Dissertation proposal

Here's my preliminary dissertation proposal. It was accepted as a preliminary proposal, but with the caveat that it would require more work to be my final dissertation proposal to be filed with the college.

Cultural Factors that Influence Intercultural Telephone Calls:
An Analysis of Indian Call Centers

In the customer service blog created by a large computer seller (referred to as Byron Computers in this document) to improve customer service, one customer pleads

Before reading this blog and finding out that you are working on the problem, I had decided on AB[B]-- anything but -- this despite the fact that all of your products have given me excellent service. I just couldn't face the prospect of dealing with technical help. I find the outsourcing unbearable. The people are nice enough, and I think that they are trying hard. However, when I can't understand them and they seem to be reading from some script that dictates that they say my name repeatedly while trying to placate me with politeness (ordinarily something I treasure), I want to pull my hair out-- slowly, one by one.... Make me want to buy another [Byron], please! (Weinberger 2006).

Another customer asks more succinctly, “Does this mean you’ll be moving your call centers back to a native-English speaking country?” (Waters 2006). The general tone of the blog intended to deal with customer support is rife with complaints about Indian call center workers. And these customers aren’t the only ones that have noticed the Indian call centers. Numerous industry publications have identified the frustration many consumers have with Indian call centers (Bailor 2005), (Sandberg 2007), (Fleischer 2005), (Ali 2006). Clearly Byron hasn’t been entirely successful at outsourcing their support operations to India.

Byron hires primarily well-educated, native or fluent English speakers (India has 40 million native English speakers, and more English fluent English speakers than the U.S. (Natarajan and Pandit 2008).) and trains them on both their products and American accents, yet customers still complain that they can’t understand call center workers. Although undoubtedly difficulties understanding accents and vocabulary may create communication problems, the extent of communication problems that occurs cannot be explained by accents and vocabulary issues alone (Forey and Lockwood 2007), (Kim 1999,) (Warren 2004). Rather, cultural differences interfere with the communication between these call center workers and their customers to the degree that the consumers believe that they are speaking with non-native English speakers. Furthermore, these communication difficulties have created a consumer bias so that some consumers believe that their communication with the call center is unsatisfactory before it even begins, if the call center worker has a foreign accent. Both Ali (2006) and Sandberg (2007) describe call center situations in which consumers insisted on speaking with Americans. Clearly, the cultural differences between Indian call center workers and the U.S. customers they serve are compromising call center workers’ ability to provide the technical information that consumers need. This situation raises the question: what are the cultural differences that interfere with telephone communication between Indian call center workers and their U.S. clients?


Call Centers and Technical Communication

At first glance, call centers don’t fit traditional definitions of technical communication. One associates technical communication with broadcast forms of media. In the past, technical communication dealt primarily with print media, but since the Internet became public, technical communication has expanded to electronic media, because electronic media provides a myriad of advantages for both consumers and manufacturers. For example, electronic media allows manufacturers to update documentation during a product’s life cycle, not between product iterations, while saving overhead costs associated with shipping and printing. For consumers, electronic media allows them to read documentation before they purchase the product and to access lost documentation as well as receive updates to documentation. Electronic documentation provides advantages for both consumers and manufacturers.

Consequently, the media for technical communication shifted from print to electronic media, and technical communicators shifted with it. Similarly technical communication is shifting to synchronous, individualized forms of communication. While real-time synchronous technologies such as the telephone allow manufacturers to offer consumers both immediate assistance as well as assistance tailored to their individual need, in the past, relying heavily on synchronous media to deliver technical information to their consumers was cost prohibitive both because synchronous technology like telephones were too expensive to use, and because labor costs were too high. Consumers were frequently required to pay a fee for such synchronous help or, at least, were required to wait in long telephone queues. As the operations costs of technologies such as the telephone declined and new technologies like instant message arose, they allowed both access for consumers as well as labor arbitrage to operate them. These technologies have become both more ubiquitous but more complicated, and the need for synchronous technical communication tailored to the individual need of the consumer increased. In other words, technological advances simultaneously allowed manufacturers to provide a superior level of service to their customers, while creating a need for this superior level of service. And just as technical communication expanded to include electronic as well as print media, it must also expand to include synchronous media as well.

And yet, while synchronous, the media of the call center call is not free from text. Call center workers are trained extensively using the texts developed by technical communicators. Furthermore, these workers rely on scripts and decision trees also written by technical communicators. Finally much of their job as call center workers is reading the electronic documentation to consumers. So, in part, an analysis of call center calls is really an examination of how the same information a consumer can find in the electronic formerly print documentation is reframed and repackaged in a different media—a task that Johnson-Eilola (2004) identifies as the core of technical communication .

Technical communicators have traditionally been advocates for the audience/consumer during the production and delivery of products and services. In fact, technical communicators are frequently the only advocates for the audience/consumer. In the twenty first century, producers use media and staff to communicate with their customers in ways not imagined by technical communicators at the beginning of technical-communication professionalization at the beginning of the twentieth century. When early engineers began writing documentation to assist the consumers of their products, print was the most efficient way to communication with consumers (Kynell 1999). Now a variety of print and electronic, synchronous and asynchronous media is available to the twenty-first century technical communicator. Technical communicators have a variety of technology they may use to convey information to consumers and decisions about the best media to use are rhetorical and practical. To continue the traditional role of technical communicators as consumer advocates in the global and technologically-enriched twenty first century, technical communicators must expand their field of inquiry to include all communication between consumers and providers regardless of media, format, culture, or geography. While this research will certainly benefit companies that seek to provide services at lower cost by international outsourcing, also known as offshoring, its primary goal is to continue the role of technical communicator as consumer advocate in the twenty first century.

Pitfalls for Call Center Communication

So, technical communicators should understand that communication processes they had managed via print in the twentieth century are not moving to just electronic media, but real-time media as well. And while the media and format have changed, the lessons technical communicators have learned about communicating with consumers should still apply to these new formats and media. A cursory examination of literature in technical communication reveals that first, communication tends to break down when trying to communicate across fields. Secondly communication fails when trying to convey bad news (Winsor 1988, Sauer 2003, Herndl et.al. 1991).

If a technician tells a consumer that the solution to fixing his or her laptop or desktop is to reformat the hard drive, a time consuming and difficult process that usually results in the loss of some data, he or she is not going to be inclined to reject such advice and be dissatisfied with the results of their technical support call.

These lessons serve to illustrate that communication failures generally do not come from routine failures of grammar and syntax. Rather communication failures result from the complex nature of communication that relies not only on the words themselves but the context that those words reside in.

Cultural Context

And all words reside in their cultural context. In fact, some researchers would say that the words are part of the blocks that build the culture. Tomlinson (1999) defines culture essentially as communication i.e the signs and symbols we use to communicate. Hofstede (1991) explains that culture is the internal programming—the software if you will—that we use to interpret the world around us. Geertz (1973) has a more complex and ultimately I believe a more useful definition of culture. He explains culture is not language, signs, symbols, habits, practices, and ritual, but rather the matrix of meaning we build around such things. For example, to imply that mere knowledge of the name of the professional football team that plays in Dallas, TX is to understand the culture of people living in Dallas is to reduce culture meaninglessly to its individual pieces. It’s to equate dots of paint on canvas to the Mona Lisa.

The society we live in trains us to both create and interpret the meanings of these cultural signs. In his book Discipline and Punish Foucault (1977) discusses the ways in which institutions apply almost covert pressure to conform by watching and correcting. Society’s panoptic eye functions to apply subtle pressure to its members to adopt particular communication expectations and strategies. Consequently, these cultural differences create conflicting communication methods that make intercultural communication difficult (Sriussapadorn 2006) (Walker 2003) (Ulijn and Campbell 2001).


