say since her sisters have already said al l that there is to be said. This particular passage, with its usage of the word "nothing" also takes on its own rhythm compared to the rest of the text. In a later passage between Lear, Kent, and the Fool, this imagery of "nothing" occurs again. In the Fool's first speech, he gives both Lear and Kent a little bit of his own brand of wisdom. To that, Kent replies, "This is nothing, Fool" (1.4.126). The Fool tells Kent "you gave me nothing for't" (1.4.128). The Fool then asks Lear "Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?" (1.4.128) To that, Lear relies, "Why no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing" (1.4.130). These "nothings" that occur again here all seem to have different meanings as well. Kent tells the Fool that his wisdom is nothing, since it seems on the surface to not make any sense. When Kent tells the Fool this, the Fool tells him that it was just free advise, and that he was paid nothing for it.

Conceptualization of Culture and Language in Post Colonial Literature Essay

Culture and Language are the major issues in the post colonial theory. My assignment will deal with these three factors in terms of colonial perspectives. The post colonialism mainly explores the ideas such as cultural diversity, geographical dimensions, Diasporas, race, ethnicity, marginality, hybridity, national identities, cultural transformation, changes and politics in language etc†¦ Considerations of hybridity run the range from existential to material, political to economic, yet this discussion will not be able to tease out the extensive implications of each consideration. Rather, this discussion aims to explore the notion of hybridity theoretically, synthesizing the vast body of literature to critique essentialist notions of identity as fixed and constant. According to my understanding of Hybridity, there are three ways in which hybridity might serve as a tool for deconstructing the rigid labels that maintain social inequities through exclusion in race, language and nation. By exploring how the hybrid rejects claims of bonds within race, language, and nation, I understood that cultural studies like these are imperative in considering the politics of representation. For the purposes of this discussion, the cultural hybridity refers to the integration of cultural bodies, signs, and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures. The contemporary cultural landscape is an amalgam of cross-cultural influences, blended, patch-worked, and layered upon one another. Unbound and fluid, culture is hybrid and interstitial, moving between spaces of meaning. The notion of cultural hybridity has existed far before it was popularized in postcolonial theory as culture arising out of interactions between â€Å"colonizers† and â€Å"the colonized†. However, in this time after imperialism, globalization has both expanded the reach of Western culture, as well as allowed a process by which the West constantly interacts with the East, appropriating cultures for its own means and continually shifting its own signifiers of dominant culture. This hybridity is woven into every corner of society, from trendy fusion cuisine to Caribbean rhythms in pop music to the hyphenated identities that signify ethnic Americans, illuminating the lived experience of ties to a dominant culture blending with the cultural codes of a Third World culture. Framing Cultural Hybridity in post colonial context; Among postcolonial theorists, there is a wide consensus that hybridity arose out of the culturally internalized interactions between â€Å"colonizers† and â€Å"the colonized† and the dichotomous formation of these identities. Considered by some the father of hybrid theory, Homi Bhabha argued that colonizers and the colonized are mutually dependent in constructing a shared culture. His text The Location of Culture (1994) suggested that there is a â€Å"Third Space of Enunciation† in which cultural systems are constructed. In this claim, he aimed to create a new language and mode of describing the identity of Selves and Others. Bhabha says: It becomes crucial to distinguish between the semblance and similitude of the symbols across diverse cultural experiences such as literature, art, music, Ritual, life, death and the social specificity of each of these productions of meaning as they circulate as signs within specific contextual locations and social systems of value. The transnational dimension of cultural transformation migration, diaspora, displacement, relocation makes the process of cultural translation a complex form of signification. The naturalized, unifying discourse of nation, peoples, or authentic folk tradition, those embedded myths of cultures particularity, cannot be readily referenced. The great, though unsettling, advantage of this position is that it makes you increasingly aware of the construction of culture and the invention of tradition. In using words like â€Å"diaspora, displacement, relocation,† Bhabha illustrates the dynamic nature of culture, and the flimsy consistency of the historical narratives that cultures rely upon to draw boundaries and define themselves. As a result, culture cannot be defined in and of it, but rather must be seen within the context of its construction. More significantly, Bhabha draws attention to the reliance of cultural narratives upon the other. In illuminating this mutual construction of culture, studies of hybridity can offer the opportunity