scholarly journals A Fool and his Money are Soon Parted: A Critical Examination of Credit Card Websites

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-658
Author(s):  
Annabelle Mooney
Keyword(s):  
Credit Card ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Great Responsibility ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

This paper critiques the idea that a fool and their money are soon parted by using multimodal analysis to explore one of the ways in which people are parted from money: credit cards. I analyse the homepages of two products, the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ as rated by UK consumer organisation Which? In order to understand the range of communication used in these websites, I employ a multimodal analysis of their language, choice of colour, typeface, layout and images (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006; van Leeuwen 2005, 2011). Together, these show that the individual is constructed in different ways by the two products. For the card rated best, the viewer is constructed as a trustworthy consumer who is rewarded for this with further opportunities for consumption. For the card rated as worst, the viewer is positioned as a failed, but redeemable, consumer. The different constructions of the consumer also suggest that ‘credit’ is desirable but ‘debt’ is not. Taking into account the moral complexity of debt, I suggest that the lexical item credit card would be better changed to debt token . I argue that the real foolishness is the system itself, the one that credit cards (‘debt tokens’) index and exemplify. Taking the two sites together, I show that consumption is constructed as both desirable and risky. As credit cards construct the individual as an (isolated) person with few rights and great responsibility (Henry 2010), I suggest that these sites index the central role of the individual as a consumer. A good citizen is parted from their money.

scholarly journals Credit card cue effect

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-383
Author(s):  
King Yin Wong ◽  
Michael Lynn
Keyword(s):  
Credit Card ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
Consumer Spending ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Moderation Effect ◽  
Show Evidence

Purpose The extant literature has mixed results regarding the credit card cue effect. Some showed that credit card cues stimulate spending, whereas others were unable to replicate the findings or found that cues discourage consumer spending. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers’ sensitivity to the pain of payment affects their mental associations about credit cards and how the differences in credit card associations moderate the credit card cue effect on spending, providing a possible explanation for the mixed results in the literature. Furthermore, this paper examines the role of consumers’ perceived financial well-being, measured by their perceptions of current and future wealth and their sense of financial security, in mediating this moderation effect. Design/methodology/approach An experimental study was conducted with a sample of 337 participants to test the hypothesized model. Findings After being shown credit card cues, spendthrift participants had more spending-related thoughts and less debt-related thoughts, perceived themselves as having better financial well-being and consequently spent more than tightwad participants. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the direct link between an exposure to credit card cues and perceived financial well-being, and one of the few to show evidence of the moderating effect of consumers’ sensitivity to the pain of payment on spending when credit card cues are present. This study suggests that marketers may use credit card cues to promote consumer spending, whereas consumers, especially spendthrifts, should be aware of how credit card cues may inflate their perceived financial well-being and stimulate them to spend more.

Sign-genres, authentication, and emplacement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannis Androutsopoulos ◽  
Akra Chowchong
Keyword(s):  
Language Choice ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
The City ◽  
Secondary Signs

Abstract This paper asks how language and other semiotic resources are deployed in the semiotic landscape of Thai restaurants in the city of Hamburg, Germany. Based on detailed multimodal analysis of signage in twelve restaurants, this study draws on both established and underexplored topics in Linguistic Landscape scholarship, including the analysis of sign-genres, the distinction between communicative and symbolic functions of signs, the role of language choice in authenticating place, and the emplacement of signs in the semiotic landscape. A scheme for the classification of restaurant signs by discourse function and emplacement is proposed. The findings suggest that the analytical distinctions between inside and outside space as well as primary and secondary signs are useful for the study of restaurants and other commercial semiotic spaces.

Kriterien der ethnischen Identität

1983 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-42
Author(s):  
Harald Haarmann
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Problem Area ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Individual Features ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

SUMMARY Criteria for Ethnic Identity Despite numerous publications on theoretical and methodological issues regarding ethnic identity (ethnicity), many methodological problems relative to this topic remain insufficiently clarified. This article deals particularly with the problems involved in establishing and evaluating criteria of ethnic identity. The author assigns the complex of problems regarding ethnic identity significant status within a theory of the ecology of language. Specific points covered in methodological issues involving the formation of concepts and application of terminology involve: 1. problems of the weighting of distinctive features; 2. problems in the mutual boundary-marking between ethnic groups (i.e., problems of ethnic borders); 3. problems in the changeability of ethnic identity; 4. problems in the correlation of language and ethnicity; 5. problems of the polarity of subjective and objective features of ethnicity; 6. problems of multiple identities and the role of ethnic identity; 7. problems in the historical dimension of ethnic identity; 8. problems in the linking of groups within language communities of the same national identity. In international sociological and sociolinguistic research, unanimity of opinion exists only on the fact that ethnic identity cannot be characterized by a single feature but rather by a series of individual features (the accumulation of features). The priorities to be attached to the individual features are in large measure disputed. The author proceeds from the assumption that ethnic identities in real life are formed through a stronger or weaker dominance of individual features; they should be characterized accordingly. An unacceptable a priori evaluation or weighting of features is thus avoided. In the specific context of a long-term research program on the smaller language communities and ethnic languages of Europe, the author particularly examines the role of language in ethnicity. Contrary to most previous contributions to discussions of this problem area, the author distinguishes between the general linguistic affiliation as a characteristic of ethnic identity on the one hand (cf. the relationship in point 4) and the criterion of language-oriented group formations (cf. relationship in point 8). The problem area of the principle of language community is illustrated using the example of the Transcarpathian Gypsies in the Ukraine. RESUMO Kriterioj de la etna idento Malgraŭ multaj ĝisnunaj eldonajoj pri la etna idento (etneco), multaj metodaj pro-blemoj rilataj al tiu temaro restas nesufice klarigitaj. La jena artikolo aparte traktas la problemaron de la starigo kaj elvalorigo de kriterioj de la etna idento. La autoro al-jugas al la problemaro pri la etna idento gravan rangon interne de teorio pri la lingva ekologio. Apartaj punktoj, traktitaj en metodaraj demandoj, rilataj al la formado de konceptoj kaj la apliko de terminaro, estas: 1. problemaro pri la elvalorigo de karakteraj trajtoj; 2. problemaro de la reciproka limigo inter etnaj grupoj (t.e. problemoj pri etnaj limoj); 3. problemaro pri la šanĝebleco de la etna idento; 4. problemaro pri la rilato inter lingvo kaj etneco; 5. problemaro pri la polusigo de subjektivaj kaj objektivaj trajtoj de etneco; 6. problemaro de pluroblaj identoj kaj la rolo de etna idento; 7. problemaro ce la historia dimensio de la etna idento; 8. problemaro de la formiĝo de grupoj interne de lingvaj komunumoj de la sama nacia idento. En la internacia sociologia kaj socilingvistika esplorado, unuanimeco de opinio ekzistas nur pri la fakto, ke ne eblas karakterizi la etnan identon nur per unusola trajto, sed, male, per aro da opaj trajtoj (la kuniĝo de trajtoj). Oni grandparte disputas pri la prioritato, kiun oni aljuĝu al la opaj trajtoj. La autoro progresas ek de la asumo, ke la etnaj identoj en la vera vivo estas formitaj per, jen pli forta, jen pli malforta, rego de opaj trajtoj; oni karakterizu ilin lau tio. Tiel, oni evitas neakceptindan aprioran elvalorigon au elpezigon de trajtoj. En la aparta kunteksto de longdaura esplorprogramo pri la pli malgrandaj lingvaj komunumoj kaj etnaj lingvoj de Europo, la autoro aparte pristudas la rolon de la lingvo ce la etneco. Kontraue al la plejmultaj ĝisnunaj kontribuoj al diskutoj pri tiu problemaro, la autoro distingas inter la ĝenerala lingva aparteno kiel trajto de la etna idento unuflanke (komparu la rilton ce punkto 4) kaj la kriterion de la formigo de grupoj surbaze de lingvo (komparu la rilaton ce punkto 8). La problemaro de la prin-cipo de la lingva komunumo estas ilustrita per la ekzemplo de la transkarpataj ciganoj en Ukrajnio.

Religion and Constitutional Practices in Asia: Five ‘Cs’ for Reflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-225
Author(s):  
Arif A JAMAL
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Short Commentary ◽  
Five Cs ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIn considering the articles in this Special Issue, I am struck by the importance of a set of factors that, in my view, both run through the articles like a leitmotif, as well as shape the major ‘take away’ lesson(s) from the articles. In this short commentary, I elaborate on these factors and the lesson(s) to take from them through five ‘Cs’: context; complexity; contestation; the framework of constitutions; and the role of comparative law. The first three ‘Cs’ are lessons from the case studies of the articles themselves, while the second two ‘Cs’ are offered as lessons to help take the dialogue forward. Fundamentally, these five ‘Cs’ highlight the importance of the articles in this Special Issue and the conference from which they emerged on the one hand, while on the other hand, also making us aware of what are the limits of what we should conclude from the individual articles. In other words, taken together, the five ‘Cs’ are, one might say, lessons about lessons.

scholarly journals Adapting the Medium: Dynamics of Intermedial Adaptation in Contemporary Japanese Popular Visual Culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Beáta Pusztai
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Case ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
Adaptation Studies ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Original Story ◽  
Live Action

Abstract With respect to adaptation studies, contemporary Japanese popular culture signifies a unique case, as different types of media (be those textual, auditive, visual or audio-visual) are tightly intertwined through the “recycling” of successful characters and stories. As a result, a neatly woven net of intermedial adaptations has been formed - the core of this complex system being the manga-anime-live-action film “adaptational triangle.” On the one hand, the paper addresses the interplay of the various factors by which the very existence of this network is made possible, such as the distinctive cultural attitude to “originality,” the structure of the comics, animation and film industries, and finally, the role of fictitious genealogies of both traditional and contemporary media in the negotiation of national identity. On the other hand, the essay also considers some of the most significant thematic, narrative, and stylistic effects this close interconnectedness has on the individual medium. Special attention is being paid to the nascent trend of merging the adaptive medium with that of the original story (viewing adaptation as integration), apparent in contemporary manga-based live- action comedies, as the extreme case of intermedial adaptation. That is, when the aim of the adaptational process is no longer the transposition of the story but the adaptation (i.e. the incorporation) of the medium itself- elevating certain medium-specific devices into transmedial phenomena.

Divinatory failure: the religious and social role of Gisu diviners

Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Heald
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Diagnostic Systems ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Invisibility ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe literature has tended to deal with diviners only where they have been seen to play a notable role in the transformation of social relationships. This leads us to overlook their relative social invisibility in many African societies. Yet we may gain insight into the rise of prophets and charismatic healers by looking at the other side of this story in the multitude of very humble practitioners plying their trade. This is the context in which this article explores the role of diviners among the Gisu of Uganda.The privacy of consultation, the search for distant diviners, the way they are approached only at times of crisis and as agents of private counteraction or vengeance, go some way towards explaining why it is difficult for diviners to gain recognition. Added to which are the difficulties of another order which relate to what might here be regarded as divinatory success. For divination may be seen to fail at a number of different levels: in the lack of credibility of a given practitioner, i n a lack of unanimity among those consulted and in the multiplicity of causal agents evoked.An argument put forward here is that scepticism is endemic to the system and, possibly, distinctive to it. We should ask not, as Evans-Pritchard did, how belief i s sustained despite the presence of scepticism but what it is about these beliefs which encourages scepticism. It is not useful to explore this issue in terms of the rationality question or the ‘truth’ of belief systems. If we are to draw a comparison with modern attitudes, of greater significance are the organisation and differentiation of knowledge and its relationship to power. It is suggested that diagnostic systems used by societies such as the Gisu encourage an agnostic attitude in a way i n which those of the modern West do not.In the final part of the article the social role of divination is reconsidered and some of the positive functions proposed for it are questioned. Gisu divination can be seen to have evolved into a very narrow niche whose parameters are bound, on the one hand, by the limits of belief and, on the other, by a system of interpersonal vengeance. We may say that the socially marginal attributes of diviners, exclusively concerned with the negative aspects of social relationships, represent a real social marginality. At best they are agents by which the individual may be reconciled with harshnesses imposed by his own destiny, of ancestral affliction; at worst they are agents of individual vengeance and retribution. This may be taken as more or less disqualifying them from articulating a positive, future-oriented vision on behalf of the community. Clearly it is not impossible but it is a huge jump from these humble practitioners, interpreting the present in terms of the past and trading evil with evil at an individual level, to prophets capable of formulating a positive social vision, a means forward, on behalf of a wider moral or social community.

scholarly journals Body, Possibility and Biographical Interpretation

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-87
Author(s):  
Anabela Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Individual Interaction ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
World Perspective

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how body-representations offer an opportunity for its visual interpretation from a biographical point of view, enhancing, on the one hand, the image’s own narrative dynamics, and, on the other, the role of the body as a place of incorporation of experiences, as well as, a vehicle mediating the individual interaction with the world. Perspective founded in the works of the artists Helena Almeida and Jorge Molder, who use self-representation as an expression of these incorporated (lived) experiences, constitutes an important discursive construction and structuring of their narrative identity through visual creation, the artists enable the other with moments of sharing knowledge, creativity and subjectivity, contributing also to the construction of the contemporary, cultural and social imagery.

