The Polyglot - Issue 9 by The Polyglot Magazine

The

POLYGLOT

ISSUE 9

In this edition of the Polyglot: L’ étranger Book Review P3

The Indian Caste System P5

The Indian Caste System Accents of P5 the English Language Ivory Trade in P7 China & Africa The Gender P19 Pay Gap P22 Best Language Learning Apps

P25

A Letter from the Editors Welcome to Issue 9 of the Polyglot, Abingdonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s modern languages and culture magazine. At a time when our world seems to be becoming increasingly insular, nationalist, and extremist, internationalism and cross-cultural awareness have never been more important. This is exactly what the Polyglot has to offer: in this edition, our team of writers have explored and researched a wide range of topics of their own interests that we hope will interest you equally. We strive to bring a variety of articles, whether they be based on a language, its speakers, or elements of their societies. Be it the controversial ivory trade and gender pay gap, an introduction to Arabic or the pitfalls of google translate, we are sure that there will be something here for you. A special thanks must go to Miss Poole as supervising editor, Johan Nerlov as designer, and our whole team of dedicated writers. Angus Blomfield and Ethan Webb Editors-in-chief

Want to write for The Polyglot? Contact us at sarahjane.poole@abingdon.org.uk The Polyglot is a publication wholly produced and owned by Abingdon School, a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity (Charity No. 1071298). Copyright in all articles and images remains with the creators and owners of those works. Previously published images and quotes or other excerpts from published words are used either by explicit permission or under the term of Fair Use or a Creative Commons license.

L’etranger book review - James Madeley

’ étranger is the enigmatic first novel of Albert Camus, published first in 1942; then later in English as The Outsider in 1967. It is generally considered to be an absurdist novel - meaning it focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life. Camus lived with a belief in the alienation of man from his fellow man except as part of an uncaring, amoral, godless universe; and the events of his novel certainly reflect this belief. Meursault, a young, french-speaking Algerian, fails to cry at his mother’s funeral or display any of the common emotions expected of someone in such a situation. He seems disinterested and detached, calmly accepting her passing, expressing no feelings, and exhibiting no empathy. He smokes and drinks coffee in front of her coffin. His indifference of emotion is captured in the novel’s powerful opening lines: ‘Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.’ On his return, Meursalt befriends Raymond, a neighbour, and helps him to exact revenge on his girlfriend. Raymond had accused her of infidelity and beat after she slapped him. Raymond later encounter’s the woman’s Arab brother at the beach, and in an ensuing fight Raymond is stabbed. Meursault returns to the beach and shoots the brother dead, apparently not out of revenge. Why then? Simply due to the disorientating heat and annoying brightness of the sun as it reflects off a knife carried by the Arab. This murder is what separates the two parts of the story. Meursault is arrested, jailed, and tried for the murder. During the trial where his dedication to truth, rather convenient falsifications, leads to his conviction. The prosecutor fails to understand Meursault’s seemingly monstrous indifference towards his mother’s death, and Meursault’s atheism is condemned by the bible-bashing judge, who brands him “Monsieur Antichrist.” Meursault is convicted for the murder, but his true offence seems to be his inability to express emotion, especially remorse, and to conform to conventional social and moral norms. In prison, Meursault (an atheist) is outraged by the chaplain’s attempts to convert him to christianity - perhaps judging it as an attempt to pervert the earthly justice in which he believes. After railing against the meaninglessness of life, the inevitability of eventual death and the way people wrongly try to judge others Meursault eventually releases his anger and experiences a cathartic calm. He seems to feel free in his hopelessness. The ‘outsider’, a menace to society, is sentenced to death by guillotine.

