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Full-Text Articles in Speech and Rhetorical Studies

Decontextualizing Development: A Critical Examination Of American Popular Discourse On Foreign Aid, Jeffrey Haines Jul 2011

Decontextualizing Development: A Critical Examination Of American Popular Discourse On Foreign Aid, Jeffrey Haines

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Humanitarian foreign aid is a controversial topic, subject to much popular debate. Although there is much available polling and survey evidence about public stances on the issue, there have been significantly fewer attempts at more in-depth analyses of the public discourse. This thesis is an attempt to explore the popular discourse on aid in more depth, including its rationales, assumptions, and values.

It concludes that both sides of the American public in the debate often make use of similar types of assumptions regarding international affairs, suggesting often deeper agreement than the debate may indicate. It is argued that the set …


Idiomatic Expressions And Marital Relationships Over Three Stages Of The Family Lifespan, Meredith T. Raynor Jul 2004

Idiomatic Expressions And Marital Relationships Over Three Stages Of The Family Lifespan, Meredith T. Raynor

Institute for the Humanities Theses

In interpersonal communication language shared between two people becomes important in the everyday life of relational participants. Even more so, the language shared between married couples is vital because of their "unique relationship". Part of that language involves the symbols, gestures and words called idioms that have specialized meaning for the marital dyad.

This thesis sought to discover what idioms are identified among married couples at three stages of the family lifespan, newlyweds, couples with children and empty nest couples as they seek to maintain a system of "personalized communication" as it relates to their marital satisfaction (Breuss & Pearson, …