Linguistics in Opera and Libretto

Introduction Opera is performed using theatrical scenes where the art involves a combination of singing and dramatization. This kind of text is referred to as the libretto. It was a very popular form of art in early Europe. Opera remains popular today in some quarters of the society. The art brings together singing, speaking as well as acting. All these activities are performed in an opera house which is specifically designed for such purposes (Kennedy 62).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Linguistics in Opera and Libretto specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Linguistic on the other hand is the exploration of human language and its origin, revolution as well as application of the language. The application encompasses the use of morphology, syntax as well as the phonology in the composition of words. The meaning of language has been explored by analyzing the meaning of other forms of art in the real world. This is with the view of understanding the origin of opera from different backgrounds. This means that opera can be analyzed from a linguistic perspective. The opera is characterized by features such as the stage, orchestra pit and an audience area among others. Some operas are designed to accommodate various aspects of linguistic analysis. This is especially so considering the fact that operas were very popular in England and other countries during the early centuries. A comprehensive analysis of linguistics in opera can be achieved by looking at the origins of this form of art. This is given the fact that linguistics in opera is influenced a great deal by the origins of this art. It is noted that the art originated in Italy towards the end of the 16th century. It later spread to other parts of the world especially in Europe. To date, the operatic terminologies in these countries are referred to as the libretto (MacNutt 101). This is an indication of linguistics in opera. The origins of opera are evident in today’s compositions where aspects of Italian language are incorporated. This is given the fact that most of them have retained the original Italian characteristics such as accent and others. Such aspects help in tracing the common origin of today’s opera performances as far as linguistics is concerned.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In this paper, the author is going to look at the use of linguistics in opera. The author will make reference to librettos from operas in English from England and the United States of America. Examples of linguistic operas will be put into perspective in a chronological sequence. The aim here is to depict the link between the two fields of linguistics and opera. History and Origin of Opera from a Linguistic Perspective Before embarking on the critical analysis of the link between opera and linguistics, it is important to look at the history and origins of opera as a form of art. This will give the reader an idea of what opera is all about. It will also give the reader an idea of how contemporary opera differs from classical compositions and performances. The word opera is an Italian word implying â€Å"work† when translated. When loosely translated, opera involves the combination of â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.works from acting declamation in opera house stage† (Kennedy 75). Jacopo Peri is considered as the pioneer of this form of art. Dafne is actually a piece of work that was originally produced by Peri and it remains one of his most popular compositions. A group of Camerata found out that the entire opera was performed by the Greek dramas. So far the idea was to conceive and restore the traditional art. On a sad note, Dafne was lost and Peri was forced to come up with a new composition, the Euridice. This is the only opera that is still performed to date. It is to be noted that singing wa s an important aspect of opera (Warrack Ewan 25). Libretto Libretto is an elongated piece in form of music found in many categories of performances such as opera and cantanta. The word in some cases is associated with liturgical works such as the requiem as well as the expression of a story in ballet. Like opera, libretto also has an Italian origin, creating a link between it and linguistics. It literally translates into a book as already indicated in this paper. Libretto is different when compared to other forms of art like synopsis. In libretto, the distinction is evidenced by the fact that it contains words (linguistics) as well as stage directions. Synopsis on the other hand is used to give a summary of the plot (Smith 31). Historically, the ballet users have described libretto in different ways. For instance, libretto was recorded in a book of between 15 and 40 pages that contained ballets describing one scene or another.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Linguistics in Opera and Libretto specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This was in Paris in the 19th century. To this end, it is noted that the relationship between the composer and the writer of a given piece of music varies from one case to the other. This has varied the outcomes of such compositions for centuries. This is given that the writing criteria adopted as well as the sources used also varied (Simon 23). The language used in the composition varies from one case to the other. Metastasio is an example of well known librettists in Europe. It was used by a composer and a writer in a practice commonly known as poetry. Poetry is part of linguistics, and at this juncture, the author notes that it is also part of opera. In some cases, libretto has been written before music. Some composers used this idea in their creations. This is composers such as Mikhali Glinka and Alexander Serov who wrote down passages without accompanying texts. T his was later to be modified by composers when vocalizing the lines (Smith 43). Linguistics in opera is also evident in opera of the 20th century. It is to be noted that opera was widely used in America in the 20th century. Richard Rodgers is an example of a great composer who used this art in collaboration with other librettists. In other relationships as far as libretto and linguistics are concerned, composers designed their own libretti. Other librettos established a close relationship with composers so that all works of opera could reflect a common origin. The common origin could be deduced from the language that was used. Ingredients from other traditions were also effective in composition. But the efficiency improved when they were â€Å"combined under one work as far as composing and writing is concerned† (MacNutt 20). In this case, the opera will not clash with the play in attempts to accommodate other linguistics works with different origins. In cases where there was a need to combine works with different origins, it was necessary to put the script down in the presence of all the composers and the writer (Warrack Ewan 43).Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More English Language Opera and Linguistics Opera was first used in England in the 17th century. The piece was performed towards the end of a play. It was frequently characterized by scandalous scenes which depicted a consistence use of the popular tunes phrased in a dialogue. In the same period, French operas were gaining roots in English courts. They had â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..favorite splendors with scenes that were realistic† (Smith 22) in the plays. England had to use this kind of opera on the stage. Inigo Jones is credited as the pioneer of this art. He later became a quintessential specialist in all the productions (MacMurray Franzetti 26). The opera contained both songs and dances. Linguistic aspects were borrowed from different backgrounds for instance Italian and French which was taking hold in England. Opera revolution instigated the rise of linguistic elements from different artists. One such artist was Henry Purcell who also incorporated aspects of Italian language in his compositions. This is for example in his first work Dido and Aeneas. He centered his work on the semi opera type of format. The Fairy Queen is also one of the most famous works produced by Purcell. In this text, he was targeting the use of English in all versions of opera as an art. Dido and Aeneas Opera This is one of the English opera composed by Purcell. It was a libretto from Nahum Tate in the 17th century. This was the only work that had started to use English traditions after the inception of the Shakespearian linguistics. It is noted that the desire to use the English language in opera was common among emerging artists during the century (Apel 47). Opera Seria Long English compositions emerged later and the first English composer to venture here was Thomas Arne (Smith 24). He did this by experimenting with the Italian style, a process known as comic opera. This art became a huge success with many other pieces incorporated into the opera seria in Italian and English (MacM urray Franzetti 51). Opera seria dominated the stages till late 1830s and by then he was the only English composer to have gone beyond the Italian composition to produce a unique English composition with aspects of the Italian language. Linguistics was also evident in Balla opera where the composers incorporated some aspects of the English language. This is for example in The Love In Village (MacMurray Franzetti 58). As a result of this many native operas developed by incorporating aspects of the Italian language. Linguistics here was evident as the composers combined aspects of two different languages. The Yeomen of the Guard The 19th century English opera has been greatly influenced by linguistics elements. Many operatic conventions dominated London stages with emerging English composers taking the center stage. One English opera of this time was The Yeomen Of The Guard which was greatly recognized. It is a savoy opera that originated in Victorian England. The contributors to th is art included Gilbert and Sullivan who came up with compositions from scratch. Punch and Judy In the 20th century English opera was characterized by independent works from contributors such as Ralph Williams and Benjamin Britten. The two have greatly influenced contemporary theatre operas. This is after it emerged that English opera was being used in many parts of the world. For example the work of Sir Harrison The Punch and the Judy is not only Britain’s important opera art but also globally recognized (Silke 24). This work was evident in the 20th century and was performed in the American theatres. It was an indication that linguistics in opera was a common phenomenon across the globe. Using of puppets was an indication of how human behavior is linguistically transformed from one discipline to another (Silke 