"The papers within this volume articulate the challenges perceived by an individual or a country when its sense of self is confronted by the foreign, the threatening. Migration, exile, and invasion all challenge the individual or the nation to redefine itself and thereby write and rewrite the concept of personal and national identity. This interdisciplinary collection of papers, published for the first time, provide a stimulating and varied set of insights into the ongoing conversation that maps identity"--P. [4] (...) of cover. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze the use of swearwords in Greek teenage storytelling. Our research is based on the analysis of conversational narratives that occurred in two conversations between male adolescents who belong to different social groups. Our analysis shows that the use of swearing in the story performances enables the narrators (1) to construct for themselves the identity of the powerful members of a group who share strong friendship bonds and challenge authorities in the first conversation, and (2) (...) to project the identity of individuals who conform to mainstream values in the second conversation. Therefore, we suggest that swearing can be an effective linguistic tool for the construction and negotiation of diverse youth identities, i.e. the acceptance of or the departure from social norms, in the unfolding of narrative speech. (shrink)

This article explores contemporary development of a minority of Muslim in the largest Muslim country Indonesia. It closely examines the minority Muslim Papuan and looks at the construction and the institutionalisation of Muslim identity in post-special autonomy of Papua. Through a series of fieldwork in Jayapura, the capital of the Papua Province, in 2016 and reviews of documents, the article argues that the Council of Papuan Muslim serves not only a the association of minority Muslim Papuan but also (...) as a political instrument for the minority to fight for equality in Papuan public sphere. Importantly, the Muslim Papuan try reconcile the popular, but contradicted, notion of Muslim -and Islam- as newcomer -if not to mention as the colonial- in Papua and the presence of Muslim as a symbolic expectation for progress of the Papuan in general. Thus, the institutionalization of Islam, through the establishment of The Majelis Muslim Papua in Papua resorts as an ample case where multiculturalism is tested in contemporary Indonesia. (shrink)

Paradoxically, in contemporary human and social sciences, dominated by materialist philosophy, the bodily dimension of the human person is often underestimated. Hence, for example, the idea for pro...

The question of what subjects Paul addresses in his letters has been a matter of debate in New Testament scholarship. This debate shows the evolution of Pauline studies, whereby early scholars argued that Paul addressed topics ranging from questions of human existence, to relations between Jews and Gentiles, and even topics connecting Paul with the Roman Empire. Most of these scholars view Paul mainly from a religious perspective, particularly in terms of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. However, viewing Paul (...) from a Jewish versus a Christian religious perspective only fails to present the multivalent function of the Pauline corpus. This article employs social identity theory to read Galatians 3:1–10 in order to defend the argument that Paul employs his letters to construct a superordinate identity for his community which embraces not only political perspectives but also has religious and economic trajectories.Contribution: The application of identification, contest and comparison, concepts derived from sociology, to analyze Galatians 3:1-10 in reference to 1st century economic, religious and political contexts to explain the multivalent nature of early Christian identity, contributes to multidisciplinary research aspects of Biblical studies which is in tandem with the scope of HTS Theological Journal. (shrink)

We study the life story of a former SS Leibstandarte soldier and we focus on the way the narrator deals with face threats by negotiating his identity constructions. The interviewee positions himself as a sportsman and an ignorant soldier, thus constructing denial of knowledge of and agreement with Hitler's ideology. These identities can be considered to be complementary, but they are built in quite different ways: the narrator explicitly presents himself as a sportsman, but mitigates his implicit construction (...) of ignorance. Given the social and historical context, this contrast in degree of explicitness is expected since the ignorance claim has been the subject of many previous discourses and debates of this subject. (shrink)

