This paper focuses on the role that electronic mail, specifically CEDA-L (the Cross Examination Debate Association listserv) and NDT-L (National Debate Tournament listserv), play in the development of debate theory. The tabula rasa paradigm is chosen as the case study. Through a rhetorical analysis of the postings regarding tabula rasa and limited…

The purpose of this study was to identify the content and form of the conversations and recognize the variables that are acting during visits to animal exhibits, and the influence on conversational content of both different types of locations and animal exhibits and visit rationales. Conversations of children between the ages of 3 and 12 years and…

The social epistemic that the Mennonite-Anabaptists have been cultivating as their hermeneutic method for 470 years focuses on local congregations as discourse communities of faith, promoting egalitarian lay participation equal to that of members with formal ministries. "The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective" features a…

This 40-item annotated bibliography is intended to introduce speech communication educators to some of the principal resources and case studies in the rhetoric of inquiry. The first two sections of the bibliography include works that explore the rhetoric of inquiry specifically. The following three sections cite theoretical works that have played…

Realistic spoken discourse, as it actually is used in real-life situations, would not be acceptable in the written medium: the established conventions of the written medium are not adequately equipped to convey the phonological subtleties and undertones of speech. Novelists use dialogue to imitate or mirror reality, but writing carries with it…

This paper analyzes the process of tenure using various conceptions of narrative as the interpretive lens for considering the meaning of achieving tenure. It first examines tenure as narrative performance, noting when, where, and in what context tenure is discussed. The paper then looks at tenure through Donald Polkinghorne's (1988) analytical…

An analysis of English intonation focuses on fall-rise and rise-fall instruction. Fall-rise intonation marks material from which the speaker would derive a precondition for what he is saying, while rise-fall intonation marks material from which the speaker would derive a consequence from what he is saying based on inversion of the clause where the…

The primary goal of translation is to enable an audience in a Target Language to understand a text/discourse which was ultimately not intended for them. The primary goal of text-analysis is to further the understanding of phenomena inside one language. There are several similarities between translation and text-analysis: both translation and…

John Milton employs classical rhetorical techniques in "Paradise Lost" to accomplish Satan's temptation of Eve which begins on line 524 and ends with line 732 of Book 9; however, Satan's oration resembles pejorative sophistry and Milton uses Ciceronian arrangement for Satan's argument. Milton envisions Satan as a clever, cunning creature…

Discourse analysis, as an approach to text, provides the teacher, student, and professional translator with resources for achieving objectivity and for making and justifying translation decisions. It offers a strategy for relating the problems and processes and discourse and the specific concerns to the objectives of the translator. It can be…

The Supreme Court opinion's absolute authority and guaranteed admission to the legal canon make it a rhetorically unique genre, but nevertheless one that is illuminated through close analysis. On June 30, 1986, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, expressing a judgment that the Federal Constitution does not…

Using sophistic theory and focusing on intersections in the practice and reception of sophistry and advertising, a study analyzed a contemporary advertising campaign. A number of extrinsic similarities between sophistic and advertising rhetoric exist: their commercial basis, their popular reception as dishonest speech, and the reception of both as…

This paper examines the paratextual structure of news texts, i.e., the headline system (superheadline, main headline, and subheadline) and the lead. In the first part of the paper T. A. van Dijk's interdisciplinary theory (1988) of "news in the press" is reviewed with special reference to the status and function assigned to the paratext.…

Noting that different audiences have constructed widely varying interpretations of the figure and work of Margery Kempe ("The Book of Margery Kempe" dates from the beginning of the 15th century), this paper examines the subversiveness of Margery's rhetoric for medieval audiences and for modern audiences and students. The paper first…

A study examined whether composition specialists can counterbalance the potential privileging of the assessment perspective, or of self-appointed interpreters of that perspective, through the study of assessment discourse as text. Fourteen assessment texts were examined, most of them journal articles and most of them featuring the common…