CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.
Dinner Talk draws upon the recorded dinner conversations of, and extensive interviews with, native Israeli, American Israeli, and Jewish American middle-class families to explore the cultural styles of sociability and socialization in family discourse. The thesis developed is that family dinners in Western middle-class homes fulfill important functions of sociability for all participants and, at the same time, serve as crucial sites of socialization for children through language and for language use. The book demonstrates the way talk at dinner constructs, reflects, and invokes familial, social, and cultural identities and provides social support for easing the passage of children into adult discourse worlds. Family discourse at dinner emerges as a particularly rich site for discursive socialization and a highly meaningful enactment of sociable behavior in culturally patterned ways. Although all the families studied have a commom Eastern European background, Israeli and Jewish American families are shown to differ extensively in their interactional styles, in ways that enact historically different, community-related interpretations of the dialectics of continuity and change. Native Israeli, American Israeli, and Jewish American families differ culturally in the ways they negotiate issues of power, independence, and involvement through various speech activities such as the choice and initiation of topics, conversational story-telling, naming practices, metapragmatic discourse, politeness strategies, and in immigrant, bilingual families, language choice and code switching. Dinner Talk demonstrates the unique interactional style of each of the groups, linking the observed communication patterns to the ideological, sociocultural, and historical contexts of their respective communities. This innovative study of family discourse from a cross-cultural perspective will appeal to students and specialists in sociolinguistics, communication, anthropology, child language, and family and Jewish studies, as well as to all interested in patterns of communication within families.
Combining traditional Chinese culture with western psychology, the book The Power of Family interprets how to raise remarkable children from seven different dimensions, including the outlook and profession of parents, communication methods, educational opportunities, the formation of habits and the construction and development of family culture. Every child is endowed with infinite potential, yet to realize this, parents need to seize the key points of bringing up and raising their children. The Power of Family puts forward four main points regarding the raising of children and shows the way for parents to raise their children via four different approaches: namely the improvement of children’s mental models, the importance of reflection on the part of parents, how understanding outweighs love, and learning to make choices. Parents make far-reaching and insightful preparations for their children. Yet the best gift that parents can offer their children is to continue learning and growing themselves. Children are the manifestations of their parents’ souls. In addition, raising children has never been and will never be a cause that can be completed overnight, as parents can teach and influence their children for a lifetime. Therefore, what matters most is the power of family.
Key Concepts in Family Studie's individual entries introduce, explain and contextualize the key topics within the study of the family. Definitions, summaries and key words are developed throughout with careful cross-referencing allowing students to move effortlessly between core ideas and themes. Each entry provides clear definitions, lucid accounts of key issues, up-to-date suggestions for further reading, and informative cross-referencing. Relevant, focused and accessible this book will provide students with an indispensible guide to the central concepts of family studies.
This study investigates the interface of power and politeness in the realization of disagreements in naturalistic language data. Power and politeness are important phenomena in face-to-face interaction. Disagreement is an arena in which these two key concepts are likely to be observed together: both disagreement and the exercise of power entail a conflict, and, at the same time, conflict will often be softened by the display of politeness (defined as marked relational work). The concept of power is of special interest to the field of linguistics in that language is one of the primary means to exercise power. Often correlated with status and regarded as an influential aspect of situated speech, the workings of the exercise of power, however, have rarely been formally articulated. This study provides a theoretical framework within which to analyze the observed instances of disagreement and their co-occurrence with the exercise of power and display of politeness. In this framework, a checklist of propositions that allow us to operationalize the concept of power and identify its exercise in naturalistic linguistic data is combined with a view of language as socially constructed. A qualitative approach is used to analyze the concepts of power and politeness. The material for analysis comes from three different contexts: (1) a sociable argument in an informal, supportive and interactive family setting, (2) a business meeting among colleagues within a research institution, and (3) examples from public discourse collected during the US Election 2000.
A familiar, yet contentious topic, the subject of family can present difficulties in the classroom, on levels ranging from personal to political and social. Understanding Family Meanings attacks this dilemma head-on, focusing on family meanings in diverse contexts to enhance our understanding of everyday social lives. Ranging over such issues as power, inequality, and values, this instructive text serves as an ideal introduction to family studies as it explores the shifting and subtle ways individuals, researchers, policymakers, and professionals make sense of the idea of family.
This study explores pragmatic strategies in disagreement affected by power relations in Mandarin Chinese with data collected in the People's Republic of China. This study first investigates in what ways power relations in Chinese university settings influence pragmatic strategies in disagreement. The study then shows with natural data that a new cultural orientation characterized by new features has emerged among the Chinese people. Thirdly, the author probes the controversial issue of pragmatics and power, and proves that the maxim of Relevance can be taken as a supermaxim of CP, which dominates the analyses of the relationship between language use and social parameters. Si Liu has successfully initiated a combination of statistical analysis and ethnographic approach in pragmatic research. Her findings in the study are valuable contributions to the research both in Chinese culture and in empirical pragmatics.
This study investigates the interface of power and politeness in the realization of disagreements in naturalistic language data. Power and politeness are important phenomena in face-to-face interaction. Disagreement is an arena in which these two key concepts are likely to be observed together: both disagreement and the exercise of power entail a conflict, and, at the same time, conflict will often be softened by the display of politeness (defined as marked relational work). The concept of power is of special interest to the field of linguistics in that language is one of the primary means to exercise power. Often correlated with status and regarded as an influential aspect of situated speech, the workings of the exercise of power, however, have rarely been formally articulated. This study provides a theoretical framework within which to analyze the observed instances of disagreement and their co-occurrence with the exercise of power and display of politeness. In this framework, a checklist of propositions that allow us to operationalize the concept of power and identify its exercise in naturalistic linguistic data is combined with a view of language as socially constructed. A qualitative approach is used to analyze the concepts of power and politeness. The material for analysis comes from three different contexts: (1) a sociable argument in an informal, supportive and interactive family setting, (2) a business meeting among colleagues within a research institution, and (3) examples from public discourse collected during the US Election 2000.
In Psychiatric Power, the fourth volume in the collection of his groundbreaking lectures at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault addresses and expands upon the ideas in his seminal Madness and Civilization, sketching the genealogy of psychiatry and of its characteristic form of power/knowledge. Madness and Civilization undertook the archeology of the division according to which, in Western Society, the madman found himself separated from the sane. That book ends with the medicalization of madness at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Psychiatric Power continues this discourse up to the end of the nineteenth century, and the double "depsychiatrization" of madness, now dispersed between the neurologist and the psychoanalyst. Presented in a conversational tone, Psychiatric Power brings fresh access and light to the work of one of the past century's preeminent thinkers.
This book gives readers an understanding of the theoretical foundations of social support communication along with practical tools to ethically and justly connect with and support others in daily life. Incorporating research, real-world examples, and autoethnographic methods, this book examines how social hierarchies, personal power dynamics, and relational and social histories can be better understood to create stronger social support messages across all our relationships, including family, friend, workplace, and health provider-patient relationships. The book translates theories of social support communication into practical application, examining how support messaging goes wrong and how to do it right. Intended as a supplementary text in interpersonal communication, psychology, and social work undergraduate courses, the book is also ideal for professionals who engage in caretaking and support tasks and wish to enhance their knowledge of social support theory.