The Indian Caste System Aryann Gupta

ndia’s caste s ystem is among the world’s most established of surviving social stratifications. The BBC clarifies its complexities. The framework which isolates Hindus into inflexible various leveled bunches in view of their karma (work) and dharma (the Hindi word for religion, however here it implies obligation) is by and large acknowledged to be over 3,000 years of age. Manusmriti, generally respected to be the most essential and definitive book on Hindu law and going back to no less than 1,000 years previously Christ was conceived, “recognizes and legitimizes the caste system as the premise of request and consistency of society”. The caste system isolates Hindus into four primary classes - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. Numerous trust that the gatherings began from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation. At the highest point of the progression were the Brahmins, who were chiefly instructors and savvy people and are accepted to have originated from Brahma’s head. At that point came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, apparently from his arms. The third opening went to the Vaishyas, or the brokers, who were made from his thighs. At the base of the store were the Shudras, who originated from Brahma’s feet and did all the modest employments. The principle positions were additionally isolated into around 3,000 stations and 25,000 sub-ranks, each in view of their particular occupation. Outside of this Hindu position framework were the achhoots - the Dalits or the untouchables. For quite a long time, rank managed relatively every part of Hindu religious and social life, with each gathering involving a particular place in this mind boggling progressive system. Provincial people group were for some time orchestrated based on positions - the upper and lower standings quite often lived in isolated states, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not acknowledge nourishment or drink from the Shudras, and one could wed just inside one’s rank. Generally, the caste system presented numerous benefits on the upper ranks while endorsing restraint of the lower positions by favoured gatherings. Frequently condemned for being vile and backward, it remained practically unaltered for quite a long time, catching individuals into settled social requests from which it was difficult to

get away. In spite of the deterrents, in any case, some Dalits and other low-rank Indians, for example, BR Ambedkar who wrote the Indian constitution, and who turned into the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Dalit president, have ascended to hold renowned positions in the nation. Is The Caste System Legally Accepted By The Government: Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s constitution banned discrimination on the basis of caste, and, in an attempt to correct historical injustices and provide a level playing field to the traditionally disadvantaged, the authorities announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes, the lowest in the caste hierarchy, in 1950. In 1989, quotas were extended to include a grouping called the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) which fall between the traditional upper castes and the lowest. In recent decades, with the spread of secular education and growing urbanisation, the influence of caste has somewhat declined, especially in cities where different castes live side-byside and inter-caste marriages are becoming more common. In certain southern states and in the northern state of Bihar, many people began using just one name after social reform movements. Despite the changes though, caste identities remain strong, and last names are almost always indications of what caste a person belongs to.

Accents of the English Language - Ethan Webb Why do accents exist? Accents fall into two categories: the first being a ‘foreign’ accent, which involves speaking one language using the phonetic rules of another. These accents arise due to the difficulties that foreign speakers encounter producing certain sounds. German speakers learning English, for example, are likely to find difficulty with the words ‘wish’ and ‘this’. Why? Because the sounds at the beginnings of these words simply don’t exist in their native language. Instead, they may pronounce them as ‘v’ and ‘z’ two sounds that do exist in German. Similarly, variation in sentence structures from language to language can be at the heart of a ‘foreign’ accent. In Russian, for example, it would be perfectly acceptable to omit the word ‘is’ from the sentence ‘The house is very large’. In fact, no word corresponding to English ‘the’ would be found in the Russian translation of this sentence either. Nonetheless, a native Russian speaker learning English who tells you ‘House very large’ will sound distinctly foreign. The second type of accent is simply the way that a group of people speak their native language. This type of accent is determined by where they live and what social groups they belong to. People who live close together naturally grow to share a way of speaking. Why do Americans talk differently? In 1776, whether swearing your loyalty to King George III or declaring America independent from his crown, your pronunciation would have been much the same. At that time, American and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. What’s surprising, though, is that English speakers both sides of the Atlantic sounded much closer to the contemporary American accent than to the Queen’s English of today; and that it is, in fact, the standard British manner of speaking that has drastically changed in the past two centuries. Traditional English, whether spoken in the British Isles or the American colonies, was largely ‘rhotic’. Rhotic speakers pronounce the “R” sound in words such as ‘hard’