43) In the early 21st century, Harrison concentrated with the composition of other popular pieces such as â€Å"Facing the Goya†. English opera has therefore be come a significant ingredient of today’s opera world. For example, the National Lyric Stage involves the use of operas composed in the English language (Cooke 15). American Opera American opera became profound during the 20th century. The pioneers in American opera include Leonard Bernstein and Douglas Moor among others. Their works include The Porgy and Bess. They greatly influenced English opera as they performed music encrypted in English. It was characterized by folklores and American music comedies. They are the ones who popularized this form of art in America. On their part, they were influenced by composers and performers in operas found in other parts of the world (Kennedy 28). An American in Paris This is one of the compositions from America done by George Gershwin. It is a well defined opera incorporating aspects of the French language in 1922. In this art, French was used together with American English with the aim of using linguistics to depict the experience of a n American visitor in Paris (Smith 39). Other Contributions Still in the 20th century, other prominent opera arts include the Dead Man Walking which was successfully delivered through movie theaters. Another aspect of linguistics in opera can be discerned from the works of Italian opera composer Gian Carlo. The composer produced several librettos from America and became a great figure in American operas in this century. One of his works includes The Medium and The Consul. Some of his works featured in television performances (Kennedy 49). Conclusion In this paper, the author sought to look at the application of linguistics in opera. The aim was to study the link between linguistics and opera. All these involve the use of different languages hence linguistics in opera. The author used librettos from operas in English from England and the United States of America in identifying the link between the two fields. To this end, the researcher identified the link or the relationship between opera and linguistics. The author also looked at some of the key figures in English opera both in England and the United States of America. The origin of opera was also looked at. The paper found that the origin of opera can be used to analyze the link between opera and linguistics. This is given that there are some aspects of the original opera language that are evident in today’s opera. For example, some aspects of the Italian language are evident in today’s works of opera. Works Cited Apel, William. Harvard Dictionary of Music, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011. Print. Cooke, Mervyn. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print. Kennedy, Michael. The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. MacMurray, Jessica, and A. Franzetti. The Book of 101 Opera Librettos: Complete Original Language Texts with English Translations, London: Black Dog Levent hal Publishers, 2009. Print. MacNutt, Richard. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, London: Prentice Hall Publishers, 2009. Print. Silke, Leopold. The Idea of National Opera c. 1800: United and Diversity in European Culture c. 1800, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. Simon, Henry. A Treasury of Grand Opera, New York: MacGrill Publishers, 2008. Print. Smith, Marian. Ballet and Opera in the Middle Age, Boston: Princeton University Press, 2009. Print. Warrack, John, and W. Ewan.The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, London: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. This essay on Linguistics in Opera and Libretto was written and submitted by user Ishaan T. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Presidential Speech Essay

Presidential Speech Essay Presidential Speech sample: A number of issues are eminent in the modern day America. The nation is fighting against economic recession, political intolerance, rampant unemployment, derailed healthcare programs, and expensive foreign wars with perceived threats to American national security. Therefore, as a responsible president my government is proposing measures to transform the state of the United States economy into a more stability and realistic paradise where every American citizen is bound to make their dreams come true daily. Our wise and great founding fathers fought against foreign oppressions because they were ready to sacrifice their lives for our freedom. The modern American must be ready to make one final sacrifice to be part of the team whose main ambition is to transform our economy with a view to create viable employment and investment opportunities for our people. Transform American Healthcare to promote collective and secure healthcare scheme. Last but not least, the government is challenged by a proactive foreign and security policy that needs to change its policies to reduce expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars in foreign territories and wars that eventually benefit a few technocrats. Improving the economic situation For a long time, America is proud of having the most attractive and influential economy in the world; however, in the 21st century unlike before, population has tripled following high birth rate and doubled inflow of immigrants since America is a free and democratic nation. Therefore, the economy is experiencing a shock of providing enough jobs for over 300 million American nationals. The trend is unlikely to change unless we take the following dire measure. Government in-conjunction with representatives must enact a statute to check on mismanagement of government resources. Few previous government regimes overspend and overstretched the treasury forcing government to raise taxes that in turn lowered household incomes. My presidency promise to make credit available for institutions and individual Americans at a lowered tariff aimed to encourage growth of both small and medium business investors and multinational companies. International investors who were been keenly watching our dollar systems and wondering how the dollar was likely to pick up are amazed at the success and performance of our attractive capital markets investment policy that has seen a myriad of international competitive IPO sales for the first time since credit crunch hit America earlier in 2008. Improvement and Provision of Employment Opportunities One in every six Americans cannot find a decent temporary or full time career because American is not ready to sacrifice for a democratic future by sharing knowledge. Not only do jobs need to be increased, but also the wages need to increase through measures such as reduction in taxation rates across all sectors. Income, business, and national sales tax have to come down for production to pick up once more. Prosperity does not come through increase in spending, but increase in investment. By lowering taxes, the money that would have gone into government spending, which is usually unregulated and uncontrolled, will go into investment projects. The money left in the hands of the Americans will end up in the banks and other investment projects that will grow the American economy further. Better Healthcare Programs The healthcare system is now more expensive, yet less effective. The existing health care policies do not serve their purpose, and increase the amount Americans sacrifice in taxes to sustaining it. Major reforms are necessary to make sure that we have a healthy care plan that delivers on its purpose, and safeguards the health of the Americans. Stopping the Foreign war America needs to mind its own affairs before choosing to spend billions of the taxpayers kitty fighting unnecessary wars in foreign lands. Foreign lives costs more than just billions in dollars, lives of innocent American soldiers are lost fighting over issues that are of little benefit to the average American. Our troops and resources should be withdrawn from the far off nations and those resources be put to better use. The last thing we need is more damage in our foreign relationships by fighting against foreigners over vague issues such as national security, when we have much greater internal battles to win, on the economic, social, and political front. With the solving of these issues, America will be on its way to achieving greatness, and that every American will achieve his or her American Dream. Thank you!

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Media And Communication Studies Problems In Encoding Media Essay

Media And Communication Studies Problems In Encoding Media Essay Introduction Communication is the basic instinct of human being. The interaction and communication process is complex. It directs the researchers to understand the way the cognition works. Latest researches have become more advanced in the context of encoding. CDA (critical discourse analysis) and DA (discourse analysis) have been prerequisite to understand the encoding process. Objectivity, especially in the field of journalism is of great concern. The factors influencing the cognition and the process of encoding have been of the great concern for the communication scholars. Encoding is an integral part of the communication process. With out encoding and decoding it is not possible to communicate and being communicated. If we exclude the encoding the concept of communication is not possible. Mass media in Pakistan like any other media across the globe is working under the lines of responsibility but it is essential to understand the problems in encoding. Process of encoding and decoding is part of everyday communication. Anchormen, news reporters and producers play an important role beyond many others in communication field. Agenda setting, opinions building for a particular purpose have been the major area of interest for the communication experts and the journalists. It is obvious in our daily news media that some hot issues summarily go beyond the surface and the new one take their place to mold the attention of the public from one point to an other. This may go successful in one way when the message is encoded perfectly and then the receiver of the message decodes it in the way the sender wants it. For the successful and objective communication certain studies have been conducted by the communication and language experts focusing especially to the problems in the encoding process. PART II Encoding Definition: Encoding is the translation of purpose, intention, or meaning into symbols or codes. (Communication theories: Origins, Methods, And Uses in Mass Media 3rd Edition) By Werner J. Severin James W. Tankard, Jr Mostly these symbols are in the form of numbers, letters or words. These symbols work like bricks in forming the structure of any language. Other shapes of the