學術講座--“Vernacular discourses and personal meanings in the example of economic populism in post-recession California”

主講人：Claudia Strauss教授

時間：2015年6月15日周一15:00-17:00

地點：中山大學南校區人類學系馬丁堂二樓講學廳

内容簡介：The Occupy Wall Street movement rallied Americans to unite in opposition to the richest 1%. At present many on the political left in the United States continue to mobilize around a politics of economic populism.  What is the meaning of such rhetoric for ordinary Americans who are facing economic struggles?  In the aftermath of the Great Recession (2011-2012) an assistant and I interviewed 65 unemployed southern Californians from a variety of occupational, income, racial/ethnic, and immigrant/native backgrounds; two years later I re-interviewed most of them.  My initial research coincided with the efflorescence of the Occupy movement and among my interviewees I found a mix of views about it, as well as about socioeconomic structures in the US and globally.  Their reactions can be understood in terms of a broader model proposed here of what mediates the public’s interpretation of political discourses.  I argue that the personal meaning of political discourses depends on the entire set of vernacular discourses someone has acquired and also on their affectively laden identities and personal semantic networks.  Vernacular discourse analysis reveals the local political ecology that new rhetoric enters. It is a corrective to studies that focus on social movements without understanding local cultural frames for interpreting them.  Psychological level of analysis of the way political discourse relates to personal identities and meanings reveals when political discourses of any sort carry emotional and motivational force for someone.  I will show that my interviewees’ investment in Occupy discourse and critiques of economic elites depended on both the vernacular discourses they had learned and their personal identities and motivating experiences.  

嘉賓簡介：Claudia Strauss教授是當前美國最著名的認知和心理人類學家之一，也是人類學在更為廣泛的認知科學中的代言人之一，曾任美國心理人類學協會會長和美國科學基金會學術指導委員會成員. 其專長領域為語言和心理人類學。她的研究将語言學、人類學和心理學綜合在一起，探讨如何從日常語言交流的細節中發現認知的文化結構，以及語言，文化和認知之間微妙複雜的聯系。Strauss教授曾主持過七項由美國國家科學基金會, 溫拿格倫人類學基金會(全世界最大的人類學基金會), 美國學者聯盟以及Russell Sage 基金會資助的多學科的認知科學研究項目. Strauss教授曾在北卡羅萊納大學, 杜克大學和布朗大學等世界名校任教，常年講授心理人類學, 語言分析與文化認知，認知人類學和認知科學等課程.