Digital Commons Network^™

Sharing The Power Of Words And Changing Lives Through College-Level Instruction In Grammar And Mechanics, Carol Ann Tillema

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intrigued by the English language and its far-reaching applications worldwide as a standard means of communication, I begin my disquisition with a focus on the meaning and derivation of grammar and its place in the trivium of ancient and modern study. I stress the need to reemphasize college-level instruction in grammar and mechanics as a complement to rhetoric and logic by studying and teaching editing, which involves semantics, syntax, phonology, morphology, conventions, mechanics (spelling, punctuation and format), in writing centers and classrooms. Noting growing nationwide illiteracy, I research the pedagogies and writing of experts in the field of rhetoric and …

Audio-Visual Rhetoric: Visualizing The Pattern Language Of Film, Gesche Joost, Sandra Buchmuller, Roman Englert

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Audio-visual Rhetoric is a knowledge domain for designers in theory and practice that is valid for all communicative actions through media that aim for persuasion. Within this domain, we introduce a framework for media analysis. We developed an Audio-Visual Pattern (AVP) language for film that is visualized within a notation system. This system shows auditory and visual parameters in order to reveal film's rhetorical structure. We discuss related theories from pattern language and rhetoric and apply the AVP method to analyze 10 commercials.

Time Bending: Temporal Malleability And Organizational Response In Crisis Situations, Gary W. Carson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 created a crisis of epic proportions for the airline industry. The attacks, on the heels of the first financial losses in four years, threatened the existence of many airlines. It was incumbent on the CEO to make sense and offer a plan to control the crisis and move forward. There were fewer audiences more attentive to this senemaking activity than the stockholders. On the cusp of the organization, shareholder management is a central job of CEOs in the 21st century. This study focuses on CEO presentations to shareholders for American, Delta and Frontier Airlines before …

Rhetoric Theory And Legal Writing: An Annotated Bibliography, Michael R. Smith

Faculty Articles

This bibliography supplements the articles in this volume of the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors J ALWD by setting out a list of other works that have been written in the growing area of legal writing scholarship that relates classical and contemporary rhetoric theory to the practice of professional legal writing The scope of this bibliography is limited in two ways First the works listed here focus primarily on how rhetoric theory applies to the discipline of legal writing While rhetoric is a discipline unto itself only a few works on general rhetoric theory have been listed …

Bring Me Men: Intertextual Identity Formation At The Us Air Force Academy, Katherine L. Schifani

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This project looks at the textual and intertextual subject position constructed at the Air Force Academy focusing on the "Bring Me Men..." sign formerly on the entry ramp. In thinking about identity and subject position, I use identity for each cadet and graduate’s individual experience (particularly my own) within the textually constituted subject positions. I present a brief history of the “Bring Me Men…” ramp (BMMR) and the sexual assault scandal that was the key exigence that brought those words down. My focus is on the period immediately surrounding the scandal, discussing the ideology and identity that “Bring Me Men…” …

Diverse Persuasion(S): From Rhetoric To Representation (And Back Again To Rhetoric) In International Human Rights Interpretation, Craig Scott

Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy

This article proceeds from a way of thinking about legal-rights reasoning that is grounded in the rhetorical tradition. In light of questions of political legitimacy and personal ethics, a central premise of the article is that the rhetorical enterprise must situate itself within a paradigm of dialogic communication in which mutual persuasion is the orientation to argument and the quest for intersubjective validation of claimed premises, lines of argument, and conclusions is the purposive mode. The first step in the article is to move from a general conception of law as a field of rhetoric to an account of how …

Swearing: Force And Language, Kevin Spencer

Digitized Theses

This study attempts to address the question, “Why in contemporary times does swearing have a more acceptable role as a means of persuasion in the public sphere than it previously did?” This question is approached with constant reference to two minor scandals in state politics in which politicians Dick Cheney and Jack Layton swore without significant reprisal and, in fact, were rewarded for their violation of decorum. Much of the inquiry attempts to characterize swearing by its action upon language rather than simply its meaning. In the second chapter, this is done through considerations of the philosophy of Condillac, Rousseau, …

The Rhetorical Myth Of The Athlete As A Moral Hero: The Implications Of Steroids In Sport And The Threatened Myth, Karen L. Hartman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research analyzes changes in the rhetoric of a sustaining myth in order to better assess what happens when a myth is threatened. By examining American sport and its current struggle to withstand the widespread use of steroids, the author investigates how public discourse about the scandal turns athletes from mythical heroes to cheaters. The author begins by explicating the rhetorical construction of the athlete as a moral hero in America and how this myth is perpetuated today. The author then examines how steroids threaten the myth of the moral athlete and uses Major League Baseball as a case study …

Crisis Rhetoric : A Theory Of Communication In Times Of Crisis, Eric D. Loepp

Honors Theses

We conducted an experiment to assess the effect of presidential rhetoric in a time of crisis. Our study was based in part on terror management theory, which posits that subtle reminders of death (mortality salience) lead to increased support of leaders an authority figures. Subjects were randomly placed in either a mortality salient condition or control condition. We also composed two speeches - one charismatic and one non-charismatic - and subjects were randomly assigned to hear one of the two. Based on elements of terror management theory, we hypothesized that in a time of crisis the charismatic speech would be …

Vico, Llewellyn And The Task Of Legal Education, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Legal education fails students by not appreciating the rhetorical basis of legal reasoning and argumentation. I draw from Vico's "On the Study Methods of Our Time" and Llewellyn's legal realism; both argued that law and legal reasoning are exemplary sites of rhetoric. I suggest that contemporary cognitive studies of the metaphorical structure of human understanding and the initiatives of the "new legal realism" carry forward the insights of Vico and Llewellyn. This re-orientation corrects the shallow and instrumentalist outlook of most lawyers.

What Is Reading In The Pratice Of Law?, Kirk W. Junker

Kirk W Junker