Yet many Indian call centers have focused on the trivialities that Geertz dismisses as the signs to interpret not the interpretation itself. A quick walk down the cube farm in an Indian call center reveals long lists of the professional sports teams in all the major cities in the United States. Clearly, companies understand that cultural factors are inhibiting communication, but they don’t know how to train their workers to account for these cultural factors. And, if culture is understanding everything from football to food, it seems unlikely that Byron Computers or any other company can successfully fill in the culture gaps. However, Indian call center workers and the consumers they serve do have a common culture—that of Byron Computers and the telephone, and that’s the common culture that call center workers can develop and trade on to bridge the communication culture gap.


Methodology

Until recently most technical communicators relied upon the work of Hall (1976) and Hofstede (1991) to explain the intercultural dissonance between call center staff and their intercultural clients. First, I’d like to briefly explain their systems, why they no longer apply to many technical communication texts, and how we might find new methodologies to improve intercultural technical communication. In the past, most technical communication has been via broadcast media initially print and now electronic media. However, the improvement of broadband technologies and globalization have created opportunities for companies to provide more targeted, frequently individualized, often real-time synchronous modes for technical communication. Unfortunately, such targeted communications are more difficult because participants may not have the characteristics of the larger cultural group they belong to and communicators using many of these new, or at least improved, broadband technologies don’t have the benefit of visual feedback and, in e-mail and IM, not even aural feedback. So, these new technologies have allowed manufacturers to provide consumers with technical information in more personalized and timely methods, but these methods require them to understand the consumers they serve. This understanding becomes even more difficult when provider and consumer are from different cultures.

In his book, Beyond Culture, Hall (1976) explains his theory of high context and low context communication. As the name implies, high context communication relies on the context of the conversation—the previous relationship of the speakers, shared knowledge etc.--to derive meaning. Countries typically associated with high context communication styles are China, Japan, and India. However, if the wife and the husband live in a low context country such as the United States, the wife might find that she will have better luck achieving her desires if she overtly describes what she would like. Using this model, low context countries like the U.S., Australia, and Germany may have difficulties communicating with high-context countries like India, China, and Japan, but people from low context countries find it easier to communicate with people from other low context countries and vice versa.

In Software of the Mind, Hofstede (1991) also describes several factors that might interfere with communication. For example, he defines collectivist and individualist countries. In collectivist countries—most countries—members of a group—familial or corporate—strive to have the group succeed and to maintain harmony within the group. Individualist countries value the achievements of the individual and conflict isn’t exactly valued, but is acceptable if it is perceived as being honest and goal-oriented. Consequently, communication with collectivist countries can be difficult if one isn’t perceived as being a member of the group, while membership in an exclusionary group can even have negative connotations in an individualist society; other factors such as mutual benefit etc. are generally inducements for communication in individualist countries. However, once one has gained membership into the group, one tends to continue to belong to the group regardless of outside circumstances. In individualist societies, ones relationship with others can frequently depend on the continuation of mutually beneficial circumstances.

While the theories of Hall and Hofstede shed light on intercultural communication in the aggregate—appropriate for broadcast media—they do not apply in more specialized circumstances. Hofstede (1991) cautions against making levels of analysis mistakes by assuming that individuals within a country have the characteristics of that country. Within a country many people may deviate from the norm. It’s quite possible to encounter an individualist within a collectivist society and vice versa. Furthermore, collectivist groups might exist within an individualist society such as the Mafia within the United States. However, as a group, people tend to act according to the characteristics of their country and the institutions within that country tend to support those characteristics.

Using these factors to predict and analyze intercultural communication can be quite seductive because they are well-developed theories that are easy to apply. When planning for a particular intercultural encounter, one can simply look up the countries involved and plan accordingly. Likewise it’s easy to use these factors as a kind of terministic screen to explain communication behaviors between cultures. However, recent technical communication researchers have pointed to problems with these models. Hunsinger (2006) claims that heuristic approaches like Hall’s and Hofstede’s presuppose that culture is a universal thing that grounds cultural identity. Consequently, the “construction and mobilization of cultural identity during discursive exchange tends to be neglected” (37). Hunsinger (2006) offers political, economic, and historical factors as possible influences on communication. Although he alludes to ways in which these extracultural factors might influence communication, he doesn’t provide concrete examples. Rather he explains how the experiences of one expatriate, Chinese acquaintance of his is influenced by different cultural characteristics that he refers to as scapes as in technoscapes, mediascapes etc.

However, I can imagine a more applicable situation in which this view of intercultural communication might inform an internationally outsourced call center function. For example, the United States might bring pressure to bear on India to give up their claim to Kashmir in exchange for Pakistan’s cooperation in the “global war on terror.” Such an occurrence might not predispose Indians kindly towards Americans in telephone exchanges. In his article Hunsinger (2006) is not denying Hofstede’s and Hall’s analysis of culture, but rather pointing out how other factors may and probably will confound communication, because cultural identity is an ongoing and dynamic discursive act. If, as Hunsinger has asserted, culture is separate from cultural identity and, furthermore, constructed during the communication act, how do researchers identify the factors that interfere with cross-cultural communication in any meaningful, generalizable way? Rather than applying a different set of cultural factors to consider when examining cross-cultural interactions, I believe the solution resides in developing techniques for examining typical intercultural situations.

In her dissertation, Hannah Sun (2004) offers both a critique of these theorists and research to illustrate and prove her claim. She examined the use of text messaging among U.S. and Chinese young adults. She demonstrated how the use of this technology deviates from the behavior that would be predicted by Hofstede as well as Honold’s (1999) research. Because China is a collectivist country, Chinese young adults should learn to use new technology by talking to their friends etc. However, she discovered that this new generation of Chinese technology users preferred to use documentation in part because they were unwilling to wait for an opportunity to talk to their friends about the technology. They wanted to use it immediately. Similarly she noted that they tended to use Pinyin—a version of Chinese translated into a western alphabet—to use text messaging rather than the ideograph software available in part because it was difficult to learn. She postulated that subgroups deviated significantly from the norms established by Hall and Hofstede and that analysis of these subgroups was necessary to inform technical communication.

Additionally Sriussapadorn (2006) also rejects the heuristic analysis of intercultural communication and claims that data-driven studies between particular subgroups in particular contexts are the only way to describe, understand, and ultimately improve such exchanges.

Sun (2004) and Sriussapadorn (2006) both suggest methods for understanding intercultural communication quite differently than Hunsinger (2006). Hunsinger (2006), although I’m sure he would disagree, suggests replacing the heuristics of Hall, Hofstede, and others with more transient and immediately present factors in the lives of communicators. Communicators use these factors to construct their discursive cultural identity and that by understanding these factors that contribute to transient and constructed cultural identities we can elucidate communication difficulties that might arise during intercultural communication. Hannah Sun’s research suggests and Sriussapadorn’s research states that research should inform an evidence-based approach to intercultural technical communication that investigates a particular communication exchange between subgroups and identifies intercultural communication difficulties in a particular context. While the work of Hunsinger (2006), Sun (2004), and Sriussapadorn (2006) all critique the heuristics of the past and suggest methodologies for describing intercultural communication in the future, none of them suggest research methodologies likely to yield the predictive models that could result in better training and ultimately communication for intercultural call centers.

However, in their 2007 article about an intercultural call center in the Phillipines that serviced the insurance industry, Forey and Lockwood (2007) relied on a systemic functional linguistic approach to analyze calls. By focusing on the generic nature of calls, they were able to classify types of miscommunication that allowed them to develop training for call center workers. They did this by both identifying the stages of call center calls as well as identifying characteristics of register that created problems. They broke these problems into phonological/lexical choices, clause—interpersonal choices, and discourse choices.

