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The Tyranny Of Custom: Discovering Innovations In Forensic Rhetoric From Classical Athens To Anglo-Saxon England, Steven Sams

English Dissertations

Scholarship tells the story of the history of rhetoric whereby the study of rhetoric declines first in the “Silver Age of Rome,” then loses any bearings or progress during first the Patristic period of the formation of the early Christian Church in the third through fifth century CE, and undergoes a second decline during the Germanic invasions starting in the fifth century. My task is defining and recovering new sources for rhetoric to spark more creative and in-depth analysis of this period in the history of rhetoric.

Rather than simply move through a bibliographical list chronologically, I narrow in on …

The New Sexy: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Sherlock, Krystal A. Fogle, Toni Maisano

Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

In recent history, there have been movements advocating for conversation and change regarding traditional gender roles. As a central part of culture, British television has not escaped this scrutiny. BBC's crime drama Sherlock directed by Steven Moffat has received both critical acclaim and attention from the general public for its portrayal of women. In this essay, we venture into this conversation, and explore portrayals of existing gender roles and how the writers of the show choose to dissent with the audience's expectations of gender portrayal. We examine connections between past and present portrayals of the classic character, Sherlock Holmes, and …

The Rhetoric Revision Log: A Second Study On A Feedback Tool For Esl Student Writing, Natalie Marie Cole

Theses and Dissertations

A common pattern in teacher feedback to ESL writing is to provide students feedback on primarily grammar, often sidelining content (Ferris, 2003). This research is a second study of an original study done by Yi (2010) on a rhetoric revision log. This Rhetoric Revision Log (RRL) helped teachers and students track content errors in writing. This research further studies the success of the RRL with some minor changes made based on previous research results. Data consists of the Rhetoric Revision Log (RRL) given to 42 students in three different ESL writing classes at the same level with four different teachers. …

Paving The Path For Sex Education: An Analysis Of Journey Metaphors In Political Rhetoric, Tara Mcqueen

University Honors Theses

This paper analyzes four key political texts regarding access to comprehensive and abstinence-only sex education in the United States, beginning in 1919 and culminating in 2016. The aim being to draw attention to the relationship between political rhetoric on sex education and the metaphorical language that is utilized to discuss the matter. Presented here is the argument that discourse on sex education revolves around journey metaphors and most often reflect the underlying conceptual metaphors that LIFE IS A JOURNEY and/or POLITICS IS A JOURNEY. This framing of the debate began in 1919 when a pamphlet distributed by the United States' …

Les Corps Démoniaques Dans La Démonomanie Des Sorciers : Un Examen Ontologique Et Épistémologique, Steven Davis

Masters Theses

The numerous ontological and epistemological paradoxes found within La Démonomanie des sorciers, a demonological treaty of the 16^th century, are studied within the context of demonic corporality: exploiting a rich philosophical and theological intertextuality as well as, more generally, a confessional model of logic, La Démonomanie (1580) constructs a linguistic world of demonic bodies capable of copulation, transformation, and imbuing humans with the power to practice magic. Following in the footsteps of the demonologists who precede him, Bodin constructs a system of the real and of knowledge which is as much dependent upon the authoritative ethos of his …

Incorporating Confucius And Ancient China Into A Rhetorical Theory Course, Sara A. M. Drury

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

In our globalized world, students of communication benefit from experiencing diverse cultures and perspectives throughout the curriculum. One way to encourage twenty-first century global learning is to infuse the study of Chinese discourse into rhetorical theory courses. This essay first provides a rationale for the importance of comparative rhetoric and a review of relevant literature on ancient Chinese rhetoric. Then, the essay details a three-week module on ancient Chinese rhetoric with readings and activities, and an appraisal of the activity, with the goal of demonstrating the necessity and feasibility of introducing undergraduate students to globalized rhetorical studies.

Prisoner Of Context: The Truman Doctrine Speech And J. Edgar Hoover’S Rhetorical Realism, Stephen Underhill

Communications Faculty Research

In this project, I argue that J. Edgar Hoover’s style of political realism should be studied by critics because it long preceded that of President Harry S. Truman. Thestyle belonged to a stockpile of anti-Communist imagery that helped to shape how the Truman Doctrine speech was drafted and how audiences interpreted its meanings in more local domestic politics. When Truman fınally announced that the Soviet Union had challenged international protocol, I argue that he confırmed the vision that his Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director and other detractors had developed throughout the New Deal to discredit reformers who challenged issues …

Part-Of-Speech Tagged Corpus Search, Jacob Tootalian

All Digital Pedagogy Resources

This assignment encourages students to explore language patterns found in literature and scientific texts (or other genres). It tasks them with finding a phrase of interest from a text, translating it into a search query with part-of-speech variables, and analyzing instances of that language pattern in other texts. The assignment includes a plan for an in-class digital workday to prepare students for the corpus search platform.

