Gender and language in sub-Saharan African contexts: Issues and challenges

In this paper, we examine a range of issues associated with the study of gender and language in sub-Saharan African contexts. These include whether (and in what sense) such contexts may constitute a ‘special case’, the relevance of feminism, and what might be encompassed by ‘context’, ‘African contexts’ and ‘African topics’ – and a substantial amount of what we write is relevant to Applied Linguistics in Africa more broadly (see Makoni and Meinhof 2004 for a discussion). We argue that while all the gender issues are of interest and importance to language and gender study in general, it is possible to see some of these issues as ‘characteristic’ of African contexts (albeit with ‘echoes’ elsewhere). It will be evident from this first paper (and those which follow) that along with taking on board commonalities in terms of the theoretical notions used in our field in African and non-African contexts, there is also a need to recognise a range of situated understandings of gender identities, gender relations, understandings of gender more broadly, and feminism

Note and Comment

Power of Municipal Corporations to Grant Exclusive Privileges; Police Regulation of Sleeping Car Berths; The Liability of a Husband for Slander and Libel Committed by His Wife; Sufficiency of a Verdict Which Fails to Fix the Time of an Attempt to Commit Burglary, the Punishment Varying With the Time; Grantor\u27s Remedy on Breach of Condition Subsequent

Book Reviews

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, The Spirits of the Common Law, for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the \u27common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). Pluralistic, because, unlike those nineteenth-century philosophers who tried to make legal history stand for the unfolding of a single idea-rational will (Hegel), popular spirit (Savigny, Puchta)-Dean Pound finds a number of ideas which have contributed to the spirit of the common law

Note and Comment

The Corporation Tax Decision; The Rights of Passengers in an Unregistered Automobile; Expert Testimony in Michigan; Federal Supreme Court\u27s Jurisdiction Unalterable

Recent Legal Literature

Abbott: Brief upon the Pleadings in Civil Actions, at Law in Equity, and under the New Procedure; McMaster: McMaster\u27s Irregular and Regular Commercial Paper; American State Reports, vols. 93 and 94

Global 3-D Land-Ocean-Atmosphere Model for Mercury: Present-Day Versus Preindustrial Cycles and Anthropogenic Enrichment Factors for Deposition

We develop a mechanistic representation of land-atmosphere cycling in a global 3-D ocean-atmosphere model of mercury (GEOS-Chem). The resulting land-ocean-atmosphere model is used to construct preindustrial and present biogeochemical cycles of mercury, to examine the legacy of past anthropogenic emissions, to map anthropogenic enrichment factors for deposition, and to attribute mercury deposition in the United States. Land emission in the model includes prompt recycling of recently deposited mercury (600 Mg a−1 for present day), soil volatilization (550 Mg a−1), and evapotranspiration (550 Mg a−1). The spatial distribution of soil concentrations is derived from local steady state between land emission and deposition in the preindustrial simulation, augmented for the present day by a 15% increase in the soil reservoir distributed following the pattern of anthropogenic deposition. Mercury deposition and hence emission are predicted to be highest in the subtropics. Our atmospheric lifetime of mercury against deposition (0.50 year) is shorter than past estimates because of our accounting of Hg(0) dry deposition, but recycling from surface reservoirs results in an effective lifetime of 1.6 years against transfer to long-lived reservoirs in the soil and deep ocean. Present-day anthropogenic enrichment of mercury deposition exceeds a factor of 5 in continental source regions. We estimate that 68% of the deposition over the United States is anthropogenic, including 20% from North American emissions (20% primary and <1% recycled through surface reservoirs), 31% from emissions outside North America (22% primary and 9% recycled), and 16% from the legacy of anthropogenic mercury accumulated in soils and the deep ocean.Earth and Planetary SciencesEngineering and Applied Science

Modelling the mercury stable isotope distribution of Earth surface reservoirs: Implications for global Hg cycling

Mercury (Hg) stable isotopes are useful to understand Hg biogeochemical cycling because physical, chemical and biological processes cause characteristic Hg isotope mass-dependent (MDF) and mass-independent (MIF) fractionation. Here, source Hg isotope signatures and process-based isotope fractionation factors are integrated into a fully coupled, global atmospheric-terrestrial-oceanic box model of MDF (delta Hg-202), odd-MIF (Delta Hg-199) and even-MIF (Delta Hg-200). Using this bottom-up approach, we find that the simulated Hg isotope compositions are inconsistent with the observations. We then fit the Hg isotope enrichment factors for MDF, odd-MIF and even-MIF to observational Hg isotope constraints. The MDF model suggests that atmospheric Hg-0 photo-oxidation should enrich heavy Hg isotopes in the reactant Hg-0, in contrast to the experimental observations of Hg-0 photo-oxidation by Br. The fitted enrichment factor of terrestrial Hg-0 emission in the odd-MIF model (5 parts per thousand) is likely biased high, suggesting that the terrestrial Hg-0 emission flux (160 Mg yr(-1)) used in our standard model is underestimated. In the even-MIF model, we find that a small positive atmospheric Hg-0 photo-oxidation enrichment factor (0.22 parts per thousand) along with enhanced atmospheric Hg-II photo-reduction and atmospheric Hg-0 dry deposition (foliar uptake) fluxes to the terrestrial reservoir are needed to match Delta Hg-200 observations. Marine Hg isotope measurements are needed to further expand the use of Hg isotopes in understanding global Hg cycling. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Note and Comment

Carriers - Second Cummins Amendment - It was seven years after the Carmack Amendment of the Hepburn Act of i9o6 before the Supreme Court began that series of decisions, extending from Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491 (1913), to George N. Pierce Co. v. Wells, Fargo & Co., 236 U. S. 278 (1915), which directly resulted in the First Cummins Amendment of March, 1915. One has only to read those cases, reviewed in 13 Micn. L. REv. 59o, and other notes referred to in 17 MICH. L. Rzv. 183, to see that the language of the Cummins Amendment was framed expressly to undo the interpretations of the court on the Carmack Amendment, and make the liability of the car\u27-ier just what during the years 19o6-1912 it had generally been understood the Carmack Amendment intended it to be. Indeed, from the decision of New Jersey Steam Navigation Co. v. Merchants Bank, 6 How. (U. S.) 344 (1848), to the present day there has been a contest between the courts and legislatures as to what should be the law of liability of common carriers, the courts through one device or another opening a way of escape for the carrier from the strict common law liability, and the legislatures, state and federal, passing statute after statute to bring the law back to its pristine simplicity and strictness