A large number of investigations have highlighted the importance of incorporating literary texts into English language teaching programs. Nevertheless, there are scarce studies on how short stories from L1 and L2 literature play a role in reconstructing learner identity in tertiary contexts. The present research study examines the identities of four non-native undergraduate students concerning aspirations for language investment or consumption. Data collection instruments were semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and diary writings. The materials taught in the course consisted of (...) three translated Persian and four target fictions related to loyalty and justice. The researchers used qualitative content analysis to explore the language learners’ self-images of initial, story-based, and prospective learning stages. Nearly all the participants regarded language learning as language consumption for pleasure in different stages except for the future aspiration stage; they did not aspire for personal economic benefits. The findings may enlighten curriculum designers in EFL contexts to incorporate literary texts from the native and target cultures into language education materials to provide opportunities for learners to experience diverse identities and meet individual preferences. (shrink)

In this paper, I report on a quasi-case study of U.S. presidential identity based on Donald J. Trump’s presidency, demonstrating that Trump is considered by the American public as an antithesis of presidentiality. I then discuss the insights from this study on several critical issues that face identity studies, an expansive area of investigation which has attracted the attention of students from a diverse range of disciplines. I demonstrate that identity is a set of attributes the formation (...) of which is based on the mission of the group and the expected behaviors of members of that group, that the construction of identity is largely a bottom-up and gradual process, and that identity is both preexisting and emergent. (shrink)

This article explores the discursive construction of a professional flight attendant identity in a corpus of reports written by FAs and voluntarily submitted to a US government agency. The article argues that writing and submission of the reports by FAs can be seen as a performative act, which heightens aviation institutional ideologies whilst foregrounding safety-related practices. Moreover, the narratives make frequent use of the intersubjective relation of adequation and distinction in their situated construction of identity, with (...) FAs excluding pilots from discursive constructions of the inflight crew. This distancing of pilots is counter to the “team” ideology in commercial aviation upon which much flight safety is predicated. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show the importance of intercultural competence for identity construction in a globalized world. Pedagogical, as well as methodological approaches are given to show how intercultural competence is implemented by Ethnologie in Schule und Erwachsenenbildung, a Germany-based NGO.

New technological developments have fundamentally transformed human life. Throughout this process, fundamental questions about human beings have once again been posed. The paper examines how technological change affects understandings of human beings and their bodies, thereby requiring new approaches to anthropology. First, Section 2 illustrates how the use of technology has changed the understanding of human beings and their bodies. A new connection between the human being or the body and technology has emerged. Section 3 then moves onto considering the (...) increasing blurring of the boundaries between organisms and machines, showing how the understanding of humans and bodies is constantly being renegotiated in relation to machines. Based on this, Section 4 explores how the understanding of the human being and the body can be redesigned in the context of modern technology. To this end, approaches for a contemporary anthropology can be derived from critical posthumanism. Section 5 addresses concrete practice and examines the construction of identity in social media platforms such as Instagram. The paper argues that technological processes and social media are places where theology is constructed and appeals for a responsible theological co-creation of these places. It advocates that technology offers the opportunity to question traditional anthropological concepts and to renegotiate understandings of the human being and the body. -- Puzio, Anna: Digital and Technological Identities – In Whose Image? A philosophical-theological approach to identity construction in social media and technology. In: Cursor (2021). (shrink)

The present study attempts to investigate and analyze the relationship between the language used by the Hui nationality, its social situation, and identity construction from a sociosemiotic perspective, and makes a further discussion on the process of identity construction via language convergence, divergence, and maintenance. It goes further to put forward the distinction between social identity/ethnic identity and group identity/personal identity as well as the roles that language convergence and divergence have played (...) within these identity constructions, proposes that language convergence and divergence are the two crucial language strategies utilized by people in code switching, therefrom constructing a dynamic balanced identity system recursively. (shrink)

