Asperger’s was eliminated as a distinct diagnosis in the DSM-5. While controversy lingers over the assimilation of Asperger’s into autism spectrum disorder, my study explores the experience of stigma through interviews with four adults with Asperger’s and two with high functioning autism. I examine the phenomenology of autistic stigma, stigma management, and how stigma is impacted by diagnosis. The results provide an understanding of stigma as it is experienced by individuals who, in the words of one participant, suffer from a “relationship disability.” The term ASHFA evolves during the write-up to become more than an acronym for Asperger’s/high functioning autism; it comes to represent a way of being present in the world that transcends diagnosis. A relational methodology derived from Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology provides a philosophical framework for the project and also guides ethical engagement during the study. Methods used in the data analysis are drawn from constructivist grounded theory. The report itself may contain clues into ASHFA because I, the organizing participant, am also diagnosed with Asperger’s. I attempt to make sense of the paradoxical conclusion that diagnosis can provide a therapeutic explanation for autistic difference even as medicalization disempowers us as a validating narrative / Graduate / 0452 / 0422 / canadagates@gmail.com

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

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Parliamentary talk, despite its central place in politics, has not been the focus of many qualitative studies. The present study investigates how parliamentary talk emerges in a dialogue between different arguments in the parliament. At the same time, this is a study of politics, of how human interaction gives birth to laws that regulate life in two contemporary democracies, Slovakia and Poland. It provides a close-reading of two political debates: on the state language in Slovakia and on gender parity in Poland. This study draws on hermeneutic and semiotic thinkers such as Gadamer, Bakhtin and Lotman to elaborate a dialogical understanding of language that can provide the basis for a method of textual analysis. The dialogical understanding of language emphasises that text and talk must be studied in the context of an interaction. The unit of analysis is a pair of utterances, a question and an answer. Until an utterance has been interpreted, it carries only the potential of meaning; its meaning is materialised by the responses it receives. The study further argues that conversation analysis and its tools can usefully be applied to the study of political debate. The method provides for the analysis of the dynamics between micro-scale interaction in the parliament and the macro-scale dynamics of culture. These dynamics assume two different forms that Lotman termed as “translation” and “explosion”. The study shows that parliamentary debate is characterised by a constantly evolving topic of discussion, namely that the meaning of the bill at the start of the debate and at the end of the debate are really two different bills. This is not because the content of the bill has undergone changes, but because in the course of the debate, the bill has generated new cultural connections. Casting a vote in support of the bill does not approve just the bill itself but a whole set of interconnected political, social and cultural values—what Lotman approached as the semiosphere. This study suggests Lotman’s cultural semiotics can provide for “imperfect hermeneutics” that is sensitive to the dynamic and contested nature of tradition in politics whilst acknowledging the inevitability of culture in mediating political talk.

This thesis attempts to discover the hermeneutic orientation of the English School&rsquo / s approach to international relations. It is argued that the English School approach has a distinctive interpretivist character. The thesis concentrates on the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Wight. Martin Wight&rsquo / s anti-positivism, the historical character of his analysis of the traditions in international theory, and the centrality of language in his studies shows strong resemblance to Hans-Georg Gadamer&rsquo / s hermeneutics. The main purpose of this thesis is to show the relationship between the hermeneutics and the English School approach by discovering the common points between the thoughts of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Wight.

Zugl.: Heidelberg, University, Diss., 2005.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-273). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-230).

Zugl.: Kassel, Univ., Diss., 2007