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This study investigates the landslide legislative changes affecting lesbians and gay men between 1986 and 2005. It offers six fully-contextualised Critical Discourse Analyses of key Westminster parliamentary debates on attempted and actual changes in the law in two periods: 1986-1996 and 2001-2004. In addition, it offers a corpus analysis of all key debates in each period. This enables comparisons of the language used and arguments deployed by speakers who supported lesbians and gay men and those who did not, as well as a comparison of the two periods. On the basis that Members of Parliament, particularly in the House of Commons, draw on the beliefs and values of the sections of society they represent and indirectly address via the media, the overall interest of the study is in the nature and extent of social change this legislative landslide suggests. The study's particular focus is on shifts and continuities in the cluster of institutionalised beliefs that constitute homophobia and the institutional arrangements that support them. The content and contexts of these beliefs are initially traced via past laws pertaining to same-sex sexual acts, in most cases sex between men. This shows firstly, how each law was enacted to serve different socio-political purposes in different historical periods and secondly, how their intermittent periods of enforcement coincided with the needs of prevailing rulers to maintain power and social control. Thus homophobic beliefs ebbed and flowed according to the needs of ruling powers. This phenomenon applies past and present and constitutes the ethos of the study. It demonstrates both the residual nature of a prejudice with a very long history and the salient beliefs and values behind arguments used for and against it in contemporary contexts.

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No description available.

This thesis argues that the aggressive and informal style of discourse used in Thai parliamentary debates is a product of the Thai political sphere, serving clear functions In its context. Adopting the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, the thesis presents discourse as socially constituted as well as socially constitutive. The research employs a two level analysis to explore this hypothesis. At the macro level, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Sociocognitive Approach are operationalised to investigate the socio-political conditions that prompt this 'unparliamentary' mode of parliamentary discourse. At the micro level, politeness theory and pragmatics are employed to investigate the potential functions that small linguistic features may serve under such social conditions. Five sample accusatory speeches and two sample respondent speeches from recent debates are selected for close textual analysis using this approach. It is argued that the unparliamentary style of the debates' discourse is the result of discursive strategies used in politicians' speeches. These strategies are textual evidence of sociocultural practice and discourse practice. They reflect the speakers' attempts to subvert three competing conjunctures in the Thai political domain: the debate's formal and actual purposes, its Code of Behaviour, and its multiple audiences. Debaters need to balance three contending purposes: the desire of highly partisan participants to cause maximum damage to the opposing side, their attempts to seek public support (including the maintenance of face), and their need to stay within the parliamentary Code of Behaviour. This thesis identifies a number of strategies that potentially serve these conflicting purposes, for example, intertextuality, enthymeme and prolepsis/disclaimer. These findings lead to the conclusion that an unparliamentary debating style, constituted of small, seemingly insignificant linguistic features, carries larger social implications. Despite being a reflection of social conditions, this debating style has the potential to redefine these conditions. Thai no-confidence debates offer an accomplished parliamentary speaker the opportunity to achieve apparently contradictory political and linguistic ends, within the same tightly-crafted speech.

by J. Ruark. / "June 1998."

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Robert Dean Larrabee. / "May 21, 1957." "This report is based on a thesis submitted to the Department of Physics, M.I.T., May 13, 1957, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science." / Bibliography: p. 80-81. / U.S. Army Signal Corps Contract No. DA36-039-sc-64637 Dept. of the Army Task 3-99-06-108 Project 3-99-00-100

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Soll Verfassung nicht nur in alt-konstitutionalistischer Manier Politik und Staat einhegen und begrenzen, sondern Letzteren auch Ziele und Orientierung verleihen, im Idealfall sogar gesellschaftliche Rahmenbedingungen adäquat verarbeiten, dann kann sie nicht als bloß statisches Normengefüge begriffen und interpretiert werden. Vielmehr müssen unter von der Verfassung selbst gesetzten Bedingungen Änderungen möglich sein. In diesem dialektischen Spannungsverhältnis, in dem Wandel eine spezifische verfassungsrechtlich begründete Ordnung voraussetzt und Verfassung dauerhaft nur Akzeptanz finden kann, wenn sie Wandel verfassungskonform verarbeitet, bewegt sich die Verfassungspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, inwieweit dieses Wechselverhältnis von Politik und Recht die Entwicklung des Grundgesetzes geprägt hat. Welche auf Ordnung angelegte Normen wurden verändert? Lassen sich Trends des gestalterischen Wandels der Verfassung erkennen? Um diese Fragen beantworten zu können, skizziert der Beitrag zunächst die zentralen Ordnungsprinzipien des Grundgesetzes, wie sie 1948/49 gefasst wurden. Im zweiten und dritten Teil schildert er die Charakteristika der Verfassungsänderungen, die entweder durch Gesetz oder infolge Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts stattfanden. Abschließend resümiert der Aufsatz die Reichweite des Verfassungswandels, diskutiert dessen Legitimation und die Fähigkeit des Grundgesetzes, politisches Handeln zu ordnen.