Understanding Your Insurance Policy

Understanding Your Insurance Policy  

An insurance policy is a legal contract between the insurance company (the insurer) and the person(s), business, or entity being insured (the insured). Reading your policy helps you verify that the policy meets your needs and that you understand your and the insurance company’s responsibilities if a loss occurs. Many insureds purchase a policy without understanding what is covered, the exclusions that take away coverage, and the conditions that must be met in order for coverage to apply when a loss occurs. The SCDOI would like to remind consumers that reading and understanding your entire policy can help you avoid problems and disagreements with your insurance company in the event of a loss.

The Basics of an Insurance Contract

There are four basic parts to an insurance contract:

o    Declaration Page

o    Insuring Agreement

o    Exclusions

o    Conditions

It is important to understand that multi-peril policies may have specific exclusions and conditions for each type of coverage, such as collision coverage, medical payment coverage, liability coverage, and so on. You will need to make sure that you read the language for the specific coverage that applies to your loss.

The Declaration Page

This page is usually the first part of an insurance policy. It identifies who is the insured, what risks or property are covered, the policy limits, and the policy period (i.e. the time the policy is in force).

For example, the Declarations Page of an automobile policy will include the description of the vehicle covered (e.g. make/model, VIN number), the name of the person covered, the premium amount, and the deductible (the amount you will have to pay for a claim before an insurer pays its portion of a covered claim).

Similarly, the Declarations Page of a life insurance policy will include the name of the person insured and the face amount of the life insurance policy (e.g. $25,000, $50,000, etc.).

The Insuring Agreement

This is a summary of the major promises of the insurance company and states what is covered. In the Insuring Agreement, the insurer agrees to do certain things such as paying losses for covered perils, providing certain services, or agreeing to defend the insured in a liability lawsuit. There are two basic forms of an insuring agreement:

o    Named–perils coverage, under which only those perils specifically listed in the policy are covered. If the peril is not listed, it is not covered.

o    All–risk coverage, under which all losses are covered except those losses specifically excluded. If the loss is not excluded, then it is covered. Life insurance policies are typically all-risk policies.

The Exclusions

Exclusions take coverage away from the Insuring Agreement. The three major types of Exclusions are:

o    Excluded perils or causes of loss

o    Excluded losses

o    Excluded property

Typical examples of excluded perils under a homeowners policy are floods, earthquakes, and nuclear radiation. A typical example of an excluded loss under an automobile policy is damage due to wear and tear. Examples of excluded property under a homeowners policy are personal property such as an automobile, a pet, or an airplane.

The Conditions 

Conditions are provisions inserted in the policy that qualify or place limitations on the insurer’s promise to pay or perform. If the policy conditions are not met, the insurer can deny the claim. Common conditions in a policy include the requirement to file a proof of loss with the company, to protect property after a loss, and to cooperate during the company’s investigation or defense of a liability lawsuit.

Definitions 

Most policies have a Definitions section, which defines specific terms used in the policy. It may be a stand-alone section or part of another section. In order to understand the terms used in the policy, it is important to read this section.

Endorsements and Riders

An insurer may change the language or coverage of a policy at the time of the policy renewal. Endorsements and Riders are written provisions that add to, delete, or modify the provisions in the original insurance contract. In most states, the insurer is required to send you a copy of the changes to your policy. It is important that you read all Endorsements or Riders so you understand how your policy has changed and if the policy is still adequate to meet your needs.

Want to Review Your Policy? 

To obtain a copy of your insurance policy, please contact your insurance agent or company.

 

Who was John Milton? Paradise Lost; A brief introduction:

 

Who Was John Milton?

John Milton was one of the most important English poets of his time. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, which tells the story of the fall of man. Milton's poetry is characterized by its beautiful and complex language. He was a master of the sonnet form, and many of his poems are still studied and admired today. In addition to his poetry, Milton also wrote several important works of prose, including a defense of freedom of the press. He is considered one of the most significant writers in English literature.

1. John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London, England:

John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608. His father, also John Milton, was a scrivener and small landowner. His mother, Sarah Jeffrey, was John Milton's second wife; John Milton Sr. had four children by his first marriage. John Milton was educated at St. Paul's School, where he learned Latin and Greek. He then attended Christ's College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1632, he returned to London to begin a teaching career. However, he soon gave up teaching and turned his attention to writing poetry. In 1642, the English Civil War began, and John Milton became a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause.

