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Priorities for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting: Evidence from Listed Turkish Companies in Istanbul Stock Exchange
Get PDFAbstract: This study is based on “stakeholder theory” in order to explain the concept of corporate social responsibility. To examine the social responsibility areas of business organizations, “The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility” model developed by Carroll (1991) was used in this study. According to this model, entire range of business responsibilities can be considered in four groups: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic. Within the framework of Carroll’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) Pyramid, the aim of this study is to illustrate priorities in Corporate Social Responsibility Report of the leading companies in Turkey. In this context, 48 companies from Borsa Istanbul
(BIST) Corporate Governance Index were selected as the sample of the study. Qualitative research approach was used in the study. The data obtained from the annual reports, sustainability reports and corporate governance compliance reports of these 48 companies were subjected to content analysis. According to the findings, economic and legal responsibilities were found to have priority for shareholders, customers and employees stakeholder groups in terms of corporate social responsibility levels. While philanthropic responsibility was found to have priority for community stakeholder group, economic responsibility is important for suppliers stakeholder group. Legal responsibility, on the other hand, is important for environment stakeholder group. In general, economic and legal responsibilities have priorities in all stakeholder groups other than community stakeholder group
Priorities for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting: Evidence from Listed Turkish Companies in Istanbul Stock Exchange
Get PDFAbstract: This study is based on “stakeholder theory” in order to explain the concept of corporate social responsibility. To examine the social responsibility areas of business organizations, “The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility” model developed by Carroll (1991) was used in this study. According to this model, entire range of business responsibilities can be considered in four groups: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic. Within the framework of Carroll’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) Pyramid, the aim of this study is to illustrate priorities in Corporate Social Responsibility Report of the leading companies in Turkey. In this context, 48 companies from Borsa Istanbul
(BIST) Corporate Governance Index were selected as the sample of the study. Qualitative research approach was used in the study. The data obtained from the annual reports, sustainability reports and corporate governance compliance reports of these 48 companies were subjected to content analysis. According to the findings, economic and legal responsibilities were found to have priority for shareholders, customers and employees stakeholder groups in terms of corporate social responsibility levels. While philanthropic responsibility was found to have priority for community stakeholder group, economic responsibility is important for suppliers stakeholder group. Legal responsibility, on the other hand, is important for environment stakeholder group. In general, economic and legal responsibilities have priorities in all stakeholder groups other than community stakeholder group
ASSESSING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to explore the components of pragmatic competence for L2 learners. Developing pragmatic competence in a second/foreign language has been addressed in many articles and publications on cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Barron, 2003; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Cohen & Ishihara, 2005; Ishihara & Cohen, 2010; Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993; McConachy & Hata, 2013; Trosborg, 2010; Wigglesworth & Yates, 2007; etc.). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) also addresses this issue. Their stance is that communicative language competences include linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. Pragmatic competence itself includes learner’s knowledge of the principles according to which messages are: a. organized, structured and arranged (discourse competence); b. used to perform communicative functions (functional competence); c. sequenced according to interactional and transactional schemata (design competence) (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 123). Roever (2005) chose three components for his web-based test of pragmatic competence: speech acts, implicatures and routines. Research on interlanguage pragmatics often focuses on speech acts, politeness, use of formulaic expressions, mitigation, etc.
In determining L2 learner’s pragmatic competence we face two major problems:
1. what components of learner’s interlanguage to measure; and
2. how to measure them.
In this paper, we first define interlanguage pragmatics. Then we refer to issues referring to pragmatic competence and components that are relevant for its development. Finally, we discuss instruments and methods of testing interlanguage pragmatic competence
ALBANIAN OBSERVATION PHRASEOLOGY WITH THAT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE FORMED BY METAPHORS
Get PDFIn today’s communication in schools, workplaces and communities has increased significantly being intermingled and involved with English language. Albanian and English languages have many phraseology units. They are formed by the transformation of the syntagm with two or more denominator units (noun, adjective, verb, adverb, etc). This figurative transformation is realized with comparison, hyperbola, litotes, metaphor, metonymy, etc. Both languages use all these means of communication. Our thesis focuses particularly on the formation of phraseology units with metaphors and aims to analyze how they are formed in four steps of transformation using the structure of:
a)- free syntagm (phrase), (or free phrase).
b)- syntagm (phrase) with comparison (with connectors: as, like ).
c)- syntagm (phrase) with metaphor (connector falls).
d)- formation of phraseology units.
