Part One of this strongly worded, informed, and wide-ranging collection examines key issues for the future of Canadian criticism. Part Two offers new readings of important works by Grove, Wilson, MacLennan, Davies, Laurence, Hood, Wiebe, Hodgins, and Atwood. As W.J. Keith argues, `We still have a mission: to have our literature recognized as an essential reflection of our national life. This is what I mean by retrenchment and consolidation. Literature can survive without literary criticism but it cannot survive if it is unknown and unread. It is criticism's prime function at the present time to see that it is both known and read with that mature enjoyment which is a combination of emotional sensitivity and humane intelligence. As critics, scholars, editors, we shall not be fulfilling our responsibilities or justifying our existence if we attempt anything less.' Or as Keith modestly observes in his introduction to this collection, `If this book is of any interest, it will be because Canadian literature is an important subject. Literary commentators like myself are middle-men, and should be prepared to admit the fact. If this book succeeds in helping readers to appreciate the works of Canadian writers that I discuss, and to derive increased pleasure and insight from them, it will have served its purpose. I can see no other justification for it -- or for any other work of criticism.'

Within the political sphere, a political actor is often judged by what he or she says, with their verbal performance often perceived as representative of the individual. Hearers accept that, as individuals, they possess a lifetime of experiences and actions which inform, but may also undermine, their aspirations in gaining political capital. Additionally, as representatives of a political party and its ideology, these actors do not exist in isolation; they are members and, at times, potential candidates of a particular party with its own agenda which may, in turn, cause them to modify their personal speech to align with espoused policies of the party. The various contributions contained in this volume examine the discourse of political actors through the lenses of positionality and stance. Throughout its chapters, clearly defined theoretical perspectives and specified social practices are employed, enabling the authors to elucidate how political actors can situate themselves, their party, and their opponents toward their ostensive public. This book successfully demonstrates how espoused perspectives relate to, or reflect on, the nature of the individual political actor and their truth, the party they represent and its ideology, and the pandering to popular public opinion to gain support and co-operation. This book will hold particular appeal for postgraduate students, researchers, and scholars of discourse studies, pragmatics, political science, as well as other areas in humanities and the social sciences.

The Moral Universe explores central questions in metaethics concerning the nature of moral reality, its fundamental laws, its relation to the natural world, and its normative authority. It employs a novel philosophical method to offer the most sustained and sophisticated development of nonnatural moral realism to date. The authors advance new ways of answering these questions, contending that moral standards regarding what to do and how to be are not only objectively authoritative, but essentially so. Rather than arising from personal schemes or collective ideals, morality flows from the nature of things. One of the principal aims of the book is to show how this view accommodates and explains a wide range of data concerning the metaphysical and normative dimensions of morality. Along the way, the book offers novel characterizations of moral realism and nonnaturalism, defends and explains the existence of substantive moral conceptual truths, supplies a new treatment of moral supervenience, substantiates the categoricity and importance of moral reasons, and presents a strategy for identifying the source of morality. Exemplifying a commitment to the integrity of moral philosophy, The Moral Universe also tackles fundamental issues in value theory and normative ethics in the service of developing a systematic, explanatorily potent version of nonnaturalist realism.

The number of independent voters in America increases each year, yet they remain misunderstood by both media and academics. Media describe independents as pivotal for electoral outcomes. Political scientists conclude that independents are merely 'undercover partisans': people who secretly hold partisan beliefs and are thus politically inconsequential. Both the pundits and the political scientists are wrong, argue the authors. They show that many Americans are becoming embarrassed of their political party. They deny to pollsters, party activists, friends, and even themselves, their true partisanship, instead choosing to go 'undercover' as independents. Independent Politics demonstrates that people intentionally mask their partisan preferences in social situations. Most importantly, breaking with decades of previous research, it argues that independents are highly politically consequential. The same motivations that lead people to identify as independent also diminish their willingness to engage in the types of political action that sustain the grassroots movements of American politics.

All communication involves acts of stance, in which speakers take up positions vis-à-vis the expressive, referential, interactional and social implications of their speech. This book brings together contributions in a new and dynamic current of academic explorations of stancetaking as a sociolinguistic phenomenon. Drawing on data from such diverse contexts as advertising, tourism, historical texts, naturally occurring conversation, classroom interaction and interviews, leading authors in the field of sociolinguistics in this volume explore how linguistic stancetaking is implicated in the representation of self, personal style and acts of stylization, and self- and other-positioning. The analyses also focus on how speakers deploy and take up stances vis-a-vis sociolinguistic variables and the critical role of stance in the processes of indexicalization: how linguistic forms come to be associated with social categories and meanings. In doing so, many of the authors address critical issues of power and social reproduction, examining how stance is implicated in the production, reproduction and potential change of social and linguistic hierarchies and ideologies. This volume maps out the terrain of existing sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research on stance, synthesizes how it relates to existing theoretical orientations, and identifies a framework for future research.

Order the SPSS Student Version (ISBN: 978-1-4129-6883-6) of this text and your students will be able to practice SPSS (version 16.0)áon their laptops in the convenience of their dorm rooms (rather than in the computer labs) for just $25 more than the text alone.In this Fifth Edition of their best-selling Social Statistics for a Diverse Society, Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and Anna Leon-Guerrero use straightforward, conversational prose and emphasize common sense as they demonstrate the link between the practice of statistics and important social issues. Social Statistics for a Diverse Society helps students learn key sociological concepts through real research examples related to the dynamic relationship between race, class, gender, and other social variables. An emphasis on SPSS® for Windows (version 16.0) throughout the book, in conjunction with General Social Survey data, introduces one of the most commonly used analytical software packages in the field. Each chapter ends with a demonstration of a related SPSS procedure, along with a set of useful exercises to help students practice what they learn. New and Retained FeaturesNew and updated real-world examples, drawn from a wide range of sources, including news stories, government reports, scholarly research, the National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey and the Monitoring the Future Survey, help students combine an understanding of statistics with an increased understanding of social issues Significant student-friendly reorganization of the text provides descriptive and inferential statistics in discrete units first, followed by coverage of data analysis Updated statistical applications in examples now include social issues beyond race and gender, such as class and mobility Reading the Research Literature sections in most chapters help students read and interpret statistical information in professional and scholarly publications Fully revitalized learning aids, including new end-of-chapter exercises, Learning Checks, and Statistics in Practice and A Closer Look boxes A new data set available on the Study Site applies to criminology and social work research issues Ancillaries Instructor Resources on CD-Rom feature a new test bank with a wide variety of test questions, PowerPoint slides for each chapter, illustrations from the book, and teaching tips. Contact Customer Care at 1-800-818-SAGE (7243). A Student study site at www.pineforge.com/frankfort-nachmiasstudy5 contains interactive quizzes, e-flashcards, data sets, online research activities, SAGE journal articles and more. Social Statistics for a Diverse Society, Fifth Edition is appropriate for use in Introduction to Statistics, Social Statistics, Research Methods and Data Analysis courses in all of the social sciences. á