Brian Ray

6 articles
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  1. Stylizing Genderlect Online for Social Action
    Abstract

    This article introduces the concept of stylization and illustrates its usefulness for studying online discourse by examining how writers have employed it in order to parody sexist products such as BIC Cristal for Her, using genderlect in order to introduce dissonance into and reframe patriarchal discourse. A corpus analysis of 671 reviews, written from August through October 2012, confirmed a dramatically higher presence of lexical items and adjectives often stereotyped as feminine, compared to a reference corpus of other parody reviews, as well as the GloWbe corpus housed at Brigham Young University. A qualitative analysis shows the stylized use of these features, and how they contribute to the construction of personas that are intended to mock the sexism inherent in BIC’s advertising. This analysis hopes to encourage more attention to how stylization functions in emerging online genres.

    doi:10.1177/0741088315621238
  2. Review Essay: “It’s Beautiful”: Language Difference as a New Norm in College Writing Instruction
    Abstract

    Reviewed are: Literacy as Translingual Practice: Between Communities and Classrooms A. Suresh Canagarajah, editor Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations A. Suresh Canagarajah Shaping Language Policy in the U.S.: The Role of Composition Studies Scott Wible Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African AmericanLiteracy Vershawn Ashanti Young, Rusty Barrett, Y’Shanda Young-Rivera, and Kim Brian Lovejoy

    doi:10.58680/ccc201527444
  3. <i>The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century</i>, by Steven Pinker
    Abstract

    Steven Pinker has written a potent prescription against the outdated and pedantic manual Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White (Boston: Pearson, 2014), the alarmist manifesto Eats, Sh...

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2015.1041207
  4. More than Just Remixing: Uptake and New Media Composition
    doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2013.07.003
  5. A<i>Progymnasmata</i>for Our Time: Adapting Classical Exercises to Teach Translingual Style
    Abstract

    Scholarship on language difference has strived for decades to transform teaching practices in mainstream, developmental, and second-language writing classrooms. Despite compelling arguments in support of linguistic diversity, a majority of secondary and postsecondary writing teachers in the US still privilege Standard English. I join a number of scholars in arguing for a revival of classical style and the progymnasmata, albeit with the unique agenda of strengthening pedagogies of language difference. Although adapting classical rhetorics to promote translingual practices such as code-meshing at first seems to contradict the spirit of language difference given the dominant perception of Greco-Roman culture as imperialistic and intolerant of diversity, I reread rhetoricians such as Quintilian in order to recover their latent multilingual potential.

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2013.766853
  6. <i>From Empathy to Denial: Arab Response to the Holocaust,</i>Meir Litvak and Esther Webman<i>Post-Zionism, Post-Holocaust: Three Essays on Denial, Forgetting, and the Delegitimation of Israel,</i>Elhanan Yakira
    Abstract

    Following historian Deborah Lipstadt's 2000 victory over David Irving in a monumental libel lawsuit, Lipstadt declared that the Holocaust would henceforth reign uncontested as historical fact. Yet within the last five years Holocaust denial has grown exponentially, exacerbating the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as tensions between what the general public often defines as the Western and Muslim worlds. While Litvak and Webman's From Empathy to Denial directly engages scholarship in Holocaust and Middle Eastern studies on this issue, their important work also promises to inform ongoing discussions among rhetoricians about belief systems and intolerance. By framing Holocaust denial in Arab cultures as a distinct subject, Litvak and Webman have used place and time as vital tools for analyzing cultural beliefs underlying anti-Semitism in the Middle East. As a counterpoint, Elhanan Yakira's discussion of political philosophies in Post-Zionism, Post-Holocaust seeks to restructure the dominant perception of Holocaust denial as hate speech by exploring how many Jewish intellectuals reference the Holocaust to support their own critiques of Israel rather than to justify its policies toward Palestinians. Within these texts lies an implicit notion of kairos, described by John Poulakos in Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece (U of South Carolina P, 1995), as the ability to “address issues in their topicality and typicality” and “place a single case within a larger context, a context that helps render the case meaningful” (178). The rich contexts provided by Litvak and Webman and Yakira challenge Western ideological reactions toward Holocaust denial in order to foster more meaningful conversations.

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2010.485974