Abstract In recent years the simulation argument, namely, the idea that our reality is a kind of computer-generated simulation developed for hidden purposes, has acquired some credit and has been appropriated by the conspiracy culture, especially in the works of David Icke, author of paranoid bestsellers and known for his pseudo-theory about Reptilian aliens who secretly rule our world. To understand the reasons for the success of such an implausible pseudo-theory, it is necessary to analyze its genealogy inside popular culture. The methodological proposal underlying this paper is that the analysis of conspiracy theories and pseudo-scientific beliefs can benefit from the contribution of the history of ideas, which traditionally focuses on the reconstruction of the genealogy and the metamorphosis of unit-ideas over time and through different cultural levels. In this way, it is possible to shed light on the background and the peculiar rationality behind these pseudo-theories. The paper highlights New Age appropriation mechanisms of the theories of physicist David Bohm and neuropsychiatrist Karl Pribram (holographic principle), in particular through the pseudoscientific works of the McKenna Brothers (The Invisibile Landscape, 1975) and Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe, 1991) as well as the impact of some sci-fi works based on the simulation argument, especially Philip K. Dick’s novels and The Matrix movie (1999), in exposing the paranoid and conspiracy implications of this argument. The paper also highlights the role of pseudo-scientific concepts as a characteristic aspect of contemporary superconspiracies, which in the age of rationalization and disenchantment seek to embrace a patina of science in order to be better accepted by the public. Wider application of this perspective to other cases of pseudo-scientific beliefs and contemporary conspiracy theories (e.g. flat Earth or chemtrails) could provide useful suggestions on the most effective way of counteracting them.
近年来,模拟理论,即我们的现实是一种计算机生成的模拟,用于隐藏目的的观点,获得了一定的信任,并被阴谋文化所利用,特别是在偏执型畅销书作者大卫·艾克的作品中,他以秘密统治我们世界的爬虫类外星人的伪理论而闻名。要理解这种难以置信的伪理论成功的原因,有必要分析其在大众文化中的谱系。本文的方法论建议是,对阴谋论和伪科学信仰的分析可以从思想史的贡献中受益,思想史传统上侧重于谱系的重建和单位思想随时间和不同文化水平的变形。这样,就有可能揭示这些伪理论背后的背景和独特的合理性。本文强调了物理学家David Bohm和神经精神病学家Karl Pribram(全息原理)理论的新时代盗用机制,特别是通过麦肯纳兄弟(The invisible Landscape, 1975)和Michael Talbot (The holographic Universe, 1991)的伪科学作品,以及一些基于模拟论证的科幻作品的影响,特别是Philip K. Dick的小说和The Matrix电影(1999)。揭露了这一论点的偏执和阴谋的含义。本文还强调了伪科学概念作为当代超级阴谋的一个特征方面的作用,在理性化和祛魅化的时代,伪科学概念寻求拥抱科学的镀层,以便更好地为公众所接受。将这一观点更广泛地应用于其他伪科学信仰和当代阴谋论(例如地球是平的或化学痕迹)的案例,可以为最有效地抵制它们提供有用的建议。
{"title":"Living in the Matrix: How a Scientific Conjecture was Turned into a Conspiracy Theory","authors":"Roberto Paura","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In recent years the simulation argument, namely, the idea that our reality is a kind of computer-generated simulation developed for hidden purposes, has acquired some credit and has been appropriated by the conspiracy culture, especially in the works of David Icke, author of paranoid bestsellers and known for his pseudo-theory about Reptilian aliens who secretly rule our world. To understand the reasons for the success of such an implausible pseudo-theory, it is necessary to analyze its genealogy inside popular culture. The methodological proposal underlying this paper is that the analysis of conspiracy theories and pseudo-scientific beliefs can benefit from the contribution of the history of ideas, which traditionally focuses on the reconstruction of the genealogy and the metamorphosis of unit-ideas over time and through different cultural levels. In this way, it is possible to shed light on the background and the peculiar rationality behind these pseudo-theories. The paper highlights New Age appropriation mechanisms of the theories of physicist David Bohm and neuropsychiatrist Karl Pribram (holographic principle), in particular through the pseudoscientific works of the McKenna Brothers (The Invisibile Landscape, 1975) and Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe, 1991) as well as the impact of some sci-fi works based on the simulation argument, especially Philip K. Dick’s novels and The Matrix movie (1999), in exposing the paranoid and conspiracy implications of this argument. The paper also highlights the role of pseudo-scientific concepts as a characteristic aspect of contemporary superconspiracies, which in the age of rationalization and disenchantment seek to embrace a patina of science in order to be better accepted by the public. Wider application of this perspective to other cases of pseudo-scientific beliefs and contemporary conspiracy theories (e.g. flat Earth or chemtrails) could provide useful suggestions on the most effective way of counteracting them.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84412424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper claims that conspiracy theories in Bulgaria are organized as a milieu rather than as a genre, and that, depending on their intensity, conspiracy theories can perform heterogeneous functions, which range from justification of political claims and popular mobilization to entertainment. Building on that conceptual framework, the paper illustrates the most prominent functional types of Bulgarian conspiracy theories. The higher-intensity theories are exemplified by the narratives of corruption and of the afterlife of the former communist secret services. The lower-intensity theories are illustrated by the fortunately short-lived question if the president of the United States has been abducted by aliens. The impact of the Bulgarian conspiratorial milieu on global theories is represented by the example of the Bulgarian modifications of the traveling narrative of the conspiracy of Jewish bankers. The emancipatory potential of the conspiracy theories is demonstrated by the example of the 2011 anti-GMO protests, motivated by narratives of conspiracy between the government and transnational corporations, which derived their energy from the associated milieu of ecological concerns.
