Rhetorical Function Research Articles

Digital Communication and Multimodal Features: Functioning of Emoji in Interpersonal Communication

Technical advances and digital means of communication have led to the development of digital semiotics which is characterised by its multimodality and abounds in paralinguistic elements such as emojis, emoticons, memes, etc. These extralinguistic elements serve as a compensatory mechanism in the new communication means. The increasing interest of users in various iconic signs and symbols generates the research interest in different fields of knowledge. The study aims to consider cognitive, semiotic and psycholinguistic features of emojis in interpersonal communication through analysing their functions in text messages and in social network messages. An attempt to reveal their persuasive mechanism is made. The research is based on a large scale dataset comprised of the private text messages as well as public posts on social networks which include verbal and nonverbal / iconic elements. The research data presents a multilingual bank of English, Russian and French sources. The research methods include context analysis, linguistic and pragmatic analysis and content analysis. The findings show that emojis in private interpersonal communication perform a number of functions, namely nonverbal, emotive, pragmatic, punctuation, substitutional, decorative and rhetorical functions. These iconic symbols incorporated in the interpersonal digital communication present a compensatory mechanism and the means of persuasion of a message addressee / recipient. The combination of verbal and iconic elements triggers a double focusing mechanism, and the perception is shaped by all cognitive mechanisms including rational and emotional, unconscious components.

Negotiating Meaning Relationships in the Rhetorical Structure of EFL Argumentative Writing through Text Cohesion

Being a configuration of logically interconnected statements realized in moves and stages, an argumentative essay is built around the notion of textual unity achieved through lexico-grammar and semantic associations. The study attempted to analyze the role of cohesion in the rhetorical structure of undergraduate EFL students. Hence, the 13 moves in the three-stage argument structure were analyzed on a preset framework of cohesion analysis. Discourse analysis as a research method was used to ascertain how cohesion functioned in the rhetorical structure of these argumentative essays. The results revealed the presence of cohesive associations between the different moves of the rhetorical structure which corresponded with the move length. Referential and Lexical cohesion had a more frequent and dense presence than the co-referential element in the sample texts; however, the relatively low incidence of conjunctives pointed towards the relative scarcity of rhetorical functions in students' writing. The study proposes a research initiative that could use frameworks other than the present study or compare two or more sub-genres for the use of cohesion in the rhetorical structure.

Retorika Komunikasi Aa Gym dalam Kajian Al-Hikam “Jangan Sia-Siakan Waktu”

The purpose of this study is to find out what the rhetorical element in Aa Gym's oral discourse looks like when delivering its da'wah message to the congregation regarding the study of Al-Hikam with the topic “don't waste time" and then how to use the rhetorical function of Aa Gym in conveying its da'wah message to the congregation. This research uses a qualitative-descriptive approach with content analysis. The data source is taken from a youtube video, the Media Da'wah Hikmah TV channel. The findings of the study conducted are that speakers have great persuasion in every sentence that is simple and easy to understand, conciliatory intonation and calm body language. In the content of the conversation, everything is assembled and conceptualized with a good plot. The opening, body and closing sentences are able to arouse the feelings of those who hear them. Judging from the audience, they are very happy and comfortable when listening to Aa Gym's lectures that are in accordance with the realities of life. The rhetorical function used by Aa Gym when delivering its da'wah is corrective, instructive and suggestive rhetorical functions. The expected implication in this research is knowledge of da'wah strategies that can be applied with a rhetorical approach to be able to convey sentences in oral discourse that are able to give influence and have a good impact on listeners.

Learning (Better) From Stories: Wargames, Narratives, and Rhetoric in Military Education

Wargames have a long history as a military training method. A typical explanatory framework for their efficacy is their narrative aspect. There remain, however, questions concerning the ways narrative functions in context, and how it can be analysed to assess the educational value of wargaming in Professional Military Education programmes (PME). The article offers a case study of how officer cadets employed narrative elements during a matrix game which aims to test their knowledge of peacekeeping operations and to develop their critical thinking and argumentation skills, focusing on how these narrative elements functioned rhetorically. Using positioning analysis buttressed by insights from argumentation studies and expanded with approaches from literary narratology, this study uncovers the extensive and subtle ways players employed narrative persuasion to further their goals, and the extent to which argumentation in matrix games relies on narrative. The study suggests that this aspect of matrix game argumentation has been understudied, and that attention to narrative can have a range of benefits: it helps shed light on how players shift between participatory frameworks or narrative levels in the game, how meaning is negotiated, and how professional reflection and identities are initiated. Demonstrating how subjectivity and experience can be employed as data in military sciences, the study also offers educators an interpretive framework for analysing game interaction. It further suggests that the matrix game’s educational value in PME can be extended by incorporating awareness of the rhetorical functions of narrative into the post-game reflection; knowledge of how stories are told could enhance student learning.

