Research Article| January 01 2010 Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld:The Construction of Collective Identity Alan G. Gross Alan G. Gross Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Philosophy & Rhetoric (2010) 43 (2): 118–138. https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.43.2.0118 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Alan G. Gross; Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld:The Construction of Collective Identity. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1 January 2010; 43 (2): 118–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.43.2.0118 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressPhilosophy & Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2010 The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.2010The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This article proposes a taxonomy of scientific titles: those staking claims; those setting problems; and those conveying themes. A close analysis of the deep structure of these titles suggests that their goal is the maximization of information content within a short compass, a compression that permits their easy retrieval in computerized searches. Placing these titles into the context provided by Gross, Harmon, and Reidy's Communicating Science suggests further that titles evolved to this point by adapting to changes in systems of information retrieval.

Because visuals play a significant communicative role in the majority of texts in the sciences, a theory of the role of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of meaning would seem a useful addition to the exegetical armamentarium. This paper offers such a theory, Dual Coding Theory (DCT), borrowed from cognitive psychology but adapted to exegesis. An analysis of Lavoisier's final geological memoir, an analysis grounded in this theory, is designed to illustrate DCT's utility. In my conclusion, I take note of the fact that in a wide variety of contemporary media meaning is also largely the product of verbal-visual interaction.

An examination of a random sample of four medical journals— The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine—reveals that one-fifth of the space of articles in medical science is devoted to an average of three tables and three flow charts, graphs, or photographs. Given these figures, the absence of discussion of visuals in the literature on medical communication may seem puzzling. But the puzzle is easily solved: our basic education gives us a coherent vocabulary for talking about prose, but no coherent vocabulary for talking about tables and visuals. Once we have this vocabulary in hand, we make another step in the direction of an explanation of the nature of communication in the medical sciences. We may note that understanding the meaning of a medical article is not just a consequence of understanding its texts; it is a consequence of understanding all its meaningful components working together—verbal, tabular, visual.

Abstract Chaim Perelman's concept of presence is extended and enriched by applying it to a historical museum exhibit that commemorated a watershed of Austrian history, the Anschluss of 1938. To understand the argumentative effect of presence in this exhibit, new rhetorical categories are deployed: foreground and background, space, and time. These are managed in the interest of an ideological position: to free the Austrian conscience and consciousness from the burden of memory created by the disproportionate participation of Austrians in the Holocaust. Finally, a basic problem with presence is addressed: its apparent incompatibility with any form of rational argumentation.

This paper attempts to revive an ancient idea, Hermagoras's notion of the staseis, emphasizing especially his fourth stasis, that of jurisdiction, which, I contend, is crucial when it comes to answering a class of interesting questions that can be properly addressed only by first addressing the question of intellectual jurisdiction. This class concerns what Thomas Kuhn calls "paradigm change"; in all of these cases, I would contend, four disciplines-philosophy of science, history of science, psychology, and rhetoric-are necessary to any complete explanation.

Using the founding of the Austrian Academy of Science as its lens, this study attempts to break new ground in three ways. First, it establishes the perception of rhetorical change as a product of underlying textual features. Second, it accounts for rhetorical change by reference to a causative factor that can be precisely located and is in no sense rhetorical. Finally, it tries to show that under the influence of a powerful model, rapid change in rhetorical practices can take place as a consequence of adherence to a preferred model. I see this as a form of learning. A conclusion reflects on the implications of this study by comparing the rhetorical changes I examine with those of another sort of learning, that which accompanies graduate training in rhetoric.

Preview this article: Review: Theory, Method, Practice, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/56/7/collegeenglish9202-1.gif

Preview this article: Review: Rhetorical Imperialism in Science, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/55/1/collegeenglish9334-1.gif

Preview this article: Does Rhetoric of Science Matter? The Case of the Floppy-Eared Rabbits, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/53/8/collegeenglish9537-1.gif

Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches. Edited by Richard Leo Enos. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990. Pp.vi + 264. Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Newly Translated, with Introduction, Notes and Appendices by George Kennedy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, xvi + 335 pp. Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge by Greg Meyers. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 1990. Ethics in Human Communication by Richard L. Johannesen. 3rd Edition. Waveland Press, 1990. Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action by James V. Wertsch. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. 147 pp. + references and name and subject index. Thomas Henry Huxley: Communicating for Science by J. Vernon Jensen. Newark: University of Delaware, 1991. Pp. 253. The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Edited by Herbert W. Simons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 388.

Preview this article: Comment and Response, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/53/1/collegeenglish9607-1.gif

Tables, graphs, and diagrams extend the expressive powers of language by exploiting the Euclidean possibilities that a system of writing suggests to the visually creative. Because the elements of graphic displays do not form a compatible natural set, because their value and visual elements are so decisively disparate, they are unlikely candidates for unitary theoretical description.

The experimental paper is conventionally organized into four sections: Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, and Discussion. Why these particular sections? Why this particular order? My answer is that the experimental paper is an instantiation of a myth that induction is philosophically unproblematic, that it can lead unproblematically to reliable knowledge about the natural world. Because induction as a path to reliable knowledge is, in fact, problematic, scientists need to retain this myth to continue to do science undeterred by doubts concerning the value of their task.

An examination of the files of a scientific journal demonstrates a deep editorial concern for style and arrangement. Stylistic changes are invariably made either for the sake of clarity, simplicity, concision, or specificity. Changes in arrangement are of two kinds, each with its own purpose: between paragraphs within sections, these changes are made in the interest of sequential clarity; on the other hand, redistributions from section to section are designed clearly to demarcate section content: e.g., results only in Results. Several conclusions are reached: 1) traditional advice, especially on style, does not always reflect best editorial practice; 2) problems of arrangement call for different kinds of solution from those of style: the former having a “best,” the latter only a “better” solution; 3) stylistic changes are tactical choices made within the context of strategic presuppositions about the impersonal and descriptive nature of scientific prose.

Tables and figures arc an integral part of the medium of communication of science and technology. An analysis of tables and figures, relying heavily on Euclidean terms (point, line and plane) explains something of their power–their ability to display with clarity large amounts of data, complex data relationships, and intricate three-dimensional configurations. Analysis also clarifies the mutual dependence of tables and figures and their accompanying texts. Additionally, analysis makes clear the semantic gap between tables and graphs, on the one hand, and illustrations, on the other. All are equally vital strategies in scientific and technical discourse. However, tables and graphs are paralinguistic extensions of scientific and technical dialects; illustrations, on the other hand, are a nonlinguistic supplement to these dialects. Finally, analysis provides clues for the teaching of proper graphic choice, good graphic ‘grammar,’ and the appropriate contextualization of graphs.