The Presentation of Avatars in Second Life: Self and Interaction in Social Virtual Spaces

What do interactions in virtual spaces suggest about everyday life in the digital age? How do interactions in virtual spaces shape everyday life in the digital age? Guided by hypermodern theory, I conduct participant observation in the social virtual world Second Life to provide tentative answers to those questions. I suggest that Second Life is both a social psychological playground where participants enjoy individualistic fantasies and a virtual community where they collaborate on collective projects. When people define the virtual as real, it is real in its consequences. Accordingly, social virtual spaces such as Second Life offer sociologists unique opportunities for research, education, intervention, and hence the development of a virtual imagination.     

The Symbolic Dilemmas of Suburban Poverty: Challenges and Opportunities Posed by Variations in the Contours of Suburban Poverty1

Poverty has increased significantly in U.S. suburbs since the 1990s. What we know about suburban poverty is largely limited to demographic and economic information. Building off the organizational perspective approach, I use in‐depth interviews with nonprofit, antipoverty organizations in eight Pennsylvania suburbs to better understand the suburban poverty experience. My focus is on how organizations compete for external resources. By working directly with the poverty problem while also working in broader metropolitan political and economic fields of decision making, this “middleman” role ( Marwell, 2007 ) gives us insights into contemporary poverty dynamics for suburbs. I find that how suburban organizational leaders perceive the challenges they face, and what strategies they adopt to confront such difficulties, revolves around symbolic dilemmas posed by the history, distribution, and politics of poverty in the suburbs. Symbolic dilemmas cluster around three different situational contexts of poverty in the suburbs. I use this to develop a three‐part typology of suburban poverty: symbiotic suburbs, skeletal suburbs, and overshadowed suburbs. This typology has implications for future research and for policymakers interested in developing tools to appropriately address this pressing issue.     

实训室中高职酒店英语情景教学模式探究（二）

目前,在英语课堂中运用情景教学法已经得到许多教师的认同,并且有相当数量的教师已经在应用情景教学模式。但是高职院校如何展开酒店英语课程的情景教学,仍然是酒店管理专业教师面临的课题。本文以酒店实训室为依托,就酒店英语展开情景教学存在的问题加以剖析并提出了解决的对策。     

Multimodal representational gestures in the transition to multi-word productions

The aim of this study was to analyze the use of representational gestures from a multimodal point of view in the transition from one-word to multi-word constructions. Twenty-one Spanish-speaking children were observed longitudinally at 18, 21, 24, and 30 months of age. We analyzed the production of deictic, symbolic, and conventional gestures and their coordination with different verbal elements. Moreover, we explored the relationship between gestural multimodal and unimodal productions and independent measures of language development. Results showed that gesture production remains stable in the period studied. Whereas deictic gestures are frequent and mostly multimodal from the beginning, conventional gestures are rare and mainly unimodal. Symbolic gestures are initially unimodal, but between 24 and 30 months of age, this pattern reverses, with more multimodal symbolic gestures than unimodal. In addition, the frequency of multimodal representational gestures at specific ages seems to be positively related to independent measures of vocabulary and morphosyntax development. By contrast, the production of unimodal representational gestures appears negatively related to these measures. Our results suggest that multimodal representational gestures could have a facilitating role in the process of learning to combine meanings for communicative goals.     

The Past in the Present. Lessons on Semiotics of History from George H. Mead and Boris A. Uspensky

This article examines the parallels between George H. Mead's theory of time and Boris A. Uspensky's semiotics of history, looking for implications relevant to the symbolic interactionist theory of historical processes. It suggests that Mead's theory of time and theory of communication hold important implications for semiotic analysis of the historical dimension of sociocultural phenomena. A further aim is to link the symbolic interactionist tradition of the Chicago school with the Tartu school and its semiotics of history. This would fuel the further development of both theoretical orientations.     

Whither the Internal Conversation?

The internal conversation has a venerable place in the symbolic interactionist tradition but has been the focus of little empirical research by interactionists. After reviewing selected research on the internal conversation (most by noninteractionist sociologists or nonsociologists), we argue that interactionists ought to conduct research of our own to examine claims we have been making and to better understand social life. We propose some worthy areas and avenues of investigation.     

冲动性购买情境下消费者后悔影响的实证研究

采用情境投射与普通问卷相结合的多样化研究方法,探讨冲动性购买负面后果的影响以及不同归因的消费者受影响程度是否不同。结果表明,如果第一次冲动性购买行为带来负面后果,再次遇到类似情境时消费者的购买冲动性和认知评价都会受到较大影响,他们往往降低自身的购买冲动性,倾向于不再购买,并且对下一次购买具有负面的认知评价。同时,不同归因的消费者对再次冲动性购买的认知评价存在差异。     

《献给爱米丽的一朵玫瑰花》写作手法浅析

《献给爱米丽的一朵玫瑰花》是20世纪伟大的小说家福克纳的最优秀的短篇小说之一。该篇小说运用了非传统的写作手法,使故事更具神秘性与吸引力。这种非传统的写作手法主要表现在以下几个方面:独特的叙事角度、经典的时序倒错法和浓重的象征色彩。     

中国古代数学家李冶数学文化及教育思想研究

李冶是中国数学史上宋元四大名家之一,他不仅是一位杰出的数学家,而且也是一名著名的教育家。他先进的数学文化及教育思想对现代高校数学教育仍然具有很强的指导和借鉴意义。本文主要从李冶辉煌的数学成就、先进的数学文化观和认识论、先进的数学教育理念以及卓越的实践教育活动等对李冶数学文化及教育思想进行系统研讨,旨在从中得到新的教益和启发。