Uses President Bush's commencement speech to compare and contrast the "link and impact turnaround," an accepted form of argument in academic debate, with the "linguistic turnaround" as executed in political discourse. (NH)

Examines how texts are constrained by cultural forces in a critical analysis of the controversy regarding rap group Public Enemy's Professor Griff and his universalizing claims about Jews. Investigates the economic, political, and ideological mechanisms that encouraged the band to withdraw Griff's comments and replace it with a text more…

Conventional wisdom holds that the right-wing John Birch Society disintegrated during the late 1960s. An examination of the society's periodical readership indicates that it has, instead, expanded. Moreover, this expansion occurred during a period of ideological dissonance for the organization, a fact that undermines confidence in the explanation…

Although for the 15 years preceding his election as President of the United States Ronald Reagan muted his anti-Soviet rhetoric in order to achieve political power, since his election he has returned to anti-Sovietism in an effort to redirect American foreign policy against the Soviets. At the same time, however, he employs a rhetorical strategy…

Argues that the legitimacy crisis in Iran in 1978-79 arose from the contrasting views of authority espoused by the Shah and the Ayatollah over 25 years and describes how their rhetoric expresses the two impulses of the progressive and the traditionalist orientation of authority. Employs a critical perspective to analyze various rhetorical…

Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers" speech was an innovative use of television for political communication. Like television news itself, the campaign fund crisis behind the speech can be thought of in the same terms as other television melodrama, with the speech serving as its climactic episode. The speech adapted well to television because…

Discourse analysis addresses questions regarding both spoken and written communications and can be applied to purposes and practices of information study that appear in books and journals in the field. Applications of discourse analysis to information include investigation of the social, political, and technical implications of the word…

Discusses the public rhetoric created during the debate over the Panama Canal treaties. Examines three foreign policy dramas that emerged: Cold War, New World Order, and Power Politics. Argues that these dramas provide insight into how foreign policy rhetoric reflects Americans' conceptions of themselves and their global responsibility. (JD)

Anthropologists have indicated that the need to act politically and to avoid the appearance of such action is marked in egalitarian societies. The perils of confrontation in such societies often foster indirect and highly allusive speech. This paper invesitgates the relationship between direct and indirect speech in an Indo-Fijian community which…

Argues that the form and function of presidential foreign policy rhetoric are grounded in a nation's acceptable images of political reality. Examines the rhetorical responses of Presidents Reagan and Mitterrand to the terrorist bombing in Beirut and to acts of military interventions by the United States and France in Grenada and Chad. (JD)

Indicates that (1) the prevalence of four selected cognitive strategies among voters shifted during the 1984 presidential campaign and (2) communication behavior differed between persons using the same strategies at different stages of the campaign. Supports research suggesting that campaign communication is not just a simple function of…

To determine formal principles of discourse processing and production, a study reviewed theories in various disciplines related to language and/or thought and thereby rationalized an approach of quantitative matrix analysis to the problems caused by discrepant discourse structures encountered in second language learning. Statistical analyses of…