Symbolic Construction Research Articles

Kolintang Symbolic Construction of The Union Odd Numbers (Three) in Socio-cultural Meaning of Minahasa Community

This research examines the construction of Kolintang through the symbol of the number Three in the socio-cultural life system of the Minahasa people, whose embodiment in Kolintang music. A qualitative method through a historical approach in social and anthropological writing is used in this research. The data sourcewas obtained from field observations for approximately three years in Lembean Village, namely Nine taranak or Minamerot.Interviews and recordings do well; researchers are also active in direct observation. The research found that the number one is a transcendent and intangible symbol, the God of the Minahasa people Empung, WailanWangko, EmpungRenga-Rengan, God is Glorious, God is Great. The number one does not appear in the form of kolintang but is unifying. The number three is seen in the three forms of the Minahasa grandmothers Karema, Lumimuut, and Toar; also in the three Minahasa leaders, Tunduan/Tonaas, Wadian/Walian, and Teterusan. It is seen in the three first descendants of Minahasa, namely the Tombulu, Toutewoh, and Tounsawang sub-ethnicity. This symbolisation can be seen in the construction of Kolintang instruments using three wooden sticks (Teken) singing Tatembaken, the use of three-wood Kolintang in Waleposan, and traditional modes/scales such as (1 - 2 - 3) as well as the use of three wood in modern Kolintang Music Accompaniment called Wooden Kolintang Music Ensemble (AMKK). In conclusion, the construction of Kolintang music is a form of symbolisation of the Unification of the number three in the social and cultural life of the Minahasa people.

The future of social policy in assessment of the student youth: the experience of a socio-pedagogical research

Introduction. Global crises connected with the epidemiological situation, negative tendencies in economics, and international conflicts in 21st century are accompanied by increased attention of population including the student youth to social support measures and functioning of the social system as a whole. Therefore there is a contradiction between the necessity of future social policy image creation in the view of the contemporary studying youth and insufficient detectability of symbolic constructions of higher school students. The research aim is to conduct a socio-pedagogical analysis and determine symbolic constructions representing images of future social policy in contemporary Russia and perspectives its future development in the view of the student youth. Materials and methods. The authors conducted their research found on studying international documents, Laws of Russian Federation, woks of leading scientists, practitioners in the sphere of political science, sociology, social pedagogy and other related disciplines. The problem is viewed in terms of two main paradigmatic solutions: paternalism and liberalism. The methodological basis of the study is based on the application of a systematic, integrated approach to research of perspectives and images of social policy in the assessment of the student youth. Sociological survey results were used as the main empirical base, the survey was conducted in January 2023 by the method of representative sociological survey (questionnaire) of students in Lipetsk region. 360 people from higher education students were interviewed as respondents. Research results. While analyzing goals of social policy, prioritized focus-groups and factors greatly influencing the perspective development of social protection sphere the authors identified preferable for the studying youth social policy and perspectives of Russian social situation development. Students considering the format of social policy prefer coherent targeted support of all categories of people (71,7%). Most students hold the state responsible for functioning of virtually all spheres of social life. Young people do not see the state leaving the sphere of social policy; do not support the transfer of social protection functions to citizens and business organizations, linking their positive expectation with health care (44,7%), quality of education (42,5%) and fertility (41,4%), support the lowering of the retirement age (73,3%), expansion of pension public funding (59,2%). Preferable image of social policy is closely connected with the image of Russia as a country surplus budget of which makes it possible to finance socially without direct borrowing from citizens (66,9%). Conclusions. The results obtained can be applied when making management decisions on the formation of social policy at all management levels and implementing social policy and priority national projects “Education” and “Demography”. Keywords: higher education, students, social policy, social support of citizens

Якими вбачаються корейські чоловіки? Перцепції серед мексиканських жінок, навіяні “корейською хвилею”

