Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Charles MacArthur, School of Education. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Thesis (D. Jur.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in Law. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 374-392). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ27315.

Beginning with the premise that all literary texts are rhetorical in nature, this thesis explores the impact of the persuasive function in Romain Gary's Le grand vestiaire from the perspective of his poetics, defined in Pour Sganarelle. The analysis of typical narrative, descriptive and dialogal techniques used by the author brings to the fore at once the textual sites in which Gary's central precept, the univocity of meaning, is upheld, and the presence of ambiguities that undermine it. Likewise, the analysis of the novel's socio-historical context highlights its ideological dimensions, which is both inherent to the work and responsible for certain indeterminacies that foreclose the possibility of a unique meaning. Finally, it is shown that the rhetorical figures in Gary's text, which are designed, by their overwhelming presence, to forcefully reconfirm the univocity of meaning, also generate a series of equivocations. This thesis demonstrates that while Le grand vestiaire is indeed based on literary techniques that ensure its effectiveness, the novel is at odds with Gary's poetics and ultimately represents its functional ineffectiveness.

No description available.

An approach commonly used to teach argument in English departments tacitly dichotomizes argument and persuasion, separates cognition from affection, and values the product over the ability to form concepts and to convey ideas with engagement. Yet contemporary texts like Annette Rottenberg's Elements of Argument indicate a growing concern that teaching argument as formal reasoning and excluding ethics and emotions fail "the complexity of arguments in practice" (v).This dissertation argues for a pedagogy of argument as "inquiry." While its intellectual roots trace to the Isocratean/Aristotelian rhetorical tradition, the interdisciplinary theories from which it draws all recognize the mind's power to create knowledge through the dialectic of the "knower" and the "known": the semiotic language theory of Peirce, the instrumental learning theory of Dewey, the legal theory of Holmes, and the composing theory of Berthoff.The current-traditionalist over-attention to form inhibits the natural composing process and constrains inquiry by ignoring social values and public opinion. In contrast, "jurisprudentialism" attends to the critical analysis and creation of argument by focusing upon a writer's active participation in the recursive process of exploration and justification. It operates by an informal logic in which the test of sound judgment is whether an audience of competent persons is willing to accept its truth.In exploring and justifying a jurisprudential pedagogy of argument, this study claims that the traditionalists' pedagogy of "right" writing in the modern academy traces to the elitist, positivist camp of Plato's academy. This pedagogy casts rhetoric as a medium of communication, not as a means of making knowledge. It employs "recipe" argument in which language is the "batter of thought." It comprises a "know-what" pedagogy that treats writers as "lesser souls, not as the "philosophers" that they can become if provided the "know-how."Additionally, the study shows how the Platonist and the Sophistic rhetorical traditions have emerged in modern education as current-traditionalism and jurisprudentialism. It traces the historical ties between law and rhetoric and the intellectual forces of science and philosophy that separated them, as well as those that are bringing them back together again. / Department of English

This study examined the effect of tag questions, hesitations, and hedges on participants' attitudes toward an advocacy, perceptions of the speaker, message, and cognitive responses regarding the message. Results from 351 participants showed that although linguistic power markers affected attitudes when participants were motivated to process the message, the markers did so through different processes. The use of hesitations in an advocacy affected influenced attitudes by affecting participants' perceptions of the speaker, whereas the use of hedges influenced attitudes by affecting participants' perceptions of the message. The use of tag questions in a message influenced attitudes, but this study failed to find the mechanism this effect. The overall finding suggest a more complex relation among linguistic power components and aspects of a persuasive appeal than once thought and researchers should consider the different aspects underlying the effects of linguistic power components on persuasion. / Department of Psychological Science

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-48). / v, 48 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Missouri State University, 2008. / "May 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-114). Also available online.