CCR 601: *Rhetoric Review* and Rhetorical Analysis: Danisch, Eubanks, Ritter, and Elliot

601 Notes

10/28/09

Rhetoric Review

Each of these articles are from RR, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2008

Features

• Obviously the focus is rhetorical studies / rhetorical analysis
• Short abstract of argument
• Argument laid out up front and often restated
• Review of lit is on rhetorical traditions/definitions usually provided
• Sometimes organization of article laid out
• Sometimes methods of analysis defined
• Key passages from texts are used for analysis
• Other scholars used as framework and evidence for analysis
• Concludes with a call for new ways of analyzing the terms in question
• Endnotes and works cited (MLA)
• Topics in this issue (rhetorical analysis of…): rhetorical features in the rhetorics of law; rhetorical features in the rhetorics of globalization and government; student public discourse online meets classroom practices; Jewish laws and morals (midrash) as applied to democratic culture and literature when analyzing an author’s work

ROBERT DANISCH

“Aphorisms, Enthymemes, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. on the First Amendment”

• Investigates how Supreme court justice Holmes uses aphorisms for enthymematic reasoning
• Some of his moves:
• Introduction: outlines his argument, reviews some rhetorical traditions of analyzing law, defines aphorism and enthymeme, restates his thesis in most paragraphs
• Application: provides key passages from these texts for the reader before analyzing them, analyzes Holmes calling on sources (Morson, Lerner, Menand, Posner) and in later sections argues how enthymemes and aphorisms are alike (in the ways that they persuasive through audience’s held assumptions and how they leave interpretations going).

PHILIP EUBANKS

“An Analysis of Corporate Rule in Globalization Discourse: Why We Need Rhetoric to Explain Conceptual Figures”

• Investigates how metaphors (specifically the metaphor Corporations are Government) work to influence linguistic choices and the ideologies depended upon to interpret evidence. Applies conceptual metaphor theory to argue rhetoric works to create metaphors that cognitively reshape “political and ideological commitments” (237).
• Some of his moves
• Introduction: outlines his argument, defines key terms (conceptual metaphors) by drawing on Lakoff and Johnson and then providing examples, explicitly signals his argument (“I argue that…”),
• Provides a method of analysis section (part of a larger case study, reviews his selection process) and overviews the organization of his argument (in 3 sections)
• His analysis: provides historical context of globalization and his texts under analysis, points to common metaphorical phrases in these texts for analysis, provides key passages from these texts for the reader before analyzing them, cites sources as evidence for his analysis (Karliner, Hightower, Perkins, etc.)

KELLY RITTER

“E-Valuating Learning: Rate My Professors and Public Rhetorics of Pedagogy”

• Placing rhetoric as public discourse and civic resistance, Ritter investigates how RMP works as a way for students to engage in public assessment of pedagogy, thus leading teachers to think in new ways about classroom instruction focusing on civic engagement and online communication.
• Some of her moves
• Historicizes student evaluation, provides a framework of rhetorical studies; defines terms (public discourse, rhetoric as resistance); Cites Berlin, Enos, Couture, Crowley, Giroux, among many others; organizes under major claims (we value evaluation, pedagogy and civic engagement is going public in online discussion forums, we should bring RPM discourse in the classroom); provides clear examples of the online text

NORBERT ELLIOT

“A Midrash for Louise Rosenblatt”

• Analyzes Louise Rosenblatt’s Literature as Exploration to argue that literature works to shape democratic culture and citizenry.
• Some of his moves
• Provides context of Rosenblatt and argues that she’s hugely under-recognized in the field; likens Rosenblatt’s philosophies to the New Deal; defines “midrash,” contextualizing how rabbinic literature contributes to woman studies and lit theory; organizes analysis under the three steps for midrashing: parable (her bio), paraphrase (summary of her works), and prophecy (what she foresaw in the discipline); uses a dramatic monologue to illustrate liberated expression; ends with the words of Louise

(Rhetorical) Analysis

• Collin’s answer: when performing RA, we are performing some kind of separation (opposite of synthesis). Break down layers or scales of a particular object. Differentiating the reality from what is perceived or looking at new scale to alter our perception of a particular event or text or phenomenon. For the purpose of noticing things that we hadn’t noticed before.
• We start with a site or text or something we want to investigate
• Framework of investigation that you take a closer look at a common thread
• Subjective Purpose

CCR 691: Bazerman and Prior (2003) *What Writing Does and How It Does It*

Bazerman, Charles and Prior, Paul (Eds.). (2003). What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Executive Summary:

For this edited collection, Bazerman and Prior suggest in their introduction that discourse analysis lends itself not only to analyzing verbal discourse in linguistics and sociolinguistics, but also to research in rhetoric, composition, literary studies, and communication studies (among other disciplines). Thus, the authors attempt to combine practices from each of these fields of inquiry to catalog various research methods for scholars interested in textual analysis. They include discussions such as analysis of content, narrative works, intertextuality, code-switching, media texts, textual histories, conversation as well as the analysis of various linguistic and rhetorical features among these practices of analysis. Most chapters provide definitions, methods, methodologies, a review of literature, examples of applied analysis, practice prompts, and suggestions for further reading.