Honoring Christ, Subverting Caesar : Relevance-Historical Reconstruction Of The Context Of Ephesians As An Honorific Discourse Praising Jesus The Great Benefactor, Benson Goh

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Trolling Twitter, Eric Vorst

Dissertations

Political polarization is a defining feature of the contemporary American political landscape. While there is little doubt that elite polarization levels have risen dramatically in recent decades, there is some debate over the existence of a corresponding rise in mass polarization. Recent scholarship on mass polarization has cited evidence related to citizens’ positions on public policy issues, party sorting, and geographic polarization; however, questions remain as to the nature and extent of mass polarization in online spaces. Specifically, more needs to be known regarding how expressions of elite polarization influence the formation of polarized communities within social media.

This dissertation …

Building The New Babel Of Transnational Literacies: Preparing Education For World Citizens, Xiaobo Wang

English Dissertations

The transnational diasporas in a technological world that is postmodern and posthuman mean both exciting diverse communities and challenging problems. On the one hand, globalization brought human beings the convenience of exchanging ideas, doing business, and building a better world together. On the other hand, the political economy of nation states that shaped non-translational ideologies, created at the same time conflicts and misunderstandings among citizens from different parts of the world.

Responding to the current transnational clashes in flow (information dissemination) and contra flow (surveillance and control of information flow) of our information age, this dissertation builds up a transnational …

Articulating The New Normal(S) : Mental Disability, Medical Discourse, And Rhetorical Action., Andrew Wesley Holladay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Articulating the New Normal(s): Mental Disability, Medical Discourse, and Rhetorical Action” studies the writing of people diagnosed with autism and post- traumatic stress disorder within online discussion boards related to mental health and outlines their unique rhetorical strategies for interacting with biomedical ideologies of psychiatry and activist discourses. The opening chapter situates this dissertation in relation to previous scholarship in Rhetoric, Disability Studies, and other fields. I also provide a summary of the set of mixed methods I use to gather and analyze my data, including rhetorical analysis, corpus analysis, and qualitative interviews. In Chapter 2, “Medical Terminology and Discourse …

The Rhetoric Of Scientific Authority: A Rhetorical Examination Of _An Inconvenient Truth_, Alexander W. Morales

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project examines how scientific authority is produced through rhetorical practices instead of the “information deficit” model of science communication. By conducting a rhetorical analysis of the science documentary An Inconvenient Truth, this project demonstrates how the documentary format itself and the film’s leading agent, former United States Vice President Al Gore, attempt to persuade audiences through building degrees of scientific authority by employing multiple rhetorics or narrative themes of science to bolster the scientific facts supporting anthropogenic climate change. Additionally, I demonstrate how these narrative themes parallel three scholarly themes within the rhetoric of science literature: science …

Banksy, Rhetoric, And Revolution, Derek Tanios Imad Mkhaiel

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines the projects outlined by the Situationist philosophers and their impact on revolutionizing consciousness. Alongside of this examination this thesis demonstrates how the appropriate rhetorical means in conjunction with street art—specifically the work of Banksy—may lead to the successful implementation and execution of the Situationist's projects. This thesis examines the concept of the spectacle as developed by the Situationists as its object of critique and the concepts of culture, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, détournement and dérive as the framework in which the spectacle can be successfully critiqued in order to foster a more critical consciousness. In addition to this …

Neo-Fascism And The State: The Negotiation Of National Identity In Modern Russia, Hanna Baranchuk

Communication Dissertations

The present dissertation is a study of the process of national identity renegotiation in modern Russia. More specifically, I analyze the use of the word fascism in contemporary Russian discourse. Developing a blend of Kenneth Burke’s theory of human motives and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the subject, I compare the psycho-rhetorical narratives of the four distinct parties - Vladimir Putin, state-sponsored “anti-fascists” (Nashi), independent anti-fascists (Antifa), and neo-fascists - which fight over the usage of the word fascism in their attempts to renegotiate the meaning of Russianness. While explicating the mechanism of national identity construction, …

Rhetorical Genre Theory And Workplace Adaptation For Modern Professional Writers, Alyssa Speicher

Professional Writing and Information Design Capstone Projects

The professional writing field is constantly changing. As technology and business develop and adapt to a changing world, the tasks and writing of professional writers must adapt as well. Professional writers no longer solely write reports or technical documentation; they can write blog posts, web content, memos, emails; they can design content and information for marketing or usability; and they can edit any form of content for the organization in which they work.

