Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2004. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-01, Section: A, page: 0031. Adviser: Robert L. Ivie. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 12, 2006).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2446. Adviser: Sarah McCarthey. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 193-200) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The purpose of this study is to draw together various perspectives into a coherent framework that will identify relative importance of respective factors and developmental changes in accounting for second language (L2) writing. A total of 517 Taiwanese EFL students from four educational levels were recruited for inquiring into the development of EFL writing. Quantitative analyses of writing tasks, vocabulary tests and questionnaires were used to describe and explain the multi-faceted nature of EFL writing in terms of the likely influencing factors. Initially the contributions of respective factors were examined separately. Rhetorical analyses of students' English and Chinese compositions showed there were co-existing positive and negative influences of first language (L1) rhetoric on English writing. Analyses of lexical use and errors in English compositions, plus results from the assessment of two vocabulary tests, indicated that lexical and grammatical knowledge was a critical factor in explaining English writing. Results of students' Chinese writing abilities in relation to English writing proficiency revealed that the transfer of Chinese writing expertise was conditioned by a developed Chinese expertise and a lack of English writing experiences. Findings from the written-speech analysis of English essays suggested a transitional development whereby spoken language was used. Analyses of questionnaires indicated that EFL writing was positively related to attention on the macro-level structure and negatively related to micro-level concerns. Subsequently, integrated analyses were conducted to examine the interplay among these factors. The shared variability of factors contributed a much larger portion to the explanation of developmental changes, suggesting that the development of EFL writing involves the interaction among influencing factors much more than the individual factors themselves. The unique contributions (independent of other interrelated variables) showed that essay length outweighed the other predictors, suggesting a need for instruction to develop the skill of fluency. A determining factor that consistently accounted for English writing performance was the students' levels of English learning and English writing experiences. The implication is that, particularly in the context where writing is neglected for beginning or intermediate learners, there is a need to revitalize writing as a communicative skill in the EFL curriculum. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

abstract: Composition historians have increasingly recognized that local histories help test long-held theories about the development of composition in higher education. As Gretchen Flesher Moon argues, local histories complicate our notions of students, teachers, institutions, and influences and add depth and nuance to the dominant narrative of composition history. Following the call for local histories in rhetoric and composition, this study is a local history of composition at Arizona State University (ASU) from 1885-1985. This study focuses on the institutional influences that shaped writing instruction as the school changed from a normal school to teachers` college, state college, and research university during its first century in existence. Building from archival research and oral histories, this dissertation argues that four national movements in higher education--the normal school movement, the standardization and accreditation movement, the "university-status movement," and the research and tenure movement--played a formative role in the development of writing instruction at Arizona State University. This dissertation, therefore, examines the effects of these movements as they filtered into the writing curriculum at ASU. I argue that faculty and administrators` responses to these movements directly influenced the place of writing instruction in the curriculum, which consequently shaped who took writing courses and who taught them, as well as how, what, and when writing was taught. This dissertation further argues that considering ASU`s history in relation to the movements noted above has implications for composition historians attempting to understand broader developments in composition history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Notwithstanding ASU`s unique circumstances, these movements had profound effects at institutions across the country, shaping missions, student populations, and institutional expectations. Although ASU`s local history is filled with idiosyncrasies and peculiarities that highlight the school`s distinctiveness, ASU is representative of hundreds of institutions across the country that were influenced by national education movements which are often invisible in the dominant narrative of composition history. As such, this history upholds the goal of local histories by complicating our notions of students, teachers, institutions, and influences and adding depth and nuance to our understanding of how composition developed in institutions of American higher education. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2011

This thesis portfolio discusses my journey as a Master of English graduate student at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. I began as a graduate student in nineteenth-century American literature and switched concentrations halfway through my degree to Rhetoric and Composition. The decision to change programs was the result of my love for teaching beginning composition courses at SIUC. My passion for teaching drives each installment of this portfolio, focusing on my journey as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, my examination with a prominent theorist in the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition, and my interest in student engagement in the First-Year Composition classroom. My goal for this thesis portfolio is to offer a fresh perspective on Rhetoric and Composition, which allows me to explore my voice within the field.

