Rhetorical Argumentation in Italian Academic Discourse

The recent trend in institutional communication research seems to foster the image of the University as a private organization significantly oriented towards a policy of customer satisfaction. Following the concept of organizational culture, institutional settings too are conceived as organizational contexts, where discourse is a privileged vehicle to convey and spread values, traditions and artifacts, both through internal and external communication practices. Thus, within academic discourse organizational culture is shaped and perpetuated by specific devices of rhetorical argumentation. The corpus of data consists of two different examples of academic discourse: the self promotional endorsement letters of the academic candidates to the chancellor’s position on occasion of the elections and the inaugural speeches proclaimed by the chancellors in charge during the opening celebration of the academic year. The first kind of academic discourse could be meant as an example of political discourse since the candidates use communication strategically and manipulate their academic membership as a rhetorical device to support their aims. On the other hand, the second example is a mere celebration of academic culture which through linguistic rituals recalls and perpetuates the basic values of this microcosm. The data have been analysed with the critical discourse analysis and diatextual analysis which pay particular attention to the context of speech. Moreover, attention has been focused on the metaphors and on the meta-discursive cues. The results show that although with different purposes academic discourse use similar discursive and rhetorical strategies as both belong to the same organization.     

Facework and Rhetorical Strategies in Intercultural Argumentative Discourse

Intercultural discourse (especially via a lingua franca when interlocutors have a false impression that they are speaking one and the same language) adds a new dimension – facework (the establishment of culture-sensitive politeness strategies) – to the theory and practice of argumentation from a number of perspectives: its specificity as compared to ordinary argumentational discourse, the interpretation of the concept of incommensurability, and the conduct of international negotiations. Politeness systems relevant for different cultures are not unpredictable, but represent linguistically and cognitively a highly generalised universal system which can be adopted by interlocutors and used in practical discourse. Politeness expressions are governed by linguistic components – by language forms of a certain type and by specific discourse patterns. The proper choice of language forms and discourse patterns adds a special dimension to argumentative schemata. The politeness-relevant packaging of discourse adds a zero-step to the normative stages of an argumentative discussion (establishing hierarchical relations as such), and needs permanent alignment of these relations, by using correct language forms and discourse patterns.     

Anthropocentric Rhetorical Discourse in Popular Science Writing about Human Evolution

Discourse describing evolution in contemporary popular science writing often posits that humans evolved not from an ape, but from a merely ape-like or generalized primate. Contemporary fossil and genetic evidence, though, have revealed what can accurately be described as an extinct ape species as ancestral to the human lineage. The persistence of ambiguous terms in popular science writing may be interpreted as a form of anthropocentric rhetorical discourse. Nonetheless, while such discourse is often justified in terms of increasing the public understanding of science, it may also mitigate (whether consciously intended or not) religion-based resistance to evolutionary theory.     

松果体再认识的哲学思考

长期以来，对大脑松果体一直了解不多。认为它的作用微不足道。只是由于科学技术的发展，对它的研究不断深入，才认识到它是人类很重要的内分泌腺体。它与衰老、免疫、抗病、长寿等都有密切关系，是人类内分泌的主宰和调控。这说明一切事物总是由不知到知之。客观存在的事物都可以认识。     

"重建个人所有制"的哲学分析

“消灭私有制”是指消灭那种只有少数人占有绝大部分生产资料的资本主义私有制。但《共产党宣言》并没有由此否定一切个人财产及个人所有制。马克思在《资本论》中提出“重建个人所有制”的命题。从哲学上分析 ,该命题依据于否定之否定、人的存在方式、劳动者产权等理念。建立在资本主义时代成就基础上的“重建个人所有制”重新确立了劳动的自主权。     

"怨恨"与网络话语暴力的心理机制——以汶川大地震期间的王石"捐款门"为例

网络话语暴力事件并不是一个简单的网络传播问题,它的形成有着复杂的社会心理机制,这一心理机制即"怨恨".本文尝试结合汶川大地震期间的王石"捐款门"事件说明"怨恨"心理在网络话语暴力事件中的作用机制.     

Immoral Bodies: The Implicit Association Between Moral Discourse and the Body

Three studies examined the ways in which cognitive appraisals of health and the condition of the body use moral discourse derived from Christianity. Study 1 indicated that people explicitly rated health-related behaviors such as exercising and dieting as more pious and less sinful than their negative counterparts. Studies 2 and 3 elaborated upon these results using the Implicit Association Test, a cognitive procedure for examining automatic (or implicit) associations that may exist outside of conscious awareness. Results indicated that people have a strong implicit association between morality and the condition of the body. Furthermore, this implicit association remained significant once potential overlap with standard evaluative terminology was statistically controlled. These results suggest that people implicitly evaluate the condition of the body using moral discourse, and that the use of such rhetoric reflects the cognitive appraisal of obesity as immoral, rather than as simply negative in a standard sense.     

