Educational Patterns and Cultural Configurations: The Anthropology of Education. Schooling in the Cultural Context: Anthropological Studies of Education. Joan I. Roberts and Sherrie Akinsanya. New York: David McKay, 1976

1977 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-54
Author(s):  
Patricia Grinager
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Lang

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends.


2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 1491-1521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Brigid Malsbary

The article presents findings from a multisited ethnography in two public high schools in Los Angeles and New York City. Schools were chosen for their hyper-diverse student populations. Students came from over 40 countries, speaking 20 languages in one school and 33 languages in another. Results of analysis found that despite contrasting missions, policies, organizational structures, curricular techniques, and teachers’ beliefs and attitudes across schools, youths’ practices were similar. Youth enacted explicit transcultural repertoires of practice: multiplicities of talking, thinking, and acting that engaged the resources and opportunities of ethnically and linguistically diverse classrooms. The article theorizes the importance of recognizing hyper-diversity as a distinct cultural context that shapes and situates youths’ practices and therefore their opportunities to learn.


Author(s):  
Thomas M. Kemple

AbstractMaking sense of the problems which illiterate people face in gaining access to justice puts the foundations of both the ethnography of law and the modern justice system itself into question. The essay explores this thesis with reference to the case of an elderly dairy farmer whose arrest for the mercy killing of his ailing brother attracted intense local and national attention. Documents from the trial which deal with the construction and use of evidence, confession, and testimony, along with schematic representations of the personal, community, and media responses to the case as depicted in the award-winning documentary Brother's Keeper (1992), render visible the textual conventions of a litigious society along with its non-literate and even ritual cultural context. The most troubling issue raised by the case involves a crisis in the bureaucratic organization and expert professionalization of modern litigation when it attempts to address the rights and competencies of relatively illiterate people who appear unable to articulate the values and beliefs of any cultural community at all.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-149
Author(s):  
Світлана Любимова

