The original text, literal, and free translations of a story are examined for dramatic, phonological, and grammatical style. Terseness is compensated for by variation of utterance; literary characteristics are repetition, ellipses, flashbacks, and dependent sentences. (MSE)

Still no decisive result has been achieved in the automatic machine recognition of sentences of a natural language. Current research concentrates on developing algorithms for syntactic and semantic analysis. It is obvious that clues from all levels of perception have to be taken into account if a long term solution is ever to be found. (Author/MSE)

In the "Gorgias," Plato focuses attention upon the value of dialectic as opposed to rhetoric, as well as the status of orators as opposed to philosophers. Through his agent, Socrates, Plato confirms dialectic as a legitimate endeavor while calling into question the place of rhetoric. Socrates is portrayed as a director who enacts a…

A study examined cohesive reference in a newspaper report of a law case, with the intention of helping students read such texts. Occurrences of two classes of items signaling referential cohesion were analyzed: personals (personal pronouns and possessive adjectives) and demonstratives (including the definite article). Factors that might lead a…

A study examined three eulogies offered by Adlai Stevenson upon the deaths of important public figures (Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Sir Winston Churchill), in order to determine how each address fulfilled the purposes of this unique rhetorical genre. Each eulogy was examined with the purposes of eulogistic speaking in mind: (1) to…

This study examined the authorship and discourse types of Canadian basal anthologies to determine whether the lingering centrality of the basal anthology in Canadian programs controls students and teachers by controlling language and reading. Each selection within five Canadian basal series (Gage Expressways II, Ginn Journeys, Holt Impressions,…

A corporate employee newsletter offers an ideal opportunity to discover how literacy functions as a means of assimilating individuals into a social structure. Underlying the corporate newsletter's assimilative function are the assumptions: (1) that in reading, employees rely on attitudes toward types of texts evolved within society as a whole; and…

An analysis of the role of the word "hence" and its near-synonyms examines the relationship between logic as a science, as a natural language, and as argumentation. The analysis is done in the context of elementary propositional logic. The first section is a limited discussion of the standard logician's treatment relegating "hence" to the realm of…

In decoding a text, one chooses the interpretation involving maximal redundancy, selecting meanings that are most likely and least surprising in the relevant context. Clues for this selection of meanings are gathered from phonetic, phonemic, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and stylistic levels. In disambiguating third-person-pronoun references…

A study examined whether male and female writers would respond in identifiably different ways to the same writing task, and whether a content analysis of the discourse produced for these writing tasks would reveal distinctly "male" and "female" concerns. It was hypothesized that themes relating to autonomy would appear more often in men's essays,…

Recognizing the proliferation of persuasive language in advertising and in politics, this guide explains how to analyze political language for its persuasive techniques and why it is important to do so. The first chapter of the book provides a rationale for analyzing persuasion, and an overview of the book. The remaining chapters explore various…

An examination of three articles written in the year 1900-1901 by the young rhetoric instructor Gertrude Buck reveals her influence on the development of modern rhetorical theory. Her view that discourse is a social act, her attempts to free discourse from formal rhetoric and the expectations of teachers, and her insistence that rhetoric should…

A discussion of pragmatic choice in the use of the possessive pronoun or indefinite article (e.g., "I broke my finger" versus "I broke a finger," and "My leg hurts" versus "A leg hurts") looks at the constructions in the light of a theory of division of pragmatic labor that suggests a binary system of…

Historians of rhetoric have generally accepted the view that Adam Smith rejected the principles of classical rhetoric. However, while there can be no doubt that Smith greatly truncated the five classical arts of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) by reducing his concerns largely to style and arrangement, he did not…

A study of collaboration and the ongoing negotiation of authority in police helicopter work focused on inflight communication in one helicopter during two weeks of operation. Data were drawn from audio and video recordings of internal and external communications obtained inflight and from observation and physiological indicators of stress and…