Showing papers on "Rhetorical question published in 2007"

The Framing Project: A Bridging Model for Media Research Revisited

Abstract: Framing, unlike many more esoteric research concepts, has gained remarkable popularity in both the scholarly literature and the public imagination. As with its often-associated idea of media agenda setting, people intuitively grasp what it conveys, although framing suggests more intentionality on the part of the framer and relates more explicitly to political strategy. As a result, academics such as George Lakoff and Geoffrey Nunberg have found recent visibility as political groups, particularly liberal, try to figure out how they lost the ‘‘framing wars.’’ Lakoff says that conservatives bend ideas to fit a coherent narrative; Nunberg says that narrative is only rhetorical, providing only the illusion of coherence (Drum, 2006). Thus, even between linguists differences arise as to what to make of framing as a theoretical idea—differences that become wider when played out across other disciplines. The interdisciplinary quality of the communication field has meant a natural diversity of approaches, leading some to urge more effort toward cleaning up the framing paradigm, making it more theoretically respectable and coherent (e.g., Scheufele, 2004). Framing’s value, however, does not hinge on its potential as a unified research domain but, as I have suggested before, as a provocative model that bridges parts of the field that need to be in touch with each other: quantitative and qualitative, empirical and interpretive, psychological and sociological, and academic and professional. If the most interesting happens at the edges of disciplines—and in the center of policy debates—then framing certainly has the potential to bring disciplinary perspectives together in interesting ways. At least, framing alerts researchers to the possibilities available from other perspectives. In that respect, I am in agreement with D’Angelo (2002) that framing is more of a research program than a unified paradigm and that theoretical diversity has been beneficial in developing a comprehensive understanding of the process (if not a consistent terminology). I am not sure, however, how well we have taken advantage of these new possibilities.

Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric

Abstract: While scholars of International Relations and comparative politics have usually treated rhetoric as epiphenomenal, one strand of constructivism has recently returned rhetoric to the heart of political analysis, especially through the mechanism of persuasion. We too maintain that rhetoric is central to political processes and outcomes, but we argue that persuasion is theoretically and methodologically problematic. We aver that rhetoric’s role may be more usefully conceptualized in the context of coercion, and we advance a stylized model that illustrates how rhetorical coercion operates, explains why it works, and identifies key scope conditions. We subsequently illustrate our model’s relevance through a detailed examination of a ‘hard’ case. This article’s agenda is twofold. First, it advises scholars in these fields to avoid focusing on unanswerable questions about actors’ motives and to examine instead what actors say, in what contexts, and to what audiences. Second, it lays the groundwork for a ‘coercive constructivism’, complementing the liberal version so prevalent today.

Reporting CSR – what and how to say it?

Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to analyse and discuss what organizations say and how they say it when reporting Corporate Social Responsibility. It raises the question whether organizations report consistently on CSR in terms of genres, media, rhetorical strategies, etc.Design/methodology/approach – The analysis takes critical discourse analysis of selected corporations' CSR reporting, on the one hand, and theories and research on CSR and stakeholder relations, on the other hand, as its starting‐point. A model of analysis is proposed which presents discourse as a result of four kinds of challenges facing corporations today. The model serves to establish an ideal typology of CSR concepts and discourses and to analyse these discourses from a modern organizational and corporate communication perspective.Findings – The analysis shows that annual reports are very dissimilar with respect to topics on the one hand and dimensions and discourses expressed in perspectives, stakeholder priorities, contextual information...

From Beliefs to Arguments: Interpretive Methodology and Rhetorical Political Analysis

Abstract: This article examines the development of methods of political analysis concerned with ideas, beliefs and meanings and argues that these need to be supplemented by an approach attuned to the specific nature of political action. It argues that since politics involves the contest of ideas, beliefs and meanings, analysis should focus on arguments. Considering methods for the study of political arguments the article argues for a re-examination of the rhetorical tradition and the development of a Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA). It then outlines the sorts of things this would examine, the questions it would ask and the ways in which it might go about answering them.

