The relationship between thought and language in Western academic discourse

en speak write, words created? What thoughts preceded words? These questions heart referencing citation

Cultural attitudes towards the notion of intellectual property vary by region. Throughout western civilization, for the most part, people do believe that certain words and expression are proprietorial. One can see this in the trademarking and licensing of certain names, terms, and other ideas associated with words. The notion may be slightly absurd, but people in western culture frequently believe that ideas and their wording can belong to either an individual or an organization, and that for people to utilize them they need to be monetarily compensated.

Of course, contemporary trends towards globalization and the ease of access facilitated by mobile devices, the internet, cloud computing, big data, and other technological advancements have certainly had an effect on this line of thought. People still seek to license and protect what they believe to be their rightful intellectual property. However, it is now significantly easier to gain access to those ideas, or to any idea, actually, because of expeditious technology.

People are able to gain data and glean it for information in ways they previously could not. There are even instances in which people unintentionally plagiarize (Bowden, 1996, p. 82) due to the expedience of access to knowledge today. Therefore, while certain words and ideas may be proprietorial and copyrighted as such, it is not difficult to find a duplication or some version of a similar idea which can quickly become viral with today's technology. Therefore, although intellectual property is still valued and highly prevalent in Western culture, it has become considerably easier to circumvent whatever sort of protection or legislation is safeguarding those ideas. With that ease, of course, comes an increasing frequency of instances in which intellectual property is forsaken.

I do think these same presumptions of academic integrity hold true for my career as an employee of an organization, although it becomes true in an organizational sense. Those who innovate ideas oftentimes see them implemented and protected at an organizational level, prior to at an individual level. This facet of properly attributing ideas is also highly relevant to my experience in the work place. As the president and founder of my own real estate entity, Compass, it is necessary that I work with other individuals, occasionally in the form of consultants or contractors, in order to build clientele. In fact, much of the commercial real estate is government owned in Italy, where I conduct the majority of my business. In attempting to find properties that I can sell, I oftentimes have to access public sources such as government web sites that are shared with any number of people who have my same interests. Therefore, actually procuring a piece of property to sell or to buy for a client can be competitive, and frequently comes down to who said what first -- which is oftentimes subjective, and requires proper citation (although that does not always happen). Still, there is no doubt that even in the professional sphere, plagiarism is unethical (Gotterbarn et al., 2006, p. 22).