Showing papers on "Rhetorical question published in 2005"

Rhetorical Strategies of Legitimacy

Abstract: This paper describes the role of rhetoric in legitimating profound institutional change. In 1997, a Big Five accounting firm purchased a law firm, triggering a jurisdictional struggle within accoun...

Conversation analysis and discourse analysis : a comparative and critical introduction

Abstract: Introduction Origins and Orientations Two Key Studies Method and Critique Similarities and Differences Persuasion and Authority CA and the Rhetorical Turn in Discourse Studies Discursive Psychology Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Methodological Disputes How Should We Analyse Talk? Conversation Analysis and Power

The Quality of Students' Use of Evidence in Written Scientific Explanations.

Abstract: Drawing on sociological and philosophical studies of science, science educators have begun to view argumentation as a central scientific practice that students should learn. In this article, we extend recent work to understand the structure of students' arguments to include judgments about their quality through content analyses of high school students' written explanations for 2 problems of natural selection. In these analyses, we aim to explicate the relations between students' conceptual understanding of specific domains and their epistemic understanding of scientific practices of argumentation as they try to learn science through inquiry. We present a method that assesses the warrant of explanatory claims, the sufficiency of the evidence explicitly cited for claims, and students' rhetorical use of specific inscriptions in their arguments. Students were attentive to the need to cite data, yet they often failed to cite sufficient evidence for claims. Students' references to specific inscriptions in their...

Crafting Brand Authenticity: The Case of Luxury Wines*

Abstract: Authenticity is one of the cornerstones of contemporary marketing practice yet confusion surrounds the nature and use of authenticity in the brand arena. Examining the strategies of 26 luxury wine firms informs the authenticity of specific brands. Creating an impression of authenticity required creating a sincere story consisting of a creative blend of industrial and rhetorical attributes. Sincerity was achieved through the public avowal of hand Grafted techniques, uniqueness, relationship to place, passion for wine production, and the simultaneous disavowal of commercial motives, rational production methods, and the use of modern marketing techniques. For the wineries, appearing authentic was critical in order to reinforce their status, command price premiums and ward off competitors. Images of authenticity were accomplished by developing a sincere story that enabled the firms to maintain quality and relevance while appearing above commercial considerations. This was achieved through the deliberate decoupling of their technical core from their espoused communications.

Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies

Abstract: Whereas earlier work on rhetorical situation focuses upon, the elements of audience, exigence, and constraints, this article argues that rhetorical situations operate within a network of lived practical consciousness or structures of feeling Placing the rhetorical “elements” within this wider context destabilizes the discrete borders of a rhetorical situation As an example of this wider context, this article explores the public rhetoric surrounding issues of urban sprawl in Austin, Texas While public rhetorical movements can be seen as a response to the “exigence” of overdevelopment, it is also possible to situate the exigence's evocation within a wider context of affective ecologies comprised of material experiences and public feelings

Discursive psychology, mental states and descriptions

Abstract: Introduction Our aim in this chapter is to show how discursive psychology (DP) deals with psychological states and characteristics. We do this in several ways: by defining what DP is, by demonstrating it analytically, and by discussing various criticisms and misunderstandings of it. As for defining it, DP works in three closely related ways: Respecification and critique . Standard psychological topics are respecified as discourse practices. Topics recognized in mainstream psychology such as ‘memory’, ‘causal attribution’, ‘script’ knowledge, and so on, are re-worked in terms of discourse practices.We study how people ordinarily, as part of everyday activities, report and explain actions and events, how they characterize the actors in those events, and how they manage various implications generated in the act of reporting. DP often generates a critical stance on cognitive psychology. For example, cognitive theory and measurement of ‘attitudes’ is criticized and replaced by the study of argumentative and evaluative practices in discourse (Billig, 1987; Potter, 1998a; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Wiggins, 2002; Wiggins and Potter, 2003). Similarly, cognitive methods and theory on ‘causal attribution’ are critically opposed by analyses of how people manage accountability in everyday talk (Antaki, 1994; Edwards and Potter, 1992a, 1993). The psychological thesaurus . DP explores the situated, occasioned, rhetorical uses of the rich common sense psychological lexicon or thesaurus: terms such as angry, jealous, know, believe, feel, want, and so on. For example, expressions such as ‘I don't know’, or ‘your angry stage’ are examined for the local contrasts and interactional work for which they are used (e.g., Edwards, 1995; Potter, 1998b). By grounding such studies in empirical materials, we are able to explore the ways in which concepts such as ‘know’ or ‘angry’ are used interactionally and rhetorically, with regard to specific, locally relevant alternative descriptions. We develop some examples in this chapter.