Not only do the types of writing change, but the variety expected from professional writers also changes. Some professional writers specialize in one form of writing, but …

Grassroots Diplomacy And Vernacular Law: The Discourse Of Food Sovereignty In Maine, John Welton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine, a coalition of small-scale farmers, consumers, and citizens building an alternative food system based on a distributed form of production, processing, selling, purchasing, and consumption. This distribution occurs at the municipal level through the enactment of ordinances. Using critical-rhetorical field methods, I argue that the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine develops a ‘constitutive’ rhetoric that composes rural society through affective relationships. Advocates engage the industrial food system to both expose its systemic bias against small-scale farming and construct their own discourse of belonging. Based upon agrarian values such as …

Launching Conservative Resistance: A Rhetorical Criticism Of The Young Americans For Freedom, Tyler John Snelling

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

At the end of the 1940s, conservatives faced internal divisions, an elitist image, and people supporting government post Great Depression. Liberalism seemed entrenched throughout society. Yet, the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the first national, conservative movement, formed in 1960. This thesis investigates YAF’s earliest “publicity” in National Review, an influential magazine, to understand part of what preceded conservatism’s evolution. Publishing “The Ivory Tower: Young Americans for Freedom” by William F. Buckley and the “Sharon Statement,” YAF’s manifesto, side-by-side formed a new identity—young conservative—that empowered activists. From Maurice Charland’s “constitutive rhetoric,” chapter two investigates Buckley’s telling of the past as …

Illiteracy As Immanent: The (Re)Writing Of Rhetoric's Nature, Michael Kennedy

Honors College

Literacy is often thought of as a skill-set, that is, an ability to read and write in the dominant language of one’s socio-historical milieu. Illiteracy, on the other hand, is often thought of as a lack – an absence of a necessary skill-set that influences how well one can work and communicate (via reading and writing) within their dominant language and their society. In other words, illiteracy seems to have been defined by its relationship to the definition of literacy, that is, as a “negative-literacy” or a “not-literacy” that creates a lacuna of meaning when attempting to define illiteracy as …

Color-Blind Stancetaking In Racialized Discourse, Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine how language constructs and constrains racialized discourse in post-Jim Crow contemporary America. Drawing on rhetorical and sociolinguistic work set forth by Booth, Shotwell, Bonilla-Silva, Omi and Winant, and others, it is apparent that racial organization— and racial identities and categorization— in the US is reliant upon specific markers that signify racial meaning. Such markers are assimilated into wider, unconscious discourse through what Shotwell and Booth describe as seemingly inherent— yet ultimately constructed— matters of “common sense,” and are expressed through evaluative stance acts. I explore the origins and construction of these markers and the relationship …

Believing Mary Karr, Stephanie Rae Guedet

Theses and Dissertations

Believing Mary Karr examines how belief, represented in the memoirs of Mary Karr, works in our contemporary moment. This examination is supported by the argument that our identities and the stories we tell about them are always constructions of belief, and that these beliefs are ultimately relational, enacted in the intersubjective relationship between writers and readers of autobiography. This dissertation provides the fields of both rhetoric and life writing studies not only an awareness of how ideas about belief—how beliefs about belief—have already shaped our scholarly imagination but also the possibilities a rhetoric of belief can offer to future conversations …

(Un-)American Movement: Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And The Rhetoric Of Space And Identity, Emily K. Royer

Political Science Honors Projects

Immigration, in all its various forms, has become one of the most pressing issues of the modern era. In the contemporary United States, the arrival of migrants—be they refugees, asylum seekers, documented or undocumented immigrants—is often figured as a problem of existential proportions. In this project, I turn my attention to a significant recent development in the new American immigration “crisis.” During the summer months of 2014, the United States witnessed a period of heightened migration by unaccompanied children from the Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Through a rhetorical analysis of congressional hearings held in response …

Reflections In Passion And Progress: Blending Vision, Resilience, And Evolution As A Writer And Scholar Of The English Language, Elizabeth Scoville

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

The following is a final master's degree portfolio of revised graduate work in English composition. Consisting of four projects, this portfolio highlights research, theory, and applications in multidisciplinary writing, visual argumentation, linguistics pedagogy, and professional editing. The pieces within reflect significant growth and adaptation in the field of English comprehension and writing, where successful compositions walk hand-in-hand with innovation, audience acknowledgement, and the willingness to change as language ebbs and flows with the passage of time.