for a counter-narrative, a means by which the dominated can reclaim shared ownership of a culture that relies upon them for meaning. This theoretical erspective will serve as the foundation for the considerations explored in this paper, employing hybridity as a powerful tool for liberation from the domination imposed by bounded definitions of race, language, and nation. RACE: Racial hybridity, or the integration of two races which are assumed to be distinct and separate entities, can be considered first in terms of the physical body. Historically, the corporeal hybrid was birthed from two symbolic poles, a bodily representation of colonizer and colonized. These mixed births, mestizo, mulatto, muwallad, were stigmatized as a physical representation of impure blood, and this racism long served as a tool of power that maintained that even in this blending of two bodies, just â€Å"one drop† of black blood would deem the body impure and alien, an abomination. Institutionalized racism created a perpetual state of ambiguity and placelessness for the hybrid body and prevented cultural inclusion via race. However, the expanse of immigration since colonialism and the spectrum of shades of visible difference point to an increasingly hybrid populace in which these classifications of black and white no longer carry the same power of representation, yet the old labels persist. This labeling is significant as it elucidates the continuing power of racial labels in a society set on fixing bodies in racial space by binding them to labels, which are understood to contain fixed truths. I argue that utilizing the conceptual tool of hybridity to deconstruct these labels allows a means by which hybrid individuals can come together in powerful solidarity, rather than allowing their ambiguous place in racial space to render them invisible. Harnessing racial hybridity to project the simultaneously unique but common experience of hybridity can be a means by which the individual subject can join to a marginal community through stories and partial memories. Furthermore, racial hybridity must harness the dualistic experience of passing, or being mistaken for a race other than one’s own. All identities involve passing to some extent, in that a subject’s self can never truly match its image, but racial passing implicitly deconstructs the boundaries of Black and White. In passing, hybridity might function not as a conflict or struggle between two racial identities, but instead as constant movement between spaces, passing through and between identity itself without origin or arrival. The freedom to move between identities carries its own power in defying the claims of essentialized racial identity. Furthermore, the bounded labels of race do not account for the historical and geographic narratives that lie behind each body and inform their identity. In â€Å"Black Africans and Native Americans†, Jack Forbes explores the disconnect between racial labels and the consciousness of the bodies behind them using Native Americans and Africans as examples by which â€Å"groups are forced into arbitrary categories render their ethnic heritage simple rather than complex†. As a result, hybridity calls into question the boundaries of racial consciousness as a hybrid consciousness defies the imposed limits of race. The management of these identities becomes its own sort of performance, as the body negotiates each consciousness in different spaces. Again, the ability to play multiple roles, to â€Å"pass† in different arenas, carries significant power. In embodying the inability to bind identities to race, racial hybridity both in the physical body and in consciousness offers a means of deconstructing the boundaries of dichotomous racial identities. In addition to race, language has long been bound in definitions as a symbol of nation and a mode of exclusion. As a means to connect with other social beings, communicating with language is a meaningful performance in that speaking requires two parties, one to perform language and an audience to observe and absorb language. During colonialism, as the colonizer’s language dominated national institutions, the sense of being outside and â€Å"othered† was instilled in the colonized as their language and means of communication was stripped away. Now in a time after colonialism, can the colonized ever reclaim a language long lost, or has the colonizer’s language become their own? Has ownership of the colonizer’s language expanded over time? Fanon’s theorizing addresses the power of language in the formation of identity as he says, â€Å"To speak . . . means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization,†. He suggests that speaking the language of the colonizer stands in as acceptance or coercion into accepting a role in culture. Yet in accepting a role, whether by choice or force, the meaning of the culture shifts and evolves. No longer does it â€Å"belong† to the colonizer, as it relies upon the colonized to give it shape. Similarly, with the introduction of a new set of users performing a language, the language no longer exists as it was; it has shifted in meaning. Beyond the thematic implications of language, hybridity has inspired an immense movement in literary discourse and understandings of the very way language is managed and owned. Herskovits developed the notion of syncretism, a theory attempting to explain why certain cultural forms are carried and others lost. Similarly, Claude Levi-Strauss developed the