Modeling gaze behavior as a function of discourse structure
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43第27卷 第7期 牡丹江大学学报 Vol.27 No.72018年7月 Journal of Mudanjiang University Jul. 2018文章编号:1008-8717(2018)07-0043-04收稿日期:基金项目:作者简介:2018-03-23本文为2016年江苏省高校哲学社会基金项目“中产认同下的国家身份建构——厄德里克小说研究”(2016SJB750021)的阶段性成果。
沈群 (1977-),女, 江苏南通人,南京工程学院外国语学院讲师,研究方向:英美文学。
袁小明(1978-),男,江苏宿迁人,南京工程学院外国语学院副教授,国防科技大学博士后,研究方向:英美文学。
引言《踩影》(Shadow Tag)是美国当代作家路易斯·厄德里克(Louise Erdrich)2010年发表的新作,作品描写一对具有印第安血统的夫妻由于在婚姻中不平等地位,关系逐渐破裂,最终在一次家庭聚会中,双双溺亡海中。
小说女主人公艾琳(Irene)曾就其博士论文研究的画家凯特林做过这样一段描述:凯特林由于作品在美国不受欢迎,她就带着所有作品前往伦敦,去的时候他带了两只灰熊,并将它们关在笼子里供人观赏,两只灰熊先后死掉,凯凝视中的他者与自我——评厄德里克《踩影》中的凝视现象沈 群(南京工程学院外国语学院,江苏 南京 210000)摘 要:厄德里克在小说《踩影》中通过对凝视的思考,一方面折射了男权话语对女性的观看,另一方面也反映了当代印第安文化成为主流文化观看对象的情境。
被凝视者被剥夺了自我表达的机会,成为他者话语建构的产物,但是作家通过小说也指出可以通过虚假呈现、混乱男性和主流社会原有的视域框架,形成相互观看的关系;在相互观看的过程中使得凝视者和被凝视者都能反观自我,达到一种对自我的理解和对他者的理解。
关键词:凝视; 路易斯·厄德里克; 《踩影》; 自我中图分类号:I106.4 文献标识码:ASelf and Other in Gaze——Study of “Gaze” in S hadow TagSHEN Qun(School of Foreign Languages,Nanjing Institute of Technology,Nanjing,Jiangsu210000)Abstract: Based on various theories on “gaze”, this essay investigates Louise Erdrich’s concern on this phenomenon in her new novel S hadow Tag . The relationship between Irene and Gil reflects two kinds of gaze: man looking at woman, white society looking at Indian culture. On the one hand, the object of gaze is usually deprived of the right of self-expression and thus might employ false narrative so as to shift the direction of gaze and subvert the original power discourse. On the other hand, through the gaze, the subject might attain deeper understanding towards others and self as well.Key words: gaze; Louise Erdrich; S hadow Tag ; self特林认为它们的死完全是因为对观众的厌恶。
心怀敬畏之心英语作文 Title: Cultivating Reverence: A Reflection on the Heart。 In the vast spectrum of human emotions, reverence stands as a beacon of humility, guiding our actions and shaping our character. It is a profound respect mingled with awe, directing our gaze towards the sublime and the sacred. In this discourse, we delve into the significance of cultivating reverence in our hearts and its transformative power in our lives.
First and foremost, reverence fosters a deep appreciation for the wonders of existence. When we approach the world with reverence, we acknowledge the intricate tapestry of life, from the smallest blade of grass to the grandeur of the cosmos. Every encounter becomes an opportunity to marvel at the beauty and complexity of creation, instilling in us a sense of wonder and gratitude.
指示语deixis话语中跟语境相联系的表示指示信息的词语,就叫做指示语。
指示是语用研究中一个重要概念,涉及到一些词语,如代词、称谓、时间处所词语等。
这些词语的具体或确切的指称意义,必须结合具体的语境,才能准确理解。
指示语主要有:1、人称指示。
称指示是话语中关于人物人称的指示。
最典型的是人称代词,又分第一人称指示、第二人称指示、第三人称指示。
2、时间指示。
时间指示是话语中关于时间的指示。
时间是一个抽象的概念,人们只能人为地选定一些参照点。
在言语交际中,时间指示是以说话时刻作为参照点来计算和理解的。
3、空间指示。
空间指示是话语中关于处所、方位的指示。
空间指示主要有:表示方位和处所的名词、副词、指示代词,具有位移意义的动词如“来”“去”“走”“离开”“到达”等。
4、话语指示。
话语指示又称语段指示、上下文指示,是用来指明话语中部分与部分之间关系的。
由于言语交际是在一定的时间、空间中展开的,所以话语指示与时间指示、空间指示有密切关系,有些时间指示、空间指示同时也是话语指示。
5、社交指示。
社交指示是用来指明发话人和受话人之间,或发话人跟所谈及的人(第三方、之间的社会关系的词语。
DeixisFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIn linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning - for example, English pronouns - are deictic. Deixis is closely related to both indexicality and anaphora, as will be further explained below. Although this article deals primarily with deixis in spoken language, the concepts can apply to written language, gestures, and communication media as well. And even though this article is primarily concerned with English, deixis is believed to be a feature (to some degree) of all natural languages.[1]The term’s origin is Ancient Greek: δεῖξις ""display, demonstration, or reference"", the meaning "point of reference" in contemporary linguistics having been taken over from Chrysippus.[2Types of deixis[edit]Traditional categoriesPossibly the most common categories of contextual information referred to by deixis are those of person, place, and time - what Fillmore calls the “major grammaticalized types” of deixis.[3] [edit]PersonPerson deixis concerns itself with the grammatical persons involved in an utterance, (1) those directly involved (e.g. the speaker, the addressee), (2) those not directly involved (e.g. overhearers—those who hear the utterance but who are not being directly addressed), and (3) those mentioned in the utterance.[4] In English, the distinctions are generally indicated by pronouns. The following examples show how. (The person deictic terms are in italics [a signaling notation that will continue through this article].)I am going to the movies.Would you like to have dinner?They tried to hurt me, but he came to the rescue.GenderIn many languages, that only have male and female, referring to gender neutral subjects has different aspects. Objects , or things have their own gender too between male or female. When referring to a genderless object, it is often referred to as a male, though the object is genderless. In the English language, when referring to any character that has no gender, a self-aware entity, it is referred to a male, or as a "He", such as an "it" is inappropriate when calling the sentient object a thing. In many languages, they would address to people as in male, such as a group mixed with men and women is referred to as a male, such as Ils in French. An example would be :A man is responsible for his own soulas opposed toEach person is responsible for his or her own soulcommon in many religious text referring to people of all genders using only the male gender. This can be understood in context, the male gender being used to signify male or female persons.PlacePlace deixis, also known as space deixis, concerns itself with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly to person deixis, the locations may be either those of the speaker and addressee or those of persons or objects being referred to. The most salient English examples are the adverbs“here” and “there”and the demonstratives“this” and “that” - although those are far from being the only deictic words.[3]Some examples:I enjoy living in this city.Here is where we will place the statue.She was sitting over there.Unless otherwise specified, place deictic terms are generally understood to be relative to the location of the speaker, as inThe shop is across the street.where “across the street” is understood to mean “across the street from where I am right now.”[3] It is interesting to note that while “here” and “there” are often used to refer to locations near to and far from the speaker, respectively, “there” can also refer to the location of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the speaker. So, whileHere is a good spot; it is too sunny over there.exemplifies the former usage,How is the weather there?is an example of the latter.[4]Languages usually show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker, and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closerto the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this and that, here and there, etc. In other languages, the distinction is three-way: proximal, i.e. near the speaker, medial, i.e. near the addressee, and distal, i.e. far from both. This is the case in a few Romance languages and in Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipino and Turkish The archaic Englishforms yon and yonder (still preserved in some regional dialects) once represented a distal category which has now been subsumed by the formerly medial "there".[5]TimeTime, or temporal, deixis concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to inan utterance. This includes time adverbs like "now", "then", "soon", and so forth, and also different tenses. A good example is the word tomorrow, which denotes the consecutive next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year was a different day than the "tomorrow" of a day next week. Time adverbs can be relative to the time when an utterance is made (what Fillmore calls the "encoding time", or ET) or when the utterance is heard (Fillmore’s "decoding time", or DT).[3] While these are frequently the same time, they can differ, as in the case of prerecorded broadcasts or correspondence. For example, if one were to writeIt is raining out now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny.the ET and DT would be different, with the former deictic term concerning ET and the latterthe DT.Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic) and relative tenses. So, forexample, simple English past tense is absolute, such as inHe went.while the pluperfect is relative to some other deictically specified time, as inHe had gone.Other categoriesThough the traditional categories of deixis are perhaps the most obvious, there are other types of deixis that are similarly pervasive in language use. These categories of deixis were first discussed by Fillmore and Lyons.[4][edit]DiscourseDiscourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance — including the utterance itself. For example, inThis is a great story.“this” refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse, and inThat was an amazing day.that” refers to a prior portion of the discourse.Distinction must be made between discourse deixis and anaphora, which is when an expression makes reference to the same referent as a prior term, as inMatthew is an incredible athlete; he came in first in the race.Lyons points out that it is possible for an expression to be both deictic and anaphoric at the same time. In his exampleI was born in London and I have lived here/there all my life.“here” or “there” function anaphorically in their refe rence to London, and deictically in that the choice between “here” or “there” indicates whether the speaker is or is not currently in London.[1]The rule of thumb to distinguish the two phenomenon is as follows: when an expression refers to another linguistic expression or a piece of discourse, it is discourse deictic. When that expression refers to the same item as a prior linguistic expression, it is anaphoric.[4]Switch reference is a type of discourse deixis, and a grammatical feature found in some languages, which indicates whether the argument of one clause is the same as the argument of the previous clause. In some languages, this is done through same subject markers and different subject markers. In the translated example "John punched Tom, and left-[samesubject marker]," it is John who left, and in "John punched Tom, and left-[different subject marker]," it is Tom who left.[citation needed][edit]SocialSocial deixis concerns the social information that is encoded within various expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity. Two major forms of it are the so-called T-V distinctions and honorifics.Usages of deixisIt is helpful to distinguish between two usages of deixis, gestural and symbolic, as well asnon-deictic usages of frequently deictic words. Gestural deixis refers, broadly, to deictic expressions whose understanding requires some sort of audio-visual information. A simple example is when an object is pointed at and referred to as “this” or “that”. However, the category can include other types of information than pointing, such as direction of gaze, tone of voice, and so on. Symbolic usage, by contrast, requires generally only basic spatio-temporal knowledge of the utterance.[4] So, for exampleI broke this finger.requires being able to see which finger is being held up, whereasI love this city.requires only knowledge of the current location. In a similar vein,I went to this city one time . . .is a non-deictic usage of "this", which does not reference anything specific.Rather, it is used as an indefinite article, much the way "a" could be used inits place.。