In this article I explore the ways in which legal language, discourses, and narratives construct new dominant identities for women who kill their children. These identities are those of the ‘bad’, ‘mad’, or ‘sad’ woman. Drawing upon and critiquing statutes, case law, and sentencing remarks from England and Wales, I explore how singular narrative identities emerge for the female defendants concerned. Using examples from selected cases, I highlight how the judiciary interpret legislation, use evidence, and draw upon gender stereotypes in (...) carefully constructing macro-narratives which produce gendered identities for filicidal women, thus nullifying the challenge these women pose to appropriate femininity and the motherhood mandate. Each of the narrative identities discussed deny the agency of the female defendants that they are attached to, albeit in subtly different ways, by denying their ability to make any degree of choice in relation to their filicidal actions. Although such identity construction and agency denial may not always be damaging to these filicidal women per se, its pervasiveness within legal discourse reinforces and reproduces damaging gender stereotypes surrounding women and femininity. (shrink)

Research in the field of Chinese as a foreign language education has been increasing in the past decades. However, the number of studies on CFL teacher identity is limited. To bridge the gap, this study employed a qualitative method to explore Chinese CFL teachers’ identity formation and reformation in Australian contexts. A Chinese-Australian language program was studied to examine the challenges, struggles and developments of Chinese CFL teachers who came to Australia to pursue professional growth. Five Master’s theses (...) and three interview participants were included to paint a picture of how Chinese CFL teachers interact internally and externally with a new environment. Guided by Mead’s theory of self and other, we found that Chinese CFL teachers’ identity formation and reformation in Australian classrooms are deeply influenced by their self-identification and their integration with others in the community. Cultural connectedness is a key for organizational attitudes in the relationship of self and other. Chinese CFL teachers were found lacking the wholeness of self in Australian contexts, which led to obstacles in teacher identity construction. Insufficient communication between self and other resulted in their positioning crisis. (shrink)

This paper draws on an institutional logics perspective to illuminate a hitherto underexplored context for CSR professional identity construction. It draws on an empirical study of 65 CSR professionals in South Korea and aims to deepen our understanding of CSR professional identity construction by investigating the contested nature of the CSR professional field between, on the one hand, societal-normative expectations of the profession, and, in the absence of stable professional logics, CSR professionals’ desired professional identity, (...) on the other. Our study reveals how CSR professionals engage with, and respond to, this complexity through constructing one of three distinctive professional identities based on different logic constellations. This process reveals a snapshot of professional logics ‘in-the-making’. (shrink)

Using 16 in-depth interviews drawn from a larger sample of Black/white biracial individuals, this article explores how gender shapes the microlevel process of racial identity construction. Skin color stratification within the Black community, combined with a low rate of marriageable men and high rates of interracial marriages among the most educated and affluent Black men, has created a social context that differentiates the interactional experiences of biracial men and women. The findings highlight the need for more complex theoretical (...) conceptualizations of how gender shapes the way that women negotiate their racial identities in post-Civil Rights America. (shrink)

El presente artículo describe la conexión entre los espacios culturales rurales de la cultura mapuche y aquellos recreados en centros urbanos y su vinculación con la construcción de la identidad étnica en adolescentes mapuches urbanos. El estudio es cualitativo descriptivo y los datos se abordan desde el enfoque de análisis del discurso de la psicología discursiva y el enfoque de identidades espaciales de Proshansky . La muestra corresponde a treinta adolescentes mapuches hombres y mujeres residentes en la ciudad de Santiago (...) y treinta de la ciudad de Temuco, quienes participaron en entrevistas conducidas por un entrevistador mapuche. Los resultados revelan que el rol de los espacios culturales recreados en contextos urbanos es desarrollar una función mediadora del cambio desde el lugar de origen a nuevos espacios lo que permite reforzar la identidad étnica de los adolescentes. This article describes the connection between Mapuche rural cultural spaces and those re-created in urban areas and their connection with the construction of ethnic identity in urban Mapuche adolescents. This is a qualitative and descriptive study and the data is analyzed through the approach of discourse analysis of discursive psychology and considers the notion of place identity by Proshansky . The research population were thirty Mapuche adolescents living in Santiago and thirty living in Temuco. These adolescents were interviewed by a Mapuche interviewer. The findings reveal that the re-created urban cultural spaces fulfill a mediating role in the change from original places to new ones , which allows these adolescents to reinforce their ethnic identity construction. (shrink)

