published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707) was a North German composer of the mid-Baroque period. He lived in a time and place in which classical rhetoric, the study of oratory, influenced education, religion, and music. Applying the definition of rhetoric as the art of persuasion, this study surveys the different persuasive strategies employed by Buxtehude in his various keyboard genres. The elements considered in this inquiry include the affects of keys and modes, rhetorical figures, and structures of speeches as applied to music. The style and setting (ethos), intellectual content (logos), and emotional effect (pathos) are explored in each genre as elements of rhetorical persuasion. This study reveals that different genres of Buxtehude's keyboard music utilize different rhetorical strategies and techniques. These strategies vary according to the purpose of the music (i.e., secular or sacred), the presence or absence of an associated text, and the form of the composition. The chorale preludes, since they are driven by texts, use figures such as hypotyposis, assimilatio, anabasis and catabasis, to musically highlight important words in the text, or to amplify the text's underlying meaning. The suites, and parts of the variations, reflect the affects of the various dance movements as described by Johann Mattheson, Gregory Butler, and Patricia Ranum. The rhetorical nature of contrapuntal works is considered in terms of solving a musical issue through musical proofs, as described by Daniel Harrison. Finally, the praeludia embody the rhetorical form of the classical dispositio, or form of a forensic speech. These sectional works are arranged in such a way as to advantageously present both emotional and intellectual facets of a musical oration.The study also asserts that it is stylistically appropriate, given the audience-centered values of rhetorical persuasion, to perform Buxtehude's manualiter works at the piano, providing that they are played in a manner consistent with the style and structure of the music. This view is fortified by evidence that Baroque musicians, compared to modern musicians, were far less specific about instrumentation and musical details. An appendix offers specific performance suggestions for pianists in each of the works discussed in the study.

The world of the sales representative is rhetorical in substance and in action. In the examination of the current communicative environment of the capital equipment salesperson, the literature demonstrates that the role can be characterized primarily by being accountable for revenues and quotas. Additionally, the role is one that operates at the periphery of organizations and is somewhat autonomous from the day-to-day operations of the firm by which the salesperson is employed. A third characteristic that comes to the fore is the constant emphasis on building and maintaining relationships with the stakeholders in the interests of the company. These stakeholders involve relationships among customers and prospective customers and among supervisors, peers, partners, suppliers, manufacturers, administrators for billing, and other support roles, as well as the marketing and other facets of the very organization by which the salesperson is employed. Fourth, the salesperson has to operate in the rhetorical venue of constantly persuading these stakeholders. The fifth and final characteristic of the environment that comes to the fore is the fact that the salesperson's role is perceived as one that is inherently deceitful and breaches ethical boundaries. <br> There is a definitely a tension between ethics and sales. This tension between sales and ethics is illuminated extensively in the majority of literature on the subject of sales ethics. With the belief that salesperson must be a liar in order to succeed, as has been shown previously and the implications of the lies being so severe and also at the same time the implications of not succeeding being just as severe if not more so, how does a person succeed in sales while maintaining the sense of integrity that is mandated personally and professionally, honestly, morally, legally, and ethically? The answer to this question begins by examining Alasdair MacIntyre's notion of the practice. By entering into a practice of sales, one relies on the Aristotelian idea that all activity should be guided by virtue and aimed at the good of society. Additionally, by entering into a practice guided by virtue, one can complete a unified life. It consists of complexity, goods internal to the practice, and its own standards of excellence. The successful practitioner of sales embodies passion, a lifelong commitment to excellence, and the virtues of honesty, ambition, friendliness, wittiness and tact, justice, and courage. To accomplish the practitioner's personal narrative must be consistent with this view of sales and the character formed by the habitual display of the virtues must fit into the practice of sales. In addition, the commitment and passion for sales must be congruent with one's narrative to be in the practice. Practitioners of sales must learn the nuances of the companies that they represent. They must develop the knowledge of sales techniques, negotiation techniques, and overall knowledge of the business. Identifying and engaging the assistance of formal and informal mentors with integrity accelerates this learning. <br> This project illuminates the rhetoric of Benjamin Franklin as a model to follow to enter into such practices. Franklin, very similar to Aristotle and MacIntyre relied on the idea of phronesis to guide him in his business affairs. Practical wisdom is the specific type of wisdom that Franklin was concerned about when he talked about wisdom in his previous works. His work has influenced the American democratic society for the many proverbs that he wrote in his works. Practical wisdom is involved with doing what is good, whether in private or public situations, for the betterment of everybody. This emphasizes the importance of utilitarianism to Franklin’s views. This kind of propensity for practical wisdom is reflected in his numerous proverbs, Poor Richard’s Almanac. He intended the proverbs in the book to be used across all nations to be wiser about their life. Franklin provides a fine example of rhetorically robust, ethical practitioner for sales professionals seeking to practice their craft with integrity. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Communication and Rhetorical Studies / PhD / Dissertation;

