This dissertation explores why, how, and to whom rhetorical criticism was taught in the four most noteworthy locations of a systematic rhetorical criticism instruction up to the end of the twentieth century: the schools of Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle in ancient Greece and the twentieth-century speech communication discipline in the United States. The study shows that Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle had clearly recognized the analysis of public speeches (and by extension the analysis of other symbolically mediated influence) as constituting a symbolic capital of the highest order and the core of their intellectual and pedagogical interest in the art of the word or rhetoric. It was precisely their recognition of rhetorical criticism's intellectual worth that prompted the three master teachers to reserve a systematic instruction in rhetorical criticism for Athens' future leaders. By contrast, the twentieth-century speech communication discipline found itself caught between a goal to teach production-oriented public speaking courses and a goal to function as a modern research discipline. Neither twentieth-century objective valued and supported rhetorical criticism as speech communication's intellectual foundation and as an advanced form of listening, reading, seeing, and thinking in which all members of the modern mass education system are entitled to receive an easily accessible, systematic, and explicit training. Both in ancient Greece and in the twentieth-century United States a systematic instruction in the analysis of symbolically mediated influence was made available to some but not others.

Globalization has posed colossal challenges to professional communications, and the most significant one is to overcome the cultural barriers. Rather than looking into cultural phenomena that are superficial, this research takes a philosophical approach to investigate the beliefs and values which are the core of social systems. The overarching purpose of this research is to establish cultural competence for entering the Chinese market by a discussion of different aesthetic, emotional, and philosophical points of view. With detailed analysis and evaluation, this research provides some guidelines to appropriate future marketing strategies in China. This research contributes to the understanding of the entwinement between philosophical values and marketing strategies and it provides further insight into future research for improving communicative competence across cultures.

Claudio Monteverdi's (1567-1643) ninth book of madrigals, the Madrigali e Canzonette, was published posthumously in 1651. These accompanied madrigals are for two or three voices, and some of them were previously published in his earlier books of madrigals, though the majority were unpublished. One of the types of analyses that helps to provide a plausible rationale for many of Monteverdi's melodic and harmonic decisions within those madrigals is musico-rhetorical analysis. Analyzing a madrigal rhetorically involves attempting to identify the musical techniques that coincide with rhetorical devices in a certain text setting. Rhetorical analysis of the first eight madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi's Madrigali e Canzonnette elucidates the composer's decisions concerning both pitch content and harmonic structure, and casts new light upon his expressive intent vis-à-vis his texts.

Both traditional preaching theory and the listening context of the hearers have undergone radical changes within the last thirty years. Contemporary preachers no longer can assume the authority inherent in their position or preaching methods, and postmodern listeners exhibit the desire for increased diversity and points of view in sermons. This thesis will address these challenges by advancing the notion that attention to rhetorical criticism in the exegesis of biblical texts sheds new light on the nature of preaching in terms of form and function. The resulting multi-vocal and non-hierarchical leadership orientation has application for postmodern audiences. The methodological structure of theological interpretation undergirding this thesis involves four tasks of the hermeneutical cycle adapted from Richard Osmer’s approach. This approach engages in the task of contextual interpretation that connects with both Christian tradition and Scripture, and furthermore leads to the construction of a pragmatic plan for future homiletics. Chapter 1 introduces the problem facing contemporary homileticians: the changed context of preacher and hearer. The chapter advocates that one way forward for preaching involves the use of rhetorical criticism as the exegetical basis for a values-based homiletic, and then finishes with an overview of the thesis chapters. Chapter 2 demonstrates the fourfold task of the hermeneutical cycle by establishing the provenance of the method, critiquing it and grounding the approach of the thesis in the contemporary postmodern setting. Chapter 3 engages in a contextual interpretation of historic shifts in the fields of rhetoric, biblical studies and homiletics, analyzing and evaluating these trends. The chapter concludes by constructing a pragmatic plan for future biblical studies, a rhetorical-critical-narratological methodology that will be applied to the text of Ezekiel. Chapter 4 demonstrates that a contextual interpretation, evaluation and analysis of the New Homiletic results in the formation of a values-based approach to preaching and leadership orientation that is appropriate to postmodernity. Chapter 5 builds upon a contextual interpretation of synchronic and diachronic methodologies and advances a complementary approach to exegesis. The chapter then applies the rhetorical-critical-narratological approach developed in Chapter 3 to the discourse of Ezekiel to establish its contextual and rhetorical situation. The chapter then engages in a close rhetorical-critical-narratological reading of the literary unit of Ezekiel 15. Chapter 6 engages in a contextual interpretation and evaluation of three Ezekiel commentaries and sermons from Ezekiel 15, locating them along the pendulum-like series of shifts identified within Chapter 3. Chapter 7 demonstrates the integration of biblical studies and homiletics with the production of a sample multiple point-of-view sermon based upon the exegesis of Ezekiel conducted in Chapter 5. The chapter critiques the sermon and provides an example of the rhetorical-critical method applied to a discursive genre from 1 Corinthians 4.18-5.13. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis by reviewing the contributions made by the study, proceeds to interpret contextually the challenge of postmodern homiletics, and finishes with recommendations for areas of future studies outside the scope of the thesis.