This discourse analytic study integrates theories of stance and membership categorization to investigate one online discussion thread initiated by a woman who asks for diet and health advice on behalf of her boyfriend, an interactive move we term ‘asking for another’. Posters to the thread, in relatively explicit ways, construe the original poster as a ‘nag’ and ‘mother-figure’ and her boyfriend as a ‘victim of nagging’ and ‘childish’. Our analysis illuminates how two features of the asking-for-another post evoke these identities: (...) extreme case formulations, created via adjectives and adverbs, lead others to view the woman as inappropriately involved and controlling and her boyfriend as immature, and details about the boyfriend’s diet, provided via nouns and adjectives, index cultural ideologies of food and identity. This study illuminates the ambiguity and polysemy of the move of asking for another, contributing to research on identity construction and health-related advice-seeking online. (shrink)

Based on a medical corpus, this study attempts to capture how doctors manage their emotions and construct their professional identity in treatment discussions. Using the Emotion Model and the Model of Epistemics and Deontics Gradient, I find that when their professional expertise is questioned or doubted, doctors highlight their epistemic rights and displays negative emotions; when their professional role is negated, doctors give the deontic rights to their patients and discharge negative emotions; and when their professional ethics is challenged, (...) doctors project their professional morality, reinforce their deontic rights and give vent to negative emotions. This study, by integrating the Confucian System of Moral Virtues with Emotion Model, establishes a theoretical framework for examining the association between emotion management and identity construction in Chinese medical discourse. (shrink)

Bien que les approches basées sur les déficits soient encore prédominantes en formation à l’enseignement, on reconnaît de plus en plus l’apport potentiel des approches basées sur les forces, afin de développer une identité professionnelle positive. Conséquemment, nous avons expérimenté une activité innovante d’écriture réflexive, basée sur la psychologie positive, auprès de 50 stagiaires en enseignement préscolaire/primaire au Québec. L’analyse de ces empreintes offre de dégager divers aspects constitutifs de l’identité professionnelle des stagiaires, de décrire l’évolution du processus de (...) class='Hi'>construction identitaire, ce qui permet d’apprécier la contribution de ce type d’activité pour rendre ce processus plus explicite. (shrink)

Drawing on data from 18 months of participant observation and interviews at a community health clinic in North Carolina, the author illustrates how an intersectional perspective deepens our understanding of the construction of a moral identity. In this case, the author examines the moral identity of health care providers—all women—who provide family planning and contraceptive counseling for women clients. The author analyzes how maternity care coordinators—two whites and two Latinas—craft a moral identity by drawing on the (...) cultural toolkit available to them, using gendered frames but also racial, class, and nationalist frames. An intersectional lens helps us better understand how maternity care coordinators' moral identities are shaped by their different locations within racism, classism, and nationalism. (shrink)

"Argues that active involvement in politics can be deeply fulfilling to the individual, and that the construction of identity for all activists is both about morality and about what one wants for oneself.

Within a perspective that views groups as communities of practice and sites of construction of knowledge, learning, and identity, this article aims to explore the contribution that participation in different groups over the course of one’s life provides to the development of the professional practices of psychotherapist trainees enrolled in the C.O.I.R.A.G. school, an Italian graduate program in group psychotherapy. Through qualitative analyses of 10 semi-structured interviews, our study empirically shows that by participating in groups, the trainees not (...) only learn the practices of that group but also develop a sort of meta-learning which takes place across groups. The results highlight that: Transversality, duration, and informality are found to be the group properties with the highest formative value; and Learning practices across different groups have common characteristics: are organized around complex topics of group life, began in early group experiences, are in continuous evolution, are associated with a critical event, and a negative affect. At the same time, it seems that these critical events are exactly what triggered and sustained the learning practices. Data from the interviews also showed how professional identities are constructed as the outcome of learning in different communities of practice. The study outlines how the experience made in different groups is elaborated in and through meaningful self-narratives, highlighting them as a fundamentally collective and culturally shaped sense-making process. Overall, these results contribute to a better understanding of learning processes as situated and jointly constructed through multiple group participations over time. Furthermore, they contribute to highlighting the role of self-narratives as a primary way through which trainees shape their identity as self-reflexive professionals who are competent in reading group dynamics. Directions for future research and suggestions for psychotherapist training paths are outlined in the conclusions. (shrink)

