Responsibility And Language Practices In Place

This volume includes chapters by junior and senior scholars hailing from Europe, Asia, North America, and Oceania, all of whom sought to understand the social and cultural implications surrounding how people take responsibility for the ways they speak or write in relation to a place-whether it is one they have long resided in, recently moved to, or left a long time ago.;The contributors to the volume investigate 'responsibility' in and through language practices as inspired by the roots of the (English) word itself: the ability to respond, or mount a response to a situation at hand. It is thus a 'responsive' kind of responsibility, one that focuses not only on demonstrating responsibility for language, but highlighting the various ways we respond to situations discursively and metalinguistically. This sort of responsibility is both part of individual and collectively negotiated concerns that shift as people contend with processes related to globalization.

This volume includes chapters by junior and senior scholars hailing from Europe, Asia, North America, and Oceania, all of whom sought to understand the social and cultural implications surrounding how people take responsibility for the ways they speak or write in relation to a place—whether it is one they have long resided in, recently moved to, or left a long time ago. The contributors to the volume investigate ‘responsibility’ in and through language practices as inspired by the roots of the (English) word itself: the ability to respond, or mount a response to a situation at hand. It is thus a ‘responsive’ kind of responsibility, one that focuses not only on demonstrating responsibility for language, but highlighting the various ways we respond to situations discursively and metalinguistically. This sort of responsibility is both part of individual and collectively negotiated concerns that shift as people contend with processes related to globalization.

In Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse twelve prominent linguists and linguistic anthropologists examine 'responsibility', 'authority', and 'knowledge': central, but problematic, concepts in contemporary anthropology. Their detailed case studies analyze diverse forms of oral discourse - everyday conversation, conversational narrative, song, oratory, divination, and ritual poetry - in societies in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. The studies show how speakers attribute responsibility for acts and states of affairs, how particular forms of language and discourse relate to claims and disclaimers of responsibility, and how verbal acts are themselves social acts, subject to such attributions. The volume challenges those cognitive theorists who locate responsibility for the meaning of verbal acts solely in the intentions of individual speakers. Instead, the contributors focus on the production of meaning between speakers and audiences in particular social and cultural contexts, through dialogue and interaction which mediate between linguistic forms and their interpretations. This landmark volume will serve for years to come as a point of reference in the study, not only of responsibility and evidence, but of reported speech, authorship, and other phenomena in the social life of language. Besides linguistic and cultural anthropologists, linguistics, and folklorists, it will interest also readers from pragmatics, legal studies, sociology, religion, and social psychology.

Understanding that the inculcation of social responsibility within education can lead to social and economic benefits for students and society at large, the authors in this edited collection present case studies of policies and practices used across the globe to give readers an insight into how social responsibility is embedded into curriculums.

Should business strive to be socially responsible, and if so, how? This book updates and broadens the discussion of these questions by bringing together in one volume a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

Is profit-making the only goal of a business? Should an unbridled market mechanism drive corporate enterprise? To what extent should corporations compensate for the manifest and hidden costs that are incurred by the society at large? These are some of the questions that have engaged specialist economists, business barons, corporate heads and management experts for decades. A consensus has emerged that corporate practices cannot bypass the fundamental demands of ethical behaviour, that administration and policies of governance have to be more transparent and publicly accountable, and that businesses must be sensitive to the community and environment within which they are established. This has led to the emergence of three key concepts of contemporary businesses, namely, business or corporate ethics, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility.