Superior – Subordinate Request Email in Workplace Communication of a Malaysian Organisation

Email is key in workplace communication. This study examines structure of request emails and display of politeness by Malaysian superiors when writing to subordinates. Authoritative and solidarity-oriented structures with corresponding linguistic strategies were found to reflect different leadership styles, autocratic and democratic. Language and communicative style were influenced by situational context of a request. When face threat and imposition were low, superiors were authoritative and when face threat and imposition were high, they were egalitarian. Email functioned as an equalising medium that enabled superiors to be democratic as well as a channel for power enactment that reinforced hierarchical structures.     

Religion and politics in Malaysian nation-building: a “double-movement” of hegemonic and plural Islam

This article looks at links and fractures in the development of Political Islam in Malaysia. It looks at the various bases of divides in Malay political mobilization. In the early colonial period, Malay–Islamic political elites were divided along the lines of language and schooling, while the postcolonial era saw the divisions taking on a more ideological basis, marking the deepening of intra-Islamic contestation. The double-movement in Political Islam’s expansion can be seen as moving in two opposite directions. While, on the one hand, the incorporation of Islamic governance in the state had taken on a centralized and hegemonic character, the splintering and pluralization of Political Islam had also occurred in an equally extensive manner.     

Being a Man,Being a Member: Masculinity and Community in Britain’s Working Men’s Clubs, 1945–1960*

By 1960, there were more than 3,500 working men’s clubs in Britain, with a combined membership of more than two million people. This article explores their post-war transformation from small homosocial enclaves for drinking and bar-games to larger family-oriented entertainment venues, while they continued to provide social, welfare and educational activities for local communities. Operating on the boundaries of public and private life, they remained alternative sites of domesticity to the home, in which men nurtured relations with both friends and family. Nevertheless, though women and children came to represent a significant presence in the clubs, their cultures remained largely patriarchal and discriminatory. I argue that working men’s clubs provided important sources of agency, community and continuity for their members, during a period of rapid social and cultural change.     

Poverty,Philanthropy and the State: Charities and the Working Classes in London 1918–79. By Katharine Bradley

Abstract

Nineteenth-century perceptions of alcoholism were shaped implicitly by notions of gender, class and morality. From 1879, legislation advocated the institutional management of inebriates as a response to the growing problem of habitual drunkenness. Examining the methods of treating varied classes of female alcoholics in three inebriate institutions between 1876 and 1898, this article highlights how reformatory and punitive treatment models were shaped by class and gender perceptions of the alcoholic. The article questions why the application of reformatory treatment models proved problematic and analyzes the points of tension encountered in the attempts to reform a mixed class of female patients.     

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.     

Unsettling a sacred relationship: The mother–daughter–man romantic love triangle in telenovelas

Telenovelas are serialized melodramatic love stories whose happy endings are postponed by intrigues and obstacles. The main source of these impediments is also the basic building block of every telenovela: the love triangle. Because they unsettle the mother–daughter relation, mother–daughter–man triangles can be risky. But they can be successful too. This study examines the production, representation, consumption, and social regulation of the mother–daughter–man love triangle in three telenovelas: Ciudad Bendita (2006, Venevisión-Venezuela), Doña Bárbara (2008, Telemundo-USA), and La Mujer Perfecta (2010, Venevisión-Venezuela). Located under the umbrella of cultural studies, the study uses a multimethod approach that includes textual and ethnographic methods. The analysis underscores the writing and production challenges of this particular love triangle, considers the fit, or lack thereof, of the mother–daughter dyad with the virgin/whore dichotomy present in the majority of telenovelas, and fleshes out the nuances of audience reception of this type of triangle.     

‘At Some Point in the 1960s,Hell Disappeared’: Hell,Gender and Catholicism in Post-War England

This article explores changing understandings of Catholic hell in post-war England, focusing on how questions of sex and gender intersected with beliefs in the afterlife. It uses oral testimony from Catholic laypeople alongside the pronouncements of the clerical hierarchy to challenge the pervasive notion that ‘hell disappeared in the 1960s’. Hell did however, change in constitution during the post-war decades, transforming from a material ‘place’ to an abstract ‘state’ in the lay and institutional imagination. Rather than being about a straightforward ‘liberation’ from a coercive theology of damnation, the changing constitution of hell spoke of the way certain religious beliefs became re-categorised in late-modern England.     

Leader–member skill distance,team cooperation,and team performance: A cross-culture study in a context of sport teams

Team heterogeneity research has been traditionally dominated by atomistic or single-culture assumptions. This study extends this stream by investigating the influences of cooperation and culture on the link between leader–member skill distance (one special type of team heterogeneity) and team performance. Building upon input-process-output framework from the perspective of individualist and collectivist cultures, we propose that the association between leader–member skill distance and team performance has an inverted-U shape in individualist cultures. Further, in such cultures, team cooperation can augment the positive effect of leader–member skill distance on team performance. In contrast, in collectivist cultures, the association between leader–member skill distance and team performance has a monotonic and positive shape, and team cooperation will attenuate the positive effect of leader–member skill distance on team performance. We find the empirical support for our views with a mixed-methods design: a qualitative study interviewing informants in different cultures to clarify the psychological mechanisms, and also a quantitative study analyzing the data from US’s National Basketball Association (NBA) and China Basketball Association (CBA).