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No description available.

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In this comparative study of the expression of futurity in the Spanish of Mexicans in the United States and the sociolinguistically understudied city of Xalapa, Mexico, I explore the distribution of the variants of futurity: the morphological future (MF), the periphrastic future (PF) and the simple present (SP) and the constraints conditioning their occurrence. The data were extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with two socially stratified groups of consultants from each community under study. I conducted statistical regression analyses to test the effects of five social and nine linguistic constraints. The results indicate that the PF registers the highest rate of occurrence with a frequency of 67.6% and the MF is disappearing at the expense of the other variants. In comparison to other studies, Orozco (2007a), Lastra & Martín Butragueño (2010), Claes & Ortíz-López (2011), Gutiérrez (1995) and Blas Arroyo (2007, 2008) found that the PF is the most favored variant at the expense of the others. When comparing the tendencies of these communities with those under study, it becomes apparent that the Mexicans in Baton Rouge and Xalapa are at a more advanced level toward the preferential use of the PF. The type of verb, as reported in previous studies (cf. Orozco 2005, 2007), is the linguistic constraint that most strongly influences the expression of futurity. Regarding the social constraints, in Louisiana and Xalapa, for example, both age and level of education condition the use of the future. Gender, however, shows no significant effect, which differs from what occurs in Barranquilla and New York (Orozco 2007b, Forthcoming), Mexico City (Lastra & Martín Butragueño 2010) and Puerto Rico (Claes & Ortíz López 2011). In general, the significant linguistic factors are consistent with the findings of other speech communities with regard to the type of verb and reflect the universality of the process of grammaticalization. The lack of statistical significance for gender suggests that women and men have similar sociolinguistic behavior. This opens the possibility of exploring other linguistic variables in these and other Mexican communities to determine whether the social trends that are found are limited to the expression of futurity or to the communities under study.

Inward investment is vital to the economic life of both the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China. By injecting capital from overseas, it generates exports, creates jobs, and brings advanced technology and new management styles. Legal regulations and government policies in this regard are always geared to reflect a balance between encouraging foreign business activities and maintaining certain degrees of control upon them. Based on expertise and experience that history shows, the United Kingdom offers an environment under which foreign investors can benefit from a rather complete legal framework. China today is also an attractive place for overseas capital, as its virtually limitless market is now becoming increasingly open to the world. This thesis is designed to examine the structure and performance of respective legal regulations concerning inward investment in the United Kingdom and China. With a view of gaining enlightenment from each other's experience, the thesis identifies and compares the following aspects which are of close relevance to inward investment issues, including basic structure of investment market, adoption of investment vehicles, roles of financial markets, real estate investment, taxation of investment behaviour, and settlement of disputes by arbitration. It is proposed that the analysis, materials and conclusions of this research may orientate foreign investors to get a deeper understanding about the UK investment market, and equally enable them to target their Chinese business in a more effective way.

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No description available.