term bricolage to describe mixed forms within narratives. Creolization describes the linguistic blending of dominant and subdominant cultures. These examples illustrate the broad realm of studies that have developed simply around the use of hybridized language. In an analysis of the rise of the â€Å"hybrid genre† in postmodern literature, Kapchan and Strong say, â€Å"Hybridization has become one such analytic allegory, defining lines of interest and affiliation among scholars of popular and literary culture, perhaps quite unintentionally. The extent to which these authors use the metaphor of hybridity consciously and concisely differs. That they use it, however, qualifies hybridity as one of several tropes, or forms of metaphoric predication, that most epitomize the scholarship of the last decade,† . Not only does this observation imply that the body of hybridized literature is growing, harkening to the rising voices and representations of the hybrid, but that hybridity is becoming normalized as an accepted form of literature and the purist notion of genre is diminishing. Furthermore, the use of a colonizer’s language by the colonized to speak of the crimes of colonialism is its own transgression and act of resistance. In taking ownership of the language, changing the way that it is used, the boundaries of language as belonging to a specific place or race are dissolved. Jahan Ramazani’s Hybrid Muse is an analytical review of the poetry that has arisen from the hybridization of the English muse with the long-resident muses of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and other decolonizing territories of the British Empire (2001). A hybrid himself, Ramazani suggests that the use of indigenous metaphors, rhythms, creoles, and genres has allowed a new form of poetry that not only speaks of the violence and displacement of colonialism, but embodies it in its very form. These hybrid poetries can be viewed as a gateway to understanding those once deemed unfamiliar, and hybridity of language becomes a way by which to deconstruct borders and relate to collectives across cultural boundaries. Further, hybridity must interrogate the notion that nationality is essential zed in a distinct culture that geographic borders somehow embody inherent knowledge or truth about the people they contain. Mamdani asks, â€Å"How do you tell who is indigenous to the country and who is not? Given a history of migration, what is the dividing line between the indigenous and the nonindigenous? . He addresses the nationalist concern over entitlement to nation, and the indigenous wish to lay claim to culture. I understood that theories of hybridity, in clarifying the shifting and indefinite nature of culture, can serve as a tool that complicate the nationalist exclusionary practice of determining who does and does not have claim to a nation. From health care to immigration, h is arguments resonate loudly with current events. Similarly, we must consider the ways in which the â€Å"things† that give culture meaning are unfixed and variable, negating essentialist arguments about inherent meanings of culture. In The Predicament of Culture, James Clifford (1988) analyzes sites including anthropology, museums, and travel writing to take a critical ethnography of the West and its shifting relationships with other societies. He demonstrates how â€Å"other† national cultures are in fact fictions and mythical narratives, and we must ask the question of representation and who has the authority to speak for a group’s identity. In his article â€Å"Diasporas†, he suggests that â€Å"The old localizing strategies by bounded community, by organic culture, by region, by center and periphery may obscure as much as they reveal†. Diaspora is defined as a history of dispersal, myths/memories of the homeland, alienation in the host country, desire for eventual return, ongoing support of the homeland, and a collective identity importantly defined by this relationship. In this consideration of culture, we understand the vast connotations of displacement, from asking which history the diasporic should identify with to asking if it is even possible to return to a homeland one never knew or left long ago. Second, in the representation of culture, be it by petrifying culture in a museum or nailing it to an anthropological account, the risk lies in taking these subjective moments as truths or knowledge. Furthermore, the far-reaching diasporic symbols and narratives that snowball into this thing we call national culture suggest that culture is itself a traveler collecting artifacts from various locations along the way, and its walls are too insubstantial to be used as a means of exclusion. Third and perhaps most significant, hybridity in a postcolonial world muddles the very definitions of culture by which nations define themselves. Given that nationalism is founded upon a collective consciousness from shared loyalty to a culture, one would assume this culture is well-defined. Yet the â€Å"solid† roots of historical and cultural narratives that nations rely upon are diasporic, with mottled points of entry at various points in time. An investigation of the roots of cultural symbols like folk stories, religion, and music would reveal sources varied and wide-ranging. Furthermore, culture is defined in relationship to other cultures. