The method proposed by David Bleich in Readings and Feelings has been studied in a small group to determine if emotional involvement with literary works may be increased and, if so, what effect such increase would have on traditional literary competence. Results show that Bleich's method does increase emotional involvement with concurrent improvement in literary skills, particularly in the selection of more significant themes for student writing. Discussion of the method's application in regular classrooms is included.

A study of rhetorical practice in the design and interpretation of games, this dissertation draws on culture theory and ethnographic interviews to comprehend invention as a social act. Although only role-playing games written in English are considered, the approach taken to understand the structures of attention emergent in gaming is generalizable as a means of investigating the informal social and rhetorical aspects of other kinds of games. The textual and visual rhetorics of numerous games are examined as self-situating lessons for acquiring and focusing interest. The intrinsic gap between reading and following a rule is explored as a phenomenon mediated by rhetoric. Experienced players' reflections on styles and motives are translated into ratios in a grammar of rhetorical invention. Finally, the game designers are interviewed for their professional life histories relative to the development of particular games, and the matters they emphasize are read as configurations of cultural knowledge animated by personal rhetorical resources and heuristics.

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This thesis argues that non-argumentational strategies of persuasion in the major-length speeches of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark account for a considerable part of the author's intended persuasive effect. Gospel criticism has typically read these speeches as deposits of possible authentic words of Jesus, as evidence of Christology or as links in the plot of Mark's narrative while rhetorical criticism of the Gospels has focused upon Jesus' shorter utterances as argumentation within episodes. However, the speeches are not consistently logical or argumentational and they stand out in the larger narrative as extended stretches of Jesus' voice. / Treating the four longest units of Jesus' speech as rhetorical units in their own right (Mk 4:11--32; 9:39--50; 12:1--11; 13:5--37), the thesis attempts to show how these texts might have worked to persuade Mark's audience towards change in action or attitude. Although neither argumentation at the rational-conceptual level nor the context of the narrative are denied, attention is focused on the rhetorical force of the speeches themselves and the features designed to affect the audience at the level of feeling or emotion. Persuasive goals are discernable in the speeches not only in what Jesus argues but also in the way he talks.

<p> There is little doubt that emerging technologies are changing the way we act, interact, create, and consume. Yet despite increased access to these technologies, consumers of technology too seldom interrogate the politics, subjectivities, and limitations of these technologies and their interfaces. Instead, many consumers approach emerging technologies as objective tools to be consumed, and engage in creative processes uncritically. This disquisition, following the work of Hawisher, Selfe, and Selfe, seeks ways to approach the problem of a "rhetoric of technology" that uncritically praises new technologies by drawing on avant-garde art traditions and object-oriented ontology. I argue that, by following the philosophies and practices of glitch, dirty new media, zaum, dada, circuit-bending, and others, we might approach writing technologies with the intention of critically misusing, manipulating, and revealing to ourselves and audiences the materiality of the media and technologies in use.</p><p> In combination with these avant-garde practices and philosophies, I draw from object-oriented ontology to argue that we, as new media composers, never simply write <i>on</i> or <i>through</i> our technologies, but that we write in collaboration <i>with</i> them, for they are active and agential coauthors even (and especially) despite their status as nonhuman. I argue for an model that not only levels the ontological playing field between humans and nonhumans, but also one that embraces irregularities and "glitches" as essential features of systems and the actors within those systems. Finally, I provide examples of how to perform these models and philosophies, which I call <i>object-oriented art.</i></p>

This work argues that sound design represents a powerful narrative force within the larger narrative of a film. The major component of this project is a DVD with multiple sound designs (each containing a different narrative context) available for a single short film. The written component looks at sound design and its components, and then examines sound design through the lens of Fisher's Theory of Narrativity. It is found that sound design does exhibit the characteristics of providing a "reliable, trustworthy, and desirable guide to thought and action in the world." It is also shown that using the principles of Schema Theory enables sound designers to maximize the narrative impact that sound design has over a broad audience. / Department of Telecommunications

Judges strive to achieve both balance and fairness in their rulings and courtrooms. When either of these is compromised, or when judicial discretion appears to be handed down or enforced in random or capricious ways, then bias is present. Bias is unavoidable, because judges are human, they have certain preferences, and lawyers do not always know how to get familiar with judges' style and previous rulings. Lawyers strive to win their cases by persuading judges that their argument is better than opposing counsel, and deserves merit. Understanding rhetoric, the history and art of persuasion that goes back to Ancient Greece and Rome, gives lawyers the strategies they need to communicate effectively with judges and win cases, but rhetoric is not taught in law schools. My thesis explores the history and magnitude of the problem of bias in bench trials, and offers discussion of how rhetoric can be used ethically by both judges and lawyers. I examine how the judicial system works and conclude with ideas for dealing with bias. In studying bias, I have drawn on textual sources including legal journals, books written by lawyers and judges, accounts of legal and judicial history, materials from political science, rhetoric and communication, current events and news reports, and observed judges on popular reality television programs and in municipal courtrooms.

This thesis argues that the scope of metonymy throughout history remains severely reduced to a process of word substitution and the signifying potential of the trope is limited to lexical representation. The study therefore proposes a semiotic approach to take the trope beyond this limitation and to develop a textual theory to the trope. A background study related to how metonymy is treated in previous studies is therefore necessary. This review of literature covers a long period starting from ancient Greece and going up to the present day. Chapters one and two of this thesis, which give this general background, show that the hypothesis is to a large extent valid. The thesis then examines another related hypothesis which is that metonymy is semiotic in nature and a semiotic approach to metonymy will solve the problem of reductionism in the treatment of this trope. Chapter three is devoted to an examination of this hypothesis. It shows that a semiotic approach to metonymy is not only possible but also crucial. The semiotic approach to metonymy basically concerns the treatment of metonymy as a sign which cuts across three domains of representation. These are the domain of words, the domain of concepts and the domain of things or objects. The last domain is itself treated from a semiotic perspective to stand for the domain of context at large. on the basis of this semiotic approach to metonymy a textual model of metonymic relations in text is constructed. this model is put to the test in chapter four. here the metonymic relations of form for form, form for concept, form for thing, thing for form and concept for form are brought to bear on the formal and semantic connectedness of text. in chapter five the metonymic relations of concept for concept, concept for thing, thing for thing and thing for concept are used to explain how these metonymic relations interact to provide a linkage between language, cognition and context.

This thesis aspires to give voice to Jordynn Jack and L. Greggory Appelbaum’s call for more research in Neurorhetorics. The first chapter reviews the pertinent literature encompassing what is titled, “The Rhetoric of Science,” noting appropriate concepts, arguments, and theories. The second chapter provides an introduction to fundamental ideas in Neuroscience and connects them to possible concepts and concerns within Rhetoric and Composition, raising questions for future consideration.

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