Introduction
The public health issue discussed in this paper is the high infant mortality rate in the United States. Newborn mortality is a crucial indicator of a society’s general well-being and is defined as the death of a live-born infant before its first birthday. The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the United States is higher than in other industrialized countries, and in recent years has been approximately five per thousand live births. This rate is even higher for African-American infants, nearly twice the rate for white infants. Changes must be addressed in several areas, including access to health care, poverty, education, and community support, to lower the high infant mortality rate in the United States.
Barriers
Poverty is a significant socioeconomic barrier to reducing the infant mortality rate in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 11.8% of Americans lived in poverty in 2018, with a rate of 22.1% among African-Americans. Poverty is a significant factor in infant mortality because it leads to a lack of access to adequate health care, nutrition, and other resources (Rogers, 2022). Poor women are less likely to receive prenatal care, which is essential for the health of a developing fetus. They are also more likely to have a preterm birth, increasing infant mortality risk. Additionally, poverty can lead to inadequate nutrition, which can also hurt fetal health.
A second socioeconomic barrier to reducing the infant mortality rate in the United States is a lack of education. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2018, only 85.3% of adults aged 25 and over had completed high school or higher education (Mohammed, 2019). Education is essential in reducing infant mortality because it enables individuals to make informed decisions about their health and their children’s health. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to receive prenatal care and have healthier pregnancies and babies. Additionally, educated parents are more likely to be aware of health risks and how to reduce them, leading to healthier pregnancies and infants.
Supports
One of the significant socioeconomic supports for reducing the infant mortality rate in the United States is access to quality health care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2018, approximately 87.3% of Americans had health insurance coverage, and this rate was even higher for African-Americans at 91.2% (Lutz & Fiebelkorn, 2020). Access to quality health care is essential for reducing infant mortality because it enables women to receive prenatal care and other services necessary for a healthy pregnancy and baby. Additionally, access to health care enables families to receive the services necessary for a healthy home environment, such as nutrition counseling, safety education, and mental health support.
The second socioeconomic support for reducing the infant mortality rate in the United States is a robust community support system. According to the National Institutes of Health, strong social networks have been shown to positively impact infant health, as they can provide emotional support, information, and other resources to pregnant women and new parents (Harrison & Hall, 2008). Additionally, community-based programs, such as home visiting and parenting classes, can provide the information and resources needed to promote healthy pregnancies and reduce the risk of infant mortality.
Conclusion
Overall, poverty and a lack of education are two significant socioeconomic barriers to reducing the rate of infant mortality in the United States. At the same time, access to quality health care and a robust community support system are two significant supports. To reduce the rate of infant mortality, individuals, organizations, and policymakers must work together to address these barriers and support them. Individuals can support this effort by donating to organizations providing access to quality health care and community resources or volunteering to mentor pregnant women and new parents. Organizations can support this effort by providing resources and services to pregnant women and families and advocating for policies that promote access to quality health care and reduce poverty. Policymakers can support this effort by creating policies that promote access to quality health care, reduce poverty, and support a robust community support system. Working together can reduce the infant mortality rate in the United States and improve the population’s overall health.
References
Harrison, K. M., Ling, Q., Song, R., & Hall, H. I. (2008). County-level socioeconomic status and survival after HIV diagnosis, United States. Annals of epidemiology, 18(12), 919–927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2008.09.003
Lutz, C. S., Fink, R. V., Cloud, A. J., Stevenson, J., Kim, D., & Fiebelkorn, A. P. (2020). Factors associated with perceptions of influenza vaccine safety and effectiveness among adults, United States, 2017–2018. Vaccine, 38(6), 1393-1401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.12.004
Mohammed, A. A. (2019). Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of the Hypertensive patients towards Lifestyle Modification in the Management of Hypertension in Alrabwa Village, South of Gezira state, Sudan (2018) (Doctoral dissertation, University of Gezira). http://repo.uofg.edu.sd/handle/123456789/4895
Rogers, J., Jay, C. L., Farney, A. C., Orlando, G., Jacobs, M. L., Harriman, D., … & Stratta, R. J. (2022). Simultaneous pancreas‐kidney transplantation in Caucasian versus African American patients: Does recipient race influence outcomes? Clinical Transplantation, 36(5), e14599. https://doi.org/10.1111/ctr.14599
How Is Language Constitutive Of Persons And Of Social Life Free Sample
Introduction
In the twentieth century, language is an important area of concern. It is evident in many arenas of people’s lives. This century has caused immense growth in linguistics. The science of linguistics has grown because, like other sciences, linguistics is pursued in several ways. The language concern has established meaningfulness because it acts as a link to different mediums (Taylor, 1985). Language is a blend of words to make sentences to form a communication channel between human beings (Eifring & Theil,2005). When it comes to language and the social context, the language that people impact their social realities.
