Matching Items (18)
Description
This research conducts two methods of rhetorical analysis of State of the Union Addresses: 1. Computational linguistic analysis of all State of the Union Addresses from 1790-2007, and 2. Close-readings and rhetorical analyses of two addresses: one by President Truman and one by President Reagan. This research shows the following key findings: 1. I am able to see general shifts in the authors' approaches to the State of the Union Address through historical computational analyses of the content of all speeches, and 2. Through close readings, I can understand the impact of the author's ethos and the historical context on the addresses, something that would not be readily revealed in a computational analysis. This study starts with a historical computational linguistic analysis of all State of the Union Addresses between 1790 and 2007. The study follows with close-readings of two State of the Union Addresses from the early and late Cold War period in-context: 1. Harry Truman's 1951 Address and 2. Ronald Reagan's 1986 Address. The main conclusions drawn from this research are that close-readings of State of the Union Addresses cannot be replaced by computational analyses, but can work in tandem with computerized text analysis to reveal shifts in rhetorical and topical features. This paper argues that there must be more close analyses in coordination with large-scale text analysis in order to understand the complexities of rhetorical situations.
ContributorsWegner, Peter (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Goggin, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the literate practices of women reading and writing in the press during the civil rights movement in the 1950s/60s. Through a textual analysis of literacy events (Heath) in the memoirs of Sarah Patton Boyle (The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian's Stand in Time of Transition), Anne Braden (The Wall Between), Daisy Bates (The Long Shadow of Little Rock) and Melba Pattillo Beals (Warriors Don't Cry), this dissertation highlights the participatory roles women played in the movement, including their ability to act publicly in a movement remembered mostly for its male leaders. Contributing to scholarship focused on the literate lives of women, this study focuses on the uses of literacy in the lives of four women with particular emphasis on the women's experiences with the literacy they practice. Drawing on ideological views of literacy (Gee, Street) and research focused on the social, cultural and economic influences of such practices (Brandt), the women's memoirs served as the site for collecting and analyzing the women's responses and reactions to literacy events with the press. Through an application of Deborah Brandt's notion of sponsor, literacy events between the women and the press were recorded and the data analyzed to understand the relationship the women had with the literacy available and the role the sponsor (the press) played in shaping the practice and the literate identities of the women. Situated in the racist climate of the Jim Crow South in the 1950s/60s and the secondary role women played in the movement, the women's memoirs and the data analyzed revealed the role the women's perception of the practice, shaped by personal history and lived experiences, played in how the women experienced and used their literacy. This dissertation argues that their responses to literacy events and their perceptions of the power of their reading and writing highlight the significant public role women played in the movement and argues that, although the women remain relatively unremembered participants of the movement, their memoirs act as artifacts of that time and proof of the meaningful public contributions women made to the movement.
ContributorsAdams, Kelly R (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation examines the relationship between secular law and Old and early Middle English hagiography in order to illustrate important culturally determined aspects of early English saints’ lives. The project advances work in two fields of study, cultural readings of hagiography and legal history, by arguing that medieval English hagiographers use historically relevant legal concepts as an appeal to the experience of their readers and as literary devices that work to underscore the paradoxical nature of a saint's life by grounding the narrative in a historicized context. The study begins with a survey of the lexemes signifying theft in the 102 Old English saints’ lives in order to isolate some of the specific ways legal discourse was employed by early English hagiographers. Specialized language to refer to the theft of relics and moral discourse surrounding the concept of theft both work to place these saints lives in a distinctly literal and culturally significant idiom. Picking one of the texts from the survey, the following chapter focuses on Cynewulf’s Juliana and argues that the characterization of the marriage proposal at the center of the poem is intended to appeal to a specific audience: women in religious communities who were often under pressure from aggressive, and sometimes violent, suitors. The next chapter addresses Ælfric of Eynsham’s Lives of Saints and discusses his condemnation of the easy collaboration of secular legal authorities and ecclesiastics in his “Life of Swithun” and his suggestion in the “Life of Basil“ that litigiousness is itself a fundamentally wicked characteristic. Lastly, the project turns to the South English Legendary’s life of Saint Thomas Becket. Rather than a straightforward translation of the Latin source, the South English Legendary life is significant in the poet's inclusion of a composite version of the Constitutions of Clarendon, demonstrating the author's apparent interest in shaping the reception of legal culture for his or her readers and emphasizing the bureaucratic nature of Becket's sanctity. In sum, the study shows that the historicized legal material that appears in early medieval English hagiography functions to ground the biographies of holy men and women in the corporeal world.
