Terminological databanks as the bodies of knowledge: Slovenian public relations terminology

The aim of the research project Terminology Databanks as the Bodies of Knowledge: The Model for the Systematisation of Terminologies is to compile a dictionary of Slovenian public relations, with 2000 entries. The terms will be explained and translated into English, with typical context, examples. From July 2013, the dictionary will be publicly available on www.termania.net.     

Some reflections on song theory,signed song and traditional song

In this article I will aim to present results of research which deals with the French word ‘chanson’ and song theory. My observations will be conducted within a metalinguistic and a linguistic corpora. My corpora was largely constituted by works published in France in addition to other countries in Europe. The study of European dictionaries has shown me how important the French song culture has become in German dictionaries (in which chansonnier and chanson de geste sometimes appear) and in Italian dictionaries (in which chansonnier as a synomym of cantaautore appears). This presentation contains some diachronical and theoretical observations. The research appears to be the first significant research conducted about the vocabulary of song in French. This will finally lead us to present the theoretical vocabulary that we have created to study song phenomena.     

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? the theory construction movement revisited

Using book publication dates as markers, I divide the movement of (formal) theory construction into two periods. The first period started in 1954 and lasted for about a decade; the second period started in 1965 and ended in 1972. I argue in this paper that the publication of a dozen more books on how to construct scientific theories in the seven years after 1965 marked the beginning of the end of, rather than the end of the beginning of, the theory construction movement in sociology. Although the formal mode of theory construction is dead now, efforts toward theory construction will never end. I conclude by delineating the major features of a new approach to theory construction that has been emerging in sociology.     

类推在原型范畴认知理论中的作用

文章从认知语言学中的原型范畴理论观察了类推在其中的作用和地位,结论是,类推在范畴原型认知中起了催化剂的作用。     

The origin of semilingualism: Nils-Erik Hansegård and the cult of the mother tongue

‘Semilingualism’ is one of the most questionable theories produced in the language sciences. Yet, little is known about its origins. We present a critical account of the history of semilingualism, tracing its roots in the work of Nils Erik Hansegård, (1918–2002), inaugural chair of Sámi at Umeå University (1975–1979), who developed a theory of semilingualism (halvspråkighet) in the 1960s. We show how Hansegård theorized semilingualism using ideas from Nazi German linguistics, producing an unforgiving theory of linguistic pathology directed at minoritized bilinguals in Sweden's far north.     

Does one size fit all? The applicability of situational crisis communication theory in the Japanese context

This study investigates the suitability of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) for the Japanese context. The existence of considerable cultural differences between Japan and the United States in terms of responsibility attribution and account giving, which form the foundation of SCCT, suggest a potentially limited applicability of the framework in the Japanese context. In this study, the impact of crisis type and crisis response on corporate reputation was measured for 470 Japanese respondents participating in a 4 (crisis type: misdeed, accident, tampering, and workplace violence) ☓ 3 (crisis response: SCCT recommended response, culturally adjusted response, or no response) between-subjects experimental design. The results reveal that SCCT is only partially applicable to the Japanese context. Crisis responsibility as operationalized by SCCT fails to capture less causality-focused aspect of Japanese responsibility judgments. Implications of the findings for SCCT are discussed.     

Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally

Recent research has usefully documented the contribution that nonprofit organizations make to social capital and to the economic and political development it seems to foster. Because of a gross lack of basic comparative data, however, the question of what it is that allows such organizations to develop remains far from settled. This article seeks to remedy this by testing five existing theories of the nonprofit sector against data assembled on eight countries as part of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. The five theories are: (a) government failure/market failure theory; (b) supply-side theory; (c) trust theories; (d) welfare state theory; and (e) interdependence theory. The article finds none of these theories adequate to explain the variations among countries in either the size, the composition, or the financing of the nonprofit sector. On this basis it suggests a new theoretical approach to explaining patterns of nonprofit development among countries—the social origins approach—which focuses on broader social, political, and economic relationships. Using this theory, the article identifies four routes of third-sector development (the liberal, the social democratic, the corporatist, and the statist), each associated with a particular constellation of class relationships and pattern of state-society relations. The article then tests this theory against the eight-country data and finds that it helps make sense of anomalies left unexplained by the prevailing theories.     

How publics use social media to respond to blame games in crisis communication: The Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg 2010

Crisis communication scholarship has been criticized for its “managerial bias” and for its tendency to marginalize the perspective of publics and audiences. However, the understanding of how publics cope with and interpret crises is crucial for developing the body of knowledge in crisis communication, from both critical and managerial/functionalist perspectives. This case study of the Love Parade crisis in Germany 2010 aimed at exploring how publics perceived the crisis response of the festival organizers and how they used social media to communicate about it shortly after the outbreak of the crisis. A content analysis of 1847 postings at two relevant message boards produced support for the assumption that attributions of cause and responsibility are important predictors of publics’ evaluations of organizations in crisis situations. Findings also revealed that stakeholders actively engage in such attributional inferences spontaneously without being prompted by researchers. The analysis of responsibility perceptions as well as evaluative judgments over time supported the situational crisis communication theory. Blaming others and denying responsibility in the context of a crisis that was perceived as human error accident triggered negative reputational outcomes for the organizations involved in the Love Parade.     

Positivism in sociological research: USA and UK (1966-1990)

Positivism has been declared dead in sociological theory circles, yet questions remain as to its viability among researchers. The authors present diagnostic evidence about positivism in sociological practice through a content analysis of journal articles published in the late 1960s and the late 1980s in the sociological journals of the USA and Britain. Using an index based on seven elements of positivism that were characteristic of the 'theory construction' movement of the late 1960s, the authors find evidence of the effects of time and nation on the use of positivism. Disaggregation of the index reveals that most of the observed change is associated with the elements of 'instrumental' positivism, particularly statistics. The results raise questions about the relationship between theory and research and about sociologists' philosophies of science.     

A Qualitative Sociological Approach to Address Issues of Diversity for Social Work

ABSTRACT

This article identifies prevailing conceptual approaches employed to formulate issues of diversity for social work research and practice. It argues that the notions of “welfare” and “diversity” are customarily defined within unduly narrow realms. “Welfare” is normally defined from the ideological perspective of modern mainstream society, even though competing minority ideologies of “welfare” are both possible and evident. “Diversity” is normally organized around the central concept of “ethnicity,” even though the universality of this notion is questionable. In response a research approach to address these limitations is proposed which employs a sociological perspective and qualitative methodology to discern appropriate conceptual frameworks.     

Climate change: a complex societal process; analyzing a problem according to the Compram methodology

Abstract

In this article some issues about the theory of societal complexity are explained: what are complex societal problems and how should these be handled. The problem of climate change is used as an illustration. The Compram methodology is a methodology based on the theory of societal complexity that gives guidelines to handle reallife complex societal problems such as climate change. Handling according to the Compram methodology supports defining and changing a complex societal problem in a sustainable way. In this article the focus of the methodology is on the relation between the steps in the Compram methodology and the problem-handling phases.