Question: Sociologist James A. Beckford, in his 1975 study of Jehovah's Witnesses, classified the religion's organizational structure as Totalizing, characterized by an assertive leadership, specific and narrow objectives, control over competing demands on members' time and energy, and control over the quality of new members. Other characteristics of the classification include likelihood of friction with secular authorities, reluctance to co-operate with other religious organizations, a high rate of membership turnover, a low rate of doctrinal change, and strict uniformity of beliefs among members. Beckford identified the religion's chief characteristics as historicism (identifying historical events as relating to the outworking of God's purpose), absolutism (conviction that Jehovah's Witness leaders dispense absolute truth), activism (capacity to motivate members to perform missionary tasks), rationalism (conviction that Witness doctrines have a rational basis devoid of mystery), authoritarianism (rigid presentation of regulations without the opportunity for criticism) and world indifference (rejection of certain secular requirements and medical treatments).
Try to answer this question if possible: What is the term for Jehovah's Witnesses' rejection of certain secular requirements and medical treatments?
Answer: world indifference
Question: Music was an important part of both secular and spiritual culture, and in the universities it made up part of the quadrivium of the liberal arts. From the early 13th century, the dominant sacred musical form had been the motet; a composition with text in several parts. From the 1330s and onwards, emerged the polyphonic style, which was a more complex fusion of independent voices. Polyphony had been common in the secular music of the Provencal troubadours. Many of these had fallen victim to the 13th-century Albigensian Crusade, but their influence reached the papal court at Avignon.
Try to answer this question if possible: What was the dominant sacred musical form in the early 12th century?
Answer: unanswerable
Question: Translation is a major obstacle when comparing different cultures. Many English terms lack equivalents in other languages, while concepts and words from other languages fail to be reflected in the English language. Translation and vocabulary obstacles are not limited to the English language. Language can force individuals to identify with a label that may or may not accurately reflect their true sexual orientation. Language can also be used to signal sexual orientation to others. The meaning of words referencing categories of sexual orientation are negotiated in the mass media in relation to social organization. New words may be brought into use to describe new terms or better describe complex interpretations of sexual orientation. Other words may pick up new layers or meaning. For example, the heterosexual Spanish terms marido and mujer for "husband" and "wife", respectively, have recently been replaced in Spain by the gender-neutral terms conyuges or consortes meaning "spouses".
Try to answer this question if possible: What can force individuals to identify with a label that may not reflect true orientation?
Answer: Language
Question: Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is that of linguistic authority, a more sociolinguistic notion. According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of the same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding some questions about their language. For instance, to learn the name of a new invention, or an obscure foreign species of plant, speakers of Bavarian German and East Franconian German might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert in the subject. By way of contrast, although Yiddish is classified by linguists as a language in the "Middle High German" group of languages, a Yiddish speaker would not consult a German dictionary to determine the word to use in such a case.
Try to answer this question if possible: What term refers to another way in which dialects are distinguished from languages?
Answer:
linguistic authority