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Peter Singer's Animal Liberation: A Case For The Equal Consideration Of All Animals And New Understanding Of Non-Persons
Get PDFIn Animal Liberation, Peter Singer makes an interesting case for the equal consideration of all animals by employing Jeremy Bentham’s capacity to suffer. This article analyzes the specific argument he makes by reconstructing its premises, and then goes on to explain how the current treatment of animals is not only immoral and cruel, but also inconsistent with our treatment of humans. Then finally it explains how Singer’s reluctance to offer personhood to animals actually makes his case stronger by giving his opponents less ground to argue and manages to prove his case without having to resort to previous, flawed arguments
The Perception of Quantifier Raising in Japanese-English Bilinguals
Get PDFThis paper was originally written for Dr. Heather Bliss’s Linguistics 282W course, Writing for Linguistics. The assignment asked students to expand on a previous writing exercise into a short experimental paper, with a research question, methodology, and results included accordingly. The paper uses APA citation style.
Semantically, there is scope ambiguity in the way sentences are formed. For example, the phrase “three girls petted every cat” can yield two meanings: either the three girls combined petted every cat as the surface scope, or each of the three girls petted every single cat as the inverse scope. This phenomenon is referred to as Quantifier Raising (QR) (May, 1977), and although it is well-documented for in English, QR is not a universal phenomenon. Some believe that Japanese does not exhibit QR (Hoji & Kuroda, 1998), while others assert otherwise (Han et al., 2009; Tanaka & Kizu, 2012). Yet, if QR is established in English, then the knowledge of a language with QR may influence the acceptability of scope interpretations in Japanese-English bilinguals. Thus, this study aims to answer the following research question: to what extent does Japanese-English bilingualism affect the perception of QR movement in Japanese? Two bilingual speakers of English and Japanese were recruited for an oral translation task in which target sentences that exhibited QR in English were elicited in Japanese. Discourse contexts were visually presented using diagrams to describe the intended scope of the scenario, as each sentence contained two possible scope interpretations. Participants were later asked whether their translation for one of the scopes applied to the other interpretation. The study found that Japanese-English bilinguals accepted the meaning behind inverse scope elicitations much more frequently compared to previous QR studies conducted on native, monolingual Japanese speakers. Thus, the knowledge of different languages—particularly those exhibiting QR—may affect the overall perception of QR in Japanese, among other languages that have less pronounced scope ambiguities
Canadian Intelligence for the Dangerous Decades
Get PDFOn November 23, 2021, Mr. Greg Fyffe presented Canadian Intelligence for the Dangerous Decades at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points of discussion included an overview of Mr. Fyffe’s most recent report on the structure of the Canadian intelligence system and points of improvement for both the Canadian intelligence system as well as the national security strategy
Leadership, Technology and National Security
Get PDFOn November 26, 2021, Mr. Phil Gratton, former DG in the Directorate of Technology for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and current Associate Faculty at the Canada School of Public Service, presented on Leadership, Technology and National Security at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period and a breakout room session with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key point discussed was how leadership must adapt to best support its mission and technology workforce in the face of ever-evolving technological advancements in the realm of national security
Reimaging a Canadian National Security Strategy
Get PDFOn November 26, 2021, Mr. Aaron Shull, Managing Director and General Counsel at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), presented on Reimaging a Canadian National Security Strategy at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed included CIGI’s new project to address Canada’s national security strategy gap and what it will take to accomplish the goals that could derive from the recommendations provided
Leadership, Intelligence Management, and Complex Crises
Get PDFOn November 26, 2021, Rear Admiral Richard Kelshall, former CARICOM Regional Advisor, presented on Leadership, Intelligence Management, and Complex Crises at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The key points discussed included the characteristics of effective leadership, problems that might impede good leadership, and the changing nature of leadership. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives
Memes, viruses, and violence: A nation guide to managing contagious threats
Get PDFOn January 20, 2022, the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS)-Vancouver hosted a Digital Roundtable titled Memes, Viruses, and Violence: A Nation Guide to Managing Contagious Threats, conducted by Dr. Joel Finkelstein, the director of the Network Contagion Research Institute. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS-Vancouver Executives. The main discussion topics included the intersectionality of memes, violence, and viruses; their impact on the culture of escapism; and how big data mapping could model predictions for memetic violence before it manifests into violence.
The Implications of Misinformation for Public Order Policing
Get PDFOn September 8th, 2022, Dr. Laura Huey, a professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario, presented on The Implications of Misinformation for Public Order Policing. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS-Vancouver executives. The key points discussed in Dr. Huey’s presentation highlighted the risks and effects of misinformation around policing and how they can quickly spiral globally and have harmful effects on the police force’s reputation and police officers
Teamwork makes the dreamwork: A collaborative approach to documenting and analyzing language development of Hul’q’umi’num’ children
Get PDFOver the last two years, a team of students and researchers from the Hul’q’umi’num’ Language & Culture Society (HLCS), Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria have been documenting language development of children in a language nest. Hul’q’umi’num’, spoken on Vancouver Island, is one of ten Central Salish languages, and currently only has around 40 first language speakers, most of whom are over 75 years of age. Now, there are 200 fluent and 1,000 semi-fluent L2 speakers, due to their motivation to champion the language (D. Gerdts, p.c.). The HLCS language nest provides space for infants, toddlers, and children to hear and use the language with Elders and adults (FPCC 2014, King, 2001). A unique feature of this language nest is that the parents/participants are also Linguistics students researching Hul’q’umi’num’ phonetic structure. Thanks to this research duo, we have collected an abundance of data to analyze and add to existing literature (cf. Bird et al. 2016, 2019, 2021 Bird & Onosson 2019, Percival & Bird 2019).
Salish languages have 22 sounds that do not exist in English (Gerdts & Hukari, in press). This can make it difficult for second language learners who primarily speak English. By observing recordings of second language learners, we can identify differences from native speakers’ speech production. One phoneme is chosen for this study as it has a strong feature that is apparent in native speech and can be measured to determine growth in language development of second language learners.
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Donna Gerdts, Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser Universit
Analyzing the Effect of Mental Illnesses on the Sentencing Outcomes for Canadian Youth Under the YCJA
Get PDFThe Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), the Canadian legislation that governs the youth justice system, has numerous provisions that consider the unique needs of youth from all different backgrounds to ensure their sentencing outcomes are based on what is best for the youth. With high rates of young people in the justice system experiencing mental illnesses, among the provisions included in this legislation are specific considerations and guidance for criminal justice officials when a young person who has a mental illness is involved. However, it is unclear whether the guidelines judges are expected to follow achieve the legislation’s aim of reducing sentencing disparities for youth with mental illnesses. Using a dataset of 250 youth court cases, the current study uses multiple regression techniques to examine differences in sentencing outcomes and sentence length for youth with and without mental illnesses. Importantly, individual youth case characteristics (e.g., age, offence seriousness) and judicial factors informed by the YCJA (e.g., rehabilitation, accountability) will be controlled for in the models to determine whether youth with mental illnesses continue to receive disproportionately more severe and longer sentences after controlling for key legal and extralegal factors. If analyses show that youth with mental illnesses continue to receive disproportionately longer and more severe sentences, the findings may suggest that the YCJA, as written, may not effectively reduce overrepresentation of youth with mental illnesses in custodial sentences.
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Wiley, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser Universit