2006 年 4 月Journal of Chemical Engineering of Chinese Universities Apr. 2006文章编号:10013-9015(2006)02-0164-05双流体模型中曳力及恢复系数对气固流动的影响王嘉骏, 顾雪萍, 杨富军, 冯连芳(浙江大学化学工程与生物工程学系化学工程联合国家重点实验室聚合反应工程分室, 浙江杭州 310027)摘要:应用双流体模型CFD模拟的方法,从恢复系数和曳力两方面,研究了气固密相流化床中颗粒之间和气固相之间的相互作用对床内非均匀流动结构形成与变化的影响。
计算结果表明颗粒间非弹性碰撞和气固间曳力的增大均使气固两相流动的非均匀性增大。
通过比较二者对非均匀流动结构的影响,发现气固间曳力是形成非均匀流动结构的决定因素。
从碰撞耗散、颗粒动能和颗粒势能的角度分析了二者的作用机理,发现恢复系数和曳力对流动结构的作用主要区别在于对颗粒团聚和床层膨胀的影响程度不同。
关键词:气固流化床;双流体模型;非均匀流动结构;恢复系数;曳力中图分类号:TQ021.1;TQ051.3 文献标识码:AEffects of Restitution Coefficient and Drag Force on Gas-solid Flow Behavior:A Two-fluid Model SimulationWANG Jia-jun, GU Xue-ping, YANG Fu-jun, FENG Lian-fang(State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering (Polymer Reaction Engineering Division), Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China)Abstract: In the dense gas-fluidized beds, the heterogeneous flow structure of the gas-particle flow affects the gas-solid contact and transport process in the bed seriously. In order to explore the influence of the interactions between particles and between gas and particles on the formation of heterogeneous flow structure, a computational study was carried out by using a two-fluid model based on the particle kinetic theory. The results show that the stronger the particle-particle collisional dissipation and gas-solid drag force, the more heterogeneous the flow structure. It also shows that though the collisional dissipation dramatically intensifies the formation of heterogeneous flow structure, the gas-solid drag force is the fundamental factor which triggers the pattern formation. Based on the energy budget analysis of collisional dissipation, particle kinetic energy and particle potential energy, it shows that the main different between the effect of restitution coefficient and drag force on the heterogeneous flow structure is that the former effects the particle agglomeration chiefly and the later effects the bed height mainly.Key words: gas-fluidized bed; two-fluid model; heterogeneous flow structure; restitution coefficient;drag force1 前言气固流态化技术在很多工业过程中得到广泛应用[1~2]。
Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs andOwnership StructureMichael C. Jensen Harvard Business School and William H. Meckling*University of Rochester1. Introduction1.1.Motivation of the PaperIn this paper we draw on recent progress in the theory of (1) property rights, (2) agency,and (3) finance to develop a theory of ownership structure for the firm. In addition to tying together elements of the theory of each of these three areas, our analysis casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature including the definition of the firm, the “separation of ownership and control,” the “social responsibility” of business, the definition of a “corporate objective function,” the determination of an optimal capital structure, the specification of the content of credit agreements, the theory of organizations, and the supply side of the completeness of markets problems.Our theory helps explain:1. why an entrepreneur or manager in a firm which has a mixed financial structure(containing both debt and outside equity claims) will choose a set of activities for the firm such that the total value of the firm is less than it would be if he were the sole owner and why this result is independent of whether the firm operates in monopolistic or competitive product or factor markets;2. why his failure to maximize the value of the firm is perfectly consistent withefficiency;3. why the sale of common stock is a viable source of capital even though managers do not literally maximize the value of the firm;4. why debt was relied upon as a source of capital before debt financing offered any tax advantage relative to equity;5. why preferred stock would be issued;6. why accounting reports would be provided voluntarily to creditors and stockholders, and why independent auditors would be engaged by management to testify to the accuracy and correctness of such reports;7. why lenders often place restrictions on the activities of firms to whom they lend, and why firms would themselves be led to suggest the imposition of such restrictions;8. why some industries are characterized by owner-operated firms whose sole outside source of capital is borrowing;9. why highly regulated industries such as public utilities or banks will have higher debt equity ratios for equivalent levels of risk than the average nonregulated firm;10. why security analysis can be socially productive even if it does not increase portfolio returns to investors.1.2 Theory of the Firm: An Empty Box?While the literature of economics is replete with references to the “theory of the firm,” the material generally subsumed under that heading is not actually a theory of the firm but rather a theory of markets in which firms are important actors. The firm is a “black box” operated so as to meet the relevant marginal conditions with respect to inputs and outputs, thereby maximizing profits, or more accurately, present value. Except for a few recent and tentative steps, however,we have no theory which explains how the conflicting objectives of the individual participants are brought into equilibrium so as to yield this result. The limitations of this black box view of the firm have been cited by Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, among others. More recently, popular and professional debates over the “social responsibility” of corporations, the separation of ownership and control, and the rash of reviews of the literature on the “theory of the firm” have evidenced continuing concern with these issues.A number of major attempts have been made during recent years to construct a theory of the firm by substituting other models for profit or value maximization, with each attempt motivated by a conviction that the latter is inadequate to explain managerial behavior in large corporations. Some of these reformulation attempts have rejected the fundamental principle of maximizingbehavior as well as rejecting the more specific profit-maximizing model. We retain the notion of maximizing behavior on the part of all individuals in the analysis that follows.1.3 Property RightsAn independent stream of research with important implications for the theory of the firm has been stimulated by the pioneering work of Coase, and extended by Alchian, Demsetz, and others. A comprehensive survey of this literature is given by Furubotn and Pejovich (1972).While the focus of this research has been “property rights”,the subject matter encompassed is far broader than that term suggests. What is important for the problems addressed here is that specification of individual rights determines how costs and rewards will be allocated among the participants in any organization. Since the specification of rights is generally affected through contracting (implicit as well as explicit), individual behavior in organizations, including the behavior of managers, will depend upon the nature of these contracts. We focus in this paper on the behavioral implications of the property rights specified in the contracts between the owners and managers of the firm.1.4 Agency CostsMany problems associated with the inadequacy of the current theory of the firm can also be viewed as special cases of the theory of agency relationships in which there is a growing literature. This literature has developed independently of the property rights literature even though the problems with which it is concerned are similar; the approaches are in fact highly complementary to each other.We define an agency relationship as a contract under which one or more persons (the principal(s)) engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf which involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent. If both parties to the relationship are utility maximizers, there is good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interests of the principal. Theprincipal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent. In addition in some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources (bonding costs) to guarantee that he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions. However, it is generally impossible for the principal or the agent at zero cost to ensure that the agent will make optimal decisions from the principal’s viewpoint. In most agency relationships the principal and the agent will incur positive monitoring and bonding costs (non-pecuniary as well as pecuniary), and in addition there will be some divergence between the agent’s decisions and those decisions which would maximize the welfare of the principal. The dollar equivalent of the reduction in welfare experienced by the principal as a result of this divergence is also a cost of the agency relationship, and we refer to this latter cost as the “residual loss.” We define agency costs as the sum of:1. the monitoring expenditures by the principal,2. the bonding expenditures by the agent,3. the residual loss.Note also that agency costs arise in any situation involving cooperative effort (such as the coauthoring of this paper) by two or more people even though there is no clear-cut principal-agent relationship. Viewed in this light it is clear that our definition of agency costs and their importance to the theory of the firm bears a close relationship to the problem of shirking and monitoring of team production which Alchian and Demsetz (1972) raise in their paper on the theory of the firm.Since the relationship between the stockholders and the managers of a corporation fits the definition of a pure agency relationship, it should come as no surprise to discover that the issues associated with the “separation of ownership and control” in the modern diffuse ownership corporation are intimately associated with the general problem of agency. We show below that an explanation of why and how the agency costs generated by the corporate form are born leads to a theory of the ownership (or capital) structure of the firm.Before moving on, however, it is worthwhile to point out the generality of the agency problem. The problem of inducing an “agent” to behave as if he were maximizing the “principal’s” welfare is quite general. It exists in all organizations and in all cooperative efforts—at every level of management in firms, in universities, in mutual companies, in cooperatives, in governmental authorities and bureaus, in unions, and in relationships normally classified as agency relationships such as those common in the performing arts and the market for real estate. The development of theories to explain the form which agency costs take in each of these situations (where the contractual relations differ significantly), and how and why they are born will lead to a rich theory of organizations which is now lacking in economics and the social sciences generally.We confine our attention in this paper to only a small part of this general problem—the analysis of agency costs generated by the contractual arrangements between the owners and top management of the corporation.Our approach to the agency problem here differs fundamentally from most of theexisting literature. That literature focuses almost exclusively on the normative aspects of the agency relationship; that is, how to structure the contractual relation (including compensation incentives) between the principal and agent to provide appropriate incentives for the agent to make choices which will maximize the principal’s welfare, given that uncertainty and imperfect monitoring exist.We focus almost entirely on the positive aspects of the theory. That is, we assume