Psalm 143.2 and the Argument of Galatians 3.10

AbstractIn the ongoing discussions of Gal 3.10–14, interpreters have underappreciated the connection between Paul's argument in 3.10 and his use of Ps 143.2 in 2.16. This article argues that Paul bases his denial of justification by works in 2.16 on the confession of humanity's universal sinfulness in Ps 143.2. Given the rhetorical function of 2.15–21 as well as the close verbal and logical ties between 2.16 and 3.10, it contends the same thought underlies Paul's charge in 3.10 that those of works are under a curse. On this basis, the article assesses various interpretations of Gal 3.10.

Violence and Nonviolence in the Rhetoric of Social Protest

Abstract The nonviolence so heralded in studies of protest has lost its strategic effectiveness; nonviolence has become, not a strategy in the pursuit of justice, but an end in itself, a telos. In order to better conceptualize violence and nonviolence in the contemporary rhetoric of social protest, this essay provides a review and critique of prominent rhetorical studies of protest violence that have placed violent tactics solely in the service of nonviolence. Rhetorical scholars are in a unique position to reconsider and reframe understandings of violence and nonviolence in social protest that persist both in rhetorical studies and in the popular imagination about how social change can and should happen. Violence and nonviolence have too often been divorced from the white supremacist history and context in which they operate, particularly in the United States—creating meaning structures that make the violent protest tactics deployed by non-dominant groups culturally illegible. This essay works to reframe the violent tactics most commonly deployed in the current moment by arguing that the looting, property destruction, and even the direct physical violence that is most often associated with various Leftist and anti-racist activists can work strategically to challenge the police-State's monopoly on violence. Drawing out the implications of these interconnected points, the essay provides a more nuanced understanding of violent tactics that can both help restore the disruptive function of protest rhetoric and better challenge white supremacy in the service of justice.

Rhetoric and prosody of judicial discourse in mass media

We inevitably deal with the spread of the legal practice to the masses to inform the population about current criminal cases and their court decisions. There are few works dedicated to the studies of the rhetoric and prosody of the judicial discourse both in domestic and international science space. This article is devoted to the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. It is known that the interest in the study of the language prosody has begun to manifest with the advent of new computer programs that allow analyzing the prosody, especially, the temporal variables, such as speed, duration, intonation, and pause of speech. Accordingly, this article aims to work on the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. Taking into account the complexity of the polyfunctionality of prosody as a subject of research, the study of the prosodic function of judicial discourse in mass media in the context of rhetoric allows understanding the meaning of prosodic processes in speech and determining the intention of news. The study was based on the news coverings of the criminal case of Ezra McCandles, which was considered in the United States from 2018 to 2020. The article used research methods such as rhetorical discourse analysis, as well as acoustic analysis using the Praat computer program. The prosodic analysis of judicial discourse in the context of rhetoric revealed the prosodic narrative techniques such as alternating intensity, rise, and fall of the tone, speech pauses, which aimed to impact the perception of the case by the listeners.

Rhetoric and prosody of judicial discourse in mass media

We inevitably deal with the spread of the legal practice to the masses to inform the population about current criminal cases and their court decisions. There are few works dedicated to the studies of the rhetoric and prosody of the judicial discourse both in domestic and international science space. This article is devoted to the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. It is known that the interest in the study of the language prosody has begun to manifest with the advent of new computer programs that allow analyzing the prosody, especially, the temporal variables, such as speed, duration, intonation, and pause of speech. Accordingly, this article aims to work on the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. Taking into account the complexity of the polyfunctionality of prosody as a subject of research, the study of the prosodic function of judicial discourse in mass media in the context of rhetoric allows understanding the meaning of prosodic processes in speech and determining the intention of news. The study was based on the news coverings of the criminal case of Ezra McCandles, which was considered in the United States from 2018 to 2020. The article used research methods such as rhetorical discourse analysis, as well as acoustic analysis using the Praat computer program. The prosodic analysis of judicial discourse in the context of rhetoric revealed the prosodic narrative techniques such as alternating intensity, rise, and fall of the tone, speech pauses, which aimed to impact the perception of the case by the listeners.