This process is similar in both languages, but there isn’t compliance and equality in their formation. By juxtaposing the phrases units in both languages, we aim at shedding some light on the main similarities and differences which seem to bring the languages closer but also create a gap between them, pointing out the common or universal features as well as the originality and the unique character of each language. If we analyze some phrasal units taken out from the dictionary (Phraseology English- Albanian dictionary by I. Stefanllari 1998) we notice that the units of English language are formed differently from the Albanian ones. This can prove the occurrence of linguistic relativism
Semantic Group of Units with the Semanteme "Thinking" in the Uzbek Language: A Contrastive Analysis with Bosnian and English Lexicons
Get PDFThe article deals with the semantic field units with semanteme "thinking" in Uzbek, Bosnian and English languages, defined by their integral seme, on the basis of the criteria specified internal semantic groups. Lexical units refer to the meaning “thinking” and semantic field, integral and distinctive meaning have been investigated, inner groups have been classified in the example of the Uzbek language. The study of linguistic units on the basis of semantic fields is widespread in the world linguistics. They are mainly directed at the study of semantic groups of verbs. Our research will compare the semantic fields of units with semanteme "thinking" in the Uzbek language. The given lexical-semantic field includes not only the lexeme of the verbs, but the lexemes of nouns, lexemes of adjectives, lexemes of adverbs and also some of the idioms. In the result of the analysis of the factual material revealed the following semantic groups of units with semantepe "thinking" in the Uzbek language.
Keywords: semanteme “thinking,” semantic fields of units, idioms, factual material, Uzbek languag
The art of mitigating disagreement: How EFL learners do it
Get PDFThe principal motivation of this study is to investigate how Macedonian learners of English mitigate their disagreement. It is a follow-up of a much broader study in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics focusing on disagreement in Macedonian and American English (Kusevska, 2012). Our cross-cultural analysis reveals that Macedonian and American native speakers show preference for different types of disagreement, the major difference being the frequency of mitigation as well as the linguistic means used for its realisation.
For the purpose of this study, we have accepted the definition that mitigation is the linguistic communicative strategy of softening an utterance, reducing the impact of an utterance, or limiting the face loss associated with a message (Fraser, 1980; Caffi, 1999, 2007; Martinovski, 2006; Clemen, 2010; Czerwionka, 2012). As mitigation in disagreement is closely connected with politeness, we have also relied on the model of politeness and the strategies for FTA realisation proposed by Brown & Levinson (1978/1987). We have looked at lexical and syntactic devices such as modal auxiliaries (e.g., can/could; may/might), hedges (kind of, sort of), discourse markers (well, but, look), verbs expressing uncertainty (I think, I don’t think), verbs expressing vagueness (seem, assume, guess), conditionals etc., that learners use to mitigate their utterances.
Key words: speech acts, disagreement, politeness, mitigation, EFL learner
Lexical Availability and L2 Vocabulary Acquisition
Get PDFVocabulary research has followed a different path in English and in Spanish applied linguistics. Spanish applied linguistics has paid more attention to available lexicons of speakers than to word frequency. The measure of lexical availability combines the frequency at which a word is produced as a member of a semantic category (e.g. dog in category Animals) and the position in the list of associations provided by a group of individuals. It focuses on the words retrieved by speakers in response prompts (word stimulus) related to daily situations.
This paper intends to present some of the aspects of lexical-availability research that are interesting for L2 vocabulary acquisition. It attempts to show the potential of lexical-availability research as an alternate approach for vocabulary planning (the use of L1 lexical-availability measures to select the teaching vocabulary for L2) as well as the study of some psycholinguistic aspects of vocabulary acquisition, such as the organization of learners' mental lexicons, the similarities and the differences between response patterns, the kinds of semantic associations that learners activate in response to prompts (semantic categories), the consideration of the most available words obtained by lexical-availability research as semantic prototypes. Likewise, the study of learners' lexical availability can uncover sociolinguistic and cultural issues. Furthermore, this paper wishes to inspire researchers of languages other than Spanish to apply this methodology to different languages.