individuals solve these normative problems, and given that only stocks and bonds can be issued as claims, we investigate the incentives faced by each of the parties and the elements entering into the determination of the equilibrium contractual form characterizing the relationship between the manager (i.e., agent) of the firm and the outside equity and debt holders (i.e., principals).1.5 General Comments on the Definition of the firmRonald Coase in his seminal paper entitled “The Nature of the Firm” (1937) pointed out that economics had no positive theory to determine the bounds of the firm. He characterized the bounds of the firm as that range of exchanges over which the market system was suppressed and where resource allocation was accomplished instead by authority and direction. He focused on the cost of using markets to effect contracts and exchanges and argued that activities would be included within the firm whenever the costs of using markets were greater than the costs of using direct authority. Alchian and Demsetz (1972) object to the notion that activities within the firm are governed by authority, and correctly emphasize the role of contracts as a vehicle for voluntary exchange. They emphasize the role of monitoring in situations in which there is joint input or team production.We are sympathetic to with the importance they attach to monitoring, but we believe the emphasis that Alchian and Demsetz place on joint input production is too narrow and therefore misleading. Contractual relations are the essence of the firm, not only with employees but with suppliers, customers, creditors, and so on. The problem of agency costs and monitoring exists for all of these contracts, independent of whether there is joint production in their sense; i.e., joint production can explain only a small fraction of the behavior of individuals associated with a firm.It is important to recognize that most organizations are simply legal fictions which serve as a nexus for a set of contracting relationships among individuals. This includes firms, non-profit institutions such as universities, hospitals, and foundations, mutual organizations such as mutual savings banks and insurance companies and co-operatives, some private clubs, and even governmental bodies such as cities, states, and the federal government, government enterprises such as TV A, the Post Office, transit systems, and so forth.The private corporation or firm is simply one form of legal fiction which serves as a nexus for contracting relationships and which is also characterized by the existence of divisible residual claims on the assets and cash flows of the organization which can generally be sold without permission of the other contracting individuals. Although this definition of the firm has little substantive content, emphasizing the essential contractual nature of firms and other organizations focuses attention on a crucial set of questions—why particular sets of contractual relations arise for varioustypes of organizations, what the consequences of these contractual relations are, and how they are affected by changes exogenous to the organization. Viewed this way, it makes little or no sense to try to distinguish those things that are “inside” the firm (or any other organization) from those things that are “outside” of it. There is in a very real sense only a multitude of complex relationships (i.e.,contracts) between the legal fiction (the firm) and the owners of labor, material and capital inputs and the consumers of output.Viewing the firm as the nexus of a set of contracting relationships among individuals also serves to make it clear that the personalization of the firm implied by asking questions such as “what should be the objective function of the firm?” or “does the firm have a social responsibility?” is seriously misleading. The firm is not an individual. It is a legal fiction which serves as a focus for a complex process in which the conflicting objectives of individuals (some of whom may “represent” other organizations) are brought into equilibrium within a framework of contractual relations. In this sense the “behavior” of the firm is like the behavior of a market, that is, the outcome of a complex equilibrium process. We seldom fall into the trap of characterizing the wheat or stock market as an individual, but we often make this error by thinking about organizations as if they were persons with motivations and intentions.1.6 Overview of the PaperWe develop our theory in stages. Sections 2 and 4 provide analyses of the agency costs of equity and debt respectively. These form the major foundation of the theory. In Section 3, we pose some questions regarding the existence of the corporate form of organization and examines the role of limited liability. Section 5 provides a synthesis of the basic concepts derived in sections 2-4 into a theory of the corporate ownership structure which takes account of the trade-offs available to the entrepreneur-manager between inside and outside equity and debt. Some qualifications and extensions of the analysis are discussed in section 6, and section 7 contains a brief summary and conclusions.企业理论:管理行为,代理成本和所有权结构迈克尔詹森哈佛商学院和威廉H.麦克林罗切斯特大学1.简介1.1.研究背景在本文中,我们借鉴在产权,机构,以及金融方面的最新成果,希望可以发展一种所有制结构的企业理论。
胡壮麟《语言学教程》分章测试题一Chapter 1 Introductions to LinguisticsI. Choose the best answer. (20%)1. Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human __________A. contactB. communicationC. relationD. community2. Which of the following words is entirely arbitrary?A. treeB. typewriterC. crashD. bang3. The function of the sentence “Water boils at 100 degrees Centigrade.” is __________.A. interrogativeB. directiveC. informativeD. performative4. In Chinese when someone breaks a bowl or a plate the host or the people present are likely to say“碎碎(岁岁)平安”as a means of controlling the forces which they believes feel might affect their lives. Which functions does it perform?A. InterpersonalB. EmotiveC. PerformativeD. Recreational5. Which of the following property of language enables language users to overcome the barriers caused by time and place, due to this feature of language, speakers of a language are free to talk about anything in any situation?A. TransferabilityB. DualityC. DisplacementD. Arbitrariness6. Study the following dialogue. What function does it play according to the functions of language? — A n ice day, isn’t it?— Right! I really enjoy the sunlight.A. EmotiveB. PhaticC. PerformativeD. Interpersonal7. __________ refers to the actual realization of the ideal language user’s knowledge of the rules of his language in utterances.A. PerformanceB. CompetenceC. LangueD. Parole8. When a dog is barking, you assume it is barking for something or at someone that exists hear and now. It couldn’t be sorrowful for some lost love or lost bone. This indic ates the design feature of _____A_____.A. cultural transmissionB. productivityC. displacementD. duality9. __________ answers such questions as how we as infants acquire our first language.A. PsycholinguisticsB.Anthropological linguisticsC. SociolinguisticsD. Applied linguistics10. __________ deals with language application to other fields, particularly education.A. Linguistic theoryB. Practical linguisticsC. Applied linguisticsD. Comparative linguisticsII. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)11. F Language is a means of verbal communication. Therefore, the communication way used by the deaf-mute is not language.12. F Language change is universal, ongoing and arbitrary.13. Speaking is the quickest and most efficient way of the human communication systems.14. Language is written because writing is the primary medium for all languages.15. We were all born with the ability to acquire language, which means the details of any language system can be genetically transmitted.17. F. de Saussure, who made the distinction between langue and parole in the early 20th century, was a French linguist.18. A study of the features of the English used in Shakespeare’s time is an example of the diachronic study of language.19. Speech and writing came into being at much the same time in human history.20. All the languages in the world today have both spoken and written forms.III. Fill in the blanks. (10%)21. Language, broadly speaking, is a means of __ verbal________ communication.22. In any language words can be used in new ways to mean new things and can be combined into innumerable sentences based on limited rules. This feature is usually termed_____productivity_____.23. Language has many functions. We can use language to talk about itself. Thisfunction is _____matalingual function___.24. Theory that primitive man made involuntary vocal noises while performing heavywork has been called the ___yo he ho_______ theory.25. Linguistics is the __________ study of language.26. Modern linguistics is __________ in the sense that the linguist tries to discover what language is rather than lay down some rules for people to observe.27. One general principle of linguistic analysis is the primacy of ___speech_______ over writing.28. The description of a language as it changes through time is a __________ study.29. Saussure put forward two important concepts. __________ refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community.30. Linguistic potential is similar to Saus sure’s langu e and Chomsky’s __________. IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)31. Design feature32. Displacement33. Competence34. Synchronic linguisticsV. Answer the following questions. (20%)35. Why do people take duality as one of the important design features of human language? Can you tell us what language will be if it has no such design feature? (南开大学,2004)36. Why is it difficult to define language? (北京第二外国语大学,2004)VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)37. How can a linguist make his analysis scientific? (青岛海洋大学,1999)Key: Chapter 1[In the reference keys, I won’t give examples or further analysis. That seems too much work for me. Therefore, this key is only for reference. In order to answer this kind of question, you need more examples. So you should read the textbook carefully. – icywarmtea]I. 1~5 BACCC 6~10 BACACII.11~15 FFTFF 16~20 FFFFFIII.21. verbal 22. productivity / creativity23. metalingual function 24. yo-he-ho25. scientific 26. descriptive27. speech 28. diachronic linguistic29. langue 30. competenceIV.31. Design feature: It refers to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication.32. Displacement: It means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts, which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.33. Competence: It is an essential part of performance. It is the speaker’s knowledge of his or her language; that is, of its sound structure, its words, and its grammatical rules. Competence is, in a way, an encyclopedia of language. Moreover, the knowledge involved in competence is generally unconscious. A transformational-generative grammar is a model of competence.34. Synchronic linguistics: It refers to the study of a language at a given point in time. The time studied may be either the present or a particular point in the past; synchronic analyses can also be made of dead languages, such as Latin. Synchronic linguistics is contrasted with diachronic linguistics, the study of a language over a period of time.V.35. Duality makes our language productive. A large number of different units can be formed out of a small number of elements – for instance, tens of thousands of words out of a small set of sounds, around 48 in the case of the English language. And out of the huge number of words, there can be astronomical number of possible sentences