Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 224-234).

Small-talk, flattery, teasing, ridicule, threats or insults are part of the daily fabric of consumers life. This dissertation is concerned with the way consumers behave toward others depending on how they are treated themselves. Pay-it-forward is the notion that a person who is treated well by someone should be nice toward others (and conversely, a person who is treated badly may treat other people badly in turn). The present research proposes and shows that the pay-it-forward mechanism does not always occur; in fact, under certain circumstances consumers behave in a manner that contradicts it. Although research has begun to explore social influences on consumer behavior, to date a coherent theoretical account of how social treatment (i.e., the way a person acts toward another individual during a social encounter) influences consumers is lacking. This thesis offers a theoretical framework for the impact of social treatments, and tests it in four scenario-based experiments and two field studies. Results provide support for the proposed conceptual model, indicating that two dimensions of social treatment (affiliation: friendliness vs. hostility; and relevance for self-assessment: high vs. low) interactively influence consumers likelihood to engage in socially-elevating behaviors (i.e. helping another consumer, picking up the tab when dining out with others, returning money to a salesperson who accidentally gives them too much change back for a purchase). Process evidence for the underlying roles of positive/negative affect and perceived social efficacy is provided. The dissertation addresses the implications of these findings to existing theory, and identifies avenues for future research. / Marketing

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Sustained academic and popular interest in the Holocaust depends largely on the ability of educators to communicate its universality. At Holocaust memorials around the world, educators make strategic rhetorical choices in pursuit of this imperative. However, as communicators present narratives, documentation, and visual rhetoric at memorials, they filter each message through a unique cultural lens. This unavoidable human tendency raises questions concerning the degree to which culture shapes Holocaust narratives. Given that Holocaust memorials may offer pivot insights into modern and future genocides, cultural influences on Holocaust rhetoric seem worthy of renewed evaluation. Burke's dramatistic pentad provides a valuable tool with which a scholar can evaluate the rhetoric at Holocaust memorials. The pentad preserves unique facets of the communication acts, enabling a rhetor to identify differences between the memorials, while providing a universally applicable framework through which to view the memorials. This pentadic analysis reveals that Holocaust memorials address many of the same universal questions. The answers to these questions, however, depend on the culture surrounding the memorial. Such a finding seems to indicate that a global event such as the Holocaust will stimulate the same questions in citizens across a variety of cultures, but that citizens will reach different conclusions about the event based on the influences of their culture.

Aircraft with advanced wing geometry, like the flying wing or blended wing body configuration, seems to be the seed candidate of future aircraft. Compared with conventional aircraft, there are significant aerodynamic performance improvements because of its highly integrated wing and fuselage configuration. On the other hand, due to its tailless configuration, the stability characteristics are not as good as conventional aircraft. The research aims to compare the aerodynamic and stability characteristics of conventional, flying wing and blended wing body aircraft. Based on the same requirement—250 passenger capability and 7,500 nautical miles range, three different configurations—conventional, flying wing and blended wing body options were provided to make direct comparison. The research contains four parts. In the first part, the aerodynamic characteristics were compared using empirical equation ESDU datasheet and Vortex-Lattice Method based AVL software. In the second part, combined with the aerodynamic data and output mass data from other team member, the stability characteristics were analysed. The stability comparison contains longitudinal, lateral-directional static stability and dynamic stability. In the third part, several geometry parameters were varied to investigate the influence on the aerodynamic and stability characteristics of blended wing body configuration. In the last part, a special case has been explored in an attempt to improve the static stability by changing geometry parameters. The process shows that the design of blended wing body is really complex since the closely coupling of several parameters.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how personal relationships in a Creole society, including the one with art, might influence the main character Edna Pontellier's search for personal freedom in Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899). The essay discusses, on the one hand, Edna's female relationships with Adele Ratignolle and Mlle. Reisz, and on the other hand her relationships with the three men Léonce Pontellier, Robert Lebrun and Alcée Arobin. In the novel Edna struggles to be a "mother woman" like Adele but also the opposite, that is to try to become an artist and an independent woman like Mlle. Reisz. Because of Edna's different relationships she starts to question her life situation. This essay concludes that Edna has ambiguous feelings within herself and that these feelings derive from the different personalities that she socializes with.

