The purpose of this Master’s Degree is to identify and understand different techniques of argumentation in written texts originating from the religious movement Jehovah's Witnesses. The purpose is also to contribute with a theoretical and methodological framework for other scholars. The focal point of the thesis is sexuality and how the authors of the texts try to convince the members to follow the movements' doctrines in this regard. I use a modified version of the well-established grounded theory method. The material is analyzed partly with concepts introduced by Mooney in 2005 but overall the analysis is made in an unbiased way without theoretical support. Theoretical models and terms are instead used in the final analysis to understand how the different techniques of argumentation are supposed to work. These theoretical models stems from, among others, Foucault, Meerloo, Ben-Ze'ev, Mooney, Berger och Luckmann, Granström and Rapp Young. In the Master’s Degree a great number of techniques are identified within the following five categories: Guilt, Doubt, To nurture instead of convincing, Seemingly logical arguments and Groupthinking. Within the category of Guilt the techniques play on the reader's feelings of guilt, and within the category of Doubt the techniques focus on the reader's feelings of doubt. To nurture instead of convincing is a collection of techniques with the purpose of nurturing already established notions and preconceptions among the readers. Seemingly logical arguments deals with techniques concerning semantic manipulation and lastly, techniques focused on groupthinking aims to bind the reader closer to the movement and tries to get them to reject the outside world. The goal here is for the members to achieve a state within group psychology known as groupthinking.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-34443 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Helmner, Fredrik |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper (KV) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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