Showing papers on "Rhetorical question published in 1992"

Discourse and language education

Abstract: Practice exercises Preface Introduction 1. Communication theory: system constraints and conversational analysis 2. Communication theory: ritual constraints 3. Scripts and communication theory 4. Speech acts and speech events 5. Rhetorical analysis 6. Coherence, cohesion, deixis, and discourse 7. Discourse mode and syntax 8. Pragmatics, prosody, and contextual analysis 9. Layers of discourse analysis Appendix Index.

Understanding ESL writers : a guide for teachers

Abstract: How do non-ESL writing teachers handle the writing of their ESL students when there is a language barrier to hurdle? How do teacher trainees prepare for the growing numbers of ESL students in U.S. schools? "Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers" provides the answers, responding to the overwhelming concern non-ESL faculty have expressed with the influx of ESL students into their classes. Ilona Leki has spent years training ESL teachers and teaching writing to both ESL and first language students in language institutes and at the university level. Here, she introduces writing teachers to some of the information ESL professionals have on ESL writing. Teacher trainees, as well, who are just beginning their work with ESL students will find a wealth of information orienting them to their new profession. Leki examines the ESL writer from every angle, discussing: the educational and linguistic contexts from which they emerge the forms ESL writing instruction has taken in the U.S. and abroad the principles of second language acquisition the writing behaviors of ESL students types of writing assignments which may put ESL students at a disadvantage errors typical of ESL learners ways teachers may most effectively respond to the writing of ESL students at both the syntactic and rhetorical levels, in writing or during conferences. Full of practical advice and applications, intended for both practicing teachers and teacher trainees, "Understanding ESL Writers" is a must-read for any educator seeking to establish a mutually communicative relationship with an ESL student.

A problem for RST: the need for multi-level discourse analysis

Abstract: Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) (Mann and Thompson 1987), argues that in most coherent discourse, consecutive discourse elements are related by a small set of rhetorical relations. Moreover, RST suggests that the information conveyed in a discourse over and above what is conveyed in its component clauses can be derived from the rhetorical relation-based structure of the discourse. A large number of natural language generation systems rely on the rhetorical relations defined in RST to impose structure on multi-sentential text (Hovy 1991; Knott 1991; Moore and Paris 1989; Rosner and Stede 1992). In addition, many descriptive studies of discourse have employed RST (Fox 1987; Linden, Cumming, and Martin 1992; Matthiessen and Thompson 1988). However, recent work by Moore and Paris (1992) noted that RST cannot be used as the sole means of controlling discourse structure in an interactive dialogue system, because RST representations provide insufficient information to support the generation of appropriate responses to "follow-up questions." The basic problem is that an RST representation of a discourse does not fully specify the intentional structure (Grosz and Sidner 1986) of that discourse. Intentional structure is crucial for responding effectively to questions that address a previous utterance: without a record of what an utterance was intended to achieve, it is impossible to elaborate or clarify that utterance. 1 Further consideration has led us to conclude that the difficulty observed by Moore and Paris stems from a more fundamental problem with RST analyses. RST presumes that, in general, there will be a single, preferred rhetorical relation holding between consecutive discourse elements. In fact, as has been noted in other work on discourse structure (Grosz and Sidner 1986), discourse elements are related simultaneously on multiple levels. In this paper, we focus on two levels of analysis. The first involves the relation between the information conveyed in consecutive elements of a coherent discourse. Thus, for example, one utterance may describe an event that can be presumed to be the cause of another event described in the subsequent utterance. This causal relation is at what we will call the informational level. The second level of relation results from the fact that discourses are produced to effect changes in the mental state of the discourse participants. In coherent discourse, a speaker is carrying out a consistent plan to achieve the intended changes, and consecutive discourse elements are related to one another by means of the ways in which they participate in that plan. Thus, one utterance may be intended to increase the likelihood that the hearer will come to

The Evolution of Medical Research Writing from 1735 to 1985: The Case of the "Edinburgh Medical Journal.".