Applying a gloss: exemplifying and reformulating in academic discourse

Abstract: A great deal of research has now established that written texts embody interactions between writers and readers, but few studies have examined the ways that small acts of reformulation and exemplification help contribute to this. Abstraction, theorisation and interpretation need to be woven into a text which makes sense to a particular community of readers, and this invariably involves frequent reworkings and exemplifications as writers assess the processing needs, knowledge and rhetorical expectations of their readers to present and then interpret ideas as they write. Known as code glosses in the metadiscourse literature, these elaborations help to contribute to the creation of coherent, reader-friendly prose while conveying the writer's audience-sensitivity and relationship to the message. Drawing on a large corpus of research articles, I explore how professional academic writers monitor their texts for readers in this way to restate information or provide examples as they construct their arguments. Analysis of the corpus reveals that elaboration is a complex and important rhetorical function in academic writing, and that both its use and meanings vary according to discipline.

More than Zero: Accounting for Error in Latent Fingerprint Identification

Abstract: The recent exposure of an erroneous latent print identification by the FBI that led to the false arrest of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield has punctured the myth of the "infallibility" of fingerprint identification and generated renewed interest in the "error rate" of fingerprint identification. This article undertakes a comprehensive review of what is known about the potential error rate of latent print identification. The article first presents a compilation of all known exposed cases of fingerprint misattributions. Although only twenty such cases have been documented, an analysis of these cases suggests that these cases likely represent only a small portion of the true set of latent print misattributions. Then, the article compiles and analyzes proficiency test data that sheds some light on the potential error rate of fingerprint identification. The second half of the article is devoted to the fingerprint profession's and courts' rhetorical accounts of the potential error rate of latent print identification. This section analyzes efforts to minimize, dismiss, or otherwise account for fingerprint error. Fingerprint examiners make claims of error-free practice that belie the reality of error. The article concludes that we must confront, analyze, and seek to understand error if we want to reduce it.

A Rhetoric-in-Context Approach to Building Commitment to Multiple Strategic Goals

Abstract: There are still few explanations of the micro-level practices by which top managers influence employee commitment to multiple strategic goals. This paper argues that, through their language, top managers can construct a context for commitment to multiple strategic goals. We therefore propose a rhetoric-in-context approach to illuminate some of the micro practices through which top managers influence employee commitment. Based upon an empirical study of the rhetorical practices through which top managers influence academic commitment to multiple strategic goals in university contexts, we demonstrate relationships between rhetoric and context. Specifically, we show that rhetorical influences over commitment to multiple goals are associated with the historical context for multiple goals, the degree to which top managers' rhetoric instantiates a change in that context, and the internal consistency of the rhetorical practices used by top managers. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications.

The transformational leader as pedagogue, physician, architect, commander, and saint: Five root metaphors in Jack Welch's letters to stockholders of General Electric:

Abstract: We analyse the corpus of CEO letters to stockholders that were signed by a widely revered business leader, Jack Welch, during his tenure as CEO of the General Electric Company [GE], 1981—2000. Our discussion is located within theory pertaining to transformational leadership. We examine Welch's language from the standpoint of how transformational leadership can be conceived as a rhetorical artefact of one-sided dialogue emanating from a powerful leader. We give particular attention to the saturation of Welch's discourse with metaphors, and argue that metaphors illuminate how transformational leadership and the accompanying construct of charisma manifest themselves in practice. Five root metaphors that heightened Welch's persuasive and rhetorical impact on his audience are identified and discussed: Welch as pedagogue , physician, architect, commander and saint . We advocate greater awareness of the rhetorical techniques employed by transformational leaders in attempts to broker compliance with their views.

What Can Automation Tell Us About Agency

Abstract: Computerized systems for automated assessment of writing and speaking create a situation in which Burkean symbolic action confronts nonsymbolic motion. What is at stake in such confrontations is rhetorical agency. In this article, an informal survey that asked teachers of writing and speaking about automated assessment informs an analysis of agency that contrasts writing and speaking along the dimensions of performance, audience, and interaction. The analysis suggests that agency can be understood as the kinetic energy of performance that is generated through a process of mutual attribution between rhetor and audience. Agency is thus a property of the rhetorical event, not of agents, and can best be located between the two traditional ways of defining agency: as rhetorical capacity and as rhetorical effectivity. Unwillingness to attribute agency to automated assessment systems makes them rhetorically ineffective and morally problematic.

