This thesis formulates an account of two language abilities shared by adult speakers of English. First, language users are able to recognize when a text is contiguous from utterance to utterance. Second, users are also able to decide when a discourse as a whole is well-formed. As previous work in either area has been minimal, a central problem becomes that of discovering and demonstrating how strong, and of what order, adequate theories of these intuitions must be. Thus, Part I, which takes up the first of the abilities above, attempts to revise and strengthen current models of conjunction, extending them to handle successive sentence decisions. Part II subsequently attempts to develop a theory of expository performance to handle the larger discourse intuitions. Part I begins with a large corpus of grammatical , but unacceptable, successive sentence pairs. After moving first from strictly syntactic constraints through progressively stronger criteria, until reaching pragmatics and context, it makes the case that only a context-sensitive theory is adequate to block the generation of sentence pairs with content anomalies. However, as Part II argues, content relations between sentences in a discourse are not the only meaning relations of which a reader must be aware. Each utterance also has its own force, by which we know what a speaker intended to do in uttering what he has. Through examples I show that force considerations are ultimately prime in all acceptability decisions. Content analysis inaccurately predicts that if content meaning relations can be found between its successive sentence pairs the discourse comprised of the pairs will be acceptable, and if not, then the discourse will be anomalous. Nevertheless, texts with apparently anomalous content relations between sentences may be acceptable, given certain performative intentions of the speaker, and texts which appear to be acceptable may fail on performative grounds. Part II also contains an analysis of the necessary organization and ordering of certain expository actions in written texts, given a speaker's expository intentions for his discourse as a whole. In particular, I look at the discourse action of arguing, which obligatorily involves making a claim and giving reasons for belief, as well as the optional actions of making distinctions, explaining, admitting, contradicting, and others. In the final chapter, I bring together the two parts of the thesis, showing that conjuncti or successive sentence relations must be consistent with a discourse's underlying performative structure, and are to some extent determined by that performative structure. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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.

Habilitationsschrift--Technische Hochschule, Aachen. / Bibliography: p. 195-209.

Thesis--Marburg. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-174 (2d set)).

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. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Orientador: Olimpio José Pinheiro / Banca: Carlos Roberto Zibel Costa / Banca: José Carlos Plácido da Silva / Resumo: Esta dissertação tenta identificar o que pode significar alguns textos escolhidos de Barthes, Derrida e Flusser para a teoria do design. Estes textos/autores a princípio está associados à linguístisca, mas é importante frisar que esta é aqui entendida como uma teoria da comunicação. O contexto pós-estruturalista destes autores aponta como uma obra depende da comunidade de "falantes" daquela linguagem. Ou seja, depende não só de quem contrói o discurso como também do público-alvo ao qual se destina essa produção. De modo que o significado não existiria na obra em si, mas seria uma reconstrução, talvez até co-criação posterior por parte do público. Mas, afirmar que a obra não apresenta significado em si mesmo não é afirmar que ela não significa ou que não tem valor. É afirmar que este significado e este valor são uma construção comunitária. Neste conetxto, é interessante questionar até que ponto o criador desses objetos coloca-se no lugar do público-alvo. Apesar de instável e múltiplo, o senso comum engendrado no seio dessa rede de inter-relações, a que se dá o nome de comunidade ou campo cultural, seria a base onde as ideias não construídas e reconstruídas, configuradas e reconfiguradas. Portanto o diálogo se faz necessário / Abstract: Starting with studies related to poststructuralism, specially Barthes and Derrida, where linguistic can be understood as a theory of aesthetical communication, this paper tries paper tries to demonstrate how the meaning of a cultural object, that could be of art, design, archtecture, music, theatre or any other area of knowledge and expression, depends of their community of "speakers". It depends not only of the author of the discourse as well as the targeted public of this production. This way, the meaning would not be a characteristic of the work itself, but a re-construction a posteriori by the reader, almost always under the influence of the specialized criticism. In this scenario it is interesting to ask how much the designer thinks on his public. Has the creator the domain of communication technics and are this technis really efficient? But to say that a work has no meaning on itself does nor mean that it has not value and that it does not mean anything. It is, to affirm that the meaning and value aqre communitarian. This responsible community would be the basis where the ideas are generated, re-generated, configured and re-configured / Mestre

This thesis is an investigation of the relation between language and thought in terms of the Saussurean concept of linguistic sign. However, it is not an empirical study of the relation between language and thought and, therefore, not a study of the Whorfian problem of linguistic relativity, but rather a study of how we understand the nature of language and thought such that we think they are related in a certain way. This thesis is an investigation of the “metaphysical” picture that underlies our understanding of the relation between language and thought. In this study, we believe that how we understand the nature of language and thought is implicitly related to how we understand their relation. Therefore, we cannot really deduce the relation between language and thought from our understanding of language and thought independently of how the relation is initially understood. The whole matter is indeed about what is the larger picture within which we understand the nature of language and thought. And, we think the Saussurean concept of linguistic sign, which deals with the problem of the duality of forms and ideas, provides us with such a picture. This is primarily the reason that motivates the present study. In investigating the relation between language and thought from the Saussurean semiological perspective, we will also take into account the problem of the origin of language, which we think, represents another picture of language in that it represents an attempt to study the nature of language from a naturalistic perspective. Therefore, we want to contrast the Saussurean picture of language with this naturalistic picture of language; we want to see how the problem of the origin of language is understood from a semiological perspective. This would allow us to see how language is understood from a synchronic perspective in the Saussurean picture of language. Finally, it is hoped the present study would contribute to our understanding of how language and thought is in fact always inseparable in our conception from a Saussurean perspective, that is, in terms of our existence as speakers. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral), Université Paris-X Nanterre, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-285).