Language as Sensuous Action: Sir Richard Paget,Kenneth Burke,and Gesture-Speech Theory

This somatic genealogy of Dramatism's core terms—symbolic action, attitude, identification—argues for the importance of keeping rhetoric, rhetorical theory, and rhetorical pedagogy more closely tied to bodies that generate, induce, and respond to rhetoric. It does so by examining Burke's use of Sir Richard Paget's theory that spoken language derives from the use and development of bodily gestures. An examination of Paget's theory in Burke's early work serves as a jarring reminder that rhetoric is always a joint performance of body and mind.     

The field of speech, 1953: An overview

Inherent in the rhetorical tradition of symbolic form is the search for the rhetorical processes which convert experience into the social forms of community. Fusing Robert Scott's notion of rhetoric as dynamic with the rhetorical concept of “spectacle,” this essay explores “the dynamic spectacle” as a rhetorical document of community building. Black America's struggle for identity in White America is offered as a case study.     

基于CiteSpace的国内符号修辞学研究的可视化分析(2000-2018年)

借助CiteSpace软件的信息可视化技术,考察进入21世纪以来国内符号修辞学的研究走势、研究热点和发展前沿。结果发现研究热点主要体现在:从符号系统内部探讨语言符号本身的修辞价值、从符号外部关注人类在社会实践中使用语言符号的方式以及探索如何通过选择语言符号以达到最佳修辞效果的规律;其研究的发展前沿开始考察非语言符号在社会实践中的修辞功能,主要体现在对修辞幻象、视觉修辞、意识形态和反讽等的研究,考察对象也从传统的语言文本扩展到当代新媒体的多种传播和交流媒介。     

政治领袖的影像与国家形象的修辞——以美国白宫发布的总统影像为例的分析

近年来,随着中国不断走向世界,"国家形象修辞"问题日益凸显。国家形象修辞是一个国家为了维护或者改变自己的形象所采取的符号性活动,是整个国家的官方形象、大众传媒形象、文化与经济产品形象、公众形象等等修辞活动的集合,其中,自然也包含国家领导人的影像修辞。美国白宫发布的总统照,就是一种精心策划的国家形象修辞活动。这些照片在修辞上突出表现为"去政治化"、"去礼仪化"、"去中心化"的特点,而这些特点背后,又无不包孕着更深刻的政治隐喻,值得我们借鉴。     

Mindful hands,gestures as language: listening to children

This paper explores ideas of language as a cognitive tool and the role of gesture in expressing children's interests and levels of knowledge. The context is a group of three‐year‐old children who participate in a weekly music session with a trained musician. The authors present drawings from photographs of children's hands and interpret them, using contextual information, to explain how the positioning of the children's hands reflects their internalized understandings and can be viewed as a rich symbolic language. A discussion of the early childhood curriculum and the use of finger plays has been included to suggest that gesture was initially viewed as part of ‘the whole child’ but, today, activities like finger plays have become ritualized exercises. It is suggested that if adults do not listen to the language of hands they are depriving themselves of a valuable window into children's thinking and learning.     

Mother-Child Play in Italy: Regional Variation,Individual Stability,and Mutual Dyadic Influence

Objective. This longitudinal study assessed similarities and differences in exploratory, symbolic, and social play in mother-child dyads in the south and north of Italy. Design. Altogether, 89 mothers and their children were observed and recorded at home when children were 13 and 20 months of age. From videotapes, exploratory, symbolic, and social play were coded and analyzed. Results. Children did not differ in their play with mothers across region and play type, but they played less in exploratory and more in symbolic modes as they grew. At 13 months, mothers in the south did not differ from mothers in the north in engaging in exploratory or symbolic play with their children; at 20 months, mothers in the south engaged in more demonstrations of exploratory and mothers in the north more demonstrations of symbolic play. Mothers in the south and north engaged in equivalent social play at the two ages, but northern mothers verbally praised their children more at the two ages. Child play was not stable, and mothers' play only irregularly stable. In both regions at both ages, individual variation in children's exploratory and symbolic play was specifically associated with individual variation in mothers' exploratory and symbolic play, respectively, but mothers' play did not predict children's play, nor did children's play predict mothers' play. Mothers' social play was not predictive of child play, although verbal praise was associated with child play. Conclusions. These data highlight the universality of general developmental processes in play as well as specific intra-cultural variation in parenting and child development.     

Reflections from a tarnished mirror: an application of Alvesson and Sköldberg's ‘reflexive interpretation’ to a study of curriculum design in higher education

It is now widely understood that reflexivity constitutes a vital element of good qualitative research. However, reflexive accounts often draw on a single theoretical framework, thus privileging and legitimizing a particular interpretation of empirical data. This paper focuses on Alvesson and Sköldberg's ‘reflexive interpretation’, which arises from the interplay between the perspectives of grounded theory, hermeneutics, critical theory and postmodernism. The positioning of the researcher in such a multi-paradigmatic relationship to the empirical data offers the potential for deeper meaning. By applying Alvesson and Sköldberg's approach to a case study of curriculum design, I explore issues of teaching reflection to postgraduate students. Problematizing the case study data at the level of hermeneutics provides insights into the temporality, complexity and symbolic meaning disclosed through the interpretive act. Whilst critical theory locates the findings within the political-ideological context, the postmodern perspective questions my power and authority as a teacher-researcher of reflection.     