encoding can be a photograph, motion picture, musical note or in the form of any sound. Encoding is such a process which demands deep attention to understand. It is the part of our routine life. Communication is the vital part of our life. We can not remain in isolation and feel relief when we express our intentions and feeling to any other person. The process of communication involves the most important factor that is encoding. Encoding basically occurs in mind. In other words it is the process of mind in which our intentions and what so ever we want to communicate is converted or shaped into the form of words which may be in the written or spoken form or can be any kind of gesture. We do the encoding on the basis of our knowledge and our past experiences. It is prerequisite for the journalists and communication experts to understand the encoding and its impact on the objectivity of the news or the message being conveyed. Encoding and the Society: Communication works like blood in the body. The process of interaction and transmission of the intentions and ideas from one to other person requires the cognition to come in work. With out the encoding it is impossible to deliver ones intentions to the other. The process of the encoding and decoding follow each other. A person encodes the message in reaction to what he/she decodes. Encoding process is available at every stage. In the field of communication from interpersonal to mass communication; each level has encoding in the process of dissemination of the information. At the mass communication level media disseminate the information to diverse societies. In the societies electronic journalism has a great role in providing the information about daily happening. The general public is regularly exposed to news channels and construct the opinion on the basis of what they watch and listen. Opinion of a society plays important role in the power play at social and national level and even impacts the international power structure. Keeping in mind the importance of the social opinion, it has been the concern of the communication scholars to ensure the objectivity at every stage of news and information dissemination. The process of delivering the information at this level passes through various stages. From the ordinary witness at the crime scene to the reporter, from reporter to the news desk, from news desk to the anchor person and from anchor person to the audiences, the process of encoding is involved at each stage. To ensure the transparency in the information distribution, making it objective and to provide the reality till the audience, certain studies have been conducted by the communication scholars. In the latest studies the scholars have conducted the Critical Discourse Analysis to study the way social power abuse; dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. It thus want to understand, expose and ultimately to resist the social inequality. Additionally the scholars have conducted the Discourse Analysis- a general term for a number of approaches to analyze written, spoken, signed language use. Encoding and the Language: In the process of encoding, language plays an important role. A group of students of the language which is called General Semanticists have worked over the encoding. They also have identified some characteristics of the language. These characteristics are essential to understand in understanding the encoding and the problems in its process. To understand the process of encoding in our society, individuals of the society and the media experts including communication experts and journalists it is essential to be known about these characteristics of the language. Media experts and journalists themselves go through the process of the encoding to shape their selections and intentions and the reality of the world around, and this afterwards again shaped by the minds of individuals in the society. At this point to save the objectivity and the purity of news and the affairs about the world around is the major concern. The misuse of the language takes the communicator or the person being communicated to certain amalgamations of the problems. Following are characteristics of the language identified by the General Semanticists: Language is Static; Reality is Dynamic Language is Limited; Reality is Virtually Unlimited Language is Abstract Assumptions Built into Languages Language is Static; Reality is Dynamic: Words themselves do not change over the period of time, yet the world around us is full of change. In the process of the evolution it is the natural phenomenon that certain species are not permanent in their shape and structure but they keep on developing time to time. In this case it is fact that we use the same fixed limitations and the words to describe any event or the world around. We use some specified words and attributes for certain things and events but with the passage of time their importance and area of influence keep on changing. Mass media communication experts especially the journalists use a specified vocabulary and terms to convey daily happenings. In the developing countries like Pakistan, the journalists in mass media field are not literal to the level essential for their work and the media here is in the developing stage; which has the potential risk to objectivity and the true tackling of the matter of the encoding in the sense of obtaining the information and imparting it to the masses but with the gradual rise in the education towards the importance and the responsibility in the news dissemination process is bringing a positive change. Language is Limited; Reality is virtually Unlimited: According to Wendell Johnson (1972) there are 500,000 to 600,000 words in the English language and they are to represent millions of individual facts, experiences and relationships. The people generally use limited vocabulary for their conversation in daily life. Miller (1963) says that vocabulary for telephone conversation is 5000 words and for novel are 10,000 words. Journalists and communication experts generally have the limited vocabulary. They come across various events in their daily life which they finally encode and give the shape of words and voice and broadcast for the audience and viewers. According to this characteristic of the language they can not show the exact reality of the event. This aspect in other words compromises the objectivity required in the news dissemination process. Due to having the limited vocabulary it becomes hard to convey the true picture of the reality. Language is Abstract: According to General Semanticists in the abstraction process we select some details about anything and leave rest of the details. Every language contains some abstractions. It is one of the most important features of the language. It allows us to think in categories. Much of the human knowledge is bound up in the process of categorizing and classifying. As the words become more abstract their correspondence to the reality becomes less and less direct. In the process of encoding especially according to the journalism perspective, objectivity is the foremost thing to consider. It has adverse effects if the audiences are not conversant to the encoding and abstraction processes. Assumptions Built into the Language: As General Semanticists say; the structure and vocabulary of the language contains many assumptions about the nature of the reality. Wendell Johnson observed that the language we use not only puts words in our mouths, but it also puts notions in our heads. Many folk languages contain certain assumption which are influenced by the culture and norms in which the speakers of that language live. Our mind is like a room which is colored by our experiences and cultures and when we speak in native or foreign language, that language builds assumptions in our mind besides putting words in our mouth. Misuses of the Language: General Semanticists have identified some misuses of the language due its static limited and abstract nature. They have identified four common misuses. Dead-Level Abstracting Undue Identification Two Valued Evaluation Unconscious Projection Dead-Level Abstracting: This concept, described by Wendell Johnson (1946) refers to getting stuck at one level of abstraction. The level could be high or low. High level abstractions are words like justice, democracy, freedom, mankind, and communism, peace with honor, and law and order. The low level abstraction can be like, some one recounting every detail of his or her day. An effective message contains generalizations at a high level of abstraction, but there are also specific details at a low level of abstraction. One effective technique for doing this is to give a lot of examples. (Communication theories: Origins, Methods, And Uses in Mass Media 3rd Edition) By Werner J. Severin James W. Tankard, Jr Undue Identification: General Semanticists have described the undue identification as, the failure to see distinctions between members of a category or class. This term points out that they are seen as identical or identified. Another term for this is categorical thinking. In everyday discourse, it is sometimes referred to as overgeneralization. One common kind of undue identification is stereotyping. (Communication theories: Origins, Methods, And Uses in Mass Media 3rd Edition) Two Valued Evaluation: This is also known as thinking with the excluded middle. According to this, there are only two possibilities of any thing and there is no third possibility of being something at the middle. For example: Right or Wrong Day or Night The General Semanticists have advised the way to eliminate such kind of misuse of the language by having the multivalued evaluation. In other words, to think that there are a range of possibilities of anything. Unconscious Projection: According to the General Semanticists the unconscious projection is a lack of awareness that ones statements are to a degree statements about oneself. Wendell Johnson (1972) went so for as to claim that basically we always talk about ourselves. William Shakespeare said, Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It is the I behind the eye that does the seeing. The seeing goes on inside our heads and inside our nervous system. What we see is our response to what we look at. (Communication theories: Origins, Methods, And Uses in Mass Media 3rd Edition) PART III Literature Review Stuart Hall: Stuart Hall has worked over encoding. His paper encoding/decoding was published in 1973. Many of the terms set by Hall remained influential in the field of cultural studies. Hall explored this work during his stay at Birmingham. Hall worked on that how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed. His essay challenged three major things in the communication process. He argued that; Meaning is not simply fixed or determined by the sender. The message is never transparent. The audience is not passive recipient of the meaning. According to him, distortion is built into the system. It is not the failure of the producer or the viewer. He argued that there is lack of fit between two sides of communication exchange. That lack of fit is between the moment of the production of the message and the moment of its reception. In other words, there is lack of fit between encoding and the decoding process. