Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2003. / Thesis advisor: Patti Lynn O'Brien. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Reading." Includes bibliographical references (leaf 39). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This study explores Thatcher’s use of metaphor in the communication of her ideology in the months before she was elected prime minister of Britain in May 1979. The study contends that circumstance was the making of Thatcher. Contextual analysis is performed to establish the social and political circumstances that prompted Thatcher to respond with rhetorical discourse. Three rhetorical events are discerned: the industrial situation, the passing of the motion of no confidence and the election campaign, and these are defined in terms of Bitzer’s (1968) rhetorical situation. The study then examines Thatcher’s use of metaphor in her three speeches following Charteris-Black’s (2014) critical metaphor analysis. The analysis reveals that the metaphor type most frequently used by Thatcher is conflict, which is systematically deployed across the three speeches, giving rise to the main conceptual metaphor POLITICS IS CONFLICT. This conceptual metaphor helps create two political myths – the myth of the crusading Iron Maiden and the myth of Britain as a sick patient – that are central to Thatcher’s efforts at defining social reality. By portraying herself as the intrepid leader who remains resolute in the face of adversity and Britain as a nation in decline in need of a revival, Thatcher is able to present herself as the manifest solution to Britain’s problems. The Winter of Discontent strikes prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back; after more than three decades of consensus politics, the British people were ready for a change. In the months preceding her ultimate political destiny, Thatcher’s rhetoric of legitimation correctly captured the nation’s mood for change, enabling her to fulfill her ambitious dream of becoming Britain’s first woman prime minister. / published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

The past and the present are never involved in a fixed relation; they are, in fact, constantly shaping and affecting one another. As we seek to learn more about the past, our perceptions of the present change, and, as we seek to understand more about the present, our approaches to (and explorations of) the past alter. There is a mutually reinforcing rhetorical force to historical investigations and their connections to contemporary ends. Claims about the past set boundaries; when one person (or family or nation) makes a statement about history, rhetorical, social and political lines are drawn. Maneuvering within and between and around those boundaries is the rhetorical practice of historiography; the results of those rhetorical maneuvers are the political practice of historiography. Claims about the past are used to do many things, and this dissertation is about those rhetorical uses and the boundaries that they establish. This dissertation is about the epistemological power of historical rhetoric, the social and political work done in the present by knowledge claims we make about the past. Different ways of talking about the past are both a rhetorical practice (a way to construct believable histories) and a source of knowledge. It is important for rhetorical critics to recognize that the constructions of history are doing something at the same time that they are becoming something for others to use rhetorically, politically, and socially. In this dissertation, I explore four different rhetorics of history: Experienced History, Professional History, Collective Memory, and Simulated History. Suggesting that effective persuasive arguments are shaped and predicted by the cultures from which they stem, I investigate and compare these knowledge claims about the past. Using four rhetorical dimensions (Materiality, Perspective, Standards of Practice, and Silences), I examine how knowledge claims about the past differ, how the methods work rhetorically, and how those different rhetorical powers create distinct understandings of the past.

In American culture, reliance on expertise has become so commonplace that it is virtually impossible to avoid. It is the way we delegate the contents of our busy lives and defer authority in the interest of being efficient. Conventional wisdom defines an expert as someone who knows more about a subject or can perform better than the average person. However, expertise is not simply about one person's skills being different from another's. It is also fundamentally contingent on a struggle for ownership and legitimacy. Thus, it is subject to rhetoric. S/he who succeeds in persuading the public that s/he is an expert and that s/he is a better expert than any alternative, earns credibility, acknowledgement and power. Experts argue for the legitimacy of what they do. They articulate their experiences persuasively and always in the context of a rhetorical contest. The public ultimately validates one form of expertise over the other. To be an expert is to gain sanctioned rights to a specific area of knowledge or experience. My dissertation posits expertise as a rhetorical construct. It investigates how expertise is negotiated as a function of the rhetorical situation, its participants and constraints. Specifically, I ask: What rhetorical strategies do experts employ to compete for authority and legitimacy when they conflict with one another? Each chapter examines the rhetorical construction of expertise in a particular context--politics, history, medicine, and information. By drawing parallels between different experts from different chapters I ultimately identify a series of "unlikely allies." These are experts whose rhetorical strategies for constructing expertise trump differences of context and content. My rhetorical analysis demonstrates that, despite their apparent differences, experts have a great deal in common rhetorically. Indeed, the recurring use of the same rhetorical strategies through vastly different fields of specialization suggests that experts constitute a unique rhetorical genre. / text

Description is a form of writing that has long been perceived with some contempt. Due to its undefinable and vague nature, it is indeed uncategorizable, and seems to escape all parameters. What adds to its contempt is its non-utilitarian, non-pragmatical nature; that is, description for the sake of description, or a way to show off knowledgability. Since the Classical period, description had been classified into various categories, just to name a few: chronography, topography, prosopography, prosopopaeia , portrait, parallel, hypotyposis. And still, it had never been attributed a definite theoretical status. Today, the debate continues. In this thesis, I will discuss the linguistic systems of description as defined by Philippe Hamon and Jean-Michel Adam, and to which Jean Molino opposes. / The creative text illustrates that man is in fact indissociable from his environment. Man is greatly determined by the place where he lives. The story is about a woman is forced to return to her original social and cultural background because of her father's death. Her return back to her roots, namely the family business, instigates a requestioning of her cultural identity, and consequently, she develops a pessimistic view of her surroundings.

This dissertation inquires into the introductory character of Deuteronomy 1-3 through a study of its rhetoric. A brief review of relevant scholarship provides an initial orientation to the question. Features of the text that emerge as rhetorically significant include the relation of the text to its biblical parallels, the positioning of the reader vis a vis the people, and the shaping of the reader's sense of time and distance. These features are arranged in the text so as to encourage a sense of identity with the community addressed in Deuteronomy 1-3 while, at the same time, reminding the reader of genuine distance from the events of Moses' speech. Identification with this community positions the reader to hear the law addressed to its members in Deuteronomy. Reminders of distance from the circumstances of Moses' speech encourage the reader to understand that this law is addressed to her within the actual circumstances of her life.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1911. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-104).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1993. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [245]-254).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Giessen. / Includes bibliographical references.