2. He was a poet, philosopher, and civil servant:

Milton showed great promise as a student, and he began to write poetry while still in college. After graduation, he decided not to pursue a career in the church, as his father had hoped but instead embarked on a trip to Europe. While in Italy, Milton became fascinated by the ideas of the philosopher John Locke. He also met many influential people, including the poet John Dryden. Upon his return to England, Milton published a number of political tracts, including "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" (1649), which argued for the right

3. Milton is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost:

Paradise Lost is one of the great epic poems of all time. Written by John Milton, it tells the story of the fall of man from Paradise. The poem is divided into twelve books, and each book tells a different part of the story. Paradise Lost is not only a great work of literature, but it also has a deep message about the nature of good and evil. In Paradise Lost, Milton shows that evil is not simply the absence of good, but it is something actively opposed to good. He also shows that good can be corrupted by evil, and that even the best of intentions can lead to unforeseen consequences. As a result, Paradise Lost is not only a great epic poem, but it is also a powerful moral tale.

4. He died on November 8, 1674, in London:

John Milton, the great English poet, died on November 8, 1674, at the age of sixty-five. The cause of death was probably a combination of gout and kidney stones. Milton had been blind for the last ten years of his life, and his health had been in decline for some time. Even so, his death came as a shock to his friends and admirers. Milton was buried in Westminster Abbey, where he lies today. Although he is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton also wrote a number of other important works, including the political tract Areopagitica and the poem Lycidas. He was a controversial figure in his own time, and his work continues to provoke debate and interest centuries after

5. Milton was a major figure in the English literary tradition and helped to shape the modern English language and poetry:

John Milton is widely considered to be one of the greatest English poets of all time. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, which tells the story of the Fall of Man. Milton began writing Paradise Lost in 1658 and it was published in 1667. The work was an instant success and cemented Milton's place as a literary giant. In addition to Paradise Lost, Milton also wrote a number of other successful works, including Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Lycidas.

conclusion:

Milton was a great poet, philosopher, and civil servant. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton was a major figure in the English literary tradition and helped to shape the modern English language and poetry.

John Milton was born in London, England on December 9, 1608. He was a poet, philosopher, and civil servant who is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. He died in London on November 8th, 1674. Milton was a major figure in the English literary tradition and helped to shape the modern English language and poetry.

Covid-19 Contribution to English Language; Corona Virus

 

how has recent ongoing Pandemic phenomenon contributed
to English? 

The corona virus-related updates give us a glimpse into how language can quickly alter within the face of unequalled social and economic disturbance. For example, one among the outcomes of the pandemic is that it’s brought previously unknown medical jargons to the forefront of everyday speech. Apart from this, it also contributed a lot of new jargons to English and Urdu languages.
Usually, the editors of dictionaries include a novel science related and technical terms as long as they acquire a certain point of currency outside of their disciplines. This is usually true for the names of medicines, since there are a lot of them. For example, there are Ritalin and Oxycontin present in the dictionary, but not Aripiprazole.
However, the pandemic has seen a minimum of two drug names that got into the public daily discourse.
Hydroxychloroquine, an ailment for malaria recommended by some doctors as a treatment against the virus, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in July, although the name of the drug had already appeared in print as early as 1951.
Another new drug is dexamethasone, this is a corticosteroid that has said to reduced the COVID-19 fatality rate. It appeared in print in 1958 and was included in the dictionary.

 Similarly words that are associated with social distancing or social isolation were there long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’ve become very common in 2020.
Self-isolate, self-isolated and shelter in situ all received new citations for their current usage.
Furthermore, ‘elbow bump’ has advanced from a gesture like a high-five, as documented in 1981, to its present form: a secure thanks to greet another person.
Some regional differences also are emerging in COVID-19 language. Self-isolate has been the well-liked term in British English, whereas self-quarantine is more commonly employed within the U.S. “Rona” or “the rona” as slang for coronavirus has been observed within the U.S. and Australia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced so many new words that are blends of other words. For example, “maskne,” an acne outbreak caused by facial coverings; “zoombombing,” which is when a lot of people invade zoom video conferences; and “quarantini,” a cocktail consumed in isolation.
Other new blends include “covidiot,” for someone who ignores public safety recommendations; “doomscrolling,” which happens when you skim anxiety-inducing pandemic-related stories on your smartphone; and the German term “hamsterkauf,” or panic buying.