and phrases, which in turn can combine to form unlimited number of texts. Most animal communication systems do not have this design feature of human language.If language has no such design feature, then it will be like animal communicational system which will be highly limited. It cannot produce a very large number of sound combinations,36. It is difficult to define language, as it is such a general term that covers too many things. Thus, definitions for it all have their own special emphasis, and are not totally free from limitations.VI.37. It should be guided by the four principles of science: exhaustiveness, consistency, economy and objectivity and follow the scientific procedure: form hypothesis – collect data –check against the observable facts – come to a conclusion.Chapter 2 Speech SoundsI. Choose the best answer. (20%)1. Pitch variation is known as ______A____ when its patterns are imposed on sentences.A. intonationB. toneC. pronunciationD. voice2. Conventionally a __________ is put in slashes (/ /).A. allophoneB. phoneC. phonemeD. morpheme3. An aspirated p, an unaspirated p and an unreleased p are __________ of the p phoneme.A. analoguesB. tagmemesC. morphemesD. allophones4. The opening between the vocal cords is sometimes referred to as ____A______.A. glottisB. vocal cavityC. pharynxD. uvula5. The diphthongs that are made with a movement of the tongue towards the center are known as __________ diphthongs.A. wideB. closingC. narrowD. centering6. A phoneme is a group of similar sounds called ___D_______.A. minimal pairsB. allomorphsC. phonesD. allophones7. Which branch of phonetics concerns the production of speech sounds?A. Acoustic phoneticsB. Articulatory phoneticsC. Auditory phoneticsD. None of the above8. Which one is different from the others according to places of articulation?A. [n]B. [m]C. [ b ]D. [p]9. Which vowel is different from the others according to the characteristics of vowels?A. [i:]B. [ u ]C. [e]D. [ i ]10 What kind of sounds can we make when the vocal cords are vibrating?A. V oicelessB. V oicedC. Glottal stopD. ConsonantII. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)11. T Suprasegmental phonology refers to the study of phonological properties of units larger than the segment-phoneme, such as syllable, word and sentence.12. The air stream provided by the lungs has to undergo a number of modification to acquire the quality of a speech sound.13. Two sounds are in free variation when they occur in the same environment and do not contrast, namely, the substitution of one for the other does not produce a different word, but merely a different pronunciation.15. Acoustic phonetics is concerned with the perception of speech sounds.16. All syllables must have a nucleus but not all syllables contain an onset and a coda.17. When pure vowels or monophthongs are pronounced, no vowel glides take place.18. According to the length or tenseness of the pronunciation, vowels can be divided into tense vs. lax or long vs. short.19. Received Pronunciation is the pronunciation accepted by most people.20. F The maximal onset principle states that when there is a choice as to where to place a consonant, it is put into the coda rather than the onset.III. Fill in the blanks. (20%)21. Consonant sounds can be either ___voiced__ or __voiceless____, while all vowel sounds are ____voiced______22. Consonant sounds can also be made when two organs of speech in the mouth are brought close together so that the air is pushed out between them, causing __fricition_______.23. The qualities of vowels depend upon the position of the _tongue_________ and the lips.24. One element in the description of vowels is the part of the tongue which is at the highest point in the mouth. A second element is the _____height____ to which that part of the tongue is raised.25. Consonants differ from vowels in that the latter are produced without __________.26. In phonological analysis the words fail / veil are distinguishable simply because of the two phonemes /f/ - /v/. This is an example for illustrating __________.27. In English there are a number of __________, which are produced by moving from one vowel position to another through intervening positions.28. ___ refers to the phenomenon of sounds continually show the influence of their neighbors.29. __________ is the smallest linguistic unit.30. Speech takes place when the organs of speech move to produce patterns of sound. These movements have an effect on the __________ coming from the lungs.IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)31. Sound assimilation32. Suprasegmental feature33. Complementary distribution34. Distinctive featuresV. Answer the following questions. (20%)35. What is acoustic phonetics?(中国人民大学,2003)36. What are the differences between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds in terms of articulation?(南开大学,2004)VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)37. Write the symbol that corresponds to each of the following phonetic descriptions; then give an English word that contains this sound. Example: voiced alveolar stop [d] dog.(1) voiceless bilabial unaspirated stop(2) low front vowel(3) lateral liquid(5) voiced interdental fricative答案 Chapter 2I.1~5 ACDAA 6~10 DBABBII.11~15 TTTFF 16~20 TTTFFIII.21. voiced, voiceless, voiced 22. friction23. tongue 24. height25. obstruction 26. minimal pairs27. diphthongs 28. Co-articulation29. Phonemes 30. air streamIV.31. Sound assimilation: Speech sounds seldom occur in isolation. In connected speech, under the influence of their neighbors, are replaced by other sounds. Sometimes two neighboring sounds influence each other and are replaced by a third sound which is different from both original sounds. This process is called sound assimilation.32. Suprasegmental feature: The phonetic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features; these are the phonological properties of such units as the syllable, the word, and the sentence. The main suprasegmental ones includes stress, intonation, and tone.33. Complementary distribution: The different allophones of the same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic context. When two or more allophones of one phoneme never occur in the same linguistic environment they are said to be in complementary distribution.34. Distinctive features: It refers to the features that can distinguish one phoneme from another. If we can group the phonemes into two categories: one with this feature and the other without, this feature is called a distinctive feature.V.35.Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air. When ainstruments are used to measure the characteristics of these sound waves.36.When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless; consonants [p, s, t] are produced in this way. But when the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced. [b, z, d] are voiced consonants.VI.37.Omit.Chapter 3 LexicoI. Choose the best answer. (20%)1 Nouns, verbs and adjectives can be classified as __________.A. lexical wordsB. grammatical wordsC. function wordsD. form words2. Morphemes that represent tense, number, gender and case are called __________ morpheme.A. inflectionalB. freeC. boundD. derivational3. There are __________ morphemes in the word denationalization.A. threeB. fourC. fiveD. six4. In English –ise and –tion are called __________.A. prefixesB. suffixesC. infixesD. stems5. The three subtypes of affixes are: prefix, suffix and __________.A. derivational affixB. inflectional affixC. infixD. back-formation6. __________ is a way in which new words may be formed from already existing words by subtracting an affix which is thought to be part of the old word.A. affixationB. back-formationC. insertionD. addition7. The word TB is formed in the way of __________.A. acronymyB. clippingC. initialismD. blending8. The words like comsat and sitcom are formed by __________.A. blendingB. clippingC. back-formationD. acronymy9. The stem of disagreements is __________.A. agreementB. agreeC. disagreeD. disagreement10. All of them are meaningful except for __________.A. lexemeB. phonemeC. morphemeD. allomorphII. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)11. Phonetically, the stress of a compound always falls on the first element, while the second element receives secondary stress.12. Fore as in foretell is both a prefix and a bound morpheme.13. Base refers to the part of the word that remains when all inflectional affixes are removed.word-class of the base.15. Conversion from noun to verb is the most productive process of a word.16. Reduplicative compound is formed by repeating the same morpheme of a word.17. The words whimper, whisper and whistle are formed in the way of onomatopoeia.18. In most cases, the number of syllables of a word corresponds to the number of morphemes.19. Back-formation is a productive way of word-formations.20. Inflection is a particular way of word-formations.III. Fill in the blanks. (20%)21. An __________ is pronounced letter by letter, while an _______ is pronounced as a word22. Lexicon, in most cases, is synonymous with __________.23. Orthographically, compounds are written in three ways: _______, _______ and __________24. All words may be said to contain a root __________.25. A small set of conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns belong to __________ class, while the largest part of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs belongs to __________ class.26. __________ is a reverse process of derivation, and therefore is a process of shortening.27. __________ is extremely productive, because English had lost most of its inflectional endings by the end of Middle English period, which facilitated the use of words interchangeably as verbs or nouns, verbs or adjectives, and vice versa.28. Words are divided into simple, compound and derived words on the __________ level.29. A word formed by derivation is called a __________, and a word formed by compounding is called a __________.30. Bound morphemes are classified into two types: __________ and __________. IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)31. Blending32. Allomorph33. Closed-class word34. Morphological ruleV. Answer the following questions. (20%)35. How many types of morphemes are there in the English language? What are they? (厦门36. What are the main features of the English compounds?VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)37. Match the terms under COLUMN I with the underlined forms from COLUMN II (武汉I II(1) acronym a. foe(2) free morpheme b. subconscious(3) derivational morpheme c. UNESCO(4) inflectional morpheme d. overwhelmed(5) prefix e. calculationKey: Chapter 3I.1~5 AACBB 6~10 BCADBII.11~15 FTFTT 16~20 FTFFFIII.21. initialism, acronym 22. vocabulary23. solid, hyphenated, open 24. morpheme25. close, open 26. back-formation27. conversion 28. morpheme29. derivative, compound 30. affix, bound rootIV.31. Blending: It is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms, like newscast (news + broadcast), brunch (breakfast + lunch)32. Allomorph: It is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds.33. Close-class word: It is a word whose membership is fixed or limited. Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. are all closed-class words.34. Morphological rule: It is the rule that governs which affix can be added to what type of base to form a new word, e.g. –ly can be added to a noun to form an adjective.V.Omit.VI.37.