Center for the Study of Rhetoric in Society

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/54929

At the Center for the Study of Rhetoric in Society, we examine communications in public, nonprofit, academic, corporate, and governmental settings to better understand language in use. How does language inspire people to action? How does writing change society, and why? We search for answers by studying everything from the communication strategies of a national social change movement to “everyday rhetorics” that often go unnoticed or unexamined. All of our research and creative projects combine research methods developed in rhetoric and writing studies with methods across the disciplines. Through externally funded research and outreach, we seek to translate analysis into action. We welcome collaboration and partnerships with other academic units, community organizations, corporations, scholars, and activists in Virginia, the United States, and internationally.

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Research Centers as Change Agents: Reshaping Work in Rhetoric and Writing
Gogan, Brian; Belanger, Kelly R.; Patriarca, Ashley S.; O'Neill, Meagan (National Council of Teachers of English, 2010-12)
This article defines research centers as associative enterprises for solving scholarly and societal problems that cannot be adequately addressed by individuals. We identify more than fifty research centers in rhetoric and writing, past and present, and argue that they function as change agents by emphasizing collaboration and conducting research focused on publics.
Autism and Rhetoric
Heilker, Paul V.; Yergeau, M. (National Council of Teachers of English, 2011-05)
By understanding the verbal and nonverbal manifestations of autism as a rhetorical imperative, a perspective that involves applying Krista Ratcliffe's concept of rhetorical listening, scholars can do much to dissolve the idea of otherness that appears in discussions of this topic.
Veterans in Society: Changing the Discourse - Conference Overview
Pencek, Bruce (Virginia Tech, 2013)
The attached document describes the activities, presentations, and speeches that took place during the "Veterans in Society: Changing the Discourse" conference, which was held from April 14-15, 2013 at the Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Center. This document provides (1) an overview of the conference, (2) the conference's schedule, (3) a description of the conference's themes and presentations, (4) a biography of the conference's keynote speaker, Dr. Mike Haynie, (5) a biography of the conference's luncheon speaker, Virginia State Senator John Edwards, and (6) registration and travel information for conference attendees.
Moving Words / Words that Move: An Analysis of Discursive Practices Plaguing U.S. Servicewomen
Grohowski, Mariana (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
Through a rhetorical analysis of three terms commonly used in military culture to describe servicewomen, this paper aims to inform instructors of the influence repeated exposure to visual/verbal practices (Fleckenstein; Sheridan-Rabideau) can have on female student veterans. The three terms focused on in this paper are: 1) "trou" used to refer to West Point female cadets' body shape; 2) the phrase "Queen for a Year," which is the "default status" all women are ascribed in the Armed Forces; and 3) the military cadence or "Jody call," which couples the call and response of sexually‑degrading messages with marching in formation. After establishing the exigency for increased attention to the effects of (military) cultured language practices have on female student veterans; a rhetorical analysis of the three terms commonly used in military culture to describe servicewomen follows; before closing with pedagogical implications for cultivating a pedagogy of inclusion for female student veterans, through a critical engagement with language.
Defense to Degree: Accelerating Engineering Degree Completion for Military Veterans
Soldan, David L.; Gruenbacher, Don; Schulz, Noel; Hageman, William B.; Vogt, Blythe; Natarajan, Rekha (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
This paper will focus on the accelerated track for military veterans into bachelor's degrees in engineering. It is important to have contact with the military veteran prior to their arriving on campus to begin their schooling. Current policies give little credit for military experience or training. The development of on-line pre and post assessments and subject based tutorials are being used to accelerate the veteran's entry into the electrical engineering circuit theory sequence and the traditional mathematics sequence. Veterans may have a base of technical knowledge acquired through the technical nature of their service posts. Assigning them to introductory level courses with traditional freshman and sophomore students does not respect their technical expertise nor challenge their capabilities and accustomed pace.
Veterans and Broadband Access in Virginia: Implications for Healthcare Planning and Policy
Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; Lo, Suzanne; White, Nancy (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
The paper summarizes results and ongoing research into the implication of broadband access and utilization as a means to improve veterans' health care services and coordination. The study examines (a) broadband access, capacity and utilization as it relates to health care providers ability to serve veterans, (b) broadband access, capacity and utilization as it relates to the veteran ability to access and utilize health care services and (c) broadband utilization as it relates to health and behavioral outcomes. The paper also aims to better understand program and policy context that enables or limits utilization of broadband to meet veteran health needs. The project provides critical linkages to how broadband may be utilized as a foundation in veterans' health care. Moreover, the research identifies needs required to promote program and policy action necessary to leverage and maximize broadband resources to support Virginia veterans' well being.
