As cultures are mainly divided into collectivistic and individualistic, members tend to emphasize, through communication, either their position as part of their group or their independence from the group. This emphasis is manifested in using the pragmatic concepts of positive politeness and negative politeness. The present study looks into the reflection of these two cultures in Rockstar’s renowned video game, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). It aims at identifying the two cultures as present in the game and showing their significance to its narrative. It fills the gap in the studies of language used within video games as well as its cultural reflections. The study addresses the following question: What are the positive and negative politeness strategies used in Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), and what are the implications of using these strategies in its narrative? By adopting Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, the researcher analyzed the positive and negative politeness used in the scripted dialogue of the in-game cutscenes through the mixed methods approach. The researcher hypothesized that the protagonist shows adherence to a collectivistic culture using positive politeness, and he begins transitioning towards an individualistic culture using negative politeness. The results showed that 75% of the protagonist’s interactions contained positive politeness while only 25% contained negative politeness. This transition explains the protagonist’s loss of trust and loyalty to his group as he begins to witness the futility of maintaining such loyalty. It also supports the overall narrative of the game as well as its cultural foundations.
The culture of theatre performance has a vital role in the process of reading the linguistic and visual signs of the performance. And the process of transforming a theatre performance from its original context into a new hosting cultural context starts from the actual reading of the text. Directors derives their new signs out of his personal culture, depending on the society where they lives and the culture that forms the social conventions, traditions and beliefs. The text is usually written within its own historical and temporal culture. The process of its production usually takes it away from its original culture, when it interprets the codes of the original writer and their visual and linguistic signs and instils new alternative sign
... Show MoreSurface water samples from different locations within Tigris River's boundaries in Baghdad city have been analyzed for drinking purposes. Correlation coefficients among different parameters were determined. An attempt has been made to develop linear regression equations to predict the concentration of water quality constituents having significant correlation coefficients with electrical conductivity (EC). This study aims to find five regression models produced and validated using electrical conductivity as a predictor to predict total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), and total dissolved solids (TDS). The five models showed good/excellent prediction ability of the parameters mentioned above, which is a very
... Show MoreBackground: Cystinosis is a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disease with high morbidity and mortality. It is caused by mutations in the CTNS gene that encodes the cystine transporter, cystinosin, which leads to lysosomal cystine accumulation. It is the major cause of inherited Fanconi syndrome, and should be suspected in young children with failure to thrive and signs of renal proximal tubular damage. The diagnosis can be missed in infants, because not all signs of renal Fanconi syndrome are present during the first months of life. Elevated white blood cell cystine content is the cornerstone of the diagnosis. Since chitotriosidase (CHIT1 or chitinase-1) is mainly produced by activated macrophages both in normal and inflammator
... Show MoreSurface water samples from different locations within Tigris River's boundaries in Baghdad city have been analyzed for drinking purposes. Correlation coefficients among different parameters were determined. An attempt has been made to develop linear regression equations to predict the concentration of water quality constituents having significant correlation coefficients with electrical conductivity (EC). This study aims to find five regression models produced and validated using electrical conductivity as a predictor to predict total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), and total dissolved solids (TDS). The five models showed good/excellent prediction ability of the parameters mentioned
... Show MoreAfter 2003, Iraq witnessed new challenges represented by the predominance of sectarian discourses, hatred and extremism at the expense of moderate political discourse and the predominance of sub-affiliations and external agendas at the expense of national affiliation, which led to the creation of an unsafe or stable environment dominated by the character of violence and terrorism. Moderate discourse would work to fuse sub-affiliations into one melting pot in which it would be the first loyalty to the homeland and not to the tribe, party or sect... Etc., and this in turn will contribute to promoting peaceful coexistence between the various other sub-affiliations within the framework of one community construction
Separation of Trigonelline, the major alkaloid in fenugreek seeds, is difficult because the extract of these seeds usually contains Trigonelline, choline, mucilage, and steroidal saponins, in addition to some other substances. This study amis to isolate the quaternary ammonium alkaloid (Trigonelline) and choline from fenugreek seeds (Trigonella-foenum graecum L.) which have similar physiochemical properties by modifying of the classical method. Seeds were defatted and then extracted with methanol. The presence of alkaloids was detected by using Mayer's and Dragendorff's reagents. In this work, trigonilline was isolated with traces of choline by subsequent processes of purification using analytical and preparative TLC techniques.
... Show MoreIn this work magnetite/geopolymer composite (MGP) were synthesized using a chemical co-precipitation technique. The synthesized materials were characterized using several techniques such as: “X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), vibrating sample-magnetometer (VSM), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and Barrentt-Joyner-Halenda (BJH)” to determine the structure and morphology of the obtained material. The analysis indicated that metal oxide predominantly appeared at the shape of the spinel structure of magnetite, and that the presence of nano-magnetite had a substantial impact on the surface area and pore st
... Show MoreFuzzy logic is used to solve the load flow and contingency analysis problems, so decreasing computing time and its the best selection instead of the traditional methods. The proposed method is very accurate with outstanding computation time, which made the fuzzy load flow (FLF) suitable for real time application for small- as well as large-scale power systems. In addition that, the FLF efficiently able to solve load flow problem of ill-conditioned power systems and contingency analysis. The FLF method using Gaussian membership function requires less number of iterations and less computing time than that required in the FLF method using triangular membership function. Using sparsity technique for the input Ybus sparse matrix data gi
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