The traditional master-narrative in histories of rhetoric assumes that formal democratic institutions make possible a flourishing rhetorical culture (as at Athens in the fifth-fourth centuries B.C.E.). This dissertation, however, offers a counter-view, with two main lines of argument. On one hand, the traditional master-narrative is open to critique for failing to recognize or fully attend to rhetorical activity outside of operative democracies, and it also fails to account for rhetorical activities that are not recognized as legitimate speech within democracies. On the other hand, one may argue that rhetorical activities (or certain kinds) embody practices that make democracy possible, whether formal democratic institutions exist or not. This dissertation, then, contends that rhetorical practices that presuppose equality are not a product of democracy, but are democracy’s condition of possibility. This counter-narrative is developed through four chapters. Chapter One hypothesizes that individuals presuppose equality while engaging in rhetorical practices that disrupt the smooth operation of “settled” ideologies. Turning to specific cases, I examine politics in Athens during the fifth century B.C.E. (Chapter Two), education in nineteenth-century Europe (Chapter Three), and digital media in the present era (Chapter Four) as public spheres in which unauthorized voices speak with as much rhetorical effect as credentialed experts. When a community tries to account for these voices, I conclude, moments of democracy occur. This alternative vision of rhetorical practices as proto-democratic activities both offers a new way to account for instances of marginalized rhetorical activity and an intervention in rhetorical studies generally. If there is a presumption of equality inherent in certain kinds rhetorical activity, and if that presumption is a precondition for democracy, then we might write the history of rhetoric differently, and reconceive its relation to formal civic institutions. / text

This dissertation reassesses declamation, a pedagogical exercise that was prominent in the rhetoric schools of ancient Greece and Rome but that is now, by many accounts, a mere historical artifact. On the contrary, this dissertation presents declamation as the source of an essential and ongoing dynamic that not only survives but actually underlies much of what continues to take place in contemporary rhetoric classrooms. As such, this dissertation is not only about ancient declamation itself, but about a "declamation dynamic" -- what Wittgenstein might have called a "family resemblance" -- that is essential to any form of rhetorical instruction, particularly approaches that involve games, performance, and role-playing. This dynamic is traced to its ancient roots, and the argument is made that the study and reevaluation of this type of ancient exercise will give contemporary rhetoric teachers a clearer view of their own practices and better equip them to instill modern students with that most enduring of rhetorical values, habitus -- the ability to intuitively grasp the constructed and contingent nature of any rhetorical situation and to adapt accordingly. / text

<p> New Jersey governor Chris Christie has gained widespread media attention for his aggressive public persona, his involvement in the Bridgegate scandal, and for weighing almost 400 pounds at the beginning of his political career. In this thesis, I conduct a metaphor analysis on political cartoons featuring Christie. By alternately focusing on his weight and his Italian heritage, cartoons utilize body-centric attacks to transform Christie into monsters, inanimate objects, manual laborers, women, and other entities, inextricably tying Christie's politics to his physicality. I argue that Christie's body is heavily gendered throughout the cartoons, reinforcing the conservative masculinist script and hegemonic masculinity. Thus, I end this thesis by exploring how the denigration of Christie's body could prove damaging to Christie's career and aid in the construction of non-normative bodies in the public sphere.</p>

<p>I min studie ser jag på två klassråd i årskurs 9 genomförda år 2005 där samma lärare medverkat. Syftet är att undersöka det kommunikativa maktspelet mellan ordförande, lärare, och elever. Underlaget är transkriberade videoband som analyseras med metoderna samtalsanalys, retorisk analys och ledarskapsanalys. </p><p>Klassråd är tänkt som ett forum för elevinflytande där demokratiska arbetsformer ska prioriteras (LPO -94). En sådan arbetsform är deliberativa samtal, men hur det klassificeras råder det delade meningar. Den här undersökningen innefattar ett deliberativt ideal som baseras på en retorisk förhandlingsmodell med vars hjälp ordförandens ledarstil bestäms som demokratisk, abdikerad eller auktoritär. Klassrådet ska ledas av en elev som är ordförande, övriga elever i klassen ska vara deltagare och läraren ska medverka. Detta kan skapa spänningar mellan lärarens traditionella auktoritära makt och eleverna. </p><p>Studien driver hypoteserna: 1) Ordförandens ledarstil påverkar klassklimatet 2) Lärarens roll påverkas av ordförandens ledarstil. Analysresultaten indikerar att hypoteserna stämmer och att klassråden bedrivs ojämlikt där arbetsformerna inte är demokratiska. Lärarens kommunikativa beteende är också annorlunda och verkar forma sig efter hur ordföranden bedriver sitt ledarskap. Slutsatsen visar att klassråden inte kan betecknas som deliberativa då ena ordföranden har en abdikerad ledarstil och den andra ordföranden har en auktoritär ledarstil. Det kommunikativa maktspelet påverkas dels direkt av ordförandens ledarstil och dels av lärarens auktoritet.</p>

