Claudio Monteverdi's (1567-1643) ninth book of madrigals, the Madrigali e Canzonette, was published posthumously in 1651. These accompanied madrigals are for two or three voices, and some of them were previously published in his earlier books of madrigals, though the majority were unpublished. One of the types of analyses that helps to provide a plausible rationale for many of Monteverdi's melodic and harmonic decisions within those madrigals is musico-rhetorical analysis. Analyzing a madrigal rhetorically involves attempting to identify the musical techniques that coincide with rhetorical devices in a certain text setting. Rhetorical analysis of the first eight madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi's Madrigali e Canzonnette elucidates the composer's decisions concerning both pitch content and harmonic structure, and casts new light upon his expressive intent vis-à-vis his texts.

Master of Arts / Communications Studies / Charles J. Griffin / The 2011 Arab Spring Revolutions across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region drew international attention to the collection action phenomenon of revolutions. Despite having a significant impact on today’s globalized world, revolutions have been widely unexplored by social movement rhetorical scholars. This lack of study has prompted scholars to call for the investigation of the role human agency plays during revolutions (Morris, 2000). Rhetorical scholars are well-suited to meet this call but lack a methodological framework to examine revolutions. In responding to Morris’ call and with an interest in adding to the body of rhetorical social movement literature, this thesis asks two research questions. What are the rhetorical characteristics of revolutions? Are revolutions rhetorically distinct from social movements? To answer these questions, this thesis translates Jack Goldstone’s (1998) Divergent View of Social Movements and Revolutions into a rhetorical model for studying revolutions. This adaptation of the political science model relies heavily on Leland Griffin’s (1969) and Charles Stewart’s (1980) models of social movements. Additionally, the adapted model also incorporates James Wilkinson’s (1989) discussion of revolutionary rhetorical functions. The application of the new rhetorical model to the Egyptian Arab Spring reveals revolutions rhetorically develop and function in ways that creates a clear distinction between revolutions from social movements. These findings prompt discussion of methodological and critical implications.

This dissertation explores why, how, and to whom rhetorical criticism was taught in the four most noteworthy locations of a systematic rhetorical criticism instruction up to the end of the twentieth century: the schools of Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle in ancient Greece and the twentieth-century speech communication discipline in the United States. The study shows that Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle had clearly recognized the analysis of public speeches (and by extension the analysis of other symbolically mediated influence) as constituting a symbolic capital of the highest order and the core of their intellectual and pedagogical interest in the art of the word or rhetoric. It was precisely their recognition of rhetorical criticism's intellectual worth that prompted the three master teachers to reserve a systematic instruction in rhetorical criticism for Athens' future leaders. By contrast, the twentieth-century speech communication discipline found itself caught between a goal to teach production-oriented public speaking courses and a goal to function as a modern research discipline. Neither twentieth-century objective valued and supported rhetorical criticism as speech communication's intellectual foundation and as an advanced form of listening, reading, seeing, and thinking in which all members of the modern mass education system are entitled to receive an easily accessible, systematic, and explicit training. Both in ancient Greece and in the twentieth-century United States a systematic instruction in the analysis of symbolically mediated influence was made available to some but not others.

This essay provides a comparison of Trump’s rhetoric to fascist and populist ideology through an analysis and politolinguistic framing of the usage of apophasis, mesarchia, and pathos in Trump content spanning the first six months of his candidacy for the 2016 U.S. presidency seat. This account finds that Trump is decidedly Ur-Fascist or populist, and cannot be neither of the two, is likely both Ur-Fascist and populist, and leans more in favor of populist ideology given the analyses undertaken. This account ultimately aims to have supported critical discourse analysis (CDA) and politiolinguistics in support of these approaches as rigorous political tools, and to have encouraged the pursuit of political and civil awareness.

The internet is fundamentally a large storage unit for immense amounts of data. Consequently, the majority of online users log on to the internet in order to find information. Innovations in technology continue to make both the production and consumption of this information an easily achieved endeavor, resulting in high expectations for instantaneous answers via immediate search results. While a plethora of information is not difficult to find, knowing what to do with that information is often problematic. To turn information into knowledge requires an ability to contextualize it and critically engage with it. WebMD is a highly recognizable health information database that often runs into information overload problems with its users. This thesis will examine the information that the WebMD website provides, as well as its usability. The goal is to investigate, firstly, the importance of context for knowledge-forming when users perform online information research and, secondly, the critical literacy required to use such information.

