Fluency of processing – the ease with which one extracts information from stimuli – affects a variety of cognitive processes over and above the influence of declarative content. Although this influence has been extensively demonstrated in a variety of different domains (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009), there are virtually no studies exploring this effect with auditory material. Moreover, although research on modality differences suggests that people process auditory information differently than they process visual or written information (Conway & Gathercole, 1987; Markman, Taylor & Gentner, 2007), there are no studies that directly compare the effects of processing fluency on judgments across different modalities. The current dissertation reports two sets of studies, one investigating the effects of processing fluency on cognitive judgments in the auditory modality, and a second exploring cross-modal differences in processing fluency. The first set of studies showed that although foreign-accented speech is more difficult to process, this disfluency does not affect cognitive judgments. In the second set of studies, two experiments show that disfluency in processing affects judgments of truth (Experiment 1) and the intention to purchase a product (Experiment 2) only with written – non-verbal – material. Experiment 3 investigates one possible explanation for the limited influence of processing fluency in speech: because people tend to focus on conceptual information over low-level acoustic information when processing language (Lahiri & Marslen-Wilson, 1991; Gow & Gordon, 1995; Mattys, White & Melhorn, 2005; Norris, McQueen & Cutler, 1995), distortions to the superficial features of the speech signal is likely to have limited impact on how people process the conceptual content. In Experiment 3 participants are primed to attend to the superficial features of foreign-accented speech. The results showed that when people are primed to attend to features that make foreign-accented speech difficult, non-native speech has an impact on subsequent judgments of truth. Overall, the studies presented here show that listeners can extract content from speech, even when it is distorted. They also show that when attention is directed to low-level acoustic features of speech, processing fluency effects becomes apparent. / text

There’s a venerable tradition in philosophy to look to our concepts when it comes to appreciating facts about absolute real modality, i.e. how things can and must be in an absolute sense. Given the absence of a modal sensorium, the traditional model stated that modal facts have something to do with conceptual relations. Squares must be four-­‐sided, for example, because the concept having four sides is part of the concept square. If this example could be generalised, it would not only provide a model for the epistemology of modality, it would also explain why much of our modal knowledge is a priori. The fact that we plausibly don’t need any empirical information in order to understand our concepts would explain why their analysis, and the subsequent appreciation of the corresponding modal facts, can be had from the armchair. In the wake of an externalist and scientistic trend in philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century, this model has come under severe attack. Orthodoxy has it now that concepts were the wrong place to look. Not only are there substantial modal facts whose recognition requires empirical investigation, even the application conditions, i.e. meanings, of many concepts are essentially a posteriori. This thesis rehearses the main arguments for rejecting the tradition, defends its central tenets and urges that, while the externalist arguments provide important insights, they do nothing to overturn the traditional model, but rather point to where it needs qualification. It spells out how we must understand its key notions—meaning, apriority, modality—in order to retain what is plausible about the traditional model. It is argued that an appeal to concepts in modal epistemology is inevitable, and that this is a tradition to foster.

The main objective of this study is to theorize a possible method of compatibility between macro-rhetorical analyses and micro-dynamic analyses of power, discourse, and the subject. The vehicle for application is conflict over privacy rights, and the proposed bridge between the two levels of analysis is the grammatical-pragmatic relation of modality and positionality. This investigation thus draws upon key theoretical elements from conventional structuralism, post-structuralism, and pragmatics. These form the framework for discussion of a number of analyses of selected textual features that reflect moves to truth and power, and the shifting status of the subject. Two general sets of analyses emerge. One focuses on rhetorically-motivated constructions of the subject, and the other on the uses of modality as indices of subject position. I have chosen the example of the conflict over privacy rights because the strongest instances occur in power struggles between individuals and institutions. The samples for analysis are drawn from the discourse of individuals and institutions involved in this conflict. My investigation focuses on power relations involved in control over the hermeneutic authority that influences the determination of speaking subjects and the establishment of truth. At the center of this discussion is the philosophical question of the subject, not only in terms of power over subject construction, but also in terms of the status of subject hood per se. The relationship between the self and discursive constructions of the self is thus examined. At issue is an ethical concern: the individual seems to need both conventionally approved constructions of herself in social contexts, and a measure of independent control over her self such that she has subject integrity. Three types of analyses, corresponding to the three levels of theoretical orientation identified above, inform this investigation: 1.conventional rhetorical analyses (structuralist), as they are exemplified in Kenneth Burke's dramatistic and logological calculus (at the level of global power struggle) 2.micro-analyses (post-structuralist), as they are ex-emplified in Foucault's archaeological approach to power, knowledge, and the speaking subject (at the level of local relations of force and their indices in "statements") 3.^grammatical-pragmatic analyses of modality, evidentiality, and the "statement," informed by studies in social semiotics (at the grammatical level of modality as a linguistic index of power and positionality) This work is intended to contribute to speculative research on how the three levels of analysis might be integrated. The results of this study show correlations between grammatical features of modality and subject status. Where there is a positive correlation, the uses of modality indicate conformity and acceptance in terms of institutional norms. Where there is a negative correlation, modality is not aligned with subject construction, and the "subject" involved is therefore institutionally powerless. She cannot receive a serious audience for her discourse. In the former case the authority invested in speaking subjects also sanctions credibility in the construction of truth and facts. Both reinforcements of, and changes in, the status quo occur only where modality and subject status are aligned with each other in terms of a specific organizational structure and situation. In the latter case where discourse is divorced from salient positionality, the speaker can utter only empty rhetoric. Resourceful individuals, however, may manoeuver within these institutional constraints to both utilize the conventions of discourse and to activate resistance to these restrictions in a field of low-level detectability. Such individuals (bricoleurs) are able to play with the aletheic phemonemon of truth: they retain the social character of convention and at the same time exercise a certain degree of independence or freedom in order to protect the ethical core or integrity of the self. This play is rhetorical strategy par excellence: the individual finds a way of co-existing with the institution. Resistance is thus survival by troping the world. It involves using the modality of the situation and moving the self strategically in and out of position. The bricoleur constructs resourceful faces that please yet deceive, that bend to discursive technology yet serve the self, and that disclose yet conceal. The modality of strategic aletheia is non-canonical and ordinary. One constructs the truths that protect, however temporary. And, however transitory, one makes a self that is at home in the world.