{"title":"Capitalists, Spies and Aliens: Conspiracy Theories in Bulgaria","authors":"T. Hristov","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper claims that conspiracy theories in Bulgaria are organized as a milieu rather than as a genre, and that, depending on their intensity, conspiracy theories can perform heterogeneous functions, which range from justification of political claims and popular mobilization to entertainment. Building on that conceptual framework, the paper illustrates the most prominent functional types of Bulgarian conspiracy theories. The higher-intensity theories are exemplified by the narratives of corruption and of the afterlife of the former communist secret services. The lower-intensity theories are illustrated by the fortunately short-lived question if the president of the United States has been abducted by aliens. The impact of the Bulgarian conspiratorial milieu on global theories is represented by the example of the Bulgarian modifications of the traveling narrative of the conspiracy of Jewish bankers. The emancipatory potential of the conspiracy theories is demonstrated by the example of the 2011 anti-GMO protests, motivated by narratives of conspiracy between the government and transnational corporations, which derived their energy from the associated milieu of ecological concerns.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77532234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Readers and critics alike have bickered over the verisimilitude of Gulliver’s Travels since it was first published in 1726. No critical consensus has ever been reached even on some very fundamental interpreting issues. While several particulars of Swift’s satire appear to have been decoded and agreed upon, such as the parody of travel literature and the attack on Walpole’s corrupt administration, some others are still debated over, even after more than a century of modern criticism, such as the overall object of the universally reverberating satire and what it teaches us about Swift’s own values and worldview. Fully aware of the Gulliverian critical deadlock the world is still in, we suggest in the present article that the narratorial duet Swift-Gulliver ‘conspires’ against readers, be they innocent (gullible) or competent (lucid): by construing the latter as a microcosm who explores the world in order to gain identity, the former stages an elaborate hoax in which a potentially paranoid narrative is cunningly brought within the boundaries of acceptable, coherent discourse, with a view to achieving his far-reaching satire.
{"title":"Conspiring Against the Gullible: Notes on Gulliver’s Travels as Universal Satire in the Guise of Paranoid Discourse","authors":"D. Popescu","doi":"10.1515/MSAS-2017-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/MSAS-2017-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Readers and critics alike have bickered over the verisimilitude of Gulliver’s Travels since it was first published in 1726. No critical consensus has ever been reached even on some very fundamental interpreting issues. While several particulars of Swift’s satire appear to have been decoded and agreed upon, such as the parody of travel literature and the attack on Walpole’s corrupt administration, some others are still debated over, even after more than a century of modern criticism, such as the overall object of the universally reverberating satire and what it teaches us about Swift’s own values and worldview. Fully aware of the Gulliverian critical deadlock the world is still in, we suggest in the present article that the narratorial duet Swift-Gulliver ‘conspires’ against readers, be they innocent (gullible) or competent (lucid): by construing the latter as a microcosm who explores the world in order to gain identity, the former stages an elaborate hoax in which a potentially paranoid narrative is cunningly brought within the boundaries of acceptable, coherent discourse, with a view to achieving his far-reaching satire.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74907386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Conspiracy thinking has a long history in Romanian literary culture. In the early 21st century, what counts as a conspiracy theory in the mainstream of Romanian life is nevertheless elusive enough to keep the public engaged more than ever before. The growing number of attempts to address the gap in knowledge with regard to local conspiracy theories is proof that concern with their possibly harmful consequences is on the rise as well. For most of the conspiracy-minded, the topics of the day are specific threats posed to post-communist Romania and its people. In the main, conspiratorial beliefs fall into three main fields. Namely, they come across as 1) conspiracy theories against the body politic of the nation, 2) health-related conspiracy theories and 3) conspiracy theories on use and conservation of natural resources. While the first two overlap and build on the tradition of home-grown populism, the third is mostly a borrowing from Western media sources. However, the most influential instances of Romanian conspiracism posit that the well-being of the nation’s body politic and that of individuals’ own bodies are one and the same.
{"title":"From Literary Culture to Post-Communist Media: Romanian Conspiracism","authors":"Onoriu Colăcel, Corneliu Pintilescu","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Conspiracy thinking has a long history in Romanian literary culture. In the early 21st century, what counts as a conspiracy theory in the mainstream of Romanian life is nevertheless elusive enough to keep the public engaged more than ever before. The growing number of attempts to address the gap in knowledge with regard to local conspiracy theories is proof that concern with their possibly harmful consequences is on the rise as well. For most of the conspiracy-minded, the topics of the day are specific threats posed to post-communist Romania and its people. In the main, conspiratorial beliefs fall into three main fields. Namely, they come across as 1) conspiracy theories against the body politic of the nation, 2) health-related conspiracy theories and 3) conspiracy theories on use and conservation of natural resources. While the first two overlap and build on the tradition of home-grown populism, the third is mostly a borrowing from Western media sources. However, the most influential instances of Romanian conspiracism posit that the well-being of the nation’s body politic and that of individuals’ own bodies are one and the same.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79982649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The present article deals with archaic pieces of folklore, namely with Transylvanian Saxon (TS) charms recorded in the 19th century. The author, herself a speaker of the TS dialect, translated a number of those charms into English and added comments that were meant to indicate connections with similar pieces of the same genre recorded in Germany and England in early medieval times.
{"title":"Transylvanian Saxon Charms as Part of Old Germanic Folklore","authors":"Andrea Bargan","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present article deals with archaic pieces of folklore, namely with Transylvanian Saxon (TS) charms recorded in the 19th century. The author, herself a speaker of the TS dialect, translated a number of those charms into English and added comments that were meant to indicate connections with similar pieces of the same genre recorded in Germany and England in early medieval times.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77453290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Study of the Third Space, Hybridity, and Colonial Mimicry in Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa!","authors":"Ghasemi Parvin, Sasani Samira, Nemati Fatereh","doi":"10.1515/MSAS-2017-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/MSAS-2017-0002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77872520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Among everything else post-apocalyptic video games have come to stand for, notions of in-group versus out-group communication are paramount. The Last of Us (2014, Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment) is a case in point. I look into the game’s use of subtitles and didactic texts in order to find out to the extent speech acts shape the player’s understanding of what the video game is. As an understudied aspect of video games, HUD or menu elements, as well as characters’ exchanges and voice-over narration, disclose what it is like to be alive, dead or in-between. Essentially, they show the tensions between the avatar and the gamer: the hero makes all of the decisions by himself and the player has to abide or stop playing all together. The avatar’s identity comes alive through speech acts, while the player is left outside decision-making processes. Survival horror gaming, with a religious twist, gives insight into the in-game discussion on the representation of the zombie rather than on the zombie experience as such. On screen, the interplay between speech acts and written language amounts to a procedural language, which suggests that variability in language creates an environment conducive to learning. Particularly, language use is all about group values and communication styles that should help gamers tell apart friends from enemies, good from evil and, finally, people from zombies.
{"title":"Speech Acts in Post-Apocalyptic Games: The Last of Us (2014)","authors":"Onoriu Colăcel","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Among everything else post-apocalyptic video games have come to stand for, notions of in-group versus out-group communication are paramount. The Last of Us (2014, Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment) is a case in point. I look into the game’s use of subtitles and didactic texts in order to find out to the extent speech acts shape the player’s understanding of what the video game is. As an understudied aspect of video games, HUD or menu elements, as well as characters’ exchanges and voice-over narration, disclose what it is like to be alive, dead or in-between. Essentially, they show the tensions between the avatar and the gamer: the hero makes all of the decisions by himself and the player has to abide or stop playing all together. The avatar’s identity comes alive through speech acts, while the player is left outside decision-making processes. Survival horror gaming, with a religious twist, gives insight into the in-game discussion on the representation of the zombie rather than on the zombie experience as such. On screen, the interplay between speech acts and written language amounts to a procedural language, which suggests that variability in language creates an environment conducive to learning. Particularly, language use is all about group values and communication styles that should help gamers tell apart friends from enemies, good from evil and, finally, people from zombies.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78376547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Drawing loosely on text linguistics, Gérard Genette’s classic works on paratextuality, as well as a number of fairly recent concerns in Translation Studies (e.g. paratranslation, translator’s habitus, translator’s visibility), the present article deals with a collection of notes by Alphonse Daudet published posthumously (1930) as La Doulou, and particularly with its best-known English version, In the Land of Pain, signed by Julian Barnes (2002). The translator counterbalances the inherent deficiencies of Daudet’s fragmentary text by making the most of paratextual patronage (he writes an introduction, two afterwords and 64 footnotes in order to turn Daudet’s notes into a proper book).
