Throughout their history, dictionaries have been understood as sources of authority, whether that authority has been claimed by their makers or imputed by their audiences. In English-language contexts, that authority has taken various guises – moral, colonial, and legal, among others. Such authority rests, in part, on the linking of words, word forms, and grammatical structures to judgments about speakers, communities, and social relations. While those judgments have largely been aligned with codifying and maintaining a perceived “standard,” dictionaries have been sites of resistance, too. This chapter explores both assertions of authority and resistance. Given the long history of dictionaries and their substantial variety, the chapter adopts a case-study-like approach. It uses examples to explore how dictionaries have on the one hand upheld the civic, cultural, and social order, and on the other celebrated the linguistic practices and lexical innovations of marginalized communities and stigmatized varieties.

Survey data, despite limitations, offer the clearest window on the current state of global religiosity, showing the sharply divergent ways religious impulses and their absence have manifested in different nations and regions. After a discussion of religious literacy, we explore what cross-cultural survey research teaches about the global distribution of religious belief. Research suggests that atheism is rare, especially outside of Europe and a few industrialized countries. Beyond this, studies confirm that countries differ greatly in the prevalence of various religious beliefs, including belief in a personal God who intervenes in human affairs. Some careful projections also suggest that significant changes are coming over the next few decades in the relative sizes of different religious groups around the world. In the United States, survey data suggest that – despite some recent changes -- people continue to be relatively religious when compared with other highly industrialized and economically developed nations. The second half of the chapter looks at the empirical relationships between religiosity and education, intellect, thinking styles, gender, age, and personality.

This chapter describes the events that led to the birth of clinical psychology as a science and a profession. It outlines three traditions that shaped the field and continue to influence it: (a) the use of scientific research methods – the empirical tradition; (b) the measurement of individual differences – the psychometric tradition; and (c) the classification and treatment of psychological disorders – the clinical tradition. It shows how the field grew slowly but steadily during the first half of the twentieth century, then saw explosive growth both in size and in the diversity of its major theoretical approaches, including the psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, cognitive behavioral, social systems, and biological. It also tells the story of how these approaches developed and presents examples of how various approaches might be applied in clinical cases. The chapter concludes with a summary of the latest developments in clinical psychology that will surely shape its future.

Law and lexicography intersect in various ways, involving intricacies in legal phraseology and semantics, the creation of dictionaries both legal and general, the evolving philosophies of what dictionaries should do, how lawyers and judges use dictionaries in their work, and even the settled doctrine that the drafters of legal instruments can be their own lexicographers. The two disciplines are perhaps as closely intertwined as any disparate disciplines can be – all the more so given the dramatic rise of textualism, especially in the United States, since the mid−1980s. Although Judge Learned Hand once cautioned that it is a mistake for advocates and judges to make a fortress out of the dictionary, that view has receded in recent years. If not a fortress, the dictionary is certainly a mainstay in modern judicial decision-making. The chapter treats the history of legal lexicography in Anglo-American law, the methods of modern legal lexicography, how courts use dictionaries, and how legal drafters engage in nonce-lexicography when preparing legal instruments.

This chapter describes how clinical psychologists work with medical professionals to treat disorders, help patients to cope with the stress of medical conditions, and to adhere to medical treatment recommendations. It also describes factors that contribute to disease, focusing on relationships between psychosocial factors (such as stress and unhelpful patterns of thinking) and physical factors (such as nervous system activity, circulation, and immune system functioning). The chapter also includes a description of behavioral and psychological risk factors that enhance the likelihood of illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, and cancer. Also discussed are programs for preventing or minimizing the impact of those risk factors.