How can the enterprises in Taiwan take preventive measures handle or manage the crises is an important issue. Crisis Management has become a major concern in public relations of all private sectors. This study aims to examine various crisis management strategies adopted by different enterprises affected by crises. This thesis specifically raises the following questions to discuss that the enterprises employ used Burke¡¦s Rhetorical Analysis with Dramatism strategy to analyze two case studies. The study found out the conclusions as follows: 1. Enterprises in Taiwan did not respond to crisis clearly and quickly. 2. Enterprises did not utilize image-repair-strategieswell. 3. They usually used ¡§act and agency¡¨in Pentadic analysis to interact with stakeholders. 4.Enterprises should cooperate with distributors to prevent crisis and establish a secure shopping environment.

This study is a rhetorical analysis of strategic communication in the Amalga Barrens wetlands controversy during the 1990s. The Bridgerland Audubon Society (BAS) in Cache Valley, Utah, was able to influence a change in public policy that removed the unique wetlands from consideration as a possible reservoir site for water taken from the Bear River. BAS led a successful grassroots effort by being civil, targeting specific individuals who had influence with the Utah legislature, focusing less on the environment and more on cost arguments that mattered to decision-makers, creating a portfolio of arguments grounded in scientific and economic data, and educating the community. BAS’s experience may be helpful to other environmental groups that are trying to lead efforts in their own communities. Although the strategies presented cannot be generalized to fit all groups and situations, they may serve as a starting point.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze stories that don’t often get told or heard. Traditionally, nonreligious people have had to keep their lack of belief to themselves out of fear of persecution. In the literature review of this dissertation, I summarize previous scholarship about leaving religion. In an effort to learn about autobiographies written by nonreligious women, I utilize storytelling as a theoretical framework, located within the rhetorical uses of personal narratives, and ask: What are the types of challenges, experiences, and topics that nonreligious women include in their stories?; How do these autobiographies invite readers to understand personal accounts of religious departure?; and How do these autobiographies invite social change and consciousness raising? To answer these questions, I applied thematic narrative analysis, from a rhetorical perspective, as a way to discover the commonalities amongst the stories, as well as the unique characteristics that each story possesses. While each woman had a unique story, there were five common themes that emerged among the memoirs: family, intellectual, relational, sociocultural, and professional. Inspired by the language of the “women’s sphere,” I labeled each of the themes as a realm in the “sphere of life” with hope that the sphere of life can help explain how religion influences a person’s life. I discovered that, even though some of the women lost some relationships with family and friends, all of the women mentioned that they are happier now that they are being true to themselves. The authors also mentioned that it is important to be at peace with who they are since this is likely their one and only life. With that in mind, it is important to have choice and authenticity in one’s life. Finally, this study demonstrated the power of storytelling and how autobiographies can invite social and attitudinal change.

The work of Kenneth Burke provides a method of rhetorical analysis that is useful in terms of bringing features of texts to the surface that are not readily apparent, such as how they produce identification in their audiences, and in revealing rhetorical factors related to but outside the text, for example the authors' motives. Burke's work is wide-ranging and open to many interpretations, so it can be difficult to apply. This study condenses some of his more important concepts into a simplified method which has several practical applications; it focuses on how Burke's theories can be applied to analyzing environmental texts, and helps reveal how those texts are rhetorically effective. This method is also shown to be useful for rhetoricians and other students of language in analyzing the motives and meanings behind complicated texts. An example analysis is developed in detail to demonstrate the utility of this approach for analyzing environmental rhetoric and help clarify how to apply it to other texts. A publication by the Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL), a nonprofit organization engaged in environmental education, provides the basis for a concrete example of applying this method to a current work of environmental rhetoric. The CEL serves as an example of current environmental organizations and their rhetoric, and a Burkean analysis of its publications begins by revealing some of the principles operating in the texts that make them rhetorically effective. This analysis also goes beyond basic dialectics to question how the texts function as "symbolic action" and how they fit into Burke's hierarchic system of language. The method developed in this study not only determines how the text produces identification in an audience, but also the motives behind producing the text. The CEL's publications are good representative examples of current environmental writing, so the conclusions drawn from an analysis of the CEL's texts can be applied to other environmental rhetoric.

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