Language and Music

Language and Music â€Å"Understanding music requires no recuperation[SKS1] of a fictional world, and no response to imaginary objects†¦.the meaning of music lies within it; it can be recovered only through an act of musical understanding, and not by an â€Å"assignment of values† of the kind provided by a semantic theory[SKS2]† (Roger Scruton) Music is an important aspect of everyday life: We can take it with us wherever we go and use it to set the scene or create a â€Å"soundtrack† to our lives. It has the power to influence our moods and emotions and can stir up feelings and old memories within the first few notes. Music is intertwined in all cultures and has been for as long as humans have had the ability to make it. It has been said that musical instruments and the production of music (in any form) predates the earliest evidence of writing. Music is everywhere. In order to understand music it is important to define what it is that makes something music. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of music is; â€Å"The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, expressive content, etc.; musical composition, performance, analysis, etc., as a subject of study; the occupation or profession of musicians.† (Oxford University Press 2014) According to this definition, the basis of music is sound. Sound is defined as a sensation caused by a vibration of air particles. It cannot be seen by the naked eye and, at some frequencies, cannot be heard by the human ear. Music does not exist without sound as it is a product of various combinations of â€Å"vocal or instrumental sounds†. Everything that is considered â€Å"musical† is made from sound but not every sound is musical. Sounds exist whether we are listening to them or not. Many sounds are unintentional in that they are a necessary result of an action. They are not being created purposefully and are often just in the background of everyday life. Although we hear them, we do not have to listen or focus on them if we choose not to. Music, on the other hand, is an intentional object. It is purposefully created to be heard, we must focus on music and actively listen to it. Music is acousmatic. When we hear it we tend to detach the sound from its production an d focus on the sounds. This differs to the non-musical sounds we encounter everywhere. Music is a temporal occurrence but can only be discussed in spatial terms. Although there are specific terminologies related to music, there is no need to be an expert in order to enjoy a piece or discuss it with others. In order to properly consider the meaning of music and define it, we apply semantic terminology and compare music to language. It is easy for us to break both language and music down into their smallest forms and compare the similarities between both although we may have an issue with the starting point of music as we would have to determine the smallest form, which could be a sound, a note or even a beat, depending on how a person views the creation of music and their knowledge of how music is formed. If we were to break language down to its smallest form and work our way up, so to speak, we could say that the smallest part of language is a phoneme. From there we can conclude that a phoneme then becomes a morpheme, a morpheme then becomes a phrase, which then becomes a clause, which then becomes a sentence, and so on and so forth. As a native speaker, we are able to create numerous combinations of words that can be understood by others who share our language. In order for things to be understood, it is said that there needs to be some form of common knowledge or common ground. It is also important that there is some context to what is being expressed so we can deduce meaning from what we are hearing/reading. If we break down music into its simplest form, we begin with sounds that are combined to make different pitches. These become phrases and sequences that are combined to create whole pieces of music. If we compare language and music on this level, we can see that the two share similarities in structure. When discussing the meaning of music itself, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, we must distinguish what we mean by music and the form it is in. If we are talking about written music, one must have at least a basic knowledge of musical notation in order to understand what they are reading. Music is the universal language.† Aphoristic as this phrase may be, it does relate something many people think about music: music is expressive. But if music is expressive, what, exactly, does music express? For that matter, how does music express? Is the content or manner of expression of music the same as the content or manner of expression of language? In answering questions such as these, we promote previously empty cultural aphorisms about music like the one presented earlier to the status of meaningful claims. David Lewis highlights two important features of language – language as an object and language as a practice. I will present a view of the nature of music held by Peter Kivy, comparing it to Lewis’ conception of language. I will then argue that by Kivy’s view of music, music is not a language, though it has more language-like properties than Kivy admits. To briefly take stock, we might highlight four general properties of language we should look for in the determination of whether or not something is a language: Syntax – Lewis’ grammar operations. Determine legitimate strings. Semantics – Lewis’ meaning. The meaning of a well-formed string is the situation it describes in a set of possible worlds. Truth Values – Derived from comparing the meaning of a sentence with our world. Conventional Activity – a population arbitrarily determines a language used by conventionally using the language to express truth. Peter Kivy endorses a formalist view of music. The formalist doctrine is that music is a type of sound structure. Generally, we think of a structure as something we can appreciate visually; the word usually evokes mental images of certain spatial relations of objects to other objects. But according to the formalist, sound structures are â€Å"temporal patterns of sound† (emphasis added). To put this in a vocabulary familiar to musicians, sound structures are just combination of types of sounds (such as pitches, percussion, etc.) that occur in some timeframe. Music has formal properties and sensuous properties: a piece of music’s formal properties differentiate it from other pieces of music; i.e. certain notes are played in a certain order, the piece is a certain speed, and there are certain rhythms. And music’s ‘sensuous properties’ boil down to the fact that – shocker – music is a heard medium: we hear and notice different aspects of s ound events when we experience music. Kivy’s view of music directly supports the inclusion of one of the important features of language in music’s nature. He says that music has a â€Å"special kind of order: the order of syntactical structure.