L'essai québécois a longtemps été étudié en regard de ses thématiques, en particulier celle de la question nationale. Avec la désillusion référendaire de 1980, et l'entrée des femmes dans le domaine de l'essai, d'autres avenues sont explorées, mais peu de recherches s'attardent aux particularités formelles de l'argumentation dans l'essai. En outre, les textes féministes sont rarement comparés aux essais produits par les hommes durant la même période, et ce, même lorsque la réflexion développée concerne des sujets semblables, que ce soit, par exemple, la littérature d'ici et d'ailleurs, le métier d'écrivain ou l'avenir de l'humanité. C'est pourquoi cette thèse propose un corpus mixte composé de douze recueils d'essais parus au Québec entre 1977 et 1997. Il s'agit d'y évaluer comment et pourquoi la rhétorique déployée dans les textes varie - ou ne varie pas - en fonction du sexe de l'essayiste. La période étudiée correspond à un temps fort de la reconfiguration des identités de genre, si bien qu'on peut émettre d'emblée l'hypothèse que les écrits témoigneront d'un certain écart par rapport aux stéréotypes sexués pouvant influer sur les choix discursifs.L'intériorisation des modèles masculins et féminins, prévue par le système de sexe/genre (Rubin), laisse-t-elle tout de même des traces dans l'écriture essayistique ? Si oui, lesquelles ? Si non, quelles sont les principales ressemblances entre les diverses postures argumentatives ? La première partie, qui compte deux chapitres, sert d'assise à la lecture du genre proposée ensuite. Nous y verrons l'évolution de l'autorité discursive avec la postmodernité ainsi que la dynamique binaire à l'oeuvre au sein des principales définitions de l'essai. Divisée en quatre chapitres, la deuxième partie de la thèse révèle un spectre de positions, des plus masculines aux plus féminines (ou inversement), illustrant la complexité du phénomène de la sexuation de la rhétorique dans l'essai québécois. La relation avec le destinataire, les métaphores, l'intergénéricité et la modalisation du discours retiendront notre attention, en tant qu'éléments essentiels de l'argumentation à laquelle a recours tout essayiste littéraire.L'examen minutieux de ces différents aspects permettra de déceler les spécificités de l'essai au féminin, et celles de l'essai au masculin, tout en dévoilant les points de rencontre et les possibilités de dialogues entre les écritures d'essayistes de sexes opposés.

Résumé : Cette recherche a pour objectif d'analyser la réception des représentations des femmes dans deux campagnes publicitaires de produits de toilette, l'Initiative de vraie beauté de Dove et la Bom Chicka Wah Wah de Axe. Alors que la première cherche à construire un modèle de beauté accessible, la seconde reproduit le modèle dominant de la femme idéale. Cette contradiction n'a rien d'étonnant, si ce n'est que les marques appartiennent toutes deux à la multinationale Unilever. Ceci a soulevé une importante controverse. Ce mémoire s'appuie sur différentes théories en communication et en études féministes. Je traite notamment de la socialisation, des rôles concurrentiels des médias et de la mère dans ce processus, de la construction du genre, des représentations des femmes dans les médias et la publicité, ainsi que de la question des publics et de la réception selon l'approche du sens construit. Cette étude de la réception se penche sur un public en particulier, les mères d'adolescentes : celles-ci sont le public cible de Dove et leurs filles sont quotidiennement exposées aux idéaux de beauté féminine, présentés, entre autres, par Axe. Trois groupes de discussion ont été menés auprès de vingt-trois participantes dans différentes villes du Québec. Les participantes ont été invitées à donner leur opinion à propos des publicités diffusées sur les sites Web des campagnes de Dove et Axe et à échanger sur la publicité, les standards de beauté et les représentations des femmes dans les médias. Il se dégage trois grands points de l'analyse des résultats. D'abord, les mères d'adolescentes interviewées tendent à négocier les messages publicitaires. Il est certain qu'elles intègrent directement certains éléments de sens, mais elles en rejettent d'autres et se montrent critiques. Ensuite, elles semblent jouer un rôle-clé dans la socialisation, et ce, tant dans l'apprentissage et la reproduction des normes de la féminité que dans le développement d'un sens critique par rapport à ces normes. Finalement, elles adoptent des points de vue féministes par rapport au corps, à la mode et aux pratiques de beauté et par rapport aux représentations des femmes dans les médias.||Abstract : This research examines the reception of women's representations in two advertising campaigns for beauty products, Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and Axe's Bom Chicka Wah Wah. While the first seeks to construct a more democratic beauty standard, the second reproduces the dominant standard of the ideal woman. Such contradiction would by no means be surprising if it was not that both brands belong to Unilever, a multinational corporation. Such contradiction therefore created an important controversy.This master's thesis is based on different theories in communication and feminist studies. It deals with socialization, competing roles of media and mothers in this process, gender construction, women's representations in media and advertising, as well as with the issues of publics and reception, as discussed by the constructed meaning approach.This reception study looks into a particular public, that is mothers of teenage girls: these women are Dove's target and their daughters are regularly exposed to feminine beauty ideals, represented, among others, by Axe. Three focus groups were held with 23 participants in different cities of Québec. Participants were invited to share their opinions on the ads broadcasted on the websites of Dove's Real Beauty Campaign and Axe's Born Chicka Wah Wah, and to exchange ideas and views on advertising, beauty standards and women's representations in media. Three main points can be drawn from the results and their analysis. First, the mothers of teenage girls interviewed tend to negotiate the messages in advertisings. It is certain that they directly integrate some elements of meaning, but they also reject others and display great critical faculty. Second, it seems they play a key-role in socialization, both in the initiation to and the reproduction of norms of feminity and in the acquisition and development of critical faculty towards these norms. Third, they take up feminist positions and views on the body, fashion and beauty practices, as well as women's representations in media.