A generalized inclusion (g.i.) frame consists of a set of points (or "worlds") W and an assignment of a binary relation Rw on W to each point w in W. generalized inclusion frames whose Rw are partial orders are called comparison frames. Conditional logics of various comparative notions, for example, Lewis's V-logic of comparative possibility and utilitarian accounts of conditional obligation, model the dyadic modal operator > on comparison frames according to (what amounts to) the following truth condition: oc>13"holds at w" if every point in the truth set of a bears Rw to some point where holds. In this essay I provide a relational frame theory which embraces both accessibility semantics and g.i. semantics as special cases. This goal is achieved via a philosophically significant generalization of universal strict implication which does not assume accessibility as a primitive. Within this very general setting, I provide the first axiomatization of the dyadic modal logic corresponding to the class of all g.i. frames. Various correspondences between dyadic logics and first order definable subclasses of the class of g.i. frames are established. Finally, some general model constructions are developed which allow uniform completeness proofs for important sublogics of Lewis' V.

This is a comprehensive study on expressions of modality in one of the largest Turkic languages, Kazakh, as it is spoken in China. Kazakh is the official language of the Republic of Kazakhstan and is furthermore spoken by about one and a half million people in China in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and in Aksai Kazakh Autonomous County in Gansu Province.The method employed is empirical, i.e. data-oriented. The modal expressions in Kazakh are analyzed in a theoretical framework essentially based on the works of Lars Johanson. The framework defines semantic notions of modality from a functional and typological perspective. The modal volition, deontic evaluation, and epistemic evaluation express attitudes towards the propositional content and are conveyed in Kazakh by grammaticalized moods, particles and lexical devices. All these categories are treated in detail, and ample examples of their different usages are provided with interlinear annotation. The Kazakh expressions are compared with corresponding ones used in other Turkic languages. Contact influences of Uyghur and Chinese are also dealt with.The data used in this study include texts recorded by the author in 20102012, mostly in the northern regions of Xinjiang, as well as written texts published in Kazakhstan and China. The written texts represent different genres: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and texts published on the Internet. Moreover, examples have been elicited from native speakers of Kazakh and Uyghur. The Appendix contains nine texts recorded by the author in the Kazakh-speaking regions of Xinjiang, China. These texts illustrate the use of many of the items treated in the study.

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This dissertation explores some of the conditions of possibility underpinning contemporary breast cancer discourse, which is imbued with harsh moral, social and spiritual nuance. I have therefore explored a set of questions concerned with the past state of things in breast cancer care that laid the foundation for present approaches. I wanted to know how it became possible to speak what we now regard as the only truth about breast cancer. I wanted to understand how this truth was determined; who determined it, and who or what gave them the right to assert that their truth was the only truth. I wanted to acquire insight into the ways that thinking about and managing breast cancer based on this truth came to dominate the post-modern consciousness (rather than other, perhaps equally valid ways). And if it was possible, I wanted to open up a space for thinking differently about breast cancer. Finally, I wanted to test the fit of the ideas of the philosopher-historian, Michel Foucault, to these questions. Foucault's notions of discontinuity, discipline, the gaze, normalising judgements and to a lesser extent, some aspects of power/knowledge and the ethics of the self are here tested on the surgical archive of breast cancer, which housed the discourse that best represented Western societal beliefs about the disease, and which had been invested by society with the greatest authority in its conception and management. The analytic framework - modes of consciousness - suggested by Foucault provided a coherent structure with which to explore the archive. I found that there are numerous elements in the archive instrumental in cementing the conditions of possibility for breast cancer discourse in our own time. This dissertation demonstrates that, as is the case in the present day, these were based on unstable truths about breast cancer that were a result of a complex of sociocultural and political norms rather than an objective truth.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, Sept., 1976. / Photocopy of typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-172).

Thesis--University of Washington. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [164]-167.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Mathematics and Statistics. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-94). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11823