Abstract: A crucial event in the historical evolution of scientific English was the birth of the scientific journal. This event, and its early rhetorical consequences, have been well described in recent research. In contrast, few details are known concerning subsequent developments in scientific writing from the eighteenth century onward. In this paper, the changing language and rhetoric of medical research reporting over the last 250years are characterized and the underlying causes of these changes investigated.Research articles from the Edinburgh Medical Journal, the oldest continuing medical journal in English, constitute the corpus in this study. Sampling took place at seven intervals beween 1735 and 1985, with two types of data analysis being performed: rhetorical analysis focusing on the broad genre characteristics of articles; and linguistic analysis of these articles' registral features using Biber's system of text analysis.Results indicate that the linguistic/rhetorical evolution of medical research writing can be accounted for on the basis of the changing epistemological norms of medical knowledge, the growth of a professional medical community, and the periodic redefinition of medicine vis-a-vis the non-medical sciences.

Humanist Methods in Natural Philosophy: The Commonplace Book

Abstract: As new evidence for the interaction between humanism and science in the Renaissance I will trace the use among natural philosophical authors of a quintessentially humanist method of reading and storing information-through the commonplace book. In this method of reading (which I will call the method of commonplaces) one selects passages of interest for the rhetorical turns of phrase, the dialectical arguments, or the factual information they contain; one then copies them out in a notebook, the commonplace book, kept handy for the purpose, grouping them under appropriate headings to facilitate later retrieval and use, notably in composing prose of one's own. Strictly defined the commonplace book is a humanist innovation, but like most Renaissance practices it adapted a concept with a glorious ancient pedigree to suit contemporary, in this case pedagogical, needs. Ancient rhetoric, from Aristotle's Topics to Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, had developed a list of the places or loci of use to the orator: including "seats of arguments" (from effects, from circumstances, from greater or lesser, for example) and rhetorical embellishments (amplification, captatio benevolentiae, and so on). In the Middle Ages florilegia and sermon manuals supplemented those theoretical guides to good arguing with substantive material which could be copied directly: moral sentences or in the case of medical handbooks, "commonplace" medical recipes, compiled for easy access.' In the Renaissance the notion of "place" continued to expand, as pupils throughout Europe were taught to keep their own commonplace books while in school and afterwards through a lifetime of reading. Guarino da Verona, Erasmus, and Vives among other pedagogues wrote specific instructions for keeping such notebooks. Alongside memorable rhetorical idioms the commonplace book was to record, often in a separate

Coming to Terms with Recent Attempts to Write Women into the History of Rhetoric

Abstract: An increasing number of rhetorical critics and theorists have begun to renegotiate their relationship to the history of the discipline.^ Indeed, many of us have found it necessary to question some of our discipline's most basic theoretical assumptions as we have understood that the rhetorical histories that emerge out of and are shaped by those assumptions have consequences both for the practices of our professional everyday lives and for the lives of our students.Here I think two examples will suffice. The first example is an extract taken from Gerard Hauser's Introduction to Rhetorical Theory, a book that deserves serious attention for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is currently being used by many teachers for the express purpose of initiating undergraduate and graduate students to the discipline. The second extract is pulled from the first volume of Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's Man Cannot Speak for Her. I have chosen to use this source as I am persuaded that the intent of Campbell's volumes is to supplement, if not to subvert, the received tradition that Hauser's work represents. Selection One:

Parsimonious or Profligate: How Many and Which Discourse Structure Relations?

Abstract: : Over the past ten years, researchers studying the structure of discourse have consistently had to face questions such as the following: Given that discourses consist of segments, how do the segments relate? What intersegment relations are there? How many are needed? A fair amount of controversy exists, ranging from the parsimonious position (that two basic relations suffice) to the profligate position (that an open-ended set of semantic/rhetorical relations is required). This paper outlines the arguments and then summarizes a survey of the conclusions of approximately 30 researchers -- from linguists to computational linguists to philosophers to Artificial Intelligence workers. It fuses and taxonomizes the more than 400 relations they have proposed into a hierarchy of approximately 70 increasingly semantic relations, and argues that though the taxonomy is open-ended in one dimension, it is bounded in the other and therefore does not give rise to anarchy. Some evidence is provided for the organization of the taxonomy, as well as a full listing of the sources. Discourse structure, Rhetorical structure theory, Computational linguistics and discourse and text.

