The Stacks (Library of Anglo-American Culture & History - FID AAC, Göttingen State and University Library)
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Climate Imaginaries and the Linguistic Construction of Identities on Social Media
No full textThis article takes a linguistic approach to the construction of group identities in relation to climate imaginaries, which condition what climate futures are considered possible. It employs social identity theory along with methods from Sociolinguistics and Discourse Linguistics to analyse patterns of positioning and stance-taking in social media discourse ( Twitter/X, Instagram ). By identifying typical multimodal practices at a micro level, as well as introducing five functional meta categories (›awareness, advice, and agitation‹, ›ritualised appreciation‹, ›solidarity and allyship, ›voice and advocacy‹, and ›community demarcation‹), the research investigates how digital discourse reflects and shapes group identities related to climate change topics. It thereby offers insights into the role of language in co-producing climate imaginaries in digitally shared environments.Dieser Artikel untersucht mit sozio- und diskurslinguistischen Methoden die Konstruktion von Gruppenidentitäten hinsichtlich klimabezogener Zukunftsvorstellungen (Climate Imaginaries). Letztere bestimmen, welche klimabezogenen Zukünfte für möglich gehalten werden. Auf der Basis eines digitalen Diskursausschnitts (Twitter/X, Instagram) werden kommunikative Praktiken der Positionierung und des Stance-takings analysiert sowie typische multimodale Muster auf der Mikroebene herausgearbeitet. Übergeordnet werden fünf funktionale Metakategorien identifiziert (›Agitation‹, ›rituelles Gedenken‹, ›Allyship‹, ›Fürsprechen‹ und ›Gruppenabgrenzung‹), deren Erörterung nachzeichnet, wie digitale Diskurse Gruppenidentitäten im Zusammenhang mit Klimawandelthemen reflektieren sowie formen und wiederum von diesen geformt werden – und wie damit klimabezogene Zukunftsvorstellungen ko-produziert werden.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Universität zu Köln (1017
'Pasmanda', the (Non-)Addressability of the State, and the Ghettoization of Communication
No full text‘Pasmanda’ is arguably the most explosive term that the more recent anti-caste discourse in India has produced. It is assembled from the Persian words pas (‘back’) and manda (‘left behind’), thus describing somebody ‘at the back’ (of society), who ‘has been left behind’. Like ‘Dalit’, ‘Pasmanda’ is essentially a political term, which means that it only comes into being and develops significance if people decide to acquire it and to identify themselves as different and as discriminated—in this case as lower-caste and ‘Dalit Muslims’. ‘Pasmanda’ is hence intrinsically reliant on being communicated and mediated so as to enable its acceptance among the signified and to normalise the creation of a respective reality through a newly collectivising identity. This essay approaches ‘Pasmanda’ as ‘a term to think with’, in tracing the very possibility, among deprived and discriminated groups, to openly communicate, negotiate, and mediate this identity that challenges claims of religious (comm)unity and demands for national loyalty. This possibility varies greatly even across north India. As I examine ‘Pasmanda’ through three different local prisms, the term thus also becomes a dialectical index for the political conditions of its realisation: the conditions of its emergence and, however increasingly precarious, its thriving (in the state of Bihar) as much as the conditions for its suppression (in the capital Delhi) and even of its complete absence (in the state of Gujarat)—i.e. of the conditions that render Pasmandas non-existent. A different form of regional comparison thus emerges.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Fritz Thyssen Stiftunghttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003390Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (1030
A Network-Based Approach to Explore Attitude Systems
No full textBelief network analysis (BNA) refers to a class of methods designed to detect and outline structural organizations of complex attitude systems. BNA can be used to analyze attitude-structures of abstract concepts such as ideologies, worldviews, and norm systems that inform how people perceive and navigate the world. The present manuscript presents a formal specification of the Response-Item Network (or ResIN), a new methodological approach that advances BNA in at least two important ways. First, ResIN allows for the detection of attitude asymmetries between different groups, improving the applicability and validity of BNA in research contexts that focus on intergroup differences and/or relationships. Second, ResIN’s networks include a spatial component that is directly connected to item response theory (IRT). This allows for access to latent space information in which each attitude (i.e. each response option across items in a survey) is positioned in relation to the core dimension(s) of group structure, revealing non-linearities and allowing for a more contextual and holistic interpretation of the attitudes network. To validate the effectiveness of ResIN, we develop a mathematical model and apply ResIN to both simulated and real data. Furthermore, we compare these results to existing methods of BNA and IRT. When used to analyze partisan belief-networks in the US-American political context, ResIN was able to reliably distinguish Democrat and Republican attitudes, even in highly asymmetrical attitude systems. These results demonstrate the utility of ResIN as a powerful tool for the analysis of complex attitude systems and contribute to the advancement of BNA
An Accidental Paradox in Need of Change?