(1) c (2) a (3) e (4) d (5) bChapter 4 SyntaxI. Choose the best answer. (20%)1. The sentence structure is ________.A. only linearB. only hierarchicalC. complexD. both linear and hierarchical2. The syntactic rules of any language are ____ in number.A. largeB. smallC. finiteD. infinite3. The ________ rules are the rules that group words and phrases to form grammatical sentences.A. lexicalB. morphologicalC. linguisticD. combinational4. A sentence is considered ____ when it does not conform to the grammati¬cal knowledge in the mind of native speakers.A. rightB. wrongC. grammaticalD. ungrammatical5. A __________ in the embedded clause refers to the introductory word that introduces the embedded clause.A. coordinatorB. particleC. prepositionD. subordinator6. Phrase structure rules have ____ properties.A. recursiveB. grammaticalC. socialD. functional7. Phrase structure rules allow us to better understand _____________.A. how words and phrases form sentences.B. what constitutes the grammaticality of strings of wordsC. how people produce and recognize possible sentencesD. all of the above.8. The head of the phrase “the city Rome” is __________.A. the cityB. RomeC. cityD. the city Rome9. The phrase “on the shelf” belongs to __________ construction.A. endocentricB. exocentricC. subordinateD. coordinate10. The sentence “They were wanted to remain quiet and not to expose themselves.” is aA. simpleB. coordinateC. compoundD. complexII. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)11. Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules that comprise the system of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker are known as linguistic competence.12. The syntactic rules of any language are finite in number, but there is no limit to the number of sentences native speakers of that language are able to produce and comprehend.13. In a complex sentence, the two clauses hold unequal status, one subordinating the other.14. Constituents that can be substituted for one another without loss of grammaticality belong to the same syntactic category.15. Minor lexical categories are open because these categories are not fixed and new members are allowed for.16. In English syntactic analysis, four phrasal categories are commonly recognized and discussed, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase, infinitive phrase, and auxiliary phrase.17. In English the subject usually precedes the verb and the direct object usually follows the verb.18. What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is a complete list of words and phrases rather than grammatical knowledge.19. A noun phrase must contain a noun, but other elements are optional.20. It is believed that phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generate sentences at the level of D-structure.III. Fill in the blanks. (20%)21. A __________ sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence.22. A __________ is a structurally independent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement, question or command.23. A __________ may be a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence that usually precedes the predicate.24. The part of a sentence which comprises a finite verb or a verb phrase and which says something about the subject is grammatically called __________.25. A __________ sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other.26. In the complex sentence, the incorporated or subordinate clause is normally called an __________ clause.27. Major lexical categories are __________ categories in the sense that new words are constantly added.28. __________ condition on case assignment states that a case assignor and a case recipient should stay adjacent to each other.29. __________ are syntactic options of UG that allow general principles to operate in one way or another and contribute to significant linguistic variations between and among natural languages.30. The theory of __________ condition explains the fact that noun phrases appear only in subject and object positions.IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)31. Syntax32. IC analysis33. Hierarchical structure34. Trace theoryV. Answer the following questions. (20%)35. What are endocentric construction and exocentric construction? (武汉大学,2004)36. Distinguish the two possible meanings of “more beautiful flowers” by means of IC analysis. (北京第二外国语大学,2004)VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)37. Draw a tree diagram according to the PS rules to show the deep structure of the sentence:The student wrote a letter yesterday.Key: Chapter4I.1~5 DCDDD 6~10 ADDBAII.11~15 TTTTF 16~20 FTFTTIII.21. simple 22. sentence23. subject 24. predicate25. complex 26. embedded27. open 28. Adjacency29. Parameters 30. CaseIV.31. Syntax: Syntax refers to the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences.32. IC analysis: Immediate constituent analysis, IC analysis for short, refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (phrases), which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate sake of convenience.33. Hierarchical structure: It is the sentence structure that groups words into structural constituents and shows the syntactic category of each structural constituent, such as NP, VP and PP.34. Trace theory: After the movement of an element in a sentence there will be a trace left in the original position. This is the notion trace in T-G grammar. It’s suggested that if we have the notion trace, all the necessary information for semantic interpretation may come from the surface structure. E.g. The passive Dams are built by beavers. differs from the active Beavers built dams. in implying that all dams are built by beavers. If we add a trace element represented by the letter t after built in the passive as Dams are built t by beavers, then the deep structure information that the word dams was originally the object of built is also captured by the surface structure. Trace theory proves to be not only theoretically significant but also empirically valid.V.35.An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. A typical example is the three small children with children as its head. The exocentric construction, opposite to the first type, is defined negatively as a construction whose distribution is not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. Prepositional phrasal like on the shelf are typical examples of this type.36.(1) more | beautiful flowers(2) more beautiful | flowersChapter 5 Meaning[Mainly taken from lxm1000w’s exercises. – icywarmtea]I. Choose the best answer. (20%)1. The naming theory is advanced by ________.A. PlatoB. BloomfieldC. Geoffrey LeechD. Firth2. “We shall know a word by the company it keeps.” This statement represents _______.A. the conceptualist viewB. contexutalismC. the naming theoryD. behaviorism3. Which of the following is NOT true?A. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.B. Sense is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form.C. Sense is abstract and decontextualized.D. Sense is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are not interested in.4. “Can I borrow your bike?”_______ “You have a bike.”A. is synonymous withB. is inconsistent withC. entailsD. presupposes5. ___________ is a way in which the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features.A. Predication analysisB. Componential analysisC. Phonemic analysisD. Grammatical analysis6. “Alive” and “dead” are ______________.A. gradable antonymsB. relational antonymsC. complementary antonymsD. None of the above7. _________ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.A. ReferenceB. ConceptC. SemanticsD. Sense8. ___________ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form.A. PolysemyB. SynonymyC. HomonymyD. Hyponymy9. Words that are close in meaning are called ______________.。
Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs and Ownership StructureMichael C. JensenHarvard Business SchoolMJensen@AndWilliam H. MecklingUniversity of RochesterAbstractThis paper integrates elements from the theory of agency, the theory of property rights and the theory of finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm. We define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the ‘separation and control’ issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears costs and why, and investigate the Pareto optimality of their existence. We also provide a new definition of the firm, and show how our analysis of the factors influencing the creation and issuance of debt and equity claims is a special case of the supply side of the completeness of markets problem.The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of otherpeople’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it withthe same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch overtheir own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as notfor their master’s honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it.Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of theaffairs of such a company.— Adam Smith (1776) Keywords: Agency costs and theory, internal control systems, conflicts of interest, capital structure, internal equity, outside equity, demand for security analysis, completeness of markets, supply of claims, limited liability©1976 Jensen and MecklingJournal of Financial Economics, October, 1976, V. 3, No. 4, pp. 305-360.Reprinted in Michael C. Jensen, A Theory of the Firm: Governance,Residual Claims and Organizational Forms (Harvard University Press, December 2000)available at /catalog/JENTHF.htmlAlso published in Foundations of Organizational Strategy,Michael C. Jensen, Harvard University Press, 1998.You may redistribute this document freely, but please do not post the electronic file on the web. I welcome web links to this document at: /abstract=94043. I revise my papers regularly, and providing a link to the original ensures that readers will receive the most recent version. Thank you,Michael C. JensenTheory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs and Ownership StructureMichael C. JensenHarvard Business SchoolandWilliam H. Meckling*University of Rochester1. Introduction1.1.Motivation of the PaperIn this paper we draw on recent progress in the theory of (1) property rights, (2) agency, and (3) finance to develop a theory of ownership structure1 for the firm. In addition to tying together elements of the theory of each of these three areas, our analysis casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature including the definition of the firm, the “separation of ownership and control,” the “social responsibility” of business, the definition of a “corporate objective function,” the determination of an optimal capital structure, the specification of the content of credit agreements, the theory of organizations, and the supply side of the completeness of markets problems.1 We do not use the term ‘capital structure’ because that term usually denotes the relative quantities of bonds, equity, warrants, trade credit, etc., which represent the liabilities of a firm. Our theory implies there is another important dimension to this problem—namely the relative amount of ownership claims held by insiders (management) and outsiders (investors with no direct role in the management of the firm).