Support for independence in Catalonia has been rapidly increasing since 2010. Civil organisations have been instrumental in the secessionist movement and have used social media to mobilise the Catalan public and raise national consciousness. Drawing on theories of national identity, gender and nation, and the discursive construction of national identity, this article examines constructions of national identity and the gendered dimensions of these constructions in a Twitter corpus collected in the week up to the public consultation (...) on independence held in Catalonia in November 2014. Analysis of the contrasting representations of men and women found in the data suggests that, among both the elites and the public, the contemporary Catalan nationalist project continues to be built on traditional gender normative models of nationalism. The study concludes that this type of nationalism has now become so banal that it has been naturalised and suggests that a more inclusive approach may be needed in future campaigns or in the Catalan nationalist project as a whole. (shrink)

Intermediate labour markets provide fixed-term work opportunities and coaching for people in disadvantaged positions in labour markets. We study 46 sequences from six audio-recorded recruitment interviews for an ILM job targetted at people who have been unemployed for a prolonged period. Using an ethnomethodological approach to identity, membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis, we study how interviewers and candidates construct and negotiate who is fit for the ILM job. We present interactional moves through which the participants jointly construct the (...) ‘fit for the ILM job’ category and treat the candidate’s membership in it as a positive matter. Further, we demonstrate how the candidates are put in an interactionally difficult position in the interview as there are contradictory and ambiguous expectations about the ideal candidate. We discuss the results in relation to the interactional and institutional logics of a recruitment interview and suggest that enhancing the transparency might reinforce ethics of recruitment in ILMs. (shrink)

Technology assessment (TA) is a paradigmatic case for the manifold and, at times, ambiguous processes of identity formation of researchers in inter- and transdisciplinary settings. TA combines the natural, technical, and social sciences and follows the multiple missions of scientific analysis, public outreach, and policy advice. However, despite this diversity, it also constitutes a genuine community with its own discourses, conferences, and publications. To which extent “being a TA practitioner” also provides for a genuine scholarly identity is still (...) unclear. Building on interviews with technology assessment practitioners at an academic TA institute, we ask what inter/trans/disciplinary identification patterns emerge in this field. Our analysis shows that TA practitioners adopt multiple identities, from “enthusiastic TA practitioner” to “strong interdisciplinarian” or “disciplinarian” – with distinct identity troubles inherent in all these options. We find that generational affiliation plays a vital role in identity formation. It relates to different primary orientations (towards research or advisory practices), inter/disciplinary backgrounds, contracting modes, and lengths of time spent at the TA institute. We conclude firstly, that disciplinary categories figure strongly in transdisciplinary identities; secondly, that the relation of _chronos_ and identity warrants more substantial consideration: as time spent at a transdisciplinary institute as or as perceived options for “futuring one’s identity”; thirdly, that our understanding of academic generations could profit from a more sociological conception; and, fourthly, that TA’s multidisciplinary setup and threefold orientation towards science, society, and policy result in multiplying possible identities and thus making it difficult to form a stable community. (shrink)

By applying terminology from trauma theory and a methodological approach from comics scholarship, this essay discusses three graphic autobiographies of women. These are A Game for Swallows by Zeina Abirached, We are on our Own by Miriam Katin, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Two issues are at the centre of the investigation: the strategies by which these works engage in the much-debated issues of representing gendered violence, and the representation of the ways traumatized daughters and their mothers deal with the (...) identity crises caused by war. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 210 Seiten: 151-166.

