COM 204

• critical/criticism


  paying careful attention to something in order to make an argument
• rhetoric


  strategic use of symbols
• text


  communication artifact you can study (dialogue, events, photographs,essay,novel)
• chiasmus


  a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form

  
  

  never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you
• Dialogue (from Plato)


  between two or more people
• Enthymeme


  from Aristotle

  defined as an argument where one premise is not explicitly stated
• dialectic (from Plato)


  any formal system of reasoning that arrives at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments
• metaphor


  simple sentence communicating a relationship between tenor and vehicle
• tenor


  "war is hell"

  war
• vehicle


  "war is hell"

  hell
• invitational rhetoric


  feminism in rhetoric

  
  

  have the speaker propose something, invite a response, edit it, present it, then repeat it

  
  

  Foss and Griffin salvaged rhetoric, Gearhearts version was bad and patriarchial
• soundness


  valid argument with true premises
• validity


  actually measuring exactly what you intend to measure
• Form (from Burke)


  Burke Balances

  
  

  creation and satisfaction of appetite in the reader/header

  
  

  brings REPEATED enjoyment

  e.g. sitcoms
• Information (from Burke)


  Burke Balances

  
  

  relies more heavily on facts

  
  

  once its consumed its not longer interesting

  e.g. reality TV
• rhetorical situation


  exigency, audience, and constraints

  
  

  how these things are responded to (or not) by a situation
• associational identification


  same interests, common ground, congregation
• dissociational identification


  same enemies, identification through antithesis, segregation
• "we" identification


  transcendence, living life through we
• unifying symbols identification


  artifact, image, song, movie

  e.g. american flag in political communication
• What makes something stand out as a critical claim?


  the word "suggests" or "defines" an arguable claim does not state the obvious
• character (in narrative research)

  moral/ethical code

  role
• Reactivity


  if you know you're being studied you might change your behavior
• Semiotics


  study of how signs operate in society
• Signs/signifiers/signifieds


  signifier: sound-image

  signified: concept
• Icons/indexes/symbols


  Icons: when the sign resembles the object or idea itself

  Indexes: when the sign has a relationship to the idea or object being communicated but the sign does not represent the idea or object itself

  Symbols: when the relationship between sign and idea or object is arbitrary
• Narrative


  concerned w meanings people assign to their lives

  explores particularities of individuals lives

  places great value upon hearing the voices and perusing the actual words of persons

  concerned w the context in which events transpire

  seeks to understand how events unfolded in times according to the teller

  highlights person's conceptions of turning points in their lives

  composes and presents versions of personal identity/character

  enacts and expresses cultural values and world views

  oriented historically
• conversation analysis


  study of orders of talk in interaction that takes place with any individual and in any setting
• Why you "did nothing"

  
  

  Based on an idea, even something that looks like nothing, is something that we can study.

  -It is impossible to really do nothing in conversation.
• Triangling ?????
• Baby talk ?????
• Quotatives ?????
• Ethnography


  writing of culture, did not originate in communication

  more than observing and participating
• Ethnomoethodology


  thick description, not just a list of attributes

  
  

  research immersed in culture, studies language, rituals, ceremonies, play, work, relationships, might actually live in it, observe it, or do archival research

  
  

  some spend several years, some entire professional lives
• Bernard's Rule of Thumb for Ethnography:

  one year
• Breaching Experiment


  an experiment that seeks to examine people's reactions to violations of commonly accepted social rules or norms
• Culture centered approach


  much more humble, gives culture grace, finds perspectives, tries to generate mutually meaningful solutions, a culture knows best what and where its problems are
• Focus groups


  structured interview of 6-10 people at once

  typically 30-90 minutes

  goal is not just to get individual views but to benefit from the groups interactions

  facilitator questions and interaction guide to discussion
• Ideology


  a term that describes sets of ideas and examines how they can misrepresent the world
• Marxism


  the base: economic relations in society shapes the superstructure: cultural institutions which shapes the consciousness: of individuals