ContributorsBolton, William E (Author) / Bjork, Robert E. (Thesis advisor) / Newhauser, Richard G. (Committee member) / Voaden, Rosalynn (Committee member) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
DescriptionThis research explores the two of the criticisms of the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, specifically analyzing the issues of semantics caused by translation from Spanish to English.
ContributorsSteingard, Shayna Danielle (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis director) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Sense of Place, Place Attachment, and Student Perceptions of Sustainability in the Salt River Valley
Description
The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate sustainability students' engagement with sustainability in relation to their sense of place in the broader Salt River Valley community. The study was guided by two research questions 1) How do undergraduate Sustainability students explain their sense of place in the Valley with relation to their perceptions of sustainability? 2) Does residency in a different city, town, or state prior to entering the Sustainability program influence students' sense of place in the Valley? The study consisted of two distinct parts. In the first part, twenty students were interviewed using a narrative inquiry process to understand their perceptions of sustainability, their sense of place in the Valley, and how those two components influenced their engagement with sustainability in their communities. In the second part, these narratives were analyzed, synthesized, and samples of the stories were placed into a creative nonfiction collection to express an overall picture of sustainability in the Valley. Results showed that students generally relied on academic, professional, and social factors to identify places in which they could practice or engage with sustainability. Regardless of previous residencies, students expressed similar frustrations or limitations in expressing their sense of place, as related to sustainability, in the Valley.
ContributorsAllen, Emily Elizabeth (Author) / Broglio, Ron (Thesis director) / Goggin, Peter (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The aim of this project is an exploration of health literacy as found in the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae. The rhetoric of the Catholic Church clearly demonstrates its creation and promotion of moral authority over the health practices of the faithful. As such, the encyclical illustrates the means by which Catholic conscience dictates corporal existence. Through its denunciation of the evolving social mores of the 1960s, its condemnation of contraception, and its encouragement in the reception of natural law, the document offers the merits of Catholic marriage as guiding principles beneficial to all good men. Ultimately, group morality is conveyed as the path to health. Consideration of Humanae Vitae through a Burkean logological lens allows an inquiry into the elements of theology and biology, and evaluates the foundational language of each as a form of action. As well, the oracular nature of the rhetoric merits analysis, for the Church continues to maintain the encyclical as the final declaration of sexual rectitude. However, many Catholics and members of secular society disagree, necessitating a forecast which questions the rhetorical retention of the text.
ContributorsTaylor-Bledsoe, Hedra (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Goggin, Peter (Committee member) / Wright, J. Kent (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This thesis is exploring the potential disconnect between the operational and cultural parts in the making of sustainability at Arizona State University (ASU) to find the disconnect in operational goals, student engagement, and thus student behavior in building sustainability at the university. To do so, I compare and contrast how ASU, Northern Arizona University (NAU), and the University of Arizona (UA) define, create, and demonstrate sustainability in their university’s culture and campus engagement programs. I first define what “culture” is in this study to provide context on how the word is being applied. Next, I assess how culture is reflected in the mission, vision, and/or goals of each university to set the tone for how the university intends to shape the culture of student experience through its services, as well as provide context where sustainability concepts may fit within. Then I assess what sustainability is demonstrated and defined as at each university. To thread each of these components together, I compare and contrast campus sustainability engagement programs at ASU, NAU, and UA based on the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) reports produced by The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE), as engagement programs are a reflection of the university’s vision, goals, and values brought from theory to practice. My findings are demonstrated in the form of a policy analysis, followed by recommendations on closing the gap where engagement programs and opportunities are potentially missing. These recommendations are intended to advance a stronger culture of sustainability on campus at ASU.