Patterns of Conjunctive Relation (CR) in Phases and Stages of Narratives in Year Three Junior High School English Books and Their Pedagogical Implication

Background: 
 This study is intended to find out the patterns of CR used in developing phases and stages of narrative and their implication in the genre-based model of language teaching of narratives. The study uses 15 different narratives from two nationally recognized Junior High School English books published by Intan Pariwara and Tiga Serangkai as data sources.
 Methodology: 
 The narratives are analysed based on their functional engagements of phases and rhetorical functions of stages. Then, the patterns of CR in each phase and stage of the narratives are identified in terms of their types, meanings and roles to develop the phases and stages of narratives.
 Findings: 
 The findings indicate that the logic of space of external addition and internal similar comparison are used in describing Character, Setting, and Activity in Orientation. Meanwhile, the combination of logic of space and time of external different comparison, external successive time and cause consequence are mainly used to develop phases of Introducing Problem, Developing Problems to Climax in Complication, Evaluation, and phases of Effort 1 to N, Problem Solved in Resolution. Coda, finally, applies internal similar comparison and external successive time to make comments and extract the value of the story.
 Conclusion: 
 The intricate patterns of CR used in different phases and stages of narrative should be taught delicately in guided and scaffolded instructions through four stages of genre-based model of teaching, namely, BKOF, Modelling, JCT and ICT.
 Originality: 
 This area of research is under widespread scrutiny and investigation especially conjunctive relationship in each step and phase, as well as the instructional implications of narrative texts.

“I Will Also Ask You a Question” (Luke 20:3): The Social and Rhetorical Function of Opposing-Turn Questions in the Gospel of Luke

In this essay, I argue that Jesus’s mastery of the use of questions as a method of public argumentation is a key component of his characterization in the Gospel of Luke. As Douglas Estes has argued convincingly, a bias against questions exists within the Western intellectual tradition, which tends to favor declarative propositions for the negotiation of truth claims. This bias has resulted in the general neglect of the logical, rhetorical, literary, and philosophical role that interrogatives play in agonistic discourse (Estes, 2–9). Reading the questions of Jesus in Luke through a socio-rhetorical lens, I argue that a proper understanding of the social function of questions in the first century reveals a key insight underlying Luke’s theology of the crucifixion, suffering, and death of Jesus that has until recently gone unnoticed: namely, that within an honor/shame social matrix, Jesus’s failure to respond to the questions of his interrogators constitutes a willful submission to the violent principalities and powers of this world.

Educational and rhetorical significance of proverbs in ancestral kongo society

The object of our research work is to study the mechanisms by which the proverb works by showing its contribution to the ancestral education of Kongo. The proverb is a multifunctional instrument which intervenes in the socialization of the child. It plays several functions, but as regards our study, we will only discuss two : the pedagogical function and the rhetorical function. The choice of these aforementioned functions is explained by the fact that in the context of the education of a child, the proverb is, and remains a necessary tool which allows to support him in the acquisition of knowledge and in the development of language by exercising it in wisdom, one of the cardinal values of Kimuntu. So, we proceeded by Interviews and Participant observation for the collection data on the field investigation. The thematic content analysis approach of Mucchielli (1996) and relativized functionalism of Merton (1968) will be used to analyze our paremic corpus. To this end, we will first make the methodological and theoritical study of the proverbs ; contribute by presenting their pedagogical and rhetorical functions ; finally, how the rhetorical scope of the proverbs submitted to our study manifests itself. Keywords : traditional education, rhetoric, proverbs, values, pedagogy,

Code-Switching and Diasporic Identity in Edward Said’s Out of Place: A Memoir and Fawaz Turki’s Exile’s Return: The Making of a Palestinian-American

ABSTRACT This article examines the cultural and philosophical significance of code switching in the formulation of diasporic identity in Edward Said's Out of Place (1999) and Fawaz Turki's Exile's Return: The Making of a Palestinian-American (1994). It argues that exilic Palestinian writers' use of code-switching pursues various purposes related to the multiplicity and plurality of voices to which they are subject, but it mainly pertains to the ‘exoticization’ of their homeland and ‘nationalizing’ their experiences in exile. Ultimately, the use of code-switching in the memoirs chosen here act as one of the most effective strategies that diasporic writers employ to satisfy a number of important socio-pragmatic and rhetorical functions that are usually expected in exilic writing. These strategies also aim to guide the (mainstream) readers’ affective responses to their work in the way(s) exiled authors believe best suit their rhetorical and national goals.