Based on their research, I propose to use systemic functional linguistics to analyze call center calls as well, because they’ve identified two culturally dependent factors, register and genre, that create meaning during the call center telephone call. Furthermore, they’ve developed vocabulary and systems to analyze register and genre. Genre is a staged-goal oriented social process (Martin 2000, 161) (Painter 2000, 167). Register accounts for the context of a conversation and is divided into field (involving the interaction of people with their world), mode (the medium of communication), and tenor. Martin contends that, “You have to use enough signals of register and genre to ensure that your listener can see where you are coming from. Otherwise, you will simply not be fully understood” (Martin 2001, 162). Genre and register are two of the cultural factors that interfere with intercultural communication. By recognizing the ways in which people from a particular culture manipulate register and genre to build meaning, we can train others to recognize genre and register in order to completely understand people from those cultures, as well as, communicate successfully with them.

So, for my study, I propose analyzing intercultural, call center calls just as Forey and Lockwood (2007) did. Unlike Forey and Lockwood, I’ll analyze information technology calls to Indian call centers not insurance calls to call centers in the Philippines and try to describe which uses of genre and register are successful and unsuccessful. I’ll use characteristics of success as defined by Byron Computers such as customer satisfaction, time, repeated calls on the same issue, and amount of products shipped out.

Before analyzing the calls, I propose analyzing two other types of communication that elucidate the call center call. First, I would like to analyze the customer service blogs from Byron Corporation in an effort to understand the problems as perceived by Byron’s customers. To analyze these blogs, I’ll use discourse analysis and categorize the types of complaints that customers have i.e. complaints about adherence to a script, complaints about accent etc. I’ll probably quantify such complaints even though the self-selection of the blog participants would render any quantitative analysis suspect. (It’s possible I lack the imagination to see how quantitative analysis could apply in this situation.)

After analyzing the blogs, I’ll analyze training materials for Indian call center workers to begin to understand why call center workers might respond to customers as they do. Are they following their training, or spontaneously responding to the caller? Just as with the blogs, I’ll use discourse analysis to categorize items of interest. Interesting items within training will be texts specifically identified in the blogs as offensive such as scripts. For items such as scripts or decisions trees, I will analyze them to determine if they attempt to train call center workers to use rhetorical techniques to build ethos and to identify those rhetorical techniques. I also plan to analyze the entirety of both training sets to establish the degree of overlap.

Finally, I’ll analyze the call center telephone calls (from now on referred to as just calls) using systemic functional linguistics. First I’ll perform a pilot in which I’ll transcribe 3-5 calls looking at both genre and register. For genre, I’ll establish the stages of the call center call genre and what the expectations within the genre and then I’ll compare that analysis to the Indian call center calls. For register, I’ll look at grammar, word choice, and discourse style. Grammar will consider things like verb tense. Do callers use present tense or progressive present tense? For example, “I understand you.” vs. “I am understanding you.” Additionally I’ll consider appropriate word choice such as I am very sorry to hear about your husband’s death instead of I apologize for the death of your husband. Finally I’ll consider discourse styles. Do call center workers rearticulate the issue from the caller in a more circular discourse style, or do they state a solution or at least the next step in the procedure as quickly as possible? I’ll use the pilot to articulate these categories more clearly and then analyze an additional twenty calls from each call center. Although 20 calls may appear to be a small data set, Forey and Lockwood (2007) analyzed only 13 calls in their data set, so I believe a small pilot plus an additional 50 calls should be sufficient to identify some problems. Obviously, a larger data set would be desirable, but the time required to transcribe and analyze the calls makes a larger data set untenable.

For the time being, I imagine the organization of my dissertation to be information driven i.e. I’ll organize the dissertation by gathering together similar types of information. However, I realize that as the dissertation develops such an arrangement might not be the most beneficial. Currently I envision the outline of my dissertation as follows:
Chapter 1 Introduction: background, statement of problem and research question, brief overview of methodology and dissertation.
Chapter 2 Literature review
Chapter 3 Methodology: description of how I will apply the methodology as well as an argument for why the methods I’ve chosen are reliable and valid
Chapter 4 Blog analysis: description of the how I collected data from the blogs, the results, and an analysis of the data
Chapter 5 Training material analysis: a description of how I collected data from the training materials, what the data was, and an analysis of the data
Chapter 6 Indian Call Center Calls: a description of how I analyzed the calls, the data this analysis rendered, an analysis of the data, and a description of the parameters of a successful call.
Chapter 7: Conclusion: a discussion of my findings


Tentative schedule

August 2008 Take qualifying exams
Fall 2008 Collect data
Spring 2009 Analyze data and collect any additional data
Summer 2009 Draft dissertation
Fall 2009 Revise dissertation
Spring 2010 Defend dissertation
May 2010 Graduate!!!!!

I’ll revisit and possibly revise this schedule on June 30, 2008.

Ali, S. (2006, Oct 30). Leadership (A Special Report); If You Want to Scream, Press...: Do call centers have to be so infuriating? Wall Street Journal, pp. R.4.
Bailor, C. (2005, July) Five elements to consider after you’ve outsourced. Customer Relationship Management, 24-30.
Fleischer, J. (2005, April) It’s not the cost; it’s the productivity. Call Center Magazine, 12-15.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures; selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
Hall, E.T. (1976) Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as a social semiotic : The social interpretation of language and meaning. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Herndl, G., Fennell, B., Miller, C. (1991) “Understanding Failures in Organizational Discourse.” Eds. Bazerman, C. and Paradis, J. Textual Dynamics of the Professions. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press: 279-305.
Hofstede, Geert H. Hofstede,Gert Jan. (2005). Cultures and organizations : software of the mind (Rev. and expanded 2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Honold, P. (1999). Learning How to Use a Cellular Phone: Comparison Between German and Chinese Users. Technical Communication, 46(2), 196-210.
Hunsinger, R. (2006) “Culture and Cultural Identity in Intercultural Technical Communication.” Technical Communicaiton Quarterly. 15 (1), 31-48.

Johnson-Eilola, J. (2004). “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age.” In J. Johnson-Eilola and S. Selber (Eds.) Central Works in Technical Communication (pp. 175-192). New York: Oxford UP (reprinted from Technical communication quarterly, 5, 245-70).
Kim, H., Hearn, G., Hatcher, C., & Weber, I. (1999). Online communication between australians and koreans: Learning to manage differences that matter. World Communication, 28(4), 48-68.
Kynell, T. (1999). Technical communication from 1850-1950: Where have we been? Technical Communication Quarterly, 8(2), 143-154.

Locker, K.O. (2000) Business and Administrative Communication (international edition), Boston, MA: Irwin McGraw-Hill.

Martin. J.R. (2000) “Language, Register, and Genre.” In Burns, A. ed. Analysing English in a global context: A Reader. (pp. 149-166) Florence, KY: Routledge.

Miller, Carolyn. (1984) “Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70 151-167.

Painter, C. (2000) “Understanding genre and register: Implications for language teaching.” In Burns, A. ed. Analysing English in a global context: A Reader. (pp. 168-193) Florence, KY: Routledge.
Sandberg, J. (2007, Feb 20). 'It Says Press Any Key; Where's the Any Key?'; India's Call-Center Workers Get Pounded, Pampered. Wall Street Journal, pp. B.1.
Sauer, B. J. (2002). The rhetoric of risk : technical documentation in hazardous environments. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Schneiders, Guido. (2006) Between customer and computer: Discursive effects of the use of computers in telephone complaints. In S. Carliner, J. Piet Verckens, and C. de Waele (Eds.) Information and Document Design (pp. 231-250). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sriussadaporn, R. (2006) “Managing international business communication problems at work: a pilot study in foreign companies in Thailand.” Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal. 13 (4): 330-344.

Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. (Ph.D., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).

Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Walker, D., Walker, T. and Schmitz, J. (2003) Doing Business Internationally. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Warren, T. L. (2004). Increasing user acceptance of technical information in cross-cultural communication. Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, 34(4), 249-264.
Waters, Matthew. (2002, July 13). Re: No magic wand for customer service. Direct2Dell. http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/07/13/433 .aspx#comments (April 23, 2007).
Weinberger, E. (2006, July 13). Re: No magic wand for customer service. Direct2Dell. http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/07/13/433.aspx #comments (April 23, 2007).
Winsor, D. (1988) Communication Failures Contributing to the Challenger Accident: An Example for Technical Communicators," IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 31.1: 101-07.

Really funny Onion Article

Everyone with a theory about the Cowboys, check out this great satire.

Jessica Simpson Completes Plan

Kendall

1320 Class Blogs

Students and Blogs

My student groups are now keeping a blog, so I felt obligated to resurrect mine. Many of them seem sceptical about the concept of blogging, and perhaps this experiment will be a pedagogical disaster, but I'm hoping it will help them communicate within their group. Also that at least some of them will enjoy it and start writing. I believe, like many composition instructors, that the way to learn to write is to write, a lot, kind of the practice makes perfect school of thought. A blog is a new way to do an old trick, and maybe it will engage a few of them. As a person that never managed to keep a diary, completely lacking in any kind of confessional motivation, and sadly not a lot of introspection as well, things like blogs are hard for me to get excited about. But I don't want to make the mistake that many instructors make and assume that my students are like me. Some are and some aren't. And we'll see how this takes off.

Sophists Rule!

For some reason, I'm having trouble following directions this summer. But here's my short version of the last two prompts.

First, my favorite canon is arrangement. Really. It's amazing to me the effect organization has on meaning and effectiveness. A poorly organized document or video or sentence, and it's incomprehensible to the audience. Good organization and the document makes perfect sense. People in general and students in particular tend to over look arrangement as important, but it will really make or break an artifact.

Secondly, three important things I've learned.

First, I learned how to covert powerpoint slides to video with voice over cool--and a corollary to that is I should probably let my husband do the voice work--he's got a voice made for radio.

Secondly, I learned that Plato really does think that rhetoric has value if not primary value. And also that he was a looney toon--ok I already knew that--but seriously. Plato must have thought at some point that he had come to know the truth otherwise why would he postulate that one can know truth but not tell it. And what was that moment like when Plato thought he had come to understand the true thing about...what? trees or beauty? probably math, but still what was he thinking to believe he had seen the true form of anything? Clearly he was in some sort of altered state when he had that brain wave.

Thirdly, I've really come to understand the various definitions of rhetoric i.e. it's style; it's persuasion; it's a good man speaking well and understand that how you define rhetoric really matters when it comes to the value that language has. Are you more of a sticks and stones person or a pen is mightier than the sword person?

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Outline
Thesis: The historical rhetorical and philosophical tradition concerning truth makes embracing postmodern communication theory difficult for both applied rhetoricians i.e. those who create useful texts like technical communicators as well as the culture at large. Embracing this new view of communication is critical for rhetoricians and audiences to produce and use texts that work in the information age.

I. Tragic ramifications of miscommunication
a. Challenger, Three-Mile Island Mining Accidents
b. Texts create organizations.
c. How miscommunication happens.
d. Professional communicators necessary to create safer, consumer-friendly environments and products
II. Why technical communicators aren’t more empowered.
a. Culture at large doesn’t value their work.
b. Technical communicators don’t value their work.
III. Historical relationship of truth and knowledge to language.
a. Sophists and empowered view of language
i. Language has incredible power to persuade
ii. No absolute Truth only conditional truth.
b. Plato, Truth and rhetoric
i. Rhetoric not based in Truth unethical for Plato
ii. Truth was a felt-sense that philosophers could feel but not communicate.
c. For 2000+ years Western culture defines truth as something outside language, although language can define truth.
i. Aristotle on Truth
ii. St. Augustine on Truth
iii. Bacon on Truth
iv. Locke on Truth
v. Nietzsche on Language
IV. The string that ties language to truth snaps: in the Twentieth Century philosophers grapple with relationship of language to truth; Foucault and others begin to understand that Truth is irrelevant—there’s only language.
a. Wittgenstein tries to create a view of language that ties language to truth but he can’t do it and abandons the effort.
b. Foucault finally declares an end to “the tyranny of the signifier.”
V. Modern communication theory and applied rhetoric (technical communication): the more practically minded apply the end of Truth to texts and language.
a. Brief history of technical communication and communication theory
b. How such theories empower both technical communicators and their audiences.
VI. Strategies for adopting 21st Century communication theory despite 2000 years of history.
a. Research that demonstrates relationship between knowledge and language.
b. Education
1. Curriculum must emphasize 21st Century articulated theory of communication.
2. Teach foundational knowledge not transient skills like software programs.
3. Management training.
c. Professionalization
1. Develop professional standards.
2. Supply workforce with enough professionals so that employers will never hire non-professionals.

Sophists Rule!

Outline

Thesis: The historical rhetorical and philosophical tradition concerning truth makes embracing postmodern communication theory difficult for both applied rhetoricians i.e. those who create useful texts like technical communicators as well as the cultural at large. Embracing this new view of communication is critical for rhetoricians and audiences to produce and use texts that work in the information age.

I. Beginning of Rhetoric and Philosophy
a. Sophists and empowered view of language
i. Language has incredible power to persuade
ii. No absolute Truth only conditional truth.
b. Plato, Truth and rhetoric
i. Rhetoric not based in Truth amoral for Plato
ii. Truth was a felt-sense that philosophers could feel but not communicate.
c. Plato wins the Truth debate plunging Western culture into a 2500 year search for Truth while simultaneously stretching the string that tethers language to truth tighter and tighter.
i. Aristotle on Truth
ii. St. Augustine on Truth
iii. Bacon on Truth
iv. Locke on Truth
v. Nietzsche on Language
II. The string snaps: in the Twentieth Century philosophers like Wittgenstein and Foucault begin to understand that Truth is irrelevant—there’s only language.
a. Wittgenstein tries to create a view of language that ties language to truth but he can’t do it and abandons the effort.
b. Foucault finally declares an end to “the tyranny of the signifier.”
III. Modern communication theory and applied rhetoric (technical communication): the more practically minded apply the end of Truth to texts and language.
a. Brief history of technical communication and communication theory
b. How such theories empower both technical communicators and their audiences.
c. What happens when communicators and audiences don’t understand how the discursive reality created by texts work.
d. What rhetoric and technical communication departments can do to banish Plato and truth in their contemporary texts. (We can never really banish Plato, but we can place him in his historical context.)

Sophists Rule!

St. Augustine and Quintilian

Trace 3 elements of St. Augustine's rhetoric back to earlier rhetors. Also, relate how your 3 to 10 minute "video" project for next week is coming along. You might list key definitions here of the concepts you're relating, as well as the context in which you see yourself using this "video." That is, it's useful for our class, but can it help you in your final paper, in your teaching, in your workplace?


