100 research outputs found
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The great newspaper caper: Backlash in the digital age
No full textNovelist and literary essayist Nicholson Baker once again has caused a stir in the library world, this time attacking the sale and/or destruction of original newspapers once they have been microfilmed. Ably and eloquently arguing his case, Baker is still wrong while succeeding in raising public awareness about the care of basic documentary sources and in forcing librarians and archivists alike to re-think basic assumptions and practices. My essay responds to what I discern as Baker's four main points - a lie foisted upon the public about the care of the newspapers, the insidious destruction of original newspapers, the resultant loss of trust by the public in libraries and archives, and a set of wrong priorities leading to the misguided microfilming and destruction of the newspapers. My essay also suggests that we should expect more such public debates as the developing Digital Age brings more intense concerns for original books, archives, and other documents. Copyright ©2000, First Monday
The Information Age and History: Looking Backward to See Us
No full textWhile social informatics as a discipline is promising, especially in its emphasis on the "social context" of information technologies, this field does not seem to extend this concern to a broad historical context. This is a problem, in that some, like James Dewar's article on the printing press and the Internet that this essay is a rebuttal, are looking for historical and broader or more meaningful contexts by which the present era can be effectively understood. While we can see some historians of other fields turning their attention to earlier eras as representing earlier Information Ages -- partly to argue, it seems, that every historical era has been an information age -- it has been even more noticeable when non-historian participants in the present Information Age turn to historical studies for meaning, causation, and solace
The Failure or Future of American Archival History: A Somewhat Unorthodox View
No full textThe quality of research on American archival history has been uneven and the quantity not very impressive. This essay reviews some of the highlights of American archival history research, especially the growing interest in cultural and public history that has produced some studies of interest to scholars curious about the history of archives. The essay also focuses more on why such research still seems so far removed from the interests of most archivists. The essay will consider some hopeful signs, such as the re-emergence of records and record-keeping systems as a core area for study, for a renewed emphasis on American archival history. While much needs to be done, I am optimistic that the golden age of historical research on American archives lies ahead
Linguistic Minorities in Slovakia
No full textThe concept of a nation current in the United States which equates citizenship, nationality and nationhood and makes it a factor dominant over ethnicity has been relevant to some aspects of the historical interaction between the Slovaks, Czechs, Rusyns (Ruthenians), Ukrainians, Roma, and Poles, but it has always been interpreted in ethnic terms in the region. Ethnicity has been the main feature in the interaction between the Slovaks and Magyars. The article reviews the history and current situation of Slovakia's ethnic groups (nationalities): Slovaks, Hungarians (Magyars), Roma (Gypsies), Rusyns (Ruthenians), Czechs, Jews -- their demographics, language use, social status, religious affiliation, attitudes to language, schools, exogamy
Language Style as Identity Construction: A Footing and Framing Approach
No full textDespite the prevalence of conceptualizations of style shifting as a reactive phenomenon, conditioned by contextual factors such as formality and audience, style shifting increasingly has come to be viewed as a proactive phenomenon which speakers freely use to shape and re-shape context, as well as their personal and interpersonal identities (e.g. California Style Collective 1993, Coupland forthcoming). In this presentation, we suggest that an explanation for style shifting based on the interactional sociolinguistic notions of footing and frame indexing (e.g. Goffman 1981, Tannen and Wallat 1993) provides a neat encapsulation of some of the central tenets of these more proactive approaches, while at the same time addressing their limitations
Language, Gender, and Power in Fraternity Men's Discourse
No full textIn language and gender research, it has been noted that the fact that men hold power in society should be an important consideration when analyzing the differences between women’s and men’s language. But it has not been shown exactly how the power of men affects their speech. This study examines how members of a community of men use language, and the role of power in that language use. I investigate how the member’s identities as men affect their language use and how they actively employ language to create identities. All the men create powerful identities through language using the same general process; however, the specific linguistic manifestation of power differs from speaker to speaker, situation to situation, and even moment to moment. The general sociolinguistic process the men use to create powerful identities is role indexing: They index community- or culturally-based roles understood to be powerful (i.e., capable of affecting other people’s actions through social alignment) by using linguistic forms and strategies identified with these roles in the community and culture. The community studied is an undergraduate fraternity (and all-male social club) at a university in the United States. The fraternity men construct powerful identities because the ideology of their community organizes the world into competitive hierarchies. Power for the men is therefore a role at the top of a hierarchy. This local ideology reflects the ideology of the larger culture—hegemonic masculinity—which values some kinds of identities more than others. Men’s power is thus a role at the top of a hierarchy; however, men identify with roles in different hierarchies, leading them to construct different kinds of powerful identities. I suggest how power works in the men’s language in discourse, and how the same processes lead to variation patterns in their language-use system. Most importantly, variants have general, abstract meanings when considered globally; it is only when used in concert with other linguistic forms and strategies, and other social signaling systems, that specific meanings become clear
Anarchy as Modernist Aesthetic
No full textThis piece, originally written as a conference paper, is a condensed summary of the arguments made in the dissertation version of Dynamite
Attitudes toward the Standard Language in Slovakia
No full textThe management of Standard Slovak was entrusted to the Ľudovít Štúr Linguistic Institute after World War II. It exercised its influence through both formal and informal channels and was motivated by cultural, ethnic, as well as political concerns. The paper discusses how Slovak language planning affected place names, personal names, and legislation (the Law on the State Language) and provides a historical perspective on usage that became the subject of legislation
Conrad's Natural Anarchists
No full textAn examination of the anarchist characters in Joseph Conrad's fiction, interpreted partly in relation to Walter Benjamin's essay on the collector
The Concept of Public Memory and Its Impact on Archival Public Programming
No full textPublic or collective memory (which, for the purposes of this essay, we can generally define as the perceptions and uses of the past by the public-including both government and citizens) has, in recent years, become a topic of great interest for American and other historians. An interesting collaboration between more traditional intellectual history (the history of ideas), political and institutional history, and social history (the history of the people) that draws on anthropology, sociology, and related disciplines, research in American public memory has now produced some major studies. In the last several years three books on this topic have appeared that are important for North American archivists to know about and to consider, especially in their public programs and advocacy work. This essay analyzes the implications of these studies for archival work and theory