“The datasets do not agree”: Negation in research abstracts

Few academic genres have received more attention than the research abstract. Its increasing importance, diverse functions and convenient length mean it has been dismembered and dissected by analysts in countless articles. This is a key genre, central to researchers’ reading decisions and therefore to the creation of new knowledge, and as a result writers use a variety of interactive resources to attract readers to the accompanying article. Despite this interest, however, negation has largely escaped EAP scrutiny. This study, therefore, seeks to correct this oversight by examining negation in research abstracts and the extent it contributes to rhetorical persuasion. Drawing on a diachronic corpus of research abstracts, we show how negation contributes to an interpersonal model of academic writing and describe the forms, functions and distribution of negation across time and disciplines. The results not only add to our knowledge of the rhetorical functions of negation but also raise important pedagogical implication for English for Academic Purposes.

The Recycling of Objective Move in English Research Articles’ Discussion Sections

While numerous studies have scrutinized the rhetorical structures of Research Articles (RAs) through move analysis, it appears that Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has received little attention. The current study sought to fill this gap by investigating whether the recycling of Objective move (study purposes/questions/hypotheses) in RA Discussion sections, which was previously used in the Introduction, is vulnerable to disciplinary differences. To achieve the study’s objective, 600 English RAs published between 2006 and 2018 in six Soft Science disciplines, with an equal number in each discipline were selected. The move model developed by Weissberg and Buker (1990) served as a road map for analyzing RAs. After identifying the Objective move in RA Introductions, the frequency of its recycling in RA Discussions was calculated and compared across disciplines. The data analysis revealed that disciplinary variations do not result in variations in the recycling of this move in the RA Discussions. It was concluded that the recycling of the Objective move has been established in the sample RA Discussion sections to achieve certain rhetorical functions. The findings may help students, novice researchers, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instructors understand how Objective move spans in Soft Science RA Discussions.

I. A. 리처즈와 의사소통의 문제

I.A. Richards’ deep interest in the communicative function of language and poetry is manifest from his early scholarly career to the last. For Richards, poetry itself is a mode of communication. Since he argues that there is no difference in kind between aesthetic experience and everyday common experience, what matters in poetry is the communication of complex impulses from poet to reader placed in common linguistic situations and efficacy. Interpretation and understanding of the attributes of a language are prerequisite and inevitable for a fulfilled communication and communion of men. His “close reading” is a speculative instrument to read with and to think with. Richards applies his view of a poetic language to his philosophy of the “new” rhetoric. His new or improved rhetoric aims to remedy misunderstandings in communication, mainly due to misinterpretation of ambiguous meanings and verbal contexts and purposes. Metaphoricity is the very source of a language. Rhetoric in Richards shifts its focus from speaker to audience, and an effective communication requires from both the speaker and the listener Confucian sincerity in authentic feelings and intents. By enlarging and idealizing his rhetorical functions to the extent of self-development and self-completion by means of verbal communication, Richards unfortunately disregards the ideological dynamics of language and social beliefs, already and always superimposed on the speaking subject. His contextual theory of meaning is still stinted by his empirical positivism and psychologism. However, Richards unites poetics and rhetoric in his theory of communication and comprehension.

Debating the legal recognition of gender identity in parliamentary discourse: Human rights and queer politics

This study documented the rhetorical constructions of ‘human rights’ in political discourse and the potential implications of their invocation as a frame for LGBTQI+ claims. The minutes of the VI Greek Parliamentary session on a bill related to the legal recognition of gender identity, conducted in 2017, were analyzed. Analysis utilized the concepts of Rhetorical and Critical Discursive Social Psychology, indicating that human rights are flexibly used in arguments oriented to the expansion, the limitation, or the opposition to self-defined gender identity. Varied representations of human rights’ content and boundaries and different constructions of agency concerning their enactment are identified. Although representations of human rights as universal are oriented to the inclusion of LGBTQI+ community, other liberal arguments obscure anti-LGBTQI+ social actors’ accountability. Human rights are also depicted as threatening Westernizing tools. The rhetorical functions of these constructions and their potential implications for queer claims and politics are discussed.