† He says that this order is governed by rules (of a sort); these rules concern how different sounds should be combined in the production of a musical work. For example, it is a staple of the syntax of certain schools in western music that there should be a return to the tonic at the end of a musical phrase. This syntax differs for different genres of music, much like it does for different languages. Certain chords can be used in certain genres, and not in others – for example, you will see flat V chords used in chord progressions in jazz, but not most pre-modern forms of classical music. But I think we have reason to believe that the nature of musical syntax is very similar to the nature of linguistic syntax. First of all, I question the assertion that the rules of linguistic syntax are stricter than the rules of musical syntax. For example, take the English grammar rule that the first letter of the first word in a written sentence is capitalized. I think this easily qualifies as a syntactic rule of written English; however, prominent writers have violated it throughout history (E. E. Cummings is one obvious example), and people today often violate it when talking to one another through electronic media such as texting on the phone and messaging online. I think we still want to say that these people are using English – they are just temporarily disregarding a grammar rule of English, which is more of a regularity than a law. However, though some rules of linguistic syntax are not absolutely strict, I do think that there are rules which are inviolable. Lewisâ⠂¬â„¢ rule that there is a finite set of elementary constituents paired with meanings that we can use in the construction of sentences is of paramount importance when using a language. I can’t type out a random assortment of characters and expect that configuration to be an English sentence. Similarly, certain combinatorial grammar rules are absolute. And it seems to me that musical syntax has very similar characteristics to this conception of the characteristics of linguistic syntax. There are certain rules which can be bent; a piece of music can preserve its status as a piece of music in a certain genre regardless of whether it follows a specific syntactic ‘regularity’ of this kind. This is similar to syntactic rules like capitalization mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then there are certain rules which must be followed for a piece to be classified as a member of a certain genre – relate this to how a string must follow a certain instantiation of the grammar rules Lewis established to be characterized as a member of one language rather than another. Then there are certain rules any genre of music must follow to be music rather than mere noise. This is similar to syntactic rules any language must have; a language must follow the general rules Lewis gives us, in one form or another. We can also see that the activity of music is analogous to the activity of ‘language’ that Lewis describes. Music is not just an entity, but also a social activity concerning musicians and listeners, wherein musicians make certain noises and they expect their listeners to respond a certain way. And I see no reason why we wouldn’t say that this activity is in some way arbitrary, however limited that arbitrariness is by the hard-wiring of our brains to enjoy certain sounds. The parallels between music as ‘language’ do not stop there. Music shares the ability to infer something about the state of mind of a composer or musician with language (substituting ‘speaker’ for ‘composer or musician’). Playing a guitar solo in a minor pentatonic scale allows us to infer one (admittedly broad) set of things about the mind of the guitarist, while playing in the blues scale allows us to infer something else. And we often make the same inferences as many other listeners. These inferences might also be wrong – as they might be in the case of ‘language’. And Kivy’s view that these inferences are not ‘in the music’ doesn’t stop us from saying that we make these inferences; we can say that we respond ‘by convention’ to a certain sound structure in a certain way without saying that there is anything about the sound structure that makes us respond this way. So far, so good, for the view that music is a language. Nothing that I have said thus far about Kivy’s view of music has conflicted with the definition of language Lewis gave us. And although I haven’t gone into the nuts and bolts of correlating Lewis’ grammar rules with musical syntax, it’s not hard to see how a story could be told relating them – in every way but one: what could we say corresponds with the meanings described in rule one and two? Kivy qualifies his formalist definition of music: â€Å"absolute music is a sound structure without semantic or representational content†. This is a big problem for a proponent of the view that music is a language. One of the essential characteristics of language is its status as something which can communicate meaning; some might call this property the most important property of language. And on initial reflection, Kivy’s claim seems to hold a lot of weight. How could music talk about situations in the external world? A song might represent ‘victory’ or ‘striving’ or what-have-you in some obscure, abstract sort of way; but it certainly does not have the power to describe in the incredibly detailed, content-rich way a language can. Music could never have the power to express the meaning of such sentences as â€Å"My flight to Los Angeles was delayed because of poor conditions on the runway.