Past theories have shown that stuttering results from a breakdown in the speaker's accurate timing of movement from one sound to the next. The efficacy of timing therapies is based on the proposal that stuttering diminishes as the amount of planning time for the phonetic voice-onset coordinations increases (Perkins, Bell, Johnson & Stocks, 1979). Acoustic information as to the parameters of the timing breakdown is critical to designing fluency facilitation and stuttering treatment programs. The present research investigated differences in word durations in the vicinity of the stuttered moment. Durations of words inunediately preceding and following the stutter were examined and compared to the exact words of a corresponding fluent sample from the same speaker. Stimulus material consisted of 83 phonetically balanced sentences read twice by each subject with an imposed 30 minute break between readings to minimize adaptation effects. Data analysis consisted of spectrographic measurement of durations of words (in msec.) inunediately preceding and following the stuttered word and comparison of durations of the same words from the same speaker's fluent production sample. Word durations before the stuttered sample (BSTUT) were compared to word durations before the nonstuttered sample (BNSTUT). A second comparison looked at the duration of a word after a stuttered word (ASTUT), and that of the nonstuttered sample (ANSTUT). One sample, two-tailed t-tests determined the existence of significant differences at the .OS level of confidence in word durations both preceding and following the stuttered moment when compared to word durations of the fluently produced corresponding match. Word duration patterns are consistent with those found by Viswanath (1989) and suggest that the anticipatory effect of the disruption on word duration is strong followed by a recovery period after the stuttered moment. In conclusion, this finding is consistent with theories suggesting that stuttering is a disorder of timing and supports the efficacy of timing therapies in the management of fluency programs (Andrews, Howie, Dosza & Guitar, 1982; Andrews, Guitar & Howie, 1980, Brayton & Conture, 1978, Ingham, Montgomery & Uliana, 1983). There is need for additional research to corroborate present findings.

Until this point, not much research has examined the difference in temporal characteristics for untreated stutterers in words surrounding a moment of stuttering. It is important to determine whether or not stutterers who have not been in treatment alter the duration of their speech when they stutter versus when they are fluent to determine what aids in the increase of fluency. The purpose of the present study was to examine the duration of the word prior to and following a stuttered word and the duration of the corresponding word in a nonstuttered episode. The following questions were to be addressed: 1) Is there a significant durational difference between a word preceding a stuttered word and the duration of the same word in a corresponding nonstuttered sentence? 2) Is there a significant difference between a word following a stuttered word and the duration of the same word in a corresponding nonstuttered sentence? Three subjects age 16 and older who had not received treatment for at least 4 years were selected. Subjects were recorded reading a list of 83 sentences selected from Fairbanks (1940) twice. Sentences containing a word that was stuttered in one reading and not in the other were used for analysis. The duration of the following word pairs in milliseconds was computed via the CSRE 4.2 program (Jaimeson, D.G., Ramji, K.V., Neary, T., & Baxter, T., 1993): 1) The duration of the word preceding a stuttered word within the same sentence (BSTUT) . 2) The duration of the same word in the corresponding nonstuttered sentence (BNSTUT) . 3) The duration of the word following a stuttered word within the same sentence (ASTUT) . 4) The duration of that same word in the corresponding nonstuttered sentence (ANSTUT) . A total of 144 samples were obtained. A two-tailed ~ test was run at the .05 level of confidence to determine significance between the BSTUT/BNSTUT and ASTUT/ANSTUT word pairs. Results yielded a significant difference between the durations of BSTUT and BNSTUT (P=.017). Conversely, analysis of the difference between ASTUT and ANSTUT revealed no significant difference in durations (P=.47).

Mediation is a problem-solving approach to conflict management that is used more and more in virtually every context in which conflicts arise. This paper explores the wide range of meaning for the term 'mediation' as found in the social science literature and examines the question of what processes can properly be called mediation. It surveys the literature related to numerous theories of mediation and examines the meaning of the term as established in its various contexts. The mediation literature can be divided into the following contexts: public sector or court connected mediation, divorce mediation, international mediation, environmental mediation, community mediation, small claims, and judicial mediation. This study delineates these contexts and differentiates them for the purpose of conducting an explication of the various meanings of the term mediation. The term mediation is found to be used throughout the literature without operational definition and only broad generic definitions can adequately describe the processes which are called mediation. The boundaries between mediation and other processes are blurred as a result of this expansive use of the term. This study describes mediation as differentiated from other processes such as litigation, arbitration, conciliation, and process consultation. Numerous concepts and issues are found in the literature related to mediation--caucus, goals, strategies and tactics, success, empowerment, ethics, mandatory mediation, neutrality, power and standards of practice. Many of these concepts are informed through contradictory debate within the literature. This paper describes these concepts and issues of mediation for the purpose of developing a further understand of the theory and practice of mediation. This study also reflects on the critical issues, debates and contradictory expectations of mediation that have been raised within the literature and finishes by drawing some conclusions about mediation. Mediation is described as both art and science. No one process is appropriate for handling all or even most mediation situations.

This essay has identified and analysed rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown’s speech delivered at the Labour Party conference on September 25, 2006. The aim of the study was to identify specific rhetorical devices which are described as interactional resources, analyse their uses and discuss possible effects that they may have when included in a political speech. The results are based on my own interpretations but are supported by information provided in current literature by analysts and researchers of rhetoric use. The result findings could probably serve as evidence of the need for better understanding of the devices used by politicians in their relentless endeavours to influence audience decisions.

Thesis (M.S.)--Missouri University of Science and Technology, 2009. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed April 13, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-109).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-135).