Rhetoric Online: Persuasion and Politics on the World Wide Web

Abstract: Rhetoric Online is a systematic examination of the forms and nature of Web-based public discourse in the fields of social activism, political campaigning, and other venues where rhetorical discourses are addressed to public audiences. Warnick develops and adapts existing rhetorical theories to the study of Web-based persuasive discourse in the public sphere.

In digital remembrance: vernacular memory and the rhetorical construction of web memorials

Abstract: In this study, I examine four web memorials to explore the material construction of memory on the internet. Using Blair's arguments about the rhetorical materiality of memorials, I seek to understa...

Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction

Abstract: Brian Richardson. Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006. 166 pp. $55.95 cloth; $24.95 paper. Brian Richardson's Unnatural Voices is a major contribution to narratology. Its starting point is the highly convincing thesis that 'narrative theory, despite its emphasis on narrative and narrators, has not yet systematically examined the impressive range of unusual postmodern and other avant garde strategies of narration', in part because postmodernism 'has often proven resistant to traditional narrative theory' (ix). He explains that the book is intended to rectify these unfortunate absences. It explores in depth one of the most significant aspects of late modernist, avant garde, and postmodern narrative - the creation, fragmentation, and reconstitution of narrative voices - and offers a theoretical account of these unusual and innovative strategies. This is an empirical study that describes and theorizes the actual practices of significant authors . . . Such an inductive approach is essential because many extreme forms of narration seem to have been invented precisely to transgress fundamental linguistic and rhetorical categories, (ix) In essence, the book comprises an inventory and theoretical overview of a large number of innovative contemporary uses of narrators and narration. These are contrasted with current theories of narrative poetics that, Richardson plausibly argues, cannot fully comprehend them. Such innovations include a new kind of narrative that hinges on the unexpected disclosure of a homodiegetic narrator towards the end of an apparently heterodiegetic text (for example, Ian McEwan's Atonement); 'it', 'they', and passive voice narration; second person narration (divided into standard, hypothetical, and autotelic); 'we' narration; multiperson narration (for example, texts that employ first and third person narration); indeterminate speakers; impossible acts of narration; interlocutor narration (for example, the 'Ithaca' episode in Ulysses); 'denarration' (narrators denying the truth of what they have just said); 'permeable' narration ('the uncanny and inexplicable intrusion of the voice of another within the narrator's consciousness' [95]); distinctively postmodern types of unreliable narrators such as fraudulent, contradictory, incommensurate, and disframed narrators; and unusual narrators in contemporary drama. And all in one hundred and forty pages! The final chapter, after discussing the modernist origins of contemporary anti-realist practices, ends with a plea for a general 'anti-poetics' of narrative that should be considered as a supplement and foil to traditional poetics. The proposal is not for a different poetics but for an additional one; that is, for an anti-mimetic poetics that supplements existing mimetic theories. Such a model will allow us to greatly expand the area covered by narrative theory, and will allow it to embrace a host of earlier non-mimetic literatures. And only in this way can we begin to do justice to the most effective imaginative achievements in narrative in our time. (138) Specifically, he suggests that 'we will be most effective as narrative theorists if we reject models that insist, based on categories derived from linguistics or natural narrative, on firm distinctions, binary oppositions, fixed hierarchies, or impermeable categories' (139). In Richardson's view, instead of such rigid typologies, we need an alternative model that stresses the permeability, instability, and playful mutability of the voices in non-mimetic fictions. Unnatural Voices is just what a narratological book should be: its proposals for narrative theory are original and important, and it also contains a number of illuminating readings of individual works. The book features an encyclopedic reference to a wide range of narratives from various countries, both postmodern and other (although the regular use of Samuel Beckett narratives provides a thread of continuity). …

Rhetorical questions as questions

Abstract: We argue that rhetorical questions are semantically the same as ordinary questions. New data is presented to show that rhetorical questions allow for answers and the range of their answers is the same as ordinary questions. An analysis is proposed according to which rhetorical and ordinary questions only differ at the pragmatic level: a question is interpreted as a rhetorical question when its answer is known to the Speaker and the Addressee, while it is interpreted as an ordinary question when its answer it is not know to the Speaker. We model Speaker’s and Addressee’s mutual and individual knowledge by adopting Stalnaker’s (1978) notion of ‘Common Ground’ and enriching it, along the lines of Gunlogson (2001).

