Per Andersen

Prompted by the scarcity of studies on the attitudes of people towards pet (companion) animals in most Arab countries and inspired by their previous research on the attitudes towards animals in Palestine and Norway, the researchers conducted this study to measure the attitudes of university students in Oman with reference to religious observance. A total of 217 students at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman responded to the Pet Attitude Scale (PAS) combined with questions regarding religious observance. The findings revealed somewhat less positive attitudes toward companion animals among the Omani students than the Palestinian students. Despite the general high degree of religious observance among Omani students, the study showed no significant correlation between religiosity and attitudes towards animals among Omani students. Some difficulties connected with the use of self-report questionnaires and the possibilities to investigate attitudes versus actual behavior are also discussed.

This study investigates and compares attitudes of 205 Palestinian and Norwegian university students toward companion animals (pets) using the Pet Attitude Scale. In order to provide some background for the Palestinian attitudes toward nonhuman animals, we discuss canonical Islamic texts on their treatment, as well as the present situation for animal protection in the Middle East. The findings from the survey suggest differences between Palestinian and Norwegian students; however, both groups showed predominately positive attitudes.

We use recent developments within philosophy of science and within certain strands of linguistic research to throw light on each other. According to Ronald Giere's perspectivist philosophy of science, the scientific understanding of reality must proceed along different, mutually irreducible lines of approach. Giere's proposal, however, leaves unresolved the problem of how to integrate the ever‐growing multitude of highly diverse scientific accounts of what is, after all, one and the same world. We propose a technique for the alignment of different perspectives that will permit cross‐perspectival explanation, and thus allow for a more holistic picture of reality to emerge. With respect to modern linguistics, however, Giere's perspectivism merely legalises a de facto state of affairs, as this discipline displays the peaceful coexistence of a multitude of different theoretical perspectives. Still, this makes it all the more important to show how the different aspects of language picked out by these different perspectives combine to form one single complex reality. During our investigation, a largely overlooked type of reduction within linguistics comes to light, prevalent in classical as well as current work within speech act theory and politeness theory. We suggest how a more holistic understanding of language can be attained through our technique for integrating different perspectives.

The paper develops a new holistic theory of the word by integrating semiotic, linguistic, and psychological perspectives and introduces the Cogitative-Sensory Word Model, the CogSens Model, that unites the human mind and body. Saussure’s two-sided sign is replaced by a Peirce-inspired three-sided conception in which the expression unit mediates two content units, namely, an idea content connected to the human mind and an image content linked to the human body. It is argued that it is the word that makes human language a unique tool of communication. Moreover, it is demonstrated how words interact with grammar to create an utterance. Finally, it is suggested that speech perception, i.e., fission of idea and image content, is the mirror image of speech production, i.e., fusion of idea and image content.