In contemporary Mexican society young people demonstrate strong consumption habits of entertainment products from Republic of Korea. The arrival of the first Korean cultural products dates back to 2002, however, it is impossible to pinpoint the specific date when the consumption of Korean entertainment products overgrew from the initial phase of Hallyu dissemination into the craze for K-pop and idol groups. During the last decade, the synergy between the potential of Korean companies and production houses, the social and the diplomatic networks of the Korean government and the digital transfer made it possible to transform this consumption into a global trend, with a telling effect on Mexican women. This research analyzes how the impact of cultural products from the Republic of Korea framed the Mexican women’s imaginaries of Korean men and how those imaginaries make them to consider those men as new ideal. The paper focuses on the ways in which Mexican women have come to regard the distinguishing masculinity features of present-day South Korean men as an aspiration object of an ideal man in the contemporary context. The concepts from cultural studies such as cultural industries, consumption, symbolic use and gender as a symbolic construct are used to analyze the data obtained through open online surveys. The questions were proposed to focus groups which openly show consumption of Korean cultural products.

Spanish-Portuguese Serial Fiction as a Politainment Tool: Representations of Politics on Iberian Television

This article deals with recent Spanish and Portuguese political television series. Within this sub-genre, it is pertinent to consider the symbolic construction of politics, as well as the differences caused by each series’ geographical adscription. Six Spanish productions have been selected—<em>Isabel </em>(Isabella the Catholic),<em> Carlos Rey Emperador </em>(Charles the Emperor King), <em>La Embajada </em>(The Embassy),<em> Crematorio </em>(Crematorium),<em> Vamos Juan</em>/<em>Venga Juan </em>(Come on, Juan/Let’s go Juan), and <em>El Partido </em>(The Party)—along with three Portuguese productions—<em>A Rainha e a Bastarda </em>(The Queen and the Bastard), <em>Teorias da Conspiração </em>(Conspiracy Theories),<em> </em>and <em>Os Boys </em>(The Boys). The narrative of these audio-visual stories has been examined utilising qualitative content analysis, looking at the plotlines and characters involved. The type of characterisation of politics has been identified by means of the deconstruction of the main characters. The conclusion is that the evaluation is eminently negative, although differential frameworks are present, depending, in particular, on the fiction’s genre, either historical drama, drama-thriller, or comedy.

The Blue Beret

The Blue Beret

The textures of the discipline “Cultures, Languages and Amazonian Societies” about my place of speech: necessary dialogues

This article aims to analyze the textures of the readings proposed by the subject “Cultures, Languages ​​and Amazonian Societies” about my place of speech, revisiting my memories, my identity structures and observing how my symbolic constructions about the Amazonian worlds turned out. For such an analysis to take place, the theoretical framework used in this writing is anchored in the discipline's texts and in the following theorists: Chartier (1990), Certeau (1994), Ricoeur (2007) and Todorov (1995). The chosen methodology is anchored in a bibliographic review, opening dialogues with the central ideas of the chosen texts, with my memories and with the authors on screen. From literary analyzes and the whispers of the goddess “Mnemosyne”, what was recorded is the certainty that we select and build distinct spaces with our memorable memories and that our identity boundaries are not inert territories, as they are always negotiating with the past and the present.

Appropriating the civil sphere: the construction of German collective identity by right-wing populist actors during the Covid-19 pandemic

This paper considers the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on right-wing populists’ constructions of German collective identity. In their “Covid-19 crisis” narratives, German populists attempted to rearrange the discursive and institutional space of the German civil sphere through a symbolic inversion of the heroic signifier and legitimization of violence against perceived enemies. To analyze such discursive dynamics, this paper utilizes multilayered narrative analysis, drawing on the synthesis of civil sphere theory, the anthropological conceptualization of the relationship between mimetic crisis and symbolic substitution of violence and the sociological narrative theory of the sacralization and desacralization of heroism. This analysis structures the investigation of positive and negative symbolic constructions of German collective identity by German right-wing populist narratives. The analysis shows that although German right-wing populists are politically peripheral, their affective, antagonistic and anti-elite narratives contribute to the semantic erosion of the liberal democratic core of the German civil sphere. This in turn reduces the ability of democratic institutions to control violence and leads to the restriction of civil solidarity.