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) offers a strong description of the system by which nations appropriate from others to define themselves. He suggests Orientalism â€Å"has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience†. Using a theoretical framework influenced by Gramsci’s notion of hegemonic culture and Foucault’s notion of discourse, Said draws significant attention to the intricate and complex process by which the West must use the East to construct itself, its culture, its meaning. In an illuminating excerpt describing the process of Orientalism, he writes: To formulate the Orient, to give it shape, identity, definition with full recognition of its place in memory, its importance to imperial strategy, and its ‘natural’ role as an appendage to Europe; to dignify all the knowledge collected during colonial occupation with the title ‘contribution to modern learning; when the natives had neither been consulted nor treated as anything except as pretexts for a text whose usefulness was not to the natives; to feel oneself as a European in command, almost at will, of Oriental history, time, and geography to make out of every observable detail a generalization and out of every generalization an immutable law about the Oriental nature, temperament, mentality, custom, or type; and, above all, to transmute living reality into the stuff of texts, to possess actuality mainly because nothing in the Orient seems to resist one’s powers. † In a st ream of fragments, Said shows the diverse processes by which dominant cultures are formed at the service of Others. Using words like â€Å"shape,† â€Å"definition,† and â€Å"transmute,† he describes the act of defining nation and the artificial nature of these boundaries. Said offers a theoretical means by which to reject nationalist divisions between an us and Them, a West and Other. This conceptualization of the ways in which nations determine not only their own national identities, but the identities of Other is powerful in revealing the inherently hybrid roots of national culture. Studies of national identity are thus essential in deconstructing xenophobic nationalist claims to nation and the resulting miscegenation of immigrant Others. CONCLUSION This discussion draws from the body of postcolonial literature to suggest that studies of cultural hybridity are powerful in probing the bounded labels of race, language, and nation that maintain social inequalities. By examining how the hybrid can deconstruct boundaries within race, language, and nation, I understood that hybridity has the ability to empower marginalized collectives and deconstruct bounded labels, which are used in the service of subordination. In essence, hybridity has the potential to allow once subjugated collectivities to reclaim a part of the cultural space in which they move. Hybridity can be seen not as a means of division or sorting out the various histories and diverse narratives to individualize identities, but rather a means of reimagining an interconnected collective. Like the skin on a living body, the collective body has a surface that also feels and â€Å"Borders materialize as an effect on intensifications of feeling and individual and collective bodies surface through the very orientations we take to objects and others,† In the description that Formations our orientations can be shifted, our feelings towards Others transformed, there is a possibility of redefining our exclusionary systems of labeling. Furthermore, breaking down immaterial borders through explorations of hybridity offers the possibility of more effective public policy, one that refers to the broad expanse of its diverse population. Frenkel and Shenhav did an illuminating study on the ways in which studies of hybridity have allowed management and organization studies to manage their longstanding western hegemonic practices and to incorporate postcolonial insights into the organizational literature revolving around the relationships between Orientalism and organizations. The willingness of institutions to reform their long held ideologies in light of a changing world, as well as to consider their work through alternative lenses, is an essential practice in deconstructing the bindings of narratives-as-knowledge. In the boundary-shifting process, there is power in the notion of deconstruction in the service of reconstruction, breaking down boundaries in order to form a more inclusive sense of the collectivity. Furthermore, hybridity asserts the notion that representations of collective identity must be analyzed contextually. When we examine a representation of culture, be it in a film, poem, or speech, we should ask: Who is doing the representing? What are the implications of the representation? Why are they engaging in the process of representation? What is the historical moment that informs the representation? How are they being represented? In addition to the questions explored in this paper, I would recommend applying theories of hybridity to a realm beyond race and nation, in order to consider alternative boundaries such as gender and sexuality. The work of hybrid theorists from Bhabha to Said suggests that there is a vast intellectual landscape for cultural inquiries like these. Our mission must be to continue this work and to delve deeper. Cultural studies have great potential to liberate us from the socially-given boundaries that so stubbornly limit our capacity for thought and discussion, but we must take time to join in a collective critique of the knowledge we ingest and disperse. After all, the greatest power lies in the heart of the collective.