The underlying value in St. Augustine's writing is that both good and bad, or true and false, content can be equally persuasive, so it's important for good men to study rhetoric to spread the truth (about God is the implication). Not using rhetoric to spread truth leaves the truth "unarmed" and vulnerable to an attack by false rhetoric. This belief was why Plato attacked rhetoricians and/sophists so vehemently, because it allowed the spread of falsehoods. Aristotle was a little more practical and acknowledged that this could happen, but good rhetoricians could oppose them. Cicero also believed this. In fact, Quintilian is notable because he appears to be the only person we've read that didn't believe this. Yet, he wrote an entire essay "proving" how this couldn't happen. I personally wasn't convinced, but it's a charming idea to think that bad men can't speak well.

Likewise everyone discussed the proper way to educate young men in the practice of rhetoric, although with Plato and Aristotle it was more implied. Quintilian and St. Augustine both discuss how to teach rhetoric, although Quintilian spells out an elaborate curriculum and stresses both learning the rules (in part so one knows when to break them), studying and emulating experts, but in the proper way, and finally practicing. That's contrasted with St. Augustine who believed that learning rules wasn't bad as long as one had the time, but really just studying good examples and practicing was enough for him. I guess St. Augustine would love the "great book" curriculums. And he and Dr. Kemp would be great friends.

Finally, one minor issue that really struck me only because it seems so contemporary, is that both Quintilian and St. Augustine make a plea for a plain language movement. St. Augustine says, "And so when teaching, one should avoid all words which do not teach...." (465). He claims writers should do so even if they are incorrect. Later, he insists upon it. Likewise Quintilian wishes that "we were less afraid of words in daily use...." (380). Along the same lines they both criticize texts and speeches that are too long. St. Augustine says that one shouldn't say anything more than is required to gain the understanding of the audience. The only criticism Quintilian has for Cicero is that he was a little long-winded. In this regard, both St. Augustine and Quintilian advocated a relatively simple and pared-down style, relatively speaking. They were early TCers.

I think reading St. Augustine and Quintilian in the same week is interesting in that they both take this completely different tactic regarding the ethics question. St. Augustine is on one extreme saying that lots of evil men that will persuade audiences of bad and incorrect things are very good rhetoricians, therefore good men must be better rhetoricians--it's their sacred duty. On the other hand, Quintilian is saying basically that it's not a problem, because rhetoric is a good man speaking well and therefore bad men don't have the ability to do it. Their vices, foolishness, etc. keep them from doing it. Of course, he sort of skirts around the issue of using rhetoric to persuade people by claiming that's a ridiculous yardstick to judge rhetoric by. Basically good rhetoric is judged by how well one does it, not how many people it convinces. So he really doesn't respond at all to the charge that rhetoric used by a bad man is like a sword in the hands of a madman (Sor Juana's analogy not mine.) Although I find Quintilian's reasoning incredibly charming and enticing, ultimately I agree with St. Augustine. We good people need to get good at rhetoric so we can defend the truth. Even though my idea of truth and St. Augustine's are completely different, we agree that rhetoric can be used to spread it.

Finally, I've done virtually nothing on my video. I'm trapped in in-law purgatory on the high plains. It was all I could do to read St. Augustine. I already know something about enthymemes, but I do want to diverge from Aristotle's use of enthymemes. He believed, as I understand it, that enthymemes are effective because people recognized or at least agreed with the left-out premise of the truncated syllogism. In fact, the efficacy of the enthymeme depended on the audience's belief in the truncated part. I think, similar to Althusser's interpellation, that people hear enthymemes and agree with them because they don't understand the truncated part of the syllogism. It calls to them and sucks them in before they realize they've acquiesed. In fact, it's a way that modern day orators get audiences to subscribe to certain ideas, because they've left out the part that they might object to or they've left out the part that the rhetor doesn't want to say out loud. For example, when an interviewer asked Condoleezza Rice "Is Iraq involved in 911?" She replied, repeatedly, "the U.S. will seek out and destroy the perpetrators of 9/11" That's a truncated syllogism, an enthymeme, and the truncated part is that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Essentially she's saying: we will attack 9/11 perpetrators; Iraq is a 9/11 perpetrator; we will attack Iraq--only she never really said that, she implied it. In fact, she insists that she never claimed Iraq was involved in 9/11 yet she's on tape, repeatedly, saying just that using an enthymeme. Enthymemes allow politicians to convince audiences to go for policies that they otherwise wouldn't agree to, because it allows them to leave out language that would otherwise act as a red flag for audiences. Had Condoleezza Rice ever said that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, Americans never would have acquiesed to the invasion. Just before we invaded Iraq, several polls including the Gallup Poll indicated that 70% of Americans believed that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

I think the idea of the modern uses of enthymemes is incredibly useful for both our class and our students. We need to understand this idea to be critical consumers of information, but I'm not really going to discuss this in my paper.

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Week 7If you had to provide a brief account of the impact of Cicero on technical communication today, how would you do it? What would that impact be? Also, what messages have you learned from the Rhetorica ad Herennium?
Cicero foresaw SME's and the problem they would create for technical communicators everywhere. Cicero points out that knowing something doesn't necessarily help one communicate it. People with knowledge frequently need assistance communicating that knowledge to others. The company that Alison worked for obviously realized that when they hired her to write for engineers. They knew the engineers were ineffective at communicating and that their ineffectiveness could cost the company money or even lives--Alison to the rescue.

The other interesting thing that Cicero does is make the arguement that effective communication is more valuable than knowledge or information. That being an effective communicator requires natural talent, but also education and practice to perfect the skill. He implies that those with knowledge or information are a dime a dozen so to speak. In the 21st century new economy, theoretically it seems like that would be the case. The medium is the message. Remix is art. The selecting, framing, phrasing, and contextualizing of information is what makes knowledge, so technical communicators should be the ones with the most value. Unfortunately that's frequently not the case. Tiffany Craft-Portewig's dissertation pointed out that TCers either insert graphics as their told or just clean up the engineers graphics even though the TCers have the ability to produce far more effective graphics. On the ATTW listserv Karen Schriver just asked for help on developing a workshop for TCers and SME's who have lost the ability to work together effectively because the SME's have been bullying them. Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote an essay outlining both the problems and the solution to the work-a-day dilemma of TCers. We all need to listen.

As for Rhetorica Ad Herennium we still use the basic technique of defining techniques and explaining how to use or not use them even if we don't always use the vocabulary or techniques described in the Rhetorica. A big part of teaching style is teaching vocabulary--now it's more likely to be nominalization, telegraphic style, parallelism etc.--and teaching students how these things and correct or imitate them as necessary. We're still using the basic pedagogical techniques as demonstrated in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium.

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Aristotle and Jesse Jackson

In what ways do you think Jesse Jackson's speech makes use of topoi and concepts from Aristotle's Rhetoric? What are the key differences between Aris and Plastico? Which are you--Aristotelian or Platonic--in your teaching and/or work?

I suspect if I were really motivated, I could probably demonstrate how every technique in his speech is discussed in the Rhetoric, but I'm not that motivated.

First, Jackson relies heavily on both ethos and pathos. He really works hard on ethos. He establishes it in very traditional, old-fashioned ways such as introducing his family and also linking himself with previous people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. He also tells his family history as well as some of his accomplishments. In fact, he focuses on himself so much, he also becomes an example--another Aristotelian tact. He shows how he's an example of what can happen in the U.S. when people become politically active.

He also evokes pathos by telling not just his personal story, but also mentioning murdered and disenfranchised Americans in the civil rights struggle. Even his metaphor of his grandmother's quilt being the various factions of the Democratic party evoked pathos.