Aristotle's division of the "species" of rhetoric (deliberative, forensic, and epideictic) has served as a helpful taxonomy in historical accounts of rhetoric, but it has also produced undesirable effects. One such effect is that epideictic rhetoric has been interpreted historically as deficient, unimportant or merely ostentatious, while political or legal discourse retained a favored status in authentic civic life. This analysis argues that such an interpretation reduces contemporary attention to the crucial role that epideixis plays in modern discourse. As often interpreted, epideictic rhetoric contains at its heart a striving toward communal values and utopic ideals. Taking as its province the good/bad, the praiseworthy/derisible, it is a rhetorical form supremely attentive to what counts for audiences, cultures, and subcultures. As such, it has direct entailments for all forms of rhetorical practice, however categorized, for in its essence is not simply a suggestion of timeliness or appropriate context for its delivery, but also method: a focus on identification and affinity is at the heart of epideixis. Taking an expanded definition of epideixis, I argue that Aristotle's classification be read as provisional (that he allowed for and expected overlap with his divisions), and further, that criticism be seen as a form of contemporary epideixis. I claim that contemporary norms are more fractured than in classical times, and that as citizens no longer at the behest of formerly more unified cultural ideals it is through acts of criticism and aesthetic consensus that we often form emergent communities, gathering around objects of appraisal, around that which offers us pleasure (even the popular). I attempt to account for the mechanics of how, as Dave Hickey argues, “beautiful objects reorganize society, sometimes radically" (Invisible Dragon 81). The vectors through which this reorganization occurs are via popular discourse involving “comparisons, advocacy, analysis, and dissent” (Hickey Invisible Dragon 70), be it at the level of the interpersonal or in a more widely-sanctioned public forum such as professional criticism. I hope to show that epideixis is not a moribund rhetorical category, but a key discursive mode and way of forming community in our times.

The thesis expands Signitzer and Coombs' (1992) seminal study on the conceptual convergence of public diplomacy and public relations. Similar to international public relations, public diplomacy serves to transmit infolination, promote influence, create understanding and build relationships. However, a review of the existing academic literature reveals that the public diplomacy/public relations nexus has received insufficient attention from scholars. The purpose of the study is to determine whether there exists a strong enough similarity between the two domains to actively theorize public diplomacy from a communications (public relations) perspective. The research systematically applies the Signitzer and Coombs comparative model to interpret evidence of conceptual convergence in five areas of Quebec's public diplomacy (academic and cultural relations, investment and tourism promotion, and sports diplomacy). It is demonstrated that public diplomacy and public relations are both premised on the concept of symmetry, but also share asymmetrical tendencies. The findings suggest that the two disciplines are experiencing a process of convergence and support the value of exploring public diplomacy with public relations-based theories and models. However, public diplomacy practitioners are generally unwilling to recognize the relationship between public diplomacy and public relations. The development of shared concepts is therefore encouraged to overcome these perceptual gaps. Future research centred on common functions, such as reputation management and relationship building, is proposed and the thesis concludes that interdisciplinary cooperation is necessary to advance the public diplomacy scholarship. Keywords. public diplomacy, public relations, Quebec international relations, international communications, nation branding, cultural relations, academic relations, investment promotion, tourism promotion, sports diplomacy, conceptual convergence.

This thesis provides an analysis of textual and visual communication documents used by proponents and opponents of the Canadian seal hunt (CSH). Using a direct analysis model, as well as principles of Peircean semiotic and rhetorical analysis, the recent discourses articulated by the anti-CSH movement (International Fund for Animal Welfare and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) and the Canadian government (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) have been considered. The findings corroborate a social constructionist perception of nature, as the rhetorical discourse focused on presenting conflicting representations of the natural world, notably the seal. It was also found that the rhetorical discourse was centred on the subsidiary themes of the representation of the kill, the sealers, and the proponents and opponents of the CSH. The thesis also notes a complementary relationship between textuality and visuality within the CSH polemic, and finds the latter being abundantly used by the anti-CSH movement but comparatively absent from the Canadian government's strategy.

In this study I investigated how seven English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) international students at two graduate programs at the University of Ottawa wrote course papers in light of the university's policies on plagiarism. Informed by the New Literacy Studies, Bourdieu's social theory, Bakhtin's theory of language, and Ivanic's analytical framework of writer identity, the inquiry drew upon multiple sources of data involving field observations, artifact analysis, and interviews with the students, their course professors, and other faculty members over two consecutive academic sessions. The results indicate that patchwriting, defined as one writer working closely with other writers' texts while leaving behind traces of those texts (Howard, 1999), is a major strategy through which students make other peoples' words and ideas their own. The study further differentiates between localized patchwriting and global patchwriting, and offers an account of the reasons that give rise to each. It also discusses how educational practice simultaneously calls upon students to write as professionals and students, and considers the role that university plagiarism policies play in students' decision as to which identity to take up and textually enact. The study discusses faculty's mediation of plagiarism policies, and identifies a dissonance between their pedagogic response and the university's legalistic treatment of student textual borrowing practices that violate common practice. The research also considers the impact of institutional plagiarism policies on students and professors, and makes suggestions for the re-consideration of university plagiarism policies and documents.

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