Over the past two decades, critical discourse analysis has emerged as a major new multidisciplinary approach to the study of texts and contexts in the public sphere. Developed in Europe, CDA has lately become increasingly popular in North America, where it is proving especially congenial to new directions in rhetoric and composition. This essay…

Considers how silence has positive as well as negative attributes, and composition teachers can help students understand and use its aesthetic, ethical, and political resources in their personal writing. Notes that approaching silence in these ways can establish new alignments among the expressivist, psychoanalytical, and social discourses that…

Questions whether the discourse of community tends to deny full participation to people who differ from the consensual values of the majority. Argues that participation in an ethical discourse community must be guided by an ethics that directs people to value their differences. Reviews critiques of community. Presents an alternative discourse. (HB)