Digital Commons Network^™

Metaphor And Ideology In Economic Discourse, Brian Derhen

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Despite the presence of metaphors in American political discourse, little scholarly attention has been paid to the functioning of economic metaphors. This study addresses this shortcoming by examining the use of economic metaphors in contentious argument, while paying attention to how metaphor's linguistic variability derives from the rhetorical nature of discourse, and how the context of conflicting ideologies facilitates clashes between larger political metaphors. After establishing the ubiquity of metaphor in economic policy discourse, this study elaborates on an understanding of a fractured political discourse with an historical model that traces this fracture back to four dominant ideological positions. Finally, …

New Black Boxes: Technologically Mediated Intercultural Rhetorical Encounters On The U.S.-Mexico Border, Beau Scott Pihlaja

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Activity theory (AT) and actor-network theory (ANT) as theoretical frameworks begin their analysis of the world with the concept of "actors" engaged in activity towards some objective and with other actors in the human and non-human world. In this project, I use AT and ANT to analyze the mediating effect of communication technologies in intercultural rhetorical contexts, in this case a binational small business, and address two questions: 1.) How do common communication technologies (email, phone, IM chat, texting applications) define and transform intercultural rhetorical encounters? And 2.) How do individuals rhetorically engage perceived cultural others using common communication technologies …

Grammars And Rhetorics, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Grammar and rhetoric were the disciplines charged with teaching correct and effective use of language in antiquity. In the Middle Ages, these disciplines served to maintain Latin as a language of culture, religion, and administration over much of Europe. Grammatical studies flourished in medieval England following the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Subsequent developments in grammatical and rhetorical studies in Britain in the Middle Ages track deep changes in the social conditioning of literacy and social demands upon literacy. Among the medieval English innovations in these disciplines were the teaching of Latin as a foreign language, the cultural accommodation …

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

Journal of Student Success in Writing (Archived)

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.

Disease, Bread, Efficiency: Rhetorics Of Victorian Education Reform, Vicki Jean Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Disease, Bread, Efficiency: Rhetorics of Victorian Education Reform arose from my observation that, historically speaking, Anglo-American schools have always been “in crisis.” I argue that the crisis of the “failing school” is a rhetorical problem rather than an economic problem as most scholarship suggests. Much like the cultural myth of “the One True Love,” education reform debates tend to position the school as an institution that can rescue the nation from all perceived social ills. Not only is this unrealistic, the patterns of language are inconsistent as ideas about the purpose of school are translated into policy. This causes further …

Play This Paper: Forms Of Time In The Open World, Branching Narrative, Roleplaying Game, Jimmy Evans

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper is an analysis of chronotopes in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that reveals how the procedurality of video games might suggest a refined heteroglossic form. Synthesizing contemporary american philosopher Ian Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric with the materialist linguistic theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, this ultimately hypertextual and interactive article reflects on language as Bakhtin once did: as "agent and agency” (MPL 146). After detailing how the three major processes of the game coordinate spacetime, it is necessary to conclude that its kaleidoscopic nature provides new opportunities for the rendering of the geometry of thought in what is a …

Operating In A Fallen Vehicle: How The Corrupted Language Of Paradise Lost Serves Milton's God, Steven Telano

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This essay explores the significance of Milton’s use of poetic language, the cultural byproduct of what would be considered fallen language, in Paradise Lost as a means to highlight God’s uniqueness from the other beings of the poem, including the Speaker, and thus bolstering his goal to justify the ways of God to man. By looking at all of the different beings in this poem as existing in a hierarchical structure, it becomes apparent that the further a being exists away from God, who exists as the purest being of the hierarchy and is therefore placed at the top, the …

"If This Stuff Matters, Why Isn't It Being Shared?" : Citations, Hyperlinks, And Potential Public Futures Of Online Writing In Rhetoric And Composition., Elizabeth Frances Bergeron Chamberlain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses two deceptively discrete questions: (1) how academics might reach wider public audiences, and (2) how and why people cite the way they do. It takes citation practices as a telling though often tacit practice, one through which it is possible trace the contours of a larger story about how writing is changing as it moves online. That story: Writers increasingly reflect goals of provocation, of attracting a wider and potentially global audience, of spreading a message rapidly and virally, of responding to recent events and conversations, of sharing sources and resources. To explore these questions, this dissertation …

