Full Description
First published in 1992, Vocabularies of Public Life explores the revolution that has taken place in our understanding of contemporary culture and decodes a number of the symbols which now dominate public life. Wuthnow divides the essays collected here into three distinct 'vocabularies.' Part I examines the ways in which religious and scientific languages function as vocabularies of conviction in public life, Part II focuses on music and art as vocabularies of expression, and Part III considers law, ideology, and public policy as vocabularies of persuasion. The contributors discuss such diverse subjects as American spiritualism, the syntax of modern dance and the social contexts of number one songs. What unifies the book is the common concern with the concrete, everyday manifestations of culture and the importance of understanding its basic structure. This book will be of interest to specialists and scholars of various disciplines such as linguistics, literature, media studies, popular culture, and sociology.
Contents
Notes on contributors Introduction: New directions in the empirical study of cultural codes 1. The restriction of meaning in religious discourse: centripetal devices in a fundamentalist Christian sermon 2. The gospel of giving: the narrative construction of a sacrificial economy 3. When scientists saw ghosts and why they stopped: American spiritualism in history 4. Reading science as text 5. Paradox in the discourse of science 6. Putting it together: measuring the syntax of aural and visual symbols 7. The musical structure and social context of number one songs, 1955 to 1988: an exploratory analysis 8. A theory of pictorial discourse 9. Decoding the syntax of modern dance 10. Metaphors of industrial rationality: the social construction of electronics policy in the United States and France 11. The parameters of possible constitutional interpretation 12. The role of elites in setting agendas for public debate: a historical case 13. Materialism, ideology, and political change
