scholarly journals Mission Possible: Intercultural Communication and the Quest for Finding Shared Meaning

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-184
Author(s):  
Zaher Alajlani ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Human History ◽  
Shared Meaning ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Objective Meaning

The source of objective meaning is a controversial topic. For most of human history, religion had a monopoly on meaning, truth, and values. But from the nineteenth century onwards and with relativism gaining more popularity, this began to change, leaving most people divided into two main camps: those who believe in the existence of objective meaning and truth and those who maintain that such concepts simply do not exist. The resulting impossibility of finding shared meaning is very problematic, especially when it comes to intercultural communication. In fact, to speak of communication is to speak of common meaning. In this paper, I attempt to provide a definition for intercultural communication, explore the issue of shared meaning, and propose a culture-free approach to the latter—one that is based on reverting to an axiomatic understanding of the notion of meaning. My aim is to conclude that the failure of both dogmatism and relativism to sustain intercultural communication should not be interpreted pessimistically. Quite the opposite, it should be viewed as an opportunity to investigate other promising alternatives, mainly Sam Harris’s science of morality.

“Big History” Old and New: Presuppositions, Limits, Alternatives

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Megill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Innovative Approach ◽  
Human History ◽  
Comparative History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Big History

In recent years David Christian and others have promoted “Big History” as an innovative approach to the study of the past. The present paper juxtaposes to Big History an old Big History, namely, the tradition of “universal history” that flourished in Europe from the mid-sixteenth century until well into the nineteenth century. The claim to universality of works in that tradition depended on the assumed truth of Christianity, a fact that was fully acknowledged by the tradition’s adherents. The claim of the new Big History to universality likewise depends on prior assumptions. Simply stated, in its various manifestations the “new” Big History is rooted either in a continuing theology, or in a form of materialism that is assumed to be determinative of human history, or in a somewhat contradictory amalgam of the two. The present paper suggests that “largest-scale history” as exemplified in the old and new Big Histories is less a contribution to historical knowledge than it is a narrativization of one or another worldview. Distinguishing between largest-scale history and history that is “merely” large-scale, the paper also suggests that a better approach to meeting the desire for large scale in historical writing is through more modest endeavors, such as large-scale comparative history, network and exchange history, thematic history, and history of modernization.

The Politics of Anthropology

1988 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Gellner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life History ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Human History ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
Great Chain Of Being ◽  
Jacob's Ladder

ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY ORIGINALLY FOUND THEIR more immediate inspiration in an evolutionary or Jacob's Ladder vision of human societies, the idea of Progress. Social forms were seen as located along some great Chain of Being, which eventually leads to this-worldly salvation by this-worldly means. But there the resemblance ends. Sociology was rooted in a primarily historical evolutionism, in the perception, by the generation of Condorcet and Hegel, that human history is a story of cumulative change, and in the hope that the pattern of this change was the key to the meaning of life. History was to reveal the inner potential and destiny of human society. By contrast, the evolutionism which somewhat later, around the middle of the nineteenth century, gave birth to anthropology, was markedly biological, and came to be much influenced by Darwin.

scholarly journals Solidarity: The Social History of an Idea in Nineteenth Century France

1959 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. S. Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Grand Nombre ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
History Of

The survival of a concept is generally only secured at the price of an intellectual odyssey in the course of which it is transformed out of all recognition. The nineteenth century fortunes of the idea of solidarity exemplify this axiom only too strictly. It became the victim of a multiplicity of ingenious puns and metaphors as well as outright malicious distortions that rendered a simple, technical word, drawn from the sphere of jurisprudence, at once emotive and obscure, influential and diffuse. As the eminent and caustic critic of the twentieth century, Julien Benda, formulated this vital problem of the fate of concepts, “pour l'historien des idées des hommes, la réalité ce n'est point ce qu'ont été les idées dans l'esprit de ceux qui les ont inventées, mais ce qu'elles ont été dans l'esprit de ceux qui les ont trahies… car il est clair qu'une doctrine se propage d'autant plus largement qu'elle est apte à satisfaire un plus grand nombre de sentiments divers.” This pessimistic view has been all too frequently verified in human history.

scholarly journals The Creation of Adam and the Biblical Origins of Race in The Slave’s Friend (1836–1838)

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 860
Author(s):  
Kerry M. Sonia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human History ◽  
Red Clay ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Racial Theory ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
Racial Hierarchies

The creation of Adam out of dust is a familiar tradition from the Book of Genesis. In abolitionist literature of the nineteenth century, this biblical narrative became the basis for a theory about the origins of race, arguing that because Adam was formed from red clay, neither he nor his descendants were white. This interpretation of Genesis underscored the value of non-white ancestors both in the biblical narrative and in human history and undermined popular theological arguments that upheld color-based racial hierarchies that privileged whiteness in the United States. This article examines the creation of Adam in Genesis 2 and its use in racial theory and abolitionist rhetoric, focusing on the children’s anti-slavery periodical The Slave’s Friend, published from 1836 to 1838.

scholarly journals On the Differences between English and Chinese Animal Words Cultural Connotations

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 835
Author(s):  
Rongmei Yu
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human History ◽  
The World ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Cultural Connotations ◽  
Different Cultures

A social language could reflect culture which is correspondent and its manners show in the contents of words and vocabulary. The same to the animal words what contains rich and profound cultural customs of various nationalities and reflects the philosophical and cultural mentality of all ethnic groups profoundly.In the course of the development of human history, animals keep in touch with human beings. Many animals yet have been being human beings’ pets and friends. Many animals have formed a certain symbol in the minds of people, and are embodied in the language. Animal words are also forming a specific meaning in these processes. There are abundant words in English and Chinese with large number of animals as a metaphor. The cultural diversity of all nations around the world causes people to have different emotional attitudes towards animals in the different cultures, thus, the meaning of animal vocabulary is different in different cultures. It’s helpful to improve the communicative competence of English for the understanding of the cultural connotations of English and Chinese. To promote English learning and intercultural communication is of great practical significance.