* Associate Professor and Dean, respectively, Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Analysis and Ideology, Interlaken, Switzerland, June 1974, sponsored by the Center for Research in Government Policy and Business at the University of Rochester, Graduate School of Management. We are indebted to F. Black, E. Fama, R. Ibbotson, W. Klein, M. Rozeff, R. Weil, O. Williamson, an anonymous referee, and to our colleagues and members of the Finance Workshop at the University of Rochester for their comments and criticisms, in particular G. Benston, M. Canes, D. Henderson, K. Leffler, J. Long, C. Smith, R. Thompson, R. Watts, and J. Zimmerman.Our theory helps explain:1.why an entrepreneur or manager in a firm which has a mixed financial structure(containing both debt and outside equity claims) will choose a set of activities for the firm such that the total value of the firm is less than it would be if he were the sole owner and why this result is independent of whether the firm operates in monopolistic or competitive product or factor markets;2.why his failure to maximize the value of the firm is perfectly consistent withefficiency;3.why the sale of common stock is a viable source of capital even though managers donot literally maximize the value of the firm;4.why debt was relied upon as a source of capital before debt financing offered any taxadvantage relative to equity;5.why preferred stock would be issued;6.why accounting reports would be provided voluntarily to creditors and stockholders,and why independent auditors would be engaged by management to testify to the accuracy and correctness of such reports;7.why lenders often place restrictions on the activities of firms to whom they lend, andwhy firms would themselves be led to suggest the imposition of such restrictions;8.why some industries are characterized by owner-operated firms whose sole outsidesource of capital is borrowing;9.why highly regulated industries such as public utilities or banks will have higher debtequity ratios for equivalent levels of risk than the average nonregulated firm;10.why security analysis can be socially productive even if it does not increase portfolioreturns to investors.1.2Theory of the Firm: An Empty Box?While the literature of economics is replete with references to the “theory of the firm,”the material generally subsumed under that heading is not actually a theory of the firm but rather a theory of markets in which firms are important actors. The firm is a “black box” operated so as to meet the relevant marginal conditions with respect to inputs and outputs, thereby maximizing profits, or more accurately, present value. Except for a few recent and tentative steps, however, we have no theory which explains how the conflicting objectives of the individual participants are brought into equilibrium so as to yield this result. The limitations of this black box view of the firm have been cited by Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, among others. More recently, popular and professional debates over the “social responsibility” of corporations, the separation of ownership and control, and the rash of reviews of the literature on the “theory of the firm” have evidenced continuing concern with these issues.2A number of major attempts have been made during recent years to construct a theory of the firm by substituting other models for profit or value maximization, with each attempt motivated by a conviction that the latter is inadequate to explain managerial behavior in large corporations.3 Some of these reformulation attempts have rejected the fundamental principle of maximizing2 Reviews of this literature are given by Peterson (1965), Alchian (1965, 1968), Machlup (1967), Shubik (1970), Cyert and Hedrick (1972), Branch (1973), Preston (1975).3 See Williamson (1964, 1970, 1975), Marris (1964), Baumol (1959), Penrose (1958), and Cyert and March (1963). Thorough reviews of these and other contributions are given by Machlup (1967) and Alchian (1965).Simon (1955) developed a model of human choice incorporating information (search) and computational costs which also has important implications for the behavior of managers. Unfortunately, Simon’s work has often been misinterpreted as a denial of maximizing behavior, and misused, especially in the marketing and behavioral science literature. His later use of the term “satisficing” (Simon, 1959) has undoubtedly contributed to this confusion because it suggests rejection of maximizing behavior rather than maximization subject to costs of information and of decision making.behavior as well as rejecting the more specific profit-maximizing model. We retain the notion of maximizing behavior on the part of all individuals in the analysis that follows.41.3Property RightsAn independent stream of research with important implications for the theory of the firm has been stimulated by the pioneering work of Coase, and extended by Alchian, Demsetz, and others.5 A comprehensive survey of this literature is given by Furubotn and Pejovich (1972). While the focus of this research has been “property rights”,6 the subject matter encompassed is far broader than that term suggests. What is important for the problems addressed here is that specification of individual rights determines how costs and rewards will be allocated among the participants in any organization. Since the specification of rights is generally affected through contracting (implicit as well as explicit), individual behavior in organizations, including the behavior of managers, will depend upon the nature of these contracts. We focus in this paper on the behavioral implications of the property rights specified in the contracts between the owners and managers of the firm.1.4Agency CostsMany problems associated with the inadequacy of the current theory of the firm can also be viewed as special cases of the theory of agency relationships in which there is a growing4 See Meckling (1976) for a discussion of the fundamental importance of the assumption of resourceful, evaluative, maximizing behavior on the part of individuals in the development of theory. Klein (1976) takes an approach similar to the one we embark on in this paper in his review of the theory of the firm and the law.5 See Coase (1937, 1959, 1960), Alchian (1965, 1968), Alchian and Kessel (1962), Demsetz (1967), Alchian and Demsetz (1972), Monson and Downs (1965), Silver and Auster (1969), and McManus (1975).6 Property rights are of course human rights, i.e., rights which are possessed by human beings. The introduction of the wholly false distinction between property rights and human rights in many policy discussions is surely one of the all time great semantic flimflams.literature.7 This literature has developed independently of the property rights literature even though the problems with which it is concerned are similar; the approaches are in fact highly complementary to each other.We define an agency relationship as a contract under which one or more persons (the principal(s)) engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf which involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent. If both parties to the relationship are utility maximizers, there is good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interests of the principal. The principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent. In addition in some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources (bonding costs) to guarantee that he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions. However, it is generally impossible for the principal or the agent at zero cost to ensure that the agent will make optimal decisions from the principal’s viewpoint. In most agency relationships the principal and the agent will incur positive monitoring and bonding costs (non-pecuniary as well as pecuniary), and in addition there will be some divergence between the agent’s decisions8 and those decisions which would maximize the welfare of the principal. The dollar equivalent of the reduction in welfare experienced by the principal as a result of this divergence is also a cost of the agency relationship, and we refer to this latter cost as the “residual loss.” We define agency costs as the sum of:7 Cf. Berhold (1971), Ross (1973, 1974a), Wilson (1968, 1969), and Heckerman (1975).8 Given the optimal monitoring and bonding activities by the principal and agent.1.the monitoring expenditures by the principal,92.the bonding expenditures by the agent,3.the residual loss.Note also that agency costs arise in any situation involving cooperative effort (such as the co-authoring of this paper) by two or more people even though there is no clear-cut principal-agent relationship. Viewed in this light it is clear that our definition of agency costs and their importance to the theory of the firm bears a close relationship to the problem of shirking and monitoring of team production which Alchian and Demsetz (1972) raise in their paper on the theory of the firm.Since the relationship between the stockholders and the managers of a corporation fits the definition of a pure agency relationship, it should come as no surprise to discover that the issues associated with the “separation of ownership and control” in the modern diffuse ownership corporation are intimately associated with the general problem of agency. We show below that an explanation of why and how the agency costs generated by the corporate form are born leads to a theory of the ownership (or capital) structure of the firm.Before moving on, however, it is worthwhile to point out the generality of the agency problem. The problem of inducing an “agent” to behave as if he were maximizing the “principal’s” welfare is quite general. It exists in all organizations and in all cooperative efforts—at every level of management in firms,10 in universities, in mutual companies, in cooperatives, in9 As it is used in this paper the term monitoring includes more than just measuring or observing the behavior of the agent. It includes efforts on the part of the principal to ‘control’ the behavior of the agent through budget restrictions, compensation policies, operating rules, etc.10 As we show below the existence of positive monitoring and bonding costs will result in the manager of a corporation possessing control over some resources which he can allocate (within certain constraints) to satisfy his own preferences. However, to the extent that he must obtain the cooperation of others in order to carry out his tasks (such as divisional vice presidents) and to the extent that he cannot control their behavior perfectly and costlessly they will be able to appropriate some of these resources for their own ends. In short, there are agency costs generated at every level of the organization. Unfortunately, the analysis of these more general organizational issues is even more difficult than that of the ‘ownership andgovernmental authorities and bureaus, in unions, and in relationships normally classified as agency relationships such as those common in the performing arts and the market for real estate. The development of theories to explain the form which agency costs take in each of these situations (where the contractual relations differ significantly), and how and why they are born will lead to a rich theory of organizations which is now lacking in economics and the social sciences generally. We confine our attention in this paper to only a small part of this general problem—the analysis of agency costs generated by the contractual arrangements between the owners and top management of the corporation.Our approach to the agency problem here differs fundamentally from most of the existing literature. That literature focuses almost exclusively on the normative aspects of the agency relationship; that is, how to structure the contractual relation (including compensation incentives) between the principal and agent to provide appropriate incentives for the agent to make choices which will maximize the principal’s welfare, given that uncertainty and imperfect monitoring exist. We focus almost entirely on the positive aspects of the theory. That is, we assume individuals solve these normative problems, and given that only stocks and bonds