This thesis examines the reality television (RTV) series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (HCHBB) as a rhetorical text in and through which the cultural significance of race, class, and gender stereotypes—and the meanings they hold for different individuals and groups—are actively contested and negotiated. I argue that recurrent themes of symbolic transgression of hierarchical structures in HCHBB operate as a modality through which cast and audience(s) alike might make or interpret potentially subversive/resistant meanings. This focus on the RTV series as a dynamic site for making and contesting meaning—rather than a static text encoded/decoded by members of the discrete categories of producers and consumers—enables critical attention to the discursive and affective elements at work in HCHBB without forsaking analysis of the political and material frames in which they circulate. These frames are explored throughout a brief history of the RTV genre and an overview of the scholarship that has engaged it. Ultimately, I argue that while HCHBB and the genre of RTV may potentially provide the opportunity to challenge class antagonism and discrimination, it also perpetuates structural, material inequality. By linking themes of symbolic transgression as they operate in and through the text with Kenneth Burke’s (1969) analysis of hierarchy and mystification of class relations, I show how HCHBB doubly participates in the stratification of economic class when symbolic transgression is offered as an affront to social class morality rather than pervasive structural, material inequality. Despite an ethos of rebellion against bourgeois norms, HCHBB displaces rather than cultivates critical class consciousness by encouraging performances of redneck identity which also consign the Shannon/Thompson family to their fate as working class celebrities. / text

<p>The author discusses three Soviet comedies from the</p><p>1970s: Moskva slezam ne verit (Moscow Does Not Believe</p><p>in Tears, Vladimir Menshov, 1979), Osenniy marafon</p><p>(Autumn Marathon, Georgi Daneliya, 1979), and Ironiya</p><p>Sudby, ili S lyogkim parom (Irony of Fate, Eldar</p><p>Ryazanov, 1975), and how they relate to both</p><p>conventions of romance and conventions of the</p><p>mainstream traditions of the romantic comedy genre.</p><p>The text explores the evolution of the genre and</p><p>accompanying theoretic writings, and relates them to</p><p>the Soviet films, focusing largely on the conventions</p><p>that can be grouped under an idea of the romantic</p><p>chronotope. The discussion includes the conventions of</p><p>chance and fate, of the wrong partner, the happy</p><p>ending, the temporary and carnevalesque nature of</p><p>romance, multiple levels of discourse, and some</p><p>aspects of gender, class and power. In addition, some</p><p>attention is paid to the ways in which the films</p><p>connect to specific genre cycles, such as screwball</p><p>comedy and comedy of remarriage, and to the</p><p>implications that a communist system may have on the</p><p>possibilities of love and romance. The author argues</p><p>that Soviet and Hollywood films share many conventions</p><p>of romance, but for differing reasons.</p>