The Chancellor's memory: Rhetoric and truth in discursive remembering

Abstract: This paper explores the notion of truthfulness in research on conversational remembering. It argues that people's accounts of past events, before they can be taken as data on the cognitive workings of memory, need to be examined as contextualized and variable productions that perform pragmatic and rhetorical work; no one version can be taken as a person's real memory. The consequences of this discourse-analytical perspective are examined first through a critical discussion of Ulric Neisser's study of John Dean's testimony to the senate ‘Watergate’ committee. The issues are then explored more deeply in an analysis of reportings of a different event, in which similar (Watergate-like) issues of memory, truth and accuracy are also at issue. It is argued that: (a) all of Neisser's three kinds of memory–verbatim, gist and ‘repisodic’–involve problematical assumptions concerning their relation to some true, original event; and (b) that Dean's accounts of his memory and his displays of memory should be approached as occasioned productions oriented pragmatically to the assignment of guilt and avoidance of scapegoating. Through an analysis of newspaper reports (based on memory) of a controversial briefing given by the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, we then examine: (a) how discourse about what could be used as an arbiter of truth was rhetorically organized; (b) how participants' versions of events were constructed rhetorically, as parts of arguments; (c) that both sides in the dispute maintained the coherence of their positions by a form of error accounting similar to that used by Neisser with respect to Dean. It is suggested that cognitive psychologists, whether working in the laboratory or attempting to do real-world studies of everyday remembering, need to avoid simplistic notions of true original events, and can do so by addressing the rhetorical organization of participants' memory accounts.

Mutual Misunderstanding: Scepticism and the Theorizing of Language and Interpretation

Abstract: Do others understand what we say or write? Do we understand them? Theorists of language and interpretation claim to be more concerned with questions about "what" we understand and "how" we understand, rather than with the logically prior question "whether" we understand each other. An affirmative answer to the latter question is apparently taken for granted. However, in Mutual Misunderstanding , Talbot J. Taylor shows that the sceptical doubts about communicational understanding do in fact have a profoundly important, if as yet unacknowledged, function in the construction of theories of language and interpretation. Mutual Misundertanding thus presents a strikingly original analysis of the rhetorical patterns underlying Western linguistic thought, as exemplified in the works of John Locke, Jacques Derrida, Gottlob Frege, Jonathan Culler, Noam Chomsky, Ferdinand de Saussure, H. Paul Grice, Michael Dummet, Stanley Fish, Alfred Schutz, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Harold Garfinkel, and others. This analysis reveals how, by the combined effect of appeals to "commonsense" and anxieties about implications of relativism, scepticism has a determining role in the discursive development of a number of the intellectual disciplines making up the "human sciences" today, including critical theory, literary hermeneutics, philosophy of language and logic, communication theory, discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, stylistics, and linguistics. Consequently, this provocative study will be of value to readers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds.

Rhetorical barriers to understanding housing provision: What the ‘provision thesis’ is and is not

Abstract: This paper reviews some recent critiques of the concept of ‘structures of housing provision’ (SHP) and attempts to clarify the nature and status of this concept. It argues that SHP is not a ‘theory of housing’, nor does it imply a production‐centred approach to housing analysis. Rather, SHP is a metatheoretical concept or analytical framework which, together with other theories, may be of use in the examination of particular aspects of housing development.

Conditions for Discovery through Writing

Abstract: This paper compares two contrasting conceptions of discovery through writing. The first — the ‘classical’ position — claims that discovery is a consequence of planned rhetorical organisation. The second — the ‘romantic’ position — claims that discovery is a consequence of the spontaneous spelling-out of ideas in continuous prose. An experiment is described in which two variables distinguishing between the positions are manipulated, and the effect on discovery is measured. The results support the romantic position. The implication of these findings, and the methods used, for computer-based writing are discussed.

