Thesis (Th. M.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-112).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1958. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-208). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Zoology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This research investigates the unstable relationship between language and culture and offers an alternative, non-essentialist model for their interaction. The thesis demonstrates that languages and cultures are ideological constructs and explores how these emerge and are maintained through social rituals, institutional measures, and individual consensus. The focus of enquiry is English as a global language. Taking into consideration current linguistic debates surrounding English as an international language, this research demonstrates that feelings of cultural loss, appropriation and endangerment reproduce a particular language ideology, which could be called cultural/nationalist. It will also be shown how different levels of reification come into play in the discussion of language as an ideological product. The discussions among linguistic theorists will be contrasted with the perspective of individuals immersed in what is conventionally labelled as a multilingual context. The fieldwork in international institutions provides a basis for exploring the subjectivity of the understanding of linguistic and cultural categories and reflexive insights into how meanings are constructed through experience, interaction and negotiation. The focus in the fieldwork discussions is again on English, its roles, functions, values and prestige as perceived by the informants. Unlike linguistic theories which take languages as systems of meaning encapsulation, it will be argued that meaning is inherently indeterminate and constantly re-created. Individuals respond to their communicational choices in ways that are not reducible to abstract and pre-given linguistic and cultural categories, although these categories still provide individuals with models to classify their personal experiences. Finally, it will be shown that in the field of anthropology, a number of researchers have provided insightful models for rethinking linguistic categories in a non-essentialist way, drawing on notions of experience, performance, storytelling and indexicality. Meta-analytical interpretative tools will be deployed to address the issue of linguistic and cultural reification set out in the body of the thesis. / published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The historical socio-political development of South Africa renders a unique environment in respect of the influence of ‘Western’ cultural values impacting on ‘African’ values. This papers sets out to reflect on the values held by African youth based on a pre-existing ‘Western’ scale. In the first instance the nature of values is considered with a particular focus on group and organisational interaction. This is followed by the consideration of ‘African’ realities and their impact on trends towards convergence and divergence of values. The third part of the paper reflects on data collected from 182 young Africans by considering the nature and validity of value clusters. Overall the data provide mixed results in thatclusters show different levels of cohesiveness (reliability) and importance. The most cohesive‘environment’ cluster is deemed least important while the least reliable clusters of ‘family life’ and‘lifestyle’ are deemed significantly more important. Although more reliable as clusters, the ‘job andwork’ and ‘social and community’ clusters are deemed more important.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

People mentally represent information, objects, and events in a variety of ways. The purpose of the present program of research was to investigate how culture affects the way people represent temporal information. I hypothesized that increased temporal distance would lead Canadians to think more abstractly, and that this shift toward abstraction would be smaller, or non-existent, among Chinese. To test this hypothesis, I ran three studies with 490 participants in Canada and China (237 Canadian participants and 253 Chinese participants). In Study 1, Canadians preferred to describe actions more abstractly in the distant future than near future, and Chinese did not show this shift. In Study 2, Canadians generated fewer categories in the distant future than in the near future, whereas Chinese did not differ across time. In Study 3, Canadians recalled information about a target event either within two days after the event occurred or approximately two weeks later. Consistent with my hypotheses, Canadians’ coded responses shifted toward abstraction with increased temporal distance, and Chinese did not show such a shift. A meta-analysis based on all three studies revealed that Canadians mentally represent distal events and objects more abstractly and in a less detailed way than proximal events and objects, and that Chinese showed no time effect. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2008-02-29 15:11:16.087

No description available.