scholarly journals EUPHEMISMS AS REFLECTION OF ENGLISH MENTALITY

Author(s):  
Yuliia Kuriata ◽  
Olena Kasatkina-Kubyshkina

The phenomenon of euphemisms has been considered in the article in the context of English mentality. The definition of “mentality” has been drawn out. The language picture of the world as reflection of that language speakers’ mentality has been enlarged on. The unique concepts for Anglo-Saxon language picture of the world specific to the mentality of the British and Americans (being less reflected in the later) have been pointed out in the context of the question considered in the article. The definition of “euphemism” has been drawn out. The English euphemisms as linguistic and cultural phenomenon have been commented on as the means for the concept “understatement” as words or phrases used to avoid saying something presumably unpleasant or offensive. Such subject groups of English euphemisms have been analysed as: euphemisms mitigating various types of discrimination (age, property, racial and ethnic discrimination, discrimination against persons with physical or mental disabilities), euphemisms that reduce the superstitious fear of any phenomena, euphemisms that raise the prestige of a separate profession, euphemisms distracting from the negative phenomena of reality (those serving as a cover for aggressive hostilities and those mitigating negative consequences in the social and economic sphere), crime, gender, religion and death related euphemisms, miscellaneous group.

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-71
Author(s):  
Zh.K. Madalieva ◽  

The article discusses in detail the essence and meaning of ritual as a social action. The study of the nature of this phenomenon involves, first of all, the study of various approaches to the definition of the concept of "ritual" and related phenomena. Analyzing the existing definitions, the author comes to the conclusion that "ritual" is a certain set of actions that have symbolic meaning. The symbolism of the ritual is manifested in its connecting role with the world of the sacred, sacred. The article emphasizes that in the consciousness of a person in a traditional society, the sacred world is present in the real world through ritual. As an archaic form of culture, ritual was also a way of regulating and maintaining collective life. The ritual served as a means of integrating and maintaining the integrity of the human community, giving it stability. Therefore, the article focuses on the social functions of the ritual in both public and individual life.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Nicholas Overgaard

Although we accept that a scientific mosaic is a set of theories and methods accepted and employed by a scientific community, scientific community currently lacks a proper definition in scientonomy. In this paper, I will outline a basic taxonomy for the bearers of a mosaic, i.e. the social agents of scientific change. I begin by differentiating between accidental group and community through the respective absence and presence of a collective intentionality. I then identify two subtypes of community: the epistemic community that has a collective intentionality to know the world, and the non-epistemic community that does not have such a collective intentionality. I note that both epistemic and non-epistemic communities might bear mosaics, but that epistemic communities are the intended social agents of scientific change because their main collective intentionality is to know the world and, in effect, to change their mosaics. I conclude my paper by arguing we are not currently in a position to properly define scientific community per se because of the risk of confusing pseudoscientific communities with scientific communities. However, I propose that we can for now rely on the definition of epistemic community as the proper social agent of scientific change.Suggested Modifications[Sciento-2017-0012]: Accept the following taxonomy of group, accidental group, and community:Group ≡ two or more people who share any characteristic.Accidental group ≡ a group that does not have a collective intentionality.Community ≡ a group that has a collective intentionality. [Sciento-2017-0013]: Provided that the preceding modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept that communities can consist of other communities.[Sciento-2017-0014]: Provided that modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept the following definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as subtypes of community:Epistemic community ≡ a community that has a collective intentionality to know the world.Non-epistemic community ≡ a community that does not have a collective intentionality to know the world.[Sciento-2017-0015]: Provideed that modification [Sciento-2017-0013] and [Sciento-2017-0014] are accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Van Oudtshoorn

Jesus� imperatives in the Sermon on the Mount continue to play a significant role in Christian ethical discussions. The tension between the radical demands of Jesus and the impossibility of living this out within the everyday world has been noted by many scholars. In this article, an eschatological-ontological model, based on the social construction of reality, is developed to show that this dialectic is not necessarily an embarrassment to the church but, instead, belongs to the essence of the church as the recipient of the Spirit of Christ and as called by him to exist now in terms of the coming new age that has already been realised in Christ. The absolute demands of Jesus� imperatives, it is argued, must relativise all other interpretations of reality whilst the world, in turn, relativises Jesus� own definition of what �is� and therefore also the injunctions to his disciples on how to live within this world. This process of radical relativisation provides a critical framework for Christian living. The church must expect, and do, the impossible within this world through her faith in Christ who recreates and redefines reality. The church�s ethical task, it is further argued, is to participate with the Spirit in the construction of signs of this new reality in Christ in this world through her actions marked by faith, hope and love.