Undemocratic Discourse: A Review of Theory and Research on Political Discourse

Abstract: This essay begins by suggesting that political discourse analysis should identify the inadequacies of existing discourse relative to an ideal model of democratic deliberation. Modern writings on political discourse are then reviewed, connecting related concepts and theories from a variety of academic disciplines. The review discusses lexicon (vocabulary, technical words, imprecise words, euphemisms and loaded words), grammar (speech acts, implicature, syntax, pronouns and naming conventions), rhetorical strategies (integrative complexity, rituals, metaphors and myths) and conversational tactics (turn-taking and agenda-setting). The conclusion offers suggestions for future theory and research on political discourse.

The Rhetoric of Science and the Rhetoric of Revolt in the “Story” of Positive Accounting Theory

Abstract: Examines Watts and Zimmerman′s Positive Accounting Theory as a literary narrative, as the “PAT story”, in an effort to explain its success in light of the fact that it falls well short of their professed methodological standards Their use of the rhetoric of science is examined, with special attention to their projection of a “scientific persona”, their rhetorical construction of the legitimate” boundaries of accounting research, their use of metaphor and other literary devices, their rhetorical transport of “scientific authority” from other disciplines, and the circumstances that made their audience receptive to scientific rhetoric Their use of conservative political rhetoric (the rhetoric of revolt against the interference of government in economic affairs) is also examined, with special attention given to the devices used to convey a normative message while maintaining a positive posture, and to the role of sociohistorical circumstances (the Reagan era) that encouraged their audience to overlook the s

Poststructuralism, cultural studies, and the composition classroom: Postmodern theory in practice

Abstract: The uses of postmodern theory in rhetoric and composition studies have been the object of considerable abuse of late. Figures of some repute in the field-the likes of Maxine Hairston and Peter Elbow-as well as anonymous voices from the Burkean Parlor section of Rhetoric Review-most recently, TS, a graduate student, and KF, a voice speaking for "a general English teacher audience" (192)-have joined the chorus of protest. The charges have included willful obscurity, selfindulgence, elitism, pomposity, intellectual impoverishment, and a host of related offenses. Although my name usually appears among the accused, I am sympathetic with those undergoing the difficulties of the first encounter with this discussion. (I exclude Professor Hairston in her irresponsible charge that its recent contributors in College English are "low-risk Marxists who write very badly" [695] and who should be banned from NCTE publications.) I experienced the same frustration when I first encountered the different but closely related language of rhetoric and composition studies some fifteen years ago. I wondered, for example, if I would ever grasp the complexities of Aristotle or Quintilian or Kenneth Burke or I. A. Richards, not to mention the new language of the writing process. A bit later I was introduced to French poststructuralism, and once again I found myself wandering in strange seas, and this time alone. In reading rhetoric, after all, I had the benefit of numerous commentators to help me along-the work of Kinneavy and Lauer and Corbett and Emig, for example. In reading Foucault and Derrida in the late seventies, on the other hand, I was largely on my own since the commentaries were as difficult as the originals, and those few that were readable were often (as even I could see) wrong. Nonetheless, with the help of informal reading groups made up of colleagues and students, I persisted in my efforts to come to terms with this difficult body of thought. I was then, as now, convinced that both rhetorical studies and postmodern speculation offered strikingly convergent and remarkably compelling visions for conducting my life as a teacher and a citizen. It is clear to me that rhetoric and composition studies has arrived as a serious field of study because it has taken into account the best that has been thought and said about its concerns from the past and the present, and I have found that postmodern work in historical and contemporary rhetorical theory has done much to further this effort.

