Digital Commons Network^™

An Incubating Institution: Speaker And Gavel’S Current Criticism Section And The Development Of Twentieth Century Rhetorical Criticism, James Francisca Klumpp

Speaker & Gavel

This essay traces the role of Speaker and Gavel’s Current Criticism section in the development of the dramatic changes that marked rhetorical criticism and public address in the late twentieth century. The essay argues that critics restricted from old line journals found outlets and developed their critical skills through the publication of their works in Speaker and Gavel.

Critical Affects: Laughter As Inquiry In First-Year Writing Courses, Nicholas James Learned

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

CRITICAL AFFECTS: LAUGHTER AS INQUIRY IN FIRST-YEAR WRITING COURSES

by

Nicholas J. Learned

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Dennis Lynch

In this dissertation, I work to rethink our current approaches to teaching critical thinking and writing in attempt to collapse the distance between the critical/rhetorical methods we teach in Rhetoric and Composition and the ways students interact rhetorically in their everyday lives. I am prompted to this line of inquiry by a problem I note in both theory and practice: the critical methods we teach in our writing courses rarely translate to real-world behaviors, …

Unanswered Prayers: A Study Of Apologia For God In The Matter Of Prayer, Dann L. Pierce Esq., Bohn D. Lattin

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Many Christian writers and thinkers take up the vexing issue of unanswered prayer and thereby use various rhetorical strategies to address the intersection of pertinent teaching about prayer, and the disjunctive, problematic life experiences concerning the experience of unanswered pray-er. Our investigation uses the ancient rhetorical genre of apologia as a lens to better understand the tactics and stances taken up by those who seek to guide members of faith communities toward reconciliation between perceived biblical teaching and actual life experiences concerning unan-swered prayer. Our study incorporates an analysis of both the formal and conceptual strategies utilized by rhetors who …

Viewing Film From A Communication Perspective: Film As Public Relations, Product Placement, And Rhetorical Advocacy In The College Classroom, Robin Patric Clair, Rebekah L. Fox, Jennifer L. Bezek

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Academics approach film from multiple perspectives, including critical, literary, rhetorical, and managerial approaches. Furthermore, and outside of film studies courses, films are frequently used as a pedagogical tool. Their relevance in society as well as their valuable use in the classroom makes them an important and pragmatic medium deserving further attention. The ability of film to be used in a socio-political way may sustain, challenge or change the status quo, which supports studying film as well as teaching students about the power of film. The purpose of this article is to share the development of a course which points out …

Racism, Pedagogy And The Renaming Of The Usa: Racial Autobiographies And Malcolm X, Salah Al-Din

Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice

This article looks at processes of name changing, in its politics and means of persuasion with specific audiences and national identity implications. Malcolm X had to change his name to affirm his individual dignity and human well-being, and the USA in the 21st-century, when it becomes a color-majority, white-minority country, must, in order to have the chance to become a multi-racial democracy and jettison white supremacy and white privilege, the United States must change its name, collaboratively.

Ideographs And American Mass Media: Understanding The Narrative On The Israel-Palestine Conflict And Its Influence On Publics, Savanna Lynn Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the American mass media's narrative on the Israel-Palestine conflict to understand the power of ideographs and their influence on specific publics. I focus on two popular ideographs in mass media reporting,and, in order to examine how these ideographs are utilized to construct a narrative for the media's publics, the political ideologies they represent, the agendas they further, and the consequences their narrow use has on developing counterpublics and emerging alternative narratives around the conflict. I focus my attention on the mass media's coverage of a sixteen day Israeli shelling in Gaza and how public consent is acquired …

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Military Virtue In Roman Rhetorical Education, Anthony Edward Zupancic

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the connection between rhetoric and military culture in the early Roman Empire. Despite obvious references to the military and martial virtues, little scholarly attention has been directed to exploring the possibilities located within this connection. This dissertation is an alternative cultural history of rhetorical theory and pedagogy that draws on close reading and philology, as well as performance and metaphor theory. In building on the cultural history of Rome, I introduce a concept of “military virtue” that expands on understandings of the Roman notion of virtus (virtue) found in recent scholarship. Since virtue in the ancient world …