Le Phédon de Platon raconte la mort de Socrate. Ce récit est l'occasion pour Platon d'exposer sa théorie de l'immortalité de l'âme. Platon va développer une théorie de l'âme en lien avec sa philosophie morale. L'élaboration de cette théorie l'amène à aborder le domaine du religieux et du spirituel. La pensée sur la mort, sujet principal de l'oeuvre, est une pleine reconstruction de la doctrine implicite des Mystères et à ce titre, elle ne peut être considérée comme une pure démythologisation. Platon transpose les préoccupations des Mystères du plan de la révélation sur le plan de la rationalité. C'est en fait toute une reconstruction de la pensée grecque que Platon érige sur des bases se rapportant aux Mystères. Cette transposition s'effectue à plusieurs niveaux. La doctrine de la réincarnation est transposée par Platon par la doctrine de la palingénésie. Les âmes ne font plus que transmigrer, elles naissent des morts. Platon reprend le modèle de l'ascèse de l'initié pour le transposer en modèle de vie philosophique. La purification rituelle de l'orphisme est transposée par une purification de l'âme pour assurer son détachement au corps dans lequel elle est emprisonnée. Les dieux, contrairement à leur pouvoir dans l'orphisme, ne peuvent être influencés par des rituels. Et finalement, le discours mythique des mystères est transformé par le discours philosophique. En reprenant ces différents thèmes orphiques du Phédon, nous voyons comment Platon réussit à transcender les mystères et les mythes pour en faire des outils philosophiques. Notre travail porte donc sur le discours religieux que l'on retrouve dans le Phédon, et propose plus particulièrement une discussion sur l'influence de l'orphisme dans la théorie de l'immortalité de l'âme de Platon. Le but général de notre étude est de discuter de l'apport orphique dans les idées de Platon. La preuve que Platon est influencé par l'orphisme constitue un argument complexe, auquel notre mémoire voudrait contribuer. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Platon, Phédon, Orphisme, Mythe, Théogonie, Palingénésie, Réincarnation, Purification, Ascèse, Philosophie, Eschatologie.

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Several researches asserts that as teachers are responsible for the content of teaching and by formulating teaching "Why, ""How" and "What", that will also give signals to students about what is important knowledge. This essay addresses the difficulties teachers may face in terms of self-disclosure student texts and awareness of this in the design of teaching and writing tasks. Research shows that self-disclosure and self-therapy student texts exist and that teachers are experiencing a difficulty with regard to assessment and treatment. Through qualitative interviews examined seven teachers' design of any, to the student, self-disclosure information from curriculum and policy documents. Another purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which teachers, through the information they give to their pupils, may affect the texts students submit.   It turns out that the respondents are united in the belief that they, through their data, may affect the texts they receive from their students when they are the ones that control the content of teaching, and they agree that the curricula gives them a great choice for design data. The survey shows that the perception of the curriculum that will open up for self-disclosure texts differ as some of the respondents believe that the curriculum is very much about the students way to express feelings and opinions, while others believe that they may try to package this data in another purpose or exercise. This essay shows that there are different approaches on self-disclosure students texts, some encouraging these texts and others are trying to stay more neutral in the choice of writing topics.

Abstract Acquiring communicative competence and the ability to communicate in writing are essential goals for second language learners and of the highest importance to achieving educational success.  Opportunities to express ideas in writing are essential for students’ language development. Learners therefore need to be encouraged to take the risk of making errors in order to be able to express ideas, thoughts and knowledge with enthusiasm. This thesis defines and investigates some important factors contributing to the development of communicative competence and performance in the context of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).  The main aim of the study is to focus on how Swedish learners make use of their first language (L1) as a cognitive and strategic source in their written English communication.  Cross-linguistic influence, or transfer errors, from Swedish in the written English of high school students are taken from samples of writing from the Uppsala Learner English Corpus (ULEC).  The study evaluates the potential of transfer from the L1 to either facilitate or inhibit the communicative purpose, i.e., ‘getting the message across’. The most serious errors in the data were found to result in confusing, inappropriate or incomprehensible structures.  Finally, the study draws attention to some aspects of communicative language teaching and learning that teachers should be aware of in the development and assessment of students’ communicative ability in written performance. The study found that negative language transfer was found to affect communication to various degrees of seriousness but could at times also be considered a useful and necessary strategy for getting a message across.  Transfer errors were often idiosyncratic and were most frequent among males between 16-17 years-old enrolled in vocational programmes.  Prepositional transfer errors were the most common, however; incorrectly used lexical items, in particular, false friends and other vocabulary substitutions, as well as literal translations of phrases and idiomatic expressions potentially resulted in the most serious errors.  Word order errors also interfered substantially with the message in many cases.  On the other hand, grammatical transfer errors such as incorrect us of articles, pluralisation and verb tense generally did not change the meaning to any greater extent.  In fact, transfer errors can be communicative as long as the message gets across.