Research work of Professor Fang-Mei Lin

Sinophone (Chinese speaking) Studies was first fully explored by Professor Shih Shu-Mei at University of California with the intention of challenging China-centrism. Professor Fang-Mei Lin, Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan, is teaching and researching gender and nationalism, popular culture, post-colonial studies and Sinophone Studies. She is questioning and de-constructing the idea that a homogenous group of people who speak the Chinese language is Chinese and Sinophone Studies support this, emphasising the importance of place and location and specific social and historical backgrounds. Lin is also emphasising the importance of becoming native in the place one has settled down for decades or even centuries. The Chinese diaspora sent migrants across the globe and their descendants don't consider themselves to be Chinese, despite some of them still speaking and writing in Chinese. This concept is supported by a novella called 'Ambon Vacation,' written in Chinese by Singaporean writer Chia Joo-Ming, which Lin is exploring. She is also exploring the multidimensional history of the island Ambon and its important metaphors, with Ambon helping with reflections on the complicated history of migration, displacement and colonialism. Lin's approach to studying literature is sociological, with emphasis on the literary text in question as a symbolic construction was created, distributed and consumed in certain historical, cultural, economic and social conditions.

Le développement du discours des personnes blessées psychiques : de l’indicible à la métaphore

BackgroundDespite a growing societal interest and a progressive enrichment of the semiological description of post-traumatic psychic disorders in the contemporary English and French-speaking literatures, under-diagnosis and late diagnosis, at the stage of intense suffering, remain numerous. Indeed, the post-traumatic origins of the disorders are most often kept silent, due to their clinical characteristics which are often understood as “unspeakable” as the literature says. How to talk about one's trauma? Is it really possible? Objectives, materials and methodsAfter clarifying the linguistic data of interest concerning normal verbal production, we study the accounts of traumatic events produced by survivors of the Paris attacks (Bataclan attack) and by military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (war in Afghanistan) in order to authenticate their language dysfluencies (pauses, repetitions, incomplete utterances) compared to a control group.We specify the strategies spontaneously used by the patients to overcome the difficulties in describing their traumatic experience (use of periphrases, metaphors, generic words). ResultsRegarding dysfluencies, our hypothesis was partially verified: the traumatic narratives contained significantly more repetitions and incomplete utterances than the control narratives, but no difference was observed with respect to silent or filled pauses. Regarding adaptive strategies, the trauma narratives contained more periphrases and metaphors, while the use of generic words was not greater than in the control narratives. DiscussionThe non-significance of the data concerning pauses could be consequential to the size of our corpus because an increase in the number of occurrences of each dysfluency studied is gradually sensitized from control to psychically injured people of attacks, then of war, following gradually: incomplete statements, repetitions, silent pauses, and finally filled pauses. This increase can be explained by the chronicisation of the symptoms of the acute stress disorder corresponding to the “Bataclan” corpus, up to a chronic post-traumatic psychic disorder present for several years as in the military interviewed. We can therefore hypothesize a typology of dysfluencies according to the degree of chronicity of the traumatic repetitive syndrome. With regard to palliative strategies, many metaphors used by psychically injured patients remain metaphors in the linguistic sense of the term, without necessarily becoming metaphors in the psychological sense of full access to the second degree, to symbolization, to the association of dimensions initially dissociated by the trauma. However, in the discourse of certain patients, a gradient of metaphorization, from the literal traumatic image to the symbolic construction, seems to exist, as a path towards healing. Metaphorization appears to be a tool for overcoming trauma re-experiencing. It is not so much the theme of the metaphor that is psychotherapeutically important but the process itself of its formation. ConclusionFrom defusing to debriefing to subsequent care when necessary, the principles classically promoted by the psychotherapies work towards a common goal: the symbolization of the trauma. The psycholinguistic study appears here as a heuristic research space in order to clarify the etiopathogeny, the clinical forms and the efficient care offered to patients suffering from post-traumatic psychic disorders. While the traumatic psycholinguistic syndrome (SPLIT) reflects the damage to language that is constitutive of the trauma, conversely, it is language rebuilt during psychotherapy that allows one to escape from the intrusions. At a time when different “schools” of psychotherapy (behavioral and cognitive protocols, hypnosis treatments, eye movement therapies, narrative therapies, etc.) are competing with each other, the analysis of language restoration could unify a specific conception of the alleviation of traumatic consequences while defining linguistic markers that would allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of the recommended treatments.