Narrative and the rhetoric of possibility

Abstract: Disclosing creative possibilities of thought and action is an important function of communication, especially of narrative rhetoric. This essay describes some of the problems which must be addressed in developing a rhetoric of possibility. Then it examines how rhetors disclose the human capacity for various states of mind. After showing why such possibilities are significant, it explores two ways of disclosing them. Rhetors may tell stories of deeds which reflect characters’ states of mind, or they may enable or challenge people to perform such acts themselves, with striking consequences for their own life stories. Often, however, performances disclose specific states of mind only when rhetors make them revealing through commentary or the careful stipulation of narrative details. While both methods are useful, they have different rhetorical implications.

A feminist perspective on rhetorical theory: Toward a clarification of boundaries

Abstract: In this essay, Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theory, as an exemplar of a mainstream rhetorical theory, is juxtaposed with that of Starhawk, as an exemplar of a feminist rhetorical theory, to suggest ways in which the patriarchal bias of many rhetorical theories limits our understanding of rhetoric. The essay begins with a formulation of Starhawk's rhetorical theory, which describes a rhetoric of inherent value and a rhetoric of domination. Starhawk's notions of the context for rhetoric, the nature of the rhetor, and the primary rhetorical forms are identified for each rhetorical system. Starhawk's notions then are contrasted with major rhetorical concepts developed by Burke. The essay concludes with suggestions for boundaries that circumscribe the rhetorical theories of both Burke and Starhawk.

Decorum, Power and the Courtly Style

Abstract: If politics is an art, then matters of style must be crucial to its practice. This essay considers how political actions are shaped by rhetorical practices that depend upon aesthetic perceptions. Modern assumptions of artistic autonomy are replaced by the classical concept of decorum, which offers a model for understanding how political life is styled for rhetorical effect. The role of decorousness in contemporary politics is illustrated by the extreme case of the courtly style, which constitutes power through propriety, is centered on the king's body, displaces speech with gesture, and ends in political paralysis.

Rhetorical Questions: Studies of Public Discourse

Abstract: Introduction: Rhetoric as Critique 1 Idioms of Social Identity 2 Secrecy and Disclosure as Rhetorical Forms 3 Rhetorical Secrets: Rhetorical Mysteries 4 The Sentimental Style as Escapism 5 Authoritarian Fiction 6 Ideological Justifications 7 Dramatic Form in Rhetorical Transactions 8 The Mutability of Rhetoric

Discourse and Diversity: Experimental Writing within the Academy.

Abstract: In classes ranging from "Advanced Expository Writing" and "Women and Writing" at the undergraduate level to "Gender, Language, and Writing Pedagogy" and "Classical and Contemporary Rhetoric" at the graduate level, I have invited students to imagine the possibilities for new forms of discourse, new kinds of academic essays. I do this because I believe that writing classes (and the whole field of composition studies) must employ richer visions of texts and composing processes. If we are to invent a truly pluralistic society, we must envision a socially and politically situated view of language and the creation of texts-one that takes into account gender, race, class, sexual preference, and a host of issues that are implied by these and other cultural differences. Our language and our written texts represent our visions of our culture, and we need new processes and forms if we are to express ways of thinking that have been outside the dominant culture. Finally, I believe that teaching students to write involves teaching them ways to critique not only their material and their potential readers' needs, but also the rhetorical conventions that they are expected to employ within the academy. Work in composition has been expanded enormously by theories of cognitive processes, social construction, and by the uses of computers and other forms of technology, yet, as Adrienne Rich writes, "we might hypothetically possess ourselves of every recognized technological resource on the North American continent, but as long as our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be 'revolutionary,' but not transformative" (Rich 247-48). David Kaufer and Cheryl Geisler argue that "freshmen composition and writing across the curriculum have remained silent about newness as a rhetorical standard, as a hallmark of literacy in a post-industrial, professional age." They do not believe that "this silence can be justified on either intellectual or pragmatic grounds . . ." (309).

Values and Practices in Asian Argumentation

Abstract: This essay seeks to deepen and broaden our understanding of argumentation by presenting a glimpse of some Asian rhetorical heritages, and in so doing stimulate incorporation of whatever is valuable...