Genre Analysis of Corporate Annual Report Narratives A Corpus Linguistics–Based Approach

Abstract: The study reported on in this article analyzes the U.K. Operating and Financial Review(OFR) as a genre of accounting narrative, employing word frequencies to identify genre rules. Evidence is found of rhetorical ploys within the genre and of differences in word frequencies, suggesting the existence of subgenres, related to the exigencies of the rhetorical situation. The genre employs language biased toward the positive (the “Pollyanna effect”), despite authoritative guidance that the OFR should be expressed in neutral terms. Evidence of subgenres includes differential propensity to employ positive language and differences in the rhetorical ploys adopted in connection with marketing strategy, corporate recovery, selfreference, comparative analysis, and gearing (leverage). The study also demonstrates the value of a corpus linguistics approach in analyzing accounting narratives.

Theme‐oriented discourse analysis of medical encounters

Abstract: APPROACH Theme-oriented discourse analysis looks at how language constructs professional practice. Recordings of naturally occurring interactions are transcribed and combined with ethnographic knowledge. Analytic themes drawn primarily from sociology and linguistics shed light on how meaning is negotiated in interaction. Detailed features of talk, such as intonation and choice of vocabulary, trigger inferences about what is going on and being talked about. These affect how interactants judge each other and decisions are made. Interactions also have larger rhetorical patterns used by both patients and doctors to persuade each other.

Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators: Using Genre Theory to Move Toward Critical Information Literacy

Abstract: This article proposes that we extend our information literacy instruction programs to include tenets of genre theory as a way to move toward a more critical stance in our pedagogy. By developing an anthropologist's sensitivity to culture, academic librarians can learn the characteristics of the academic disciplines and then help students learn these characteristics as a way for them to understand the rhetorical practices in these fields. In making tacit practices visible, librarians can facilitate students' transitions into the cultures of their chosen disciplines. In this way, we can help students see that information is constructed and contested not monolithic and apolitical.

Carnal Connections: On Embodiment, Apprenticeship, and Membership

Abstract: This article responds to the special issue of Qualitative Sociology devoted to the author's book, Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (vol. 28, no. 3, summer 2005). Four themes are tackled: the positioning of the inquirer and the question of social acceptance and membership; the dynamics of embodiment(s) and the variable role of race as a structural, interactional, and dispositional property; the functioning of the boxing gym as miniature civilizing and masculinizing machine; apprenticeship as a mode of knowledge transmissioin and technique for social inquiry, the scope of carnal sociology, and the textual work needed to convey the full-color texture and allure of the social world. This leads to clarifying the conceptual, empirical, and rhetorical makeup of Body and Soul in relation to its triple intent: to elucidate the workings of a sociocultural competency residing in prediscursive capacities; to deploy and develop the concept of habitus as operant philosophy of action and methodological guide; and to offer a brief for a sociology not of the body (as social product) but from the body (as social spring and vector of knowledge), exemplifying a way of doing and writing ethnography that takes full epistemic advantage of the visceral nature of social life.

Parallel encoding of focus and interrogative meaning in Mandarin intonation.

Abstract: Despite much research, disagreements abound regarding the detailed charac-teristicsof question intonation in different languages or even in the same language.The present study investigates question intonation in Mandarin by also consideringthe role of focus that is frequently ignored in previous research. In experiment 1,native speakers of Mandarin produced statements, yes/no questions, particle ques-tions,wh-questions, rhetorical questions and confirmation questions with narrowfocus on the initial, medial or final word of the sentence, or on none of the words.Detailed F0 contour analyses showed that focus generated the same pitch rangemodification in questions as in statements, i.e., expanding the pitch range of thefocused word, suppressing (compressing and lowering) that of the post-focuswords, but leaving that of the pre-focus words largely unaffected. When the effects offocus (as well as other functions also potentially present) were controlled by sub-tractingstatement F0 contours from those of the corresponding yes/no questions,the resulting difference curves resembled exponential or even double-exponentialfunctions. Further F0 analyses also revealed an interaction between focus andinterrogative meaning in the form of a boost to the pitch raising by the question start-ingfrom the focused word. Finally, subtle differences in the amount of pitch raisingwere also observed among different types of questions, especially at the sentence-finalposition. Experiment 2 investigated whether listeners could detect both focusand question in the same utterance. Results showed that listeners could identifyboth in most cases, indicating that F0 variations related to the two functions could besimultaneously transmitted. Meanwhile, the lowest identification rates were foundfor neutral focus in questions and for statements with final focus. In both cases, theconfusions seemed to arise from the competing F0 adjustments by interrogativemeaning and focus at the sentence-final position. These findings are consistent withthe functional view of intonation, according to which components of intonation aredefined and organized by individual communicative functions that are independentof each other but are encoded in parallel.