Constructing a house of one's own in Sandra Cisneros’ The house on Mango Street

This article explores the symbolic construction of the house, linked to the creative process of writing and telling stories, in the novel The house on Mango Street (1983), by Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros. The main challenge for the protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, is to overcome her feelings of isolation and experience a sense of belonging, which is another way of saying that she needs to feel “at home”. For Esperanza, it is important to have a home that she can be identified identify with, as a way of embracing a past that makes her feel proud and at the same time having a vision of a home in her future. It is through writing and storytelling that Esperanza manages to create a house of her own. The recreation of the house is closely linked to a process of empowerment and liberation by the protagonist, which is also manifested in the construction of a new identity. In a way, she is also the new house. Together with this process of emancipation, Esperanza finds in education a way to leave the marginal neighborhood of her childhood. Part of the conceptual framework used includes the theoretical notions of Chicano critics Tey Diana Rebolledo and Gloria Anzaldúa who study the ways in which Chicana writers explore subjectivity and identity in their writing.

Deconstructing Truth as a Symbolic Construct in Mukoma wa Ngugi’s Nairobi Heat

As a literary work which builds its plot on the intricacies of crime and murder, Mukoma wa Ngugi's Nairobi Heat has many of its criticisms focused on vices thus giving the text a meaning as expected, of a crime fiction. However, critical discourse has not been focused on deconstructing the symbolic idea of Truth in the text and its relevance in generating new and multiple meanings in the text. Therefore, through a close reading, this research aims to explicate the running idea of truth in the novel as a symbolic construct and traces the chains of multiple meaning it signifies. This is achieved through a focus on Paul Ricoeur's dialectical hermeneutics of faith and suspicion, which seeks to unearth hidden meanings from the primary symbol. To this end, the research focused on three objectives, first, it devotes itself to the identification of truth as a symbolic construct in the text; second, analyses the symbol of truth based on the hermeneutics of faith, which reveals truth to be that centred on the true reasons behind the death of Marcy Jane and other crimes in the text thus making it a quest for justice: while lastly, the symbol of truth is critiqued based on the hermeneutics of suspicion, which demystifies the hidden meaning of truth as truth for self-identification and truth about Africa which also serves as the supreme finding of the research. Keywords: Truth, Symbol, Hermeneutics, Faith, Suspicion, Meaning, Mukoma. DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/95-02 Publication date: January 31 st 2023

СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНЫЙ ФАКТОР В ПОЛИТИКЕ: СИМВОЛИЧЕСКИЕ КОНСТРУКТЫ

Politics as a sphere of public life is a border area for all other spheres, while it acquires a special dependence on the characteristics of behavior, which is significantly influenced by the cultural aspect. That is why the process of studying and analyzing the political sphere of the life of society involves the study, first of all, of the sociocultural factor. In this paper, the authors propose to consider it through three components: the positioning of a person as the main subject of politics, the features of mutual influence on political behavior of morality, morality, humanism, axeology and ethics, and the statement of this mutual influence through a formally legal element. The first component is largely associated with symbolic constructs, since the role of a person as a subject or object of politics directly depends on the political picture of the world that he has. The more political experience a person has, the more realistic this picture is and, as a result, the more active the subject is in politics. The second component in itself is a symbolic construct, since outside of symbolism there is no culture and its constituent elements. Accordingly, influencing the political behavior of the individual, morality, morality, axeology, ethics, and especially humanism, permeate it with a symbolic component. Formally, the legal element fully embodies the features of the political conditions in which society and the state exist, and from this point of view it acts as a symbol of the era in which it is formed. Taking into account the above interpretations, the authors conclude that outside the symbolic component it is impossible to comprehend the existing political problems and find ways to solve them.

Ricardo Flores Magón. Un radical en la Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres

The article examines the 1945 state funeral of Ricardo Flores Magón, a prominent figure in the Mexican labor movement, and his inclusion in the Rotunda of Illustrious Men, during president Manuel Ávila Camacho’s administration. This study delves into the symbolic analysis of state funerals within the scope of cultural history, and reflects on how this type of rituals are fundamental to the transformation of the labor movement and the focus on national unity. Furthermore, I explore how the funerary ritual, at least in this case, can be used as an interpretive framework to understand the symbolic construction of a ‘civic-religious-heroic’ imaginary.

Goodbye Zimbabwe: Place naming as a cultural arena for symbolic resistance and spatial (in)justice in secessionist politics

This article explores how secessionists in Zimbabwe deploy place naming to subvert, contest, and resist state-consecrated versions of national identity, belonging and citizenship. Zimbabwe has two super-tribes, Shona and Ndebele. Ethnicity is exceedingly entrenched in Zimbabwean politics. This has resulted in the conflation of ethnic and political identities. Since the formative years of African nationalism in the 1960s, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) has been aligned with the Shona ethnic identity, while the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) assumed a Ndebele identity. Ethnicity continued to cause tensions in the Zimbabwean political landscape. This has generated disgruntlement among the ethnic groups from the Ndebele-speaking regions. It eventually resulted in the formation of organisations and political groups advocating for the secession of the Ndebele-speaking areas from the rest of the country. Theoretically, the study deploys the tenets of critical toponomastics to explore how secessionists appropriate place naming in their quest for self-determination. It uses data gathered through semi-structured interviews with the choreographers of secession and cultural and language committees for the different ethnolinguistic groups from Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands. Preliminary findings indicate that secessionists use place names in the symbolic construction of Mthwakazi, an imagined autonomous state.

A NATIONAL ANTHEM AS A CONSTRUCT OF THE MENTAL SPACE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

The purpose of the article is to determine the mental space of national identity by analyzing the semantic component of the national anthem. The national anthem can be considered as a social code that forms a citizen and as an ordinary text with its semantic structured levels. The national anthem is a political symbol and therefore forms two meanings: intent and influence. In the study, we combine the theory of mental spaces by G.Fauconnier and Ch.Fillmor’s frames semantics to visualize the conceptual model of Ukrainian national identity. Research results: Designating the national anthem as a patriotic work that describes and symbolizes the history and traditions of the country, we articulate the generation and manifestation of social values by the anthem. Based on this position, the article proposes a conceptual model of the mental space of the Ukrainian national identity, which was initiated by the anthem of Ukraine. The basis of the scheme is a figurative fusion of three macro-worlds: Glory-Ukraine-Freedom, which symbolizes the value component that holds around itself the basic concepts of national identity.The article compares the text of the national anthem «Shche ne vmerla Ukraina…» written by P.Chubinsky and the text edited by M.Verbitsky. The symbolic construction of the text of Chubinsky’s anthem, published in 1963, broadcasts a conceptual model of future actions. The names Zalizniak, Nalyvaiko, Triasylo embody the ideal of Cossack chivalry, past times, which are the basis for future generations to follow. The concept of “national identification borders” includes not only geographical names, the Black Sea, the Carpathians, the Dnipro (in the text «from the Syan to the Don»), but also indexical categories – «inviolability», «integrity of the state», «integrity of the territory», «unitaryness», and as well as symbols embodied in names, for example, Crimea, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv. In the context of the semantic analysis of the text of the national anthem, its influence on the mental state of the state is recognized, which is reflected in the global peace index and the global terrorism index. A nation can be presented with ethnic, territorial, cultural, and political components. But there must also be abstract ideas, a mental space that makes it visible.