Civic rhetoric and social inclusion

Abstract The subject of the study is current civic rhetoric with regard to the inclusive rhetorical mechanisms employed in it. In classical rhetoric, we rely on the Aristotle’s deliberative type of rhetoric. We are interested in the citizen’s predisposition for involvement in deliberation (deliberative competence including its rhetorical aspect), the identity of rhetorical deliberative subjects, as well as the rhetorical procedures and genres in civic rhetoric. We work on the assumption that inequality of deliberation actors is the impetus for the creation of inclusive rhetoric. In this paper we distinguish three functions of inclusive rhetoric: (1) coordination function (coordination of various individual or group interests, opinions, intentions), (2) compensatory function (compensating for knowledge, information and other deficits) and (3) solidarity function (strengthening collectivity as a prerequisite for the influence and success of proposals in the negotiation phase of civic rhetoric. These particular functions characterize inclusive rhetoric in the public debate phase of civic rhetoric (i.e., deliberation in its own sense). We characterize and illustrate them through the rhetorical speeches and deliberative practices of the founder of the civic initiative IG24.

A rhetoric of inauthenticity: critical object images in Woolf’s Victorian scenes

Abstract This paper extends the fields of visual and object semiosis, style, and rhetoric by introducing the concept of critical object images. It identifies five of their rhetorical functions in literature and demonstrates the semiotic and rhetorical specificity and force of literary object images. Inter-disciplinary concepts and theories used in the study are introduced before the concept is tested and developed through analyses of object images with critical roles in the Victorian scenes of Virginia Woolf’s novels. The inductive analyses trace the semiosis and stylistic affordances (meanings) of the selected critical object images, with reference to three categories of kitsch inauthenticity, and their formal and cultural contexts, noting the rhetorical function(s) they serve. Multimodal stylistics and the semiotics of visual images and of objects are used in these analyses, and the unique contribution of critical object images as rhetorical elements in literature is uncovered and explained. The analysis of Woolf’s representation of selected objects shows how the critical object images function rhetorically, through their stylistic connotations (here of kitsch inauthenticity), to present unambiguous meanings that are not openly stated in the texts’ verbal discourse.

Lexical Bundles in Chemistry Research Articles.

The purpose of this corpus-based study was to investigate whether different sections in chemistry research articles, i.e., abstract, introduction, and results and discussion, rely on different sets of lexical bundles. Lexical bundles, associated with the above sections, were extracted from a corpus of 4 million words, comprising 1,185 chemistry research articles, using WordSmith Tools 5.0, and were categorized according to their functions. Altogether, 197 key bundles were identified in the three sections of chemistry research articles, 15 in the abstract, 99 in the introduction, and 83 in the results and discussion section. Two functions also emerged for lexical bundles in chemistry research articles, including purpose-oriented bundles, which refer to the aim/aims of the study; and literature-oriented bundles, which are used to refer to the literature. Altogether, the results showed that various sections in chemistry RAs are associated with specific sets of lexical bundles and, as such, deal with different rhetorical functions.

A Cognitive Linguistic Study of the Features of Gradability by Focus in Arabic

The present study tackles the linguistic phenomenon of ‘gradability by focus’ in Arabic from a cognitive linguistic perspective. By and large, the early Arab grammarians have not theorized about gradability despite its importance in the semantic relationships. They address some grammatical and morphological forms that convey either ends of the scale of gradability. Gradable forms include ‘‘’at-Tawwkīd’’ (i.e., emphasis), ‘’al-Mafξūl ’al-Muŧlaq” (i.e., the cognate object), şiyagh ’at-Taşghīr’’ (i.e., diminutive forms), “şiyagh ’al-Mubālaghah” (i.e., maximizers) and many other forms. However, they do not use any of the aforesaid forms under the heading of ‘’at-Tadarruj bit-Tarkīz’’ (i.e., gradability by focus). Therefore, the study grounds for ‘focus’ highlighting its salient lexical, grammatical, and morphological features in Arabic. The present paper provides definitions for gradability, focus, prototypicality and precision. Afterwards, it provides a detailed analysis of the sub-categories of prototypicality and precision unearthing their rhetorical functions. In conclusion, gradability by focus plays a key role in identifying the subtle shades of meaning. Tackling such cognitive linguistic features is of an overwhelming importance at the pure linguistic level as well as the sociolinguistic one.