The Visual Rhetoric of Data Displays: The Conundrum of Clarity

Abstract: The visual rhetoric of data displays (e.g., charts, graphs, maps) has changed profoundly over the past 50 years as a result of research in display techniques, the application of traditional and emerging rhetorical approaches, and the democratizing effects of data design technology. Perhaps in no other visual realm than data design is the notion of clarity more critical or more contested. Indeed the ascendancy of rhetorical approaches was initiated by the perceptual/cognitive science of data design, which in seeking to identify optimal display techniques, fostered a concern for ethics and evoked the universality and minimalism of modernist aesthetics. The rhetoric of adaptation, which emphasizes the variability of audiences, purposes, and situational contexts, rendered clarity contingent and mutable-a moving target that requires constant attention. Social rhetoric considered data design as a collective construct, tethering clarity to visual discourse communities, convention-building, cultural values, and power. The concept of clarity has been further reoriented by the rhetoric of participation, which is fostered by interactive digital design that enables users to adapt displays according to their needs and interests.

Analysis of Lines of Reasoning in Written Argumentation

Abstract: Written texts play an important role in the activity systems generating knowledge in professional and educational settings. Empirical studies of the social construction of scientific knowledge in scientific and school settings have identified a range of purposes, uses, and genres of written communication (Kelly & Chen, 1999; Knorr-Cetina, 1999). The persuasive discourse of written argument is one such type of written communication that has played a significant role in the development of scientific knowledge (Bazerman, 1988; Gross, 1990). As noted by Yore et al. (2006), written communication provides a means to articulate evidence, warrants, and claims; reflect on proposed ideas; critique the scientific work of others; and establish proprietorship of intellectual property. An important dimension of science learning is the ability to use, assess, and critique evidence (Hodson, 2003; Yore et al., 2003). This ability includes understanding the relationships among questions, data, and claims, as well as how these relationships can be organized to formulate evidence for a given task and audience (Wallace et al., 2004). While the use of evidence in reasoning is a noted goal of scientific inquiry, little research has focused on the difficulties students may have integrating data with text to formulate coherent arguments. This chapter examines specific rhetorical demands necessary to prepare a successful scientific argument. The theoretical framework for this study incorporates research of writing to learn science and argumentation in science. We investigate these issues in a technology-rich university oceanography course designed for undergraduate non-science majors. The objective of this chapter is to identify and analyze the nature of the claims being made by the student writers and how these claims are developed as the lines of reasoning supporting a thesis. These analyses illustrate ways that large-scale earth data-sets can be used to prepare students to examine and employ evidence in scientific and socio-scientific domains. Drawing from the fields of argumentation theory and rhetoric of science as well as previous studies of an ongoing research program, specific epistemic and rhetorical criteria are developed and applied for the purposes of assessing the strength of the students’ arguments. These criteria were brought to bear on two types of writing tasks with differing rhetorical demands. In one case, the students use geological data to develop and sustain theoretical arguments regarding plate tectonics. In a second application, the students consider broader earth-climate issues, using similar evidence-based argumentation practices,

Mapping the Meme: A Geographical Approach to Materialist Rhetorical Criticism

Abstract: Memetics, the emerging and contested “science” of the meme, has much to offer critical communication studies. The meme, a replicator that functions as the basic unit of cultural change, is a valuable practical tool for rhetorical critics, and it is particularly useful for critical/cultural analysts interested in the seemingly superficial and trivial elements of popular culture. In addition to its functional utility, memetics issues a productive theoretical challenge to that trajectory of communication scholarship that seeks to further the materialist rhetorical project by developing and deploying the ideograph, the only significant methodological tool developed for the purposes of materialist criticism. Through a contrast between the “geographical” meme and the “historical” ideograph, I explore the utility of the meme as a productive concept for the analysis of contemporary culture.

