The unconscious and the social in Saussure

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 307-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Linguistics ◽  
The Many ◽  
Unconscious Mind

Summary Saussure stood between two figures, Whitney and Meillet, each of whom was relentlessly opposed to the dominant psychological establishment of his time. Saussure himself was much more ambivalent about psychology, never portraying it as standing in clear opposition to the interests of linguistics or sociology as the others did. Yet among the many changes that took place in his general linguistics courses between the First in 1907 and the Second in 1908–1909 was a withdrawal from the topic that was at the heart of the Neogrammarian psychology of language, analogy. With it came withdrawal from all but a few psychological considerations, and a proportionate increase in the number of sociological ones. In particular, the role of the unconscious mind in insulating language from deliberate change was taken over by the force of the social group. The timing of this shift coincides with that of the publication of Sechehaye (1908), inspired by Saussure and dedicated to him by his colleague and former student, and the abrupt dismissal of the book by Saussure’s friend and confidante Meillet as being entirely psychological with no interest in or for sociology. Saussure shared many of Meillet’s concerns about the autonomy of linguistic science, and his shift from the psychological to the social may have been more directly motivated by Meillet’s reactions than has been generally recognised – not least because Meillet would later portray the direction of influence as flowing unilaterally from Saussure to himself, as a way of securing Saussure’s posthumous authority for his ongoing programmatic calls for a sociologically-based linguistics.

Marriage and Sexual Relations in the New Testament World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Loader
Keyword(s):  
Roman Society ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
Marital Sex ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding

After a brief overview of the social context and role of marriage and sexuality in Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, the chapter traces the impact of the Genesis creation narratives, positively and negatively, on how marriage and sexuality were seen both in the present and in depictions of hope for the future. Discussion of pre-marital sex, incest, intermarriage, polygyny, divorce, adultery, and passions follows. It then turns to Jesus’ reported response to divorce, arguing that the prohibition sayings should be read as assuming that sexual intercourse both effects permanent union and severs previous unions, thus making divorce after adultery mandatory, the common understanding and legal requirement in both Jewish and Greco-Roman society of the time. It concludes by noting both the positive appreciation of sex and marriage, grounded in belief that they are God’s creation, and the many dire warnings against sexual wrongdoing, including adulterous attitudes and uncontrolled passions.

scholarly journals Language in social reproduction: Sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 43-81
Author(s):  
Patrizia Calefato
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
New Type ◽  
General Linguistics ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

This paper focuses on the semiotic foundations of sociolinguistics. Starting from the definition of “sociolinguistics” given by the philosopher Adam Schaff, the paper examines in particular the notion of “critical sociolinguistics” as theorized by the Italian semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi. The basis of the social dimension of language are to be found in what Rossi-Landi calls “social reproduction” which regards both verbal and non-verbal signs. Saussure’s notion of langue can be considered in this way, with reference not only to his Course of General Linguistics, but also to his Harvard Manuscripts.The paper goes on trying also to understand Roland Barthes’s provocative definition of semiology as a part of linguistics (and not vice-versa) as well as developing the notion of communication-production in this perspective. Some articles of Roman Jakobson of the sixties allow us to reflect in a manner which we now call “socio-semiotic” on the processes of transformation of the “organic” signs into signs of a new type, which articulate the relationship between organic and instrumental. In this sense, socio-linguistics is intended as being sociosemiotics, without prejudice to the fact that the reference area must be human, since semiotics also has the prerogative of referring to the world of non-human vital signs.Socio-linguistics as socio-semiotics assumes the role of a “frontier” science, in the dual sense that it is not only on the border between science of language and the anthropological and social sciences, but also that it can be constructed in a movement of continual “crossing frontiers” and of “contamination” between languages and disciplinary environments.

Perspectives on sociolinguistic variation (Review article)

1985 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph W. Fasold
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Linguistics

This chapter [of Sociolinguistic patterns – RWF] will deal with the study of language structure and evolution within the social context of the speech community. The linguistic topics to be considered here cover the area usually named “general linguistics,” dealing with phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics (Labov 1972:184). Surely, this is too narrow a conception of the role of sociolinguistic research (Romaine 1982:6).

Social Constructionism and the Role of the Unconscious in Hypnotic Responding: A Single Case Experiment

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-163
Author(s):  
David P. Fourie
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Wide Acceptance ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Unconscious Mind

AbstractThere seems to be wide acceptance by both professionals and lay people that hypnotic and especially hypnotherapeutic responding is based on the long-standing but still hypothetical dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious minds. In this simplistic view, hypnotic suggestions are considered to bypass consciousness to reach the unconscious mind, there to have the intended effect. This article reports on a single-case experiment investigating the involvement of the unconscious in hypnotherapeutic responding. In this case the subject responded positively to suggestions that could not have reached the unconscious, indicating that the unconscious was not involved in such responding. An alternative view is proposed, namely that hypnotherapeutic responding involves a cognitive process in which a socially constructed new understanding of the problem behaviour and of hypnosis, based on the client's existing attribution of meaning, is followed by action considered appropriate to the new understanding and which then confirms this understanding, leading to behaviour change.