and ‘winter,’ while non-rhotic speakers don’t. Today, non-rhotic speech is common throughout most of Britain. Hence, most modern Brits would tell you it’s been a ‘hahd wintuh.’ It was around the time of the American Revolution that non-rhotic speech came into use among the upper class in southern England. It is said that this shift occurred because people of low birth rank who had become wealthy during the Industrial Revolution were seeking ways to distinguish themselves from other commoners; they cultivated the prestigious non-rhotic pronunciation in order to demonstrate their new upper-class status. This lofty new manner or speech gradually became standardised and spread across Britain. However, people in the north of England, Scotland and Ireland have largely maintained their traditional rhotic accents. Most American accents have also remained rhotic, with some exceptions: New York and Boston accents have become non-rhotic. It makes sense, therefore, that these cities were under the strongest influence by the British elite after the Revolutionary War. Does your accent make you seem untrustworthy? Researchers Boaz Keysar and Shiri Lev-Ari of the University of Chicago released a report in 2010 with some remarkable findings: they found that people judged trivia statements such as “Ants don’t sleep” as considerably less believable when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. Therefore, it seems this effect was not due to stereotypes or prejudice against foreigners. Why does this matter? Well, such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.

Ever heard of foreign accent syndrome? As hard as it is for us to imitate an accent that’s different than our own, there is one strange way that it can happen literally overnight - and it’s called foreign accent syndrome. There’s no known cause for FAS, although most of the 150 documented cases have occurred after a stroke or other head injury. Some examples include: When British citizen Sarah Colwill was rushed to the hospital for an intense migraine, she woke up speaking with a Chinese accent. Similarly, Kay Russell found that her accent had changed from British to French after her migraine. After a car accident, British citizen Julie Matthias found that she was speaking only with a Chinese or French accent. She retained her ability to speak English, but that’s not always the case. In some cases, a person’s language is completely replaced. For example, in 2012, Alun Morgan was left speaking fluent Welsh after a stroke. Finding a direct cause is often difficult. For one patient whose Italian accent occasionally changed to a South American or English one, doctors discovered that her condition was caused by a brain tumor that was interfering with signals in her brain. Once her operation to remove the tumor was complete, her foreign accent disappeared.

An Introduction to Arabic - Qasim Navqi

rabic is the 5th most common natively spoken language in the world. As the language of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, Arabic is spoken throughout the Muslim world. There are many Arabic dialects. Classical Arabic is the Arabic which is the language of the Qur’an and you could consider it an equivalent to Old English, of today’s English. Modern Standard Arabic is used in books, newspapers, mosques and educated Arabs from different countries. Local dialects are quite varied as many other. The alphabet

There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet and is written from right to left in a free flowing, joint up style. Users of Arabic usually write long vowels but leave out short ones which means that readers need to use their knowledge For “khan” (strong khah) they say it as “kh” – This is a tricky one, and a bit more difficult for English speakers because the sound does not exist in English. It does exist in German, though, and if you have heard the German pronunciation of “Zurich” you would know the letter. The “h” in Zurich is pronounced not as a “k” but a rough “kh” combination. There is no delightful way to describe this, but imagine clearing your throat. For “qaf ” (deep ka) they use “q” and is made from the back of your throat rather than the front of the mouth as it is in English. It is almost like the gulping sound when pouring water out of a bottle.

For “ghayn” we use “gh” – This is a little tricky, but it’s easy to master. Imagine the sound “ghrrrrrr” would make if you were to roll the r letters, and you would be very close. For the letter “ayn” (growling aaa) we use the number “3” – This is the equivalent of a very rough “a” where the sound is produced, again in the throat. It’s akin to a growl, actually. Why learn Arabic? Arabic is the 5th most commonly spoken native language in the world - Arabic is the official language of 20+ countries and there are 300+ million native speakers of the language. Most of these speakers are located in the Middle East and so there is a lack of Arabic speakers in the rest of the world. This therefore means that there is high demand and low supply of Arabic speakers in the Western world. With the amount of business the two areas do, there are many opportunities in different fields such as: finance and banking, journalism, education, foreign service and intelligence and more. With the rapid growth of the consumer base in the Middle East, it is likely that there will be more trade prospects, more business opportunities and therefore, learning Arabic would open a whole range of opportunities. Learning Arabic would also allow you to perhaps enjoy calligraphy. These are very beautiful and due to the curves of the letters, can form shapes which otherwise, would not be possible from Latin based languages. Culturally, learning Arabic would