A Sample of Best Practices to Support Veterans in Attending and Completing Engineering Degree Programs
Kasarda, Mary E.; McCrery, Ennis McNeer; DePauw, Karen P.; Byrd, Carson; Mikel-Stites, Max; Ray, Victor; Pierson, Mark; Brown, Eugene F.; Hall, Simin; Soldan, David L.; Gruenbacher, Don; Schulz, Noel; Vogt, Blythe; Hageman, William B.; Natarajan, Rekha; Olson, Rick; Kramer, Kathleen; Lord, Susan (Veterans in Society: Changing the Discourse, 2013-04-15)
This paper describes some sample best practices identified by three institutions, Virginia Tech, Kansas State University, and the University of San Diego to support the recruitment, transition, and retention of veterans in engineering degree programs. These three institutions represent a subset of the initial cadre of institutions receiving planning grants from the National Science Foundation to facilitate and support veterans in their pursuit of undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees, particularly when utilizing their "GI Bill" benefits. Best practices presented here include a website to co-locate veterans' campus resources virtually, a slide show "video" to highlight the mechanics of graduate school and finding the right program, models to help institutions give military veterans academic credit for military training, results of a regional institutional networking workshop on veterans issues, and strategies to better attract and recruit veterans to engineering degree programs.
Stolen Valor: Supporting and Defending Another's Right to Lie
Slater-Chandler, Neysa M. (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
The United States Supreme Court's recent decision (plurality) in U.S. v. Alvarez (567 U.S. __, 132 S.Ct. 2537) has met with derision in some circles and support in others. The Court stated, "content-based restrictions on speech have been permitted only for a few historic categories of speech" and emphasized, "absent from these few categories is any general exception for false statements." Before the ink was dry (or the bits settled), and even in anticipation of the decision, veterans groups, elected representatives, and other public and private figures were already acting. This paper will review the Supreme Court's decision, the public discourse underway before, during, and after the decision, and proposals that will affect both veterans and non-veterans with an eye towards providing keys to encourage discourse on this emotional subject while "making democracy work in a constitutional republic."
Examining the Motives for Veterans Writing Workshops: Is It Clinical, Political, Instructional, or All the Above?
Morris, Paul J. "Skip" (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
This paper surveys some of the issues involved with forming a veterans writing group. There appear to be three reasons for starting a veterans writing group: therapy, politics, or instruction, and these intentions often merge. Through interviews with administers and facilitators of veterans writing groups, I examine these motives in an attempt to show college English teachers the challenges they could face when they move beyond the instructional into the clinical or political.
Military Experience and the Arts: Bridging the Gap Between Military and Civilian Cultures Through Creative Expression Scholarship
Martin, Travis L. (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
This paper considers the arts as a means of engaging veterans' military experiences, to help in reframing trauma and helping veterans use their pasts to move into positive futures. The author provides motivations and background on the material and explains the role of the arts in expressing and rendering military experience, before moving into the theory and practice of the arts-especially writing-as a path to healing and acceptance.
Writing War: Veterans in the College Writing Classroom
Hart, D. Alexis; Thompson, Roger (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
As writing classrooms may be the primary locations where students' military experiences are shared, writing instructors bear special ethical responsibility when teaching veterans. A discussion of research conducted with the support of a Conference on College Composition and Communications (CCCC) Research Initiative Grant, investigating the demographics of Post-9/11 military veterans who are entering college writing courses.
Safety at the Margins: A Rhetorical Analysis of Occupational Risk Communication in Construction
Patriarca, Ashley S. (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-07)
This dissertation focuses on occupational risk communication created by grantees of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration\'s Susan Harwood Training Grant (SHTG) Program. Although the SHTG program is aimed at workers in most high-hazard industries, I focus on occupational risk communication developed for residential construction workers, who remain the most at-risk for on-the-job injuries and fatalities. In 2011 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 721 construction workers died in work-related accidents (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). In this study, I relied primarily on two research methods: context-sensitive text analysis of deliverables created by twelve SHTG program grantees from 2006-2009 and interviews with representatives of four of these twelve grantees. The findings from this research illustrate the complexity of creating occupational risk communication in grant-related institutional settings. Although the process might seem straightforward, it is composed of twelve milestones, each of which can result in difficulties for the final deliverables. Grantees are asked to create safety training deliverables that includes principles of active workplace learning; however, qualitative analysis of these deliverables indicates that such principles are rarely enacted. Instead, the deliverables are marked by an emphasis on technical language, as well as by death-focused justification strategies that scare trainees into following the guidelines being presented. Each of these characteristics can alienate audiences of varied linguistic and cultural backgrounds, such as those found in the construction industry.