The meaning of language is linked up with the concern for language in this era. Speech is made meaningful by explaining the language using the philosophical theories of language. At the beginning of the century, Schonberg and Cubism taught the meaning of language by explaining that it is a medium that people can use. In this theory, language is essential in sciences such as music, arts, and painting. Another aspect of Freudian psychoanalysis involves describing language as an interpretation that mainly focuses on social science (Taylor, 1985). The Freudian theory also describes that art elements, symptoms, tastes, and tongue slips can be used to interpret the social aspect of language.
Languge and social interactionn
Many researchers use Conversation Analysis (CA) to research about social interaction. Conversation analysis uses verbal and nonverbal conduct to study social interaction. Nonverbal communication features include body movement, gestures, proximity, and gaze. CA is helpful in studies where people highly interact, for example, in hospitals, law enforcement, restaurants, schools, and other casual encounters. The analysis involves how people talk to each other by taking turns, uttering, and exchanging words. Utterances and turn-taking involve preferred responses to how people talk to each other and end up understanding each other by making sure that they all make sense. The analysis also examines the emotions and expressions that people respond to in different speeches.
Respect is a significant aspect of daily and face-to-face interactions in the society. Respect is displayed by symbolic acts such as the timing of utterances, choosing words and subjects, prosody, and proxemic distance. Politeness includes important symbols of respect to avoid severe conflicts in communication. Disrespectfulness is often interpreted as hostility and the absence of a positive attitude. In many cases, lack of respect leads to negative or impoliteness, thus affecting the adverse actions that are unhindered by others. On the other hand, respectfulness leads to desirable actions, leading to politeness and interaction with others. Restraint politeness and involvement politeness also involves respect for others.
According to Bailey (2001,1996), restraint politeness is marked by actions that impose unwillingness on others. These actions include hedging, apologizing, not being an attention seeker, and making indirect requests. It also involves minimizing demands on other people, asking a few questions, and introducing new topics. In the book, the author shows that restraint and politeness are typical in Korean immigrant store owners compared to Black American clients. On the contrary, involvement politeness is actions that express others’ approval. They include jokes, compliments, agreement, and using in-group identity makers. This is common among African Americans as compared to Koreans.
Bailey’s research occurred in 1994 and 1995 and comprised of the use of conversion analysis. The analysis was used to observe participants from Korean immigrant shop owners and Black American customers videotaping. Six stores were visited to make the research successful. Transcription was done through the help of a Korean translator as well as the use of a conversion analysis. The study took place in two methods; a focus on service encounters and a definition of goal orientation by institutional talk of service encounters. Service encounters describe the face-to-face interaction between a server and a customer at the service point. The interaction of the two people mainly focuses on ensuring that the customer gains maximum satisfaction with their desired service. Institutional talks are defined as the difference between the level of perceptions of Black Americans and Koreans about the functions of the encounters (Bailey 2001,1996).
The encounters are mainly characterized by greetings, which symbolize interpersonal access between the service person and the client. It is then followed by negotiations and finally the closure of the business exchanges. According to this research, service encounters were based on two results: socially minimal and socially expanded encounters. Socially minimal encounters do not talk, whereas socially expanded encounters are characterized by greeting, followed by negotiation, closure, and high interpersonal relationships.
According to Eifring and Theil (2005), language connects all human beings because it involves interactions and communications with one another. Language enables people to threaten, make opinions, apologize, give thanks, make promises, and make declarations. Human beings invented language, and many body parts have acquired a linguistic function. In the human interaction, language is seen as a means to express thoughts and feelings. In this light, the author has highlighted Saussure’s model, which implies that speech develops due to the grammatical arrangement of words. Thus, when speech develops, people can communicate with each other and establish a social life.
Language and conceptualization
Some linguists argue that many meanings are based on mental concepts. Most of them are socially constructed, meaning a child or adult forms them in learning to formulate words grammatically. Eifring and Theil (2005) give an example of a ball that is defined by the English dictionary as a ‘globular body.’ The author argues that everyone has a mental concept of what it means; therefore, basic semantics quickly develop from birth. English semantics are born from people’s mental concepts, and communication is quickly established. Genetics and social experiences also supplement the concepts shaped by people’s languages.
In terms of conceptualization, different languages have the same realities interpreted in various ways. For example, some colors, such as blue and green, are different in the English language, while others, such as in the Mexican language, treat the two colors as variants of one similar color. Another example is when other languages, such as French and German, differentiate the male and female cousins as opposed to the English language, which does not differentiate both (Eifring & Theil, 2005). From this perspective, conceptualization is highly brought about by language through grammar and expressions.