Guidelines for CEO‐speak: editing the language of corporate leadership

Abstract: Purpose – The paper highlights the strategic importance of being alert to the power of the language and words used by CEOs in their various communications – their CEO‐speak.Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a close reading analysis of several contemporary examples of one of the most significant genres of CEO‐speak – the CEO's annual letter to stockholders.Findings – Four perspectives important for understanding corporate strategy are highlighted: the importance of CEO‐speak as a linguistic marker of CEO narcissism; the revealing nature of metaphors chosen by CEOs; the potential rhetorical potency that arises from the way CEO‐speak is framed; and the significance of cultural keywords.Research limitations/implications – Case examples, such as the close readings in this article, possess the strength of specific instance detail and interpretation, and the ostensible weakness arising from interpretation of small samples. But such research may provide for a reframing of conceptual perspectives and...

An Investigation of Three Chinese Students' English Writing Strategies

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the writing processes of second language (L2) writers, specifically examining the writing strategies of three Chinese post-graduate students in an Australian higher education institution. The study was prompted by the paucity of second language writing strategies of Chinese students in an authentic context. Data collected from a semi-structured interview, questionnaire, retrospective post-writing discussion, and written drafts of papers were analysed. The findings indicate that the three participants employed rhetorical strategies, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies in their writing practice. This study supports Silva's finding that L2 writing process is strategically, rhetorically, linguistically different from first language (L1) writing process (1993). Data demonstrated that metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective strategies except rhetorical strategies (organisation of paragraphs) transferred across languages positively.

It's the economy, stupid! Classifying power crimes

Abstract: The debate around the criminality of white-collar crime is far from exhausted, leaving one wondering whether Sutherland (1945), when asking ‘is white-collar crime crime?’ intended to pose a mere rhetorical question and enjoy the interminable debate and controversies such a question was bound to generate. After providing a review of the major arguments which emerge from such debate, this paper notes the ambiguity of the responses given to Sutherland's original question. Given the increasing variety of white-collar criminal offences being committed, and the avalanche of crimes perpetrated by states and other powerful actors, scholars are faced with a fuzzy analytical framework, with the result that some may be tempted to describe as crime everything they, understandably, find disturbing. The complexity, evasiveness and deceptive profile of the crimes of the powerful contribute to this process, so that the expansion of criminology into the terrain of powerful offenders risks turning our object of study into ‘everything we might not like at the time’ (Cohen, 1993, p. 98). What follows is an attempt to classify the diverse white-collar, corporate and state offences, with a view to drawing a tentative template within which each offence can be identified as a distinct type of illegitimate or harmful conduct. Prior to attempting such classification, however, a preliminary proviso is necessary as to which specific conducts the proposed typology will include.

Textual Construction of the Female Body: A Critical Discourse Approach

Abstract: Acknowledgements Preface: Code and Body - an intervention Studying the Language of the Female Body: Some Context Genre, Text-Type and Rhetorical Strategy Naming and Describing Equating, Contrasting, Enumerating and Exemplifying Assuming and Implying The Body in Time and Space Processes and Opinions Conclusions Bibliography Index

Design Research, an Oxymoron?

Abstract: An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms. The word oxymoron is of Greek origin. It combines the word oxy (=sharp) and moron (=dull). Thus, oxymoron not only names a contradiction in terms, it is an oxymoron as well. Oxymoronsmay be used for achieving rhetorical effects, as in working vacation and uninvited guest. They may also result from conceptual sloppiness, as in extremely average, original copy, or same difference. Oxymorons may remain unnoticed when the meanings of the contradictory parts are not distinguished, as in spendthrift, virtual reality, and Artificial Intelligence. Typically, contradictions of this kind are resolvedby taking one term as the inferior attribute of a superior concept. For example, unbiased opinion is a kind of opinion, accurate estimate is a kind of estimate, and the reply “no comment” is not taken as a comment.