† This is a crippling observation in particular for anyone who thinks that my method of deciding whether music is a language is valid – without sematic content, two of the four properties of language Lewis defined go down the tubes. The absence of semantic content in music obviously bars us from saying that music has semantics; and, because music is free of semantic content, truth values are gone as well, as truth values are products of comparing the meanings of sentences with the world. The avid supporter of the music-as-language project has two avenues open to them at this point. They might object to Kivy’s view the music is free of semantic content; or, they might object to the view of language – specifically, the view of semantics – that Lewis gives us. I’ll start with the objection to Kivy. An obvious route someone objecting to Kivy’s determination that music is free of semantic content might take is saying that it does have semantic content – and this content is emotion. Music represents emotions the same way language represents the situations its sentences describe. Maybe the ability of music to describe things in the world is much more limited than language, but its ability to describe emotions is even better than natural languages’ ability. Thus music should be described as ‘a language of the emotions’. Kivy has a response to this claim, but I find it to be unsatisfying. He says this assertion gets you â€Å"from enhanced formalism in letter and spirit to a musical semantics in letter, not spirit, and enhanced formalism, still, in spirit.† He thinks that music can say nothing interesting or significant about emotion, and somehow this yields the result that music does not have emotional semantics. But the ability to say something interesting about what it denotes is not what defines the semantics of language – it is the ability to say what it says that defines language. In other words, it is the ability of sentences to denote at all which makes them linguistic. If music can do this, then it has semantic content. The problem is, we are wrong to say that music denotes emotion in the first place. I think Kivy is right when he says that emotion is a â€Å"heard property of the music† . Music does not ‘represent’ sadness; it just is sad, the same way that an apple just is red. And the reason we perceive these emotions in music is due to the fact that music can formally resemble how humans look and act when they feel certain emotions. Unfortunately, I can offer no positive reasons to accept this conception of emotion in music other than emotions are certainly a part of music in some capacity, and this formulation of their relation to music is the least problematic one I know of. And perhaps I can pose some problems with representative views of music that serve my intuitions well: for one, many people think that to be a real language, every sentence in that language that denotes a state in the world can be translated to a sentence in another language. How might one go about translating something music ‘says’ to English? Attempts usually produce a clumsy, single-word emotional descriptor, which varies from person to person. Another thing people think stems from a representative medium is the presence of truth values. We can say of a linguistic proposition that it represents our world, or it represents a situation not in our world; propositions of the first type are true, and propositions of the second type are false. But what would we say about music corresponds with a state in the world? It seems a very odd practice to listen to a phrase in Beethoven’s Fifth and say of it that it is ‘true’ or ‘false’. On the other hand, the supporter of a music-as-language view might challenge the definition that Lewis provides of semantics. He might use music to help define language, as Andrew Bowie does in his book Music, Philosophy, and Modernity. He says â€Å"if people understand a piece of articulation – which is apparent in terms of its effects in social contexts on behavior, reactions, feelings, and so on – it must mean something.† Bowie equates language with Lewis’ ‘language’, the social activity, and discards the properties of ‘a language’. Because music is a social activity by which people effect specific changes on others’ behavior or feelings, music has meaning, and therefore is a language. But Bowie betrays his own cause when he tells us what follows from this new definition of language in a quote by Bjà ¸rn Ramberg: â€Å"’We can, if we like, interpret all types of things as speaking’†. This definition of language allows us to call all types of things language that push against our intuitions on the subject. Arriving late to a meeting is now language, because others’ thoughts are influenced to think worse of me for being tardy. Playing a sport with other people is now language, because their behavior is altered when they respond to my sporting actions. Maybe you want to call these things language, but I suspect the majority of people do not. It is important that a practice we choose to call language should have aspects of ‘a language’ and is used by the practice of ‘language’. This successfully delineates language from non-language. The presence of truly semantic content is one of the principle factors in deciding whether something is a language. Even though music seems to have every property of the practice Lewis identifies as ‘language’, it cannot be a language. Edit: took out a sentence that doesnt make sense without the rest of the paper. 1 [SKS1]the recovery or regaining of something. the recuperation of the avant-garde for art [SKS2]a theory which assigns semantic contents to expressions of a language. Approaches to semantics may be divided according to whether they assign propositions as the meanings of sentences and, if they do, what view they take of the nature of these propositions.