<p> This study examines the perceived intellectual and dispositional takeaways for high school alumni who had been peer tutors in their secondary context. The research question which drove this study was, &ldquo;What abilities, values, and skills do tutors develop from their experience as peer tutors and how, if at all, have they used those abilities, values, and skills in their lives beyond high school?&rdquo; The findings come from the completed surveys of 63 high school tutor alumni who all tutored at a large, public suburban high school with a diverse population, and who represent a cross-section of the school&rsquo;s population. The survey was adapted from one made available by the Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project (PWTARP), a national project which seeks to better understand the developmental process of students who engage in the work of peer tutoring during their undergraduate university experience. I collected this data between 2010 and 2013 in my role as the program coordinator and although I knew these tutors very well, their responses were anonymous. Participants named 25 skills, abilities, and values they developed. Participants also indicated, through the survey&rsquo;s four Likert-scale questions, that they found their tutor experiences were important or influential to their development after high school. This study used the grounded theory method of initial and focused coding for analysis of the data generated by the survey&rsquo;s open-ended responses. These responses generated 180 pages of text. During the analysis 132 initial codes were applied to 2,231 excerpts from the survey responses. The 132 initial codes were grouped into 34 focused codes. These focused codes were further consolidated into 11 categories that describe the learned skills, innate abilities, and developed values of respondents. These analytic categories are descriptive in nature and constitute the major findings of this study. These categories include writing, reading, collaboration, adaptability, patience, perseverance, confidence, maturity, leadership, bravery, and joie de vivre.</p>

<p> This dissertation tests an original hybrid methodology to explore the rapid spread of the idea of human-made climate change that began in the 1950s after the idea had lain dormant for half a century. It describes the 1950s rhetorical events that triggered the idea&rsquo;s diffusion, then traces how its rhetorical uses gradually gave root to the end-of-thecentury political impasse over how to respond to the societal implications of the idea. </p><p> The research methodology rests on the simple logic that an idea can only spread by being used in human discourses. It combines traditions of rhetorical historiography with a philosophical view of intellectual history as the cumulative effect of a &ldquo;natural selection&rdquo; of ideas and their spread by human individuals over time and geography. It calls for sampling and analyzing rhetorical artifacts in light of the rhetorical situations in which they originate, focusing on how the idea of human-made climate change is used rhetorically in scientific and other discourses. The analyses form the basis of a narrative giving emphasis both to rhetorical continuities and to conversation-changing rhetorical events. They also show how these rhetorical dynamics involve interactions of human communities using or attacking the idea for their communal purposes. </p><p> The results challenge science-focused understandings of the history of the idea itself and also suggest that the methodology may be more broadly useful. </p><p> As to the history, the analyses highlight how changes in the rhetorical uses of the idea made possible its 1950s breakout in climate science, then led to uses that spread it into other sciences and into environmentalism in the 1960s, attached it to apocalyptic environmentalism in the 1970s, injected it into partisan politics in 1980s and shaped the political impasse during the 1990s. </p><p> The data show that the methodology reveals elements of the discourses missed in histories emphasizing the &ldquo;power of ideas,&rdquo; suggesting that a focus on the usefulness of ideas may be more fruitful. A focus on rhetorical uses of ideas grounds the causation of intellectual change in human motivation and agency, expressed in material acts that multiply and disperse naturally through communities and populations.</p>

In view of the quantity of research related to communication, the purpose of this study was to see, first, to what extent the results of this research are made available to beginning students of public address through their public speaking textbooks, and second, to seek to determine if, or to what extent, modern public speaking text writers make use of the often-praised inductive method of teaching.

<p> This thesis critically evaluates the essence of First Year Composition (FYC) and establishes the benefits a composition course would offer high school students. The intended purpose is to assess the feasibility of teaching FYC in the high school classroom and to consider views from the perspectives of students, teachers, and scholars in order to formulate a comprehensive conclusion. One key dispute in composition studies is whether students who write compositions as critical thinking assignmenfts actually become better critical writers and thinkers. Proponents argue that this method establishes better writing and thinking skills among college and university students, while critics argue that since these skills do not necessarily transfer to other courses and/or disciplines, FYC should either be abolished or largely revised. This thesis suggests that the benefits of FYC clearly outweigh the problems many have cited and that key mitigation measures can be used to improve FYC courses. </p>

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