Чемпионат Мира пo футболу 2018 в России Andrei Gerasimov

емпионат мира- безусловно, самое известное соревнование между сборными различных стран мира. Оно проводиться каждые четыре года, и победитель этого чемпионата по праву считается страной с лучшей футбольной сборной мира на данный момент. Основные претенденты на это звание- Германия, Аргентина, Испания, Бразилия, Италия, Франция, Португалия и Англия. Все они имеют сильные сборные и игроковзвезд, играющих в них. Сначала все участвующие сборные делят при помощи жеребьёвки на восемь групп, внутри которых проходят матчи. В каждой группе четыре страны участницы, и каждая из них проводит матчи с тремя другими. За каждый матч страна-участница получает определённое количество очков в зависимости от его результата- победы, ничьей или поражения. По итогам всех матчей внутри каждой группы из четырех стран две, занявшие первое и второе место по количеству очков, считаются прошедшими отборочный турнир и проходят дальше, в матчи “на вылет”. То есть, эти победительницы соревнуются с победительницами других групп, и, если они проигрывают в матче, они дальше не проходят. Некоторые страны проходят в ⅛ финала, ¼ финала, полуфинал, и, наконец, в финал. Там две оставшиеся сборные проводят матч между собой и выясняют лучшую. Победитель получает Кубок Мирасамый ценный и престижный международный трофей. Чемпионат Мира каждый раз проводиться в разных странах, и в 2018 году он будет проведён в России, сразу в нескольких ее крупнейших городах- Москве, СанктПетербурге, Самаре, Сочи и других. Самое большое количество этих трофеев завоевала Бразилия- 5 кубков. Однако это было в прошлом, бразильская сборная сейчас далеко не самая сильная. А вот Германия, имеющая 4 таких кубка, на данный момент является главным претендентом на эти титулы, так как имеет очень сильную футбольную сборную. Также очень сильна Аргентина, которой часто не везет в финалах. Например, один раз она проиграла Германии 0 1 в финале, причем гол был забит в самом конце матча!

Англия, напротив, имеет не такую уж сильную сборную, однако долгое время отказывалась играть с другими странами, считая себя слишком сильной для них. Таким образом, огромное количество болельщиков во всём мире с нетерпением ждет этот увлекательный турнир с очень мощной интригой.

The 2018 Russia UEFA World Cup

he World Cup is easily the most famous competition between teams internationally. It is held every four years, and the winner of this Championship is considered to be the country with the best football team in the world at the time.

The main contenders for this title - Germany, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Italy, France, Portugal and England. All of them have strong national teams and great players who mostly play for big European teams. First, all participating teams are divided by drawing lots into eight groups, within which the matches are held. There are four teams in each group and each of them has matches against three others. For each match, the participating country receives a certain number of points depending on its result-victory, draw or defeat. According to the results of all the matches in each group of four countries, two, who took first and second place in the number of points, are considered to have passed the qualifying tournament and pass on to the knockout stage. That is, these winners compete with the winners of other groups, and if they lose in the match, they do not progress. Some countries progress to the final, ¼ final, semi-final, and finally to the final. The last two teams play against each other and find out who the best team is over 90 minutes, extra time or even through a penalty shootout. The winner receives the World Cup - the most valuable and prestigious international sports trophy. The World Cup is held in a different country every time, and in 2018 it will be held in Russia, in several of its largest cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Sochi and others. Brazil has won the most World Cups with 5. However, this was a long time ago and in recent World Cups, they haven’t produced anywhere near their expectations. On the other hand, Germany, who have 4 World Cups, is currently the favourite for the World Cup as it has a very consistent and efficient team. Argentina, are often unlucky in the finals, as they lost the last World Cup narrowly to Germany when Mario Götze fired in an extra time winner. England, on the contrary, fail to produce what they are expected. For a long time they refused to play with other countries, considering itself too strong for them. However, the lack of cohesion in their team means that they find it hard to progress into knockout rounds. This is shown by their only World Cup win coming in 1966! In conclusion, hundreds of millions of fans around the world are looking forward to this exciting tournament which has a massive hype around it.