Translation historiography in the Modern World

Target ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Azadibougar
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Main Engine ◽  
Literary System ◽  
Positive Force

Nearly all scholarly works about the encounter of Iran with European modernity emphasize the role of translation not only in introducing new literary forms into the Persian literary system, but also in becoming the main engine of change and modernization of the culture. This paper concerns itself with this constructivist narrative of the available historiographical discourse and the translational environment between 1851 and 1921 in Iran. After describing the field of translation in the period in question, I challenge the uncritical conception of translation as a positive force by, on the one hand, investigating hypothetical cultural and linguistic implications, and on the other hand, questioning the power of translation per se, as ascribed to it in the above mentioned historiographical discourse, in socio-cultural modernization. This will prioritize the individual and cultural translational effects over the supposed institutional ones.

scholarly journals REABILITATION OF ETHICS THROUGH THE PRISM OF INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHY (A. MACINTYRE, H. ARENDT)

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interpersonal Interaction ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

The purpose of the article is to study ethical problematics in the philosophical works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Hannah Arendt. On the one hand we have the analysis of virtues ethics and of its place in modern society (through the prism of emotivism ethics inherent to this society), and on the other hand, we have the analysis of action and judgment as scopes of person’s self-representation, which are valuable by themselves. MacIntyre developed his hypothesis about an individual biography pointing out that modern emotivism ethics does not leave a room for conscious ethical worldview, reduces the scope of ethical choice to the very statement of individual preference. By that, a sequence of ethical decisions and preferences in a person’s life acquires irrational and wayward nature, due to which conscious transition from one narrative to another becomes impossible. In its turn, the possibility of individual biography as a holistic story that everyone can tell about themselves provides such an informative nature of ethical views, which have features of a narrative that can be rationally told and rationally perceived by others. Hannah Arendt analyzed the issue of modern ethical crisis from the other side – she studied the ethical dimension of judging ability and the role of action in social interaction. An action (as Arendt believed) becomes the strictly human scope of human activity, in which personality can “open up” (unlike the areas of work and creation). Judging ability appears in this context as a foundation, thanks to which a person becomes able to act: ethical worldview exists in terms of evaluation of something that exists in relation to something due. An action in this context is an active embodiment of a certain worldview position that “unfolds” itself precisely in the area of ethics while being involved in interpersonal interaction. Arendt claimed that an action, due to its nature, is unpredictable and that every human being, who dares to take it, risks getting, in the end, a result that is far from their intentions. Exactly because of it, an action exists in the actor’s biography and the fabrics of interpersonal connections simultaneously – it is the latter, which gives the space for interpretation of an actor’s actions significance. Thus, the individual biography becomes the thing that makes sense only through the prism of interpersonal interaction and mutual interpretations of individual stories.

scholarly journals The irony as a sense of reality (on the example of the short stories of O. Konyskyi)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 124-130
Author(s):  
Nadiia Boiko
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
Empirical Research Methods ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

The article deals with the analysis of the short stories by O. Konyskyi from the point of view of irony functioning in them. S. Kierkegaard compared irony to divine madness, which, like Tamerlane, did not leave a stone unturned, because “in the irony, negativity takes precedence over positivity, freedom over necessity”. In the modern literary criticism, irony is seen, on the one hand, as an aesthetic category, the characteristic feature of which is the lack of care to make the reader laugh; it is primarily a matter of marking of the author’s perception of reality (“Ironic meaning” by S. Pokhodnia). On the other hand — irony is viewed as a stylistic figure, which is based on allegory and which testifies to the potential of the individual authorial style. However, in both cases, to understand the true meaning of an ironic statement, it is necessary to have a context, which is its main semantic background. In a number of works by O. Konyskyi, irony serves as a means to express certain traits of character and behaviour of the character and is exemplified through epithets and comparisons. Less often, it becomes a means to construct the text and a plot-forming factor, as is in the story “And we are people!” The subject of the study is irony as a complex (two-tier) message, the purpose to understand the hidden content of which requires context. The object of the literary analysis is comprised of the short stories by O. Konyskyi, that have not yet been considered from this point of view. The latter fact informs the novelty of the study. The purpose of the article is to clarify the place and the role of irony in the bulk of short stories by this writer. The outlined goal determines reaching the following objectives: to trace the dynamics of the apperiance of different types of irony in the short stories by O. Konyskyi; to identity the dependence of the frequency and the form the ironic expression; to find out the influence of the author’s ironic approach on the form the work. As a result of the analysis by means of the approaches of biographical, historical-literary and empirical research methods, it was possible to find out: despite the fact that irony is not a dominant feature of O. Konyskyi’s worldview, in his short stories works with textual irony stand out.

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