Showing papers on "Rhetorical question published in 2015"

An enhanced fear appeal rhetorical framework: leveraging threats to the human asset through sanctioning rhetoric

Abstract: Fear appeals, which are used widely in information security campaigns, have become common tools in motivating individual compliance with information security policies and procedures. However, empirical assessments of the effectiveness of fear appeals have yielded mixed results, leading IS security scholars and practitioners to question the validity of the conventional fear appeal framework and the manner in which fear appeal behavioral modeling theories, such as protection motivation theory (PMT), have been applied to the study of information security phenomena. We contend that the conventional fear appeal rhetorical framework is inadequate when used in the context of information security threat warnings and that its primary behavioral modeling theory, PMT, has been misspecified in the extant information security research. Based on these arguments, we propose an enhanced fear appeal rhetorical framework that leverages sanctioning rhetoric as a secondary vector of threats to the human asset, thereby adding the dimension of personal relevance, which is critically absent from previous fear appeal frameworks and PMT-grounded security studies. Following a hypothetical scenario research approach involving the employees of a Finnish city government, we validate the efficacy of the enhanced fear appeal framework and determine that informal sanction rhetoric effectively enhances conventional fear appeals, thus providing a significant positive influence on compliance intentions.

Codra: A novel discriminative framework for rhetorical analysis

Abstract: Clauses and sentences rarely stand on their own in an actual discourse; rather, the relationship between them carries important information that allows the discourse to express a meaning as a whole beyond the sum of its individual parts. Rhetorical analysis seeks to uncover this coherence structure. In this article, we present CODRA-a COmplete probabilistic Discriminative framework for performing Rhetorical Analysis in accordance with Rhetorical Structure Theory, which posits a tree representation of a discourse. CODRA comprises a discourse segmenter and a discourse parser. First, the discourse segmenter, which is based on a binary classifier, identifies the elementary discourse units in a given text. Then the discourse parser builds a discourse tree by applying an optimal parsing algorithm to probabilities inferred from two Conditional Random Fields: one for intra-sentential parsing and the other for multi-sentential parsing. We present two approaches to combine these two stages of parsing effectively. By conducting a series of empirical evaluations over two different data sets, we demonstrate that CODRA significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art, often by a wide margin. We also show that a reranking of the k-best parse hypotheses generated by CODRA can potentially improve the accuracy even further.

A Model of Rhetorical Legitimation: The Structure of Communication and Cognition Underlying Institutional Maintenance and Change

Abstract: We develop a model of rhetorical legitimation that specifies the communicative and cognitive structure underlying the maintenance and change of institutions. To do so we draw on Toulmin (1958) and his idea that social actors can use two structurally distinct forms of rhetoric: intrafield rhetoric and interfield rhetoric. We use this distinction to develop and advance novel arguments about the role of rhetoric in legitimation processes. Specifically, we theorize how the use of intrafield and interfield rhetoric shapes and reflects social actors' assumptions of legitimacy at two different levels. We then theorize how the use of intrafield rhetoric relates more to institutional maintenance, whereas the use of interfield rhetoric relates more to institutional change.

“What Good is Wall Street?” Institutional Contradiction and the Diffusion of the Stigma over the Finance Industry

Abstract: The concept of organizational stigma has received significant attention in recent years. The theoretical literature suggests that for a stigma to emerge over a category of organizations, a “critical mass” of actors sharing the same beliefs should be reached. Scholars have yet to empirically examine the techniques used to diffuse this negative judgment. This study is aimed at bridging this gap by investigating Goffman’s notion of “stigma-theory”: how do stigmatizing actors rationalize and emotionalize their beliefs to convince their audience? We answer this question by studying the stigma over the finance industry since 2007. After the subprime crisis, a succession of events put the industry under greater scrutiny, and the behaviors and values observed within this field began to be publicly questioned. As an empirical strategy, we collected opinion articles and editorials that specifically targeted the finance industry. Building on rhetorical analysis and other mixed methods of media content analysis, we explain how the stigmatizing rhetoric targets the origins of deviant organizational behaviors in the finance industry, that is, the shareholder value maximization logic. We bridge the gap between rhetorical strategies applied to discredit organizations and ones used to delegitimize institutional logics by drawing a parallel between these two literatures. Taking an abductive approach, we argue that institutional contradiction between field and societal-level logics is sufficient, but not necessary to generate organizational stigma.

