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This volume presents an interactional perspective on linguistic variability that takes into account the construction of social identities through the formation of social communicative styles. It shows that style is a useful category in bridging the gap between single parameter variation and social identity. Social positioning, i.e., finding one's place in society, is one of its motivating forces. Various aspects of the expression of stylistic features are focused on, from language choice and linguistic variation in a narrow sense to practices of social categorization, pragmatics patterns, pref

In spring the cherry blossoms -- Change and nature -- Japanese poetics and a first consideration of animism -- Utsusemi, the Cicada's shell -- Hakanasa and mujo -- Anitya in a world of spontaneity -- Life as it seems, Nagarjuna's emptiness -- Shukke: leaving the world -- Success and failure -- The transcendental order/the order of here-and-now -- Zen, kata, and the noh theater -- Hedonism -- Matsuo Basho, permanence and change -- Mono no aware, the sadness of things -- Protocol and loyal retainers -- Inner and outer: the expanding context of modernity -- Monstrosity -- Change under the transcendental order -- Late-modern Japan (1868-1970) -- The colonial context: adapt or die -- Explaining Japan-linking here-and-now with the new world order -- Japan as bushido -- Japan as tea-ism -- Japan as erotic style -- In the margins of empire-the rape of Nanking -- Other horrors of life on the margins -- Kamikaze -- The a-bomb, and a new kind of nothing -- Occupation: radical change as salvation -- Decadence, moving away from form -- To live! -- Nihil versus nothingness -- Higashiyama Kaii: embracing passivity -- Return to evanescence -- Contemporary Japan (since 1970) -- Fashion and the joy of evanescence

"Providing a unique, empirically based perspective on the past and future development of globalization as a long-term process emerging in different parts of the world, this book puts current changes in a historical context in a systematic fashion, unpacking the global political, economic, social, and cultural implications of this change. It traces the resemblance of past commercial networks with emerging digital networks and contrasts them with industrial production systems." -- Book jacket