Communicating Mobility And Technology: A Material Rhetoric For Persuasive Transportation (Book Review), Daniel L. Hocutt

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Humans are so enmeshed in mobility systems that they identify with themselves through those systems. In Communicating Mobility and Technology: A Material Rhetoric for Persuasive Transportation, Ehren Pflugfelder (2017) uses the term "automobility" to describe both "the specific kinds of mobility afforded by independent, automobile-related movement technologies" and "the complex cultural, bodily, technological, and ecological ramifications of our dependence on separate mobility technologies" (p. 4). Given identities enmeshed in ecologies of systems involving human and nonhuman actors through which transportation emerges, automobility is described as a "wicked problem" to be solved, in part, by technical communicators and communication designers naming …

Braving Shame: The Rhetoric Of Bravery In Contemporary Women's Memoir, Debra Gayle Parker

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the rhetoric of bravery as a culturally-infused way of hearing certain kinds of personal narratives. As a cultural rhetoric, “bravery” has deep roots in masculine militaristic ideology in which cowardice, courage, and shame are conceptually linked to a sense of duty. The memoir industry represents one environment that archives what is valued as brave writing. As rhetoric precariously at work in the memoir industry, this dissertation investigates the cultural assumptions that drive literary bravery as it is used to assess contemporary memoirs, particularly memoirs written by women. Braving Shame invokes a new brand of bravery—one that de-emphasizes …

Enchanting Memes: Memetic Politics In The Face Of Technocratic Control, Jonathan Carter

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines emerging trends in networked politics through an analysis of the rhetorical forms and functions of internet memes as a unique response to the increasing force of technocratic rhetorics. Frequently dismissed as mere trivialities of networked discourses, memes have increasingly been mobilized to articulate new positions and structures of feeling around the significant issues of the day. As new iterations of memes are rapidly developed and circulated across networked public spheres, these rhetorical technologies provide new opportunities for amateur participation in the development of symbolic content. Such participation is particularly important as the intensification of control society has …

Harken Not To Wild Beasts: Between Rage And Eloquence In Saruman And Thrasymachus, Dennis Wilson Wise

Journal of Tolkien Research

One of the giant gaps in Tolkien scholarship has been to miss how deeply Saruman answers the age-old antagonism between rhetoric and philosophy. Like John Milton, Tolkien cannot bring himself to trust rhetoric. It threatens the unitary truth of a divinely-revealed moral order and, ironically, Tolkien applies great rhetorical skill to convince his reader of rhetoric’s illusionary nature. In this matter Tolkien has been largely successful, since few readers (if any) question the de-privileging of Saruman’s perspective. In the process, though, I suggest that Tolkien has developed in his master rhetorician a new relationship between rhetoric (eloquence) and rage ( …

The Visual Rhetoric Of Royalty, Barbara Joann Anderson

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis examines how three British female royals, Queen Elizabeth II, Diana Princess of Wales, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, use visual rhetoric to gain and maintain power in a world where they are rarely allowed to use their actual voices. The female royals use photographs to convey their messages and gain support from the public. Elizabeth's visual agenda of androgyny allows her to gain the authority that her role of sovereign requires, while Diana used pathos to create a connection with a public to emphasize that she was the people's princess. Following their leads, Catherine is learning to use …

Storytelling Failure In The Vale Of Leven: How A Bacterial Outbreak Became A Wicked Problem, Kyle P. Vealey

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the rhetorical work of a public inquiry investigation into an outbreak of Clostridium Difficile at the Vale of Leven Hospital in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland that resulted in 143 cases of infection and the tragic deaths of 34 patients. In light of these deaths and subsequent protests from local citizens, the National Health Service (NHS) Scotland launched a public inquiry in 2009 to investigate the events precipitating the outbreak. Extending rhetoric and technical communication’s sustained engagement with post-accident reports, this study explores how citizens and government officials accounted for the causes, boundaries, and impact of the outbreak. Specifically, …

"Out Of The Dark Confinement!" Physical Containment In Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Protest Literature, Allison Lane Tharp