Conceptual scaffolding: a spatially founded meaning representation for metaphor comprehension

Abstract: Once viewed as a rhetorical and superficial language phenomenon, metaphor is now recognized to serve a fundamental role in our conceptual structuring and language comprehension processes. In particular, it is argued that certain experiential metaphors based upon intuitions of spatial relations are inherent in the conceptual organization of our most abstract thoughts. In this paper we present a two-stage computational model of metaphor interpretation which employs a spatially founded semantics to broadly characterize the meaning carried by a metaphor in terms of a conceptual scaffolding, an interim meaning structure around which a fuller interpretation is fleshed out over time. We then present a semantics for the construction of conceptual scaffolding which is based upon core metaphors of collocation, containment and orientation. The goal of this scaffolding is to maintain the intended association of ideas even in contexts in which system knowledge is insufficient for a complete interpretation. This two-stage system of scaffolding and elaboration also models the common time lapse between initial metaphor comprehension and full metaphor appreciation. Several mechanisms for deriving elaborative inference from scaffolding structures, particularly in cases of novel or creative metaphor, are also presented. While the system developed in this paper has significant practical application, it also demonstrates that core spatial metaphors clearly play a central role in metaphor comprehension.

"The New Rhetoric"'s Argument Schemes: A Rhetorical View of Practical Reasoning.

Abstract: In a lecture delivered in 1957, Chaim Perelman (1958) described the workings of practical reasoning and compared them to the structures of formal logic: Why envisage proof always in terms of a single model? . . . |A~ final convergence |of a number of indications~ can lead to conclusions so sure that only a lunatic would ever think of doubting them. . . . When we have to reconstruct the past |for example~ the arguments which we use seem to me very much more like a piece of cloth, the total strength of which will always be vastly superior to that of any single thread which enters into its warp and woof. In The New Rhetoric, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) developed a description of the various threads making up this cloth; these include the starting points for argument, the conventions governing argument practices, and the mechanisms or schemes for making inferences.(1) Each of these dimensions of argument is tied in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's (1969) theory to a conception of what the arguer believes that the audience will accept, since "it is in terms of an audience that an argumentation develops". For instance, the starting points of argument--facts, truths, presumptions, values, hierarchies, and the loci of the preferable--are derived from premises to which the arguer's anticipated audience presumably subscribes. The conventions for conducting arguments also grow out of practices and norms mutually accepted by interlocutors who participate together in a common culture. Likewise, the inferential schemes that move the audience to accept the arguer's claims are generated through commonplaces and structures recognized and accepted by Western society. Over two-thirds of The New Rhetoric was devoted to describing these agreed-upon liaisons that make inferences possible, for Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca believed that in practical reasoning, inferential moves are made possible rhetorically. Yet The New Rhetoric's system of argument schemes has not received attention proportionate to its significance. While numerous studies have focused on the concepts of universal audience (Scult, 1976; Ray, 1978; Perelman, 1984; Golden, 1986), presence (Karon, 1976), and the rationality/reasonableness distinction (McKerrow, 1982; Laughlin & Hughes, 1986), attention to the argument schemes themselves has been infrequent, despite the fact that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) devoted the bulk of their treatise to the rhetorical nature of inference forms. Quasi-logical, analogical, and dissociative scheme types have been individually studied (Dearin, 1982; Measell, 1985; Schiappa, 1985). One critique of the system has appeared (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Kruiger, 1984), and various critics have made partial or tentative efforts to apply the schemes to argument practices (Siebold, McPhee, Poole, Tanita, & Canary, 1981; Farrell, 1986). While argument textbooks make general use of the scheme typology to describe argument practices (Katula, 1983; Herrick, 1991), precise study of the individual schemes has been sporadic and indeterminate. Two decades after The New Rhetoric was published, Olbrechts-Tyteca (1979) expressed disappointment at the lack of attention given to the study of specific schemes. And in 1986, Thomas Farrell could claim that The New Rhetoric's descriptions of practical reasoning practices "have been the singularly most neglected feature of Perelman's rhetorical theory". The scheme typology is nonetheless of singular importance because it provides us with a rhetorical account of the operation of argument schemes. Prior to The New Rhetoric, our vocabulary for describing inference patterns was limited to formal logical patterns (e.g., categorical, disjunctive, and conditional syllogisms) and the standard classifications of inductive reasoning (analogy, generalization, cause, and sign). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) generated their schemes through a careful empirical process in which they collected discursive arguments for over ten years, typed them, and added new categories (dissociations, symbolic liaisons, and double hierarchy arguments, among others), thus providing a richer vocabulary for describing reasoning structures. …