can be issued as claims, we investigate the incentives faced by each of the parties and the elements entering into the determination of the equilibrium contractual form characterizing the relationship between the manager (i.e., agent) of the firm and the outside equity and debt holders (i.e., principals).1.5General Comments on the Definition of the firmRonald Coase in his seminal paper entitled “The Nature of the Firm” (1937) pointed out that economics had no positive theory to determine the bounds of the firm. He characterized thecontrol’ issue because the nature of the contractual obligations and rights of the parties are much more varied and generally not as well specified in explicit contractual arrangements. Nevertheless, they exist and we believe that extensions of our analysis in these directions show promise of producing insights into a viable theory of organization.bounds of the firm as that range of exchanges over which the market system was suppressed and where resource allocation was accomplished instead by authority and direction. He focused on the cost of using markets to effect contracts and exchanges and argued that activities would be included within the firm whenever the costs of using markets were greater than the costs of using direct authority. Alchian and Demsetz (1972) object to the notion that activities within the firm are governed by authority, and correctly emphasize the role of contracts as a vehicle for voluntary exchange. They emphasize the role of monitoring in situations in which there is joint input or team production.11 We are sympathetic to with the importance they attach to monitoring, but we believe the emphasis that Alchian and Demsetz place on joint input production is too narrow and therefore misleading. Contractual relations are the essence of the firm, not only with employees but with suppliers, customers, creditors, and so on. The problem of agency costs and monitoring exists for all of these contracts, independent of whether there is joint production in their sense; i.e., joint production can explain only a small fraction of the behavior of individuals associated with a firm.It is important to recognize that most organizations are simply legal fictions12 which serve as a nexus for a set of contracting relationships among individuals. This includes firms, non-profit institutions such as universities, hospitals, and foundations, mutual organizations such as mutual savings banks and insurance companies and co-operatives, some private clubs, and even governmental bodies such as cities, states, and the federal government, government enterprises such as TVA, the Post Office, transit systems, and so forth.11 They define the classical capitalist firm as a contractual organization of inputs in which there is ‘(a) joint input production, (b) several input owners, (c) one party who is common to all the contracts of the joint inputs, (d) who has rights to renegotiate any input’s contract independently of contracts with other input owners, (e) who holds the residual claim, and (f) who has the right to sell his contractual residual status.’12 By legal fiction we mean the artificial construct under the law which allows certain organizations to be treated as individuals.The private corporation or firm is simply one form of legal fiction which serves as a nexus for contracting relationships and which is also characterized by the existence of divisible residual claims on the assets and cash flows of the organization which can generally be sold without permission of the other contracting individuals. Although this definition of the firm has little substantive content, emphasizing the essential contractual nature of firms and other organizations focuses attention on a crucial set of questions—why particular sets of contractual relations arise for various types of organizations, what the consequences of these contractual relations are, and how they are affected by changes exogenous to the organization. Viewed this way, it makes little or no sense to try to distinguish those things that are “inside” the firm (or any other organization) from those things that are “outside” of it. There is in a very real sense only a multitude of complex relationships (i.e., contracts) between the legal fiction (the firm) and the owners of labor, material and capital inputs and the consumers of output.13Viewing the firm as the nexus of a set of contracting relationships among individuals also serves to make it clear that the personalization of the firm implied by asking questions such as “what should be the objective function of the firm?” or “does the firm have a social responsibility?” is seriously misleading. The firm is not an individual. It is a legal fiction which serves as a focus for a complex process in which the conflicting objectives of individuals (some of whom may “represent” other organizations) are brought into equilibrium within a framework of contractual relations. In this sense the “behavior” of the firm is like the behavior of a market, that is, the outcome of a complex equilibrium process. We seldom fall into the trap of characterizing13 For example, we ordinarily think of a product as leaving the firm at the time it is sold, but implicitly or explicitly such sales generally carry with them continuing contracts between the firm and the buyer. If the product does not perform as expected the buyer often can and does have a right to satisfaction. Explicit evidence that such implicit contracts do exist is the practice we occasionally observe of specific provision that ‘all sales are final.’the wheat or stock market as an individual, but we often make this error by thinking about organizations as if they were persons with motivations and intentions.141.6 Overview of the PaperWe develop our theory in stages. Sections 2 and 4 provide analyses of the agency costs of equity and debt respectively. These form the major foundation of the theory. In Section 3, we pose some questions regarding the existence of the corporate form of organization and examines the role of limited liability. Section 5 provides a synthesis of the basic concepts derived in sections 2-4 into a theory of the corporate ownership structure which takes account of the trade-offs available to the entrepreneur-manager between inside and outside equity and debt. Some qualifications and extensions of the analysis are discussed in section 6, and section 7 contains a brief summary and conclusions.2. The Agency Costs of Outside Equity2.1OverviewIn this section we analyze the effect of outside equity on agency costs by comparing the behavior of a manager when he owns 100 percent of the residual claims on a firm with his behavior when he sells off a portion of those claims to outsiders. If a wholly-owned firm is managed by the owner, he will make operating decisions that maximize his utility. These decisions14 This view of the firm points up the important role which the legal system and the law play in social organizations, especially, the organization of economic activity. Statutory laws sets bounds on the kinds of contracts into which individuals and organizations may enter without risking criminal prosecution. The police powers of the state are available and used to enforce performance of contracts or to enforce the collection of damages for non-performance. The courts adjudicate conflicts between contracting parties and establish precedents which form the body of common law. All of these government activities affect both the kinds of contracts executed and the extent to which contracting is relied upon. This in turn determines the usefulness, productivity, profitability and viability of various forms of organization. Moreover, new laws as well as court decisions often can and do change the rights of contracting parties ex post, and they can and do serve as a vehicle for redistribution of wealth. An analysis of some of the implications of these facts is contained in Jensen and Meckling (1978) and we shall not pursue them here.will involve not only the benefits he derives from pecuniary returns but also the utility generated by various non-pecuniary aspects of his entrepreneurial activities such as the physical appointments of the office, the attractiveness of the office staff, the level of employee discipline, the kind and amount of charitable contributions, personal relations (“friendship,” “respect,” and so on) with employees, a larger than optimal computer to play with, or purchase of production inputs from friends. The optimum mix (in the absence of taxes) of the various pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits is achieved when the marginal utility derived from an additional dollar of expenditure (measured net of any productive effects) is equal for each non-pecuniary item and equal to the marginal utility derived from an additional dollar of after-tax purchasing power (wealth).If the owner-manager sells equity claims on the corporation which are identical to his own (i.e., which share proportionately in the profits of the firm and have limited liability), agency costs will be generated by the divergence between his interest and those of the outside shareholders, since he will then bear only a fraction of the costs of any non-pecuniary benefits he takes out in maximizing his own utility. If the manager owns only 95 percent of the stock, he will expend resources to the point where the marginal utility derived from a dollar’s expenditure of the firm’s resources on such items equals the marginal utility of an additional 95 cents in general purchasing power (i.e., his share of the wealth reduction) and not one dollar. Such activities, on his part, can be limited (but probably not eliminated) by the expenditure of resources on monitoring activities by the outside stockholders. But as we show below, the owner will bear the entire wealth effects of these expected costs so long as the equity market anticipates these effects. Prospective minority shareholders will realize that the owner-manager’s interests will diverge somewhat from theirs; hence the price which they will pay for shares will reflect the monitoring costs and the effect of the divergence between the manager’s interest and theirs. Nevertheless, ignoring for the moment the possibility of borrowing against his wealth, the owner will find it desirable to bear these costsas long as the welfare increment he experiences from converting his claims on the firm into general purchasing power15 is large enough to offset them.As the owner-manager’s fraction of the equity falls, his fractional claim on the outcomes falls and this will tend to encourage him to appropriate larger amounts of the corporate resources in the form of perquisites. This also makes it desirable for the minority shareholders to expend more resources in monitoring his behavior. Thus, the wealth costs to the owner of obtaining additional cash in the equity markets rise as his fractional ownership falls.We shall continue to characterize the agency conflict between the owner-manager and outside shareholders as deriving from the manager’s tendency to appropriate perquisites out of the firm’s resources for his own consumption. However, we do not mean to leave the impression that this is the only or even the most important source of conflict. Indeed, it is likely that the most important conflict arises from the fact that as the manager’s ownership claim falls, his incentive to devote significant effort to creative activities such as searching out new profitable ventures falls. He may in fact avoid such ventures simply because it requires too much trouble or effort on his part to manage or to learn about new technologies. Avoidance of these personal costs and the anxieties that go with them also represent a source of on-the-job utility to him and it can result in the value of the firm being substantially lower than it otherwise could be.2.2A Simple Formal Analysis of the Sources of Agency Costs of Equity and Who Bears ThemIn order to develop some structure for the analysis to follow we make two sets of assumptions. The first set (permanent assumptions) are those which will carry through almost all of the analysis in sections 2-5. The effects of relaxing some of these are discussed in section 6.15 For use in consumption, for the diversification of his wealth, or more importantly, for the financing of ‘profitable’ projects which he could not otherwise finance out of his personal wealth. We deal with these issues below after having developed some of the elementary analytical tools necessary to their solution.。