Beyond Inclusion: Rethinking Rhetoric's Historical Narrative

Abstract: In this paper, the author reconsiders the historical narrative of Rhetorical Studies as a citizenship narrative and thus argues that much rhetorical theory works to uphold the value and ideal of citizenship, while often ignoring or reframing appeals that challenge the very bases of citizenship and the nation-state This account of Rhetoric's intellectual history reveals the very parameters for what deserves attention in disciplinary history The author suggests that this account also reveals the necessity to break from that history, not in order that Rhetoric become more inclusive but so that Rhetoric may be something entirely different, something constituted through non-normative, non-citizen, non-Western perspectives and ways of knowing and being

Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof.

Abstract: According to Johnson (Argumentation & Rhetoric (CD-ROM). OSSA, St. Catherines, Ontario, 1998), to engage in the practice of argumentation is “to enter argumentative space.” The problem with this endeavor is that different theoreticians see this space in different ways. We, from our point of view, distinguish between two general meta-perspectives in the study of argumentation: a dialectical perspective focusing on critical debate, and a rhetorical perspective concentrating on the most appropriate means of persuasion in a certain context. This distinction, of course, corresponds with the well-known Aristotelian division.

Using rhetorical structure in sentiment analysis

Abstract: A deep, fine-grain analysis of rhetorical structure highlights crucial sentiment-carrying text segments.

A Rhetorical Model of Institutional Decision Making: The Role of Rhetoric in the Formation and Change of Legitimacy Judgments

Abstract: We integrate a rhetorical perspective with neoinstitutional theory to develop a rhetorical model of institutional decision making. We use this model to describe how the communicative practices of decision makers both enable and constrain how actors manage the risk and uncertainty of their judgments and decisions within an institutional context. We first develop a dual conception of reason as both communication (public argument) and cognition (private argument). With this dual conception of reason, we conceptualize actors as active and passive speakers and listeners who interpret, produce, and present public and private arguments to persuade themselves and others to adopt, maintain, or reject practices. Speakers and listeners have cognitive limits and thus create presumptions or shared decision-making rules to help them efficiently produce and process the arguments needed to debate, evaluate, and adjudicate recurring institutional decisions. We suggest that arguments shape actors’ reasoning and judgment be...

The constitution of South Africa

Abstract: On a hot dusty day on 10 December 1996, in a ramshackle stadium facing 4000 South Africans in the town of Sharpeville, Nelson Mandela signed a new, radical, Constitution into being. On that day, the thousands who danced and sang in the blazing summer sun came to celebrate their freedom from the vicious apartheid regime and witness the closing of the final chapter in the country's remarkable negotiated peace process. What they also witnessed was a transformation in South African identity – both locally as well as globally. While constitutions have long been understood as a way of constituting a people I propose that they also serve as a performative rhetorical space in which the nation-state constitutes itself among a community of nations. Constitutions are never alone for the nation, though that is an important function of a constitution, but in a modern globalized world serve as an integral component of a nation's international identity as well.

Mixing metaphors: Building infrastructure for large scale school turnaround

Abstract: The purpose of this analysis is to increase understanding of the possibilities and challenges of building educational infrastructure—the basic, foundational structures, systems, and resources—to support large-scale school turnaround. Building educational infrastructure often exceeds the capacity of schools, districts, and state education agencies and, thus, requires collaborating with “lead turnaround partners” with specialized capabilities for such work. However, there is little research to guide the selection or operation of lead turnaround partners. The analysis uses a descriptive case study of one organization with success operating as a lead turnaround partner (Success for All) to develop a framework to guide the selection of lead turnaround partners, support their operations, and structure further research. While base level achievement gains can be realized within 3 years, the analysis suggests that fully establishing school-level infrastructure is estimated conservatively as a 7 years process, and fully establishing system-level infrastructure has been an on-going, 40 year process. The analysis suggests a strong need to balance the rhetorical urgency of “turnaround” with the understanding that building educational infrastructure to improve large numbers of underperforming schools will likely require massive, sustained technical, financial, policy, and political support.

Situating Speech: A Rhetorical Approach to Political Strategy

Abstract: Ideas are increasingly acknowledged as factors in explaining political behaviour But often they are treated as inert resources rather than dynamic instances of action in themselves The latter, I propose, requires reflection on the character of speech – as the medium of ideas – in responding to and refiguring a prevailing situation I undertake such reflection by setting out a rhetorical approach to political strategy Building upon ‘interpretive’ advances in political science I shift the focus from stable cognitive frames to the dynamics of argumentation where ideas work expressively I then explore the rhetorical aspect of strategising with attention to the way speech serves to orient audiences by creatively re-appropriating a situation That approach is shown to be consistent with a ‘dialectical’ political sociology that emphasises the interaction of structure and agency Finally, I sketch a method for undertaking rhetorical analysis and indicate how it might be applied to a concrete example

Effects of Culture on the Credibility of Robot Speech: A Comparison between English and Arabic

