Canadian political culture

Canadian political culture Political culture is the shared opinions, values, and attitudes of people about politics. There are several similarities between the political cultures of Europe and North American countries. Most of the countries in these regions emphasize on constitutional law, regional autonomy, freedom of religion, and personal liberty.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Canadian political culture specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Some of the political ideologies originated from the French civil law, British common law, and the North American aboriginal regime. The Canadian government has set some goals that determine how it functions. These goals include the need to maintain peace, order, and good governance and are generally based on the Canadian political culture. The Canadian politics are encompassed of loyalty, tolerance, and compromise. The changes in the Canadian political atmosphere have been quite slow with a lot of negotiat ions and compromise compared to other nations. The most important political culture of Canada is democracy. Its citizens elect most political leaders. This popular sovereignty is only carried out during elections and when conducting national referenda. There are minimal referenda that have been carried out in Canada since the inception of democracy. The most common ones are the 1898 referendum on prohibition, the 1942 referendum on conscription, and the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. Elections are carried out periodically and all the citizens of Canada are treated as equals during elections. Political freedom is exercised in Canada. A person is free to join any political party of interested. Every individual has the freedom to share personal political thoughts, expressions, opinions, beliefs, and conscience. In addition, the freedom of the press is also exercised.Advertising Looking for essay on political culture? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first pa per with 15% OFF Learn More Canadian constitution allows individuals to assemble provided that peace is maintained since the freedom of association is guaranteed in the constitution. This demonstrates the democratic nature of Canada. The Canadian politics are based on the majority rule whereby an individual who garners the largest number of votes becomes the political leader. However, the constitution protects the rights of minority groups. Other special groups that are protected by the constitution include the aborigines and women. The Canadian political values are quite different from those of the United States. For instance, the United States’ political culture revolves around liberty, pursuit of life and happiness, while the Canadian political culture focuses on good governance, peace, and order. This has resulted into the continental divide due to the differences in ideologies. The U.S. came into existence because of the revolutions against Britain. This made its political culture to be based on suspicion and individual freedom. Canadians are group-oriented and they believe in collective responsibility. Their origin can be traced back from the original French settlers. They are peaceful people bearing in min that they never formed any rebellion against the British. Other major communities in Canada are refugees from North America who fled during the era of revolution. These differences make Canada to be unique due to its corporatist and collectivist nature. However, the new generation in Canada is not in good terms with the current government. This has resulted into reduced party loyalty, civil rights movements, and low voter turnout during elections. Generally, Canadians are cautious, nonviolent, diffident, dependent, and tolerant society. Most of them observe individualism, egalitarianism, and particularism. The government of Canada is a constitutional monarchy. Besides, the form of government is federal in nature. The systems of law used in Canada are both the common and the civil law. Its ties with Britain are very strong since they share a queen. The queen exercises her powers through the governor who is the overall political leader in Canada.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Canadian political culture specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More

Definition and Examples of Linguists

Definition and Examples of Linguists A linguist is a specialist in linguisticsthat is, the study of language. Also known as a  linguistic scientist or a linguistician. Linguists examine the structures of languages and the principles that underlie those structures. They study human speech as well as written documents. Linguists are not necessarily polyglots (i.e., people who speak many different languages). Examples and Observations Some believe that a linguist is a person who speaks several languages fluently. Others believe that linguists are language experts who can help you decide whether it is better to say It is I or It is me. Yet it is quite possible to be a professional linguist (and an excellent one at that) without having taught a single language class, without having interpreted at the UN, and without speaking any more than one language.What is linguistics, then? Fundamentally, the field is concerned with the nature of language and (linguistic) communication.(Adrian Akmajian, Richard Demerts, Ann Farmer, and Robert Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. MIT Press, 2001)Subfields of Linguistics- Linguists spend their time studying what language is and what it does. Different linguists study language in different ways. Some study the design features that the grammars of all the worlds languages share. Some study the differences among languages. Some linguists focus on struc ture, others on meaning. Some study language in the head, some study language in society.(James Paul Gee, Literacy and Education. Routledge, 2015)- Linguists study many facets of language: how sounds are produced and heard in physical acts of speech, conversational interaction, the different uses of language by men and women and different social classes, the relation of language to the functions of the brain and memory, how languages develop and change, and the uses of language by machines to store and reproduce language.(William Whitla, The English Handbook. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) Linguists as Scientists- Like a biologist studying the structure of cells, a linguist studies the structure of language: how speakers create meaning through combinations of sounds, words, and sentences that ultimately result in textsextended stretches of language (e.g. a conversation between friends, a speech, an article in a newspaper). Like other scientists, linguists examine their subject matterlanguageobjectively. They are not interested in evaluating good versus bad uses of language, in much the same manner that a biologist does not examine cells with the goal of determining which are pretty and which are ugly.(Charles F. Meyer, Introducing English Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2010)- The  important point to remember about the complex sets of relationships and rules known as phonology, syntax, and semantics is that they are all involved in the modern linguists approach to describing the grammar of a language.(Marian R. Whitehead, Language Literacy in the Early Year s 0-7. Sage, 2010) Ferdinand de Saussure on the System of a LanguageThe pioneer linguist Ferdinand de Saussure criticized scholars who studied the history of a part of a language, dissociated from the whole to which it belongs. He insisted that linguists should study the complete system of a language at some point in time, and then examine how the entire system changes over time. Saussures pupil Antoine Meillet (1926: 16) is responsible for the aphorism: une langue constitue un systà ¨me complexe de moyens dexpression, systà ¨me oà ¹ tout se tient (a language makes up a complex system of means of expression, a system in which everything holds together). Scientific linguistics who produce comprehensive grammars of languages naturally follow this tenet. (Proponents of formal theories, who look at isolated bits of language for some particular issue, naturally contravene this fundamental principle.)(R. M. W. Dixon, Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 1: Methodology. Oxford University Press, 2009) Pronunciation: LING-gwist