Understanding and Building Effective Narrative on Veteran Experiences to Compel Program and Policy Action
Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; Lo, Suzanne (2014-04)
Virginia has the third highest per capita population of veterans, and the seventh highest in total population. Many of these veterans are faced with wide-ranging and complex health issues, which vary greatly depending on their age, time of service and location of residence. Virginia’s geographic and socio-economic diversity provide for varied and unique characteristics among its general and veteran populations. Those conditions yield a rich research environment, but also a heightened need to translate and disseminate findings to varied populations and individuals. A growing body of veterans’ assessment and clinical research is aimed at improving health services for military service men and woman returning from deployment. Concurrently, military and veterans advocates are calling for improved connections between community health providers and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as, integrated care provision among physical, mental and behavioral health specialists.1 The Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance conducted the 2010 Veterans Needs Assessment which asked the broad questions of “what are the needs and experiences of Virginia veterans, particularly needs and experiences related to veterans’ health and wellbeing” and “how do the needs and experiences of veteran differ based on key characteristics of the veteran”. Subcategories of health and well-being questions included the following topics: physical health, with emphasis on traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, orthopedic conditions, chronic disease, access and utilization, mental and behavioral health, which included PTSD, depression, substance use, family relationships, access and utilization, education and employment measures and life status satisfaction. Characteristic categories for the assessment included stratification by region of residence, era served, branch of service, age, type of service and deployments. In order to obtain representative results
Resisting & Re-inscribing Gender Norms: See Me/ Hear Me
Broyles, Kathryn A. (2014-04)
Women veterans not infrequently report the forced iconic characterizations of “bitch,” “whore,” or “dike” forced upon them by their fellow service-members, superiors, and the larger culture both during and after their military service. As a result, they experience a kind of cognitive dissonance. This presentation challenges the connections made between identity, gender norms, and the wedding of nationalism and masculinity when they serve to reject servicewomen by challenging their identities as in/sufficiently feminine/female, or when they inscribe upon the female soldier a pseudo- masculinity, concurrently denying her masculine privilege. This presentation seeks to engage conversation around ways to normalize images of the female solider, recognize the value of the stories of all veterans, and explore – without essentializing –the tension necessary between gender and identity.
Veterans as a Stabilising Factor in Politics: West Africa as a Case Study
Oshigbo, Kehinde Olaoluwatomi (2014-04)
This paper discusses civil-military relations in Africa with an emphasis on regional instabilities as they affect the economic, socio-cultural, and political settings of the people. It observes the involvement of war veterans in civil rule as becoming a norm and underscores the interface between the veterans and the professional politicians in government. This research is intended to bring to light the enormous influence veterans hold and have the potential to wield in the political landscape in Africa. The further work of this paper is to explore germane issues such as, who are the likely beneficiaries of veterans in politics? why must veterans embrace politics? and, in whose interest will the veterans’ involvement in politics be protected? Veterans, especially those who retire with high military ranks, have built knowledge of and relationships with politicians at every level of governance and also occupy high status position notably because of their military background and perceived affluence, materially and otherwise. Such circumstances have produced a president, senate president, executive governors, local government chairmen, and others in Nigeria. Despite the existence of clearly defined checks and balances, trust for the veterans continues to be elusive and shrouded in fear, distrust, annoyance, and hate. However, this author stands with those who believe that veterans as political leaders have brought stability and peace, and serve as a unification point between extremists, thereby fostering peace and unity and a rare form of democratic rule that is not only unique but evolving.
Veterans in Society Conference 2014: Humanizing the Discourse (Conference Program)
Virginia Tech. Department of English. Center for the Study of Rhetoric in Society; Virginia Tech. Veterans Studies Group (2014-04)
This program lists the daily sessions, presentations, and events that took place during the 2014 Veterans in Society Conference, which was held from April 27-28, 2014 at the Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, VA. This program also includes speaker and presenter bios, descriptions of unrecorded conference events, and a letter from conference co-chair Jim Dubinsky, the director of Virginia Tech's Center for the Study of Rhetoric in Society. The 2014 Veterans in Society Conference: Humanizing the Discourse was presented by the Virginia Tech Veterans Studies Group and hosted by the Center for the Study of Rhetoric in Society, part of Virginia Tech's Department of English.