The Lexical field of water in ballads of Portuguese modern oral tradition

The water element has a symbolic, ancestral value in all cultures, and it is possible to trace, throughout human history, the importance that water had and still has for different cultures and the symbolic values ​​that have been attributed to it. From an object of worship to a symbol of life, water is also associated with different cultural practices. To this extent, we find references to water in literature or painting and we find that, in these expressions, the symbolic values ​​that each community attributes to the water element are evidenced. Thus, based on the importance and symbolic values ​​of the water element in different cultures, in different cultural practices and in different expressions, we revisit the symbolic constructs associated with the water element in literature, particularly in an oral genre: spanish balads. In a very particular way, we intend to analyze the linguistic options of the lexical field of water in novels of the modern Iberian oral tradition, trying to verify to what extent the linguistic forms present in the texts contribute to the incorporation of metaphorical values ​​of the water element and in what measure those are the underpinning of a symbolic construct.

Lithic net weights: subsistence and strategic uses of space at the El Porvenir site, in Colombia

The following article presents some of the findings associated with the site of El Porvenir, in the department of Cesar, in the northern region of Colombia. It presents some of the subsistence strategies and possible uses of space of the ancient inhabitants of the site, based on the evidence of fishing activities, which reveal the establishment of social relations associated with aquatory, symbolic constructions in aquatic spaces, and the establishment of a social network associated with the use of the site.

Legitimizing path development by interlinking institutional logics: The case of Israel’s desert tourism

The legitimation of new regional industrial paths has become a crucial issue in path development since it touches the institutional foundations of spatial evolution and fits the recent interest in agency. Neo-institutional sociology offers a wealth of insights for how agents build legitimacy. In particular, the institutional logics perspective suggests multiple material and symbolic sources of legitimacy. Seeking a deeper contextualization of paths into their socio-institutional environment, this article argues that new paths are legitimized by agents interlinking institutional logics through symbolic constructions such as visions. Empirical examples from two tourism destinations in Israel illustrate this mechanism.

Simbolismo e Hibridismo Estéticos em Jean-Luc Godard Adeus à Linguagem

This work discusses aesthetic symbolism and hybridism in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Goodbye to Language (Adieu Au Langage 2014), regarding the relationship between cinema and painting. Two central questions guide the focus of this article: how does the symbolic construction of Godard’s pictorial way take place?, and Do the pictorial elements present in the film narrative construct meanings and transmit real sensations such as those of the impressionist movement in paintings? The relationship between cinema and painting in Godard’s work is worked here in the context of promoting a dialogue between pictorial art and cinema. Starting from the assumption that films are artistic objects that communicate through symbolic elements, this work discusses the symbolic and hybrid forms in Godard through the analysis of elements such as color and light.

Between Nostalgia and Nationalism: Emigrants from the Habsburg Empire in South America

This article offers four migration narratives from three states—Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—including biographic approaches and group identities, cultural nostalgia and nationalist resentment. The divergent trajectories of the Dalmatian business tycoons Nicolás Mihanovich in Argentina and Pascual Baburizza in Chile, the celebration of inter-ethnic Austrian-ness in Ijuí (Brazil) vs. the symbolic construction of a “second Poland” by Polish immigrants in Paraná (Brazil) seek to open different windows into the highly complex panorama of Austrian-Hungarian emigration to Latin America. Although approximately 300,000 Habsburg subjects sought there their new homeland, the topic remains underresearched.