Google

Translate Cameron Woodrow How does it work? Previously, the Google Translate programme was given a set of rules that it would follow in order to translate the desired words or phrases. However, languages have huge numbers of exceptions to these rules, and words can have different meanings depending on the combination with other words in the sentence. Google Translate was unable to recognise these exceptions and as a result it would give a general translation but not a specific one. It is impossible to give a computer every exception to every rule. However, Google Translate now uses software called ‘statistical machine translation’, which generates translations based on patterns found in large amounts of text, between two parallel languages. Google Translate allows the computer to discover the rules for itself, by analysing millions of documents that have already been translated by humans. The programme begins to recognise patterns in the way languages are translated and then can use these when translating similar documents. Once this process has been completed billions of times, the translations do begin to improve. It must be noted that the quality of translation does vary by language and this is due to the less amount of documents that are available for the programme to analyse, between certain languages. For example, there are much more translated documents between French and English than there are between Korean and English, meaning the translation quality will be different. Of course, Google Translate isn’t perfect, and I believe that it never will be because of its inability to translate idiomatic expressions between languages. These expressions are difficult for language learners to understand because they do not directly translate into the meaning that is intended. Google Translate does this, translating these expressions directly, resulting in, more often than not, poor and confused expressions. For example, the equivalent phrase of ‘All bark and no bite’ in English is ‘Can che abbaia non morde’ in Italian. This phrase is translated as ‘Can that barks does not bite’ when put into google translate. So, while the translations aren’t always perfect, mistakes are often made, some language pairs have very poor quality of translation and the programme will likely not be able to translate all idiomatic expressions, as a free online programme with a high

level of translation in a lot of cases it is an effective tool to use in certain situations. How do we use Google Translate? Google translate allows us to instantly translate a reading homework that we are doing, or look up a word or phrase that we need for our essay, making the work easier and shorter. However, constantly using this technique to complete work will harm the development of language skills in the long run. Having the answer given to us immediately, rather than looking through previous notes and dictionaries, will not improve our language ability as we have not had to work for it. The actual process of thinking about which word or tense is required and then working it out for ourselves will be much more beneficial, as the brain is more likely to remember this for use in the future. Using new vocabulary and language structures that we have learnt in class in pieces of writing will broaden our breadth of vocabulary, whereas simply searching it up on Google translate limits us to what we already know. Google translate, and other language apps/websites, can be used effectively in certain situations. Looking up singular words or a very small phrase and then recording this is an effective use of the technology, rather than trying to translate whole sentences and paragraphs. We should try to write out our sentences in the correct structure and tense, and use google translate afterwards to check that the sentence is written correctly, not to do the work for us. Ultimately, it is up to our own individual discipline to use the technology that we have available to us in the correct way so that we can develop our language skills rather than limit them. How will Google Translate affect Languages in the future? Google translate is able to translate large documents instantaneously, something that would take a human translator a much greater time period to complete. And with the increasing accuracy of machine translation there are some doubts on the necessity of learning languages in schools and the need for human translators. With the exception of mandarin, the majority of language courses in the UK have seen a decrease in the number of university applicants. While this is of course not directly related to machine translation, it is one of the combining factors. Many take the view that learning a language is a redundant skill in the UK, due to the percentage of the world population that are reported to speak English as a native or second language, and technology is able to translate the general idea of a conversation. However, I believe that learning a foreign language will never become a redundant skill because the way a language is communicated between people is something that a computer will never be able to capture. This includes hand gestures, the speed of how a language is spoken and other cultural aspects. Having spent time in a French, Spanish and Japanese home myself, I have recognised what it means to people when you at least try to speak their language and have a conversation. This instantly creates a bond between people through the communication of language, which a computer, and Google translate, will never be able to recreate.

