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Traitor In Our Midst: Cultural Variations In Japanese Vs. Oklahoman Public Discourse On Domestic Terrorism In The Spring Of 1995, Carl W. Roberts, Yong Wang
Traitor In Our Midst: Cultural Variations In Japanese Vs. Oklahoman Public Discourse On Domestic Terrorism In The Spring Of 1995, Carl W. Roberts, Yong Wang
Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
When “one of our own” commits mass murder, mechanisms that sustain our social order are opened to question. Based on two samples of newspaper editorials written in 1995 ‐ either after the poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway or after the Oklahoma City bombing ‐ evidence is provided that Japanese editorialists advised strategies for retaining order, whereas Oklahoman authors endorsed ones for reestablishing it. In accordance with Simmel’s distinction between faithfulness and gratitude as social forms, Japanese advised faithful continuation of wholesome interactions with their terrorists, whereas Oklahomans expressed gratitude for rescue workers’ assistance. We apply modality analysis to …
Actantial Analysis Greimas’S Structural Approach To The Analysis Of Self-Narratives, Yong Wang, Carl W. Roberts
Actantial Analysis Greimas’S Structural Approach To The Analysis Of Self-Narratives, Yong Wang, Carl W. Roberts
Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
This paper introduces a formal procedure for analyzing narratives that was developed by the French/Lithuanian structuralist, A. J. Greimas. The focus is on demonstrating the utility of Greimas's ideas for analyzing one aspect of personal narratives: identity-construction. Reconstructing the basic actantial structure from self-narratives is shown to provide cues to power differentials among actants as perceived by the narrator. Distinguishing narrated events along conflict versus communication axes helps the analyst determine whether an experiential or a discursive domain is of primacy for the narrator. Moreover, investigation of communicative outcomes can be used to validate (or invalidate) findings on power relations. …