Topics for workshopping mini-analyses (audience, genre, and forum)
These topics are to serve two functions:
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Mini-analysis: General Concerns
A mini-analysis will provide a good reason to introduce and use a method of analysis provided by an academic authority, such as McKee, Gallop, White, Covino, Selzer, Seitz, Rabinowitz, Foss, and Porter & Silverman.
In any case, the writer must introduce the method fully (name of author, title of work, summary of argument) and bring the method (presented and summarized) to bear on the rhetorical artifact because the method is most suitable for evaluating that artifact. The complexity (many interlocking parts) of each method will require you to unfold its terms and definitions using examples from your chosen artifact. Make sure to follow (and at times work against) these conventions:
Once again, during workshopping, your goal is to evaluate the performance of each writer's efforts to address these points.
Using the language of "controlling values":
Attempt to write out the network of controlling values (see background document, “Controlling Value,” for a more elaborate explanation).
After reading through a given text, attempt to articulate the dominant controlling value operative in the piece. This will always be in two hypothetical statements, the first of which is:
And that which compensates for the problem the context poses:
Then attempt to articulate the opposing controlling idea, or value, that is, the value against which the dominant value (from step 1) struggles. Again, this will be in two hypothetical statements, though inverted in relation to the dominant value.
Note that there is not necessarily a single “correct” way to state a controlling value. Different perspectives may see different controlling values at work. Important
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Instructions for first four mini-analyses:
Textual grounds (PIE: Point, Illustration, Explanation)
In academic writing, a general principle to navigate when developing an argument is :
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The Paramedic Method
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Arrangement
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Reading for rhetorical tropes
Tropes are figures of speech that “turn away” from common usage and meaning. The four master tropes are: Metaphor, where a word is transferred, carried over, from its proper meaning to another, by creating a similarity between two dissimilar things: “Procrastination is dancing after the song has ended.” Metonymy, where the effect stands in for the cause, or vice versa, or a thing stands in for an associated, contiguous thing: “It seems that today I have forgotten my pen.” Synecdoche, where a part of a whole stands for the whole, or the whole stands for the part: “I have spilled too much ink on Nietzsche’s essay ‘On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense.’” Irony, where the writer enacts an inversion or reversal of expectations, which requires two audiences: an authorial audience who sides with the author, who sees and gets the irony, and a narrative audience who only sees the narrator, and who misses the irony: “I adore those neighbors who throw parties late into the week nights, and I especially love those who let loose partygoers who then storm the streets hurling slurred speeches out loud and into the ears of those trying to sleep.” Here are a few other important tropes to look out for and practice in your writing: Anthimeria: substituting one part of speech for another: “Friend me!” Antonomasia: using a descriptive phrase instead of a proper noun Hyperbole: overstatement Litotes: understatement: “I am not unmoved when the vulnerable suffer” Paranomasia: punning Periphrasis: replacing a single word with a string of words Onomatopoeia: the sound of the word imitates what it names Tmesis: a word broken up into pieces: “fan-freaking-tastic” There are many more tropes to explore and practice. Reading for rhetorical figures: schemes The text Copy and Compose is helpful as a starting place, and here are a few notable schemes: Schemes of balance: Parallelism: the presentation of two or more ideas of equal importance using a similar grammatical structure Isocolon: grammatically parallel presentation of two ideas of equal length Antithesis: contrasting words or phrases placed side by side in parallel structure Chiasmus: Grammatical structure repeated in inverted order in second half of a sentence, where the first half has two parts Schemes of emphasis: Zeugma (as ellipses): using a single noun or verb with several verbs or nouns Asyndeton: succession of phrases or clauses without connective conjunctions Polysyndeton: succession of phrases or clauses connected with conjunctions Anastrophe: inverted word order. “Let’s speak of all things literary” Schemes of repetition and restatement: Anaphora: First word of successive clauses or sentences repeated Epistrophe: Last word of successive clauses or sentences repeated Symploche: First and last words of a clause or sentence repeated Anadiplosis: word that ends clause/sentence begins next Conduplicatio: beginning a clause/sentence with key word from previous Antimetabole: Two terms of the first half of a sentence are repeated in the last half in inverted order: AB:BA Parentheses: Word, phrase, or clause inserted as an aside in the middle of a sentence Ploche: repetition of same word with different senses Polyptoton: repetition of different forms of same word: “Your inventory is made up of all the things you have already invented” Climax: presentation of ideas in increasing order of importance Schemes of transition: Metabasis: transitionary summary that recaps what came before and hints at what is to come Procatalepsis: heading off objections in advance Analepsis: flashback Metalepsis: attributing present effect to a distant cause (“the butterfly effect”) Figures of Thought (Figures of Speech Act)
Aporia: an anomaly Apostrophe: addressing a person or object not present Erotema: rhetorical question Hypophora: asking and answering questions Interpellatio: calling or hailing the audience to take up a specific role in relation to the speaker Licentia: speaking truth to power Obsecratio: the pleading request Partitio: separating out members of the audience Subiectio: a mock dialogue |
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