Land Law Essay

Some of the essential requirements of easements are the presence of a dominant and a servient tenement. In general, dominant tenements are estates that are either fee simple or leasehold; moreover, easements cannot exist in gross or in the absence of a dominant tenement. Further, it is essential for an easement to bestow on the dominant tenement either a benefit or some form of accommodation. This makes it mandatory for the accrual of a tangible benefit to the dominant tenement. Consequently, the easement should make it possible for the dominant owner to utilize the dominant tenement to a greater extent and the benefit conferred must pertain to land. In addition, the dominant and servient tenements should be sufficiently proximate to each other. Moreover, the owner or occupant of the dominant and servient tenements should be different persons. Furthermore, such easement should be eligible to be made the subject matter of a grant by deed. Such a requirement further entails that the granted right is unambiguous, capable of adequately precise definition. In addition, such subject matter should be in concord with the nature of the easement, which in other words, connotes that the easement does not permit exclusive and unrestricted use of the land . Furthermore, the grantee must be competent, and not some indefinite entity. Such a grantee should possess an interest in the dominant tenement at the time of the grant. Moreover, a grantor who is competent to grant such a right should exist and while making the grant, the servient owner should possess an interest in the concerned tenement that is equal to or greater than the interest that devolves from the tenement. There are a few interests that exist in respect of the land bestowed on a land owner, which are conceded by the courts. In one important case, Hill v. Tupper , Pollack C B stated that â€Å"A new species of incorporeal hereditament cannot be created at the will and pleasure of the owner of property; but he must be content to accept the estate and the right to dispose of it subject to the law as settled by decisions or controlled by Act of Parliament† . Moreover, an easement should accommodate the dominant tenement. The right of easement provides a personal advantage; that is related to the land owned by that party. This right enhances the advantage of its enjoyment . There are four components that govern easement in order to accommodate dominant tenement. First, the right to easement requires an improvement in the position of the dominant tenement into an enhanced and convenient property instead of converting it into a personal advantage of the dominant owner. Second, the dominant and servient tenements need to be located proximally so that the easement provides a potential benefit to the dominant tenement. For instance, a track used for carts, which caters to the needs of the farmer and accommodates the farming activities of the farmer, could be located far away from the farm. Third, the users should be disconnected and fourth, there should not be any personal advantage. This had been established in the aforementioned case of Hill v Tupper, in which the owner of a canal leased the banks of the canal and the right to operate boats on the canal to the defendants. In this case the court held that the claimant had a personal interest and thus was precluded from defending against third party actions . Not every right that is granted in respect of land constitutes an easement. For instance, if one person gives another the right to cross his land, which is located at an appreciable distance from the other person’s land, then such a right is not an easement. This was clearly established in the Hill v. Tupper case, wherein the Basingstoke Canal owners extended exclusive rights to the plaintiff to hire boats that would be used for recreational purposes. This business of the plaintiff was jeopardized by the defendant who commenced to compete with him . Instead of filing a breach of contract against the owners of the Basingstoke Canal, the plaintiff, filed a case against the defendant pleading that the defendant was liable in nuisance to him. The Court of the Exchequer, which was hearing this case, expressed its lack of competency to generate, rights that were unrelated to the enjoyment of land and appropriate them to the land with the objective of forming a property in the grantee. However, the plaintiff did possess property that adjoined it . The reason for such a decision can be construed to be that the court was disinclined to permit a commercial benefit to be construed as an easement. This tendency of the courts is clearly established in the case of Moody v. Steggles. In this case an advertisement of a public house was displayed in the defendant’s adjoining land. The court held that the right under dispute pertained to the plaintiff’s business and therefore was unconnected to the right of easement. Thus the easement and the manner in which the land had been occupied were intimately connected . The court decided in the case of London and Blenheim Estates V Ladbrokeretail Parks that a tenement that was dominant had to be adequately identified as such and that it must be sufficiently described so as to render the easement binding on the servient tenement. The appellate court held that it was inadequate to merely grant the right to nominate unspecified land as constituting a dominant tenement in respect of an easement, in order to generate an interest in the land that would serve to bind successors in title to the servient tenement . It is essential for different persons to possess dominant and servient tenements, because an easement constitutes a right over somebody else’s property. Pollock CB, made the distinction between proprietary and personal rights, crystal clear when he opined that ‘A grantor may bind himself by covenant to allow any right he