Abstract: As social robots begin to enter our lives as providers of information, assistance, companionship, and motivation, it becomes increasingly important that these robots are capableof interacting effectively with human users across different cultural settings worldwide. A key capability in establishing acceptance and usability is the way in which robots structure their speech to build credibility and express information in a meaningful and persuasive way. Previous work has established that robots can use speech to improve credibility in two ways: expressing practical knowledge and using rhetorical linguistic cues. In this paper, we present twostudies that build on prior work to explore the effects of language and cultural context on the credibility of robot speech. In the first study $( n =96)$, we compared the relative effectiveness of knowledge and rhetoric on the credibility of robot speech between Arabic-speaking robots in Lebanon and Englishspeaking robots in the United States, finding the rhetorical linguistic cues to be more important in Arabic than in English. In the second study $( n =32)$, we compared the effectiveness of credible robot speech between robots speaking either Modern Standard Arabic or the local Arabic dialect, finding the expression of both practical knowledge andrhetorical ability to be most important when using the local dialect. These results reveal nuanced cultural differences in perceptions of robots as credible agents and have important implications for the design of human-robot interactions across Arabic and Western cultures. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems---human factors, software psychology; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: UserInterfaces---evaluation/methodology, usercentered designFigure 1:The first study was conducted in both the United States (top) and Lebanon (bottom). Participants interacted with two robots acting as competing tour guides, each speaking with a different degree of practical knowledge and/or rhetorical ability.

The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception

Abstract: Recent work in argumentation theory has emphasized the nature of arguers and arguments along with various theoretical perspectives. Less attention has been given to the third feature of any argumentative situation - the audience. This book fills that gap by studying audience reception to argumentation and the problems that come to light as a result of this shift in focus. Christopher W. Tindale advances the tacit theories of several earlier thinkers by addressing the central problems connected with audience considerations in argumentation, problems that earlier philosophical theories overlook or inadequately accommodate. The main tools employed in exploring the central issues are drawn from contemporary philosophical research on meaning, testimony, emotion and agency. These are then combined with some of the major insights of recent rhetorical work in argumentation to advance our understanding of audiences and suggest avenues for further research.

A qualitative comparison method for rhetorical structures: identifying different discourse structures in multilingual corpora

Abstract: Explaining why the same passage may have different rhetorical structures when conveyed in different languages remains an open question. Starting from a trilingual translation corpus, this paper aims to provide a new qualitative method for the comparison of rhetorical structures in different languages and to specify why translated texts may differ in their rhetorical structures. To achieve these aims we have carried out a contrastive analysis, comparing a corpus of parallel English, Spanish and Basque texts, using Rhetorical Structure Theory. We propose a method to describe the main linguistic differences among the rhetorical structures of the three languages in the two annotation stages (segmentation and rhetorical analysis). We show a new type of comparison that has important advantages with regard to the quantitative method usually employed: it provides an accurate measurement of inter-annotator agreement, and it pinpoints sources of disagreement among annotators. With the use of this new method, we show how translation strategies affect discourse structure.

“Editing” Genes: A Case Study About How Language Matters in Bioethics

Abstract: Metaphors used to describe new technologies mediate public understanding of the innovations. Analyzing the linguistic, rhetorical, and affective aspects of these metaphors opens the range of issues available for bioethical scrutiny and increases public accountability. This article shows how such a multidisciplinary approach can be useful by looking at a set of texts about one issue, the use of a newly developed technique for genetic modification, CRISPRcas9.

Models of Judgment: Rhetoric and the Public Philosophies of Law

Abstract: This project responds to a need for new theoretical tools for understanding law as a site for the intersection of rhetoric and philosophy. In advancing the concept of “models of judgment” as a meta-theoretical approach to the philosophical rhetoric of jurisprudence, I argue that it provides a unique perspective on the rhetorical commitments undergirding prominent judicial theories. Paragons of good judgment crafted by Richard Posner, Martha Nussbaum, and Cass Sunstein are examined, foregrounding their rhetorical character and function.

The problem of grammar teaching: a case study of the relationship between a teacher's beliefs and pedagogical practice

Abstract: Through a case study of a first-language English teacher's approach to teaching writing, the significance of conceptual and affective beliefs about grammar for pedagogical practice is explored. The study explores a perceived dichotomy between grammar and creativity, examining a belief that attention to grammar is separate and secondary to the generation of ideas, the creation of meaning and to personal expression. It indicates that, in this case, these perceptions are related to formulaic approaches to the teaching of grammar for writing which separate content and form and reduce attention to grammar to a superficial level. Theoretically, the study provides evidence that beliefs play an important role in influencing pedagogy in contested areas of the curriculum. It demonstrates how affective and conceptual elements of belief can shape practice, particularly when external constraints on teaching are low. It argues that attempts to advance a rhetorical and contextualised approach to grammar, as evident in p...