Aviation and International Law

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Human History ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
National Organization ◽  
The World ◽  
Made In

The first thirty years of the nineteenth century saw the beginnings of a great revolution in transportation and communication. Improvements were introduced which in time greatly changed the daily lives of people throughout the world, and made it possible for their efforts to reach out as never before in human history. The change was nowhere more significant than in its effect on international society. A century ago, the railroad, the steamship and the telegraph so extended the range of human action that national organization ceased to correspond with the activities of many peoples, and the state system upon which the nineteenth century dawned was greatly modified by the progress made in international organization before the century had passed. Certainly no period up to that time had produced such changes as those which began in the decades between 1800 and 1830.

Differences in American and British Vocabulary: Implications for International Business Communication

2000 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Calvert Scott
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
International Business ◽  
English Language ◽  
American English ◽  
Business Communication ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Shared Meaning ◽  
British English ◽  
Time Result ◽  
Different Cultures

American English and British English vocabularies have diverged over time, result, ing in lexical differences that have the potential to confound English-language intercultural communication. The differences derive from the need to adapt the meanings of existing expressions or to find new expressions for different things and to borrow expressions from different cultures. Separation and slow means of com munication also cause differences and encourage one side to retain archaic expres sions that others have abandoned or modified. The differences in vocabulary can be grouped into four categories: the same expression with differences in style, con notation, and/or frequency; the same expression with one or more shared and dif ferent meanings; the same expression with completely different meanings; and dif ferent expressions with the same shared meaning. These differences in vocabularies affect understanding of all varieties of English. To bridge differences in Enghsh language vocabularies, international business communication teachers and trainers must devote more attention to English as the dominant language of international business, create awareness of important vocabulary differences that have the potential to confound intercultural communication, and develop and teach strate gies for bridging the vocabulary differences of English speakers.

The Silvertown Strike: A Partisan History

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (8) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
John Tully
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Index Volume ◽  
Punctuated Equilibrium ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Flood Tide ◽  
Sharp Change ◽  
Human History ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
The Status

There is a concept in biology called "punctuated equilibrium": organisms can display little discernible change over long periods of time before sudden, sharp, and profound changes. Without wishing to give credence to teleological or determinist views, it does seem that human history is profoundly dialectical. Sharp change that bewilders an apologist for the status quo can inspire and give hope to those of us who believe that a better world is possible. We live in interesting but depressing times today. Neoliberal ideas are hegemonic. The old collectivist values of the labor movement have been submerged in a tide of market fundamentalism, summed up in Margaret Thatcher's claim that "there is no such thing as society; there are only individuals and families." When I began researching for my <em>Silvertown</em> book, it became apparent to me that a similar flood tide of liberalism had washed over much of nineteenth-century Britain. This portrayed the status quo as normal, natural, and inevitable, but the equilibrium was punctuated in the last decades of the century.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-8" title="Vol. 67, No. 8: January 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

scholarly journals Migrants and the Media in Nineteenth-Century Liverpool

2014 ◽  
pp. 24-37
Author(s):  
Colin G. Pooley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
The Media ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Media Outlet ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Migration is a controversial topic in twenty-first century Britain, and similar debates were equally visible in the nineteenth century with ample evidence that migrants from Ireland and Europe faced stigmatisation and discrimination in British cities. Today the media plays a major role in fuelling such debates, but little is known about the impact of newspaper reporting on public perceptions of migrants in the past. This article focuses on the reporting of cases brought before the police courts in Liverpool in 1851, 1871 and 1891 and, through the use of nominal record linkage to census data, examines the extent and manner in which migrant origin was commented on in one major Liverpool newspaper. It is demonstrated that, perhaps surprisingly, this media outlet largely ignored migrant origin in its reporting, and thus it was not a significant factor in shaping public perceptions of migrants in the city.

scholarly journals ‘Unravelling Babel’: Mary LeCron Foster on the origins of language

BJHS Themes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Judith R. H. Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Language Origin ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Descent Of Man

Abstract The origin of human language has been a perennial – and perennially controversial – topic in linguistics since the nineteenth century. Much of this work has engaged themes Charles Darwin set out in The Descent of Man, though few authors acknowledge the text directly. How might we interpret such neglect? This essay contends that Darwin's reflections on language challenged foundational commitments in linguistics about the barrier between the history and prehistory of human communication. These commitments are thrown into relief through a detailed study of the dissenting symbolic and gestural theory of language origin put forth by Mary LeCron Foster, who rejected doctrines of linguistic arbitrariness and transformational-generative grammar. Her work on the frontier between animal and human communication is presented through a description of her ‘phememic’ account of the language origins. The paper also emphasizes the rhythm of Foster's career, which provides a significant counterpoint to standard accounts of the development and institutionalization of American linguistics during the twentieth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document