Author(s):  
Taina Bucher

IF … THEN provides an account of power and politics in the algorithmic media landscape that pays attention to the multiple realities of algorithms, and how these relate and coexist. The argument is made that algorithms do not merely have power and politics; they help to produce certain forms of acting and knowing in the world. In processing, classifying, sorting, and ranking data, algorithms are political in that they help to make the world appear in certain ways rather than others. Analyzing Facebook’s news feed, social media user’s everyday encounters with algorithmic systems, and the discourses and work practices of news professionals, the book makes a case for going beyond the narrow, technical definition of algorithms as step-by-step procedures for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Drawing on a process-relational theoretical framework and empirical data from field observations and fifty-five interviews, the author demonstrates how algorithms exist in multiple ways beyond code. The analysis is concerned with the world-making capacities of algorithms, questioning how algorithmic systems shape encounters and orientations of different kinds, and how these systems are endowed with diffused personhood and relational agency. IF … THEN argues that algorithmic power and politics is neither about algorithms determining how the social world is fabricated nor about what algorithms do per se. Rather it is about how and when different aspects of algorithms and the algorithmic become available to specific actors, under what circumstance, and who or what gets to be part of how algorithms are defined.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 169-193
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alwasmi ◽  
Ahmad Alderbas

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an idea that has grown during the last three decades from the voluntary activity of business firms into a debate about whether CSR should be mandated by law because of the increased demand from society. Further, it has been argued that business corporations are owned by their shareholders, and the managers must concentrate on maximizing the wealth of their shareholders and not of the community. To determine how better to apply CSR, this paper begins with looking at the evolution of CSR as a system around the world and then discusses the definition of CSR. In addition, this paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of implementing voluntary CSR and then explores mandatory CSR. Moreover, in this paper, it is found that determining the proper CSR system depends on many factors in each country, such as the social, economic and legal factors that should be examined before applying mandatory or voluntary CSR.


Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D Olson

Abstract The relationship between social exclusion and posttraumatic stress reactions in aging veterans is a particularly timely issue, warranting greater attention in the social work literature. Research with military veterans indicates that the social marginalization resulting from racial and ethnic discrimination can exacerbate posttraumatic stress symptoms. This marginalization suggests an increased potential for emergent or recurrent trauma reactions in aging military veterans, as previous research has documented older adults’ unique risk for social exclusion. The issue takes on greater relevance as increased numbers of Vietnam veterans enter older adulthood. Professionals working with military veterans should be aware of the social and cultural factors that play a critical role in posttrauma response and recovery.


Author(s):  
Paolo Ferri

Digital divide can be considered a macro economical index representing the social differences and the separation between the North and the South of the world. Since the first definition of digital divide, it has been shown that it is also a great and unrecognized problem in the developed countries, especially in the field of education. “Digital disconnection” is a key problem for School and University as institutions. In this paper, the above questions are widely analyzed with a special attention on the spreading gap between digital natives (i.e., young students), and digital immigrants (i.e., parents, teachers and policymakers in the school).


Author(s):  
Haldun Gülalp

Briefly defined, secularism is a political principle that aims to guarantee citizens the right to freedom of ‘conscience and religion’, as spelled out in international human rights documents (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18; European Convention on Human Rights, Article 9). Although only implicit in these documents, this right also includes freedom from religion. Secularism, then, entails the existence of a political space separate from and independent of religions for the purpose of negotiating common issues and areas of concern, so that the social and political needs of all religious and irreligious members of society may be met. This is a normative definition of a principle designed to maintain and promote peace in a diverse society. A variety of institutional arrangements may protect this principle. Within Europe alone we see several different models, as we do in other parts of the world (Madeley and Enyedi 2003; Bhargava 2005). Alongside this definition there is also another one, in which secularism indicates religion’s subordination to the temporal power of the state.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (16) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Piwnicki

It is recognized that politics is a part of social life, that is why it is also a part of culture. In this the political culture became in the second half of the twentieth century the subject of analyzes of the political scientists in the world and in Poland. In connection with this, political culture was perceived as a component of culture in the literal sense through the prism of all material and non-material creations of the social life. It has become an incentive to expand the definition of the political culture with such components as the political institutions and the system of socialization and political education. The aim of this was to strengthen the democratic political system by shifting from individual to general social elements.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-474
Author(s):  
Alain Touraine

It is impossible to define sociology other than by reference to ill-defined entities like society or the social. Nevertheless, it seems necessary nowadays to ask the question explicitly, whether these referents have relevant meaningful contents. The idea of society has been profoundly reformist or reforming. Wherever the political system has become open and more complex, and state intervention in economic life has expanded, the field of sociology itself has expanded to the point where we can speak of the triumph of a sociological vision of the world. Industrial society was a complete historical construction, defined by a morality, a philosophy of history and various forms of solidarity. The idea of society was never more closely associated with those of production and social justice. Now, we no longer live our collective life in purely “social” terms nor expect social answers to our problems. The decomposition of the idea of society, set off by the fragmentation of the world in which that idea developed, got worse. The current predominance of the theme of globalization has been accelerating the decline of the “social” representation of public life. The time has come to reconstruct sociology, no longer on the basis of what we thought was a definition of the social and of society, but on the basis of the explosion of those ensembles which had been thought to be solid, and of the attempts to reconstruct the space in which subjects can reconstitute a fabric of consensus, compromise and conflict.


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