Rhetoric Commons^™

Fashioning A Rhetoric Of Style: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Urban Street Style Representations In New York City, Amber Pineda

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how urban street styles are used rhetorically within local boroughs in New York City as a form of resistance to the dominant fashion industry that dictates what is "in fashion" through media. A total of fifteen video blogs developed by The New York Times were analyzed, each containing a representation of one of the five boroughs of New York City: Staten Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens. The analysis identified themes of a rhetoric of style, consisting of primacy of text, imaginary communities, aesthetic rationales, market contexts, and stylistic homologies. These themes were then analyzed by drawing …

Ritualized Rhetoric And Historical Memory In German Foreign And Security Policy, Sara A. Hoff

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Recent changes in German foreign policy behavior have led to questions about Germany's European vocation. At the center of this inquiry is Germany's struggle to resolve the intersection between historical memory and present day international responsibility, especially in cases involving the use of force. This dissertation examines how and when historical memory has influenced, shaped, and informed contemporary German foreign and security policy and rhetoric by examining cases within two policy areas: out of area operations and nuclear nonproliferation. Focusing on the case of Libya, this dissertation also considers the cases of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Nuclear nonproliferation, a global …

Consuming Food Memoirs: Identity, Experience, Legitimization As Rhetorical Sustenance, Kayla Bruce

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of nonfiction food texts as representative of a facet of life writing texts, and as they are currently viewed and used by readers both within and outside of the academy. The examination of food texts focuses around Kate Christensen's 2013 food memoir Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites and her food blog, Don't Let It Bring You Down that proceeded and followed the publication of the food memoir. Likewise, author Molly Wizenberg's food blog Orangette preceded the publication of her 2009 food memoir A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen …

Beyond Performance: Rhetoric, Collective Memory, And The Motive Of Imprinting Identity, Brenda M. Grau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reconsiders Maurice Halbwachs' theory of collective memory in terms of rhetoric. My purpose is to examine specifically how fading generations conform the present to the past as they fight to maintain and defend their collective identities. Although rhetoric and memory studies have often focused on the complex matters of national collectives, Halbwachs was also concerned with the individual and his or her interaction among those groups that matter in everyday living and memory's role in generational shifts that slowly transform culture. Halbwachs' theory helps determine exactly how attempts at conflict resolution are sometimes guarded defenses against threats to …

Moore Of Feminine Style: A Rhetorical Examination Of "Wednesdays With Beth", Terrie Meeks

Masters Theses

Beth Moore is a best-selling author of books and Bible studies, a speaker to crowds that fill places like the Georgia Super Dome, as well as an international speaker, a radio and television personality, and she is achieving this milestone as a woman, in a world lit with male stars. Through all of these venues it is estimated that Moore speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. One of Moore's most recent ventures is speaking on Life Today with James and Betty Robison. Each week features an episode of "Wednesdays with Beth." Using Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's theory of …

Integrating Reading And Writing For Florida's Esol Program, George Douglas Mcarthur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines an incongruity that exists within Florida's ESOL program. While the curriculum standards direct teachers to "develop and integrate" skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, student promotions to higher fluency levels are based solely on reading assessments. Listening assessments are also required to "determine instructional needs," but writing assessments are not required and, in most cases, not given. As a result, reading is prioritized, writing is subordinated, the connection between the two skills is broken, and the mutual benefits of integration are lost.

Studies conducted during the last 50 years have consistently shown that the integration …

Engaging Engagement: Framing The Civic Education Movement In Higher Education, Chad Woolard

Theses and Dissertations

Civic education in higher education is housed in various types of institutions (i.e. community colleges, four year universities, public and private institutions), institutional offices, academic departments, and larger, cross-campus initiatives and organizations. Civic education programs promote numerous activities to foster student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Many in higher education have embraced the civic education movement; however, as with other social movements, the civic education movement is still a contested area. Defining civic education (i.e. civic engagement, service learning, political engagement, community engagement, etc.) becomes problematic because there seems to be as many terms for civic education as …

Reflections On The Introduction Of Quantitative Assessment In Persuasive Writing Classes, Paul H. Grawe, Robin J. Grawe

Numeracy

If quantitative reasoning is to be a legitimate part of composition curricula, it must be seen as a valuable tool for composition instructors to use in exploring their own subject. Composition instructors must see the relevance of QR not merely to their students in other subject areas but also directly in their literary and rhetorical studies and careers. Here we reflect on a highly successful program of using quantitative techniques in teaching advanced levels of professional rhetoric, namely persuasive speech and writing. We recount our 15-year experience of running an in-class, empirical and progressive experiment in group negotiations, the Legislative …

Generating Law: Learning How To Take Care Of What One Has Started, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In this chapter from Living In A Law Transformed: Encounters With The Works Of James Boyd White, Professor Eisele discusses the inspiration provided him by White's writing.

Reporting The Irish Famine In America: Images Of "Suffering Ireland" In The American Press, 1845-1848, James M. Farrell

Communication

This chapter is a study of American newspaper reporting on the Great Irish Famine. The study examines six master narratives that constrained the image of Ireland and the Irish people presented to American readers. Those narrative constraints predisposed Americans to respond with hostility when Irish Famine refugees began to arrive in the United States.