No full textThe approach in the United Kingdom to sex-based equal pay has for a long time been distinct from general sex discrimination and from equal pay based on other protected characteristics. This dichotomy allows for a greater focus on sex-based equal pay, in a distinct statutory regime, but also risks creating unnecessary, unintended and detrimental distinctions. This article outlines the different legislative approaches adopted in pursuit of related public policy goals regarding equality and explores, and suggests legislative and interpretative solutions to, a significant issue whereby problematic wording in the Equality Act 2010, and judicial interpretation of it, could unjustifiably leave sex-based claimants in a worse position than those with other protected characteristics with regard to both to injury to feelings and constructive dismissal
Anti-communism and the Transnational Transatlantic in the ‘Long’ 1960s
No full textThis introductory essay for a special issue of the Journal for Transatlantic Studies on the transnational dimension of anti-communism in the Cold War provides a brief overview of the historical research on anti-communism to date. It presents anti-communism as a multifaceted phenomenon that should be studied not only as an ideological frame of reference and a political practice, but also as a social movement with an integrative, identity-forming function, and a high degree of mobilization and organization. In line with the contributions to the special issue, this essay argues that in the ‘long’ 1960s, (non-state) anti-communist actors and movements were forced to fundamentally adapt their thinking and actions in the face of Détente and global change. In order to keep anti-communism alive and to counter the policy of Détente, they intensified their transnational cooperation, which increasingly transcended the transatlantic level and took on a global dimension.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (1020
CEFR Vocabulary Level as a Predictor of User Interest in English Wiktionary Entries
No full textThis contribution explores the relationship between the English CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) vocabulary levels and user interest in English Wiktionary entries. User interest was operationalized through the number of views of these entries in Wikimedia server logs covering a period of four years (2019–2022). Our findings reveal a significant relationship between CEFR levels and user interest: entries classified at lower CEFR levels tend to attract more views, which suggests a greater user interest in more basic vocabulary. A multiple regression model controlling for other known or potential factors affecting interest: corpus frequency, polysemy, word prevalence, and age of acquisition confirmed that lower CEFR levels attract significantly more views even after taking into account the other predictors. These findings highlight the importance of CEFR levels in predicting which words users are likely to look up, with implications for lexicography and the development of language learning materials
In Conversation with Edwin Frank
No full textIn the fall of 2024, NYRB Classics celebrated its 25th anniversary. Since its launch on September 30, 1999, the series has published over 500 titles of world literature in modern and accessible translations, ranging from Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica to Oğuz Atay's Waiting for the Fear, as well as all-time masterpieces like Balzac’s Human Comedy, Gogol's Dead Souls, and Dante's Inferno. But what exactly does an American publisher do to, and for, the "classics"? This past summer, I corresponded with Edwin Frank to learn more about his commitment to a more diverse canon and the processes that bring international literature to our domestic bookshelves. Frank defines a "classic" as a work that has some relation to history, a book with "recognizable authority, originality, individuality, and truth to experience, one that attests to the circumstances…out of which it arises, while also rising above them enough to suggest something else, beyond or within" (The Red Thread, xv). He is himself something of a living library, for many of the books included in the series are those he himself rediscovered at various points in his life. For instance, while freelancing for an outlet called Reader’s Catalog in the late ’90s, he found out that much of the great literature he admired was not in print
Rehabilitating a Controversial Conceptual Pair
No full textThis paper picks up Oscar Lewis’s controversial culture of poverty theorem and shows that it has analytical potential, if applied with a rigorous, dispassionate and actor-bound concept of “culture”. Based on Alfred Schutz’s socio-phenomenological model of the lifeworld, “culture” is understood as the interpretive und pragmatic ways in which actors approach the world. Staying true to this framework, I argue that people in scarce living conditions are deprived of institutionalized possibilities to live out their intentionality. This demoralizes and disorients them, which results in the loss of inner drive and pessimistic attitudes. Fatalism and passiveness infiltrate their action planning. Phenomenology helps to systematize these results into spatial, temporal and social aspects: people in poverty lose opportunities for the appropriation of space, their biographies appear to stagnate and they are preoccupied with securing their social reputation. My results therefore show that poverty should not be understood as a self-isolated subculture. Instead, people in poverty are heavily oriented towards the dominant middleclass and its life models. The interview data that provided these insights were collected in North England and South Wales, in the facilities of subsidiary and counseling bodies, between 2016 and 2019. They were analyzed using methods of hermeneutic text interpretation.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Universität Siegen (3162