He also relies extensively on topoi. For example, in B&H 231, one line of argument is demonstrate when cause happens then effect happens and when absent, absent. In Jackson's speech he points out how, when factions put aside their differences Democrates win, when they don't they don't win--classic Aristotle. Also on page 231, pointing out when the incredible happens, such as when Jackson says that he wasn't supposed to be successful as the child of teenage mother who also had a teenage mother. I could go on, but you get the point. Virtually every rhetorical strategy in Jackson's speech is Aristotelian.

For me, the big difference between Plato and Aristotle is an idealistic belief in a higher truth for Plato and Aristotle's more practical view to work with what we know and since we know things through language, work through language in the form of rhetoric and dialectice. Of course, I'm far more Aristotelian than Platonic; I'm more concerned with results not ideals. I liked Jimmy Johnson and thought Tom Landry was a little extreme. I get excited about Christmas and not Easter. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. I like baroque architecture and not...well I like Palladian architecture too, but I'm not much for modernist architecture. Fragments can, sometimes, complete a thought. I think learning to sight read is as good as phonetics and the right answer is still right even if you don't show your work. I like the reproduction furniture in my house as much as the few antiques I have. When CD players came out, I got one as soon as I could afford it, and I thought my roommate was a complete idiot when she bought a betamax player. I've never liked Macs and can still just barely get them to work. I readily admit that chianti is my favorite wine. I saw REM open for the Producers in 1982 at the Club Foot; the other opening band, Erector Set, was better. I could go on with lists of why Emmitt Smith is better than Tony Dorsett, but Roger Staubach is better than Troy Aiken, but the non-football people won't get it. The point is, I'm more interested in practical results than purist ideals, so I identify more with Aristotle than Plato.

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Aristotle



Blog Post Prompt
Week 5
What are the topoi, basically, and why are they important in what you teach or where you work?
What key idea are you thinking about tackling for your 10-minute video? (Send Dr. Rice confirmation sometime soon).
See if you can work out your topic for your final paper/presentation. You might share a thesis, and perhaps an introduction. What you write is subject to change, of course.

First, I see the topoi as ways to expand a topic. They are basically lists of ways to develop a topic. Currently I'm using the Markel book to teach my course and he uses essentially topoi to discuss how to create an expanded definition. Consider graphics, comparison/contrast, how it works, entymology, definiton by negation etc. I'm sure I've left a few out, but you get the drift. Topoi are easy invention techniques to get students developing topics and they can even be helpful for experienced writers to get them going and to make sure they haven't left anything out.

I'd like to do my ten minute video on enthymeme. I'd particularly like to talk about how enthymemes can work in political speech. For example, a speech might say that we're wiring tapping telephones, because that's the best way to fight terrorism. The left-out part of that particular enthymeme, or truncated syllogism, is that catching terrorists is the most important thing for government to do. The expanded the syllogism might read. Catching terrorism is the most important thing for government to do. Wire tapping is the most effective way to catch terrorists, therefore the government should wire-tap telephones. However, as an enthymeme the underlying value, the commonplace, is left out. While such enthymemes are very effective for those who aren't careful listeners, those that are sensitive to the topic realize that the implied commonplace is that the government should keep us safe at all costs. Once the audience realizes that's the commonplace at work, they may or may not agree. However, as long as the commonplace is implied, it becomes more difficult to argue with it, because the audience may or may not be able to articulate the common place. Enthymemes are still very effective rhetorical strategies. Of course, Aristotle didn't really see them this way exactly. He thought they worked so well because people just agreed with the common place. I think they work so well because people don't realize exactly what they are agreeing with.

I'm not quite up to a lot of work on my final project. Here goes though. Sophists believed that by framing and speaking rhetoricians created truth--truth contingent on kairos, audience, etc. Of course, Plato generally believed in absolute Truth and originality. Implied in this belief in truth was that the originality, the skill, of a speech or text comes with the content. The Sophists and to a much lesser extent Aristotle and other rhetoricians believed that the skill in a speech or a text resided in its arrangement, selection, introduction, and even kairos--it's fitness for the occasion. After 2500 years, we've begun to embrace the idea that the skill and/or originality of an information artifact is not the information per se, but the arrangement, selection, framing, and appropriateness for its audience. However, Plato's ghost still haunts modern thought and many students, professors, practicioners, and lay people have trouble accepting that what makes content acceptable and palatable for audiences isn't the content itself, but rather the rhetorical aspects of a text. Technical communicators don't create content, they make content work for audiences. Consequently, as long as Plato's ghost dominates thought, technical communicators will be marginalized. More importantly, audiences will be disenfranchised, because if the focus is on the content and not the audience, kairos, etc. the audience won't receive content in a form they can receive. In other words, on a purely practical level, an emphasis on rhetoric and not content allows audiences to receive information, regardless of the information; an emphasis on content diminishes the importance of the rhetorical aspects of a text and results in information artifacts that don't communicate. So technical communicators must excorcize the ghost of Plato from modern thought not only to improve their status, but to perform their jobs ethically and to the highest standards.

That's basically my argument in a nutshell; obviously it needs more work.

Finally I'd like to talk about how much I like Aristotle. Reading Rhetoric reminds me how all the major ideas that we have in technical communication, considering the audience, ethos, pathos, logos, lines of argument, and invention all come from Aristotle. For me, as much as I like the Sophists, Aristotle really is the first, professional, technical communicator.

Kendall

True/False rhetoric

This week (as well as last week) we looked at True and False Rhetoric. What is it, according to Plato and Isocrates, and how have you seen it in your program? Do not disclose anything that might get you into trouble. But, what is the value of true and false rhetoric in our programs? Let’s find out…

For Isocrates true and false rhetoric demonstrated the going back and forth between the different sides of the issue. He wasn't a sophist like Gorgias who believed that every issue had two sides that were more or less equal, but he did believe in a dialectic. Plato, on the other hand, really believes in Truth and that many sophists use rhetoric to propogate the false beliefs. That's why he demonstrates in his dialogues the weaknesses of rhetoric. Plato, obviously, believes in dialectic, but it's a way to get to the Truth, not an attempt to uncover the two sides to an issue.

[Note: Reading these dialogues reminds me of why I find Plato so annoying. First, to our modern sensibilities, it's obvious he's just setting up straw men in his dialogues, so they don't really demonstrate much except that Plato has some pathological need to demonstrate that there's a right side and he's on it. Or that he only talked to idiots.]

I think the concept that every issue has several sides and that a dialectic helps to uncover those sides is valuable. Also the dialogues demonstrate effectively that framing an issue determines the outcome of the issue even as Plato uses this rhetorical framing technique to prove that rhetoric is ridiculous. Once again, it's a little odd that Plato apparently denigrates rhetoric even as he uses rhetoric to prove his point. If a modern text were structured in such a way, I would clearly recognize it as sarcasm. Because it's Plato, I guess he's just demonstrating his pathological need to hold onto his ideas about the forms and Truth even if he's got to use the techniques he despises to do it.

I know this will sound like blasphemy, but I think we read Plato for history exclusively. I don't think Plato has much valuable to tell us that we don't get elsewhere and better. Reading him helps us to understand where we've come from and why it's taken so long to get where we are, but not much that's very useful now. Gorgias, Isocrates, Aristotle on the other hand, those guys wrote/said some useful things.

And finally I just don't understand what you're driving at about the value of true and false rhetoric in our programs. Could you clarify a bit?

Kendall

Plato

Plato

I forgot to read the blog prompt, so here' s the response to the blog prompt.

Week 3List out as many things about Plato that you know. What does he suggest about finding the Truth, about oral persuasion, about writing, about the value of rhetoric? Also, as we agreed from Week-1, please point out the progress you're making on your final project in each blog post. Thanks.

