Suggests that while postmodern criticism has enjoyed a certain amount of currency, the cost of this success has come in the form of detachment. Argues that a reconfiguration of the relations between nature and culture suggests that the posthuman provides us with a fresh perspective from which to examine rhetoric. Identifies some of the problems…

Argues that the story's two themes--a celebration of artistic creativity and a ringing denunciation of prejudice--are closely related through their reliance on the importance of imagination, both artistic and moral. Employs recent work in moral theory to analyze the way in which the resolution of Estes's story turns on the characters' growth in…

Suggests that "The Shoe Bird" uses animal characters to explore women's authorship. Locates in Gloria, one of the main characters, evidence of the creativity and fortitude required to write as a woman in cultures where written language has conventionally been seen as the domain of men. (SG)

Reports on research conducted by the Queensland Centre of the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Australian Research Consortium within the civil construction industry. Argues that the dominant discourse of new capitalism adopt the rhetoric of worker empowerment while actually implementing technologies of top-down control. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for…

Argues that R. A. Harris, in applying linguistic theory to technical writing, undermines his purpose by introducing irrelevant distinctions between competing syntactic theories and by failing to exploit the full potential of applications he mentions. Uses the passive construction to illustrate how linguistics can be used to advantage by technical…

Examines how the repressed feminine principle affects the four major discourses in Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose." Discusses the historical relationship between the masculine and the feminine in language and religion. Uses that historical frame to guide a close textual analysis of dialectical interplay between the masculine and the…

Provides a definition of comparison questions and shows how they relate to the semantic categories of two taxonomies for classifying questions, both of which omit comparison questions. Examines the comparison questions that auditors generate when they diagnose problems in a company. (SR)

Examines the use of ironic quotation in academic writing. Considers differences in irony within published exchanges, conference discussions, and unpublished papers. Argues that irony begins with rhetorical relations (between quoting writer, quoted writer, and reader) which leads to discipline-specific assumptions and interpretations. (KEH)

Discusses rhetoric as mirroring psychology. Examines Aristotle's three "pisteis"--the pathetic, logical, and ethical proofs, paralleling them to Freud's id, ego, and super-ego. Explores an adequate feminine psychology and a corresponding rhetoric. Outlines two models of persuasive discourse, the rational world paradigm and the narrative…

Investigates recursion in the paragraph, discussing it in the context of grammatical hierarchy and illustrating it by use of natural texts. Analyzes two short narrative texts at the paragraph and discourse levels, and presents both in tree diagram and function-set representations. (KEH)

Identifies and describes the features of spoken discourse that native speakers of English consider to be indicative of level of intellectual functioning. Discourse criteria include detail, coherence, story construction, storytelling performance, and metacomments. (SR)

Presents a description of textual cohesion in Modern standard Chinese (MSC), and describes three types of relations as discourse and text features that contribute to the overall unity or coherence of a text. (24 references) (Author/VWL)

Responds to two papers, written by Bruce E. Gronbeck and Allan Megill, which appeared in the 1987 Alta proceedings on argumentation. Questions the heavy distinction between narrative and argument which informs their positions. (MS)

Tests Walter R. Fisher's claim that all forms of discourse can be viewed as types of narrative by applying the narrative paradigm to three works that cannot traditionally be considered stories. Finds that the narrative approach is of little use when applied to discourse that does not tell a story. (SR)

Argues that the 1988 Presidential Debates were debates both by definition and in the strategies employed by the candidates. Notes that these debates are rhetorical events in the larger framework of a political campaign. Suggests that criteria for "winning" should be consistent with the purpose of political debate. (MM)