The London School of Linguistics; Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, J. Rupert Firth.

 

The London School

Introduction

The London School of Linguistics is involved with the study of language on the descriptive plane (synchrony), the distinguishing of structural (syntagmatic) and systemic (paradigmatic) concepts, and the social aspects of language. Semantics is in the forefront.

. The school’s primary contribution to linguistics has been the situational theory of meaning in semantics (the dependence of the meaning of a linguistic unit on its use in a standard context by a definite person; functional variations in speech are distinguished on the basis of typical contexts) and the prosodic analysis in phonology (the consideration of the phenomena accruing to a sound: the number and nature of syllables, the character of sound sequences, morpheme boundaries, stress, and so on).

 The distinctive function is considered to be the primary function of a phoneme. The London school rejects the concepts of the speech collective and social experience and studies the speech of the individual person; it is subject to terminological and methodological inaccuracy and proves in many aspects to be linguistics of speech and not language.

The London School of Linguistics had three main representatives:

• Henry Sweet (1845 - 1912)

As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic languages, particularly Old English and Old Norse. In addition, Sweet published works on larger issues of phonetics and grammar in language and the teaching of languages. Many of his ideas have remained influential, and a number of his works continue to be in print, being used as course texts at colleges and universities.

. • Daniel Jones (1881 - 1967)

British phonetician, He was involved in the development of the International Phonetic Alphabet from 1907 and went on to invent the system of cardinal vowels and produce the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917).

 • John Rupert Firth (1890 - 1960):

Commonly known as J. R. Firth, was an English linguist. He worked in the phonetics department of University College London before moving to the School of Oriental and African Studies, where he became Professor of General Linguistics, a position he held until his retirement in 1956.

 British Structuralism Daniel Jones took up and extended Sweet’s work on phonetics. His work was highly influential in the development of phonetics, and his books Outline of English phonetics and English pronouncing dictionary were widely used throughout the world.

. But general linguistics in Britain really began with the work of J.R. Firth, who held the first chair in linguistics, in the University of London, from 1944 to 1956. Firth, who had lived for some time in India and studied its languages, brought a number of original and provocative perspectives to linguistics; the tradition he established is called the ‘London School’. Among other things, he questioned the assumption that speech can be divided into segments of sound strung one after the other, regarding this as an artifact of alphabetic scripts used by westerners.

His theory of prosodic analysis focused on phonetic elements larger than individual sounds, and anticipated some developments in phonology by half a century. Firth was also deeply concerned with meaning, and, influenced by the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), developed (at least in outline) a contextual theory of meaning that accorded a crucial role to use in context –embodied in the aphorism ‘meaning is use in context’.

 Firth did not develop a fully articulated theory of grammar, but rather laid out the framework on which a theory could be developed. One of his students, Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M.A.K. Halliday) (1925–) was responsible for elaborating Firth’s ideas and developing them into a coherent theory of language. From the late 1950s, Halliday refined a theory that ultimately came to be known as systemic functional grammar; Halliday’s ideas have attracted a considerable amount of attention, especially in applied linguistics, and the tradition he began is represented in Britain, Australia, America, Spain, China, and Japan.

. But Firth’s ideas were developed in other ways as well, including by other students, and their students. In fact, Firth’s singular approach remains a source of inspiration to many, and has spawned a range of neo-Firthian theories.

 

Stylistic analysis (Foregrounding) of E.E. Cummings “In the Rain”

 

Stylistic analysis (Foregrounding) of E.E. Cummings “In the Rain”

Abstract

This work aims at studying the distinctive style of E.E Cummings poetry in his poem “In The Rain”. The stylistic study of a poet’s work helps to indentify and trace a his inclination and style of work. In this research, linguistic aspects of the poem are discussed with the technique of foregrounding. The poem is fore grounded in respect to deviations and parallelisms. The poem is also fore grounded on graph logical, syntactical, grammatical, lexical, phonological and semantic levels. These levels are very helpful in finding out the love theme of the poem and are being discussed here in this piece of research.

