The Influence of Television Commercials on Clothing in India

In this article I aim to show that there are some major changes in India because of television regarding clothing. Whilst there is cultural fusion of Indian and western style clothing, this fusion is happening in different ways for different groups. Status in clothing (Campbell 49) is also reflecting other divides. The way that people respond to what they see on television commercials may depend on their gender, age, class or whether they live in a rural or urban context. The research is based on a ten year project which began with in-depth ethnography conducted in India. Most of the research was conducted in the North East of India, though some was conducted in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. The ethnography included living with Indian families for long periods of time (ranging from six weeks to six months). Other research methods were also used including questionnaires, interviews and focus discussion groups

Human vocal tract growth: A longitudinal study of the development of various anatomical structures

International audienceThe growth of the head and neck and its components, including that of the vocal tract, is not homothetic but appears rather as an anamorphosis. The growth of various structures presents a phenomenon of heterochrony. Another important issue in vocal tract growth is sexual dimorphism. It was first claimed that sexual dimorphism appears at puberty, but a recent study has suggested that some prepubertal differences exist. To study these two phenomena, we used longitudinal radiographic data of sixty-eight typical subjects (966 radiographs, taken from 1 month to 25 years) and twelve fetuses (anatomical sections). In this study, we analyzed the growth curves and growth types of the hard and soft palate, the pharyngeal cavity and the estimated length of the whole vocal tract using non-linear mixed-effect models, in order to take advantage of our unique longitudinal dataset. Results indicate that most of the structures follow a neural/somatic growth type, while the pharyngeal cavity follows a more somatic growth type. As concerns sexual dimor-phism, no prepubertal differences were found, suggesting that the sexual dimorphism is likely to begin at puberty. These results have implications for the acoustics of speech production during development and should lead to improvements in vocal tract growth modeling

Enhancing preschoolers’ understanding about story structure.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect on preschool aged children of an intervention reinforcing comprehension of the structural framework of stories, so that they can produce their own stories. The sample consisted of 78 children, ages 4-6. The sample was separated into two groups, one experimental and one control group. The children in the experimental group were taught how to create original fictional stories through a multilevel intervention programme. During sessions, well-structured books were used that had very well-structured contents and an instructional strategy was implemented on five levels (creating prior knowledge, discussion, modelling, monitoring the process and producing stories). The children in the control group were read the same books and a discussion followed on the interesting parts of the stories. The results showed that the intervention programme significantly improved the children’s ability to understand the structural elements of a story and to generate comprehensible and organised fictional stories

Blurring or shifting boundaries? Concepts of culture in Turkish–German migrant cinema

This paper aims to explore the developments of different concepts of culture in Turkish–German Migrant Cinema before and after German Unification. Key questions addressed will be: 1. How do these films express cultural differences and to what extent does this representation follow traditional concepts of culture? 2. How is the interconnectedness of cultures articulated and how far does this relate to current notions of interculturalism and transculturalism? 3. Which are the key differences of former migrants’ cinematic representations in pre- and post-unified Germany? Unlike common perceptions, this paper will argue that most films, including productions by celebrated directors such as Fatih Akın, continue to draw on traditional concepts of culture that break with the strong transcultural perspectives voiced by the same directors. While there is a development from rather separatist multicultural and intercultural representations in Turkish–German cinema before Unification towards more interconnected transcultural portrayals in post-Unification films, many contemporary productions maintain monocultural perspectives. All this seems to follow trends originating from German Cinema about migrants but there is also evidence that a traditional concept of ‘Kanaken’ culture developed in and disseminated via Migrant Literature and Cinema has made its way into German film