描写红色延安革命根据地的英语作文稿The Red Heart of ChinaIn the dusty loess hills of northern Shaanxi Province, there is a place that shines as brightly as a ruby in the history of modern China. This is Yan'an, the sacred revolutionary base where the Chinese Communists led by Chairman Mao Zedong took refuge and re-grouped after being pursued across the country by the Nationalist forces during the Long March in 1935. For thirteen years, from 1937 to 1947, Yan'an served as the heart that pumped revolutionary fervor through China's struggle against Japanese invasion and civil war.As a young student, I was taught that Yan'an is a hallowed name, a powerful symbol of the Chinese people's iron will and unbreakable spirit in pursuing national liberation and social progress. On every national holiday, I would put on my nicest outfit with the red scarf of the Young Pioneers around my neck, and join my classmates in visiting the many historic sites and relics preserved in the city and its environs. Each building, cave dwelling, and monument seemed to radiate the fiery determination and lofty ideals of the revolutionaries who had lived, worked, and fought there.One of my earliest memories is standing before the simple, unassuming cave dwelling where Chairman Mao lived during his time in Yan'an. Despite its rustic exterior, this cramped abode became the crucible where Mao's immortal thoughts on warfare, politics and social transformation were refined into the guiding ideology that still illuminates China's path today. I remember straining my eyes to inspect the very desk where he is said to have written his seminal works, and the spartan bed where he slept, imagining his tireless mind ever alert to the winds of revolutionary change.Not far from Mao's humble quarters stands the auditorium of the Party School, a vast cavern hewn from the very rock of the yellou plateau. Here, the great theorist and teacher tutored the vanguard of the Chinese revolution, passing the Marxist-Leninist torch to the next generation of Communist leaders through energetic discourse and fiery polemics. With the flickering light of oil lamps illuminating their fierce debates, Mao and his comrades charted the strategy that would ultimately achieve nationwide victory over imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism. I can close my eyes and hear their heated, passionate voices echoing through that subterranean amphitheater, as if the vibrant seed of New China's birth was being planted in that hallowed space.But Yan'an was not merely a fortress or military stronghold. It was also the womb that nurtured the New Democratic values and policies that would re-make Chinese society from the ground up. At the Yangjialing Revolutionary Site, I saw recreations of the night schools where Party cadres lived and worked alongside poor peasants, teaching them to read and write while learning about the harsh realities of feudal oppression. I peered into the rudimentary meeting halls where women, long subjugated by patriarchal feudal society, began organizing themselves as a political force at the vanguard of social change. My heart raced as I imagined the women's militia drilling with captured Japanese rifles, steeling their womanly resolve to overthrow millennia of gender oppression.The spirit of Yan'an also strode boldly into the realms of arts and culture. At the Museum of Yangge Folk Dance, I delighted in watching performances of the spirited rural dances that had been redesigned and repurposed by pioneering artists as vehicles for spreading revolutionary messages to the peasant masses. The dancers' fiery, rhythmic movements seemed to embody the shared dreams of the people to rise up and remake their own destiny. Likewise, at the Museum of Woodcuts and New Year Paintings, I marveled at how folk artists ingeniouslyadapted traditional arts to create powerful new icons celebrating revolution, resistance and socialist construction.To this day, I can still recite the defiant verses I learned at the Former Residence of Lu Xun, the Chinese revolutionary writer: "Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers; head-bowed, like a willing ox I endure the responsibilities." Those piercing lines from one of Lu Xun's final masterworks seem to capture the steadfast spirit of all those committed revolutionaries who passed through Yan'an's gates: eternally defiant toward the oppressors, selflessly devoted to achieving total liberation for the people. No matter how many years pass, Yan'an's spirit of struggle suffuses my soul like a brilliant, inextinguishable blaze.Looking back, every step I took while visiting Yan'an seemed to resound with the weight of history's march. I could feel the presence of revolutionary giants like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and so many more towering over me, watching my awestruck gaze with warm, paternal smiles. How many centuries of feudal darkness had been banished by their blazing brilliance? How many hopes for a truly new and free China had been ignited by their visions? To a child's eye, Yan'an was the pulsating heartof an awakening nation, forever pumping out revolutionary fervor to nourish every village, every home.Today, Yan'an may appear to outsiders as little more than a humble regional town amidst the vast, dusty expanses of the Loess Plateau. But to me, it will always glow with the crimson luster of sacrifice and struggle that redeemed our nation. Just as an unpolished ruby needs to be purified by fire to reveal its true splendor, China too was refined within Yan'an's crucible, its people's devotion to revolution and liberation smelted into an indestructible bastion of socialist strength and dignity. The red fires of Yan'an may have dimmed, but they will blaze forever as beacons lighting the path ahead for China and all humanity yearning to live in true freedom.。
Modeling Gaze Behavioras a Function of Discourse Structure
Obed E. Torres, Justine Cassell, Scott PrevostThe Media LaboratoryMassachusetts Institute of Technology20 Ames StreetCambridge, MA 02139{obed,justine,prevost}@media.mit.edu
AbstractThis paper addresses the problem of designing conversational agents that exhibit appropriategaze behavior during dialogues with human users. Previous research on gaze behavior hasconcentrated on its relationship to turn-taking phenomena [3,4,5]. Recent work has incorporatedsome of these findings into the design of autonomous human-like conversational agents andinteractive communicative humanoids [1,13]. However, none of this research has examined therelationship between information structure and gaze behavior. In this paper we discuss whyturn-taking is not an adequate explanation for gaze behavior in conversation and whyinformation structure should be integrated with turn-taking as an explanation for this behavior.We then examine the relationship of gaze behavior to information structure and turn-takingthrough an empirical analysis of discourse transcripts for several dyadic conversations. A simplealgorithm for assigning gaze behavior is proposed on the basis of the findings of this empiricalanalysis. We describe work in progress on implementing this algorithm in an existentcommunicative humanoid agent [14] with the goal of producing more natural gaze behaviorrelated to propositional content in human-computer conversations.IntroductionThe Turing test has always been conceived of as a test of the content of a computer’scontribution to a conversation. That is, from typed output, we are able to tell whether text wasgenerated by a human or a computer. Recent advances in speech technology have led us toconceive of a Turing test taken over the phone. What about a face-to-face Turing test? Whatkinds of behaviors would a computer have to exhibit to convince us that it was not a grey boxbut a living, breathing body? We are perhaps not ready today for such a competition, but wemay be one day. This paper attempts to move the field of human-computer conversation in thatdirection -- in the direction of embodied dialogue with computers. In other work, we haveconcentrated on hand gestures, intonation, head movement, and gaze. The current work revisitsthe question of gaze and attempts to reconcile two competing approaches to the general questionof generating nonverbal behaviors.
Although there has been substantial research dedicated to the study of nonverbal communicativebehaviors (including gaze behavior), such research has focused either on the interaction betweenconversational regulation (e.g. turn-taking) and non-verbal behaviorsor the interaction betweendiscourse structure and non-verbal behaviors. That is, there has been little research on theinteraction between turn-taking and discourse structure, and even less research that takes bothtypes of linguistic structures into account in investigating non-verbal behaviors. This lacuna isdue to historical accidents of disciplinary boundaries rather than any lack of inherent theoreticalinterest. The current paper addresses the problem of designing conversational agents that exhibitappropriate gaze behavior through an approach that ties information structure to turn-taking.The exchange of looks between participants is related to information threads and the exchange ofturns during the flow of conversation. Current approaches have failed to capture the relationshipof gaze behavior to contextual boundaries in the incremental exchange of information. In orderto account for this aspect of turn-taking, we employ information structure distinctions as arepresentation of coherence in the accumulation of information within and across turns in dyadicconversations. We examine gaze behavior in relation to propositional content. Semantic contentis divided into thematic and rhematic constituents that allow propositions to be presented in away that highlights the shared content between utterances.
After conducting an empirical analysis on experimental data, we propose these heuristics: thebeginning of the thematic part of an utterance is frequently accompanied by gaze behavior thatlooks away from the hearer, while the beginning of the rhematic part is usually accompanied bygaze behavior that looks toward the hearer. In cases where the beginning of the theme coincideswith the beginning of a turn, the speaker always looks away from the hearer. In cases where thebeginning of the rheme coincides with the end of the turn, the speaker always looks toward thelistener. A simple algorithm for assigning gaze behavior is proposed on the basis of theseheuristics. We describe work in progress to implement a conversational agent with capabilitiesfor generating gaze behavior related to propositional content in order to illustrate the applicationof this research to human-computer conversation.