Analyzing Argumentative Discourse from a Rhetorical Perspective: Defining `Person' and `Human Life' in Constitutional Disputes Over Abortion

In this paper, a case study is presented of constitutional debates about abortion. An analysis is given of arguments from the Roe v. Wade case for definitions concerning the key notions of `person' and `human life'. The paper illustrates how the Court has gradually taken a more pragmatic or rhetorical position on definitional matters crucial to the purpose of regulating abortion.     

Holy Ferment: Queer Philosophical Destabilizations and the Discourse on Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Lives in Christian Institutions

Abstract

Employing insights from queer theorists this article explores what might be at stake philosophically in the contemporary ferment around homosexuality in the Western churches. Hutchins argues that the ferment is an effect of the destabilization of the metaphysics of substance by queer discourse and practice causes. In other words what gay Christians threaten is the notion that categories of identity are fixed and capable of categorization. This notion is built into the very grammar of our lives making it hard to think, act, write or speak outside of it, and much liberation, feminist and gay and lesbian theology has not attempted to do so. But as the hegemonic illusion is ruptured, Hutchins suggests that it is imperative for all those involved in the debate to come to terms with the violence and insufficiency of the metaphysics of substance.     

话语理论与后马克思主义的哲学取向--拉克劳、墨菲的后马克思主义方法论解读

话语理论是以拉克劳、墨菲为代表的后马克思主义哲学思想的核心,是他们在现代哲学,特别是20世纪哲学的语言学转向之后试图重构其哲学基石的理论尝试和结果。具体而言,话语理论是在当代言语行为理论,特别是后期维特根斯坦语言哲学的基础上,结合后结构主义者德里达的解构思想,综合而成的一种哲学理论。它试图将“话语”(d iscourse)作为后马克思主义的基石,并服务其以“霸权”(hegemony)为核心的“政治本体论”。在拉克劳和墨菲的后马克思主义思想中,所有问题都可归结为“话语”。“话语”成了阐释后马克思主义理论的重要依据和理论参考。不仅…     

人类命运共同体话语体系构建的哲学思考

21世纪,世界进入大发展、大变革、大调整的时期。面对世界的变化,追问人类社会不朽的话题,中国贡献给人类的智慧是:构建人类命运共同体,实现世界各国共赢共享。哲学作为人类文明的智慧之学,它应当给人类提供思想超越和精神信仰。这种信仰的智慧既决定和制约人类的思想行为,又在很大程度上决定人类的价值理念和行为取向,进而决定人类的命运。人类命运共同体的提出,蕴含着哲学的基本思考:地球是人类唯一赖以生存的家园,珍爱和呵护地球是人类的唯一选择。人类共居在一个地球上,全球化使地球越来越成为名副其实的地球村。生活在历史和现实交汇的同一个时空里,越来越成为你中有我、我中有你的命运共同体。没有共同的哲学智慧,人类命运共同体话语体系就难以形成。在人类命运共同体话语体系的构建过程中,哲学话语面临着六个凸显的问题:西方哲学与中国哲学何为话语体系中心、世界主义与民族主义、历史主义与普遍主义、普遍主义与文化多样性、文明的冲突、对话、和谐、人工智能与人类智能的关系问题。这种话语困境迫切要求在人类命运共同体话语体系的构建过程中构建新的哲学话语系统。有了这种系统,人们可以通过对话的方式、协调的方式、交往交流的方式来沟通人们的智慧,取得共识,以有效地进行全球治理和构建人类命运共同体的话语体系。这其中哲学家和哲学工作者的哲学自信和哲学担当就显得尤为重要。     

Onset and Offset Deservingness: The Case of Home Foreclosures

An examination of the debate surrounding foreclosure assistance suggests that arguments vary in the extent that they suggest people facing foreclosure deserve assistance and whether the cause of the foreclosure is at the onset or offset of the foreclosure situation. Results from an experiment using a nationally representative sample suggest that people use the attributional evidence provided by onset‐ and offset‐deservingness scenarios to determine their support for governmental and personal foreclosure assistance. Consistent with attribution theory, path analysis suggested that attributions of controllability and the associated emotions of anger and sympathy mediated the relationship between deservingness arguments and support for foreclosure assistance. Additionally, people who endorse conservatism were more likely to oppose foreclosure assistance. Ideological differences in perceived controllability, anger, and sympathy mediated the relationship between ideology and personal assistance and partially mediated the relationship between ideology and government assistance.     

Sophistry in Vygotsky: Contributions to the Rhetorical and Poetic Pedagogy

Studies in Philosophy and Education - This work relates L. S. Vygotsky’s theory to the rhetorical and poetic pedagogy, which is a set of educational ideas and practices derived from the...