Examining the one-child-per-family movement (OCFM) in China using Lloyd Bitzer's "Functional Communication: A Situational Perspective," this essay provides insight into how rhetoric has functioned and is functioning in this difficult situation. A brief geographic review provides a basis for understanding the complex set of problems…

A survey of colleagues in the communication discipline sought to assess the future of rhetoric and public address as an integral part of curriculum and degree programs. A trend that appeared in the remarks was that scholars in the field of rhetoric have too long eschewed the broadening of the concept of rhetorical criticism. Rhetoric should be…

Supreme Court decisions tend to take the form of either (1) an act of justification or argumentation that defends the verdict of the communicator, or (2) a construction of a new symbolic reality that influences the world view of its audience. The "Roe vs. Wade" decision is an example of the merger of these two rhetorical functions. The…

Corazon Aquino's appearance before the U.S. Congress provides an opportunity for the rhetorical critic to study (1) how the form of speech--particularly the romantic form--enabled Aquino to establish the legitimacy of her claims as President of the Philippines; (2) how she used her role as Benigno Aquino's widow to complete the romantic myth; and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 9 titles deal with the following topic: (1) the implications of Foucault's archeological theory of discourse for contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, (2) isolating the behavioral correlates of deception, (3) the…

Presuming that rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to a situation in the same sense that an answer comes into existence in response to a question, or a solution in response to a problem, then Mexico is fertile ground for rhetoric and the study of rhetoric. Mexico is a country under fire. Economic and political problems threaten…

This booklet is a collection of abstracts, literature reviews, and reports on experiments in the communication field. Ninety abstracts from speech communication literature (1970-1977) are presented under the following categories: communication theory, research methodology, interpersonal communication, rhetorical theory and criticism, persuasion,…

Reexamines Gunnar Myrdal's "An American Dilemma" (1944), which argued race relations in America would improve because the American Creed of democratic liberalism created a dilemma between existing racial prejudice and the national ideology. Describes how Myrdal's deterministic perspective robbed civil rights historiography of its drama…

Considers President Reagan's address to the nation on February 5, 1981, concerning the state of the economy, as a contemporary secular version of the jeremiad, a rhetorical form that has persisted in America since colonial times. Describes Reagan's skillful use of the genre to motivate public response to what he viewed as an economic crisis. (NKA)

National reports on higher education are seen as a form of democratic propaganda whose aim is participation. Their progress is described through content analysis of media responses. "Aesthetic judgment" is seen as the key to participation in reform by college faculty and administrators. (Author/MLW)

Discusses Senator Kennedy's address on "Tolerance and Truth in America," given at Liberty Baptist College in 1983, to propose a "contract" for the public relationship between himself and Jerry Falwell in which each could be more civil toward the other without betraying his constituencies or threatening the other's supporters.…

Examines Black Americans' attempts in the 1960s to achieve legitimacy and <equality>, defined as ideological commitment to promote "sameness" and "identity" explicitly through rhetoric of control. Investigates how the culturetypal rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the counter-culture rhetoric of Malcolm X…

Analyzes use of term "professional" in educational documents. Reevaluates term's use in context of contradictory official signals about perceived worth of Scottish teachers and teaching. Concludes term's function principally ideological, its meaning appropriated by parties at interest, resulting in conceptual misunderstanding of…

Recent composition and literary theory suggests that the "I" of written discourse is illusory and does not represent an autonomous self. Argues for the development of a self-conscious voice in college writers that interprets in addition to merely recording events, a voice enabling students to enter into dialogue with teachers, texts, and…

The proclamation of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development by the United Nations has placed education in general, and environmental education in particular, at the front of a future full of important and uncertain meanings. On the one hand, those inviting a conceptual, theoretical and praxiological revision of the…