Suchergebnisse

The narrative of the United States is of a "nation of immigrants" in which the language shift patterns of earlier ethnolinguistic groups have tended towards linguistic assimilation through English. In recent years, however, changes in the demographic landscape and language maintenance by non-English speaking immigrants, particularly Hispanics, have been perceived as threats and have led to calls for an official English language policy.This thesis aims to contribute to the study of language policy making from a societal security perspective as expressed in attitudes regarding language and identity originating in the daily interaction between language groups. The focus is on the role of language and American identity in relation to immigration. The study takes an interdisciplinary approach combining language policy studies, security theory, and critical discourse analysis. The material consists of articles collected from four newspapers, namely USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle between April 2006 and December 2007.Two discourse types are evident from the analysis namely Loyalty and Efficiency. The former is mainly marked by concerns of national identity and contains speech acts of security related to language shift, choice and English for unity. Immigrants are represented as dehumanised, and harmful. Immigration is given as sovereignty-related, racial, and as war. The discourse type of Efficiency is mainly instrumental and contains speech acts of security related to cost, provision of services, health and safety, and social mobility. Immigrants are further represented as a labour resource. These discourse types reflect how the construction of the linguistic 'we' is expected to be maintained. Loyalty is triggered by arguments that the collective identity is threatened and is itself used in reproducing the collective 'we' through hegemonic expressions of monolingualism in the public space and semi-public space. The denigration of immigrants is used as a tool for enhancing societal security through solidarity and as a possible justification for the denial of minority rights. Also, although language acquisition patterns still follow the historical trend of language shift, factors indicating cultural separateness such as the appearance of speech communities or the use of minority languages in the public space and semi-public space have led to manifestations of intolerance. Examples of discrimination and prejudice towards minority groups indicate that the perception of worth of a shared language differs from the actual worth of dominant language acquisition for integration purposes. The study further indicates that the efficient working of the free market by using minority languages to sell services or buy labour is perceived as conflicting with nation-building notions since it may create separately functioning sub-communities with a new cultural capital recognised as legitimate competence. The discourse types mainly represent securitising moves constructing existential threats. The perception of threat and ideas of national belonging are primarily based on a zero-sum notion favouring monolingualism. Further, the identity of the immigrant individual is seen as dynamic and adaptable to assimilationist measures whereas the identity of the state and its members are perceived as static. Also, the study shows that debates concerning language status are linked to extra-linguistic matters. To conclude, policy makers in the US need to consider the relationship between four factors, namely societal security based on collective identity, individual/human security, human rights, and a changing linguistic demography, for proposed language intervention measures to be successful. ; Diss. Luleå : Luleå tekniska universitet, 2011-01-31

Characteristics of women who withdraw from the protection order process and their decisions for withdrawal / Marie Mele, C. James Roberts and Loreen Wolfer -- Terrorism, Miranda, and related matters / Charles Doyle -- Judicial activity concerning enemy combatant detainees : major court rulings / Jennifer K. Elsea and Michael John Garcia -- "Don't ask, don't tell" : the law and military policy on same-sex behavior / David F. Burrelli -- Violence Against Women Act : history and federal funding / Garrine P. Laney.

The role of campaign advertising -- The problem of persuasion -- A brief primer on data and research design -- How race context matters -- How ad negativity and emotional appeal in ads matter -- How receivers' characteristics matter -- How ad coverage in news matters -- The future study of ad effects.

Introduction -- PART I: UNDERSTANDING POLICE CULTURE: Prologue -- Culture and knowledge -- Issues in the study of police culture -- Culture and cultural themes -- Articulating police culture and its environments: patterns of line-officer interactions -- PART II: THEMES OF POLICE CULTURE: SECTION I: COERCIVE TERRITORIAL CONTROL: The moral transformation of territory (Theme: Domination) -- Force is righteous (Theme: Force) -- Crime is war, metaphor (Theme: Militarization) -- Stopping power (Theme: Guns) -- SECTION II: THEMES OF THE UNKNOWN: The twilight world (Theme: Suspicion) -- Danger through the lens of culture (Theme: Danger and its anticipation) -- Anything can happen on the street (Theme: Unpredictability and situational uncertainty) -- No animal out there is going to beat me (Theme: Turbulence and edge control) -- Seductions of the edge (Theme: Seduction) -- SECTION III: CULTURAL THEMES OF SOLIDARITY: Angels and assholes: the construction of police morality (Theme: Police morality) -- Common sense and the ironic deconstruction of the obvious (Theme: Common sense) -- No place for sissies (Theme: Masculinity) -- Mask of a thousand faces (Theme: Solidarity) -- America's great guilty crime secret (Theme: Racism) -- SECTION IV: LOOSELY COUPLING CULTURAL THEMES: On becoming invisible (Theme: Outsiders) -- Individualism and the paradox of personal accountability (Theme: Individualism) -- The truth game (Theme: Deception) -- Cop deterrence and the soft legal system (Theme: Deterence) -- The petty injustice and the everlasting grudges (Theme: Bullshit) -- SECTION V: DEATH AND POLICE CULTURE: Thinking about ritual -- The culture eater (Theme: Death) -- Good-bye in a sea of blue (Theme: Police funerals) -- Postscript.

In these eleven essays scholars from diverse disciplines address the argument, reception, and implications of The Dialectic of Sex and make a compelling, critical case for its contemporary salience.

The future of the U.S. Supreme Court hangs in the balance like never before. Will conservatives or liberals succeed in remaking the court in their own image? InA Constitution of Many Minds, acclaimed law scholar Cass Sunstein proposes a bold new way of interpreting the Constitution, one that respects the Constitution's text and history but also refuses to view the document as frozen in time. Exploring hot-button issues ranging from presidential power to same-sex relations to gun rights, Sunstein shows how the meaning of the Constitution is reestablished in every generation as new social commitments and ideas compel us to reassess our fundamental beliefs. He focuses on three approaches to the Constitution--traditionalism, which grounds the document's meaning in long-standing social practices, not necessarily in the views of the founding generation; populism, which insists that judges should respect contemporary public opinion; and cosmopolitanism, which looks at how foreign courts address constitutional questions, and which suggests that the meaning of the Constitution turns on what other nations do. Sunstein demonstrates that in all three contexts a "many minds" argument is at work--put simply, better decisions result when many points of view are considered. He makes sense of the intense debates surrounding these approaches, revealing their strengths and weaknesses, and sketches the contexts in which each provides a legitimate basis for interpreting the Constitution today. This book illuminates the underpinnings of constitutionalism itself, and shows that ours is indeed a Constitution, not of any particular generation, but of many minds.