In July 1946, Harry S. Truman formed the first-ever presidential commission on higher education. Since that time, reports by commissioned panels of experts calling for reforms to postsecondary education have proliferated. The Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education provides yet the most recent high-profile example of how reformists may shift their sights--and their rhetorical strategies--from primary to postsecondary education. Yet, little examination has been made of how such reports harness the persuasive power of rhetoric to advance their agendas for reform. In From Sputnik to the Spellings Commission, Daylanne Markwardt bridges this gap by bringing tools of rhetorical criticism to bear on the contemporary rhetoric of higher education reform. Drawing upon rhetorical and linguistic theories, she demonstrates how two key metaphors--the first, framing higher education as a means of national defense, the second, likening it to a business or industry--have radically altered the way postsecondary education has been perceived and valued in the U.S. over the past 60 years. She also explores how a number of major ideological appeals have been used to legitimize actions and policies that have brought about sweeping changes to institutions of higher learning since the Cold War. Based upon Jürgen Habermas's theory of technological rationality, she argues that commission reports have instilled a measurement-oriented, bottom line-driven mindset, whereby the results of postsecondary learning have been reduced to those which are readily quantifiable and its worth calculated almost entirely in economic terms. As a codified response to a recurrent social situation, commission reports like those analyzed in this dissertation constitute a unique genre of reform rhetoric. Yet, they also effectively restrict women, persons of color, and other marginalized groups from the dialog surrounding higher education reform, thereby sustaining a hegemony of values asserted largely by representatives of dominant religious, political, and business interests. The author concludes that the conventions and limitations of this genre must be challenged, and the ideologies now associated with higher education rearticulated, if the humanities are to maintain their place within the evolving American university.

Increasingly, workplace information seeking takes place in digital information environments and is reliant upon search systems. Existing systems are designed to retrieve information that is relevant to the query, but are not capable of identifying information that is well-suited to the context and situation of a search. This is a problem for professionals who often are searching for a small amount of useful information that can be applied to a problem or task, and have limited time to browse through large sets of results. This inability of search systems to discriminate between relevant and useful documents is one of the core problems in information retrieval. In this dissertation, I address this problem by studying the role that contextual factors play in determining how a group of professionals searches for and selects information. The central question concerns the nature of the relationships between these contextual factors, specifically between the genres in the document collection and the tasks of the searcher, with an aim to exploit such relationships to improve workplace information retrieval. Research was conducted through multiple studies in three phases, moving from an exploratory study of workplace information behaviour to a controlled experimental user study. Findings confirm that workplace context shapes search behaviour. This relationship is modeled as a set of key contextual factors and sets of context-dependent access constraints, preferred document characteristics, and search strategies. Among the contextual factors identified, work tasks and information tasks were found to be significantly associated with document genres. This task-genre relationship was modeled as a matrix of associations between domain-specific task and genre taxonomies and successfully implemented as a filtering component in a workplace search system. This is the first major study of the relationship between task and genre in information seeking and of its application to information retrieval systems.

Syftet med denna studie är att få ökad kunskap om hur den skriftliga förmågan hos andraspråkselever på kursen svenska som andraspråk 1 ser ut med avseende på den övergripande textstrukturen för beskrivande genre; närmare bestämt genrestegen rubrik, klassifikation och detaljer. Vidare är syftet att undersöka om det finns skillnader i den skriftliga förmågan mellan texter från elever med tidigare respektive senare startålder. Materialet som används i studien för att belysa forskningsfrågorna utgörs av åtta elevtexter som skrivits utifrån skrivuppgiften: Beskriv hur det är att vara andraspråkselev i svensk skola. Studiens informanter består av åtta gymnasieelever på kursen svenska som andraspråk 1. Elevernas startålder, när de började i svensk förskola eller skola, har en spridning från 2 till 15 år. Materialet bearbetas utifrån en modifierad version av Kuyumcus ”Bedömningsmall i ett genrepedagogiskt perspektiv” (Kuyumcu, 2009:126f). Den beskrivande genrens genresteg rubrik, klassifikation och detaljer identifieras liksom genreavvikande steg tillhörande den återgivande genren: bakgrund, händelser med personliga kommentarer samt avslutning. Resultatet av textbearbetningen tolkas och diskuteras utifrån Hallidays (1993:94) språkbaserade teori om lärande och Thomas &amp; Colliers (1997)  studier beträffande tidens betydelse för utvecklandet av vardagsspråk och skolspråk hos andraspråkselever och om förstaspråkets betydelse för andraspråksutvecklingen. Resultatet uppvisar inga tydliga skillnader beträffande skriftspråklig förmåga avseende övergripande textstruktur mellan elever med tidigare och senare startålder när det gäller beskrivande genre. Ingen elev skriver hela sin text i enlighet med den logiskt organiserade, beskrivande genren. Alla elever gör avvikelser till den kronologiskt organiserade, återgivande genren som bedöms ligga närmare vardagsspråket och inte kräver ett utvecklat skolspråk. Däremot visar resultatet tendenser mot att den tid eleverna studerat på förstaspråket till viss del korrelerar med elevernas skriftspråkliga förmåga inom den beskrivande genrens övergripande textstruktur på andraspråket.