All these aspects are hereby presented on the basis of the Slovene learners' available lexicons in Spanish as L2 (N=200) (Šifrar Kalan, 2009; 2012; 2014b) and English as L2 (N=20) (Šifrar Kalan, 2014a).
Keywords: foreign languages, vocabulary acquisition, lexical availability, word association
Possibilities of Development of Private Health Insurance in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Get PDFAbstract: Increased rise in costs of healthcare in the last five decades has rapidly increased interest in the functioning of healthcare systems within every country. The reasons for growth in healthcare costs are related to demographic changes, technology advancement, increased number of educated persons, emergence of new diseases, etc. Financing the risk of poor health is mainly organized through programs of social and private health insurance. Regarding the management of the risks of poor health in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the social health insurance system is the basic solution for the population. However, in BiH, as in other countries in the world, the system of social insurance has become unfeasible and it is necessary to search for new solutions, that is, to reform the system. The research subject in this paper is private/voluntary health insurance offered by insurance companies, which can be an efficient addition to social insurance in BiH. It has become present on the market of private insurance in BiH only recently, so its share in the total premium of private insurance is still minor. Therefore, a primary research was conducted on the possibilities for its development as well as on the need and acceptance by the users of healthcare services. Besides, there was a need for examining the performance of the existing system of social health insurance, based on the principles of Bismarck’s model of financing, and recognizing its disadvantages. By identifying and eliminating obstacles for development of voluntary health insurance, it is possible to improve performance of the existing system of health insurance in BiH
Novelties in the Field of Alternative Measures and Sanctions in Juvenile Criminal Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Get PDFIn the last few years there is a process of reforming juvenile criminal law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main feature of this reform is reflected in the introduction of new legislative model of criminal status of juveniles, according to which the entire criminal status of juvenile perpetrators of crimes (substantive, procedural, enforcement) is being regulated by a single legislative text - Law on Protection and Treatment of Children and Juveniles in criminal Procedure. This law in almost identical form was originally adopted in the Republic of Srpska (2010), then in the Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2011), and finally in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014). In this paper author critically analyzes the changes brought about by the present legislative text in the field of alternative measures and sanctions, with emphasis on restorative justice (as the modern concept of social response to crime), which encountered in some of these alternative instruments dealing with juveniles in conflict with law
ADULT L2 ACQUISITION OF REFLEXIVE VERBS IN RUSSIAN AND POLISH
Get PDFFrom previous research, perceptual saliency and morphophonological and morphosyntactic regularity significantly contribute to a successful acquisition of morphemes (Goldschneider & DeKeyser 2001). This pilot study investigates if and to what extent these features are predictors in the acquisition of reflexive verbs in adult L2 Polish and Russian. Despite these languages being closely related, their reflexive verbs differ dramatically. Polish uses a particle siẹ that has a high sonority value and can be freely placed in a sentence. Russian uses a reflexive affix which is placed directly after the finite verb ending and has two phonetically reduced variants -sja and -s’ that depend on the phonological context.
In this pilot study, we hypothesized that i) perceptual saliency (understood as higher sonority and a prominent position in a sentence) facilitated perception and sentence repetition; ii) morphosyntactic regularity and predictability positively affected written production. Two groups of Dutch first-year students learning Russian and Polish respectively as L2 at the University of Amsterdam were recruited. Russian and Polish native speakers served as controls. In order to test perception/comprehension and (re)production of reflexive verbs in L2, a sentence repetition task (SRT) was used. The task consisted of 15 target sentences and 10 distractors for each language (syllable length: 17–22), and was administered in e-prime. The sentence position of the target structure and semantic categories of reflexive verbs were controlled. In order to test written production, a sentence translation task (STT) was developed that contained 15 Dutch items. For the controls, accuracy in both tasks was at ceiling. The Dutch-L2 groups performed significantly worse. The accuracy scores on target structures in SRT were better in Polish (61% vs. 40%). In the STT, the Russian L2 students outperformed the Polish L2 participants (84% vs. 58%). The results of this study support the idea that perceptual saliency and morphophonological uniformity affect perception and (re)production, while morphosyntactic regularity and predictability (boundness) is relevant for written production