Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

I Pledge Allegiance: Language, Information, And How The American Far-Right Forms Its Identity, Joshua Marvine

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examines how the modern “alt-right” converged with mainstream Conservative politics following the election of Donald Trump. It explores how in the 21st Century, as in the past, right-wing social movements use language to prompt violence from their adherents. While far-right information networks have existed for decades, this study explores the ways in which modern networks allow for a greater convergence between disparate movements on the right, creating a more unified information web and understanding of reality. This convergence contributes to extremist ideas gaining larger and more mainstream platforms, granting them a global reach and significant influence in domestic …

Black Female Athletes’ Use Of Social Media For Activism: An Intersectional And Cyberfeminist Analysis Of U.S. Hammer-Thrower, Gwen Berry's 2019 And 2021 Podium Protests, Ariel Newell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Much attention has been paid to Black male athlete activism both historically and in the contemporary movement for black lives. Black female athletes have also made historic contributions as activists, and they continue to do so. However, Black female athlete activism has not always been acknowledged or heard. This is a problem, as Black women in American sports and society face overlapping racial and gender inequities and injustices that distinctly marginalize and oppress them. However, some Black female athlete activists (BFAAs) have begun using social media to challenge media narratives about themselves, to redefine what it means to be a …

Developing Practices Within The Lord’S Supper That Develop Central Identity At Queen City Church Of Christ, Ryan Russell

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This project was designed to meet a need at the Queen City Church of Christ (QCC) for developing intentional practices around the Lord’s Supper for forming a central identity in a diverse community. The scope of this project focuses on the project group’s ability to develop practices based on the theology of the Lord’s Supper, biblical teaching, engaging in practices of spiritual formation as a group, and their observations of Lord’s Supper practices in other Christian traditions. Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth provides the textual context for the discussion of the role the Lord’s Supper plays within …

Ancestral Pursuits: A Multicultural Celebration Of Identity & Race, Charlotte Cates Castro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using critical historical rhetorical methods along with critical race and decolonial theory, this project situates ancestral pursuits as a communication-centered discursive formation by investigating the rhetorical strategies modern biotech and genealogy companies utilize to influence contemporary discourse around identity and belonging and narrate ethnicity and genealogy as acts of consumption. Through direct-to-consumer DNA testing and complimentary services, modern day biotech and genealogy companies like Ancestry and 23andMe market personalized insights into ancestry, genealogy, inherited traits, and health data that promise to connect users to their past, as well as to situate them in present-day society, through a deeper understanding of …

Memory And Rememory: Critically Cultivating An Appropriate Response Through A Storied Approach To Listening, Katie W. Powell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues for a storied approach to listening from the perspective of a white Southern woman. To do this, I carefully followed the work of two community groups. One, the Washington County Community Remembrance Project, is working to install a marker venerating Aaron, Anthony, and Randall, three enslaved people who were lynched in our area in 1856. The other, the James H. Berry United Daughters of the Confederacy, is responsible for installing a Confederate statue on the Bentonville Square in 1908 that was removed in 2020. As illustrated by the use of archival research and embedded participation in interracial …

Menstruation Regulation: A Feminist Critique Of Menstrual Product Brands On Instagram, Max Faust

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Much research about advertisements for menstrual products reveals the ways in which such advertising perpetuates shame and reinforces unrealistic ideals of femininity and womanhood. This study aims to examine the content of Instagram posts by four different menstrual product brands in hopes of understanding how these functions may or may not be carried out by social media posts by these brands as well. Building on the body of research about menstrual shame and advertising, I specifically ask: How do the Instagram pages for four menstrual product brands dissuade individuality; how do they prescribe femininity; and how do these functions differ …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Four Facets Of Diminishment In Cicero's Pro Caelio: Dilemma, Irony, Understatement, And Comedy, Donald Matthew Pasko

Graduate Theses and Capstone Projects (excluding DNP)

No abstract provided.