pleases over his property, but he cannot annex to it a new incident, so as to enable the grantee to sue in his own name for an infringement of such a limited right as that now claimed. The sum and substance of this statement is that a number of rights can be created that are governed by contract. Further, it is permissible for a leasehold tenant or a fee simple owner to grant easements. However, a tenant can do so only during the pendency of the lease. If these requirements are not fulfilled, then there is no easement, despite the possible existence of a restrictive covenant, license or lease. With the case of Hill v. Tupper it became evident that an easement must accommodate the dominant tenement. For an easement to be valid, it has to necessarily bestow some benefit on the land, rather than on the owner. In the Hill case the servient tenement was a waterway and lease granted to the claimant was in respect of some land that adjoined this canal. In addition, the claimant was exclusively permitted to make available pleasure luxury boats on this canal. The court however, held that the conduct of business on the servient tenement was insufficient to bestow an easement on the claimant and that it constituted nothing more than a license. Moreover, the court held that the claimant was making a blatant claim to ensure a commercial monopoly. Furthermore, the court decided that no easement could specify the exclusive use of a servient tenement in order to exclude other reasonable users . In Dyce v. Hay there was a claim that all the Queen’s subjects had the right â€Å"to go at all times upon the†¦appellant’s property†¦for the purpose of recreation†. It was held that â€Å"There can be no prescriptive right in the nature of a servitude or easement so large as to preclude the ordinary uses of property by the owner of the lands affected† . As per Lord St. Leonards, the class of servitudes and easements should change and widen in their applicability in accordance with the changes in society and the human condition . This opinion has to be interpreted, while bearing in the mind the maxim that English law does accord, with the exception of statute, recognition to an easement in its entirety. In other words easement should be restrictive. The judgment in the Dyce case makes it very clear that the judiciary was not disposed to expanding the category of easement in order to include rights that had not been recognized by the extant statute. In general some rights are not recognized by the courts as easements. These are a right to a view; a general right to loiter on some other person’s property and a right to shelter oneself from the elements with the help of neighbouring buildings. However, it was clearly demonstrated in the Dyce case that such a list of rights is not conclusive and could be expanded if so required. Although, the list of rights that could be construed to be easements cannot be enumerated, nevertheless, such rights should be similar to those rights that have been accorded the status of easements by law. However, the courts have been reluctant to permit new rights to be accorded the status of easements.

Do you agree that schools have a uniform? Essay

From the ages of 5 to 16 by law every child in the UK must attend school; whether the school is state funded or privately funded they almost all have some form of school uniform. School uniforms are a requirement at almost all schools but in some state schools the regulations on school uniforms are a little looser than others, Meaning that some pupil wear pretty much whatever they want to school taking no notice of the school uniform regulations set in place, which some believe to defeat the object of having the school uniform in the first place. This essay will discuss whether or not schools should have uniforms or not and will explore both sides of the argument giving evidence to support them. Some parents believe that schools should not have school uniform for one reason: cost. The cost of school uniform is something that troubles many parents across the UK as the price of school uniform has increased considerably over the past few years. What makes the situation worse for many is when their child’s school changes their uniform. Many schools in order to receive extra funding from the government have changed their status to academy; when they do this they often change their uniform to try and present a new image to the public about the school. This means the parents have to buy their child a whole new uniform. It also means that hand me downs or buying second hand is no longer an option which is what many people try to do when buying new school uniform for their child. A report by the office of fair trading shows that last year over 50 million pounds was spent on school uniform, they also found that Head teachers do not give pupils and their parents enough choice on where to by their uniform. This can make school uniform even more expensive as you may not be able to buy your school uniform locally so you either have to buy it and pay postage or travel a long distance to get it. A school uniform could make a pupil feel as if they are supressing their  emotions and not being allowed to be themselves as many people express themselves through the clothes they wear and they could feel as if they are being denied their individuality when they are at school. This could lead to serious problems in school and distract them from their school work. Many pupils think that schools should not have school uniform because often they are judged by where they go to school and the uniform they wear. Pupils from both private and state schools could face this problem on a regular basis and may well feel ashamed or even embarrassed of where they go to school; this can be a huge problem because if they are not proud of where they go to school they might not apply the right work ethic