Cooperative action between fishermen and inspectors in the Svalbard Zone

Polar Record ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (194) ◽  
pp. 207-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Hønneland
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Cooperative Action ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Commons ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis article demonstrates that, similar to the many cases of self-regulation of local commons, it is in certain conditions also possible to manage an international ocean-fishery without the use of direct coercion. The case study from the Svalbard Zone supports the argument of cooperative action theory: that a limited number of participants, rules at least partly designed by the users themselves, and a system of graduated punishment contribute to compliance with established rules. Based on observational data as well as in-depth interviews with Norwegian and Russian fishermen in the area, it seems particularly fruitful to conceive of the Norwegian Coast Guard not only as a state enforcement body in the Svalbard Zone, but its representatives also as constituent parts of a social system, a ‘seafaring community,’ in the area. When, due to jurisdictional dispute, it has been impossible to rely fully on external regulation in the area, the Coast Guard has taken upon itself the role of the mediator, admittedly representing state interests, but nevertheless aimed at achieving consensus with the fishing fleet on important regulation issues. Hence, the internal authority of this Arctic Ocean fisheries lies above all in the interface between fishermen's and inspector's arguments, and in the social relations accompanying the exchange of professional opinions.

scholarly journals Uma reflexão sobre o processo de musealização: o patrimônio imaterial nos espaços museais

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscila Jesus
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Intangible Heritage ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This article aims to raise, questions about the musealization of intangible heritage and the use of new technologies in the exhibition process. Through an approach that seeks to bring the history of museums, this article makes an inquiry about the social role of museums in bringing visitors issues that permeate the reality of the social group in which it is inserted. Keywords: musealization, Intangible Heritage, Orality, New Technologies.

Translators of the Soul: Bingham Dai, Pow-Meng Yap, and the Making of Transcultural Psychoanalysis in the Asia Pacific

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-185
Author(s):  
Howard Chiang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Health Science ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Conceptual Innovation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unconscious Mind

This essay argues that Asian psychoanalysts developed a new style of science, what I call transcultural reasoning, in the twentieth century. This conceptual innovation drew on the power of cultural narratives to elucidate the unconscious mind across different historical and geographical contexts. Focusing on the life and work of two experts in particular, Bingham Dai (1899–1996) and Pow-Meng Yap (1921–71), this article reconsiders the role of biography in the history of psychoanalysis and elucidates the importance of the Asia Pacific region to the transformation of mental health science in the twentieth century.

Credit and Village Society in Fourteenth-Century England

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many ◽  
Village Society ◽  
Rural England

Exploring the role of credit is vital to understanding any economy. In the past two decades historians of many European regions have become increasingly aware that medieval credit, far from being the preserve of merchants, bankers, or monarchs, was actually of basic importance to the ordinary villagers who made up most of the population. This study is devoted to credit in rural England in the middle ages. Focusing in particular on seven well-documented villages, it examines in detail some of the many thousands of village credit transactions of this period, identifies the people who performed them, and explores the social relationships brought about by involvement in credit. The evidence comes primarily from inter-peasant debt litigation recorded in the proceedings of manor courts, which were the private legal jurisdictions of landlords. A comparative study that discusses the English evidence alongside findings from other parts of medieval and early modern Europe, the book argues that the prevailing view of medieval English credit as a marker of poverty and crisis is inadequate. In fact, the credit networks of the English countryside were surprisingly resilient in the face of the fourteenth-century crises associated with plague, famine, and economic depression.

scholarly journals The social and psychological characteristics of norm deviants: A field study in a small cohesive university campus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Gomila ◽  
Elizabeth Levy Paluck
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Past Research ◽  
University Campus ◽  
Pilot Survey ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Social Monitoring ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
History Of

People who deviate from the established norms of their social group can clarify group boundaries, strengthen group cohesion, and catalyze group and broader social change. Yet social psychologists have recently neglected the study of deviants. We conducted in-depth interviews of Princeton University upperclassmen who deviated from a historical and widely known Princeton norm: joining an “eating club,” a social group that undergraduates join at the end of their sophomore year. We explored the themes of these interviews with two rounds of surveys during the semester when students decide whether to join an eating club (pilot survey, N=408; and a random subsample of the pilot survey with 90% takeup, N=212). The surveys asked: what are the social and psychological antecedents of deviance from norms? The data suggest that deviance is a pattern: compared to those who conform, students who deviate by not joining clubs report a history of deviance and of feeling different from the typical member of their social group. They also feel less social belonging and identification with Princeton and its social environment. Students who deviate are lower in social monitoring, but otherwise are comparable to students who conform in terms of personality traits measured by the Big Five, and of their perception of the self as socially awkward, independent, or rebellious. While some of these findings replicate past research, worth further exploration is the role of previous experience with deviance and its meaning for individuals as they decide whether to deviate.

scholarly journals A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body—Recipes for a Healthy Living as Seen in Polish Vlogs

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Maj
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Healthy Lifestyles ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
The Many

The fashion for leading a healthy lifestyle has recently reached Polish society. Inspired by exposure through the mass media, many people have decided to introduce changes into the way they eat and exercise, primarily in order to become healthier and slimmer. According to recent surveys, one of the most popular sources of information concerning healthy lifestyles is, of course, the Internet. It is an extremely functional tool that allows its users not only the possibility to find the relevant information they need, but it also helps them create their own resources containing advice and information for other like-minded users. This article analyzes examples of Polish vlogs posted on the Youtube.pl platform that are principally devoted to improving fitness, as well as showing the most effective ways to lose weight. The four main areas of focus investigated are: the vloggers’ motivations for creating and publishing videos, the vloggers’ reference to their own bodies, the reasons they offer for seeking a healthier way of living, the vloggers’ bodies as their representation in the social space of the Internet, and the role of the Internet community in the many processes in helping people become slimmer.

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