ContributorsMullis, Kailey Cheyenne (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis director) / Jung, Kendon (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The broke, hungry college student living off packaged noodles and cans of beans—it is the stereotype known across the country, and unfortunately for students it is all too accurate. According to current research, nearly half of all college students across America are considered food insecure, meaning they have trouble acquiring healthy and filling food at some point during the year. Furthermore, problems with food access are often connected to other common issues students face including accessing affordable housing and employment opportunities. Food insecure students face educational consequences as well, including the inability to supply required course materials and even leaving their studies. Simultaneously, at Arizona State students lose thousands of dollars per year in unused meal plan funds, either in the form of meal swipes or Maroon & Gold dollars, and there is interest among students to utilize the funds to support their peers. This thesis explores existing organizations attempting to address student food insecurity both on campus and across the country, analyzing their limitations and benefits. It then proposes a new program, ASU Eats, which would allow students with excess meal plan funds to donate them to their food insecure peers through the creation of a central fund bank. It also discusses potential concerns from the University’s administration and the student body along with the structure this program would need to serve ASU’s continually growing campuses. This thesis concludes by stressing the importance of long-term food security, which ASU Eats would strive to achieve for all students who use the program.
ContributorsBottino, Erin Elizabeth (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis director) / Goggin, Peter (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This study analyzes syllabi for first-year college composition courses and interview responses to examine how the choices made by instructors affect online course design. Using the Syllabus Assessment Instrument designed by Madson, Melchert and Whipp (2004), this dissertation looks specifically at attendance and participation policies, course behavior policies, contact information, required material choices, course organization decisions and tool decisions to reveal how instructors do or do not accommodate online class pedagogies. This study finds that the choices instructors make in syllabus design provide significant information about the overall online course design itself. Using Selber's multiliteracies as a frame for understanding the choices made by instructors, this study finds that instructors focus primarily on functional literacies in their discourses and in the way they communicate their choices to students. Instructors vary in how they inform students of the mechanics of how to interact with tools, how often to interact with the online course, and how to use the tools within the online course. While these aspects of online courses are important, focusing on these aspects of the online course overshadows alternative perspectives on tool use that could encourage critical reflection by both instructors and students. To help instructors and departments design more effective syllabi and courses, this study raises questions and offers observations about how instructors communicate policies and how they understand these policies and pedagogies in online courses. In providing general guidelines for syllabus design and course design, this study will help writing instructors and composition programs better understand the significance of the choices they make in online course design.
ContributorsPfannenstiel, Amber Nicole (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Committee member) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The field of forensic linguistics has burgeoned in the past several decades within a current-day framework of language use, ranging from dialectal analysis to legal language analysis in court cases, to trademark and authorship disputes, and more. When it comes to utilizing forensic linguistics techniques within a historical framework, however, there is still a great deal of research and work to be done. There is a gap in historical research that needs to be filled, to create a more cohesive whole when examining the past for understanding. Pioneers in historical authorship analysis are now using forensic linguistic methods more frequently in their manuscript analyses and research, and the results of those studies indicate that some linguistic variables can be statistically measured with a relative degree of accuracy for historical documents. What is needed now is a forensic analysis which also comprehensively accounts for the challenges regarding various cultures’ definitions of ‘author’ and ‘authorship’ and translation methods in different time periods. For medieval manuscripts, these analyses must also consider the manuscript culture inherent in that time period. In this dissertation, I discuss the rift apparent in the framework of understanding where forensic linguistic analysis and manuscript analysis are not fully meeting in the middle. I address the need for a general methodology that allows academics in both disciplines to work together in finding variables for forensic testing which include the needs of the manuscript culture behind it, so that future research can more fully enrich the understanding of medieval history as a whole.
During that discussion, I analyze several completed authorship analyses surrounding the tenth century Old English gloss of the Lindisfarne Gospels, examining the methods utilized by each researcher in accomplishing their chosen research goal. Then, I focus on developing a generalized methodology which can provide a framework for handling unique, individual analyses of medieval manuscripts which have questionable authorship attribution. This framework will help to create a more solid foundation for providing more accurate and effective data for historical authorship cases.
ContributorsSchrader, Angela Corinne Loewenhagen (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Bjork, Robert E. (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021