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall developed the reception theory. This theory analyses that how readers (audience) receive the literary text. This is basically a textual analysis approach that focuses on the range of negotiation and opposition concerning to the audience. According to this theory the text in any form is not accepted passively but the audience or the readers interpret the meanings in their cultural backgrounds and the past experiences. As per this theory, the process of encoding going on in any persons cognition is always influenced by his cultural background and the past experiences of the life. General Semanticists: In the world of communication, encoding has been the matter of the great concern. A group of students of language which was named as General Semanticists, have worked on the problems of encoding. This group was at first led by the Alfred Korzybski, a Polish who later migrated to United States of America. Encoding as being the basic element in the communication process which deals with the work of cognition is unavoidable in the process of analyzing the communication and the interaction of human beings with each other and its effects. In the process of accounting the importance of the encoding we can not put aside the role of the language. The language as being the central tool in the process of the communication affects the whole process of sharing the ideas and interaction with each other. Focusing on the vitality and the role of the language in encoding, they have identified some characteristics of the language that make the encoding difficult-especially in the language. These scholars have been in concern with the role of language in our daily life and its effects over our mental health. They have suggested to use the language in the way as the scientists use, to avoid the problems generated by the misuse of the language. Describing the characteristics of the language which make the encoding difficult, they identified the language as; Language is Static; Reality is Dynamic Language is Limited; Reality is Virtually Unlimited Language is Abstract Assumptions Built into Languages Misuse of the language causes the wrong encoding of any purpose or intention which takes the person being communicated, away from the reality. The person who gratifies his needs for information and news is on the stake of the key performers in the information dissemination process such as media producers, anchor-persons and the news reporters. General Semanticists have also identified some misuses of the language. Wendell Johnson has the prominent work in this regard. The misuses of the language are; Dead-Level Abstracting Undue Identification Two Valued Evaluation Unconscious Projection According to Wendell Johnson, getting stuck to a level of abstraction, and basically we always talk about ourselves, are the matters of the great concern. The field of journalism like other communication activities requires more attention towards these findings by the General Semanticists. The element of the objectivity has been of great concern. S. I. Hayakawa (1964) discusses three kinds of statements focusing the objectivity. Reports Inferences judgment According to him, the statement which is capable of verification is called the report. He describes the inferences as the statements made about unknown on the basis of known and finally he discussed the judgment as an expression of approval or disapproval for an occurrence, person or object. Journalists are sometimes challenged for their objectivity and unveiling the true picture of reality. For this the Hayakawa has advised to follow the report method of the statements and avoid inferences, statements and slanting. Encoding and Mass Media in Pakistan: Mass media in Pakistan has been playing active role in dissemination of the information to the audience at every newsworthy occasion. Certainly there is no scarcity of the hardworking journalists working in the whole process of the communication and the news dissemination. At the present stage there is great competition going on among various TV channels, of which most of the channels are newly emerged. Being the first in the broadcasting race some times the violation of the standards and ethics of news reporting is obvious. Some of the channels have been showing the videos of such a brutal incidents which would never be shown under the codes of ethics. Whether it is print or the electronic media, loopholes in the process of information gathering, processing and distributing stages are apparent. Government has established PEMRA to regulate the media but it too has been kept under the influence of the interests of the governing body in the past. In the print media there are a number of news stories available at the news desks which are firstly encoded by the reporters in the words on the paper, which sometimes are not written properly due to limited vocabulary of the language held with the reporter. There are gatekeepers at various stages of the news production which practice their influence on the word structure of the news. Sometimes a few newsworthy stories are left behind due to unavailability of the space in the print and the time in the electronic media and that reserved space is due to the immense influence of the advertisers, through which mass media generate the revenue. In such above mentioned conditions, the objectivity is the element of great concern in the whole process of the mass media. There have been no work done over the issue of encoding by the mass media of Pakistan and there is no research held over the audience way of the encoding in Pakistan. There are a few channels (TV, Radio) and newspapers which are never influenced by the rivalry of the circumstances and tried to provide the objective news to the audience and vied to unveil the reality. But to analyze the way the mass media in Pakistan encodes the messages and to analyze the way the audience further encode the messages, is the matter of great concern. PART IV Hypothesis To analyze the objectivity and the encoding process by the news media it is essential to set a hypothesis. Under the hypothesis we will discuss the level of objectivity and the way how mass media especially the news media (print and electronic) of Pakistan and the audience encode the news. Statement of the Hypothesis News media (print and electronic media) in Pakistan politicize the news PART V Analysis Mass media in Pakistan has diverse outlets. It is not merely confined to the print media or in the other words the newspapers. There are news agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV channels, internet and the movie industry under the title of the mass media in Pakistan. Debating on the issue of the encoding we will pass through the performance of the all kinds of media in Pakistan focusing on the issue of politicizing of the news elements by the media industry. Pakistan as being one of the developing countries is passing through the process of the evolution in the field of industry, economy and the media field. Where there are various TV channels are getting approval for the start of the broadcast, there many newly born newspapers are sacrificing for there erectness and stability in the corporate culture of the present Pakistan. Besides this there is one more way of recreation, learning and information for the audience and that is radio listening. The radio Pakistan enjoys the vast area coverage with respect to other FM radio stations having a limited area for broadcast. Internet too is full of blogs and WebPages. Society in Pakistan is divided into urban and rural population. The urban population is being exposed to diverse media outlets than the rural population. The emerging news media in Pakistan has been influenced by the political economy being practiced by various corporate and the political bodies. The newly emerging media whether in the form of print or electronic have to vie for their existence and their existence can not be assured with out generation of the revenue. The struggle to generate the revenue some times put these media industries on the way other than the objectivity. The objectivity has been the great concern for the communication experts and the scholars. It would be the foremost responsibility of the mass media to provide the accurate picture of the reality and do not keep the audience away from the reality. Encoding of the news is blurred by the various key players in the media industry due to their affiliations with the corporate world and the political body. Corporate sector influences the media by using the advertisement tool and the political body cares for its interest and if the media go against, it puts the sanctions through the governmental media regulating bodies. This way, the corporate and the political bodies control the contents of the news and other media messages and make the reporters, news editors, columnists, anchor persons and the news producers to think in the way they want. As the general semanticists identified, due to the limited aspect of the language the reporter sometimes can not describe the reality of the incident in the way as it should be. The assumptions built in the language makes the key performers in the media industry to think in the way that is influenced by their culture and past experiences. As the Wendell Johnson said, the opinions of the columnists are to some extent the talks about themselves. These are basically their opinions and not necessarily the reality of something. The element of the judgment according to the Hayakawa is also visible in the opinions given in the news articles and the columns. Reports are the only the way to come up with the reality for the audience. There are the reports that can only be verified and are credible thats why the emphasis is given on the report (a type of statements according to Hayakawa). The audience as per the uses and the gratification theory gratifies their needs from the mass media in the form of the news and the entertainment. And if they gratify their needs on the basis of the news encoded by mass media under the influence of any corporate or the political body, they will live with the wrong picture of the world around them in their brain and that will effect their reaction in the social life. Agenda setting aspect of the mass media is also applicable in this regard. The