scholarly journals Exploring the Discursive Construction of Obedience: An Analysis of Application Letters for the Position of Executioner in Hitler’s Germany

Author(s):  
Daniel Leisser ◽  
Katie Bray ◽  
Anaruth Hernández ◽  
Doha Nasr

AbstractThis article presents an empirical investigation into the construction of obedience in letters of applications mailed to National Socialist authorities for the position of executioner between the years 1933 and 1945. To this end, a corpus of 178 letters of application was compiled, annotated, and analyzed using the corpus analysis toolkits Antconc and Lancsbox. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the corpus was conducted. The findings were related to and interpreted from the perspectives of applied legal linguistics, stylistics, and legal history. The project aims to explore the construction of a shared discourse of obedience and how this discourse is operative in the letters of application. Drawing on an explorative interdisciplinary framework, this project seeks to answer the following research questions: Is obedience a construct in applicants’ letters of motivation? Which linguistic devices and discursive strategies are used by the executioners to express submission to officials of the National Socialist state? Are there variants of the construction of submission by applicants?

Author(s):  
Ernst Fraenkel

This chapter aims to take an objective view of the appeal of National-Socialism. However, it is argued, people who had an ambivalent attitude toward National-Socialism suffered from two principal misconceptions. Firstly, the German ideology of Gemeinschaft (community) is just a mask hiding the still existing capitalist structure of society. Secondly, this ideological mask equally hides the existence of the prerogative state operating by arbitrary means. Any critical examination which attempts to reveal the social structure of the National-Socialist state, it is stated, must discover whether or not the essential criteria of the dual state have appeared in any earlier historical period. The chapter, therefore, looks in detail at the history of the dual state in Prussia and Germany as a whole.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-84
Author(s):  
Saira Fitzgerald

This paper examines the discursive construction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in a 1.5 million word corpus of Canadian newspapers. Combining corpus analysis with the Discourse Historical branch of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study aims to identify discursive strategies employed in the construction of an IB in-group and a non-IB out-group, and suggests they are similar to those evident in discourses of discrimination that marginalise or exclude the outgroup (Baker, Gabrielatos and McEnery 2013a; KhosraviNik 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2001). While discourses of discrimination tend to be directed at minority groups, in this case, the minority group is the in-group, exhibiting uniformly positive qualities. As a result, a ‘dichotomous world of insiders and outsiders’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2001:105) is created, privileging one and disadvantaging the other. This paper seeks to problematise the seemingly uncritical acceptance and adoption of IB programs in Canada’s publicly funded education system.


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filipa Perdigão Ribeiro

This article analyses the discursive construction of collective memories and the function of commemorative events for national identity. It focuses on how the 30th anniversary of the Portuguese 1974 revolution was portrayed in the government’s Programme of Action issued for the 2004 commemorations and in forty-three newspaper opinion articles also published in 2004. The 1974 revolution ended a 48-year right-wing dictatorship and has shaped subsequent historical events since the 1970s. When the Programme of Action changed the 1974 slogan ‘April is revolution’ into ‘April is evolution’, the written press responded by conducting a debate on this reframing. Using the Discourse-Historical Approach in CDA as the analytical framework, this paper highlights the discursive strategies on which the government’s manifesto was built and explores the opinion articles’ ongoing political and ideological tensions over the revolution, its commemorations, and how it paved the way into Europe, by describing the main macro-discursive strategies and raising issues regarding the (mis)representation of social actors and social action.


Author(s):  
Erik Kamsties ◽  
Antje von Knethen ◽  
Jan Philipps

A well-known side-effect of applying requirements specification languages is that the formalization of informal requirements leads to the detection of defects such as omissions, conflicts, and ambiguities. However, there is little quantitative data available on this effect. This chapter presents an empirical study of requirements specification languages, in which two research questions are addressed: Which types of defects are detected by a requirements engineer during formalization? Which types of defects go undetected and what happens to those types in a formal specification? The results suggest looking explicitly for ambiguities during formalization, because they are less frequently detected than other types of defects. If they are detected, they require immediate clarification by the requirements author. The majority of ambiguities tend to become disambiguated unconsciously, that is, the correct interpretation was chosen, but without recurring to the requirements author. This is a serious problem, because implicit assumptions are known to be dangerous.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucio Cappelli ◽  
Fabrizio D’ascenzo ◽  
Roberto Ruggieri ◽  
Francesca Rossetti ◽  
Alessandra Scalingi

