The study focuses on the rhetoric used during the drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia. The thesis will offer a framework for understanding negotiations in terms of distinct and coherent rhetoric. Primary sources for this thesis consist of five volumes of the Hansard of the Standing Committee on Standing Rules and Orders and Internal Arrangements of the Windhoek Constituent Assembly. To understand the rhetoric under which the Namibian Constitution was drafted, the Hansard of the Standing Committee was analysed. By analysing the Hansard, one can begin to formulate a picture of the rhetoric that led to a new Constitution of the Republic of Namibia and begin to understand rhetoric in the Namibian context. In order to make valid assertions, one has to go beyond what was said in the Constituent Assembly and look at what the participants said elsewhere. The thesis is concerned here with their words, not with their thoughts. But there is a recognition that sometimes thoughts matter as much as words. No judgements are made on the merits of their arguments. The study simply intended to examine their rhetoric and how rhetoric impacted on the final outcome of the negotiations. The study revealed that, with very few exceptions, most of the debates of the Windhoek Constituent Assembly were initially built on argument and many of them were solved through practical reasoning. This can be explained in part by the attitude of the members and in part by the constraint of the process. The study also revealed that the informative role of deliberation helped the framers of the Namibian constitution to form a more complete set of preferences than they originally had or even forced them to change positions when they were exposed to the full consequences or incoherence of their original proposals. For another, when political actors needed to justify their proposals, they found that impartial arguments were not available or, if they were, they were too obviously tied to a particular interest to be convincing. vi Persuasion as a Social Heuristic: A Rhetorical Analysis of the making of the Constitution of Namibia The appeal to fear strategy, as a means to enable delegates to better recognise the nature of the problems facing the political community and to begin thinking about potential solutions, was clearly at play at the Windhoek Constituent Assembly. Finally, the proceedings of the Windhoek Constituent Assembly which framed the Constitution show that many of the provisions of that instrument which are seemingly straightforward and artless rest in reality upon compromises, and are often laboured and tortuous. The outcome of constitution-making in Namibia was greatly influenced by the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments among the framers.

Includes bibliographical references. / This study focuses on rhetorical discourse of the 2002 presidential election campaign in Zimbabwe. The thesis analyses the rhetoric used by the two major contenders of this controversial election - the incumbent president Robert Gabriel Mugabe, candidate of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and the challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, candidate of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The study first traces the origin of rhetoric, the art of persuasive communication, to ancient Greek and Roman traditions. Following Hanson (1997), the study treats Kenneth Burke's and Chaim Perelman's different rhetorical theories as complementary. The argument is that, although the two contemporary scholars offer different views on the nature and process of rhetoric, these views are two sides of the same coin as the ultimate goal is to convince people, to create a communion between the rhetor and the audience. The study shows that both parties used negative advertisements in the election campaign. This persuasive attack produced negative images of both candidates. The rhetoric induced political cynicism of the candidates in the minds of the voters. Mugabe used collective memory and nostalgia in four funeral speeches in order to persuade the voters to vote for him. As the chief interpreter of past events, he chose those events that presented him as the vanguard of the values of the liberation struggle. His rhetoric called on the voters to guard against forces of imperialism by voting him back to the presidency. Consistently, Mugabe centred his campaign rhetoric on the achievements of his government over 22 years since independence in 1980 and attacked his opponent as a sell-out, a puppet of Britain and the whites in the country. Mugabe's land rhetoric was popular with people in the rural and peri-urban areas whose lives depended on land. Tsvangirai's rhetoric focused on the need for a change of government. He attacked Mugabe and his government for mismanaging the affairs of the country, resulting in the economic and political meltdown in the country. Tsvangirai offered practical ways of delivering the country from its economic and political quagmire and end the suffering of the people. This study argues that Tsvangirai's rhetoric of change was so persuasive to voters that had the electoral process been free and fair, he could have easily won this election.

Bibliography: leaves 39-41.

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This paper makes a critical analysis of media rhetoric in South Africa. It does so by looking at the Floor Crossing Legislation debate. It makes analysis of material, and texts that were reported by different media institutions to create a particular perception by repeatedly stating the same view through different forms of communication during the floor crossing debate. It also looks at the active part that the media plays in policy formulation particularly its influence on any bill that draws significant attention. Rhetorically, the paper will look at whether the methods or arguments employed by the media were successful in manipulating public perception and presenting a particular view.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-164).