influential bodies and sometimes the personal bias of any of the key performers in the mass media molds the structure of the news in a particular sense generating collection of words which causes to set a particular agenda in the public. Sometimes the political influence of the political body being the major provider of the advertisements to the mass media makes news media to make an issue over particular news in the media and bury the other news which however may cause any harm to the political body. The contents of the news in the media are also affected by the advertiser which buys large space or the time in the news media and this way controls consciously or unconsciously the news flow and its encoding. Some of the events have been given more than the due time and rests of the important events are kept at the stand by although the newsworthy incidents keep happening all the time in any of the corners of the country. The news is not merely encoded by the news media but it is further encoded by the audience and it then further travels to the rest of the audience through their opinion leaders in the public sphere. If the encoding at any stage in the news media is of that other than reality and away from the objectivity, the travel of the information at any stage will not be fruitful for the audience. PART VI Findings News media in the Pakistan are encoding the news messages for the audience. Those media that are strong are practicing better encoding of the news and focusing on the element of objectivity than those which are newly born and needs revenue from advertisements for their strength building in the media market. The threat to the objective encoding is expected in the talk shows where the anchormen conclude the discussion and give inferences and judgments. This aspect is also visible in the news articles and columns which are basically their own opinions about the reality. Audiences further encode the messages based on what kind of encoding done by the news media they come across. They remain away from the reality if they are gratifying from the inobjective encoding by the news media. Thanks With Best Regards M Bilal Bhatti MS 1 Media Communication Studies IIUI, Islamabad

Bless Me, Ultima: The Cultural Distress Of A Young Society Essay

Bless Me, Ultima: The Cultural Distress of a Young Society An answer to the discussion question of whether or not there is a defined border culture would need a great number of years in field research, but we can also observe a few of the characteristics of such border culture just by looking at scholastic essays and books related to the topic. Within the research that I did, I found a number of scholars who, while defining the border, mention all the specific or special characteristics of this new emerging society, but who also very few times defined it as such. In the book that I researched, Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya, we find many of those characteristics. There is already much work on this piece of literature, therefore, I decided to present my research and study in two ways. First, I will give a personal analysis of the work, in which I will discuss the different topics and parallelisms that I believe are related to an emerging border culture, and second, I will discuss and complete analysis made by Roberto Cantu, published in The Iden tification and Analysis of Chicano Literature. The novel by Rudolfo Anaya Bless Me, Ultima, was printed in June 1972, but won the first price in the Second Annual Premio Quinto Sol Literary Award in 1971. The main characters of the novel are Antonio, his father, mother, two sisters, three brothers, Tenorio and his three daughters, and Ultima. The argument presents how a child, (Antonio), matures in one year, thanks to the different episodes that he goes through. Antonio, a seven year old child, narrates in first person, and describes the events that changed his life from the moment that Ultima arrived at his house. During the beginning of the book, his thoughts and actions are typical of such age, but as the events take place, Antonio changes and matures incredible fast through the text. It is even hard to find where the changes in his behavior take place, due to Rudolfo's smooth literary transitions. Carl and Paula Shirley condense their presentation of Bless Me, Ultima by simply mentioning the story line of the book:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  She (Ultima) is present from the boy's earliest experiences growing up, family conflict, school, religion, evil and death... Much good in this novel, beauty, magic, New Mexico landscape, legends... (Shirley   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  and Shirley, 105). All of th... ...; London: Duke University Press. Creel, J. (1986). The People Next Door, an Interpretative History of Mexico and Mexicans. New York: John Day. Diaz-Guerrero, R. (1991). Understanding Mexicans and Americans. New York: Plenum Press. Di-Bella, J. (1989). Literatura de la Frontera. California: Binational Press. Frost, E. (1972). Las Categorias de la Cultura Mexicana. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Herrera-Sobek, M. (1992). Toward a promised land: La frontera as a myth and reality in ballad and song. Aztlan 21 no 1-2:227-62 '92 '96 Jimenez, F. (1979). The Identification and Analysis of Chicano Literature. New York: Bilingual Press. Miller, T. (1981). On the Border. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. Salado Alvarez, V. (1968). De como escapo Mexico de ser Yankee. Mexico: Editorial Jus. Saldivar, R. (1990). Chicano Narrative. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. Shirley C. & Shirley P. (1988). Understanding Chicano Literature. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Universidad Autonoma de Baja California. (1983). Estudios Fronterizos. Revista del Instituto de investigaciones sociales. Mexicali: Universidad Autonoma de Baja California.

Sg Cowen

9-402-028 REV: JANUARY 19, 2006 THOMAS DELONG VINEETA VIJAYARAGHAVAN SG Cowen: New Recruits We are who we recruit. — SG Cowen professional Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, looked out the conference room window at the falling flakes and wondered how fast the snow was accumulating. Most of the firm’s bankers had come in from Connecticut or Westchester to participate in the Super Saturday recruiting event, and he knew they were anxious to get home before the weather deteriorated and made travel dangerous. The interviews had finished at noon, and the candidates from various graduate schools had left for their flights right away.Now, the bankers were eating lunch, discussing interview results and making decisions. They were sitting in â€Å"Giants Stadium,† the bank’s largest conference room, and Rae had set the tables up in a U-shape so that he could stand in the front and still communicate with all 30 bankers. He posted placards with all the cand idate names on the bulletin board and moved them around as they came up for discussion. The hiring meeting had moved rapidly through a number of candidates. The decision makers had agreed on candidates who were firm â€Å"yeses† and some other clear â€Å"nos. † Now was the tricky part: there were four candidates still left.Each person had some strong support among their interviewers but had also raised some questions. To reach the ideal class size after factoring in expected yield, Rae wanted to give out only two more offers. Investment Banking Industry in 2001 Consolidation in the investment banking industry was widespread, as major firms bought small banks, bought retail brokers, and considered partnering with commercial banks. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and equities remained the highest-margin businesses but also very volatile, as deal volume and initial public offering (IPO) issuances could dry up very quickly in a downturn.In a down market, fixed incomeâ€⠄¢s more stable revenue stream was especially welcome. Integrated banking groups such as Citigroup or JP Morgan Chase were sometimes able to win investment banking business away from the traditional bulge-bracket firms because of their ability to offer loans and other commercial banking capabilities. Some strategists believed the lending business was the ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Thomas DeLong and Research Associate Vineeta Vijayaraghavan prepared this case.HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2002 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www. hbsp. harvard. edu.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits wave of the future, while others targeted the custody business. The custody business, which involved holding and processing the buying and selling of securities for investors, was a low-risk fee-based business that was considered mundane but offered regular opportunities for interaction and service to potential clients.Several investment banks reported declining profits, and some laid off staff to cut costs. The biggest expense on Wall Street was compensation costs, averaging 50% of revenue. 1 In the prosperous years on Wall Street in the late 1990s, some firms had salary and bonus costs upwards of 60%, since firms signed multiyear contracts promising fixed bonus payouts to keep tale nt and also signed separate profit-sharing agreements with individual business groups to prevent them from spinning out on their own.Investment banks were also under increased scrutiny from regulators and the public, who were concerned about conflict of interest. Many new equity issues, especially in technology, had been supported by research analysts, particularly at the firms that had executed the IPOs. This loyalty to the banking clients came at the expense of the investors who followed analyst recommendations and bought stock in companies that often continued to decline. Firms were now developing better guidelines for keeping research teams independent from bankers and their clients.Investment banks fought for talent with firms in venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, consulting, and, for the last few years, tech companies. Banks were reassured to see students return to the fold, as they exhibited much more interest in established brand-name companies for secure jobs. Ho wever, the interest level had gone from one extreme to the other. Where banks had once feared they were only seeing second-tier candidates, now they had recruiting yields much higher than expected and struggled with how to handle all the new recruits as business slowed down.SG Cowen SG Cowen was born when Societe Generale purchased Cowen and Company in July 1998. Societe Generale was an international bank based in France, founded in 1864, nationalized in 1945, and privatized in 1987. By 2000, it was one of the world’s largest banks, with assets of over $430 billion as of December 2000. Like many European banks, it wanted a foothold in investment banking in the United States. Many of these banks had tried to create a beachhead in the U. S. but had not succeeded.Societe Generale had flirted with buying one of the CHARM banks for the past five years and decided Cowen was the best match culturally. 