Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Several theories and much experimental research on relational tone in computer-mediated communication (CMC) points to the lack of nonverbal cues in this channel as a cause of impersonal and task-oriented messages. Field research in CMC often reports more positive relational behavior. This article examines the assumptions, methods, and findings of such research and suggests that negative relational effects are confined to narrow situational boundary conditions. Alternatively, it is suggested that communicators develop individuating impressions of others through accumulated CMC messages. Based upon these impressions, users may develop relationships and express multidimensional relational messages through verbal or textual cues. Predictions regarding these processes are suggested, and future research incorporating these points is urged.

Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction: A Relational Perspective

This essay sets forth a theoretical rationale for a critical rhetoric and presents eight “principles”; which, taken together, orient the critic toward the act of criticism The theoretical rationale encompasses two forms of critique, styled as a critique of domination and as a critique of freedom Both have in common an analysis of the discourse of power as it serves in the first case to maintain the privilege of the elite and, in the second, to maintain social relations across a broad spectrum of human activities The principles articulate an orientation that sees critique as a transformative practice rather than as a method, recognizes the materiality of discourse, reconceptualizes rhetoric as doxastic as contrasted to epistemic, and as nominalistic as contrasted to universalistic, captures rhetoric as “influential"as contrasted to “causal,”; recognizes the importance of absence as well as presence, perceives the potential for polysemic as opposed to monosemic interpretation, and as an activity that is 

Critical rhetoric: Theory and praxis

Text transmitted electronically through computer-mediated communication networks is an increasingly available yet little documented form of written communication. This article examines the syntactic and stylistic features of an emergent phenomenon called Interactive Written Discourse (IWD) and finds that the concept of “register,” a language variety according to use, helps account for the syntactic reductions and omissions that characterize this historical juxtaposition of text format with real-time and interactive pressures. Similarities with another written register showing surface brevity, the note taking register, are explored. The study is an empirical examination of written communication from a single discourse community, on a single topic, with a single recipient, involving 23 experienced computer users making travel plans with the same travel advisor by exchanging messages through linked computers. The study shows rates of omissions of subject pronouns, copulas, and articles and suggests that IWD ...

Interactive Written Discourse as an Emergent Register

Current feminist rhetorical scholarship celebrates the presence of the “feminine style” in contemporary political discourse. We argue that such a style potentially masks the reliance of political image construction on a hegemonic masculinity that serves to preserve politics as a patriarchal system. An analysis of five presidential campaign films reveals the utilization of the ‘feminine” style in these films and suggests that social constructions of masculinity work hegemonically in two ways. First, presidential image is constructed by the association of candidates with traditionally patriarchal institutions that affix to candidates “masculine” characteristics necessary for successful presidential leadership. Second, these films offer a portrayal of women that marginalizes their status in the political process. The implications of this analysis for politics, culture, and the criticism of political communication are addressed.

Gendered politics and presidential image construction: A reassessment of the “feminine style”

This essay asks, “Is there a ‘feminine style’ in women's political discourse?”; If so, “What are its features?”; We argue that it does exist and is gaining legitimacy through its use by both women and men in positions of power. Further, we identify five characteristics of the “feminine style.”; These include: basing political judgments on concrete, lived experience; valuing inclusivity and the relational nature of being; conceptualizing the power of public office as a capacity to “get things done”; and to empower others; approaching policy formation holistically; and, moving women's issues to the forefront of the public arena.

A “feminine style”; in women's political discourse: An exploratory essay

Using a Burkeian perspective, the authors focus on the six debates during the 1980 Republican primary and argue that Ronald Reagan was transformed from actor to scene via two strategies: (1) “featuring” in verbal and visual “frames,” and (2) “thematic envelopment” of the other candidates. By “creative circumferencing,” Reagan extended the scene of the debates to include the whole sweep of American history and encouraged his audiences to equate his election with the election of the American Dream.

The 1980 Republican Primary Debates: The Transformation of Actor to Scene.

With four basic assumptions about the nature of style as orientation, this study focuses on six subjects across two general modes and six sub‐modes of discourse. After discussing “style markers” such as sentence length, word length, TTR, cloze scores, ratios related to extent of qualification, AVQ, PTQ, and psychogrammatical features across modes and sub‐modes, the study sketches a “stylistic profile” of the subjects including not only these style markers but editing behaviors as well. Although subjects appear to have been influenced by modal and sub‐modal dimensions of style, individual predilections appear also to have been heavily influenced by factors relating to “epistemic stance.”

The influence of mode, sub‐mode, and speaker predilection on style

This essay outlines some essential requirements for an exploratory account of imaging the future. Features essential to such a sketch include an examination of the nature of language and forming, The Image (Kenneth Boulding's “subjective knowledge structure”), an image, an image of the future and the relationship of these to Kenneth Burke's notions of “piety.”

On imaging the future: The secular search for “piety”

Using Kenneth Burke's schema of the four kinds of form and examples from contemporary political discourse, this paper examines three kinds of energy (dynamos, energeia, ergon) during the formal process.

Jane Blankenship

Papers

A “feminine style”; in women's political discourse: An exploratory essay

The 1980 Republican Primary Debates: The Transformation of Actor to Scene.

The influence of mode, sub‐mode, and speaker predilection on style

On imaging the future: The secular search for “piety”

The “energy”; of form