This study examines how South Africans construct and negotiate racial identities in written commentaries via a forum of the Mail@Guardian website Thought Leader in response to a blog by Ndumiso Ngcobo entitled “I’m a coconut and I am proud of it – say it with me.” Ngcobo’s ironic opinion piece, written in 2008, which plays with the label “coconut” (frequently employed in South Africa among “black” people in reference to another “black” person who seemingly behaves “white”), triggered 163 responses from individual readers. An essential point made by Ngcobo is that perceptions and attitudes around “whiteness” and “blackness,” or what can be considered “white” or “black” in racial terms, vary greatly, depending on circumstances and perspective. However, the author’s irreverent and ironic style is misunderstood and misinterpreted by many of the comment writers. Relying partially on the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyze the commentary texts and interpret the categories people use in their discursive constructions of race and identity by examining their stylistic choices and content markers and focusing on sociolinguistic and cultural issues. It is argued that the analyzed comments are representative not only of the pervasiveness of “rigid” race thinking but also of how intra-racial boundaries are constructed in the post-apartheid state.
The Ongota language, recently (1981) rediscovered idiom from southwest Ethiopia, paradoxically belongs to the best described languages of the region, although today the number of its speakers oscillate around 10 old persons, while most of the members of the tribe speak Tsamay. The recent descriptions were realized thanks to three scientific expeditions to Ongota: (1) Fleming et al. (including Pavel Mikeš, a former member of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) - 1990; (2) Kusia & Siebert - 1994; (3) Sáva & Tosco - 2000-01. On the basis of these three sources the present article analyzes the lexical data of Ongota common with Cushitic and Omotic.
Autor přijímá implicitní výzvu k dialogu nad knihou I. Markové nazvané Dialogičnost a sociální reprezentace. Všímá si toho, jak Marková rozebrala dvě situace – z Joyceova Odyssea a Havlovy Moci bezmocných. V jejím podání dominuje někdy v sociálním životě lidí jednání (jakožto znak) nad slovem, které o funkci znaku přichází. Oproti tvrzení o osudových dopadech jednání občanů na jejich identitu v minulém režimu autor formuluje myšlenku, že lidé nemuseli přicházet o autentičnost, i když nemluvili pravdu či byli „odpojeni“ od slov jakožto znaků. Polemizuje i s myšlenkou o nekomunikativnosti jazyka. Oproti teorii sociálních reprezentací se odvolává na analýzu diskurzu. V diskuzi pak nabízí jiné výklady „chování zelináře“.
This paper discusses the etymological nest of Dravidian and Altaic lexemes with the meaning “to bow, bend” and the terms for the “elbow,” “knee,” “ankle” as a dynamic etymological model. The lexemes have the general formal structure of the CVC- root with an initial dental (stop or nasal) and medial velars or labials. In the first section of the paper the verbs and some of their derivatives are listed and discussed also with regards to several overlapping etyma with different meanings. The second section sums up the terms for the body parts related etymologically to the respective verbs. In the conclusion select Altaic reconstructions are listed for comparison.
In recent years, Prof. Vacek has dealt systematically with various lexical classes as represented by the comparison of Dravidian and Altaic, be it verbs (Vcek 2003, 2004b), designations of various animals (Vacek 2002c, 2004a), or other lexemes with concrete (Vacek 2002a) or abstract (Vacek 2002b) referents. The comparison of Dravidian and Altaic done by other scholars is also discussed and the author refers readers to papers on the subject by K. H. Menges (1994, 1977) and K. V. Zvelebil (1991).