From Impressionism To Impressions: Intertextuality, Rhetoric, And Signifyin' In John Coltrane's Impressions, Jeremy Noel Grall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Often the term improvisation gives the impression that the music spontaneously materializes from nothing; however, how spontaneous is it really? David Borgo aptly characterizes this conundrum, "To improvise requires the capacity to act, and, for it to mean anything at all it must surely be 'about' something, a common definition of intentionality." Jean-Jacques Nattiez's Discourse on Musicdiscusses this intent and its place within a larger societal context through his adaptation of Molino's tripartition. This is a process in which our broader aesthetic valuation of style influences our creativity and is reflected in a tangible piece of music, which is then …

Kenneth Burke's Adolescence, 1915-1920: An Archival Study Of Influence, William Ernest Schraufnagel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies the method of influence studies to the archive of communication theorist Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) between the years 1915-1920. During this time, Burke was influenced by British and French aesthetic writers along with some philosophy and the writings of Cicero. As he was not conventionally trained in an academic discipline, this study shows how Burke’s theory of communication began to emerge from these disparate strands.The strongest influence on Burke during this time was the novel Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater. As Harold Bloom’s theory of influence teaches, strong writers such as Burke “misread,” or willfully distort, their …

It’S About ‘That Time’ To Break The Cycle: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Challenging Menstrual Taboos, Audrey Marie Lamborn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Menstrual taboos exist around the world, and while new conversations are starting to address these issues, in many regions these taboos limit women’s daily lives and can even lead to serious health problems. Artifacts around the world are starting to emerge to challenge these preconceived notions and bring menstrual hygiene awareness as well as products to women in need. While the origination of the menstrual taboo is not clearly defined, various literature discusses both the cultural and religious origin and perpetuation of menstrual taboos. This thesis examines various artifacts found in the regions of the United States and the United …

Apologies For Cross-Posting: Composing Disciplinary Affects And Conflicts On The Wpa Listserv, Zachary Beare

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Drawing on theories of counterpublics, online communication, and affect, this dissertation argues that the Writing Program Administrators Listserv (WPA-L) functions as an important site of disciplinary knowledge-making and theory-building for the field of Composition and Rhetoric. The dissertation examines the WPA-L as a discursive space in which members of the discipline build community, debate pressing issues, and strategize how best to advocate for their individual and collective interests. At the same time that these qualities reveal how the listserv functions as counterpublic space for the discipline at large, the dissertation argues that sub-disciplinary counterpublics made up of individuals marginalized within …

Old-School Rhetoric And New-School Cognitive Science: The Enduring Power Of Logocentric Categories, Lucille Jewel

Scholarly Works

For thousands of years, the contours of Western legal argument have remained unchanged. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, lawyers have been presenting arguments in the same basic format, with a heavy reliance on the concept of logos, the idea that arguments are most persuasive when presented in a clear deductive logical structure using clean-cut categories. Forming the basis for the terms that appear in logocentric legal arguments, categories allow humans to group facts and information together into classes. For instance, chairs, tables, and beds occupy the category of furniture and cars; trucks, and motorcycles occupy the category of …

Outsourcing Our Memory 2.0: Using Walter Ong's Orality/Literacy Studies To Recognize Technologies Effects On Memory, Rishi Raj Bahl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At the heart of media ecology is the principle that technology not only deeply influences society, but also controls most aspects of daily life. Additionally, media ecology investigates how media and communication processes profoundly affect human perception and understanding. The pervasive role that technology plays in modern life today has exacerbated the results of technology on human beings. Some of these outcomes are not desirable and may be a hindrance to the progress of our society. This dissertation takes particular interest in the multifaceted consequences that the overuse of technology imposes on our ability to fully utilize our memory.

In …

Reimagining The Stacks: Classroom Technology And Library Collaboration For Writing In The Disciplines, Jossalyn Larson, Daniel C. Reardon

The Journal of Student Success in Writing

This article details the process by which one university redesigned a first year writing course to better promote discipline-specific and best-practice research techniques. The program offers experiential learning activities through scholarly collaboration, using library staff as mentors, producing an open-access peer-reviewed student journal, and emphasizing face-to-face interaction of peer research communities. It has the potential to establish for students in high school, community colleges and universities that research writing is fundamentally about joining and contributing to a conversation.