This dissertation sets out to add to the existing body of research on the SABC by performing a rhetorical analysis of SABC 3's flagship English news bulletin, broadcast between 18:30 and 19:30, weekdays, and 19:00 and 19:30 on weekends. The purpose of this analysis is to determine the manner in which the SABC attempts to position itself as a credible news source through its use of the rhetorical tools of persuasion. As texts presented to an audience with the intention of persuading them of certain ideas, it is possible to study and analyse television news reports by employing the same rhetorical analysis techniques that one would use when analysing a political speech or any other rhetorical text. This dissertation is broken up into two major sections. Part one will discuss the theories and research around the notion of television news as rhetorical texts, setting the stage for part two of the dissertation, which will actually perform a rhetorical analysis on selected news stories aired on SABC 3 over a period of 30 days. The key conclusions from this research are that the SABC frequently employs the pathos proof in its reports, primarily through the reporters using emotive language in their scripts, even though this is not always accompanied by corresponding footage. Instead of relying primarily on reporters to state and interpret the emotional aspects of the story, the broadcaster should be using its visuals to do this, drawing on the television journalism principle of 'show, don't tell', where visuals are the primary means through which a story is told, not the words. What the broadcaster should instead be doing is using the logos proof more, to make sound arguments for some of the claims that are made in its reports. The second key conclusion is that the broadcaster relies on the epideictic genre of rhetoric in most of its reports, when the deliberative and judicial genres would be more fitting. The SABC has lost a significant number of viewers from the days when it was the sole television news broadcaster in South Africa, and there were no other alternatives. This dissertation shows that one of the main reasons for this is that the public broadcaster is failing to produce its news reports in a manner that correctly employs the tools of rhetoric to persuade viewers that its version of the news is credible.

Includes bibliography.

As studies in sound continue to emerge in the field (Ceraso, 2018; Danforth, Stedman, & Faris, 2018; Hawk, 2018), this dissertation seeks to describe how and why writing instructors are using music in their college writing classrooms, and to assess the match between these practices and an agreed-upon standard for effective teaching in college composition, the WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition. In order to outline the relevant scholarship about the use of music in the teaching of college writing, I first show that music belongs in the category of aurality as described by Selfe (2009). Then, I use Erin Anderson’s (2014) framework to organize the relevant scholarship about music: writing instructors tend to use sound/music: “…as a subject of rhetorical analysis, a material for multimodal text production, and a methodological model for alphabetic writing practice” [emphasis mine]. Next, I use Fulkerson’s (2005) framework for understanding instructor theories of composition, which includes: the axiological question (what makes writing “good?”); the process question (how do texts come into existence?); the pedagogical question (how is composition effectively taught?); and the epistemological question (how do you know all this?). Finally, I employ Sheridan, Ridolfo, and Michel’s (2012) four-part heuristic for interrogating new rhetorical options to the possible reasons for using music in the writing classroom: Semiotic potentials; cultural position; infrastructural accessibility; and de/specialization. To conduct the study, I design a Qualtrics survey and distribute it on two national listservs, and consider case studies in the form of targeted interviews/collection of teaching materials from five different instructors. The survey includes demographic, close-ended, and open-ended questions. I outline and apply a coding scheme to the open-ended questions. I conduct interviews via phone with the five interviewees, transcribe the interviews, and share the results with the participants for correction or confirmation. Then, I describe the results of the Qualtrics survey, and report the results of the targeted interviews and collection of teaching materials. I find that instructors use music in myriad ways, but most commonly use it to analyze lyrics or as background noise in the classroom. I find that their purposes for using music often correspond, in some ways, with their understanding of the purposes of composition itself (Fulkerson, 2005). Finally, I wrestle with the main findings, and reframe them using the lenses of academic hospitality and play. Results imply that the use of music is defensible according to the WPA Outcomes Statement, depending on how it is used. Further research is called for, especially in understanding the effectiveness of music-based pedagogy in the writing class. Such research might involve student responses, as well as collection of student materials at various stages in a music-based writing course. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / 2019 / November 1, 2019. / College, Hospitality, Music, Pedagogy, Play, Writing / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael Neal, Professor Directing Dissertation; Alysia Roehrig, University Representative; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; Kathleen Blake Yancey, Committee Member.

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