Defining The 99%: A Rhetorical Critique Of The Occupy Wall Street Movement, Molly Forgey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Social actors assume a large task when attempting to legitimize their movement and motivate participation. For Occupy Wall Street (OWS) dissidents this task was even greater given that their grievances lie both with government and with large corporations, two of the most influential entities in the United States. Such obstacles sparked an interest in studying the language strategies OWS rhetors employed when attempting to define the movement. This thesis examines these strategies in order to discover how the movement was framed, and how framing processes relate to the collective’s identity. The discourse analyzed includes the initial call to action published …

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy: A Metaphorical Look At Life, The Universe, And Everything, Thomas David Thompson

Communication Studies

A look at the integral use of metaphor as a heuristic in the process of human learning.

Erichtho’S Mouth: Persuasive Speaking, Sexuality And Magic, Lauren E. Devoe

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Since classical times, the witch has remained an eerie, powerful and foreboding figure in literature and drama. Often beautiful and alluring, like Circe, and just as often terrifying and aged, like Shakespeare’s Wyrd Sisters, the witch lives ever just outside the margins of polite society. In John Marston’s Sophonisba, or The Wonder of Women the witch’s ability to persuade through the use of language is Marston’s commentary on the power of poetry, theater and women’s speech in early modern Britain. Erichtho is the ultimate example of a terrifying woman who uses linguistic persuasion to change the course of nations. Throughout …

Law, Rhetoric, Strategy: Russia And Self-Determination Before And After Crimea, Christopher J. Borgen

International Law Studies

The article considers how and why Russia has used international legal arguments concerning self-determination in relation to its intervention in Ukraine. Of what use is legal rhetoric in the midst of politico-military conflict? The article reviews the laws of self-determination and territorial integrity and considers Russia’s changing arguments concerning these concepts over the cases of Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Ukraine. Inasmuch as international law is the vocabulary and the grammar of modern diplomacy, States may use legal rhetoric with multiple audiences in mind. While the shifts in Russia’s arguments may be due to strategic needs in specific conflicts, the legal …

"Speaches Seeming Fitt": Rhetoric And Courtesy In The Faerie Queene, Michelle L. Golden

English Dissertations

The practice of courtesy was of the utmost importance in Renaissance England; courtesy was tied to social standing, virtue, and civility. Spenser joins in a rich tradition of courtesy literature by including the Book of Courtesy in The Faerie Queene. His presentation of courtesy goes far beyond the limited discussion of the concept by his predecessors and peers; instead of limiting his depiction of courtesy to “courteous” behavior, Spenser includes every aspect of courtesy, including courteous and completely discourteous behavior and effective and ineffective expressions of courtliness.

Spenser’s courtesy involves layers of complexity that exist in various social spheres …

Legislation As A Site Of Contested Meaning In United States Congressional Debates, John Rountree

Communication Theses

Rhetoric and public policy scholars have shown interest in uncertainty and polysemy in Congress, but they have traditionally treated legislation as a given. Members of Congress disagree about what policy should be, but they also disagree about what any given bill proposes to do. From a rhetorical perspective, I investigate the creation of uncertainty about legislation through the 2013 Senate debate on immigration. I argue that legislation is inherently ambiguous because legislative debate is consistently pushed behind the language of statutes. Rather than consider statutes unto themselves, members of Congress understand them in terms of the potential acts they sanction. …

Intertheory: Disability, Accommodation, And The Writing Of Composition, Adam Matthew Pacton

Theses and Dissertations

Combining approaches from composition studies, legal studies, and disability studies, this project theorizes a new model of accommodation in composition (and beyond): "complex accommodation." Complex accommodation frames disability as critical kairos; in other words, I argue that the encounter of disability and attendant necessity for accommodation creates a moment of practical and theoretical dissonance in composition that may reveal under-critiqued norms in individual classrooms, writing programs, and the field as a whole. This project provides the theoretical grounding and articulation of complex accommodation while also creating practical accommodational heuristics for instructors and writing programs.