Banking on the Present: The Ontological Rhetoric of Neo-Classical Economics and Its Relation to the 2008 Financial Crisis

This essay performs a rhetorical criticism of neo-classical economics, with particular attention to its methodological influence on a number of faulty mathematical models that lay at the epicenter of the 2008 financial crisis. Going beyond Goodnight and Green's mimetic conception of economic rhetoric, which positions rhetoric as a site of mediation between symbolic and material spirals, we argue that the rhetoric of neo-classicism is best understood as an “apparatus” that attempts to suture two ontologically incommensurable conceptions of time that we term intensive and extensive. We further argue that the hinge of this rhetorical apparatus centers on a kairotic tactic of arbitrage, which theoretically posits, at the same time that it negates, ontological market failure. We end by exploring rhetorical alternatives to neo-classical economics that take the internally contradictory structure of arbitrage to its emergent conclusions.     

Review Essay: Assessing Rhetorics of Social Resistance

This essay draws from Edwin Black's Rhetorical Questions to illuminate the role of mutability in rhetoric, consciousness, and social idioms as it is displayed in Haydar ‘Abd al‐Shafi's speech delivered at the Madrid conference on October 31, 1991. Shaft's speech represents a significant mutation in Palestinian discourse. In this speech, the symbolic mold and the hereditarian social idioms that had controlled the Palestinian narrative until the intifada yielded to a mixed idiom that retained the hereditarian values essential for Palestinian identity but opened up space for the convictional values necessary for negotiation and rapprochement with Israel. This essay demonstrates that rhetorical critical theory could benefit from a close reading and application of the themes in Rhetorical Questions.     

Trashing the System: Social Movement,Intersectional Rhetoric,and Collective Agency in the Young Lords Organization's Garbage Offensive

Examining the nascent rhetoric of the Young Lords Organization's (YLO) 1969 “garbage offensive,” this essay argues that the long-standing constraints on agency to which they were responding demanded an inventive rhetoric that was decolonizing both in its aim and in its form. Blending diverse forms of discourse produced an intersectional rhetoric that was qualitatively different from other movements at the time. As such, the YLO constructed a collective agency challenging the status quo and, in some ways, foreshadowed more contemporary movement discourses that similarly function intersectionally. Examining the YLO's garbage offensive, then, presents rhetorical scholars with an opportunity to revise our understanding of how marginalized groups craft power through rhetoric.     

Kindergarten children's symbolic number comparison skills relates to 1st grade mathematics achievement: Evidence from a two-minute paper-and-pencil test

Basic numerical skills provide an important foundation for the learning of mathematics. Thus, it is critical that researchers and educators have access to valid and reliable ways of assessing young children's numerical skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the concurrent, predictive, and incremental validity of a two-minute paper-and-pencil measure of children's symbolic (Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (dot arrays) comparison skills. A sample of kindergarten children (M_age = 5.86, N = 439) were assessed on the measure along with a number line estimation task, a measure of arithmetic, and several control measures. Results indicated that performance on the symbolic comparison task explained unique variance in children's arithmetic performance in kindergarten. Longitudinal analyses demonstrated that both symbolic comparison and number line estimation in kindergarten were independent predictors of 1st grade mathematics achievement. However, only symbolic comparison remained a unique predictor once language skills and processing speed were taken into account. These results suggest that a two-minute paper-and-pencil measure of children's symbolic number comparison is a reliable predictor of children's early mathematics performance.     

The language of the liberal consensus: John F. Kennedy,technical reason,and the “new economics” at Yale University

On June 11, 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed the economy at Yale University. This essay explains the symbolic charge of his economic rhetoric, a persuasive campaign that enjoyed considerable success and marked the first time that a president took explicit responsibility for the nation's economic performance. I argue that the president crafted the authority to take command of the economy through construction of a liberal ethos, the use of dissociation, and a definition of the times. His arguments, in turn, were invented from the liberal matrix that dominated politics in the mid‐twentieth‐century United States and represent the ways in which that mode of discourse develops a historically contingent and politically powerful form of technical reason. President Kennedy's speech illustrates a set of strategies that can raise the status of one political language above its competitors in the process of public argument.     

从伯克的"语言四维度"看"印象系列"的修辞效果

在<语言是象征行动>中,伯克明确提出语言四个基本维度:诗学、逻辑与语法、修辞以及伦理学.这四个维度几乎覆盖了语言的所有范围:诗学语言在富有情感的同时也含有理性的成分;逻辑语言并不仅仅局限于语法及逻辑思维,更应与理性相结合,指导行动;修辞语言贵在用劝说、劝勉的语气达到合作竞争的目的;伦理语言,要求我们真实准确地表达人格品...     

