# transformationalism
## English
### Etymology

From transformational +‎ -ism.

### Pronunciation

* This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

transformationalism (uncountable)
* (linguistics) Adherence to transformational grammars.
** 1975, Antoine Arnauld, Claude Lancelot, General and rational grammar : the Port-Royal grammar, →ISBN, page 188:For quite different reasons neither Chomsky nor Lakoff has offered good evidence for considering the Port-Royal Grammar to be an early essay in transformationalism, but the evidence they do offer raises many interesting questions about the interpretation of the Grammar (and the Logic) specifically, about the history of thought about language, and, more surprisingly, about the fundamental concepts of twentieth-century transformational grammar.
** 1978, Studies in Language - Volumes 1-2, page 447:Thus one might speak here of syntactic transformationalism on the one hand and semantic transformationalism on the other.
** 1991, Heizō Nakajima, Trends in Linguistics: State-of-the-art Reports - Volume 16, →ISBN, page 169:It is certainly true that unconstrained transformationalism is incompatible with the basic fact that words constitute special morphological units that are distinct from phrases and sentences.
* (theology) A fusion of evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, and ecumenism that became prominent in the early 21st century; transformational Christianity.
** 2003, Wallace M. Alston, Michael Welker, Reformed Theology: Identity and Ecumenicity - Volume 1, →ISBN, page 16:Their position denies the general revelation of God given in the other religions, while inclusive transformationalism acknowledges the relative usefulness and values that other religions have, even though they do not bring salvation.
** 2007, Joshua Reichard, Rust to Renewal, →ISBN, page 123:Unlike ecumenism, transformationalism is not an expression of denominational uniformity, but an expression of interdenominational alliances.
** 2009, Zachary I. Heller, Synagogues in a Time of Change, →ISBN, page 23:Transformationalism may describe the reality of religion in America, but normatively speaking it fails to reveal anything about the quality or implications of those changes.
* (sociology, education) A sociological and educational theory that focuses on the process of learned concepts and skills to reframe and transform unthinking culturally-generated assumptions and cognitive categories.
** 1980, Norman Spinrad, The Mind Game, page 64:"That's why you need Transformationalism," he said. "Your mind has to evolve to match this permanent situation of permanent change. You've got to get rid of that instantaneous personality that was frozen in a previous cultural matrix that no longer exists...."
** 2007, Edith Valladares McElroy, The Effects of the College Student Success Course on the Retention and Academic Performance of English as a Second Language Students Enrolled in Developmental Reading and English at Central Piedmont Community College, →ISBN, page 5:According to Mezirow (2000), transformationalism helps adults make sense of their environment so they can act upon it. This is a complex process in which the personalities of the teachers and learners interact with the educational setting and the political environment. Learners examine themselves and the beliefs they bring to the learning experience.
** 2010, Anne Boran, Poverty: Malaise of Development, →ISBN, page 57:For me, this is part of transformationalism. A transformationalist does not just favour change: they foment it.
** 2012, Kurt April, Nick D Milton, Performance Through Learning, →ISBN, page v:At the next level, we must practice transformationalism, which goes hand in hand with unlearning.
* (political science, historical) The belief in the transformative power of Confucian culture as a superior system that can be universally applied to all people.
** 2004, Gerald F Gaus, Chandran Kukathas, Handbook of Political Theory, →ISBN, page 330:While the supplanted transformationalism was not specifically Neo-Confucian, a central prop of the newly elevated emperorship affirmed a Han-dynasty contention that Zhu Xi had opposed.
** 2005, Joshua A. Fogel, The Teleology of the Modern Nation-state: Japan and China, page 144:So long as late Qing transformationalism based on allegiance to Confucian values prevailed, the grounds nationalists were seeking for uniting those identified as "Chinese" against those identified as "Manchus", "Mongols," "Uigurs," "Tibetans," and even Chinese Muslims.
** 2006, Emma Teng, Taiwan's Imagined Geography, →ISBN, page 115:As both Yu Yonghe and Huang Shujing recognized, racialist discourse was incongrous with the Confucian ideal of transformationalism, for the claim that barbarians possessed distinct inborn natures, or fixed moral characters, suggested that they were unassimilable.
* (political science) A political theory that emphasizes assimilation as a process of global cultural convergence.
** 2001, Mark J. Valencia, Maritime Regime Building, →ISBN, page 3:The difference is still significant, however, in circumstances where the possibility of widespread adherence to an extensive set of obligations is unlikely, for "transformationalism" would support the watering down of the regime in exchange for broader membership, in the belief that the operation of the regime will, over time, increase the convergence of interests.
** 2002, Reza Banakar, Max Travers, An introduction to law and social theory, page 313:The third perspective of globalisation, transformationalism, recognises the contingency of action and the historicity of structure as enabling and constraining globalisation.
** 2011, Heather Savigny, Lee Marsden, Doing Political Science and International Relations, →ISBN, page 246:Martell (2010) focuses on hyper-globalization, scepticism, transformationalism and postmodernism/post structuralism and constructivism. We do not consider transformationalism, a hybrid approach between globalism and scepticism, in this chapter due to space limitations (although this approach has a growing following).
** 2014, Tom Chodor, Neoliberal Hegemony and the Pink Tide in Latin America, →ISBN, page 29:Thus, whilst liberal transformationalism is right to ask questions about the poverty, inequality, and the democratic deficit generated by neoliberal globalisation, the answers it proposes cannot seriously resolve these issues because they are intrinsic to the capitalism question that liberal transformationalism does not ask.
* (biology, historical) A theory proposed by Robinet in the 18th century that posits a single, created prototype for all species of plants and animals.
** 2010, Miklós Vassányi, Anima Mundi: The Rise of the World Soul Theory in Modern German Philosophy, →ISBN, page 78:The main strength of the text, however, lies not so much with the reductio ad absurdum of the world soul hypotheses, but in its critical assessment of Leibniz's monadology and Robinet's biological transformationalism, on the one hand, and in Ploucquet's own theory of finite substances as 'real images', imagines reales, of the infinite divine force, on the other hand; in short, in his own alternative of natural philosophy.
** 2011, Michael Funk Deckard, PŽter Losonczi, Philosophy Begins in Wonder, →ISBN, page 129:In historical terms, Diderot's full-fledged, materialistic hylozoism apparently relies on Locke's hypothesis concerning thinking matter, on Toland's theory of essentially active matter, on Maupertuis's theory of the spontaneous creative degeneration of the embryo, and probably on Robinet's biological transformationalism as well.
** 2013, G. Kampis, Self-Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science, →ISBN, page 16:Transformationalism was a dominant theory of change before Darwin set the stage.

#### Related terms

* transformationalist