The article reflects on influential views of the mind that come from cognitive science and seem to undermine the traditional philosophical view that the mind is simply unified and transparent to itself. Specifical y, the modularity thesis is presented, along with its important modifications and criticisms, suggesting that the apparent unity can be ascribed only to higher cognition, if at all. Various theories of why the mind seems to be unified while being composed of autonomous modules are discussed. The overview results in the conclusion that our linguistic capacity plays a prominent role in the unity of the mind., Článek reflektuje vlivné pohledy na mysl, které pocházejí z kognitivní vědy a zdánlivě podkopávají tradiční filosofický názor, že mysl je jednoduše sjednocená a transparentní. Specifická y, modulační práce je představena, spolu s jeho důležitými modifikacemi a kritiky, navrhnout, že zdánlivá jednota může být připisována jen k vyššímu poznání, jestliže vůbec. Diskutovány jsou různé teorie, proč se mysl zdá být sjednocená, zatímco jsou složeny z autonomních modulů. Výsledkem je závěr, že naše jazykové schopnosti hrají v jednotě mysli významnou roli., and Martin Vraný
This text focuses on the motif of exile in the life and thought of Vilém Flusser, an author with Prague roots who developed his characteristic work devoted to the philosophy of language, the theory of communication and media after leaving Czechoslovakia. He was forced to flee from his homeland to South America, specifically Brazil, in the face of Nazism. He left there, once again by necessity, in the seventies due to a local military putsch. He experienced his second exile in the south of France. The article describes Flusser’s life-fortunes with regard to how they influenced the development of his thinking, extending his work and its reception. The second part of the text describes Flusser’s characteristic method and style of writing which, in comparison with the academic world, also appears to be “one of exile”. The third part endeavours to capture the basic approaches in thinking that are evinced across Flusser’s different philosophical subjects, among which we may also find the motif of the one standing elsewhere, outside, or at a distance.
The article provides a language analysis of the idea of progress. It briefly outlines the method of search for mimimal vocabulary as has been proposed by Bertrand Russell in Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits. Then it coniders the application of this method to a social theory, namely to the language used in a theory of progress. As and expample theory it uses the well known essay L´anciene regime et la revolution (1856) by Alexis de Tocqueville. The language of the theory is analyzed, abstracted expressions are pointed out and the minimal vocabulary is presented: it consists of verb-expressions "to see", "to be wrong", "to dobut", "to think", "to feel", "to be surprised", " to choose", "to express" and To rely"; of noun-expressions "demise", "cause", "change", "nature" and "banality" together with pronouns and logical expressions. The rules for construction of composed expressions and propositions are set up and a reconstruction of the object language is suggested. The abstract character of the method is reflected., Tomáš Holeček., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
In his criticism of my book Člověk a pravidla [Man and rules], Michal Ivan scrutinized my notion of implicit rule, concluding that it is flawed. In this contribution, I defend my approach, explaining the notion in greater detail. I state that my talk about the existence of an implicit rule refers to the social setting in which some kinds of social (especially linguistic) actions are governed by normative attitudes of the members of the society. These normative attitudes institute the propriety which make instances of actions of the kinds either correct or incorrect; hence people can follow or violate the rule, the rule can come into being, develop, and fade away - without it being explicitly articulated., Ve své kritice své knize Člověk Pravidla [ Člověk a pravidla ], Michal Ivan prozkoumány mé pojem implicitního pravidla, k závěru, že je chybné. V tomto příspěvku obhajuji svůj přístup a podrobněji vysvětluji pojem. Prohlašuji, že můj rozhovor o existenci implicitního pravidla odkazuje na sociální prostředí, ve kterém jsou některé druhy společenských (zejména jazykových) akcí řízeny normativními postoji členů společnosti. Tyto normativní postoje zakládají vhodnost, která činí případy těchto činů správné nebo nesprávné; lidé tak mohou pravidlo dodržovat nebo porušovat, pravidlo může vzniknout, rozvinout se a zmizet - aniž by to bylo výslovně vyjádřeno., and Jaroslav Peregrin
Inferentialism, as presented by Robert Brandom, is first and foremost a view of the nature of meaning: it is the view that meaning is fundamentally the role which an expression acquires by becoming governed by the rules of our language games. (Hence it is a certain kind of “use theory of meaning” familiar from post-Wittgensteinian discussions; according to inferentialism, however, meaning is not given by actual use, but rather by the rules of correct use.) In this text we attempt to draw very general consequences from this approach (consequences that go beyond what is to be found in the work of R. Brandom). We claim that meaning is generally a certain form of “entanglement” in a certain kind of human practice that is built up from the much more primitive building blocks of human abilities that enable us to adopt normative attitudes and, in general, to accept rules. And it is just these human abilities which have shifted us humans onto the evolutionary trajectory on which we are now proceeding and on which we are quickly leaving behind other kinds of animals. It is precisely this ability which has led to our becoming the only animal species which has supplemented standard biological evolution with a kind of evolution that we might call cultural, and which is incomparably faster and more effective.