 

Introduction

Stylistics is the study of style in texts. The way a text is being written and organized is being discussed in the waste field of stylistic. Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics and it focuses on the figures, tropes, and other rhetorical devices used to provide variety and distinctness to someone’s writing.

As Leech puts it, “style is the way in which something is spoken, written or performed‖”. Style is the usage of words choices and the way a writer uses them in order to achieve a certain aim and goal through his or her writing. Style is being defined as the selection of words from a huge linguistic vocabulary. Style covers spoken and written, literary and nonliterary kinds of language but it is specifically concerned with the literary texts. So it is the way that a writer uses to deliver his message.

 

Principles of Stylistics 

 There are certain rules and principles almost in every discipline that are being used to define the areas of that particular discipline.  In stylistics too there is a yardstick to evaluate the linguistic features of a literary text. There are mainly three principles for the stylistic analysis of a text. 

1)      Foregrounding 2)      Norms 3)      Deviations

  Foregrounding is the antonym of back grounding. In back grounding technique, we explore and identify those features of the txt that are hidden and unidentified. This technique is very much closer to Critical Discourse Analysis. In contrast to that, Foregrounding is the study of the apparent and vivid features of the text. By this technique, we tend to identify the underlined and highlighted features of a text. In Halliday’s language, it is called ‘Prominence’. This is further consisted of two techniques: Parallel Foregrounding and Deviational Foregrounding. 

Parallelism is the analysis of revised alike patterns in a text. Deviation is the violation of evident design of the text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POEM

 

The poem ‘In the rain’ is written by Edward Estlin Cummings, famously known as E.E. Cummings, was an American poet who is well known for his unique poetic style. His writing style is very much unconventional and different than other writer’s, especially in poetry. For example, he used the lowercase letters in his name to make it distinguished from others.   

Deviations play a crucial part in the theme of a poem, and Cummings’ poetry is full of them. For example His capitalization is not a something very traditional. He never used it in the start of sentence and when he used it, it gives extra meanings to the poem.

Furthermore, he never capitalized “I” that falls under the category of grammatical deviation but, it also demonstrates that one’s ‘self’ is not always very important. He proclaims the notion to his readers that one should escape his self’ and think about the others too. He did not use punctuation marks in their conventional way. But they are used very unconventionally in his poems. He never uses sentence markers and that is also a deviation of generally accepted norms of English language.   

FOREGROUNDING “IN THE RAIN” 

The poem is being analyzed using the technique of foregrounding.

The features of the poem “In the Rain” by E.E Cummings are being traced on these six levels of Stylistic Analysis:

1)  Graphological level.  2) Grammatical level.        3)  Syntactic level.        4)  Lexical level.           5) Phonological level.         6) Semantic level.

1) Graphological Level 

“It refers to the whole writing system: punctuation and paragraphing as well as spacing”. Graphological levels play a major role in the analysis of the text. They carry “pragmatic force” as an important factor in a text. Graphology is very important in understanding of a text.

The poem is divided into six stanzas in which four stanzas of the poem consist of four lines and one is of two lines. The patterns of lines are very fiddly. The length of all the lines is not the same and is different. There is an awkward spacing in the poem. Punctuations are used to divide sentences or phrases e.g. full stops, commas, semi-colon, colon, exclamation mark, apostrophe, parenthesis and brackets etc. But there is only one full stop in the whole poem. There are two commas in the whole poem; also, the title of the poem is in lower case which is a deviation.

There is no capitalization in the beginning of the sentence, not even one capital word is there in the whole poem. The paragraph spacing is very much awkward. “I” the personal pronoun is used twice in the poem and it is used in lower case which is also a deviation.

Grammatical Level 

There is no capitalization in the beginning of the sentences of the poem. The sentences aren’t ending with a full stop and there is no sentence marker being used. Only one full stop is observed in the whole poem. No punctuation is there except two commas that are used in the whole poem. The personal pronoun “I” is being used in lower cases throughout the poem. 

The line patterns are not in accordance to the language norms, they are rather unusual. Line spacing is very awkward. Paragraph spacing also violates language norms and is used very awkwardly. The whole sentence structure is some kind of deviation forms the normal rules and norms of the grammar.