Plato was a student of Socrates and got his start as a philosopher so to speak writing dialogues, probably based on discussions he heard as a student, between Socrates and other students. Naturally his early writing was probably what Socrates believed, but his later writings were about his ideas.

He thinks the Truth is contained in forms--perfect somethings--the forms get fuzzy here. Forms are permanent and unchangeable. We discover forms through thought alone, because we are born with an innate knowledge of the forms. We must rediscover it.

Unfortunately most people don't know anything about the forms, so they are easily persuaded about stupid things like going to war, electing officials, and putting certain slovenly philosophers with unpopular friends to death.

Honestly, Plato clearly wrote down his dialogues to pass down their wisdom, but since literacy was an emerging skill, he didn't trust the written word. Even his writing is often a speech, a dialogue. He thought the search for truth was a process and writing was too static and unchangeable to really help someone find the truth.

Plato didn't value rhetoric. He felt clever people used rhetoric to persuade others, but he was not above using rhetorical techniques to make his points.

I have done no further work on my paper. Still thinking about how classical rhetoric influenced communication theory and about how changing communication theory should influence our programs.

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Isocrates and Plato

First Plato, I really liked the Plato "graphic novel." Even though I've read all that stuff, except the Laws, before, having everything pulled together like that served as a nice review. And while I'm still irritated that he sent us into the 2500 year walkabout intellectually speaking, it does put his work in perspective from his point of view. He was just trying to figure out a way to create a just world and he thought making a strong case for having wise people be rulers was the way to go. Honestly, I don't disagree with him on that; I'm just not keen on his methodology.

And who knew that every Western thinker for the next 2500 years would feel the need to respond to Plato either directly or indirectly and discuss his stand on Truth and its knowableness. And even now, we've got to take a stand on truth. We've decided, pretty much, that unknowable truth is moot and that truth is pretty much what we, as a group, decide, but we're still discussing truth. Some people still can't let go of the idea of platonic forms. Those people call the forms reality--just like Plato. Perhaps they conceive of reality a little differently than Plato conceived of forms, but like Plato reality is the gold standard for discourse, the thing that gives meaning to language. I, of course, prefer to think of it as just discursive and non-discursive realities reflexively re-inventing one another.

And, it's also pretty cool that he founded a college that managed to survive 1000 years until religious intolerance caused it to be shut down. Is the oldest university currently in operation that old? It's quite an acheivement.

My other thought in this regard though is that perhaps Plato and Aristotle weren't great thinkers so much as popular. Really, perhaps they are essentially the Mike Markel and John Lannon of the classical era and we get so much of their texts because lots of people made copies, not because they were really good--good, but in a middle of the road kind of way. And the fact that Plato's Academy lasted so long and undoubtedly reproduced his texts during that time must have also resulted in promulgation of his ideas even after the Academy shut down just because there were so many copies in circulation.

Just something to think about.

Isocrates

Clearly he seems to be quite worried about the immorality charge leveled at rhetoric that we still haven't really solved. What happens when immoral people develop good rhetoric skills? What about those people that promise to teach good rhetoric skills to whoever can pay? It's a little like someone advertising to teach whoever to build a nuclear bomb as long as the price is right. Regardless, Isocrates definitely engaged in a debate that still rages today. How do we teach the youth so that they can participate productively in the world?

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Week 2: Gorgias

What does Gorgias emphasize? Why is this significant to both classical rhetoric and contemporary teaching? And finally, what are you thinking about for your 20-page paper/project thus far?

Gorgias emphasizes two sides to every issue. And truth isn't knowable and speakable, but that we can get together and decide on "truth." For Gorgias speech, and he does mean oratory, is extremely powerful. It can control people like witchcraft or a trance. And speech doesn't need to be grounded in "truth" to have this kind of control on people. Interestingly he's more than willing to admit that rhetors can use their abilities for bad ends, as he speculates Paris has done; if rhetors do so, they are morally at fault, not the people entranced by their speech who actually perform the bad acts. In the Encomium of Helen, he claims that if Paris used speech to convince Helen to elope, Paris is at fault, not Helen. Obviously this two side to every issue idea not only puts the dialectic in the middle of classical rhetoric, but Gorgias did so while insisting that we can't define truth with speech. So he's married the dialectic and rhetoric not put them in opposition to one another. Of course, later Plato will subjugate rhetoric to the dialectic in his search for truth. I'm starting to think that Plato was just a poor student. I think it's pretty clear that Gorgias believed in a finite truth, but unlike Plato, he didn't see any point in pursuing it. Rather he believed in creating truth through the dialectic and not worrying if it matched the "real" truth. We've sort of abandoned truth today, but Gorgias ideas about creating knowledge are nicely in line with what most applied rhetoricians, i.e. communicators, believe today.

In contemporary thought, we assume there's always several sides to a story. And we frequently use a dialectic format to arrive at some kind of truth that we agree upon. Law courts are an example of this. Most importantly, I think the idea that what I'm going to call the functional truth--the truth we all operate under--is determined and not discovered is huge! When we think of truth in this manner, rhetoricians, i.e. writers, create the truth in the act of writing.

As for my project in this class, I think comparing and contrasting the sophist ideas of knowledge making as represented in texts like the Dissoi Logio and even the Econmium of Helen with Foucault's ideas in the Archaeology of Knowledge would be a great paper. However, it would require that I read the Archaeology of Knowledge again, and it certainly wasn't a cake walk when I read it 20 years ago, and even then such a paper would require some major mental work on my part, and it's the summer and all. I'm not sure I want to work this hard, so I'm still searching for something easier.

Kendall

Sophists Rule!

Sophists Rule!

Stasis theory does provide a nice way to analyze arguments to see where the conflict begins. And it's obvious that for arguments that seem unresolvable like the death penalty and abortion, the two sides are really talking about completely different things. Understanding the underlying theory in an argument allows one to understand the argument better and either create an appropriate dialectic. Until one understands the underlying theory of an argument or the true point of disagreement, it's difficult to create a meaningful discussion. That's clearly what's going on with many "discussions" today.

I find it a little funny that 2500 years ago Gorgias was defending Helen and her love life and by extension women's lot in life. Now, Crowley and Hawhee point out how women aren't that successful at defending themselves and their right to a love life, because they've made the underlying value that they base their discussion on that people should have the right to privacy as opposed to women should have equality with men. When the discussion is that women should have equality with men, contraception including its least popular incarnation, abortion, become about giving women equality with men, or more specifically an equal right to a love life. If it's about about privacy, that implies that the state doesn't have any say over medical procedures etc. when clearly it does. Why do we have licensing boards etc.? 2500 years and rhetoric is still trying to bail women out.

I also find it more than a little ironic that pro-life groups don't appear to understand this dynamic either. Otherwise they wouldn't be trying so hard to ban all kinds of contraception. When the issue becomes should any form of contraception be legal (and huge sections of the pro-life lobby think it shouldn't) then it becomes obvious that it's not a question of murder, but rather of subjugating women. If women have significantly less control over when they become pregnant, then it becomes significantly more difficult for them to compete in the workplace than their peers who have more control over their reproductive capacity. Women have less opportunity and less equality.

