Discusses whether the methods of linguistic analysis can help students of English as a second language (ESL) as they struggle with a complex piece of creative writing. Argues that stylistic analysis, instead of aiding an ESL student's reading, actually impedes it because it is alien to the spirit in which persons read. (SED)

Examines features of and sources for the discourse of Martin Luther King, Jr., as they relate to the language and assumptions favored by his listeners and readers in an effort to understand how speakers and writers can successfully argue from premises that audiences accept. Indicates how an understanding of King can help in composition…

The author compares some systems of the aims of discourse ranging from the Aristotelian and Aquinas schools to the Buhler, Jakobsen, and Kinneavy theories, and pleads for the preservation of the liberal arts tradition with composition as a basic course. (DS)

Business letter-writers are advised to develop reader empathy and benefit before they ask a favor. The author analyzed two model 16th century letters of request to determine if similar advice was given in the past, and found that the request was subordinate to building a mutually beneficial relationship. (PD)

Argues that studies on how and why humans talk, however precise the methodology, do not have the quality of science. Contends that these studies contain the essence of criticism and should be regarded as such. (PD)

Analyzes a case where a group of local steelworkers in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, in conjunction with a small group of Protestant ministers, sought to gain public support for the redress of grievances, and how their subordination by the United Steel Workers' union and the Lutheran Church influenced their rhetorical activities. (SR)

Examines how, in the 1920s and 1930s, birth control advertisements (prolific and illegal) conflicted with the arguments for birth-control legalization. Applies M. Bakhtin's grotesque and classical categories and M. Douglas's pollution metaphors to analyze the language birth-control advocates used to distinguish between medical and nonmedical…

Reviews Deborah Tannen's collection of essays, "Gender and Discourse." The review maintains that this collection is padded with anecdotes but provides little evidence of the research supposedly underlying this work. It is concluded that what is needed in a discussion of gender and discourse is a methodology in which linguistic features…

Analyzes Fisher Ames' fiery speech of 1796 on the Jay Treaty. Demonstrates the influence of Scottish enlightenment thinkers (particularly in moral sense philosophy and faculty psychology) on Ames and his rhetoric. Demonstrates how Ames made a compelling case to shift the standard of political judgment from reason to passion. (SR)

Examines within Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" two representative orientations (reasons and experience) as indices of popular attitudes about the rhetorical arts during the eighteenth century. Argues that, as a satire on rhetorical pretensions and excess, this novel is an important document in the venerable battle between the…

Explores the social circumstances of academic writing. Looks at student and professional academic writers and readers as participants in a complex literary genre, with its own conventions, ideological assumptions, and epistemological implications. Argues that academics must become cultural critics. (RAE)

Contributes to rhetorical theory and to an understanding of social movements and countermovements by examining the journal of a Massachusetts anti-suffrage organization. Finds that it was principally reactive, that its basic themes illustrated the ideology of the anti-suffrage movement, and that this ideology was reflected in the organizational…

A study explored the implications of a rhetorical approach to professional education in business--specifically, how a social constructivist view of language might change how students learn concepts and theories of business. It focused on undergraduate education in management, with data drawn from a case study of a student in a pilot version of an…

Satirical writing offers a means of encouraging students to criticize those forms of victimization and inequality that trouble them most without that overt, dogmatic indoctrination of a political agenda that many would consider an anathema to democratic teaching. The indirect, satirical jab provides students with an intellectually challenging and…

Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1960" is widely acknowledged to be a classic of contemporary political history. Using the concepts of Northrop Frye, a study examined the narrative structure of White's work and contends that the book's power derives from its form as a quest story in a high mimetic mode. As such, the book…