A number of assumptions ground their research methods: (a) that authoring texts is a complex cultural activity not only influenced by the author and his/her social contexts and experiences, but also other authors, other texts, genres, modes of communication, etc. (4); (b) that texts are written, visual, and verbal modes of communication that are produced through various mediums and interfaces including pen, paper, voice, conversation, thoughts, word processing tools, video, digital interfaces, and even sticks, knives, trees, and dirt (6-7); (c) that writing is a “complex literate activity that includes reading and writing, feeling and thinking, speaking and listening, observing and acting” (7); and, lastly, (d) that critical inquiry of texts is most assessable when analysts suspend judgment of what is normal and instead view all texts as being “strange objects worthy of close analytic attention” (7-8).

Quotable Quotes:

· “To understand writing, we need to explore the practices that people engage in to produce texts as well as the ways that writing practices gain their meanings and functions as dynamic elements o specific cultural settings” (2).

· What to consider when analyzing texts: “how texts direct people’s attention to various objects and concerns; how different linguistic, rhetorical, and graphic resources make possible the creation of meaning; how texts depend on and use other texts; how texts influence people’s beliefs and actions; how people learn to recognize, read, and produce genres (texts of certain types); how people actually go about producing texts; and how social systems of activity depend on and promote particular kinds of texts” (3).

An overview of chapters 1-7:

· In “Content Analysis: What texts Talk About” (13-32), Thomas Huckin defines content analysis as “the identifying, quantifying, and analyzing of specific words, phrases, concepts, or other observable semantic data in a text or body of texts with the aim of uncovering some underlying thematic or rhetorical pattern running through these texts” (14). Huckin also outlines the methodological procedures of content analysis (16-19), provides real examples of research using this approach (19-26), and assesses the approach for its criticisms and virtues (26-28).

· In “Poetics and Narrativity: How Texts Tell Stories” (33-56), Phillip Eubanks argues that the structure and function of language using narrative, metaphor, and metonymy have significant social power since these forms subconsciously shape cultural thinking and practices. Eubanks also suggests that poetic and narrative forms not only shape the writing of fiction, but also argumentative and scientific research practices. To exemplify the narrative approach, for instance, Eubanks describes his method of analyzing story-telling features in texts written by Bill gates, noting how he (Eubanks) selected texts, analyzed them, categorized his analyses, and applied narrative and rhetorical theory to make an argument about the functions of social thinking and argumentative processes (36-42). After exemplifying metaphor (42-50) and other figures like metonymy (50-52), Eubanks concludes that “studies of narrative, metaphor, and other figures are not just concurrent or collocated but inherently connected” (53).

· In “Linguistic Discourse Analysis: How the Language in Texts Works” (57-82), Ellen Barton views discourse analysis as “a method for analyzing the ways that specific features of language contribute to the interpretation of texts in their various contexts” (57). Barton explains how linguists—following various methods including ethnography of communication, interactive sociolinguistics, genre analysis, systemic linguistics, and critical discourse analysis—work to explore the ways language is structured in given contexts, analyzing the function (purpose and effects) of these structures. The chapter is divided into sections discussing and exemplifying discourse analysis used in (a) the analysis of oral-written language in linguistics and composition studies (62-65); and, (b) rich feature analysis (e.g. analyzing awkward sentences) (65-74).

· In “Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts” (83-96), Charles Bazerman outlines terms and practices for research methods analyzing how texts rely on other texts in making meaning and posits that “intertextaulity is not just a matter of which other texts you refer to, but how you use them, what you use them for, and ultimately how you position yourself as a writer to them to make your own statement” (94). Methodologically speaking, he suggests that you (as researcher of intertextuality) should identify “why you are engaged,” “what questions you hope to answer,” “the specific texts you want to examine,” and “the traces of other texts that you wish to consider,” and then work to “[make] observations and interpretations,” “look for more subtle clues,” “make a list” and “look for a pattern” (91-92).

· In “Code-Switching and Second Language Writing: How Multiple Codes Are Combined in a Text” (97-122), Marcia Z. Buell illustrates how “Code-switching offers particularly rich insights for examination of second- (multi-) language or dialect speakers and writers who must not only negotiate across recognizably distinct languages or language variants, but also must worked through the complexity attached to learning and suing an unfamiliar set of codes” (98). Buell offers an extensive example where she analyzes a student’s essay for code-switching using not only contrastive analysis and interlanguage theory, but also using contrastive rhetoric (106-117).

· In “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media” (123-166), Anne Frances Wysocki unpacks definitions of basic concepts used for analyzing various media texts, including the underlying assumptions for analyzing media texts (123-126), the “categories and terminology to use in analysis” of media texts (126-137), and a suggested “approach for analyzing the visual aspects of a text” (137-140).

· In “Tracing Process: How Texts Come Into Being” (167-200), Paul Prior discusses how and why researchers study writing processes. He defines how major concepts (like inscription, composing, text, and authorship) influence writing as practice. Methods for analysis are catalogued and include practices for “collecting and keeping track of texts,” “intertextual analysis,” “eliciting writers’ accounts,” “observation of writing,” and “integrating data from multiple sources” (172-196). Prior suggests that using multiple methods tracing textual histories (such as “intertextual analysis, participant accounts, and observation of activity” 197) will help researchers carefully consider and analyze how authorship and social contexts influence the composition of texts.

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