A Theoretical and Analytical Synthesis of Autopoiesis and Sociolinguistics for the Study of Organisational Communication

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we propose a systemic view of communication based in autopoiesis, the theory of living systems formulated by Maturana & Varela (1980, 1987). Second, we show the links between the underpinning assumptions of autopoiesis and the sociolinguistic approaches of Halliday (1978), Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1995) and Lemke (1995, 1994). Third, we propose a theoretical and analytical synthesis of autopoiesis and sociolinguistics for the study of organisational communication. In proposing a systemic theory for organisational communication, we argue that traditional approaches to communication, information, and the role of language in human organisations have, to date, been placed in teleological constraints because of an inverted focus on organisational purpose-the generally perceived role of an organisation within society-that obscure, rather than clarify, the role of language within human organisations. We argue that human social systems are, according to the criteria defined by Maturana and Varela, third-order, non-organismic living systems constituted in language. We further propose that sociolinguistics provides an appropriate analytical tool which is both compatible and penetrating in synthesis with the systemic framework provided by an autopoietic understanding of social organisation.     

REVIEWS

Readings in Faith and Suspicion

Jean Radford, Dorothy Richardson, Harvester Wheatsheaf, £9.95 pbk.

Alison Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars, Routledge, £10.99 pbk.

Philosophical Passions

Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine, Rout‐ledge, £35 hbk, £9.99 pbk.

Margaret Whitford (ed.), The Irigaray Reader, Blackwell, £12.95.

Contested Sites

Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (eds), Conflicts in Feminism, Routledge, $49.50 hbk, $15.95 pbk.

Writing Victorian Women and Victorian Women Writing

Christina Crosby, The Ends of History: Victorians and ‘The Woman Question’, Routledge, $49.95 hbk, $14.95 pbk, £10.99 pbk.

Anita Levy, Other Women: The Writing of Class, Race, and Gender, 1832–1898, Princeton University Press, $35 hbk, $9.95 pbk.

Thais E. Morgan (ed.), Victorian Sages and Cultural Discourse: Renegotiating Gender and Power, Rutgers University Press, $38 hbk, $15 pbk.

Ann Russo and Cheris Kramarae (eds), The Radical Women's Press of the 1850s, Routledge, $35.     

Maltreatment Chronicity Defined with Reference to Development: Extension of the Social Adaptation Outcomes Findings to Peer Relations

The purpose of this study was to extend work seeking to improve research definitions of chronic maltreatment by contrasting a definition based on patterns of CPS reports across childhood developmental stages to a previously used definition based upon duration of the period including reports, using teacher-estimated peer relations to represent an extrafamilial outcome domain of social adaptation. The sample includes 387 children who are participating in a multi-site longitudinal study and had been reported for abuse or neglect to CPS between birth and age 8. CPS records from this time period provided the basis of two chronicity constructs: 1) an ordinal categories (OC) definition based upon four Eriksonian stages, and 2) a durational definition (time between first and last reports). Block-wise regression analyses were conducted to examine the relative degree to which the two chronicity definitions contributed to prediction of teacher-estimated peer relations at the age 8 interview. Chronicity characterized with reference to developmental stages significantly predicted troubled peer relations, with child age, sex, and minority status, family income, geographic location, and time of first report taken into account. The effect was pronounced with regard to aggressive peer relations. Duration of maltreatment reports also predicted aggressive peer relations, but significantly less so than did the OC definition. The findings support the view that maltreatment chronicity is usefully defined by taking children’s development into consideration to characterize patterns of maltreatment across developmental stages. Practice and research implications are suggested.     

Restrictive Covenants in Xanadu

Legal scholarship is naturally inclined towards explanations and justifications of contemporary law. In the case of restrictive covenants and building schemes this has led to a distorted perception of the historical record, as revealed in recorded case reports dating from the nineteenth century. It is argued that the restrictive covenant had its historical genesis not in a response to industrialisation and mass urbanisation, but in the developments of resort towns in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as a response to the needs of land developers. Furthermore, it is argued that a better historical understanding of these origins illuminates contemporary problems concerned with the adaptability of law and the potential roles of law in development.     

Traditional aboriginal values in a Westminster parliament: The legislative assembly of Nunavut

This article examines the interplay of structure and culture in the Legislative Assembly of the newly established territory of Nunavut in Canada's eastern Arctic. This institution combines the Westminster cabinet-parliamentary system with traditional Inuit culture, many features of which are antithetical to British-style ‘responsible government’. The distinctive ‘consensus government’ system which characterises the Nunavut Legislative Assembly has important features consistent with Inuit values and approaches, for example, the absence of political parties. Based primarily on personal interviews with Members of the Assembly, the article considers whether Inuit culture has significantly recast the structures and the political imperatives inherent in the Westminster system or if the powerful values and constraints of that system have effectively overridden Inuit values. Perceptions and reflections of members serving in the First Assembly (1999–2004) suggest that while substantial adaptations to the conventional Westminster system have been made, these are indeed adaptations rather than fundamental alterations to the system.