Suchergebnisse

A totalistic social group is defined as a collection of individuals who share similar values and goals and who live together within intensive boundaries enforced by the group's leadership and/or members themselves (Lifton 1969). The focus of this project is to better understand the effect of language on (I) a totalistic group's social structure and (II) the ideologies and actions of members. The limited linguistic research on totalistic groups claims that leaders and members use language in order to enforce rules and beliefs, encourage conformity, and maintain as well as increase membership. By examining language practices in the US military, this project fills the current gap of limited data in the linguistic literature on totalism. My research suggests that certain language practices are created and used within totalistic communities in order to support an in-group mentality between members, dedication to the group's leaders and efforts, and a powerful social structure. This project analyzes data collected from an anonymous online survey regarding language within the US military. For instance, the results of this survey suggested that respondents regarded language as a powerful tool in reinforcing the military's hierarchical structure. This research therefore suggests that language practices are taught to military members in order to encourage certain desired behavior. Ultimately, this research demonstrates how language practices in totalistic groups determine the maintenance of power and the fortification of membership. Therefore, by providing new data on language and totalism, this project is shedding much needed light on an under-researched area of sociolinguistics.

In this paper I critique the concept of social groups deployed by Iris Marion Young in her well-known theory of the five faces of oppression. I contend that Young's approach to conceptualizing social groups creates arbitrary and inconsistent categories, essentializes certain groups, and fails to take seriously the complexity of pluralism. I propose that Margaret Gilbert's work in social metaphysics provides a more philosophically robust account of social groups that serves as a helpful corrective to Young's approach. Gilbert's account of "we"-ness, as well as her theory of the nature of individuals and collectivities, provides a helpful vantage point for critiquing Young's project and its emphasis on the social process of differentiation in the formation of social groups.

Building on Alan I. Abramowitz's (1994 [see abstract 9407614]) models, regression analysis is used to assess whether & how group evaluations & issue attitudes influence party identification & presidential candidate estimation in the US, drawing on 1988 & 1992 National Election Studies data. Issue attitudes do have an important influence on individuals' political judgments, but people's evaluations of groups associated with political parties influence their political judgments independently. Groups do not merely represent traditional interests, eg, labor, business, or race; they primarily represent cultural differences. It appears that evaluations of groups &, thus, judgments of the parties & candidates, reflect a broad ideology of intergroup relations. 3 Tables, 60 References. Adapted from the source document.