The untouchables review - James Madeley

ntouchables, ou “Untouchables” comme on l’appelle en Angleterre, est un film culte français qui est aussi le deuxième film français le plus populaire de tous les temps. Mais le film est-il à la hauteur de son succès? Selon moi c’est bien le cas. Néanmoins le seul point négatif qu’il y aurait a donner à ce film c’est sa ringardise. L’une de ses stars, Omar Sy, a battu Jean Dujardin au César 2012 du meilleur acteur. Omar joue Driss, un ex-criminel de la banlieue, et il va sans dire qu’il réalise une bonne performance. On pourrait appeler ça une “comédie dramatique”, mais je n’aime pas ce terme. Au lieu de cela, je l’appellerais un film “d’inspiration” sur la façon dont une amitié peut changer quelqu’un. François Cluzet, peut-être mieux connu au Royaume-Uni pour le thriller Tell No One, joue tout aussi bien Philippe, un millionnaire parisien excentrique et quadriplégique. Quand Philippe cherche une nouvelle aide-soignante, il décide que Driss est l’homme de la situation , même si celui ci ne postule que pour percevoir les aides de pôle emploi. Finalement, ils créent une forte amitié. Le jeu entre Sy et Cluzet est souvent très drôle (“pas de bras, pas de chocolat” est un incontournable) et le film montre une transformation des deux hommes d’une manière incroyable. On pourrait dire que c’est un petit cliché, mais dans l’ensemble, je le recommande comme film. Il est sain avec un message qui permet à tout le monde de s’identifier. Et si vous doutez que celui puisse arriver dans la vraie vie, la fin vient avec un épilogue qui le prouve.

Ein Interview mit Marisa Dröse Angus Blomfield Kannst du uns ein bisschen darüber erzählen, wo du herkommst? “Ich komme aus Berlin, also der Hauptstadt von Deutschland. Ich lebe nicht genau in der Stadtmitte, sondern etwas ruhiger gelegen” Wo hast du studiert? “Ich habe auch in Berlin studiert, und ich habe ein Jahr in England an der Universität in Essex studiert, da ich habe mein Erasmusjahr gemacht” Waren Sprachen deine Lieblingsfächer? “Ich habe mich immer besonders für Englisch interessiert, und das hat mir immer Spaß gemacht” Als du in Abingdon angekommen bist, was war dein erster Eindruck von der Schule? “Ich war sehr beeindruckt, in Deutschland haben wir eigentlich keine Privatschulen. Alle waren sehr freundlich und hilfsbereit; Ich fand es wunderbar!” Beschreibe deine Unterrichtszeit in Abingdon in drei Adjektiven / Wörtern? “Unterhaltsam, lehrreich, abwechslungsreich” Gib uns einen Überblick über deinen musikalischen Geschmack mit zwei Künstlern oder Genre? “Hip Hop, Pink und Honne” Was ist der seltsamste Aspekt der Engländer? “Ich finde die Engländer sehr höflich und hilfsbereit, anders als die Deutschen, sie sind unhöflicher” Wenn du irgendwo auf der Welt reisen könntest, wohin würdest du gehen und warum? “Ich würde in die USA reisen. Ich werde in zwei Jahren einen Roadtrip an der Westküste von den USA machen!” Du bist auf einer einsamen Insel gestrandet und du kannst nur fünf Dinge haben, was wären sie? “Ich würde ein gutes Buch mitnehmen, Sonnencreme, eine Decke, etwas zu schreiben, und eine leere Flasche, um eine Flaschenpost zu verschicken Wovor fürchtest du dich am meisten? “Davor, dass etwas mit den liebsten Menschen in meinem Leben passiert, dass meine Eltern oder Verwandte krank werden.” Wenn du eine Supermacht bekommen könntest, was wäre das und warum? “Ich würde gern in die Vergangenheit reisen, weil ich Geschichte faszinierend finde.” Würdest du für einen ganzen Monat einen ständigen Schluckauf haben oder nicht Deutsch sprechen können? “Lieber nicht Deutsch sprechen können”