2 By 2000, Societe Generale’s $600 million purchase of Cowen had started to pay off: SG Cowen went from an operating loss of $75 million in 1999 to an operating profit of $34 million the following year. Cowen began business as a bond brokerage house in 1918 and grew into a firm known for top-tier research and strong equity sales and trading capabilities. It was now also focused on building up its investment banking and M&A advisory services.The new entity SG Cowen, numbering 1,500 professionals, planned to remain a boutique-sized firm but had access to the parent firm’s balance sheet. SG Cowen’s investment bankers focused on emerging growth companies in two volatile but highly profitable areas, health care and technology. This focused approach to banking depended on deep knowledge collected through its equity research team, highly regarded for its coverage of both 1 The Economist, August 4, 2001. 2 CHARM banks was the Wall Street nickname for this set of boutique banks: Cowen, Hambrecht & Quist, Alex Brown,Robertson Stephens, and Montgomery S ecurities. 2 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 health care and technology. Kim Fennebresque, president and CEO of SG Cowen, often described research as the â€Å"edge of a wedge† that created inroads with new clients. The firm had strong roots in Boston but had now opened several other offices, as far apart as San Francisco, Dallas, and London. This raised concerns about making sure employees in smaller offices were not isolated and also that they had full knowledge of and access to the resources of the global firm.As the firm grew, there were concerns that groups should make sure there were frequent interactions and that people should know about one another’s deals and proposals and make sure they coordinated their client activity. Fennebresque believed that SG Cowen should continue to grow geographically but stay industry focused: â€Å"We will, under all circumstances, remain an emerging growth investment bank. Our geographical reach will extend to Europe, Asia, and o ther parts of the world, but we will not stray from that focused sectoral agenda.We have in our midst, and will continue to attract, the highest-quality professionals who believe in that business model. † The Hiring Process Like most firms on Wall Street, SG Cowen made hiring decisions in the early winter and spring of each year to fill a new class of associates who would begin that summer. Some associates had previously been employed by SG Cowen as analysts and were promoted to first-year associate at the end of their third year with the firm without going to business school. Other associates started out as interns in the summer between their first and second year of business school and subsequently were offered full-time employment at the end of their internship commencing the following summer. The hiring process for new outside associate hires began in the fall, when SG Cowen would make company presentations at its â€Å"core business schools,† where it participated in the on-campus recruiting programs. These schools were NYU, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Emory, USC, Washington University, Notre Dame, and Berkeley.SG Cowen would also accept resumes from students at noncore schools, where it was not participating in the on-campus program. Often SG Cowen professionals would conduct â€Å"informational interviews† with students in the office in advance of official first-round interviews. These interviews, which were not part of the formal process, were a chance for SG Cowen to gauge how serious and enthusiastic the candidates were and a chance for candidates to learn more about the firm and the industry before the interview in which they would be actually evaluated.Rae assigned team captains to every school at which SG Cowen recruited on campus so that students had a constant and familiar point of contact. Ideally, these team captains were banking professionals and not human resource professionals, and as often as possible, Rae would try to match up alumni with their own school. Gregg Schoenberg was team captain at the Johnson School of Business at Cornell, the school that currently provided SG Cowen’s highest recruiting yield. Schoenberg had joined the firm in August 1998 and now worked in the Equity Capital Markets Group.He became actively involved in recruiting at Cornell upon joining for two reasons. First was that he believed SG Cowen would benefit from the high quality of candidates at Cornell. Second was that he wanted to make it easier for Cornell grads to obtain investment banking positions on Wall Street. Schoenberg averred: In the bull market years, the Goldman’s of the world would back up the recruiting truck to places like Harvard and invite slews of students to climb aboard.It was tougher for us because 3 Analysts were recruited from Babson, Colby, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ya le. 3 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits we didn’t have the alumni base in New York. We came down here on our own nickel and really pounded the pavement. But you can turn a negative into a positive. Because Cornell students who do want to do banking have to show more initiative and be more focused, generally this makes them great hires.When Schoenberg had been hired, Cornell was not a core school, and Schoenberg described SG Cowen at the time as â€Å"so-so receptive† to people from noncore schools, mostly because the lack of an on-campus round made for disproportionate hassles to pin bankers down to do interviews and set up individual interview times in the middle of a regular workday. Coming from a nontraditional background in politics, Schoenberg felt SG Cowen’s interest in him really gained momentum once they knew he had been called back for second rounds at Lazard Freres.When Schoenberg recruited for SG Cowen, he said he always told candidates, â€Å"It doesnà ¢â‚¬â„¢t matter what you did before, what matters is that you have demonstrated a pattern of success. † But he also said candidates had to be realistic about their â€Å"fit,† as he himself was. â€Å"I couldn’t outmodel a former Morgan Stanley analyst,† he said. He moved to Equity Capital Markets from M&A within his first few months because â€Å"it played to my interests in the markets and my personality. † People need to be fast learners, he said, because â€Å"Wall Street doesn’t have the patience to allow someone to develop slowly. Rae’s Strategy Schoenberg’s advocacy for making Cornell a core school converged perfectly with Rae’s new strategy for choosing core business schools. â€Å"We used to go to the top 10,† Rae said, â€Å"but at some of the top schools we were getting people in the middle of the class. † Paying more attention to the next 15 schools in the top 25 was Rae’s new strategy. R ae, who graduated from Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, had originally been a banker himself at JP Morgan before moving into recruiting positions there and at Merrill, Smith Barney, and then SG Cowen.His previous employers were giants on the top 10 campuses, with huge recruiting budgets, recognized brand names, and, most importantly, much larger hiring needs, which meant that they received immediate student interest. At schools such as Emory and USC, SG Cowen could be a relatively bigger player and attract more attention from the best students. There was resistance initially from senior management, as this was viewed as going downstream. But Rae said, â€Å"Senior managers eventually saw the wisdom. We were hiring at the top of the class, and these students also tended to be more loyal.We were not missing much by not going to the top schools. † At each of the core schools, Rae scheduled a company presentation in advance of the interview dates. At the presentation, R ae guided the team captains to make sure they answered four questions quickly: who are we, what do we do, what distinguishes us from competitors, and what are the next steps. SG Cowen promoted the advantages of a boutique firm, arguing that there was less bureaucracy than at larger banks, that people could move much faster in their careers than at other banks, where they would be hired and promoted lockstep as part of a large class.Team captains talked about the advantages of small deal teams, which allowed for more exposure to clients, more responsibilities, and more entrepreneurship. Rae encouraged team captains to make a very short formal presentation and then allow a substantial amount of time to informally talk and answer questions. At schools like NYU, SG Cowen would be represented by an MD, who made the presentation, and then perhaps 20 alumni who could then have fairly substantial interaction with the expected 100 students who would show up.Some team captains like Schoenberg would tell students they could call him or come and see him (at their own expense) for informational interviews. This would help self-select students who really wanted to be prepared for first-round interviews by knowing more about the firm and also establishing a 4 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 relationship with him. However, he admitted there was a fine line between helping students who were self-starters and giving them unfair advantage in the process. Some team captains put in a lot of time and effort, while some put in less.SG Cowen did not directly compensate or reward bankers for being involved in recruiting activities, but recruiting was included on the performance reviews leading to year-end bonuses. On-Campus Round At every core school, SG Cowen had two or three schedules comprising at least one open one, whereby students signed up based on interest, and the rest closed, whereby SG Cowen selected among previously submitted resumes. Rae said, â€Å"In the past, I’ ve found as many good people on the open as the closed list. † In the first rounds, interviewers tried to focus on which of these candidates could make it through Super Saturday.Schoenberg said, â€Å"When I go up to interview, I’m tough on candidates because I don’t want to embarrass myself later on by endorsing weak candidates. † Interviewers knew they would be held liable for the quality of candidates they brought back for Super Saturday, and their own reputation was diminished if they wasted the time of senior bankers at the firm interviewing candidates at Super Saturday who were clearly not appropriate. At the same time, Schoenberg said, â€Å"When I see people who are prepared and have the eagerness, I fight very hard for them. †While some