Bridging a Gap Between Knowledge and Experience: Civilian Views of Military Service
Hayek, Philip (2014-04)
Assume that knowledge can never exceed experience. In the case of studying the military and veterans’ issues, then, how much can a civilian understand, or how much credibility might a civilian have to leverage when making claims about ideology, motives, or identity concerning veterans? Are the experiences of veterans insulated from the public in a way that deflects any possible judgment from outsiders, from civilians? Consider the value judgments concerning the military that reveal a certain binary opposition: I support the troops (read: thank god it’s not me) or I’m anti-military (read: I wouldn’t go if you paid me). Both positions have no hope of catching alive the idea of being a part of that military institution. Can anyone outside of the realm of experience observe, or “know,” and therefore form value judgments about veterans? In this paper, Enlightenment- and Progressive-era rhetoricians like Hugh Blair, Richard Whately, and Wayne Booth, among others, offer insights into how the attitude of the American public and the common sense we share plays a role in defining the tastefulness, or appropriateness, of discourse about veterans. A change in society’s common understanding of what is tasteful will not only limit how ideas are formed, but these boundaries will disqualify any ideas or discourse outside of what is accepted as tasteful. The articulation of our nation’s sentiment surrounding veterans is constricted not only by what is considered tasteful but also by a perceived and actual distance between civilians and military personnel. The burden of proof for arguments concerning the military and veterans rests on civilians who will never have access to the knowledge that experience places in the hands of veterans. Rhetorically, veterans share a common sense language that is removed from the general population, and therefore from popular opinion. Insights from rhetorical theory can be a productive starting point from which to study how veterans as a population resist any value judgments from civilians that fall outside the binary opposition of for or against.
The Contributions of Veterans in Business and Economy: Africa as a Case Study
Oshigbo, Taiwo Oluwaseyi (2014-04)
This paper discusses the growing influence retired military men and women are now exacting in African society based on their business franchises, which cut across telecoms, agriculture, mining, shipping, oil and gas, broadcasting, small medium enterprise, and more. These are mass-oriented and beneficial investments not only to the society but to the economic growth of their respective nations, which will be advantageous to the collective development of the society and the continent at large. This paper shows a relationship between the period spent as service members and in business careers after retirement, which is a positive indicator and a palliative to stem the idea of young military officers nursing the nocturnal ambition of coup d'etat, since life after service years are no longer an armageddon. This paper takes a periscopic view of how these veterans’ impacts and successes in their new chosen careers have positively affected their immediate communities and beyond in the areas of youth employment and empowerment; capacity building; and re-focusing, re-engineering, and social development indicative of a transformation that underscores a paradigm shift in people’s perception of the men and women in khaki.
Standing Up To Be Counted: Female Military Personnel and Online Mentoring
Hart, D. Alexis (2014-04)
Women working in male-dominated fields such as science and the military often encounter challenges fitting into their workplace communities, feeling themselves to be cast as less intelligent and less powerful (physically and with regard to leadership). The problems connected to gendered stereotypes do not end once female military personnel leave the military service. As a result, female veterans often downplay their skills and accomplishments and do not identify themselves with the veteran moniker. Several online communities for military women have emerged that strategically use Web 2.0 technologies to enable female military personnel to mentor each other in relatively safe electronic spaces to support the professional and personal growth of participants and to articulate personally and publicly the reasons why women, too, “count” as veterans.
‘Performing for the Camera’ ?: Oral History Interviews of Female Military Service Personnel
Grohowski, Mariana (2014-04)
This paper examines the discourse female military service personnel use to describe their military service. Using video-recorded oral history interviews available online from the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, the author tests the claim of filmmaker Marcia Rock (Service: When Women Come Marching Home) that the video camera “makes the story important,” compelling interviewees to share more because of the camera (Rock). Female military service personnel’s contributions and accomplishments have historically been redacted or omitted from military and national histories, compelling these women to hide/neglect their military service (Ryan, 2009; Benedict, 2009). Comparing oral history interviews that were not video recorded, which the author collected, as well as those available online from the Betty Carter Women Veterans Historical Project; the author offers future research and deliverables on the affordances of various modalities for collecting military service personnel’s oral histories.

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