Sexy Robots: A Perpetuation Of Patriarchy, Ashlyn Des Roches

Communication Studies

This feminist critique looks into the way that gender, specifically females, are portrayed in some of Hollywood's top films involving Artificial Intelligence: Blade Runner, Her, and Ex Machina. These movies work as a perpetuation of patriarchal ideologies while maintaining the objectification and hypersexuality of women as normalized behaviors. Additionally, while some forms of empowerment are conveyed, the features illustrate women merely on a spectrum of extreme behavior; due to Heuristics and Cultivation Theory, these misrepresentations can be associated with women outside the surrealist realm of the depicted artificially intelligent worlds.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Remembering Arkansas Debate: The Use Of Collective Memory In Analyzing The Role Of Intercollegiate Debate At The University Of Arkansas, Barry John Regan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As one of the most successful organizations on campus for nearly a century, the University of Arkansas debate team created many memories and stories from their time in competition. According to the framework of collective memory, the production and dissemination of these stories is what connects the past, present, and future of a debate team together.

I first reconstruct the history of debate at universities, beginning with development of debate at the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. I then detail the history of debate and argumentation at American universities, including the first intercollegiate debate in 1881. I then …

The Role And Effect Of Advertising On Women During World War Ii, Laura Elizabeth Francis

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Advertising had an overwhelming effect on women during World War II; many women were influenced by advertising in the media to behave a certain way, buy certain products, and also support the war effort in a variety of ways. In the 1940s while many American women’s husbands, fiances, boyfriends, brothers, and sons were going off to fight in the War abroad, many women were fighting a war of their own on the home front. While men could prove they were active patriotic citizens by fighting in the military and taking government positions, female’s roles were re-written to show what they …

The Paradox Of Presidential Popularity, With An Emphasis On Rhetoric, Amanda Wiley

Honors Theses

This study considers how President Bill Clinton maintained consistently high levels of public support in the face of the incessant scandals that plagued his presidency. It is my assessment that it is the nature of the presidency, Clinton's political skill, the economic environment during his terms, Clinton's rhetoric, and his personality that made his survival possible. I will place special emphasis on the areas of Clinton's personality and rhetoric as the key components for this explanation, both because I feel these characteristics are most relevant to my study and the most unexplored.

The Status In 1980 Of The Toulmin Model Of Argument In The Area Of Speech Communication, Jeffrey Robert Sweeney

Dissertations and Theses

In 1958 Stephen E. Toulmin wrote of inadequacies of formal logic and proposed a new field-dependent approach to the analysis of arguments. Despite a generally negative response to his proposal from formal logicians, Toulmin's model for the laying out of arguments for analysis was subsequently appropriated by several speech communication textbook writers. In some textbooks, the Toulmin model has become successor to the syllogism as the paradigm of logical argument. Yet, perhaps due to their seemingly uncritical acceptance of Toulmin's approach there appears to be serious disagreement and confusion among speech communication professionals about the nature and applications of the …

Tecumseh: His Rhetoric And Oratory, Bette-Jon Schrade

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Henry Clay Upon Abraham Lincoln Regarding Lines Of Argument On The Slavery Issue, Kenneth E. Aubens

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was: To discover the influence of Henry Clay upon Abraham Lincoln regarding lines of argument on the slavery issue. The method of procedure entailed the following: gathering all available materials related to the problem; organizing the gathered materials into the headings of Henry Clay on the slavery issue; Abraham Lincoln on the slavery issue; and Abraham Lincoln's acknowledgements to Henry Clay on the slavery issue; analyzing the materials according to support for previous writings; contradiction of previous writings; and supplement to previous writings; reporting the findings of the study; and summarizing the findings leading to …

Pacific Theatre : A Chronological Recording Of Productions Between The Years Of 1935 And 1962, Curtis Andrews Ennen

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study could not be, and is not intended to be, an exhaustive historical report of all the theatrical activity encompassed by the Drama Department at The University of the Pacific. To embark on such a venture would be well beyond the capabilities and the patience of the present writer. In fact, to attempt a history of any one of the several facets of this organization would be a major undertaking. Fortunately, a ·partial study of the activities of Pacific Little Theatre has been made in the form of a thesis by DeMarcus Brown, Director of' Pacific Theatre. This work, …