bankers were especially tough, others were especially easy and wanted to be generous in their assessments of all the candidates. Rae said, â€Å"This is where you see the beauty of writing comments down. â €  At the end of a day of first-round interviews, the two or three people who had been interviewing would discuss whom they had seen. Rae tried to make detailed notes on resumes or on the evaluation sheets he had created, and he encouraged the bankers to do the same so they could recollect specific details about each candidate (see Exhibit 1 for a sample of Rae’s notes from past interviews).Most often there were two schedules, which would amount to 24 candidates. They would then try to narrow the list to six candidates and quickly have a second round, even that same night, on campus in order to cut half and invite the other half to Super Saturday. Rae said the firm usually wanted associates or senior associates to conduct first-round interviews: â€Å"We’re not aggressive about sending our most senior people out; we want to downstream the identification of talent and upstream the responsibility of closing on offers to senior people. Rae felt that often the senior-m ost people were removed from day-to-day concerns and tended not to be as demanding about the basic skills an associate needed, whereas those just a few years ahead of a firstyear associate would be much more rigorous about assessing skills. He made sure senior bankers would be at Super Saturday, however, to judge whether potential associates also had the makings of a good long-term banker. In Rae’s view, long-term success did not come from building models, it came from loving the work, loving to teach and sell, and loving the hunt.The successful bankers had to feel the excitement of serving clients and the excitement of competing at the highest level. In this first round, he also instructed interviewers to test for culture fit. This could be as simple as asking someone whose work and education experience was entirely in the Midwest, â€Å"Are you comfortable living and working in New York? † Rae said, â€Å"Sometimes they might be a diamond in the rough and they can m ake the transition, but cultural fit is important. † Other bankers at SG Cowen agreed. One banker, Ryan Daws, pointed out, â€Å"It’s mportant having Chip in the process because there are only so many personality types in the world, and he’s seen a lot more than we have. † Daws said, â€Å"HR at every bank has to earn credibility with bankers, but when you have someone like Chip who used to be a banker, it makes it easier. † He also said, â€Å"Certain types 5 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits fail to succeed once they get here, which colors the interviewing process. † For Daws, alarm signals went off when people did not dress appropriately, or when they asked questions like, â€Å"Are the hours really as bad as they say? He acknowledged there was some ego involved on the interviewing side. â€Å"No one’s ever as good as I thought I was,† he joked. Super Saturday Super Saturday in fact began on Friday afternoon, when candidates ar rived from their various schools and convened with many of the interviewers for dinner and cocktails in the wine cellar of an elegant midtown restaurant. Fennebresque spoke at dinner, and, because he was a great speaker and because it was rare to get the attention of a CEO during recruiting, candidates were usually visibly impressed.On Saturday morning, interviews began at nine, and each interviewer and each candidate had five half-hour sessions with short breaks. Rae tried to keep these interviews moving and spent a lot of time gently tapping and then firmly knocking on bankers’ doors when they lost track of time. Super Saturday was exhausting for the interviewers as well as the interviewees, and Rae wanted to make sure the bankers saved some energy for the collective decision making. Thirty candidates had attended, which meant Rae had commandeered 30 bankers to come to Super Saturday.Rae said, â€Å"They’re giving up a Saturday, and they want to get out of here as f ast as they can. But they get to make the decisions, and that brings them in here every year. † Rae estimated from previous years that he should make 20 offers if his target was 15 acceptances. There were already eight hires from the summer associate program, and seven third-year analysts were being promoted, so this would achieve his objective of a full associate class of 30. Successful candidates received offers to join investment banking.Those who accepted returned for an orientation in April to meet with the banking groups that interested them most. By the time the training program started, each new associate was assigned to a group. The hiring meeting started as the bankers ate their lunch. The bankers usually felt very confident that they could whip through the list of candidates quickly, as they often assumed that others would have shared their view on the interviews they conducted. Bankers were always surprised at these meetings to find out how strong the disagreement could be.One managing director might be turned off by a candidate for â€Å"being too salesy, I thought he was trying to snow me,† and that same candidate could have appealed to another director for having â€Å"great attitude, eager to contribute. † Rae had to figure out how to let everyone weigh in and then build consensus around a decision. Building a Culture through Hiring Rae said, â€Å"I try to get people to act and behave like a firm. † He wanted to make sure bankers were not overly partial to candidates from their own alma maters and also that bankers did not hire people who would only succeed in their own group.At the same time he wanted to make sure that bankers did not relax standards and hire a candidate whom they thought of as â€Å"good enough for the firm† but â€Å"not good enough for my group. † Sometimes he would try to push a banker to a conclusion by saying, â€Å"If you could only take one new associate to the CEO’s of fice with you, which one would it be? † Or at the other extreme, â€Å"If I can’t place her, she’s going to be yours, how do you feel about that? † 6 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 One HR manager at SG Cowen commented:People on Wall Street are too hard on people who took some time to figure out what they want to do. But look at Kim Fennebresque, our CEO. He started out as a lawyer, and he’s been incredibly successful in banking. But when people are hiring, they don’t think of that. Personally, I think anyone who tells you in an interview that they wanted to be an investment banker since age 12 has led an incredibly dull life. Fennebresque said, â€Å"We want to make sure people who are attracted to a place like this understand what this is. We want to ferret out people who love technology, who love emerging growth. Making the firm more visible to both potential clients and potential employees was one reason Fennebresque agreed to frequent ap pearances on CNBC and business segments on other news shows. â€Å"So many people come to Wall Street for the wrong reasons,† he said. â€Å"They’re dazzled by dough and dazzled by stature. People should figure out what they like to do, it matters even more than what they’re good at. I was perfectly good at law, but I sat in that law library at night and I thought the librarian was the Marquis de Sade torturing me.If you don’t like what you’re doing, even if you’re good at it, eventually you and God are going to figure it out. † Fennebresque spoke fondly of having started out in banking at First Boston in the 1980s during the firm’s heyday and in close view of the rise of Joe Perella and Bruce Wasserstein. Fennebresque said, â€Å"I used to believe culture was an overrated Harvard buzzword,† but First Boston made him realize how much culture mattered. â€Å"We were young punks trying to elbow in on the big boys, and it worked,† he said proudly. He was trying to bring some of that dynamism to SG Cowen.Because the investment bankers had all been hired from different firms to build SG Cowen’s banking platform, Fennebresque often used the metaphor of Ellis Island to exhort his bankers to come together and create a unified new culture. He also wanted to make sure they felt they had the support they needed to get their work done, and Fennebresque tried to give bankers as much autonomy and decisionmaking power as possible. Fennebresque’s involvement in recruiting events and his visibility with new and young employees stemmed from this desire to provide support. â€Å"The most important clients are inside, not outside. I really believe that,† he said.Hiring Criteria Rae tried to formalize the criteria by using grid sheets for the bankers to fill out and having them vote and make a case on behalf of their candidate. There were definitely bankers who resisted any kind of â€Å"sc ience† in this process. Bill Buchanan, HBS ‘86, was head of Equity Capital Markets and had also come to SG Cowen from First Boston, like Fennebresque. â€Å"The type of person who does well here doesn’t want to be told what to do. He or she is far less regimented. This is not the Navy. We want the self-starter. † Buchanan said he did put a lot of stock in resumes: â€Å"It makes a big difference if they have been an entrepreneur. Most important, though, he hired for fit. He was even known to change the structure for fit, in that he had created jobs for people he thought SG Cowen should hire. As Buchanan put it, â€Å"We can stretch for personality, and we can stretch for sparkle. † Especially in ECM, Buchanan said, â€Å"The human element, especially our creativity and energy, is why a company chooses us as financial advisor in the first place, especially on commoditized products. We’re very hands on and high touch. We’re not the volu me leader, but we are a service leader. † 7 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Candidates for HiringThe bankers assembled had assigned almost all the magnetic placards representing the applicants into decision groups. They had two spots remaining and four people in the â€Å"maybe† category from whom to choose. 