Ivory Trade in China & Africa Angus Blomfield

hina has long been one of the world’s biggest markets for ivory, but as of 2018 all trade in ivory and ivory products in the country is illegal. The ban was announced last year and came into effect on the last day of 2017. The move is being hailed as a major development in efforts to protect the world’s elephant population. Sixty-seven official factories and shops dealing in ivory had already been closed by March 2017, and the remaining 105 were to have shut down by the (western) new year. There had also been an 80% decline in seizures of ivory entering China, and state media said there had already been a 65% decline in the price of raw ivory over the past year. Luan Xiang, a representative of the Chinese Wildlife Preservation Ministry, said “one of the largest ever public awareness campaigns” had been carried out in the run-up to the ban. However as the world commends China’s leadership in a region rife with illegal wildlife trade, we must stay aware of the enormity of the task that lies ahead, both in China - seeing as Hong Kong is not covered by the new laws and is a major trading hub and Africa. History of the ivory trade Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in regions such as Greenland, Alaska, and Siberia. The trade in more recent times has led to endangerment of species, resulting in restrictions and bans. Ivory was formerly used to make piano keys and other decorative items because of the white color it presents when processed but the piano industry abandoned ivory as a key covering material in the 1970s. Some also wanted the items for a religious or decorative purpose, while others consider ivory ornaments as a symbol of importance in society. In 1979 there were an estimated 1.3 million African elephants. A decade later, widespread poaching had reduced that figure by more than half. Just 600,000 African elephants remained. Africa’s savannas and forests were no longer sanctuaries for elephants; they had been turned into graveyards. To date, poaching and trafficking in ivory is at the highest level in 25 years. Between 2009 and June 2014, criminal networks trafficked as much as 170 tons of ivory. The price of ivory has skyrocketed from USD $5/kg in 1989 to a wholesale price of USD $2,100/kg in China in 2014, with retail prices much higher. It is estimated that between 434,000 and 684,000 African elephants now remain, although the real figure could be

lower. The most recent census estimated 352,271 African savanna elephants in 18 countries, down 30% in seven years. Wildlife campaigners believe 30,000 African elephants are killed by poachers every year. Current day situation Today, there is an international ban on buying and selling ivory across borders, but it is allowed inside certain countries. There are different opinions about whether or not the ivory trade should be allowed. Some countries believe they should be able to trade legal ivory because they can use the money to pay for elephant conservation projects and other positive things. Many other countries believe the ivory trade should be banned completely in order to save elephants, as having any ivory trade at all encourages criminals to continue poaching. Some countries have even burned all their ivory to show how determined they are to stop it being sold.Many experts are worried that unless we do something to address the problem of elephants being killed for their ivory, there is a very real danger that elephants could die out completely within our lifetime. There are many things that are being done to try and protect these animals from being killed for their tusks, as well as having their habitats taken away from them. Experts follow and monitor elephants, using devices like tracking collars, so they can look after them by watching what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re up to and where theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going. National parks and conservation areas hire rangers to patrol the parks on foot and keep poachers away. Countries also work together to stop poachers smuggling ivory across their borders. One of the ways they do this is to try to find this ivory and confiscate it. They do this using sniffer dogs and other detection methods, like scanners. However, it is difficult to manage, as the ivory trade takes place across many different countries and continents. Criminals are also becoming more crafty so it becomes increasingly difficult to catch them. There are other factors that are threatening elephant populations too. For example, human beings taking the land where elephants live in order to farm and develop it. However, poaching remains one of the greatest threats facing these animals.

The Gender Pay Gap Qasim Navqi The gender pay gap is a problem in our society where full-time female workers are paid less than their counterpart full-time male workers and it is defined by the Office of National Statistics to be the difference in median pay between men and women. The ONS calculates this as the difference between median gross hourly earnings as a proportion of median gross hourly earnings for men. Recently, the BBC was reported as paying women 10.7% lower to women but more shockingly, women’s hourly rates at EasyJet are 52% lower than the men at the company. The gender pay gap existence has many reasons and explanations which continuously cause controversy. In Europe, the country with the biggest gender pay gap is Estonia which has a gap of almost 30% between men and women’s pay. The UK has a gap of nearly 20% and this is above the EU-28 average of 16.4%. However, I will try to come to a conclusion in this article as to why the gender pay does exist in the UK. What are the causes of the gender pay gap? The causes of the gender pay gap are very complicated so there is no single answer. A higher proportion of women work part-time and they earn less than full-time workers.Statistically, women are less likely to progress up the career ladder into higher paying senior roles. A high proportion of women are employed in jobs with lower salaries and high paying sectors are also dominated by men. We need to ask ourselves why this happens. Why is there a higher proportion of women who work part-time? The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that there are more women in part-time employment than men. 1 in 5 women worked part-time due to non-economic reasons. These non-economic reasons have one explanation: life choices. The fact that they aren’t economic reasons suggests that the family is being sustained financially from elsewhere and that the job that the woman was doing was not completely needed, financially at least. Therefore, if we analyse this situation, we can deduce that a woman who is working part-time in a job is not going to be able to progress as far in that certain job than her male counterpart (assuming he is working full-time) simply because her input will be less to the company. It wouldn’t make sense if you had a su-

