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RHETORIC AND TIME: DIMENSIONS OF TEMPORALITY IN THEORY AND CRITICISM (NARRATIVE, DRAMATISM, BURKE, K.)
Abstract
This study explored the dimensions of temporality in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism. The specific purpose was to develop a critical vocabulary of time, grounded in rhetorical theory, a vocabulary which would aid the critic in the analysis of the temporal dimensions of rhetoric. Contemporary rhetorical theory, narrative theory, and Kenneth Burke's theory of language as symbolic action yielded temporal concepts and constructs which formed the basis for a dramatistic understanding of the methods by which humans rhetorically and narratively create shared understandings of time. In this dramatistic perspective, time is an aspect of human social reality created and sustained by three essential processes of language--substantiating, formulating, and stylizing. At the heart of each process is a temporal dialectic between human experience as permanence and as change. This temporal dialectic supports a vision of human action as simultaneously enduring through time and changing with time. The study concludes with a critical application of the temporal vocabulary to the rhetoric of a contemporary event, the experiences of Mary Cunningham at Bendix Corporation.
Subject Area
Communication
Recommended Citation
JAPP, PHYLLIS M, "RHETORIC AND TIME: DIMENSIONS OF TEMPORALITY IN THEORY AND CRITICISM (NARRATIVE, DRAMATISM, BURKE, K.)" (1986). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8620811.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8620811