Language variation
Language changes at different times, through different locations and social groups. Language changes because human beings often change their medium of communication. They change for different reasons, such as changes in word meanings, pronunciation, adoption of new words, discardation of old words, and changes in sentence formation. People change their language for different reasons, such as children adopting their parents’ language with slight modifications (Eifring & Theil, 2005). People change their languages due to adjustments to the new social life. Language is essential in personal identification as well as group identity. People change languages consciously or unknowingly, and also other people take part in changing their own language.
Language contact can create new languages by combining elements from the different languages in contact and adding elements not initially in either language. Pidgins and creoles are the two primary varieties of such new languages. Pidgins are incomplete languages. People use them for minimal interaction between speakers of more than one language who have had repeated or extended contacts, such as enslavement, trade, or movement of people (Eifring & Theil, 2005). Pidgins typically combine elements of their users’ native languages and skills. In addition, pidgins are those native languages in terms of simpler terms, fewer inflection, and a more excellent limited range of grammatical and phonetic alternatives. Many pidgins, like language shifts, are predicated on an asymmetrical relationship between their origin language groups.
Secondly, creoles, like pidgins, are the outcome of frequent contact between various languages and incorporate elements from both. Creoles, unlike pidgins, are the languages children learn as their primary language. Creoles have more excellent command and more complex linguistic resources than pidgins. However, the difference between pidgin and creole is progressive rather than utter and complete. A few more expansive pidgins are systemically impossible to distinguish from creoles and may serve as the primary dialect of any of their speakers before becoming their native language. This happened in New Guinea with Tok Pisin and in the Central African Republic with Sango (Eifring & Theil, 2005).
Language affects the social factors of different people. The study of language and its variations depends on three factors: geographical variation, context variation, and social variation. Geographical variation is a geographical subdivision of a language. For instance, researchers frequently refer to the Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Fula languages without considering how uncertain these terms are. They are relevant, but their interpretations are quite often very dissimilar compared to what is commonly assumed. When one looks at Fula is widely assumed to be a native tongue, that is, a common language with a handful of dialects. Therefore in this notion, a dialect is recognized as a geographical variety of syntax utilized in a particular location and differing from other geographic location variants of the exact language in some linguistic items (Eifring, 2005).
Conclusion
In conclusion, this essay has discussed how social interaction impacts how people use language and how people have been integrated into society to follow implied social norms, including those that steer the flow of discussions, such as how to begin and end conversations and how to switch topics. As people move between civic, professional, and academic contexts, the use of language changes.
References
Taylor, C. (1985). Language and Human Nature. In Human Agency and Language (Vol. 1, pp. 215–247). essay, Cambridge University Press.
Bailey, Benjamin 2001 (1996). “Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters,” in Linguistic Anthropology: a reader. Edited by A. Duranti, pp. 119-146. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Eifring, H., & Theil, R. (2005). Linguistics for students of Asian and African languages.
Dante Alighieri’s Inferno University Essay Example
Dante, the protagonist of the epic poem “Inferno,” wanders through a foreboding forest after straying from the path of moral truth. Just the beginning, my friends. The ghost of Virgil, the great Roman poet, and Dante’s hero, appears just in time to save Dante from an attack by three wild animals. Virgil explains that he came because Dante’s dead lover, Beatrice, asked the Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia, the rulers of Heaven, to send someone to help him. There you have it! Luckily, Virgil is here to help. Because he resembles the famous poet and writer Dante, he makes for an excellent tour guide. After this, Virgil guides Dante through each of Hell’s nine circles and back to Earth’s atmosphere in the rest of the Inferno. Christ cannot save those who lived before his time because they are already in the first level of Hell (also known as “Limbo” or “pre-Hell”). Poets like the Roman and Greek poet Virgil once called this area home. Storms that never end cast sinners with lust into the second circle. Francesca da Rimini’s ghost visits Dante to explain how she cheated on her arranged marriage with a dashing young man named Paolo.
The third circle is where Dante finally comes, and it’s raining cold, dirty water on gluttons. After Dante meets the notorious Florentine glutton Ciacco, Ciacco tells Dante that Florence is doomed. In the fourth circle, where the Avaricious and the Prodigal roll enormous weights in a never-ending circle, Virgil leads Dante. The fifth circle, where the Wrathful and the Sullen are submerged in the River Styx, is the next stop on tour. As they make their way across the Styx, a sinner named Filippo Argenti reaches out to Dante, seemingly in an attempt to beg for assistance, but Dante treats him with contempt. Virgil now plans to negotiate with the demons guarding the entrance to Dis. He has an abrupt failure. Dante and Virgil can only proceed with their journey once an angel comes to open the gates. After making their way through Dis, our daring couple reaches the sixth circle, where the Heretics’ tombs are located. Dante’s exiled companion, Farinata degli Uberti, warns him that returning to Florence will be difficult.