Lexical level:

The theme of the poem is being fore grounded by the use of vocabulary.  For example there are love epithets that represent the love theme of the poem:

                                                                         “Think of you”, “the holy

                                                                      city which is your face”,

                                                                          “your eyes half-  

                                                                                thrush          

                                                                  half-angel and your drowsy           

                                                               lips where float flowers of kiss”

 

 

Phonological Level:

Phonological level deals with the pattern of sound used in a text. Lets discuss the poem on phonological for grounding level

Rhyme Scheme: the rhyme scheme of the poem is absent.  Consonance is found in the poem. For example in stanza one, “sunset” and “sit” are consonance sounds. In stanza two, “streets” and “smiles” are consonance sounds. Similarly, in the last stanza,  “Song”, “soul,” “single” and “Star” are all the consonance sounds. Example of Repetition is also found in the poem. There is a repetition of the line, “think of you” in the poem.  

 Alliteration: There are various examples of alliteration. For example: ‘Float flowers’, ‘single star’ ‘song soul’.

Semantic Level 

This poem is fore grounded on the level of semantic because it has many semantic parallelisms and deviations. There are various examples of metaphor “In the Rain”:

                                                                                 “the holy

                                                                   city which is your face”

         these lines are also the example of metaphor.

                                                          “    Your little cheeks the streets”

                                                                              Of smiles

        Another example of metaphor is in third stanza:

                                                            “your eyes half-

                                                           Thrush half angel”

 Metaphors of ‘city’ and ‘street’ are not usually used in poetry to relate the ‘beauty of mistress’. But Cummings does this and giving a very unique touch to his poems. Thrush is a singing bird he puts the word ‘half’ with it and makes a new word which is used as a metaphor to relate the beauty of her beloved’s eye. Similarly, ‘half- angel’ is used to describe the beauty of her lips. The beloved’s hair is related with the metaphor of ‘pirouette’ which is also very unusual because ‘pirouette’ is a part of dance.

Hyperbole

 Hyperbole is used by E.E Cummings to overstate the beauty of his beloved. He calls the eyes of her mistress as ‘half-angel and half thrush’.

 

Key concepts of Pierre Bourdieu

 

Key concepts of Pierre Bourdieu

 

Theory of practice, their definitions and examples:

 

1.      Cultural capital

Bourdieu developed the concept of cultural capital in the late 1960s when studying the French educational system.

Cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in stratified society.

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital was heavily influenced by the theories of Karl Marx.

Sharing similar forms of cultural capital with others creates a sense of collective identity and group position i.e. the identity of “people like us”.

There are certain forms of cultural capital which are valued over others, and can help or hinder one’s social mobility just as much as income or wealth.

Bourdieu noticed that middle-class students tended to persist through school, while working-class students had higher dropout rates. This happens because schools operated based on the culture of the dominant class, and expected all students to be knowledgeable of it. They might not be viewed as favorable by teachers; they might not understand materials or assignments that were based on the dominant culture. Thus they might opt out of education themselves.

He further had gave three forms of cultural capital namely: 1) Embodied 2) Objectified 3) Institutionalized.

 

2.      Habitus

Habitus refers to the physical embodiment of cultural capital. It is the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that we posses due to our life experiences.

Bourdieu often used sports metaphors “feel for the game” when talking about the habitus.

He further said that in the right situations, our habitus allows us to successfully navigate social environment. It also extends to our “taste” for cultural objects such as art, food, and clothing.

Bourdieu often noted, that habitus was so ingrained that people often mistook the feel for the game as natural instead of culturally developed.   

In one of his major works, Distinction, Bourdieu links French citizens’ tastes in art to their social class positions, forcefully arguing that aesthetic sensibilities are shaped by the culturally ingrained habitus.  This often leads to justifying social inequality, because it is believed that some people are naturally disposed to the finer things in life while others are not.

 

3.      Field

Bourdieu understood the social world as being divided up into a variety of distinct arenas or “fields” of practice like art, education, religion, law etc., each with their own unique set of rules, knowledge, and forms of capital.

Each field has its own set of positions and practices, as well as its struggles for position as people mobilize their capital to stake claims within a particular social domain.

Much like a baseball or football field, social fields are places where people struggle for position and play to win.

 

4.      Symbolic power

 

Power is seldom exercised as overt physical force. According to Bourdieu, symbolic power is an invisible power which is misrecognized as such and thereby recognizes as legitimate.