The article presents the semantic history of the word flapper that denotes social stereotype of American culture. Being a multifaceted phenomenon of semantic cognition, a sociocultural stereotype presents a condensed and coded information that develops on the background of a cultural context. The semantic analysis from diachronic perspective sets up a correspondence of Latin origin of the word flapper with Indo-European stem that produced a number of words in Germanic languages. The cognate words of related languages reveal conformity of negative connotations determined by attitude to human weakness in different forms of its manifestations. This presumes historically determined negative connotation of the word flapper. The initial designation was motivated by kinetic characteristic of the object – a vertical movement. The meaning “a young and daring American girl of the 1920s” of the word flapper was semantically motivated. As it was stated, at the moment of designation, youth and immaturity of a girl were conceived of a fledgling image, that traditionally symbolizes inexperience of a youngster. This zoomorphic metaphor acts as the source of categorization of a cultural and social phenomenon “Flapper”. References Апресян Ю. Д. Избранные труды: Т. 1: Лексическая семантика. Синонимическиесредства языка. М.: Языки русской культуры, 1995.Apresyan, Yu. D. (1995). Izbrannyie Trudy: T.1. Leksicheskaya Semantika.Sinonimicheskie Sredstva Yazyka [Lexical Semantics. Synonymic Means of Language].Moscow: Yazyki Russkoy Kultury. Арутюнова Н. Д. Язык и мир человека. Часть IV: В сторону семиотики и стилистики.М.: Высшая школа, 1999.Arutyunova, N. D. (1999). Yazyk i Mir Cheloveka. P. IV: V Storonu Semiotiki i Stilistiki[Language and Human World. Part 4: Towards Semiotics and Stylistics]. Moscow:Vysshaya Shkola. Гумбольдт В. Избранные труды по языкознанию. М.: Прогресс, 1984.Humboldt, W. (1984). Izbrannyie Trudy po Yazyikoznaniyu [Selected Works inLinguistics]. Moscow: Progress.  Jackson, F. (1998). From Metaphysics to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Кифер Ф. О пресуппозициях / Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. М. : 1978, 337–353.Kiefer, F. (1978). O presuppozitsiyah [On Presuppositions]. In: Novoe v Zarubezhnoylingvistike. (337-353), T. M. Nikolayeva, Ed. Moscow: Progress. Laurence, S., Margolis, E. (2003). Concepts and Conceptual Analysis. Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 67(2), 253–282. McRae, K.; Jones, M. Semantic Memory. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of CognitivePsychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 206–216. Ogden, C.K, Richards, I.A. (1952). The Meaning of meaning. In: A Study of the Influenceof Language upon Thought and of The Science of Symbolism. With Supplementary Essaysby B. Malinowski and F. G. Crookshank. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Partridge, E. (1938).The World of Words: An Introduction to Language in General and toEnglish and American in Particular. London: George Routledge & Sons. Пирс Ч.С. Избранные произведения. М.: Логос, 2000.Peirce, Ch. S. (2000). Izbrannyie Proizvedeniya [Selected Works]. Moscow: Logos. Потебня А. А. Из записок по русской грамматике. М.: Изд-во Мин-ва просвещенияРСФСР, 1958. Potebnya, A. A. (1958). Iz zapisok po Russkoy Grammatike [From the Notes on RussianGrammar]. Moscow: Ministry of Education of RSFSR. Quiles, C. A., Lopez-Menchero, F. (2009). Grammar of Modern Endo-European. IndoEuropean Language Association. Stalnaker, R. C. (1974). Pragmatic Presuppositions. In: Semantics and Philosophy. (pp.197-230). M. Munitz and P. Unger, (Eds.). N.Y.: New York University Press. Taylor, J. R. (2006). Polysemy and lexicon. In: Cognitive Linguistics: Current ApplicationsAnd Future Perspectives. (pp. 51-81), G. Kristiansen, M. Achard and R. Dirven (eds.).Berlin–New York: Monton de Gruyter. Телия В. Н. Коннотативный аспект семантики номинативных единиц. М.: Наука,1986.Teliya, V. N. (1986). Konnotativnyiy Aspekt Semantiki Nominativnyh Yedinits [ConnotativeAspect in the Meaning of Denotative Units]. Moscow: Nauka. Urban, W. M. (2013). Language and Reality. Philosophy of Language and the Principles ofSymbolism. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. Sources A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1966). Vol. I. Dr.Ernest Klein. Barking, Essex: Elsevier Publishing Company. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. (1937). E. Partidge. London:Routledge. Chamber’s Dictionary of Etymology. (1999). R. K. Barnhart, Ed. N.Y.: Wilson. Crawfurd, O. A. (1895). A Year of Sport and Natural History. Shooting, Hunting,Coursing, Falconry. London: Chapman and Hall. Retrieved from:https://ia600205.us.archive.org/2/items/cu31924022547263/cu31924022547263.pdf Dalzell, T. (1996). Flappers to Rappers. American Youth Slang. Springfield,Massachusetts: Merriam Webster. Das großen Wörterbuch den Sprach in 10 Bänden, Band 3. (1999). Leipzig–Wien–Zürich:Dudenverlag, Mannheim. Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jakob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm (Nachdruck derErstausgabe 1862). (1999). Band 3. München: Lizenzausgabe des Deutschen TashenbuchVerlages. Duden Deutsches Universal Wörterbuch. (2001). Leipzig–Wien–Zürich: Dudenverlag,Mannheim. Голландско-русский словарь. Под общ. руководством С. А. Миронова. М.: Гос.изд-во ин. и нац. словарей, 1954 Gollandsko-russkiy slovar [Dutch-Russian Dictionary]. (1954). Pod obsch. rukovodstvomS. A. Mironova. M. : Gos. izd-vo in. i nats. Slovarey. Green, R. (1970). The Revels Plays. James the IV. Ed. by N. Sandlers. Welwyn GardenCity, Herts: The Broad Water Press. Indogermanisches Etymologishes Woerterbuch. (1959). Julius Pokorny, (ed). BandI. Bern: Francke. Manipulus Vocabulorum: a Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language. (2001).Ed. H. B. Wheatley. Elibron Classics book a facsimile reprint of a 1867 edition by N. Trübner& Co. London: Adamant Media Corporation. Maugham, W. S. (2007). Of Human Bondage. Winnetka, CA: Norilana. Норвежско-русский словарь. Сост. В. Д. Аракин. М.: Гос. изд-во ин. и нац.словарей, 1963  


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