From small group to public view: Mainstreaming the women's movement

The public attention given to the contemporary women's movement in the past decade is due in part to rhetorical developments within the movement. A fantasy theme analysis of the women's movement of the early 1970's in a large Midwestern metropolitan area reveals an early but incomplete rhetoric, labelled here the pro‐woman line. This was followed by adaptations of the early concerns in a comprehensive social reality, labelled here the “mainstreaming” rhetorical vision. Alterations in key elements of the rhetoric, including the hero/ine, villain, plot, and underpinnings are examined to illustrate how the earlier movement issues were “mainstreamed” into prevailing social views.     

Becoming a teacher: Coordinating past,present, and future selves with perspectival understandings about teaching

A longitudinal study is presented of how students preparing to become teachers conceptualized teaching and developed their identities as teachers. Findings were that contextualized momentary switchings between student and teacher perspectives accompanied participants' understandings about teaching and their negotiation of the process of becoming a teacher. Dynamic processes involved in constructing conceptions of teaching and self-as-a-teacher unfolded across three semesters, culminating in a more professional identity at program's end. The study contributes to teacher preparation research by making connections among aspects of professional development and suggesting a model of learning to teach, grounded in participants' situated perspectives on teaching.     

ACT UP 25: HIV/AIDS,Archival Queers,and Mnemonic World Making

Audre Lorde's speech, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, “sheds light on the margins of rhetoric in the sense of the public speech because she examines factors that may cause some people to remain silent while enabling others to speak and act. “Margins” refers both to the parameters employed for defining a practice and the relative place or value of varied activities exemplifying the practice. Lorde interweaves her commentary on the silence surrounding breast cancer with insights about silence drawn from her experiences as a member of several subordinated communities, especially as they relate to the misuse of power to silence those who are different. Her speech comments on silencing and power, sexism, verbal abuse, violence and sexualized aggression, shame, the taboo, and hostile social environments. Paradoxically, Lorde's speech is as much about the possibilities of rhetoric as its limits.     

Chabad Tracks the Trekkers: Jewish Education in India

Fundamentalists and modernists seem, at times, to work in contrapuntal interdependency. While the fundamentalist's rhetoric markets its image as celebrating the renewal of an authentic past identity in modernity, modernists state the need for and possibility of adapting a cherished past to modern assumptions. Yet, it seems as if it is the fundamentalists who are the ones to embrace a highly modern narrative and that it is the modernists who oppose it. In this article, we investigate this paradox by portraying the educational efforts of the Chabad Movement to introduce young Israeli trekkers in Southeast Asia, from secular, Zionist backgrounds, into a religious lifestyle. We show Chabad's strategies to be what, in modernist jargon, would be considered progressive informal educational activities, the very ones from which modernists seem to be retreating with the advance of Jewish day school educational technologies in the Diaspora. We suggest that the Chabad movement demonstrates an understanding of the covert symbolic power of formal educational approaches and that it resists them by enacting a radical epistemological change in all that guides their educational activity.     

Insiders’ perspectives: a children's rights approach to involving children in advising on adult-initiated research

Consulting with children is widely recognised as an essential element in building understanding about children's lives. From a children's rights perspective, it is also a legal requirement on professionals working with children. However, translating the rhetoric into research and practice is still evolving. Previous studies report on working with children as co-researchers where children are involved in different phases of the research process in a bid to provide their unique perspectives. This small-scale study takes the view that children not only have the right to be involved in the research process but they also have the right to be informed and have their understanding developed about the issues being researched. This allows for a more apprised view which can enhance children's participation in advising on the research and interpreting data. Therefore, this small-scale study reports on working with a children's research advisory group in developing their understanding about popular culture and writing in the primary classroom before involving these children as advisors in the research process.     

Muhammad Ali's Fighting Words: The Paradox of Violence in Nonviolent Rhetoric

While Muhammad Ali has been the subject of countless articles and books written by sports historians and journalists, rhetorical scholars have largely ignored him. This oversight is surprising given both the tradition of social movement scholarship within rhetorical studies and Ali's influential eloquence as a world renowned celebrity espousing nonviolence. Ali's rhetorical performances played a pivotal role in radicalizing the civil rights movement as it (d)evolved into twin forces: Black Power and anti-Vietnam war movements. Ali's rhetoric conjoins messages of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, enabling critics to re-envision civil rights texts. Ali's enduring rhetoric provides a model for analyzing texts and social movements invoking the paradox of the violence in nonviolent civil disobedience.     

Young Children's Use of Surface and Object Information in Drawings of Everyday Scenes

Pictorial symbols such as photographs, drawings, and maps are ubiquitous in modern cultures. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how children relate these symbols to the scenes that they represent. The present work investigates 4‐year‐old children's (N = 144) sensitivity to extended surface layouts and objects when using drawings of a room to find locations in that room. Children used either extended surfaces or objects when interpreting drawings, but they did not combine these two types of information to disambiguate target locations. Moreover, children's evaluations of drawings depicting surfaces or objects did not align with their use of such information in those drawings. These findings suggest that pictures of all kinds serve as media in which children deploy symbolic spatial skills flexibly and automatically.