Rhetoric is analyzed primarily through lenses that seek to understand and acknowledge the identities, ideologies, and practices present within a given situation—otherwise understood as the available means of persuasion. Instead, I argue that rhetorical critics should engage in praxis-oriented rhetorical criticism where the critic foregrounds their lived experience as part of their analysis. Utilizing methods advanced by autoethnographers and performance studies scholars, I posit that the praxeological critic manifest the relevant, critical positionalities that inform their analysis through critical dialogic reflexivity, the consensual-conflictual emplotment and theorization of self, and the use of criticism as critical-self-portraiture. As such, rhetoric and rhetorical criticism exist not only as a method of being, but as a way of becoming.

Investigation on second-position clitic phenomena has steadily increased since Wackernagel’s (1892) observations. Researchers have applied contemporary clitic typology to various Semitic languages though Syriac has received little attention. This thesis identifies a group of Syriac rhetorical particles and describes their categorization as clitics, versus words or affixes. It establishes each of the Syriac particles as second-position clitics and provides evidence of this conclusion from a state-of-the-art digitized corpus of Syriac literature. Extending previous Syriac analyses, this thesis describes the nature of attachment of these second-position clitics as enclisis to either the first word or the first constituent/phrase of their domain. This variable clitic attachment behavior has been previously attested only in three other unrelated languages: Serbo-Croatian, Luiseño and Ngiyambaa. I discuss the analysis and application of these discoveries and their implications for future Syriac and linguistic research.

Scholars of rhetoric and speech communications have suggested that the study of a women's rhetoric should focus on the "distinctly female modes of leadership" that may be found among women in "out-groups" that challenge established political authority. Such leaders must be especially inventive to be effective, and are thus likely to be talented rhetoricians. In looking for such leaders, the religious and political rhetoric of early Latter-day Saint women provides a noteworthy, unique study. Nineteenth-century Mormon women not only battled discriminatory political norms—arguing fervently for both universal woman's suffrage and for the freedom to practice polygamy—they did so from their position as members of a stigmatized and persecuted religious community.One exemplary figure is Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball (1818-1898). A founding member of the Church's Female Relief Society in 1842, Kimball was later instrumental in reestablishing the organization in Utah. In Salt Lake City she was called to be president of her ward's Relief Society; she served over 40 remarkably influential years in that position, while instituting and organizing programs church-wide. During the same four decades she also served in two General Relief Society presidencies, as a member of the territorial committee of the People's Party, and as a national delegate and President of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. Kimball was a leader dedicated to stimulating thought in and provoking action from her Relief Society sisters and her fellow citizens, and she developed her own powerful voice as a communicator.Kimball used her rhetorical skills and leadership strategies both to "educate and agitate" and to "instruct and happify" her audiences. This thesis is a historiography which examines Kimball's public discourse within its social contexts, analyzing samples of her rhetoric from several different genres: autobiographical sketch; political rally; ceremonial speeches; formal encomium; official minutes from weekly Relief Society meetings; and the text of her own life's actions. These various texts survey the broad range of Kimball's social and spiritual concerns, and showcase her discursive skill among her contemporaries. This textual analysis illustrates the strategies she developed to establish her noted effectiveness as a rhetor and widespread influence as a leader.

This interdisciplinary dissertation, The Rhetoric of Wolves, attempts to answer a simple, yet broad question: What do we talk about when we talk about wolves? While even the “we” here is contentious, as there are many perspectives and positions through which the wolf is figured, there are also many kinds of wolves, but no “real” wolf. That is, this dissertation takes seriously the contention that has recently arisen in the environmental humanities and animal studies through the late work of Jacques Derrida and others that figurations of “the animal” matter, not only for multi-species relations and coexistence, but for how the subject and polity are constructed and normalized. As these discourses put “the animal” into question, that is, how the animal functions as a discursive resource in socio-political issues, so too does this dissertation question how “the wolf” functions discursively in contemporary socio-political issues in North America. To address these questions, this dissertation utilizes a Foucaultian-inspired genealogical analysis of the discourse around “the wolf” understand how rhetoric about wolves coalesces into what I call “rhetorical assemblages” that vie to become regimes of truth that are used to attempt to settle the identity of the wolf and human-“animal” relations through the productive capacity of various power/knowledges that are historically and materially grounded. To do so, this dissertation examines and analyzes the rhetoric of a series of case studies in North America where figurations of wolves produce “the wolf” variously as man-hunting machines, outlaws that disrupt the natural order, illegal immigrants threatening family and tradition, and always already potential terrorists who must be productively managed through a biopolitics that attempts to make good the expectations of the dominant neoliberal frame of contemporary social and political life. / Graduate / 2023-08-15

The work of Kenneth Burke provides a method of rhetorical analysis that is useful in terms of bringing features of texts to the surface that are not readily apparent, such as how they produce identification in their audiences, and in revealing rhetorical factors related to but outside the text, for example the authors' motives. Burke's work is wide-ranging and open to many interpretations, so it can be difficult to apply. This study condenses some of his more important concepts into a simplified method which has several practical applications; it focuses on how Burke's theories can be applied to analyzing environmental texts, and helps reveal how those texts are rhetorically effective. This method is also shown to be useful for rhetoricians and other students of language in analyzing the motives and meanings behind complicated texts. An example analysis is developed in detail to demonstrate the utility of this approach for analyzing environmental rhetoric and help clarify how to apply it to other texts. A publication by the Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL), a nonprofit organization engaged in environmental education, provides the basis for a concrete example of applying this method to a current work of environmental rhetoric. The CEL serves as an example of current environmental organizations and their rhetoric, and a Burkean analysis of its publications begins by revealing some of the principles operating in the texts that make them rhetorically effective. This analysis also goes beyond basic dialectics to question how the texts function as "symbolic action" and how they fit into Burke's hierarchic system of language. The method developed in this study not only determines how the text produces identification in an audience, but also the motives behind producing the text. The CEL's publications are good representative examples of current environmental writing, so the conclusions drawn from an analysis of the CEL's texts can be applied to other environmental rhetoric.

A critical study of the literary values contained in homiletic writing demands at the outset a careful consideration of what differentiates literature from mere language. Following a line of distinction made by Professor Albert Guerard of Stanford, literature may be defined from two points of view: technique and intention. A more exalted concept is furnished by the philosophy of James Russell Lowell, as it has been paraphrased by Norman Foerster: “Literature is the ideal representation of human nature…” Recognizing the fact that literature involves “overtones of the soul” (Guerard), or “spiritual imagination” (Foerster), we are forced to depart from the realm of mere word-counting and consider taste and a sense of values. The subjective element enters in, and we must raise the question: Whose taste and what values shall decide what constitutes literature? It is to answer these questions that the critic exists.

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京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(文学) / 甲第24339号 / 文博第913号 / 新制||文||729(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院文学研究科文献文化学専攻 / (主査)教授 VASUDEVA Somdev, 教授 横地 優子, 教授 宮崎 泉 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Letters / Kyoto University / DFAM

As presidential candidates rhetorically articulate their beliefs during presidential debates, they reveal a lot about their underlying ideological beliefs. These beliefs were examined through the lens of an established methodology called the Operational Code, which uses a program to decipher a candidate's beliefs through what they say in debate transcripts. In this study, the belief trends of the Operational Codes of all presidential candidates from 1976-2012 were examined through a rhetorical lens, and it was found that rhetoric was indeed the driving force for the apparent changes in Operational Code beliefs. These changes were examined on a greater level of detail through four case studies, which illustrated the changes in Operational Code beliefs and rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the incumbent presidential candidates, the 2004 election, and lastly, with the independent presidential candidates.

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