Dissertations

Most scholarship on American protest literature tends to focus on the protest literature of specific, politically marginalized groups, such as black protest, women’s protest, or working class protest. My project redefines how we read nineteenth-century American protest literature by investigating the connections between the protest texts of these three marginalized groups. In particular, I argue that mid-nineteenth-century protest authors incorporate images of physical confinement and entrapment within their texts to expose to privileged readers the physical and ideological containment and control marginalized subjects encounter in their daily lives. Drawing from rhetorical theories of argumentation and audience engagement, and incorporating historical …

The United Rhetorical States Of America: A Place For Aristotle In U.S. Citizenship, Kurt Beyers

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The United States of America was founded on rhetorical justifications and has been governed through most of its history by a system designed to operate on rhetorical principles. The process depends on persuasive practices in the selection of the executives and the legislators responsible for governing. The base of this system is in the citizens responsible for electing the leaders and, ultimately, approving or rejecting the actions proposed by those leaders. Persuasive communication is a vital part of governance at every step. Citizenship in such a government is an active process. This paper argues that citizens, to be actively engaged, …

Math As Text, Rhetoric As Reason: Can The Humanities Save Math Education?, Elizabeth Melendez

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

As a student I had always struggled hopelessly with math. I noticed many of my classmates and associates outside of school shared similar experiences with this subject. However, a unique convergence of fortuitous circumstances shed some much needed light on my difficulties with math. Using a creative and communicative approach, I was able to analyze my experience from a rhetorical perspective, which allowed me to see more clearly, not just the problem I was having with math, but the overall problems many seem to have with math education. My findings were astonishing and became the subject of my research for …

The Black Speech: The Lord Of The Rings As A Modern Linguistic Critique, Cody Jarman

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Uses the theories of Owen Barfield to analyze the language and rhetoric used in the service of evil in The Lord of the Rings as a critique of modernity and the divorce of true meaning from speech. Ted Sandyman, Saruman, and the Mouth of Sauron are used as particular examples.

Your Face Betrays You: A Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Lie To Me, Caroline Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research concerning the consequences of edutainment has revealed that television shows have the capability to influence audience members. As the lines between education and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred, viewers may not be aware of how watching such shows impacts them. Lie to Me is a popular edutainment television series that educates viewers about the power of micro expressions. Ekman has dedicated a large part of his life to the development of research related to micro expressions. The show’s main character, Cal Lightman, portrayed Paul Ekman’s special talents and knowledge through his ability to detect micro expressions. The first three …

Thomas Davis And The Rhetoric Of Sport: A Reception Study On An Athlete’S Positive Perspective, Andrew Vincent Walsh

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Capitalist Rhetoric And The Redirection Of Power Through Metaphor In Reviews Of Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu Films, Isidro Zepeda

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Treating the concept of culture as a heuristic allows us to analyze multiple contexts involving culture as continuously changing with or without exterior contact. The productions from such system have the potential to develop identities through ideological materials produced by specialized rhetoric. This paper then focuses on how figurative language and structure affect the ways in which rhetoric, ideology, and identity are formed within the context of film reviews. In particular, I analyze reviews from the films Birdman and The Revenant, both directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, to detail how the use of metaphors influences the production of rhetoric. …

Shifting Dreams: Intersections Of The Rhetorical Imagination Of U.S. Immigration Policy And The Writing Practices Of Dreamers, Genevieve Garcia De Mueller

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines the intersections between the rhetoric of the DREAM Act and the discourse of the migrant activists, specifically DREAMers, affected by the Acts language. Through a hermeneutic approach combining a rhetorical, genre, and critical discourse analysis, I examine how the DREAMers respond to marginalizing textual features of the Act. DREAMers appropriate genres and rhetorical moves of the dominant discourse to combat four problem features of the DREAM Act, namely the criminalizing nature, the erasure of the affected subjects (migrants), the taking away of agency from the affected subjects (migrants), and the propagation of xenophobic racism. Often fraught with …

Siete Lenguas: The Rhetorical History Of Dolores Huerta And The Rise Of Chicana Rhetoric, Christine Beagle