Abstract The paper is part of a broader research project studying consumer’s attitude towards “Made in Italy” products through empirical investigation. The research questions addressed are: 1) Does recognition in terms of the qualitative characterization of “Made in Italy” products exist? And if so, 2) are people willing to pay, in quantitative terms, a premium price for such products? From a theoretical standpoint, the research seeks to fill a gap in the literature, since studies combining the “made in” characteristic with measured “willingness to pay” are neither conventional nor numerous. The specific purpose of this contribution is to analyze the relationship between the purchase of “Made in Italy” products, recognition of the quality and willingness to pay a premium price on the part of Italian consumers, reporting the results of an empirical research. The survey involved a total of 315 Italian consumers while three commodity sectors were analysed: food, fashion and mechanical automation. The results confirm that there is a propensity to purchase “Made in Italy” products which does not seem to be a matter of irrational consumer behaviour. “Made in Italy” is confirmed as a conceptual category consolidated in the minds of consumers, since there is clear recognition of these products in terms of qualitative characterization. These and other results of the research (which need to be confirmed and extended with further empirical investigations) should prove relevant both to the literature and as indications for public policies and the strategies of companies operating in the sectors examined. For the literature this research can be useful because there is no complete overview of quantitative data on the premium price. It can also serve for public policies because quantification of the premium price can influence the choices and strategies of companies. This study shows a significant willingness to pay a premium price for the three sectors analyzed, although the premium price is not homogeneous: while the measures range mostly between 10 and 30%, higher values appear for products in the food sector.


2020 ◽  
pp. 136754942097320
Author(s):  
Lenka Vochocová

This article presents discursive strategies of sexual othering aimed at excluding the alleged European proponents of immigration from the ‘domestic’ culture and sexual norms and representing them as traitors of Europe driven by their sexual attraction to immigrants. A qualitative analysis of comments related to mainstream online news articles on gender aspects of immigration reveals how sexism and both old and new forms of racism intersect in online debates on the topic. The anti-immigration discussants express worries about the endangering of the European sexual and gender norms and define themselves in opposition not only to immigrants but also to European actors perceived as pro-immigration. While representing their gender culture as superior to the gender culture of immigrants, as based on respect towards women, they express openly disrespectful and sexist thoughts, treat women as inferior, and justify and normalize sexual violence and verbal sexual abuse.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Inayat Ullah ◽  
Iman Aib

Colonialism has been such a multifaceted and complicated phenomenon that it often juxtaposed the culture of the colonized in simultaneous assimilation of, and resistance to, the culture of the colonizers. Embedded in the theory of Post colonialism, this research aims at carrying out a qualitative analysis of discursive strategies used in Saadat Hassan Manto’s literary work Letters to Uncle Sam from a neo-colonial perspective. It seeks to highlight the issues of globalization and the effects that it engendered upon the then newly-established independent state of Pakistan. The research findings conclude that globalization has resulted in putting an end to the so-called purity of culture. Manto, therefore, explicitly satirizes the super power (read the United States of America) for its hidden agendas of manipulating and exploiting the economic system as well as the cultural beliefs of Pakistan under the mask of prospering nations by building a global market to create a new means of dominance that works through consent.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 942-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joke Dewilde

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This article aims to understand how a young person develops as a translingual writer and which discursive strategies she identifies as important in this process. Neda (pseudonym) has never learnt to write in Turkmen, which is her home language, but is developing as a confident writer in Norwegian, which is the language of the school. Design/Methodology/Approach: Situated within a linguistic ethnographic framework, in-depth interviews with the young person were conducted as part of a year-long fieldwork. One interview focused on Neda’s writing experiences in general, and the other two examined how she experienced writing selected poems. Data and Analysis: The data for this article are three in-depth interviews with Neda produced over a month’s time, field notes taken in school across that same period, seven poems written at home, and two written in school. The analysis had a joint focus on linguistics and ethnography, identifying core themes. Findings/Conclusions: Neda drew on translation and translingual remixing strategies when writing poetry on her own initiative to develop her voice, which indicates a strong sense of agency. In line with a translingual orientation to communication and literacy, these discursive strategies transcend individual languages and involve diverse semiotic resources in situated meaning construction. Both strategies contribute to creating a deeper understanding of the Norwegian language resources in her repertoire and to finding her voice as a transnational young person. Originality: Few studies have offered detailed insight into how young people reflect upon their development as translingual writers in their spare time and which strategies they identify as important to do so. Significance/Implications: The study contributes to the debate of how teachers can create a space for translingual writing by acknowledging and further developing young people’s own discursive strategies, involving their entire linguistic repertoire.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Bergroth

This article explores the discourses surrounding the act of writing Section 10 Bilingual education in the new Finnish national core curriculum, which will be implemented in 2016. This section will set the parameters for programs that integrate language and content learning, where a minimum of two languages are used for instruction in content subjects. The main research questions discussed in this article are how and why certain discourses are expressed, or left unexpressed, in the final draft version of the curriculum. The data for qualitative analysis consists of participatory observations and minutes of meetings in the working group assembled for writing the draft.


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