This descriptive, sociolinguistic study examines six middle grade children's perceptions and productions of English and French written narratives in a suburban Montreal English Protestant, French Immersion school in the province of Quebec during the period of one school year. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the children's perceptions of writing stories in English and French and strategies for writing stories in two languages and classrooms. Interviews were transcribed, coded for emerging patterns and interpreted as socially negotiated texts. A secondary purpose was to analyze their use of temporal perspectives, verb forms for self chosen English and French written stories. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and percentages were utilized in data analysis. Major findings of this study were the following: (1) Across interviews in both English and French the children are very consistent in their perceptions of story writing in L2 as being more complex than in L1. (2) They perceive the writing of narrative in English and French to involve a culturally organized system of strategies and values learned in specific contexts of situations. (3) The use of varied interviewing techniques serves as a cross validation of children's perceptions. (4) The children have similar and systematic ways of assigning tense to their stories in both languages. (5) The children were exposed to contradictory models of language instruction and narrative discourse. The teachers' models of language learning, narrative discourse influenced the children's perceptions of themselves as language learners and story writers. (6) The six children provide evidence to support the hypothesis that there might be a single processing mechanism across languages that is flexible enough to handle differences among bilingual children in their perceptions of and use of strategies for writing stories in English and French. Findings from this study suggest that the relationship between first and second language learning is more similar than different. Direct teaching of linguistic forms can have a deleterious effect on children's written productions and perceptions of themselves as language learners. Large scale, product analysis studies, may no longer be a viable way to tap and assess the language, narrative competence and performance of bilingual children.

<p> Particularly in his early 20^th century writings, the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey advocated open-mindedness as a critical value for education. Rather than a passive kind of tolerance that is acquired through intellectual consideration alone, Dewey recommended open-mindedness that is attained through a combination of contemplation and embodied experience. A close reading of Dewey&rsquo;s personal correspondence from Japan and China between 1919-1921, previously unexplored to this degree, highlights the profound impact that <i>experiencing</i> the different cultures had on Dewey&rsquo;s understanding of difference compared to <i>considering</i> them from afar.</p><p> In particular, this study sought to investigate how Dewey&rsquo;s experiences in Asia affected his understanding of open-mindedness; how Dewey&rsquo;s evolving philosophical insight can help educators more fully understand open-mindedness; and how Dewey&rsquo;s interpretation of open-mindedness can help contemporary educators employ his pragmatic concept of &ldquo;intelligent practice&rdquo; to engage writing students in activities that will help them attain openness. </p><p> Composition specialists can use Dewey&rsquo;s discoveries to begin to extend multiculturalism and comparative rhetoric by requiring all students to research and write using rhetorical patterns typical in other cultures. A pragmatic approach to teaching comparative rhetoric can also involve a wider shift in the field&rsquo;s inquiries, as students approach courses in other disciplines, and even beyond university, with the kind of openness of mind that Dewey comes to realize in Asia.</p>

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Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Scholars within and beyond the field of rhetoric have acknowledged how the advent of social media platforms like Twitter have restructured every aspect of communication theory, from notions of authorial intent to how we understand audience. While the rhetorical situations of social media have been widely studied, scholars of rhetoric have scarcely begun to theorize how Twitter radically changes how we think about affect and the rhetorical situation in the wake of a national tragedy like a mass shooting. The 2017 Las Vegas shooting illustrates how Twitter functions as a site where people come together to express feelings of shock, grief, and outrage, pray for victims, share stories of bravery, eulogize the dead, circulate outlandish conspiracy theories, assign blame, propagate calls for action, and come to terms with the implications of their own mortality. My research examines hundreds of tweets from October 1-7, 2017 (the week after the Las Vegas shooting) in the context of Lloyd F. Bitzer and Richard E. Vatz’s debate about the nature of the rhetorical situation to interrogate how Twitter users invoke affect and the idea of objectivity to identify and respond to exigencies, establish their emotional and political salience, and shape the rhetorical situations they inhabit.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.