One And Inseparable: The Union And Deliberative Conduct In Webster's "Reply To Hayne.", James M. Farrell

Communication

In Daniel Webster's view, the survival of the Union required not only an orator who could defend the Constitution as he did against Robert Hayne, but one who could embody the spirit of the constitution in deliberative performance. Webster uses his performance in debate not only to assail his opponent, defend New England, and expound on the Constitution, but further to demonstrate with his own oratory the abiding value of decorum, prudence, and eloquence in the national life. Webster becomes the ideal of deliberative performance as he contrasts his own conduct in debate with that of his Southern opponent. Webster’s …

The Child Independence Is Born: James Otis And Writs Of Assistance, James M. Farrell

Communication

This chapter is a reexamination of the Writs of Assistance speech by James Otis. In particular, it is a reconsideration of the evidence upon which rests the historical reputation of Otis’s address. Are the claims by historians who credit Otis with sparking the Revolutionary movement in colonial America warranted or not? That reassessment begins with a detailed review of the nature and function of writs of assistance within the political, legal, and economic environment of colonial Massachusetts. It then turns to an analysis of the legal dispute over writs of assistance in the 1761 trial. From there we will reconstruct …

Tractors And Genres: Knowledge-Making And Identity Formation In An Agricultural Community, Marcy Galbreath

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the history of a small Florida agricultural community over the course of the twentieth century from a rhetorical perspective in order to understand the technological and communicative transitions that governed the development of American agricultural production. By examining archival and oral histories, this research will add to our understandings of how written and oral communications temper the relationships and social situations of an agricultural community, including the knowledge-making and technological adaptation resulting from communications within the community and with outside institutions and entities. Agricultural villages are not isolated entities, but rather sites of multiple rhetorical situations, and …

Gauging The Alignment Between School And Work: An Activity Theory Analysis Of Police Report Writing Instruction, Marianna R. Hendricks

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is based on a fifteen-month study of police report writing instruction at one agency, connecting the curriculum at the training academy, field training, and the needs and expectations of multiple report audiences and users. It draws from Rhetorical Genre Studies (Miller, 1984; Russell, 2009), Activity Theory (Engeström, 2008), and Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Paré, 1999) to explore how novices learn a new genre through activity, and how this is complicated by a transition between school and work outside of a university context. Specifically, it focuses on the role of andragogical (rather than …

Constructing A Participatory Citizenship: Rhetoric And Agency Of The Revolutionary Association Of The Women Of Afghanistan, Lauren M. Connolly

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project addresses the various constructions of citizenship and considers the concept of a participatory citizenship. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is an example of how citizenship activities are performed by a transnational feminist organization and how the members' actions contrast with the frames about Afghan women provided by the United States government and news outlets. Feminist critical discourse analysis is used to analyze texts from these groups in order to consider how citizenship is constructed and/or denied to othered women. The texts analyzed demonstrate how colonial concepts impact Afghan women and feminist rhetorical studies demonstrates …

The State Of The Anti-Union Address: A Rhetorical Critique Of Select Service Worker Training Methods, Richard Ries

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an interdisciplinary master's level thesis that explores links among technical writing, training manuals, surveillance, and anti-union rhetoric used with service workers in select American chains and franchises. Brief histories are provided, including those of technical writing, the rise of unions in America, and how technical writing became inextricably linked with labor. A major shift occurred in the 20th century when workers began interacting less with products and more with the public. The research focuses on training manuals, techniques, and rehearsed dialogues of McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Panera, and Publix, though similar organizations are referenced. Service worker language, …

Preaching That Leads To Transformation At The North Street Church Of Christ In Nacogdoches, Texas, Curtis Barbarick

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project to develop a process whereby the sermon would be enhanced for listeners at the North Street Church of Christ in Nacogdoches, Texas, so that preaching would be more effective in leading to transformation. The theology and methodology of John Wesley were utilized as a lens by which to think about and implement this practice.

The intervention involved a six-week session with a focus group that represented a cross-section of the congregation. Participants in this group were asked to engage in a lectio divina exercise on a particular text daily, …

Rereading Romanticism, Rereading Expressivism: Revising "Voice" Through Wordsworth's Prefaces, Hannah J. Rule

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric And Science: Examining And Identifying The Rhetorical Techniques Used By Students In A Composition Classroom, Amanda Arp

Honors Program Theses

Student use of rhetoric can provide insight into student learning since rhetoric is, in part, epistemological. Epistemology refers to the study of the way someone thinks about a topic. Rhetoric is epistemological, therefore, because rhetoric is, at its core, the way ideas are thought about and expressed. Therefore, identifying and analyzing student usage of rhetorical techniques has the potential to allow a glimpse at the epistemological state of the student mind concerning their rhetorical learning. Insight drawn from knowing what students do and do not know concerning rhetoric could be extremely valuable to teachers in that it could pinpoint opportunities …

Veteranness : Representations Of Combat-Related Ptsd In U.S. Popular Visual Media, Diane J. Keranen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Posttraumatic stress and PTSD are becoming familiar terms to refer to what we often call the invisible wounds of war, yet these are recent additions to a popular discourse in which images of and ideas about combat-affected veterans have long circulated. A legacy of ideas about combat veterans and war trauma thus intersects with more recent clinical information about PTSD to become part of a discourse of visual media that has defined and continues to redefine veteran for popular audiences.

In this dissertation I examine realist combat veteran representations in selected films and other visual media from three periods: …