{"title":"(Peri)Textuality and a Skyscraper of Footnotes: Alphonse Daudet’s La Doulou as Translated by Julian Barnes","authors":"Daniela Hăisan","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Drawing loosely on text linguistics, Gérard Genette’s classic works on paratextuality, as well as a number of fairly recent concerns in Translation Studies (e.g. paratranslation, translator’s habitus, translator’s visibility), the present article deals with a collection of notes by Alphonse Daudet published posthumously (1930) as La Doulou, and particularly with its best-known English version, In the Land of Pain, signed by Julian Barnes (2002). The translator counterbalances the inherent deficiencies of Daudet’s fragmentary text by making the most of paratextual patronage (he writes an introduction, two afterwords and 64 footnotes in order to turn Daudet’s notes into a proper book).","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67047005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The present paper analyzes two artistic strategies employed by Gerhard Richter to deal with painful recent cultural memory. Two works in particular reveal the relative success of Richter’s varied artistic strategies addressing contemporary political events: 18. Oktober 1977 (1988) and War Cut (2004). In his series of paintings on the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, Richter effectively employs his “photopainting” style to address the profoundly disturbing deaths of the Baader-Meinhof group in the 1970s. Richter chose mundane photographic sources for his imagery, denying a hierarchy of “correct” memories of the events and turning photographic indexicality against itself by employing a painterly medium, tinged with nostalgia, to represent it. Richter’s photopaintings of Baader-Meinhof thus use the “factual” nature of the photograph while also utilizing an elegiac painterly mist through which an indistinct emotional memory of the past seems to emerge. Richter’s blurring of images can thus be understood as a fulcrum on which the undecidability of history itself must be represented. Richter constructs War Cut (2004), on the other hand, as a work and aesthetic experience decidedly at odds with the iconicity of his Baader-Meinhof images by employing arbitrariness and conceptual abstraction.
{"title":"Gerhard Richter’s Critical Artistic Strategies: Politics, Terrorism and War","authors":"Randall K. Van Schepen","doi":"10.1515/msas-2017-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2017-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present paper analyzes two artistic strategies employed by Gerhard Richter to deal with painful recent cultural memory. Two works in particular reveal the relative success of Richter’s varied artistic strategies addressing contemporary political events: 18. Oktober 1977 (1988) and War Cut (2004). In his series of paintings on the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, Richter effectively employs his “photopainting” style to address the profoundly disturbing deaths of the Baader-Meinhof group in the 1970s. Richter chose mundane photographic sources for his imagery, denying a hierarchy of “correct” memories of the events and turning photographic indexicality against itself by employing a painterly medium, tinged with nostalgia, to represent it. Richter’s photopaintings of Baader-Meinhof thus use the “factual” nature of the photograph while also utilizing an elegiac painterly mist through which an indistinct emotional memory of the past seems to emerge. Richter’s blurring of images can thus be understood as a fulcrum on which the undecidability of history itself must be represented. Richter constructs War Cut (2004), on the other hand, as a work and aesthetic experience decidedly at odds with the iconicity of his Baader-Meinhof images by employing arbitrariness and conceptual abstraction.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67046190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The dominant ideology of a society seems to possess the means to infiltrate an individual’s conscience with relative ease. From the perspective of the functions of language, we intend to investigate those fundamental characteristics of the ideological discourse that reify the left-right dichotomy in Romanian politics.
{"title":"The Language of Romanian Politics: Reifying the Other","authors":"Petru Ioan Marian","doi":"10.1515/msas-2016-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/msas-2016-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The dominant ideology of a society seems to possess the means to infiltrate an individual’s conscience with relative ease. From the perspective of the functions of language, we intend to investigate those fundamental characteristics of the ideological discourse that reify the left-right dichotomy in Romanian politics.","PeriodicalId":53347,"journal":{"name":"Messages Sages and Ages","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67046513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}