Transcripts of interviews for places on a diploma course in an educational institution in Singapore are used to illustrate phenomenon of distance and familiarity in unequal dialog. The study discusses how interactional movement along distance-familiarity cline reveals participants' relative power, status, mutual understanding in speech situation…

Because true diversity challenges dominant discourses, those in power attempt to assimilate competing discourses in the name of diversity. An example is the judging of qualitative research proposals by the rules of quantitative research, which inevitably disadvantages qualitative research. (Contains 21 references. Includes commentary by Dawn…

This study examined the nature of power manifestations in a specific online learning setting. The two online classes selected for this study were Master's level courses in a professional school at a large state university in the United States. A total of 1340 postings were made in the two classes over the span of the semester. To test the research…

This paper describes and analyzes the use of Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed (TO) as a form of academic and social support used in a recruitment and retention program for bilingual teachers in the Southeastern United States. We use critical discourse analysis to understand how TO works to disrupt monologic relationships and reestablish…

Explores rhetorical strategies that construct institutional authority by analyzing discourse from a Senate subcommittee hearing. Argues that, although domination is basic to human organization, all structures are vulnerable to strategic alteration through effective participation. (MS)

Explores the territory of whiteness in order to map the discursive space it occupies, as the first step in the process of exposing whiteness as a rhetorical construction. Discusses some of the rhetorical strategies through which whiteness resecures its discursive space and concludes with three aspects of reflexivity that offer directions for…

Proposes four defining conditions for undoable phenomena and applies them to power, examining the foundation of its inevitability and looking for a lever to unhinge its constructions. Suggests, with four procedural steps, how power may be contested, rearticulated, and undone. Explains the distinction between power and force, and demonstrates the…

The field of rhetoric has generated studies of definitional disputes and of the relationship between definition and power. Informed by the idea of collective definition created over time, these studies raise an important theoretical-practical question about definition and contestation that may be approached through a concept of authority.…

An analysis of what appears initially to be a typical literature circle discussion about the book "Shiloh" illuminates larger issues of the influence of class and gendered discursive practices. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the author suggests that the ways these fifth-grade students enact class and gender roles actually positions them…

Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this article explores the writer-identity of a college ESL student in order to understand how embedded ideologies and power relations shape understanding of writer identity. Using a poststructural and sociocultural perspective, the author takes a stand regarding the politics of language and the teaching of…

The strabismus conception of masculinity and power with its manipulation as reflected in the consequences of actions endorsed and demonstrated by leaders, followers, citizens as individuals and groups at different times in the past, and present has been a major source of the seemingly quiescence and underdevelopment in Africa. Masculinity has…

This document focuses on specific linguistic features that serve ideological functions in texts written in South Africa from 1985 to 1988. The features examined include: naming; metaphors; old words with new meanings; words becoming tainted; renaming or lexicalization; overlexicalization; strategies for resisting classification; tense and aspect;…

This paper brings together ideas from feminist epistemology and critical theory to initiate a conversation on repressed or distorted communication. It argues that current feminist epistemological studies of women's ways of knowing, making sense, and solving problems can and should inform attempts to empower democratic dialogues and restructure the…

Examines theories of ideology as presented in Marxist-based critical studies; how these theories serve a strategic function within Marxist theory; and, by way of the work of Michel Foucault, the inadequacies of this discourse of "ideological" analysis. Proposes that critical studies of the media move toward the concept of…

Explores the multiple and heterogeneous deployment of the Other within discourses that intersect and contest each other. Shows how the 19th century discourse of "le femme orientale," which informed the Romantic critique of capitalism, was recuperated in a hegemonic manner to promote an expanding consumer culture. Discusses the colonial…