His Words Spoke To Me: An Analysis Of Cult Rhetoric Through Memoir, Devan Leigh Lemke

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Through my analysis of memoirs of former cult members, a pattern of rhetorical coercive techniques grounded in the theories of Kenneth Burke and Chaim Perelman surfaces. Burke’s theory of identification presents an explanation of why group members believe they share the same interests as the group. Perelman’s theory of disassociation explains why the group believes outrageous statements made. Perelman’s theory of presence explains why it is impossible to logically express any concerns within the group. The simultaneous existence of all three theories renders a powerful blow to the human psyche. The identity of the member is so shattered, that they …

Siren Song: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Gender And Intimate Partner Violence In Gotham City Sirens, Katlin Schmidt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project investigates comic book discourse. Specifically, I investigate how comic narratives provide readers with an interpretation for how they should discern and assess “appropriate” behaviors for women. The artifact of analysis included in this project is DC Comics Gotham City Sirens (2009). This text features popular female superheroes, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy. Because comic books utilize both textual and visual means to disseminate a message, this project evaluates the visual rhetoric of these characters within the narrative. Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm is used to provide an understanding to how these visual means contribute to the meanings assigned …

Julian Of Norwich: Voicing The Vernacular, Therese Elaine Novotny

Dissertations (1934 -)

Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), the subject of my dissertation, was a Christian mystic whose writings, Revelation of Love and A Book of Showings, are the earliest surviving texts in the English language written by a woman. The question that has puzzled scholars is how could a woman of her time express her vision in such innovative and literary language? The reason scholars have puzzled over this for centuries is that women had been denied access to traditional education. Some scholars have answered this problem through close textual comparisons linking her text to those in the patristic tradition or through modern …

Navigating Collective Activity Systems: An Approach Towards Rhetorical Inquiry, Katherine Jesse Royce

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this formative intervention was to design a professional and technical communications course around rhetorical inquiry. The participants, undergraduate health sciences majors (N=22 for section A, N=20 section B), were observed throughout the fall semester of the 2014-2015 academic year. A rhetorical inquiry framework was applied via activity systems, and data were collected using several methodologies including participant observations, research questionnaires, as well as participant deliverables, and were transcribed using Daisy Mwanza's Eight-Step Model. Results demonstrated students successfully used activity systems as a means of approaching rhetorical inquiry. Furthermore, students indicated a high level of engagement in the …

Speech And Strife, Robert Tsai

Robert L. Tsai

The essay strives for a better understanding of the myths, symbols, categories of power, and images deployed by the Supreme Court to signal how we ought to think about its authority. Taking examples from free speech jurisprudence, the essay proceeds in three steps. First, Tsai argues that the First Amendment constitutes a deep source of cultural authority for the Court. As a result, linguistic and doctrinal innovation in the free speech area have been at least as bold and imaginative as that in areas like the Commerce Clause. Second, in turning to cognitive theory, he distinguishes between formal legal argumentation …

Democracy's Handmaid, Robert Tsai

Robert L. Tsai

Democratic theory presupposes open channels of dialogue, but focuses almost exclusively on matters of institutional design writ large. The philosophy of language explicates linguistic infrastructure, but often avoids exploring the political significance of its findings. In this Article, Tsai draws from the two disciplines to reach new insights about the democracy enhancing qualities of popular constitutional language. Employing examples from the founding era, the struggle for black civil rights, the religious awakening of the last two decades, and the search for gay equality, he presents a model of constitutional dialogue that emphasizes common modalities and mobilized vernacular. According to this …

Silencing Our Elders, Debra Lyn Bassett

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric: Spoken Discourse, A Systematic Appeal For Reasoning "Pathos", Marwa M. Adel Farid

Theses and Dissertations

The tekhnē of spoken discourse is a critical tool for particular communications and is a substantial means to transform good knowledge . It is an objective tekhnē with an ergon, which is man-made. As such, it may be implemented for political, religious, social or educational purposes. Thus, understanding the implications of spoken discourse and establishing a shared understanding between the rhētōr and his listeners is not just an option in this context. On the contrary, both elements are the mind/soul/heart of the discourse. For what is the value of a discourse if its implications and representations are not well perceived …