Literary forms in the New Testament : a handbook

Abstract: In this useful and accessible book, James Bailey and Lyle Vander Broek discuss the literary and rhetorical forms found in the New Testament. The authors offer definitions and examples of these forms while also helping the reader appreciate the significance of their use for the task of biblical interpretation. This highly readable book will benefit college and seminary students, ministers, and anyone interested in biblical analysis and interpretation.

Toward a feminist rhetoric: The Gilligan debate revisited

Abstract: In this paper, a rhetorical approach is applied to feminist debates about gender, care, and morality, using the controversies which have emerged in response to Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice as a case in point Despite massive and, in some cases, devastating criticism, the Gilligan debate continues to stimulate, but also to aggravate feminist scholars of all persuasions By taking a closer look at the kinds of argumentative strategies employed by Gilligan's critics, an attempt will be made to understand how feminist controversies like the Gilligan debate can be both popular and, at the same time, circular and even tediously repetitious I will be exploring some of the rhetorical strategies employed in this particular debate, demonstrating why they have been counterproductive Some suggestions will be put forward for a different kind of feminist rhetoric- one that will enable us to learn from the Gilligan debate, while avoiding some of its pitfalls

Between efficiency and politics rhetoric and ethics in technical writing

Abstract: Traditional textbook rationales for the technical writing course locate the essence of technical writing in objectivity, clarity, and neutrality, and the need for teaching it in its usefulness to employers. Such rationales, however, are unable to accommodate a notion of ethics and responsibility: if the writer merely serves the interests that employ her by reporting facts in an objective way, how can she exercise choice when ethical problems arise? An alternative view is to see technical writing as always rhetorical and involved with potentially conflicting agendas and interests, with objectivity, clarity, and neutrality serving merely as stylistic devices in the writer's rhetorical toolbox. Technical writers are rhetoricians who continually make ethical choices in serving diverse interests and negotiating between conflicting demands. The recognition of the fundamental rhetoricity of technical writing is the first step towards accommodating a meaningful notion of ethics into the technical writing curriculum.

Metaphor and reason in judicial opinions

Abstract: To the public, judges handing down judicial decisions present arguments arrived through rational discourse and literal language. Yet, as Judge Richard Posner has pointed out, "Rhetorical power counts for a lot in law. Science, not to mention everyday thought, is influenced by metaphors. Why shouldn t law be?" Haig Bosmajian examines the crucial role of the tropemetaphors, personifications, metonymiesin argumentation and reveals the surprisingly important place that figurative, nonliteral language holds in judicial decision making.Focusing on the specific genre of the legal opinion, Professor Bosmajian discusses the question of why we have judicial opinions at all and the importance of style in them. He then looks at specific well-known figures of speech such as "the wall of separation" between church and state, justice personified as a female, or the Constitution as "colorblind," explaining why they are not straightforward statements of legal fact but examples of the ways tropes are used in legal language.A useful example can be found in Judge Learned Hand s response to a 1943 case involving news gathering and monopoly. Hand found the need to protect the public s right to the "dissemination of news from as many different sources, and with as many different facets and colors possible," an interest "closely akin to, if indeed it is not the same as, the interest protected by the First Amendment; it presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be folly; but we have staken upon it our all.""