When examining the history of early imperial China one is struck by the number of important personages, from Han Feizi 韓非子 and Yang Xiong 揚雄 to Guo Pu 郭璞 and Wang Wei 王微, who are described in biographical records as kouji 口吃. This paper contextualizes these descriptions by examining both the hermeneutical tradition regarding the language used to describe this condition and its evolving understanding in the traditional Chinese medical records. These two broad bodies of social understanding provide a compelling (...) tool for interpreting and contextualizing the many descriptions of individuals in the early imperial biographical tradition. It becomes clear when taken in this larger context and as a collective that this condition is not just a random oddity to be included in a biography as merely an outlying feature of an individual, but that disfluency was understood in the much more highly charged realm of language production and moral practice. It spoke to the long-standing tension over rhetorical skill versus moral intent, form versus content. Finally, what also emerges from the collective is a clearer understanding of the range of strategies that individuals with this disability found to navigate the specific social context of early imperial elite culture. It is out of these dual views, collective-moral and individual-functional, that this study provides insights into the lives of these highly influential individuals and adds layers to our understanding of the social and medical context for individuals with disabilities in early imperial China. (shrink)

Identity construction — the process of creating and building a new future self — is an integral part of a person’s professional career development. However, at present we have little understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underpin this process. Likewise, we have little understanding of the barriers that obstruct it, and which thus may contribute to inequality in career outcomes. Using a social identity lens, and particularly the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC), we (...) explore the process of academic identity construction among doctoral students. Through thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 22 PhD candidates, we observe that the identity construction process relies on a person’s perception of a navigable pathway between their current self and their future self. Importantly, participants who were able to access multiple identity resources were more likely to perceive a navigable pathway to a future professional self (e.g., as an academic), unless they perceived these identities to be incompatible with those held by leading members of the profession (e.g., their supervisors). This research suggests that the identities that people are able to access as they progress in their careers may play an important role in their ongoing professional identity construction and career success. (shrink)

Economic and political crisis situations are interpreted differently in different societies and cultures. What is perceived as a major threat in one society can be experienced as an everyday occurrence in other societies. This shows that crises are not issues that exist independently of people, but that they are to a large extent the result of social interpretations. An example of how a community interprets events as a surmountable challenge, rather than a crisis, is Argentina’s public discourse on the 2014 (...) default. Instead of a discourse that concentrates on economic, political and social problems, the event provoked a political discourse on national identity. The present paper uses the methods of descriptive discourse analysis to study this solution-driven way of handling crisis events. The investigation focuses on the cultural knowledge and discourse traditions used in Argentina to interpret the country’s situation in the summer of 2014. The study analyzes how these cultural and linguistic resources contribute to coping with the situation of default while strengthening national identity. (shrink)

Constructive deviance, rule-breaking to benefit the organization, is an emerging topic in the scholarly research and is considered to be an ethical decision. Despite the value of guiding constructive deviance in organizations, the effect of ethics-oriented leadership on employees’ constructive deviance remains unclear. This research identifies leader moral humility as a new antecedent of constructive deviance and examines how and when leader moral humility influences employee constructive deviance. Drawing on social–cognitive theory, we propose that leader moral humility fosters employee moral (...) identity, which in turn triggers employees to exhibit constructive deviance. Moreover, the mediating effect of moral identity is more pronounced when normative conflict with organizational rules is high, as this conflict inspires identity-driven behavior. Two studies with scenario-based experimental and time-lagged field methods provided general support for our hypotheses. Study 1 reveals that leader moral humility positively affects constructive deviance via employee moral identity. Study 2 replicates and extends Study 1 to support the moderating role of normative conflict. These findings enrich the understanding of constructive deviance by shedding light on the moral cognitive process in the relationship between leader moral humility and employee constructive deviance and by identifying the boundary condition for the relationship. (shrink)

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are building a new habitat (infosphere) in which future generations, living in advanced information societies, will spend an increasing amount of time. This paper introduces a series of articles that explore what constitutes a personal identity online (PIO) and how, as well as to what extent, individuals can learn to create, manage and perceive their PIOs in order to facilitate a healthy and rewarding online experience (onlife).