En Route To Communicative Praxis: Understanding Natural Law And Several Communicative Implications, Rachel Ann Kosko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work claims communicative praxis is necessary and becomes increasingly more promising by introducing discussions that integrate explicit knowledge of natural law as a precursor for conversations regarding communication ethics. Taking a hermeneutical approach of returning to a text [book, person, place, etc.] with different questions develops new insights for identifying obstacles to understanding, functioning as barriers in preventing praxis. Some existing obstacles include errors, irrelevant information, misunderstandings, and implicit or omitted topics like natural law found lacking throughout the philosophical discourse. Therefore, this dissertation defines key terms, unveils the lineage of the law, reviews texts by Roman Catholic scholars …

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Decorum: Quintilian’S Reflections On Rhetorical Humor, Don Waisanen

Publications and Research

Abstract

This study examines ancient Roman ideas about humor’s boundaries in public culture. In particular, I analyze Book 6, Chapter 3 of the Institutio Oratoria, which covers Quintilian’s reflections on the subject. Following Cicero, Quintilian engages the tensions between humor and decorum in his political context, using urbanitas to refine the former and to loosen the latter’s strictures. In this process, the use of urbanitas implicitly points readers toward factors that can make humor rhetorical. Quintilian thus answers Cicero’s question about the degree to which humor should be used and furthers inquiry into how much rhetorical humor can or …

Critical Thinking Activities And The Enhancement Of Ethical Awareness: An Application Of A ‘Rhetoric Of Disruption’ To The Undergraduate General Education Classroom, Jeffrey W. Murray

Focused Inquiry Publications

This article explores how critical thinking activities and assignments can function to enhance students’ ethical awareness and sense of civic responsibility. Employing Levinas’s Othercentered theory of ethics, Burke’s notion of ‘the paradox of substance’, and Murray’s concept of ‘a rhetoric of disruption’, this article explores the nature of critical thinking activities designed to have students question their (often taken-for-granted) moral assumptions and interrogate their (often unexamined) moral identities. This article argues that such critical thinking activities can trigger a metacognitive destabilization of subjectivity, understood as a dialectical prerequisite (along with exposure to otherness) for increased ethical awareness. This theoretical model …

Writing Commentary As Ritual And As Discovery, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

This study combines rhetoric, ritual studies, and comparative scriptures studies to open new avenues for understanding both biblical texts and their cultural history as a scripture. Labelling commentary as ritual, specifically as a ritualized genre of text, leads to the observation that commentary not only contributes to the Bible’s status as a scripture, it depends on that status as well. Ritual theories provide explanations for the dynamic interaction of tradition and innovation in commentary writing. Analysis of commentary writing and reading as a form of ritualizing the semantic dimension of a scripture provides a step forward in understanding how religious …

Characterization Of Prose By Rhetorical Structure For Machine Learning Classification, James Java

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Measures of classical rhetorical structure in text can improve accuracy in certain types of stylistic classification tasks such as authorship attribution. This research augments the relatively scarce work in the automated identification of rhetorical figures and uses the resulting statistics to characterize an author's rhetorical style. These characterizations of style can then become part of the feature set of various classification models.

Our Rhetorica software identifies 14 classical rhetorical figures in free English text, with generally good precision and recall, and provides summary measures to use in descriptive or classification tasks. Classification models trained on Rhetorica's rhetorical measures paired with …

Say The Magic Word: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Contract Drafting Choices, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

Drafters of complex contracts often face a thorny dilemma – determining whether to retain “magic words” included in form documents, especially when considering the advice of current contract style scholars advocating for the removal of all traditional contract prose. But the drafter need not remove all terms that serve as elegant shorthand for more convoluted legal concepts, particularly where the inclusion of the term advances client interests. The application of rhetorical criticism – the analysis of methods of communicating ideas – to drafters’ use of the term “time is of the essence” sheds light on the dominant motivations of drafters …