The language of incipient opposition: the discourse of the party of democratic socialism in German politics 1989-1995

This work explores how the PDS, as legal successor to the SED and thus to a party emanating from a Marxist tradition, has sought discursively to deal with the task of adapting to the demands of the all-German polity and of establishing a place for itself on the far left of the German political spectrum. Leaning heavily on the work of the critical linguists whose central interest was in exploring the relationship between language and ideology, this study starts from the premise that language and ideology inform one another dialectically: language is constitutive of ideology. As establishing and maintaining dominant ideologies and/or honing or adapting these in accordance with external exigencies is central to politics, the relationship between language and politics (and language and history) is likewise a dialectical one. A particular focus is upon the attempts of PDS party leaders and ideologues to establish a mediating, 'super-discourse' capable of smoothing over the high-level of intra-party factionalisation and of legitimising the PDS as broadly as possible in the political establishment. Opposition is a thematic leitmotiv: the PDS's historiographic portrayal of the SED's and its own relationship to opposition movements in the GDR and the Wendezeit is examined, as is the high-level of intra-party opposition and the linguistic staging of the inner-party polemic on whether the PDS's self-styled, extra- system, oppositional role will allow its inclusion in conventional governmental alliances. In addition, aspects of the language of the vociferous political opposition engendered and encountered by the PDS are also considered

The external characteristics of valid multiple-choice test items used in achievement tests

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

The challenge of Jihadist radicalisation. In Europe and beyond. 2017

Today Europe finds itself on the frontline in the fight against terrorism and jihadist radicalisation. Over the past fourteen months, the horrendous terrorist attacks that have taken place in France, Germany and Belgium, as well as in Turkey, Tunisia, and elsewhere around the world, have claimed hundreds of lives. As a Belgian national, the three bombs that were detonated in my country, in the departure hall of the Brussels International Airport in Zaventem, and at the Maelbeek Metro station, a few hundred metres from key EU institutions, was a particularly traumatic moment for me. In many ways, the attacks of 22 March were Belgium’s own 9/11, representing the worst terrorist attacks committed on Belgian territory in the country’s modern history. The attacks demonstrate a clear shift in the resolve and ability of jihadist terrorists to inflict mass casualties on urban populations, and are devised to induce a high state of well-publicised terro

The expression of George Orwell’s racial and social attitudes

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is intended to show the importance of racial attitudes in the development and work of George Orwell. He grew up in an environment where race and class roles were firmly and hierarchically established. His early training reinforced these orthodoxies, and Burmese Days as well as other writing shows he understood the unity and necessity of these traditional attitudes in maintaining the status quo. Other experiences, however, sowed the seeds of heterodoxy and support for the underdog. He took to Burma two mutually incompatible forms of training: one urged him to serve the Empire, the other, eventually to oppose it. The crisis of Empire is discussed and how it coincided with an unsought personal crisis of Orwell's own as a result of which the hollow tyranny of imperialism became clear to hint. Burma was an empirical watershed, where experience belied ideology and he heeded the former. Burma was the key which unlocked fact from myth and his changing attitude to Empire is reviewed in this light. The similarities of race and class are discussed; particularly training, form and purpose. It is argued that Orwell abstracted the essence of racial oppression and identified it (and its implications) in other forms, and his two major satires are seen to bear this out. The irrationality of racial (imperial) myths are seen to have much in common with contemporary political behaviour: Socialist ‘doublethink’ about Empire paving the road to totalitarianism, and the in-group/out-group urges of Anglo-India being related to patriotism and rationalism. Antisemitism is included as an example of irrationality which clearly had racial and political significance. Finally an attempt has been made to show that Orwell's racial outlook is part of a coherent world-view, and that the implications are currently relevant

Negotiating orang asli identity in postcolonial Malaysia

Master'sMASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE