Argumentation pragmatics, text analysis, and contrastive rhetoric

The contrastive rhetoric hypothesis (Kaplan, 1966) predicts that language users across cultures will vary in the means they use to construct coherent discourse. The problem for contrastive rhetoric research is to develop a method for reliably describing this variation. To this end, a number of methods of text analysis have been proposed that claim to describe the linguistic and discoursal features crucial to coherent interpretations of text. In this dissertation, I review these methods and then present an alternative adapted from argumentation pragmatics (Ducrot et al., 1980) and the model of discourse structure proposed by Roulet et al. (1985). Ducrot's theory rests on the observation that utterances in sequence are describable as having one of two functions--that of being an argument for some conclusion or a conclusion from some argument(s). Roulet proposes a hierarchical model of discourse having three constituent types: acts, moves, and exchanges. To test the contrastive rhetoric hypothesis, using this method of analysis, I analyzed twenty lead editorials each from the The Times of India, The Singapore Straits Times, and The New York Times. These texts represent three distinct varieties of English from three different cultural settings (Kachru, 1986) and as such allow for testing the contrastive rhetoric hypothesis. The results of these analyses do not support the hypothesis that language users across cultures vary in the means they use to construct coherent discourse.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Kenkel, James Michael

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kachru, Yamuna

• Education, Bilingual and Multicultural
• Language, Linguistics
• Speech Communication

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1991 Kenkel, James Michael

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9210859
(UMI)AAI9210859

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19422