Tabloid Britain: Constructing a Community through Language

Abstract: 1. When Did The Populars Become Tabloid? 2. The Rhetorical Patterns of Tabloid Language 3. The Semantics and Narratives of Nation 4. Tabloid history 5. Outsiders and the National Community Readers 6. Gender and Sexuality in Tabloid Britain 7. Popular Politics in a National Context 8. Celebrity and National Community 9. 'Tabloidization'-Global Formats, National Contents Bibliography

Beyond rhetorical questions

Abstract: This book uses Conversation Analysis methodology to analyze rhetorical and other questions that are designed to convey assertions, rather than seek new information It shows how these question sequences unfold interactionally in naturally-occurring talk in a variety of settings, eg, friends arguing over the phone, parents disciplining children, news interviews, and second language writing conferences The questions are used across these widely different contexts to perform a number of related social actions such as accusations, challenges to prior turns, and complaints Those used in institution settings, such as teacher-student conferences, orient to institutional norms and roles and can help accomplish institutional goals, eg, eliciting student error correction Both the interactional context in which these questions are embedded and the known epistemic authority of the questioner play a role in our understanding of these questions, ie, what social actions the question is accomplishing in a particular interaction

Habermas, Foucault and Nietzsche: A Double Misunderstanding

Abstract: The article analyses Habermas' interpretation of Foucault in the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity and argues that the former misunderstands the Foucaultian project of genealogy fundamentally. While Habermas assumes that Foucault aims at a strictly scientific approach to the writing of history it can be shown that Foucaultian genealogy is strongly characterised by rhetorical aspects, creating a hybrid model of critique that stands in between science and literature. The essay goes on arguing that this misreading can be explained with reference to Habermas' reconstruction of Nietzsche's philosophy in the Philosophical Discourse. On the basis of this clarification the article analyses what a Habermasian position vis-a-vis genealogy including the rhetorical element would look like. Making use of Habermas' remarks on Derrida in the Philosophical Discourse the essay concludes that, counter-intuitively, a rhetorically understood genealogy has to be considered a valid philosophical approach even on Habermas' own terms.

Preempting the future: rhetoric and ideology of the future in political discourse

Abstract: This article posits that an important ideological component of political discourse derives from its representation of the future and the rhetorical functions those representations serve in implicat...

Negative and Positive Polarity: A Binding Approach

Abstract: Preface Introduction 1 Negative contexts: Serbian/Croatian 2 Negative contexts: English 3 Non-negative polarity contexts 4 Language variation 5 Rhetorical questions 6 Subjunctive: domain extensions 7 Free-choice items 8 Ladusaw and Linebarger Notes References Index

Teaching academic esl writing: practical techniques in vocabulary and grammar

Abstract: TEACHING ACADEMIC ESL WRITING: PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES IN VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR. Eli Hinkel . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2004. Pp. xii + 360. $79.95 cloth, $37.50 paper. In this text, Hinkel argues that second language (L2) writing instruction has long favored teaching the writing process and discourse and rhetorical features of text while neglecting the essential language skills that L2 writers need to succeed in mainstream university classes. She attempts to redress this perceived shortcoming by identifying and describing the formal syntactic and lexical characteristics of academic text and advocating the explicit teaching of these key structures and lexical chunks.

Genre Theory, Health-Care Discourse, and Professional Identity Formation:

Abstract: This article explores the value of rhetorical genre theory for health care and professional communication researchers. The authors outline the conceptual resources emerging from genre theory, specifically ways to conceptualize social context, professional identity formation, and genres as functioning but hierarchical networks, and discuss the way they have used these resources in two separate but complementary health-care studies: a project that documents the ways regulated and regularized resources of the genre of case presentations shape the professional identity formation of medical students and a project that extends this theoretical work to observe that genres, especially policy genres, function to regularize or control other genres and shape the identity formation of midwives in Ontario, Canada. The authors also observe that the implications of rhetorical genre theory have impelled both of these studies to develop an interdisciplinary trajectory that includes members of health-care communities as pa...

