This thesis considers the ways in which a multimodal approach to teaching writing process can help students better understand the choices available as they navigate first-year writing and beyond. Such an approach destabilizes their understanding of what counts as writing, beyond the strictly text-based practices they may normally associate with writing. This destabilization emphasizes the uncertainty of writing as a productive frame of mind, as it encourages a more critical approach for students as they develop and adapt their writing processes. A multimodal perspective on writing process encourages a more proactive approach to students’ development of a repertoire of writing knowledge and practice to increase their chances of transfer.

Language acts as either a bridge or a barrier to social groups dependent upon the individual’s effective use of a social group’s language. The individual uses the language of the group in order to join the group and to be understood by the group. This suggests that language is behavioral in part and can be treated as a form of social norms which delegate who is a part of the group and who is not. By utilizing the language of the group effectively, an individual is able to join the group. This group language may be temporary, and the dynamics of the group’s language can be held only within specific situations, such as with inside jokes, or can be more lasting, such as the language of a discourse. Examples of group language include the use of academic jargon in the academy, key terms specific to an academic field, and the standardization of the English language. To formulate an interdisciplinary study of social epistemic rhetoric, this thesis looks at the crossovers between two fields of study through a comparative analysis of social epistemic rhetorical theory and psychological research concerning language production and perception, the effect language has on understanding, and social mirroring processes that may be generalized to language production. This rhetorical theory now grounded in psychological science calls for experimental testing to find the limitations of group dynamics involving language.

This dissertation explores the rhetoric of space as it relates to academic computer writing locations--specifically, computer labs, computer classrooms, and writing centers. Using observation, surveys, interviews, and textual analysis, the author discusses seven rhetorical principles of design for these spaces, including designing for specific audiences, attention, clarity, enthymematic flexibility, identification, pathos, and shared ethos. Ultimately, applying a rhetorical gaze to these areas can help us to design more effective computer spaces in academia.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 34-04, Section: A, page: 1887. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1973.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-02, Section: A, page: 0545. Adviser: Carolyn Calloway-Thomas. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 13, 2007)."

<p>The anthology of the elder Seneca (c. 55 BC - c. 39 AD) contains quotations from approximately 120 speakers who flourished during the early Empire. The predominant tendency in modern scholarship has been to marginalize these speakers and the practice they represent (declamation): they are regarded as a linguistic and literary monolith, and their literary productions while recognized as influential are treated as discrete from those of other, "serious" authors. The present dissertation challenges this viewpoint by focusing on the following questions: To what extent can a speaker quoted in Seneca's anthology be said to have a distinct and unique literary identity? What is the relationship of a speaker, as represented by his quotations, relative to canonical texts? </p><p>Since most of the quoted speakers are found exclusively in the anthology, the study first examines the nature of Seneca's work and, more specifically, how the quotations of the anthology are organized. It is discovered that the sequence in which excerpts appear in a quotation do not follow a consistent, meaningful pattern, such as the order in which they might have occurred in a speech. Instead, excerpts exhibit a strong lateral organization: excerpts from one speaker show a close engagement with excerpts in spatially distant quotations from other speakers. A fundamental organizing principle consists in the convergence of excerpts around a limited number of specific points for each declamatory theme.</p><p>The remainder, and bulk, of the dissertation is a close analysis of the quotations of two speakers: Arellius Fuscus and Papirius Fabianus. The distinct identities of these speakers emerge from comparisons of excerpts in their quotations with the often studiedly similar excerpts from other speakers and from passages in other texts. Fabianus' literary identity takes shape in a language designed to construct the persona of a philosopher-preacher. The identity of Fuscus resides in idiosyncratic sentence architecture, in a preference for Presentational sentences, and in methodically innovative diction. Further substantiating Fuscus' identity is evidence that he assimilated the language of authors, such as Cicero and Vergil, and established compositional patterns that became authoritative for later authors, such as Ovid, the younger Seneca, and Lucan.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: Edward E. Lotto.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Language Education, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1205. Adviser: Faridah Pawan.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2008. / Vita. Advisor : Wadda Ríos-Font. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-184).

<p> This study examines the ways in which Mexican literary elites, or <i> literatos,</i> sought to engage new readers and expand the reach of their literary practice in the 1920s. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the efforts of Manuel Maples Arce (1898&ndash;1981) and Germ&aacute;n List Arzubide (1898&ndash;1998) to publicize the vanguard aesthetic movement known as <i> Estridentismo</i> between 1921 and 1927. During the 1920s, as Mexicans reconstructed a nation that had been torn asunder by the violence and upheaval of the Mexican revolution (1910&ndash;1920), Maples Arce and List Arzubide sought to expand the relevance of their literary efforts to communities that included more than just other literary elites. </p><p> In seeking to resonate with broader reading publics, the <i>Estridentistas </i> turned to manifestos, illustrated magazines, books, and literary journals&mdash;the genres of literary publicity available to <i>literatos </i> at the time. I understand the discursive products of these engagements as <i>Estridentismo</i>'s "public faces," a term I use to analyze the ways in which Maples Arce and List Arzubide engaged with social expectations about who <i>literatos</i> were or why they mattered. </p><p> The first half of this study focuses on Maples Arce's time in Mexico City from 1921 to 1925. By analyzing <i>Estridentismo</i>'s founding manifesto and Maples Arce's regular appearances in the magazine <i>El Universal Ilustrado,</i> I show the difficult and limited ways in which <i> Estridentista</i> social engagement emerged. The second half centers on List Arzubide's reenvisioning of <i>Estridentismo</i>'s social mission after leaders of the movement relocated to the provincial capital of Xalapa in 1926. In this second phase of the movement, List Arzubide made addressing nonelites a fundamental part of <i>Estridentista</i> literary practice and, in many ways, drastically altered the public faces of <i>Estridentismo.</i> </p><p> I argue that despite these important differences, Maples Arce and List Arzubide were both committed to socializing their aesthetic practice and resonating with new readers at a moment in which few <i>literatos</i> explicitly addressed anyone but other <i>literatos.</i> By focusing on the development of the public faces of <i>Estridentismo,</i> this dissertation shows how a small group of iconoclastic poets helped to reimagine literary practice by publicizing their aesthetic rebellion to a nation emerging from civil war.</p>