Virgil describes the topography of Hell as the condemned enter the seventh and final circle of punishment for their violent deeds. A quick categorization of sins reveals that they all fall into one of three broad categories: incontinence (or lack of self-control), violence, and lying. Dante’s recollections span only the first category. All violent sinners will be relegated to the seventh circle. In the outermost two circles, you’ll find all the people who have committed low-level, covert fraud.
Dante and Virgil have reached the eighth circle and are about to enter. Dante ties a cord around the beast Geryon’s waist at Virgil’s request and instructs him. Dante is warned to keep an eye out for the final violent sinner while Virgil stays to chat with the beast. Dante rides Geryon to the eighth circle when he returns. Every one of the ten sinners in the pouches around the eighth ring represents a unique category of sinner. With the encouragement of Virgil, Dante finally works up the nerve to speak to one of the simonists when they reach the third pouch, where sinners who use their money to move up in the Church are burned at the feet and buried headfirst. The soul of Pope Nicholas III assumes Dante is his successor because it cannot see Dante. Dante’s worst enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, is sent there to take his place as a form of divine retribution.
In the fifth pouch, Dante and Virgil witness corrupt politicians being thrown into a river of boiling pitch; Virgil musters the courage to approach the cruel demons and ask for safe passage across the river. God sent Malacoda, and once he realized it, he informed Virgil that the nearest bridge was gone. When Malacoda reaches the next bridge, he summons ten more demons to help him cross.
To escape the demons, Dante and Virgil retreat to the sixth pouch. They encounter hypocrites forced to take a public stand in their heavy lead robes. After chatting with a few of them, Virgil inquires about the location of the subsequent pouch. Thieves are particularly vulnerable to snake bites in the valley of the sixth pouch, where the venom will turn them to ash. One of the sinners, Vanni Fucci, tells Dante he is in Hell because he stole holy relics. Snakes kidnap Fucci after he spits on and insults Dante.
The eighth pouch is on fire and full of dishonest advisors, so our heroes rush in. Ulysses and Diomedes share a fiery tongue as Ulysses tells Dante his story of sin. Ulysses, whose epic quest is chronicled in Homer’s Odyssey, was understandably resentful toward his homeland and family upon his return. They were brave explorers who met their end in a raging whirlpool beneath Mount Purgatory.
Dante sees the scandal, and the schism sowers healed and punished again, forever, by a demon wielding a sword in the ninth pouch. Dante is so disturbed by the contents of the tenth and final pouch that he covers his ears to muffle the groans from within. In the tenth pouch, the counterfeiter will face four different consequences. As they leave, Virgil explains that the giants who had done wrong were imprisoned nearby. Nimrod, the man responsible for the Tower of Babel, is incapable of using comprehensible language. His words carry no weight. After the giants are freed, Virgil requests that Antaneus, one of the giants, hold them in his hand as they are lowered into the lowest level of Hell. The answer is yes, according to him.
In the ninth circle of Hell, four punishments are reserved for traitors. Caina, after whom it is named, depicts a family’s betrayers frozen to death. In the second zone, Antenora, where traitors are punished the same way, Bocca degli Abati provokes a fight with Dante. Then Dante does a bizarre and violent act. Then he travels to Ptolomea, the third zone, where the guests’ betrayers have been frozen, and their tears have become stuck in their eyes. One has promised to unfreeze Dante’s eyes if the other tells Dante his story. Dante learns that this sin is so great that the sinner’s soul goes to Hell before his body dies on Earth and that Fra Alberigo, himself a sinner, agrees. Dante finally confronts Lucifer, the giant with three heads who rules Hell, in the fourth and final zone, Judecca, where patrons’ traitors are punished. It’s safe to say that Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are three of the worst sinners in history. Lucifer automatically digests them.
Virgil tells Dante that they have seen everything there is to see in Hell and that it is time for them to leave. Dante clings to Virgil’s back as the two of them make their way to the southern hemisphere by descending the vast body of Lucifer, which is the diameter of the entire planet. Virgil and Dante return to Earth and stand outside under the night sky.
Dante’s “Inferno” can be seen as a metaphor for the struggles of aging in America. The nine circles of Hell in the poem represent the stages of aging and the various challenges one will face as one age. Each level of Hell is populated by people who have committed specific sins and are suffering the consequences of their mistakes; this is similar to how aging can be seen as a punishment for the errors and wrongs of our past. Additionally, the poem highlights the sense of isolation and loneliness that often comes with aging, as the characters are all isolated from each other and forced to endure the consequences of their actions alone. Finally, the poem serves as a reminder to be mindful of our choices and actions in life, as the effects of those decisions can have a lasting impact.
Works Cited
Dante, A., & Carson, C. (2013). Inferno. London: Penguin Classics.