St. Joseph’s College of Commerce (Autonomous)
End Semester Examination – April 2013
B.Com – II Semester (Travel & Tourism)
Additional English
Time: 3 Hrs Max Marks: 100
Note: Exceeding the word limit will result in loss of marks.
SECTION – A
Answer any six in less than 100 words each. (6 x 6 = 36)
- What is your understanding of the title of the poem ‘A Ring to Me is Bondage’? Is it a suitable title to the poem?
- Comment on the way in which the monologue ‘Girl’ is written. Which do you think would be more effective: a performance of ‘Girl’ or a reading of it?
- Describe the process of mending the wall in the poem ‘Mending Wall’.
- Comment on any two advice that Abraham Lincoln gives to his son’s teacher.
- Narrate the way in which misunderstanding arises between Muni and the foreign traveller because of the language barrier.
- Mention any two things that Narayan Murthy says that we must learn from the west and explain their relevance to the present times.
- Why do you think Muni’s wife did not believe him when he said that he sold the goats to a foreigner? Comment on the nature of their relationship.
- What is the lesson that Sudha Murthy learnt by meeting the villagers?
SECTION B
Read the following poem titled Four Walls by Zeeshan Sahil and answer all the three questions in about 200-250 words each. 9 x 3 = 27
Four Walls
You could call where we live
a house.
A room, very high up
with a very low ceiling,
one window, quite large,
and one very small door
that you could pass through
with your hands folded over your breast,
never lifting your feet from the floor.
You can look out this window, too,
out the window in the very high room
with the very low ceiling
if you like;
you can sleep without stretching your legs;
you can live never lifting your head.
- What are the different actions that the poem describes? Comment on any one interesting feature of the poem.
- How is this poem different from the other poems that you have read on the theme of ‘Wall’? Comment on any one or two differences in detail.
- Write about a story/documentary/movie which has a similar theme (the theme of Wall) and also give your thoughts on the concept of ‘Wall’.
SECTION C
Read the following Britannica Encyclopaedia entries and answer all the three questions in about 200-250 words each. 9 x 3 = 27
Gift exchange or ceremonial exchange:
Gift exchange is the transfer of goods or services that, although regarded as voluntary by the people involved, is part of the expected social behaviour. Gift exchange may be distinguished from other types of exchange in several respects: the first offering is made in a generous manner and there is no haggling between donor and recipient; the exchange is an expression of an existing social relationship or of the establishment of a new one that differs from impersonal market relationships; and the profit in gift exchange may be in the sphere of social relationships and prestige rather than in material advantage.
The gift-exchange cycle entails obligations to give, to receive, and to return. Sanctions may exist to induce people to give, disapproval or loss of prestige resulting from a failure to do so. Refusal to accept a gift may be seen as refusal of social relations and may lead to enmity. The reciprocity of the cycle rests in the obligation to return the gift; the prestige associated with the appearance of generosity dictates that the value of the return be approximately equal to or greater than the value of the original gift.
The French anthropologist Marcel Mauss made the first extended application of the idea of gift exchange to various aspects of social life, stressing the social concomitants of the exchange rather than its economic functions. A gift exchange may not only provide a recipient with what amounts to credit for a period but also validates, supports, and expresses a social relationship in terms of the status of those concerned. The concept of reciprocity behind gift exchange has been extended into the field of ritual and religion. Thus, some sacrifices may be viewed as gifts to supernatural powers from which a return in the form of aid and approval is expected. Reciprocal social relations, as in the transfer of women in marriage between kin groups, is similar in terms of obligations and types of relationships to gift exchange. Gift exchange such as the potlatch (q.v.) of the Northwest Pacific coast Indians has also been analyzed as an adaptive subsistence aspect of a socioeconomic system allowing for redistribution of surplus wealth and food in certain ecological settings.
Potlatch:
Potlatch is a ceremonial distribution of property and gifts to affirm or reaffirm social status, as uniquely institutionalized by the American Indians of the Northwest Pacific coast. The potlatch reached its most elaborate development among the southern Kwakiutl from 1849 to 1925. Although each group had its characteristic version, the potlatch had certain general features. Ceremonial formalities were observed in inviting guests, in speechmaking, and in the distribution of goods by the donor according to the social rank of the recipients. The size of the gatherings reflected the rank of the donor. Great feasts and generous hospitality accompanied the potlatch, and the efforts of the kin group of the host were exerted to maximize the generosity. The proceedings gave wide publicity to the social status of donor and recipients because there were many witnesses.
A potlatch was given by an heir or successor to assert and validate his newly assumed social position. Important events such as marriages, births, deaths, and initiations into secret societies were also occasions for potlatches; but trivial events were used just as often, because the main purpose of a potlatch was not the occasion itself but the validation of claims to social rank. The potlatch was also used as a face-saving device by individuals who had suffered public embarrassment and as a means of competition between rivals in social rank.
Kula:
Kula is an exchange system among the people of the Trobriand Islands of southeast Melanesia, in which permanent contractual partners trade traditional valuables following an established ceremonial pattern and trade route. In this system, described by the Polish-born British anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, only two kinds of articles, traveling in opposite directions around a rough geographic ring several hundred miles in circumference, were exchanged. These were red shell necklaces and white shell bracelets, which were not producers’ capital, being neither consumable nor media of exchange outside the ceremonial system. Kula objects, which sometimes had names and histories attached, were not owned in order to be used but rather to acquire prestige and rank.
Every detail of the transaction was regulated by traditional rules and conventions, and some acts were accompanied by rituals and ceremonies. A limited number of men could take part in the kula, each man keeping an article for a relatively short period before passing it on to one of his partners from whom he received the opposite item in exchange. The partnerships between men, involving mutual duties and obligations, were permanent and lifelong. Thus the network of relationships around the kula served to link many tribes by providing allies and communication of material and nonmaterial cultural elements to distant areas.
- Explain the process of gift exchange in your own words and comment on Marcel Mauss’ application of the idea on social life.
- What are the similarities and differences between Potlatch and Kula? Which do think is more interesting? Why?
- What according to you is the purpose of gift exchange? What kind of gifts would you like to give or receive? Why?
SECTION D
Answer in about 250 words: 1 x 10 = 10
One of the definitions of Aphorism is: a brief sentence or phrase that expresses an opinion or a statement and which embodies universal or general truth. “A penny saved is a penny earned” is an example of an aphorism.
Think of an aphorism that you have heard or read or create a new one and explain it in detail.
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