Avoiding "The Issues" as Addressivity in US Electoral Politics

Lempert, Michael

doi:10.1353/anq.2011.0016

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Sometimes, taboo means that something is so forbidden that it is even forbidden to mention. Much research has focused on taboo expressions, taboo talk, verbal taboo, taboo topic and taboo discourse, and on containment efforts and linguistic repression, such as euphemisms, register-shift, code-switching and footing shift (Tylor 1913;Frazer 1963;Leach 1964;Read 1964;Douglas 1966;Hill and Irvine 1993;Billig 1997;Coupland and Jaworski 2003;Pinker 2007;Fleming and Lempert 2011;Irvine 2011;Lempert 2011).…”

Section: Taboo and Tabooingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Compassion is Making It Worse: Social Dynamics of Tabooing Victims of Child Sexual Abuse

Nielsen

2015

Sexuality & Culture

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The paper explores the social dynamics of tabooing, using sexual abuse of children as an example. Some social categories are problematic to embrace, because they entail socially problematic category bound activities in an emotional context of guilt and shame. This theoretical paper shows how a victim of sexual abuse as a child may suffer from two separate offenses, a sexual and a social; one caused by actions of the offender, one caused by actions of intended helpers. By ascribing an identity of 'incest victim' or 'victim of child sexual abuse' to a person, the taboo act becomes linked to the person. This may be an inescapable ascribed identity for the person, leading her/him to be subject of both sexual and social offenses. As a consequence, potential 'victims' may have troubled affiliation with such identity casting, and may fight a future tabooed role by not reporting tabooed abusive actions, hence not receiving the help needed to recover. Keywords Taboo Á Sexual abuse Á Children Á Category bound activities Á Interaction Á Identity The aim of this paper is to use micro sociology and structural semantics to explore the dynamics of tabooing theoretically. The paper will discuss why tabooing is This paper was originally presented at the conference Køn-Kraenker-Offer [Gender-Offender-Victim], Hindsgavl Slot, Middelfart, 2008, organized by ''Forskningsnetvaerket om seksuelle overgreb mod børn'' and Servicestyrelsen [''Research network on sexual assaults against children'' and the department of Ministry of Social Affairs]. It was later revised and presented at The Danish Conference of Sociology themed Troubled Identities, University of Aarhus, 2012, in the panel Affiliation, Identity and Interaction, organized by Birte Asmub and Jakob Steensig. I am grateful for all participant comments at these occasions.

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Section: Taboo and Tabooingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Compassion is Making It Worse: Social Dynamics of Tabooing Victims of Child Sexual Abuse

Nielsen

2015

Sexuality & Culture

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“…The text‐metrical or poetic features of the interaction are important to see how discourse is metapragmatically typified by its structural unfolding (Jakobson ; Silverstein ). Agha (:100) and Lempert (, ) have shown that cross‐turn text‐metrical structures can map onto features of social relations and interactional stance that may not be explicitly articulated. In line 16, Yasmin says, “Listen ignorant.…”

Section: “There Was Nothing Racial That I Said”: Racism On Survivormentioning

confidence: 99%

Reality Television and the Metapragmatics of Racism

Pardo

2013

J Linguistic Anthropol

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In the contemporary United States, racism is commonly thought to be located in the hearts and minds of a particular negatively valorized social figure: the "racist." Racist discourse is often implicit and indexical, and interracial interactions may be overdetermined by mutual "racial paranoia" (Jackson 2008) about interlocutors' true thoughts. In this paper I argue that the reality television genre has a unique engagement with tropes of authenticity and intentionality that exploits this dynamic of suspicion. I take as an example a conflict that occurred on an episode of Survivor around comments made by a White southern man to an African American woman. In the scenes analyzed, racial paranoia is itself mobilized as a narrative hook. Participants prod each other to reveal the indexical meaning that they suspect is underlying each other's utterances, showing a perceived incongruence between language and intention. Casting, production, and editorial practices contribute to the dramatization of racism as interpersonal conflict. I show that interventions like sound mixing, the use of testimonial interviews, and the editorial placement of reaction shots reinscribe broader cultural oppositions between "authentic" mental states and "false" performed identities.

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“…The language‐oriented analysis of policy undertaken in this article is aimed at bringing culture and history into studies of governance. More specifically, it demonstrates some of the ways in which small‐scale, localized, language‐oriented instances of policy “making” can have far‐reaching impacts (Brenneis ; Groth ; Lempert ; Silverstein ). A model of intertextuality proves useful here (Briggs and Bauman ), in that persons giving testimony must attempt to maintain a narrow intertextual gap with respect to the USTR's “mandate” if they hope to make an impression.…”

Section: More Than Just Watchingmentioning

confidence: 99%