The racial subtext in Canada’s immigration discourse

The articulation of race has become subtle and elusive in democratic societies because racism conflicts with principles of equality and non-discrimination. This article examines Canada’s immigration discourse and argues that a racial subtext can be discerned from the discourse by examining its vocabulary, syntax, structure, and implied rationale. The study shows that codified concepts and an implied logic are used to convey racial massages that appear not to be “race”-based. The discourse is further facilitated by opinion polls and academic studies that reify the notion of “race” and legitimize its everyday use as a harmless concept. It is the discourse itself, and not implied differences of “race”, that fragments Canada. The study recommends abandoning the use of racial subtext in academic research and immigration policy development.     

Deep dyslexia in the two languages of an Arabic/French bilingual patient.

We present a single case study of an Arabic/French bilingual patient, ZT, who, at the age of 32, suffered a cerebral vascular accident that resulted in a massive infarct in the left peri-sylvian region. ZT's reading displays the characteristics of the deep dyslexia syndrome in both languages, that is, production of semantic, visual, and morphological errors, and concreteness effect in reading aloud and impossibility of reading nonwords. In the first part of this paper, using a three-route model of reading, we account for the patient's performance by positing functional lesions, which affect the non-lexical, the semantic lexical and the non-semantic lexical routes of reading. Phonological priming observed in a cross-language visual lexical decision task indicates that implicit assembled phonological recoding is possible. The above lesions and implicit nonword reading characterize the output form of deep dyslexia. However, error distribution reveals dissociations across languages (e.g. the semantic error rate is higher in French whereas translations are more frequent in the Arabic testing) that cannot be accounted for within a three-route model. In the second part, extensions to Plaut and Shallice's connectionist model (Cognitive Neuropsychology, 10 (5) (1993) 377) are proposed to account for the translinguistic errors observed. ZT's error distribution is compared to that obtained by Plaut and Shallice after lesions had been applied at different locations through the 40-60 network. The overall syndrome of deep dyslexia found in both languages is explained as resulting from lesions along the direct (O-->I) and output (S-->Ip, Ip-->P) pathways of reading. Lesions along the output pathway mostly affecting S-->Ip connections in French and Ip-->P connections in Arabic account for discrepancies in ZT's error pattern across tasks and languages. This case study demonstrates the superiority of a connectionist approach for predicting the error pattern in deep dyslexia.     

Tolerant (In)civility? A Longitudinal Analysis of White Conservative Protestants’ Willingness to Grant Civil Liberties

Past research has found conservative Protestants to be less willing than most Americans to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups. In light of evidence of high and growing civility by Smith (2000) and Hunter (1984), there is good reason to believe that conservative Protestants are becoming less distinctive with regard to granting civil freedoms. We update and expand previous research on conservative Protestants and civil liberties by examining the civil liberties measures in the General Social Survey over a 26-year period, with special attention to explaining conservative Protestantism's rejection of civil liberties. In comparison to mainline Protestants and Catholics, we find that conservative Protestants are still less willing to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups, though important qualifications apply. Various explanations are examined.     

Thinking styles,self‐esteem,and extracurricular experiences

This study had two objectives. The first was to examine the relationship between thinking styles and self‐esteem. The second objective was to investigate the relationship of the participants' extracurricular experiences to both thinking styles and self‐esteem. Seven‐hundred and ninety‐four university students from Hong Kong participated in the study. Participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992) and the Self‐Esteem Inventory (Adult Form, Coopersmith, 1981) as well as to a questionnaire designed to elicit both personal and situational characteristics. It was found that thinking styles and self‐esteem are statistically related. Meanwhile, both thinking styles and self‐esteem are statistically related to the participants' extracurricular experiences. Implications of these findings for teachers are discussed.     

"宗教多元性"、"宗教多元观"与"宗教多元论"——试论"Religious Pluralism"的三重含义

目前国内学界通常将"Religious pluralism"一词译作"宗教多元论"或"宗教多元主义"。本文通过对其内涵的深入分析,揭示出该术语三重含义:"宗教多元性"、"宗教多元观"与"宗教多元论"。文章进一步提出判断某种理论是否属于宗教多元论的标准可概括为"以相对化为途径,祛除宗教自我中心主义,在新秩序内实现宗教平等"。由此揭示出当代宗教多元论的目标在于通过建构宗教共同体建立宗教平等的"新秩序"。     

论欧美佛教研究的分期与转型

本文把欧美佛教研究学术史划为四个阶段:一、19世纪20-70年代,是起步阶段,确立了以"佛教文献学"为主导的研究范式;二、19世纪80年代到二战,是成熟阶段,在佛典校勘、佛教考古与思想解读等方面取得了重要的成果,形成了旧英德学派、列宁格勒学派与法比学派;三、二战结束到70年代,是转型阶段,东亚佛教尤其是藏传佛教,受到了空前的重视,在传统的文献学与哲学研究之余,兼顾适应国际政治需要的"地区研究",在方法上更多涉及佛教的社会史、政治史等领域。四、80年代以来,欧美佛教研究中心从欧洲转到北美,佛教学术空前繁荣,西方佛教学者置疑他们自身的学术传统与理论预设,探讨佛教与西方社会深度交流的可能。     

伪道养形,真道养神——《西升经》的形神观探险

出于西晋的<西升经>提出"伪道养形,真道养神"这一具有独创性的命题,虽然有空喊口号的嫌疑,但却在口号声中把"形"与"神"割裂开来,这就等于对道教主流论证人经修炼能不死成仙的主要依据之一"形神俱妙"进行釜底抽薪,否决了传统道教所主张的"炼形",从而走向"炼神".<西升经>的形神观尚未全盘抛弃道教的传统言说,其中还有一些论述上的自相矛盾,譬如既割裂形神,又肯定形神相辅相成,既否定形体,又在某些地方保留了身体在修炼中的地位.尽管如此,我们仍然认为它打开了道教生命哲学发展趋势的新局面.