• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UA Campus RepositoryCommunitiesTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournalThis CollectionTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournal

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About

    AboutUA Faculty PublicationsUA DissertationsUA Master's ThesesUA Honors ThesesUA PressUA YearbooksUA CatalogsUA Libraries

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    Discovering rhetorical contexts: Topical strategies and tropical structure in academic discourse

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    azu_td_9927514_sip1_m.pdf
    Size:
    5.620Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Williams, Mark Thayne
    Issue Date
    1999
    Keywords
    Language, Rhetoric and Composition.
    Advisor
    Miller, Thomas P.
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Abstract
    This dissertation examines a fundamental concern in rhetoric and composition and across academic disciplines---the notion of context. Theories of context create practical problems because the term refers to potentially everything around a text. This complexity manifests in four ways: (1) Context first appears in publications as unexplained evaluations of speech and writing. These assumed contexts are problematic because evaluation, or judgment, should follow invention, not proceed it. The term appears as a given, not as an invention. (2) Writers must reduce contexts to define the specific dimensions of particular cases and issues. Kenneth Burke details these reductions when defining contextual thinking as a paradoxical process, an "alchemic moment," one where "transformations" occur (Grammar 23-24). Other writers later refer to the 'transformative' power of context without acknowledging these paradoxes and reductions. (3) Many writers claim that contexts determine the meaning of words and the appropriateness of particular rhetorical strategies. If contexts determine meaning, what choices do rhetoricians have to determine meaning in contexts? (4) Anthropologists, linguists, and historians develop ideas of contexts that do not account for the rhetorical origins of the term. Composition scholars in turn borrow from disciplines other that rhetoric when explaining context. I explore these issues with an etymology of context in classical, professional, and curricular discourse. This etymology shows how compositionists use context to do three things for writing instruction: evaluate discourse; suggest situations; arrange details and intentions. I argue that these three categories of context can be better understood in terms of an active rhetorical style: Cicero and Quintilian offer style as decorum, perspicere, and ornare. Teachers rely on these styles to evaluate writing, to render situations clearly, and to configure details and intentions. This active sense of style mediates notions of context that emerge from the social sciences and provides rhetorical background for the important work that context does in composition and other disciplines. I end this dissertation by returning to Giambattista Vico's etymological work on classical rhetoricians. I identify from him a triangular invention: how memory, imagination, and perception combine with style to construct contexts.
    Type
    text
    Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)
    Degree Name
    Ph.D.
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Graduate College
    English
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
    Collections
    Dissertations

    entitlement

     
    The University of Arizona Libraries | 1510 E. University Blvd. | Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
    Tel 520-621-6442 | repository@u.library.arizona.edu
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2017  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.