to their studies or if they are proud of where they go to school they could be bullied for it. Although there are many negatives about school uniform there are also many positives; for example a school uniform decreases opportunities for bullying among pupils if they are all wearing the same clothes, no one can be discriminated against for wearing ‘untrendy’ clothing or cheap clothing if they cannot afford expensive the clothes that are fashionable among their peers. School uniform also makes it easier in the morning for pupils because they don’t have to deliberate over the clothes they are going to wear on that day they just have to put their uniform on and go to school with no worry about what people are going to think of their clothes and what others are going to wear themselves. Although school uniforms can be expensive and the price has gone up over recent years, those who find it difficult to afford it can be helped by their local government with the cost of it that includes sports kit. Wearing school uniform promotes the school you go to the public advertising it and possibly bringing in more pupils. School uniforms can make school safer as it allows for teachers easily identify pupils if they are outside of school on a school trip or identify someone who is in the school and shouldn’t be. A school uniform also creates  a less distraction among pupils as they don’t have to concern themselves with what others are wearing in the classroom. School uniforms can give pupils a sense of belonging and identity as well as preparing you for later life when you may well have to wear smart clothing in the work place or a uniform if you are in the emergency services or military. My position therefore is that I agree that students should have to wear a school uniform because uniform is fashion less and provides a sense of belonging and identity, reduces opportunities for bulling, relieves one of the many stresses that pupils face every day and prepares you for adulthood. But saying that, the odd mufti day is good to as this lets those who need it to have freedom.

Key Drivers And Targets For Walmart Business Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2397 Downloads: 6 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Marketing Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Wal-Mart being a brand of United States and being a world largest brand in retail segment, they are planning to open a subsidiary in Indian market because they believe Indian retail market is one the growing market at current scenario. Moreover, 90% of their products and the services would source locally and this will help Wal-Mart to minimise its cost and maximise its market share and profits. And, this will also lead to the growth in the economy as it will lead to growth in the employment which will acts as a productive method for company as well as the Indian economy. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Key Drivers And Targets For Walmart Business Essay" essay for you Create order The primary motive to internalise the brand is the growth in the production rate and to witness more demand in the Indian market. Secondly, the key driver that has lead the company to globalise their brand is the recognition of the brand and to implement their strategy across the globe i.e. to provide the products and the services at minimal cost and to attain maximum customer satisfaction. Moreover, the company has introduced different stores to fulfil different needs of the customers such as Supercentres which confer wide range of products under one roof, Neighbourhood markets which provides groceries, pharmacy and general merchandise every day at low prices. The Marketside outlets are the ones providing fresh and delicious meals at great deals and they are mainly small neighbourhood stores. The last driving factor for Wal-Mart to operate in India is selling online. This targets the corporate who keep themselves busy at work and dont manage the time to avail the products at grea t deals.Therefore, Wal-Mart has introduced online shopping to provide comfort to their customers. India being highly populated country can never face any difficulty till the time brands and facilities like Wal-Mart provides to its customers. Why India Over the last few decades there has been a tremendous growth in the Indian retail industry. The industry has grown at a CAGR of 11% during FY04-07 accounting maximum share of food and grocery products. Even though the market was dominated by the small players and practicing unorganised process, the industry has gained in terms of revenue at CAGR of 19.5% during the period of Fy04-07, wherein, footwear and apparels made the maximum contribution towards the increase of revenue. The retail industry has a effective links with the growth of the Indian economy. It can be measured by their high working capital and through their growth structure. There are many factors which has contributed to the growth of the Indian economy such as growth in the purchasing power of people, standard of living, urbanisation, growth rate of the private firms in the industry. The modernisation in the retail industry has given shape of introduction of the departmental stores and the super marts which provi des products and services under one roof. Besides, the introduction of super marts in the Indian market, the advancement in the technology has contributed a lot to bring the retail segment upwards i.e. rural retailing, e-retailing. These all factors gives opportunity to big brands such as Wal-Marts to operate their business in the Indian market and provide much more flexibility and effectiveness in the industry. (https://snipsly.com/2010/03/11/report-on-indian-retail-industry/) The brand is well known in the market due to its distinctive corporate culture and the value and the morals drives them to be a renowned brand across the