Kendall

Contemporary vs. Classic Rhetoric

Per Lennie's request, this is sort of what I got, but now that I'm reading it, it doesn't seem like much help to me much less other people. Here's sort of how I'm understanding it. If St. Augustine replaced Truth with God--God is the thing that gives language meaning and what humans use language to uncover--then Nietzsche was set-up perfectly to disconnect language from the signifier--God in this case. Or rather according to Rich, Nietzsche replaced God with the new religion empirical truth, facts, whatever you want to call them. I'm reserving judgement on buying that but here's the argument. If you think back on the Nietzsche reading in B&H, or those of you who care about this minor point that the course doesn't really cover can read it in B&H, Nietzsche basically separates language from truth or any standard. Language really can't represent anything for Nietzsche. He really sets up Foucault and company. Based on our MOO discussion, this makes sense because God is backing up truth until Nietzsche in the 19th century. In fact, if you think of Bacon and Locke, they still pretty much seem to have this same conception of truth as God unknowable and ineffable but out there. Nietzsche comes along and says that God was just a fiction for an immature culture and we don't need God anymore--God is dead etc. etc. So no truth--knowable or otherwise--just language. So when he kills God, he simultaneously kills our ability to have language have some relationship with truth. God was the language/truth tether. So language is just floating out there--unthinkable. So Nietzsche, according to Rich I think, says that instead of knowing God and truth, we can know facts. Science replaces God and we get contemporary rhetoric. Historically it works really nicely except I sort of understand Nietzsche as throwing out God and replacing him with qualitative judgements, but I can see how those judgements could be facts. I can also see how those judgements could be interpreted as frames. Nietzsche's pretty metaphorical and really just a bridge, so this is a minor point and not worth arguing about.

So essentially, in Aristotelian terms, classical rhetoric relies on artistic truths: ethos, logos, pathos, but contemporary rhetoric relies on science and facts or inartistic proofs--those things that we can know for Artistotle or prove for us--to make its case. The only problem I have with this is that scientists will tell you that they don't rely on facts, but rather theories that work to explain the situation. If a better theory comes along that makes more sense given the situation, they'll adopt that theory. Sure scientists do rely on empirical evidence, but such evidence is meaningless unless they have theories to give them meaning or make them knowledge. And just like 21st century humanists, they understand that knowledge can change as we reframe it. So science as the new religion/pursuit of truth is really a popular conception of science, but rhetoric is really the study of persuading the general audience, so also I can see how that works too. I've got to say though, when I think of rhetoric in current practice in places like political speeches, I'm hearing mostly classical rhetoric. And definitely if you think of Foucault as a contemporary rhetorician as B&H does, he's not buying truth, God, or science. For Foucault it's language and culture and the interplay between the two. The only thing that gives language meaning is the frame we build around it. Perhaps Rich will weigh in on this post and clarify where I've undoubtedly misrepresented him and and/or this historical perspective on rhetoric.

Finally, I guess a little bit of the problem I'm having with replacing Truth with facts is that we haven't really moved forward, if such is the case. We aren't changing the nature of our understanding of language, we're only changing the basis. In other words, if it's just facts instead of Truth, we're just playing with aluminum bats, but we're still playing baseball. We aren't really moving forward. However, if there's just language and how we frame it, we've moved entirely off the diamond; the people who use language make the rules, the rules change all the time, and it's a much more empowering view of language or chaotic for some, but I think it works better until something else comes along. And perhaps I'm confusing rhetoric with communication theory in an unproductive way.

Kendall

Week 1 response to reading

What is the value of classical rhetoric in today's contemporary world? In your profession? And which of the pieces listed during Week-1 have you selected to present over?

Classical rhetoric forms the basis of discourse even today. In places as varied as President Bush's state of the union address to discussion about why you must have a new patio table with your spouse, you'll find the principles of classical rhetoric, because that's how the idea of an argument started. Asking if we should learn about classical rhetoric is a little like asking if we should learn arithmetic because, after all, that was invented in the Middle East 2000 years ago, how could it still be relevant today? Just like we still use Arabic numerals, we still use classical rhetoric.

Technical communication is essentially applied rhetoric. Although some people might like to insist that technical communication isn't persuasive--it's goal is to provide objective information--those people don't understand the goals of technical communication or communciation theory. First, technical communication has a perlocutionary effect, i.e. it tries to get the audience to do something such as follow the directions, use the equipment successfully, take the medication as indicated etc. Although it seems like it would be in the audience's best interest to follow the directions, we know from usability testing, ethnographies, and our own life (when was the last time you followed the directions on your prescription perfectly?) that most audiences don't. Consequently, technical communicators must exploit rhetorical strategies more fully to successfully perform their job. Secondly, the representational theory of communication (clear channel, window-pane theory whatever you call it) doesn't work very well. We know that language isn't representational. (Foucault said it best I think when he said we must end "the tyranny of the signifier.") Communication can't be representational if for no other reason than the sender and receiver have different signifiers in their head. So, representational communication theories only serve to inhibit an understanding of the ways in which audiences construct meaning. The articulated view of communication creates a more useful working-model of communication that allows TCers to serve their audience better. And it also makes TCers symbolic/analytic workers or knowledge workers--a much better place to be in the new economy.

Finally, I'll present on the Encomium of Helen.

Kendall

Getting started with blogs and classical rhetoric

Here's my blog on classical rhetoric. I've never actually written a blog before, because despite being ridiculously verbal, I'm not very confessional. I want an audience to bounce off of, so blogs don't really appeal to me personally. However, they aren't really much different than webboard, so I can probably handle it.

I haven't finished the reading yet, so I'll probably put up another post before class but here's what I'm thinking so far. On page 17, Crowley and Hawhee (C&H) claim that, "Modern rhetoricians tend to think that its [language's] role is limited to the communication of facts." Really?!!? Perhaps this statement is true for rhetoricians (I don't think so), but it's completely, 100% incorrect for technical communicators. Carolyn Miller wrote an essay in 1979 explaining how limiting and almost misanthropic such a view was. Creating our reality with language is an essential, human function. In 1996 Slack, Doak, and Miller (different Miller) explained how technical communicators were moving away from the "clear channel" view of communication towards a post-modern, articulated view of communication. This view of communication holds that the framing, selection, and articulation of content not only creates the communication, but informs the reality of its writers and readers. Such a view is extremely powerful for everyone in the information age, but particularly valuable for technical communicators who must adopt it to become credible actors in the new economy.

Which brings me to Plato, or more specifically, the bone I have to pick with him. The Sophists put forth a view of language that rested on the idea that language allowed one to create a reality that worked, that did things. It did things by persuading others, but also by defining reality advantageously for audiences and rhetors alike. However, Plato essentially rejected this view of language in favor of the idea that language should attempt to accurately portray "reality." The problem with this view is that it presupposed a finite, knowable (at least theoretically, no one was wise or good enough to really know it) reality that everyone strived to uncover or define. Like the gold standard for money, it provided a basis for language to both stand on and be measured by. And like the gold standard for money, it has some real drawbacks. The problem is obvious. There isn't a knowable, theoretically or otherwise, reality. Consequently, Western culture wasted a lot of time trying to discover ways to know the truth, when we should have been looking at ways to use language.

When we see language as a tool to manipulate our environment with, we can use it more powerfully to create a "place" to live in. This view doesn't mean that we can say it's hot outside and go swimming when the therometer reads 32 degrees farenheit. (Ok we can say and do that, but it doesn't stop our lips from turning blue.) That's not a language use that works for us. Rather when we understand that describing o-rings as safe when they erode half-way through is just language manipulating our perceptions of o-rings, we can begin to ask questions and use language to work towards goals like launching shuttles that don't blow-up.

Plato's idea of a meaningful reality outside our perception and language side-tracked this more useful view communication. Basically, western culture wandered around in the linguistic desert for 2000 years searching for truth. Now, we're finally getting back to where the Sophists put us even though the ghost of Plato still haunts our cultural memory. Now, maybe, we can get some work done.

Kendall