pervisor or a manager of a company who was only there 2 days a week to be promoted and therefore, paid more. This does not mean that women don’t have the ability to be able to rise through the ranks, it means that women will not have the same opportunity. However, one could say that this is due to social pressures in today’s society. The women who were asked in this study, said that ‘child care problems’ was the reason why they worked part-time. In society, it seems as if women are the ones that need to take care of the children at home and this necessarily isn’t right. Women choosing jobs which are paid less Statistically women are much more likely than men to work in low-paid sectors such as leisure and care 80% of full-time care and leisure workers are done by women but these same women earn 9% less per hour than their male counterparts. On the other hand, women account for 45% of full-time occupations in sectors such as scientists, engineers and in the health sector, yet their earnings are 11% lower than men. In the UK, 82% of primary school teachers are women and 63% in secondary schools (OEC Education). There are many possible reasons for why so many women choose to go into teaching. It is very practical if a woman has children to look after, to be able to take them to school while also going for your job. Rather than working normal working hours, mother teachers are able to have effectively the same timings as their children. Traditionally, men have been the ‘breadwinners’ of a family and so the father usually (rightly or wrongly) will be the parent who works the longer hours. The income for teachers at primary school level is not very substantial either which implies that it would be difficult for the woman to be the ‘breadwinner’ of the family, but of course a second income would do no harm. Additionally, women generally have characteristics that suit teaching. This is because it is the closest thing to mothering that you can get paid for. This is not to say that all women need to be mothers, it is to say that naturally and biologically, women are good at taking care of children. The other side of the debate However, on the other hand, there are people who are of the view that the gender pay gap does not exist and that it is a myth. The main argument is that the gender pay gap is caused by women’s life choices and that today, in the 21st century, there isn’t anyone to stop women doing the jobs they want to. We have passed the era when it was looked down upon for women to work and when the male of a family had to be the ‘breadwinner’ of the house. Women are free to choose what they want to study at university and a study by UCAS showed that women outnumbered men in almost ⅔ of degree subjects and that women outnumber men in 112 out of 180 subjects. In 2007, there were 34,035 women on degree courses whereas in 2016, there were 66,840. This proves that women are no longer held back by other men in their lives (in terms of working) and are clearly free to study the subject of their choice. Why is there still then a lack of women in the workplace and still a gender pay gap? Leading on from this, employers naturally

want the most suited people for their jobs and a Danish study has found that companies with good numbers of women on their board outperformed those with no women by 17% higher return on sales and 54% higher return on invested capital. Therefore, we can see that with women, companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sales increase and in general, businesses are more successful. The question is, why havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t companies grasped onto this idea yet and hire more women? The only way to explain this is that However, along with the research conducted by UCAS, we will see the impacts in the long run and it is not fair to say that we should be seeing these impacts so soon. What next? It is clear to see that when looking at the figures, the gender pay gap does exist, but we must look deeper into the reasons for the gap. They are extremely complex and a lot of factors play an important part in how it is perceived in society. Having looked at both sides of the argument, it is clear to see that women do have a chance in closing the gender pay gap looks like it will decrease and especially with recently more than 500 businesses revealing their figures in regards to paying men and women equally. Especially with the BBC report, there will be more pressure on employers and more attention on women being paid less for the same job.

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