4 Natalya Godlewska Natalya Godlewska was an MBA student at Cornell and had earned an undergraduate degree in finance at an eastern European university. As an undergraduate, she had been the student with the highest grade point average (GPA) in the finance department, and she went on to serve as a graduate teaching assistant in the finance program at Cornell’s business school.She was originally from Poland and had moved to the U. S. at the age of 22. She spoke fluent Russian, Polish, and German and some French. Prior to business school, she had worked for four years for CommScan, a company that developed M&A modeling software used by many major Wall Street fir ms. She had gone to the SG Cowen presentation at Cornell, called the bankers she had met to have informational interviews, and then had been one of the top candidates from Cornell sent on to Super Saturday.At Super Saturday, her interviews had mostly gone well, although there was some hesitation from two interviewers. Everyone was uniformly impressed with her finance background, her analytical knowledge, and her understanding of the financial markets. When one of the bankers had telephoned her references, her previous supervisor had responded positively about Godlewska’s skills and also commented, â€Å"This is the person I would want to bring to a tough negotiation. † She seemed very determined, ambitious, and ready to work hard.But one associate and one managing director each expressed strong reservations for different reasons. The associate felt that Godlewska might not be a good culture fit with the other associates and that she had seemed stiff and uncomfortable d uring small talk at the opening of the interview and also at dinner the night before. The managing director felt that some bankers might lose patience with Godlewska’s less-thanperfect English and that this would affect her ability to work smoothly with her managers. Other people on her interview schedule spoke up in her defense.Associates should be made to deal with people with different backgrounds, and it was all too easy to use â€Å"culture† as an excuse. One banker said he thought Godlewska would be a hit with clients because she was a go-getter and radiated positive energy and a â€Å"can-do attitude. † He said that though it might be an issue with impatient bankers on her team, her language skill would definitely not be an issue with clients because â€Å"most of our clients think Wall Street types speak too fast anyway. † Martin Street Martin Street was a second-year Wharton MBA who had previously served four years in the military.He had no busin ess experience, but he had substantial leadership experience, most notably having led a rescue operation in war-torn Bosnia. He was president of his section at Wharton and also of the Running Club, having completed two marathons and one triathlon in the past year. All of his interviewers agreed that he came across as a dynamic personality and that he was confident and articulate. SG Cowen came to Wharton toward the middle of the recruiting period, so as one banker said, â€Å"People either really want SG Cowen, or they didn’t get offers from other firms. Street had told them he was taking several finance courses, but SG Cowen was not allowed to ask him about his grades because that was forbidden under Wharton recruiting rules. Cowen had difficulty scheduling Street for Super Saturday because he was always involved in recruiting events at other firms. He had said that he liked smaller firms and liked SG Cowen’s areas of specialization, but they still were 4 Note: These candidates are composites of many candidates and are not meant to describe any actual candidate. 8 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 nsure what the likelihood was that Street would accept the offer if it was extended. They were also wary of whether he would play firms against one another in terms of wanting additional time to interview and consider offers, which might prevent SG Cowen from being able to fill that slot with another top-choice candidate. One professional in recruiting said, â€Å"If a person doesn’t sign and accept the offer letter right away, we’ve made a mistake. † Ken Goldstein Ken Goldstein was a second-year MBA at Berkeley who had previously worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for five years.He had quickly risen to be a manager at PWC, managing multiple audit teams simultaneously, drawing up budgets and pricing for projects, making presentations to win business, and resolving technical accounting issues for clients. When SG Cowen called his refere nce at PWC, he confirmed, â€Å"Ken’s performance appraisals put him in the top 5% of the firm. † Everyone who had interviewed Goldstein liked him and thought he would represent SG Cowen well. In fact, when Rae looked over the written comments on all the evaluation forms, they were uniformly positive.Why hadn’t Goldstein been an immediate â€Å"yes,† why was he one of the â€Å"maybes† that warranted this discussion? One banker said, â€Å"I can tell you what everyone’s afraid to say. Ken is married and has two sons, a newborn and a two-year-old. Whatever he did at PWC, we can’t tell at this stage of his life whether he really will be willing to work 24/7 like the rest of the associates. † One of the senior associates said, â€Å"It’s hard on the other first years if we make allowances for Ken to pick up his kids at daycare or not work on a weekend when his wife’s away.None of the first years expect to have a lif e, so what happens when they see Ken having a life? † Some interviewers said Goldstein had openly talked about his intention to be able to balance a family with being a banker. One of his interviewers said, â€Å"I commend him for trying, but I break promises to my kids all the time, to take them to the first day of school, to get home for a game. † Another banker said, â€Å"It’s weird to say this, because we always say we’re looking for maturity, but I almost think Ken’s too mature. If he were on my team, I wonder if he would do what I tell him to do, or if he’ll dislike taking orders.He’s used to having a lot of responsibility and being in charge. † Andy Sanchez Andy Sanchez was a second-year MBA at the University of Southern California and had completed his undergraduate degree in economics at UCLA. Sanchez had found early success as an entrepreneur, having started his own business during his first year of college, a Kaplans tyle tutoring business to prepare students in Los Angeles for high school achievement tests and the SATs in both English and Spanish. After college, he ran the business full time for three years and then continued to run it while he enrolled in business school.Last year, his business had served 4,000 students at an average price of $500 per course, resulting in $2 million in revenue and clearing $400,000 in profits divided between himself and an equity provider. Sanchez’s interviewers all found him enthusiastic and personable. He had talked to a lot of people at SG Cowen and had stopped into the New York office to have informational interviews or talk to other associates on several occasions when he was in the city for other meetings. He always sent follow-up e-mails and notes to everyone he spoke to, was friendly to the other candidates at Super Saturday, and was great at making people relax.He was well informed about the firm, telephoned other alumni from USC to talk to the m about their banking experiences, and seemed as though he had been reading up on investment banking, speaking very cogently about recent landmark deals in some of his interviews. When asked whether he was sure he wanted to leave his business, he said he was ready for new challenges and that his younger brother was going to run it in his absence. The biggest concern interviewers had with Sanchez was from his resume, which listed a 2. 8 for his undergraduate GPA.When asked about his business school GPA, Sanchez had said it was a 3. 1. At a time when most schools including USC had a fair amount of grade inflation, SG Cowen bankers were 9 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits concerned that he had had so many â€Å"Cs† on his record over the years. â€Å"We’re not looking for rocket scientists, but a 2. 8 really sticks out,† one banker said. Sanchez had pointed out to one of his interviewers that his SATs and GMATs were quite high and that his low grades only reflected th e amount of work he was putting into running his business.Rae looked over the other resumes of the Super Saturday candidates, and Sanchez had a very competitive SAT score and one of the highest GMAT scores. Sanchez had told one of his interviewers, â€Å"There was a lot of demand for our services, so we got excited and grew the business pretty fast, and I also needed to make enough money to put myself through school and then put my two brothers through school. Unfortunately, that left me little time for studying. † Decision Time The bankers were having a hard time deciding among the four candidates, and they were running out of energy. The snow was coming down faster, and most f the food was gone, the bankers now going back to the buffet for a second sandwich or some lukewarm pasta. They had made good progress, but choosing these last two candidates was not turning out to be an easy task. Rae remembered Fennebresque’s admonition to make the hiring process â€Å"our mo st important priority. † One banker spoke up, â€Å"Chip, let’s keep this meeting moving. The roads look bad, and it’s my anniversary tonight. If I don’t get home soon, I’m in deep trouble. † 10 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 402-028 Sample Pages from Rae’s Evaluation Book (Prior Candidates) Candidate: Bill Berry Bill BerryLarry Larry Fromkin,Vice President, Health Care Linda Conway, Managing Director, Technology Daniel Jones, Associate Technology Lynn Smith Carl Havens, Vice President, Technology Gloria Watson, Associate, Barr Devlin K. C. *K. C. 11 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 (continued) Candidate: Damon Sam Sam Damon Vijaya Vijaya Parbhu, Managing Director, M&A Aaron Solomon, Associate, Technology Sam Chung/Lewis Anderson, Associates, Technology M&A Lynn Smith Tom Tedlow, Director, Technology Danny Lewis, Director, Technology 12 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 Exhibit 1 (continued) Candidate: William XuWilliam Xu Ken K en Arendt, Associate, Technology Samantha Adams/Lewis Anderson, Associates, Technology M&A Charlotte Williams, Managing Director, Equity Private Placements Lynn Smith Michael Brennan, Associate, Barr Devlin Cal Pava, Managing Director, Technology with maturity 13 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 (continued) CSara Wicher Wicher andidate: Sara Mitch Mitch Madison, Director, Technology Sam Downing, Managing Director, Equity Private Placem ents Daniela Galvin, Associate, Technology Lynn Smith Bill Friedan, Associate, Technology Darrell Rawlins, Managing Director, TechnologySource: Company. 14 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 2 402-028 Associate Evaluation Form SG Cowen Investment Banking Division Associate Evaluation Form CANDIDATE: SCHOOL: EVALUATOR: DATE: GROUP INTEREST: OUTSTANDING GOOD FAIR UNSATISFACTORY COMMITMENT TO FIRM JUDGMENT/MATURITY INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Impact/Presence Communication Skills LEADERSHIP Initiative Motivation TECHNICAL SKILLS Creativity Modeling Accountin g/Finance Prioritizing WORK ETHIC Team Player Flexibility/Versatility Motivation OVERALL RATING COMMENTS: RECOMMENDATION(CIRCLE ONE): HIRE DON’T HIRE Source: Company. 15