globe. The prime corporate culture that the company follow is to save their customers money so that they can live better, healthy and effective lifestyle. Moreover, every member of Wal-Mart works with the same level of veracity and esteem that Mr. Sam, the founder, thought his company to be like. Therefore, Wal-Mart distinctive culture is making a diff erence for the customers, the members and the people who are associated with the brand. Hence, this makes the company distinctive in comparison to the other brands in the market. (https://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/295.aspx) (https://walmartstores.com/aboutus/) Therefore, due to the above mentioned reasons and considering Indian retail industry as a strong market, Wal-Mart will make a profitable business by introducing subsidiary in India. Staffing Strategy Broadly the activities of domestic HRM and IHRM are similar however; domestic HRM takes into consideration employees from one country only whereas in IHRM employees are from different countries, cultures and backgrounds. This is one of the major differences between domestic HRM and IHRM because when employing people of different national categories or when operating in different countries the working environment tends to become more complex. IHRM is the one of the most important aspects that MNCs focus on because to effectively managing people located in various continents and cultures is a challenging task. Effective HR strategies have to be developed by an organization in order to effectively utilize its multinational workforce. (Dolan, 1996) The figure above is a model of IHRM. As it can be seen it consists of 3 dimensions:- There are three broad human resource activities namely procurement, allocation and utilization. (These include the 6 main activities of Human Resou rce Management like HR planning, Staffing , Training and Development etc. ) The country categories involved are the a) host country where a subsidiary is located (e.g. There is a subsidiary of WALMART in India as mentioned), the home country where the headquarter of the firm is located (USA where the headquarter of WALMART is located as mentioned) (Williams, 2005) The three types of employees are: Host Country Nationals (e.g. employees in India for WALMART), Parent Country Nationals (employees in USA) and Third Country Nationals. (Dowling et.al., 1999) MNEs staffing strategy from PCNs to HCNs pr TCNs. According to Taylor, HR is an ingredient in developing advantages in highly competitive global world (Briscoe and Schuler, 2004 ; Taylor et al, 1996). Lorange predicts that to have an effective HR approach the company should pertain skills to compare their HR strategies from PCNs to HCNs (Lorange, 1986). Moreover, if the company goes global they need to focus on the training and development issues because what works at home doesnt work outside. So the HCNs must be given proper training in order to have better and efficient system at work (Black et al. 1999). The company should be guided by the HR staff of the subsidiary in order to avoid conflicts between the PCNs and HCNs. People Management Style USA AND INDIA The advancement in the technology has result in increase in the productivity levels in the organisations and led to shortage of labours. Hence, it is enforcing organisations to engage in effective and efficient recruitment methods and leading to a diverse workforce. Moreover, in America the HR department is becoming more competitive in nature in respect to provide the qualified set of people for the job and this is being created to giving them effective set of incentives. (https://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=848307HYPERLINK https://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=848307show=pdfHYPERLINK https://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=848307show=pdfshow=pdf) Alison M. Konrad, John Deckop, (2001) Human resource management trends in the USA Challenges in the midst of prosperity, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 22 Iss: 3, pp.269 278 As per the reports, Wal-Mart has got new structure i.e. they are reducing their market managers span of control in order to give the store managers opportunity to develop and implement productive styles at work. This will result in the stronger management at stores and better growth opportunities down the line. (https://walmartstores.com/pressroom/9624.aspx) The management style in the organisation differs from one another. The style of working in US is different from the Indian style of working. For example, in India the political connections plays an important role for the giant players but in America they does not have much role to play. Moreover, in America the top level does not have links with them; they operate business as B2B system. Despite the political concerns, the leadership style in managing people also varies from country to country. For example, in America there are five types of leadership styles that are taken into consideration while operating a business i.e. Directive, Participative, Empowering, Charismatic and Celebrity (Superstar). The initial four deals with the way subordinates execute their power and the last one is not in the hands of internal members. It is beyond the internal power. (https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4869.html) Moreover, according to Hofstede, there is a major difference between Indian and American style of managing people. Hofstede theory for INDIVIDUALISM versus COLLECTIVISM states that the Americans stand as a professionals and are individualistic. Whereas, the Indian people believe in working as WE. This differentiates their style or working in the organisation (Hofstede, 2002). People Management Mechanisms: Comparison between USA and India in people management mechanism Being a manager- the roles and the duties of the manager differs