Puzzling and powering in policy paradigm shifts: politicization, depoliticization and social learning

Abstract: This article provides a new framework for analysing the processes through which policy paradigms shift. It firstly argues that ‘paradigm shift’ is useful as a metaphorical conceptualization of radical policy change. However, it then reflects on the dominant ‘social learning’ approach, arguing for a greater focus on the political agency of policy actors. The article hence argues for a focus on a more diverse set of discursive processes driving change, including ‘rhetorical’ argumentation. As such, the article constructs a framework of the processes in and through which policy paradigms change using the concepts of politicization, depoliticization and social learning. (De)politicization, defined in terms of rhetorical acts that emphasize or deny the presence of political ‘agency’ in a policy context, can complement the social learning account by providing a framework that focuses on both discursive ‘puzzling’ and ‘powering’ processes. This generates useful empirical questions and a critical focus on the qua...

What Is an Education for Sustainable Development Supposed to Achieve--A Question of What, How and Why.

Abstract: This is a theoretical article to open the discussion of what an education for sustainable development is supposed to achieve and how teachers can help students to develop skills that might be needed in order to support a sustainable future. The focus in the article will be on education. As it is an article aiming to open this kind of discussion for further research, it summarizes a part of the research in the research area. This article presents the view that even as international organizations, states and governments advocate a change of the educational system to educate for sustainable development, researchers suspect that the change remains at a rhetorical level. If one wants to change the society and education, one of the cornerstones to start with is the education and training of already qualified teachers and teacher educators. This requires a change both in education and in teacher education.

Qui Parle Encore De Sébastien Castellion

Abstract: The 500th anniversary of Sebastian Castellio’s birthday presents an opportunity to evaluate the current vitality of research about this atypical humanist, too often remembered only for his defence of freedom of conscience in the Servetus case. Previously, Castellio’s destiny had been ordained by Protestant historiographers, led by Ferdinand Buisson. Nowadays, scholars scrutinise the work of the philologist and translator, taking a new look at issues such as tolerance and freedom of conscience in the light of Renaissance rhetorical practices and philosophical, theological and juristic thought. Recent scholarship on Castellio tries to avoid misinterpretations motivated by denominational or ideological beliefs, showing that rigorous scientific thinking must form the basis of reflection.

A Principled Complementarity of Method: In Defence of Methodological Eclecticism and the Qualitative-Quantitative Debate

Abstract: I found PhD study to be a stimulating, challenging and ideal conduit for exploring knowledge via discussion, argument and defence: to have the opportunity to explore method, methodology, epistemology, ontology and what may constitute 'acceptable' research practice is an enriching experience. I had previously heard of intepretivists decrying positivists et cetera, but I was unprepared to find quantitative researchers and lecturers openly dismissing qualitative approaches, and finding dismissals by qualitative researchers of the use of a quantitative approach: such are disappointing and confusing to a trainee researcher. Thus, a far less enriching experience for a trainee researcher is being faced with assumptions and preferences of experienced researchers that extend from defending approach to decrying any approaches that may not be aligned to their own. As a result, this paper will focus upon the quantitative-qualitative debate (QQD) and offer a critical evaluation upon the issues surrounding affiliations between method and epistemological paradigm. It will also question the validity of 'traditional' divides between qualitative and quantitative methods. This discussion will facilitate an answer to the question: 'can the researcher complement quantitative with qualitative method and vice versa within the same research paradigm and subsequent design'? I will explore here a claim that no more than a rhetorical link exists between method and epistemology and that the 'distinctions' between quantitative and qualitative methods are often erroneous and do not always reflect differing paradigmatic assumptions. Further, I will suggest quantitative and qualitative methods be used in a complementary fashion as opposed to an integrated approach. I will further claim that the quantitative-qualitative debate has much to offer trainee researchers and should thus be kept open, as long as unprejudiced and tolerant discussion is encouraged. This article is available in The Qualitative Report: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol7/iss3/8 A Principled Complementarity of Method: In Defence of Methodological Eclecticism and the Qualitative-Quantitative Debate by Andy Roberts The Qualitative Report, Volume 7, Number 3 September, 2002

First-Year University Writing : A Corpus-Based Study with Implications for Pedagogy

Abstract: 1. First-Year Writing Today 2. Linguistic and Rhetorical Studies in English: A History and a Way Forward 3. Context-informed Corpus Linguistic Analysis of FY Writing 4. Corpus Linguistic Analysis of Scope and Certainty in FY and Expert Writing 5. Linguistically-Informed Pedagogical Applications 6. Implications and Lingering Questions