This paper argues in favor of a hybrid conception of identity. A common conception of identity in datafied society is a split between a digital self and a real self, which has resulted in concepts such as the data double, algorithmic identity, and data shadows. These data-identity metaphors have played a significant role in the conception of informational privacy as control over information—the control of or restricted access to your digital identity. Through analyses of various (...) data-identity metaphors as well as philosophical accounts of identity, we argue in favor of a hybrid conception of identity that emphasizes the relations between the ‘real’ and the ‘digital’. A hybrid conception of identity—where the digital is an aspect on par with social relations, self-understanding, and values—ultimately calls for an understanding of privacy as the right to influence one’s own identity. (shrink)

This paper is based on four assumptions concerning the analysis of the construction of collective identities. First, such construction, like power and economic relations, is an analytically autonomous basic component of the construction of social life. Second, such constructions have been going on in all human societies throughout history. Third, all such patterns of collective identity have been continually constructed from some basic yet continually changing building blocks, codes or themes - especially those of primordiality, civility (...) and `sacredness'. The paper focuses on the different patterns of modern nation states in the framework of the more general approach to the construction of collective identities. This analysis of different modern nation states indicates that despite common characteristics, there developed great differences in their construction; in the analysis of such differences it is very important to take into account the historical and civilizational backgrounds of the respective societies. (shrink)

With the assistance of the corpus analysis tool Wmatrix 4.0, this paper analyzes the semantic categories of the top 10 commercial banks of China and the United States to figure out their social-cultural behavior in the Internet business context. It is discovered that both common and distinctive identities were constructed: the common identities include the professional financial service provider, responsible corporation for employees, and relevant communities with environmental and social consciousness, while the distinctive identities are manifested in the communication strategy, (...) style, and persuasion mode: The Chinese Commercial Banks adopted the proactive strategy for corporate identity construction, are prone to take hierarchical and impersonal communication style, and more focused on the “credibility appeal” and “rational appeal” in persuasion mode; the commercial banks of the United States are more reactive in the communication strategy, position themselves in short distance with the putative audience in communication style, and conform to the typical “affective appeal” regarding the persuasion mode. From the intercultural perspective, the distinctions are the representation of the peculiar high-context culture and low-context culture based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. Chinese banks should try to shorten the cultural gap by adopting communication strategy in conformity with the local cultural when going global rather than sticking to the domestic communication strategy. (shrink)

The discursive production of the ‘self in the context of mental health care has potential implications for how the subjects of intervention come to understand and experience themselves. Eating disorders provide an illustrative example of the ways in which conceptualizations of the self that structure mental health practices can be gendered, because they are mainly diagnosed in women and dominant explanations of their origins are feminized. This discourse analytic study examines the gendered nature of mental health workers’ constructions of the (...) eating-disordered self through the psychological construct of ‘identity’, examining the dominant discourses implicated in the feminization of deficient identity, and addressing the implications of this construction for mental health practice. (shrink)

Abstract In contrast to the metaphysical, epistemological and psychological understandings of the self traditionally held and today still extensively considered in the West, the self in Confucianism is essentially an ethical concept, representing a holistic view of humanhood and a continuingly constructive process driven by self?cultivation and moral orientations. This paper first examines what is literally and philosophically meant by the self in these two traditions, then examines the contrasts or comparisons between the Confucian conception of the self and the (...) self as perceived in some strands of Western philosophy; and finally, interprets and analyses the constructively organic theory of the Confucian self, which is clearly differentiated from the self perceived in mainstream philosophy in traditional Europe and yet is being echoed in the more recent developments of Western philosophy and in the strong current of postmodernism. [1]. (shrink)