from country to country. For example, in India the mangers must focus on the procedure and the custom that exists in the organisation. The caste system might be illegal but an effective hierarchical structure still exists in the Indian companies. On the other hand, the managers need to be safest while handling the cross cultural issues in the organisation. The people are treated equally. Moreover, in America all the individuals are appreciated for their hard work and thus given a proper time and chance during the decision making process in the organisation. Approach to time and priorities- Taking US into consideration, it is highly time oriented nation and thus expects the employees to be punctual and articulate in their task. Not completing the task at the given time is a sign of inefficiency and might lead to severe consequences for the employees. The task completed in time is as sign of perfect management and ef ficient working techniques. As far as India management is concerned, its slightly different in comparison with US. The prime reason behind is that Indian community is high on the relationship part so there are chances of skipping the deadlines. Decision Making- This process plays an important role for the managers and for the top level executives because productive and efficient decision will lead to flexible operations of the business. Therefore, in India, the culture is more of informal in terms of relationships between the managers and the employees of the company. Hence, the decisions are made by the managers and are delegated to the subordinates. And the subordinates how to meet the given objectives. Moreover, while considering cross cultural aspects one need to maintain respect and behaviour as per the position. For example, the manager arranging furniture will look inappropriate for that task, and hence it will lower your esteem in your organisation. So right person for th e right job is followed in Indian companies. On contrary, in US the process of decision making is totally opposite, wherein , the employees has the freedom to speak during the meeting and their points are considered if valid. And they have the authority to speak directly at higher level management. Communication and Negotiation Styles- Taking American style of negotiating into consideration, it is said to be hard sell style. Wherein, the employees tend to maintain strong pitch during negotiation in order to enthuse confidence and trust. They are inclined towards providing evidence for their work i.e. logical reasoning. Their style of communicating and negotiating with people is getting the work done in short span of time and attaining best combination of deals for their organisation. On the other hand, the Indian style of negotiating and communicating varied that from US people. The cross cultural concerns might be better option in Indian organisations if people understand the im portance of the relationships. Operating business is based on the trust and so it takes time and patience to build a strong network all along. Moreover, the Indians are not confrontational at business front and it not easy for them to digest the fact; secondly, the decisions are taken by the top level management still it takes time to process. Lastly, it is not worthy to trust on word of mouth while make agreements. Hence, proper legal issue must be taken into consideration while communicating and negotiating deals of the organisations in India. (https://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/management/india.html) Overview of the Subsidiary Country India The success and the survival of any employee do not only depend on analysing the market trends and implementing them into their internal strategies for the development of the company but also the employee develop systems on performance including the recruitment and selection procedures. (Arthur 1994, Miller Cardinal 1994, McDuffie 1995, Huselid 1995). (https://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0198-510028/Indian-retail-sector-HR-challenges.html) In India the workload on the employees is so heavy that they get demotivated and thus results in ineffective operations in the company. Hence, the employees must be given proper breaks i.e. not forcing them to work on weekends and other holidays. Instead they should be given freedom so that they get charged and can perform better in order to meet companys objectives. The communication process is quite structured in the Indian companies which acts as positive sign for the companies in India i.e. the open communication is encouraged from low er level to upper level and hence this practice leads to the satisfaction for the managers as well as the customers because their demands are directly conveyed to the top level management. The motivational factor acts as positive sign of the growth of the company. Therefore, the company must motivate their employees in terms of giving rewards and benefits for their tremendous work and appreciate in order to retain high performance at work. (https://retail.franchiseindia.com/articles/Retail-Operations/HR-and-People/HR-practices-need-up-gradation-212/) Recommendation Conclusion To Conclude, Culture is an important aspect that should be looked at by an organization very seriously. It is a whole lot more complex than domestic culture because it involves different countries who have their own set of culture, local systems, patterns of behaviour etc. A multinational in order to be successful should adapt to these varied cultures. Proper training should be given to expatriates about the culture, cross-communication skills, etc. of the respective host country when they go on an international assignment. Hence, success and the survival of the organisation depends upon the internal and external calamities i.e. national and international culture to attain position and recognition in the market