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation is first an historical trajectory of Chicana Rhetoric in the American polis and then a perspectival analysis of three key texts from Chicana labor rights activist and vice president of the United Farm Workers Union Dolores Huerta. The trajectory establishes an efficacious legacy of Chicana Rhetoric and the analyses of Huerta's rhetoric explore what Chicana Rhetoric is and is not through the lens of media, scholarly, and personal rendition. I argue throughout that Chicana Rhetoric is representative of current intersections in social, political, racial, and gender rhetorics and Dolores Huerta is the embodiment of these intersections. The implications …

The Megaphone Of The Soul: Resistance Of Fraudulent Technological Idolization By Recognizing The Power Of Human Choice In Media Ecology, Richard L. Talbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Humans naturally communicate, but choose to use tools. They use them to make sense of things, even to their own detriment and the detriment of others. These tools often receive the attention, instead of the human interaction. Aristotle's notion of humans as social animals has been carried into media ecology scholarship by Arendt, Burke, Ellul, Mumford, Postman, and Ricoeur. Social media scholarship has often focused on the tool and how it affects humanity. However, a phenomenological approach is necessary, as humans communicate with or without these tools. This approach will follow multiple steps. The first is through an understanding of …

Powerlessness Repurposed: The Feminist Ethos Of Judy Bonds, Mary Beth Pennington

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Archiving Academic Tweets: The Digital Backchannel As An Ephemeral Archive, Ashley Hall

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While both Twitter and backchannel discourse have been previously studied, analyzed, and theorized, there has not yet been an investigation of how live tweeting during an academic conference creates a backchannel conversation that is an ephemeral digital archive. Recognizing the importance of the backchannel conversation taking place among scholars via Twitter during academic conferences, this essay fills a gap in the existing research by arguing that we should preserve and archive conference Twitterstreams; doing so, I maintain, would make backchannel tweets available for subsequent access and study, thereby addressing the inherent ephemerality of the digital Twitterstream. To this end, I …

Politics And Pedagogy: Recuperating Rhetoric And Composition's Native Ethical Tradition, Derek Risse

Wayne State University Dissertations

Over the past decade, scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have shown renewed interest in the topic of ethics, prompting what some have described as an ethical turn in the discipline. Spurred by a deep-seated concern for the legacies of humanism, scholars have turned increasingly to extra-disciplinary referents in continental philosophy. This dissertation works to recuperate the discipline’s native ethical tradition via a critical rereading of the often-implicit treatment of ethics in Composition scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s. Returning to this “critical” moment and emphasizing the rich thinking around the question of ethics provides fuller and more disciplinary-specific resources for …

Imc: Its Rhetorical And Philosophical Foundation And Impact, Allison Raemore Peiritsch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A review of current integrated marketing communication (IMC) literature indicates that IMC has swept the globe. IMC has become the normative marketing practice for organizations to promote their goods and services, as well as an increasingly popular area of academic study. At the same time, literature shows inconsistency in IMC's professional practice and academic instruction. An increasing number of IMC theorists suggest that "true" IMC involves reorienting an organization to become consumer-focused and responsive at every level. This broader vision for IMC points to the discipline's communicative underpinnings. It is dialogic, other-oriented and interpretive in nature, yet most organizations and …

"I Listen To Their Story, They Listen To My Comments, And Then I Pocket My Fee:" Sherlock Holmes As Rhetorical Equipment For Living, Andrew Cessna Jones

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study argues that Sherlock Holmes serves as rhetorical equipment for living. Using Kenneth Burke’s theory of symbolic appeal and the critical tool proposed in the essay “Literature as Equipment for Living,” I explore how Holmes responds to the rhetorical situation of early nineteenth century England and consider why the Holmes symbol continues to appeal to audiences. I conclude that rhetoric is a necessary component of the Sherlock Holmes symbol and suggest that Holmes’s famous method is rhetorical rather than syllogistic.

Speaking Of Stories And Law, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

A recurring question in narrative scholarship has been the relationship of narrative to law. Most narrative scholars agree that stories are central to law. As Stephen Paskey recently pointed out, stories are more than a tool for persuasion. They are embedded in law’s very structure. But how does that work? Are rules just stories articulated in a different form?

We have barely begun to explore narrative’s roles, but it is already clear that, in the words of Meryl Streep, “it’s complicated.” A conceptual map of what we’ve learned so far can help us unpack the complexity. Otherwise we may run …