Exploring Resistance from a Rhetorical Perspective

Abstract: Contemporary accounts of resistance at work have emphasized processes of identity construction and regulation (e.g. Alvesson and Willmott 2002). Case study examinations (e.g. Knights and McCabe 2000; Ezzamel et al. 2001) have been recently extended by detailed studies of the operation of discourse at the level of talk (e.g. Dick and Cassell 2002). This paper adds to these recent accounts by providing an analysis of arguments for and against a technological change project in a UK public sector organization. The objective is to demonstrate how such arguments are constructed to achieve particular interpretations of reality while resisting others (i.e. the use of persuasive rhetoric). In the examples analysed here, rhetorical strategies included: producing a range of identities for 'the resistant', IT support staff and others; disputing the 'realness' of people, things and processes (e.g. information, participation); producing and negotiating various boundaries (e.g. we/other, production worker/support staff)...

A Contingency Theory of Rhetorical Congruence

Abstract: I argue that attempts to adapt structure to contingencies will be unsuccessful unless there is also rhetorical congruence, which has two parts. First, rhetorical congruence exists if rhetoric is appropriate to contingencies. For example, decentralization aimed at increasing local initiative will lead to more requests by headquarters for advice from subsidiaries. Second, it exists if the various rhetorical processes are in balance with one another. For example, as the environment becomes more uncertain and as more differentiation rhetoric is used in response, further integration rhetoric will be prompted to reestablish balance.

The rhetoric of conference presentation introductions : context, argument and interaction

Abstract: This study focuses on the introduction section in a spoken research genre, the scientific conference presentation (CP). The aim is to investigate how the specific communicative context of the genre impacts on the argumentative structure and interpersonal strategies adopted by speakers to address their live audience. Through a move analysis of the introductions, we show that their rhetorical structure is markedly different from that of the research article, and relate the move categories identified to the contextual and epistemological characteristics of the genre. A generic move model for the CP introduction is proposed. The second rhetorical aspect addressed concerns the interpersonal relations set up by the allocation of speaker and addressee roles through the use of personal pronouns. By a contrastive analysis of CP introductions and those of the corresponding proceedings articles, we show how speakers facilitate information processing for the audience and also involve them in the research process. The data comprise video recordings of 44 conference presentations from 3 scientific fields (geology, medicine, and physics) and a smaller corpus of 13 articles from the conference proceedings in physics

The State of the Art in Feminist Scholarship in Communication

Abstract: The emergence of feminist scholarship in the field of communication follows, in many respects, a semilar historical trajectory to that of feminist visibility in the culture at large. When the second wave of feminism emerged in public consciousness around 1970, communication scholars began to attend more closely to the role of gender in communication practices. That attention was inflected by the concerns of the women’s movement—exposing sexism and sex-role socialization, interrogating the role of power in relations between men and women, understanding how awareness of the influence of gender requires rethinking claims of universality based on male experience and behaviors. In rhetorical studies, these emphases produced such germinal scholarship as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell’s 1973 essay, “The Rhetoric of Women’s Liberation: An Oxymoron,” which argued that second-wave feminist rhetoric could not be adequately understood through traditional rhetorical models. In interpersonal communication, they led to a question

The Generic Integrity of Newspaper Editorials A Systemic Functional Perspective

Abstract: One fruitful line of research has been to explore the local linguistic as well as global rhetorical patterns of particular genres in order to identify their recognizable structural identity, or what Bhatia (1999: 22) calls ‘generic integrity’. In terms of methodology, to date most genre-based studies have employed one or the other of Swales’ (1981/1990) move-analytic models of text analysis to investigate whether or not the generic prototypical patterns that he has introduced exist universally. This paper, however, considers the application of the Systemic Functional (SF) theory of language to genre analysis. The paper looks, in particular, at distinctive rhetorical features of English newspaper editorials as an important public ‘Cinderella’ genre and proposes a generic prototypical pattern of text development for editorials or what Halliday and Hasan (1989) refer to as the Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of a genre. The results of this study should benefit both genre theory and Systemic Functional Ling...

Rhetorical Spaces in Memorial Places: The Cemetery as a Rhetorical Memory Place/Space

Abstract: Focusing on a seacoast New Hampshire African American burying ground and the grave of a white woman buried in a Massachusetts rural cemetery, this article considers how the essential nature of the cemetery makes it both a very usual and unusual memory place. Considering de Certeau's distinctions between space and place as well as Foucault's definition of a heterotopia, this paper argues that the paradoxes of the heterotopia combined with the symbolism and materiality of the grave make the cemetery a particularly potent lieu de memoire for those otherwise forgotten in public memory.