Women of Color feminists have theorized and pointed to the ways that chisme is a resistant practice for Women and Girls of Color. In line with this theoretical and epistemological framing of chisme, the authors explore the ways that gossip is, in fact, an intellectual and political literacy practice that Women and Girls of Color utilize in the…

This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the model of metalinguistic community, a community of positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language. Building upon the notions of speech community (Duranti, 1994; Gumperz, 1968; Morgan, 2004), linguistic community…

"The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader" is an essential collection of readings for students of Applied Linguistics. Divided into five sections: Language Teaching and Learning, Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, Identity and Power and Language Use in Professional Contexts, the "Reader" takes a broad…

Each discourse community teaches and uses a particular version of reality. In the field of accounting, the interpretation of reality is an objective one. Such an interpretation is a constraint on writing, as are accounting's reliance on exclusionary language, its need to meet legal and professional requirements, its adherence to stylistic and…

Discusses the unexplored territory of the stories teenagers have to tell. Contends that teenagers tell personal experience narratives as much as anybody else, using a repertoire of tales at a high level of competence as a means of social currency within their everyday conversational exchanges. Illustrates with quotes from fieldwork in secondary…

Argues that the phrase "think like a lawyer" confers a technical understanding of legal practices unavailable to ordinary people. Invites critics, in another approach, to examine ways laws are negotiated within rhetorical culture, then transformed into legal edicts. Studies the case of "Separate but Equal" doctrine to offer a…

Analyzes the events of July 23, 1993, when Carol Moseley-Braun was involved in two rhetorical events in the United States Senate dealing with racial issues and the rhetorical culture of the Senate. Concludes that the reactions are as telling as the actions, revealing a United States Senate fundamentally unprepared for such a subject and such a…

This paper discusses the rhetoric of American educators to show that rhetorical analyses can be used to highlight assumed concepts and values within educators' discourses, policies, and practices, and to suggest that greater awareness of their rhetoric can help educators make their communications congruent with their purposes. The paper describes…

Educators and policymakers find themselves confronted with how to address the issue of children "pre-disposed to failure." This paper contends that teachers and politicians are linked in a chain of responsibility that forces them to construct a common discourse through which they may share their views, and with which they may…

This paper contends that rhetoric is a force for social change. It also contends that the study of persuasive discourse--how it works, what gives it force--is rhetoric. Pointing out that in the past "persuasive discourse" has meant public discourse of various kinds but that nowadays scholars usually expand the category to include…

A study investigated the role of the Aboriginal Student Enclave, one of five campuses of Edith Cowan University (Australia) as a discourse community. The relatively small but cohesive university subcommunity is designed to provide additional support for Aboriginal students enrolled in standard programs and an environment in which the students are…