This study approaches ‘discovery writing’ in relation to genre, investigating whether different genres of writing might be associated with different kinds of writing processes. Discovery writing can be thought of as writing to find out what you think, and represents a reversal of the more usual sense that ideas precede writing, or that planning should precede writing. Discovery writing has previously been approached in terms of writers’ orientations, such as whether writers are Planners or Discoverers. This study engages with these previous theories, but places an emphasis on genres of writing, and on textual features, such as how writers write fictional characters, or how writers generate arguments when writing essays. The two main types of writing investigated are fiction writing and academic writing. Particular genres include short stories, crime novels, academic articles, and student essays. 11 writers were interviewed, ranging from professional fiction authors to undergraduate students. Interviews were based on a recent piece of a writer’s own writing. Most of the writers came from a literary background, being either fiction writers or Literature students. Interviews were based on set questions, but also allowed writers to describe their writing largely in their own terms and to describe aspects of their writing that interested them. A key aspect of this approach was that of engaging writers in their own interests, from where interview questions could provide a basis for discussion. Fiction writing seemed characterized by emergent processes, where writers experienced real life events and channelled their experiences and feelings into stories. The writing of characters was often associated with discovery. A key finding for fiction writing was that even writers who planned heavily and identified themselves somewhat as Planners, also tended to discover more about their characters when writing. Academic writing was characterized by difficulty, where discovery was often described in relation to struggling to summarize arguments or with finding key words. A key conclusion from this study is that writers may be Planners or Discoverers by orientation, as previous theory has recognised. However, the things that writers plan and discover, such as plots and characters, also play an important role in their writing processes.

L'amour et le mariage sont au Moyen Âge des sujets non exempts de controverses touchant à la fois à la philosophie, à la médecine, à la littérature et à la théologie. Étudier leurs représentations au travers d'un art d'aimer et d'un traité scientifique, oeuvres du médecin et poète Évrart de Conty (mort en 1405) permet de mettre en valeur les enjeux qui les traversent. En prenant le partie de la philosophie au détriment de la théologie, en répondant aux attentes de ses jeunes lecteurs--concilier sexualité et amour, en prenant appui sur les réalités et règles sociales--mariage bien ancré dans les moeurs, poids de l'honneur--et les règles morales aristotéliciennes, Évrart de Conty propose une synthèse fondée sur la recherche de la raison et de la mesure, l'amour entrant dans le «dessein de Nature» socle de la réflexion de l'auteur. Ces différentes influences permettent de dresser un tableau nuancé des représentations d'Évrart de Conty: médecine, héritage courtois et règles sociales nourrisent l'image des femmes à la fois mères et jeunes fines pudiques, inférieures aux hommes dont les apanages sont la raison, la poursuite du savoir et la bienséance. En raison des nombreuses influences, normatives, sociales, médicales et philosophiques qui traversent ses répresentations, l'analyse des écrits d'Évrart de Conty montre des prises de position et parfois des contradictions, enjeux liés d'une part à la relation entre discours théologique et discours philosophique, d'autre part à la relation entre pratiques sociales et discours philosophie et/ou religieux. Ainsi, analyser les représentations de l'amour chez Évrart de Conty permet de mieux saisir les enjeux liés aux questions du genre, du mariage, et des relations entre théologie, philosophie, médecine et pratique.

The following is a multi-genre collection, including short shorts, short fiction, non-fiction, and drama. Each piece utilizes Gothic motifs and dark comedy in an effort to explore life and loss.