Low Down

  Death from alcoholic poisoning is not uncommon and can   occur at blood levels in excess of about 300mg1100ml. Some deaths could be   attributed to alcohol at even lower concentrations. Death   can be caused either by the direct depressive effects upon   the brainstem, mediated via the respiratory centres - or   through secondary events such as aspiration of vomit. the use of 'aspiration of vomit' as   a cause of death must be used with great caution unless there -   is ante-mortem eyewitness evidence. The major exception   to this proviso is in acute alcoholism, where if copious   inhalation of stomach contents right down to the secondary   bronchi is confirmed, then in the absence of significant   natural disease, injury or other toxicity, a high blood-alcohol. level may reasonably be incriminated as the probable cause. Many such fatalities occur during police custody, when con s iderable outcry, publicity and disciplinar...

  Defining oneself within one’s larger social context is fundamental to human life and one such social context is one’s national identification. However, nationality is often not examined in the work on learner identity because it is assumed that race and ethnicity subsume nationality. A further reason nationality is often ignored is because it is considered to have little role in the construction of identity in an era of intense globalization. For English language learners around the world, different national identifications are available, depending on whether learners are learning within their own country, are immigrants or refugees to a new country, or are sojourning in a second country for study or work purposes. People who move to another nation must (re)define themselves in terms of their new national context. However, research shows that essential for their self-identity is their cultural identity. A move from one’s country of origin results in abandonment of previous re...

  As we may imagine English language teaching worldwide has become a multibillion dollar enterprise, one that the majority of nations in the world are embarking on to lesser or greater extents. For many countries, English is seen as a commodity through which they will become more competitive in the global marketplace. While English may have national and personal advancement potential, it is also pervasive in the global media. Youth culture in particular is influenced by English-dominant media and marketing. As a result, English is being consumed and transformed transnationally. The settings where English is taught vary from countries where English is the official and dominant language, such as the United States or Australia, to those where it is an official language, usually as a result of past colonialism, such as India or the Philippines, to those where it is taught in schools as a subject of study, such as Japan or the Czech Republic. In the first set of countries, when English ...