Purpose: This paper aims to discuss why there is often a gulf of difference between policy rhetoric and reality. In particular, the paper seeks to explore issues with the policy rhetoric, implementation process and the lens through which reality is perceived, explaining why these issues can open up a policy rhetoric-reality gap. This article also…

In this essay, the author "maps" a town that has grown in what was formerly frontier: he looked at twenty-four essays focusing on grammar instruction from "Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC)," published between 1987 and 2006, with a goal of identifying key areas of focus--town squares. While he found several trends and foci, most…

Interest in the sophists has recently intensified among rhetorical theorists, culminating in the notion that rhetoric is epistemic. Epistemic rhetoric has its first and deepest roots in sophistic epistemological and rhetorical traditions, so that the view of rhetoric as epistemic is now being dubbed "neo-sophistic." In epistemic…

Outlines two flaws in G. Thomas Goodnight's theory of the public sphere. Argues that Goodnight's distinction between the technical and public spheres is untenable and that modification of his position to recognize the technical nature of public argument strengthens the formulation. Suggests other more applicable terms to describe Goodnight's…

The "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution seems clear enough: when the government takes an individual's property, it must pay him or her for it. The "Sagebrush Rebellion" refers to the numerous incarnations of a movement to privatize public lands and contain environmental regulation. This…

Fahnestock and Secors "The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism" characterized literary criticism of the 1970s as conservative and self-celebratory. However, although literary theory has since undergone significant change, few rhetorical analyses of recent literary criticism as the preferred genre of a disciplinary discourse community have been…

Noting that discussions about the interaction of science and politics are often heard, this paper addresses how these discursive arenas are defined and distinguished. It argues that political and scientific discourse may be distinguished by the roles they assume on the rhetorical stage, and the relevant roles which emerge are implementers and…

The questioning of hegemonic discourses has become an essential element in many feminist, afro-centric, and literary theories of discourse. Scholars in these areas have explicated various indictments of the phallocentric, eurocentric, and essentialist linguistic strategies defined and perpetuated by dominant population groups, and some have begun…

Although memory was one of the five canons of classical rhetoric, the more contemporary, narrower definition of memory as the training of the mind to remember certain things has eliminated memory as a useful rhetorical canon. However, teachers of writing who do regard memory highly, can redefine memory to restore it as one of the canons of…

This paper describes the sources or speakers of the "new religions" as contemporary rhetorical-communicative movements and discusses their public speaking and communicative behavior. Specifically, the paper focuses on the relationship between spirituality and communication within the teachings of the leaders who nurture these new…

Investigates the issue of pluralistic readings and how they can be compared with each other, justified, and evaluated. Looks particularly at the five rhetorical analyses of Lucretia Coffin Mott's speech on women which follows this article. (TB)