A Critical Analysis Of Selected Campaign Speeches Of Richard M. Nixon During The 1960 Presidential Campaign, Lynn Engdahl

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In Chicago on July 28th, 1960, Richard M. Nixon, vice-president of the United States was nominated as Republican candidate for president. This took place two weeks after the Democrats in Los Angeles chose John F. Kennedy, United States senator from Massachusetts as their candidate. The nominations of these two men marked the beginning of an historic race for office - the 1960 presidential campaign. Beginning with Mr. Kennedy’s nomination in July and continuing until election day, the campaign lasted for over sixteen weeks.

This was a campaign of firsts. It was the first time two men so young had run …

A Rhetorical Criticism Of The Campaign Speeches Of Adlai E. Stevenson, Max C. Norton

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The 1952 Presidential campaign ushered into national prominence the Democratic nominee, Adlai Ewing Stevenson.

His sudden and dramatic emergence as an important factor in world politics was due in part to his unique oratory. Dynamic in style and content, his speeches commanded the rapt attention of the American people for three intense months during which he delivered over two hundred and fifty. Of interest and importance is the new insight into national problems that he gave to the American voter as a result of these orations.

The problem is to analyze, through his public addresses before and during the 1952 …

A Historical Study Of The Theatre Of The Mother Lode During The Gold Rush Period, Berton Everett Trulsson

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Many events of the gold rush have been adequately narrated in numerous books and articles. The succeeding pages in this thesis will recall, historically by topic, important incidents of one phase of that period never before treated as a separate study that phase is the theatre of the Mother Lode region.

The argonauts of the Mother Lode wanted to be entertained and could pay for it. Many preferred the saloon and gamboling hall, but the theatre did not languish because of this, and in fact, developed in some instances directly out of the saloons and fandango halls.

It was the …

Speech Attributes Of Thomas Starr King, Elton F. Martin

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Suspended in the State Capitol at Sacramento is a portrait of a man under whose name appears the following inscription, "The man whose matchless oratory saved California to the Union". The same name identifies a statue standing in the Congressional Hall of Fame, placed there by the State of California in memory of one of two Californians "most illustrious for their historic renown". The life and speeches of a man who achieved such renown and who earned such an immortal epitaph to his eloquence should be worthy of study by a speech student. The purpose of this thesis is to …

A Study Of Hiram W. Johnson's Public Speaking Technique And Of His Speech Composition : As Manifested In Five Of His Speeches On United States Foreign Policy, Carl W. Fuller

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century Hiram W. Johnson was one of themost important men in Ameican public life. He attained his eminence through the power of the spoken wrod; as a master wielder of that power he is deserving subject for a study to which this thesis claim to be only the plodding and inept introduction.

This thesis does not pretend to be an exhaustive study of Johnson's methods for three reason: 1. Its analysis of Johnson's speech composition is restricted to the third of the developmental stages listed above; 2. speeches selected for analyisis …

A Consideration Of The Qualities Which Contribute To The Effectiveness Of The Speeches Of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joanna Givan

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes to analyze the qualities of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speeches as determined through a general survey of his speeches and a particular study of those of 1941.

As President Roosevelt is considered an effective speaker of the day, a consideration of those qualities of composition, delivery and audience reaction which have contributed to the effectiveness of his speeches should have value. The year 1941 was selected because it was decisive year in the destiny of our country and as such affected his speeches.

A History Of The Productions Of The Little Theatre, 1933-1935, Demarcus Brown

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The growth of interest in drama and the realization of the educational value of dramatics has developed a new place for the college theatre. Pacific Little Theatre was organized eleven years ago to fulfill a definite need and has since grown slowly and steadily into a most active producing unit, serving both school and community. Indeed Pacific Little Theatre can be taken as an excellent specific example of the contribution which can be made to campus and community life by the college aside from its main function as fundamental ground for students in the theatre arts.