Where there is meaning, there is persuasion - Kenneth Burke
Persuasion is the process of social influence, which takes place on a continuum from the intimate and interpersonal to the public. Persuasion is also, in many ways, the heart as well as the history of the field of communication. In this course, we will examine persuasion from many angles: the rhetorical, the interpersonal, and the mediated; social, cultural, and psychological. Everyone who studies communication (or who studies human behavior that involves persuasion, which, if we take Burke at his word, is everyone who studies humans!) will find relevance and, I hope, utility in this course. We will work from a common core of texts to learn about new facets of persuasion from exposure to each others’ distinctive projects and interests.
Readings
There are 6 texts required for this course:
Kennedy, George A. Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jhally, S., & Lewis, J. (1992). Enlightened racism: The Cosby show, audiences, and the myth of the American dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY, Doubleday-Anchor.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kondo, D. K. (1990) Crafting selves: Power, gender and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
A
selection of articles will also be made available in class:
Barker, J. & Cheney, G. (1994) The concept and the practices of discipline in contemporary organizational life. Communication Monographs, 61, 19-40.
Bryant, D. (1953). Rhetoric:
Its function and scope. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 39,
401-424. Requires Adobe Acrobat 4.0 - download
here
Faster downloading, but still
very readable version.
Burgoon, M., Dillard, J., & Doran, N. (1982). Cultural and situational influences on the process of persuasive strategy selection. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 6, 85-100.
Fitch, K. (1994). A cross-cultural study of directive sequences and some implications for compliance-gaining research. Communication Monographs, 61, 185-209.
Hall, S. (1993). Encoding, decoding. In S. During (Ed.), The cultural studies reader (pp. 507-517). London: Routledge.
Johnstone, B. (1989). Linguistic strategies and cultural styles for persuasive discourse. International and Intercultural Communication Annual, 13, 139-156.
Sanders, R. (1989). Message effects via induced changes in the social meaning of a response. In J. Bradac (Ed.), Message effects in communication science. (pp. 165-194). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Smith, R. I. (1992). Hymes, Rorty and the social-rhetorical construction of meaning. College English, 54, 138-158.
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Assignments.There will be three options for the term project, each of which will involve a 15-20 page paper:
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I am also open to suggestion for other approaches to the term paper, if there’s something else relevant to course material that could get you further in your own work: a prospectus, a thesis/dissertation chapter, etc. You will turn in a one-page proposal (description or outline) for the term paper on March 10.
There will be two other written assignments for this course. You will write a 3-5 page response paper in week 7 (approximately) of the semester that analyzes a text (a conversational transcript, a media text, or a public event) in which some persuasive goal is pursued, locating and describing the social identity issues involved in the event and how they are enacted. In the final week of class there will be a two to three-hour take home essay exam, in the style of a comprehensive examination set of questions, to give you an opportunity to synthesize the various perspectives on persuasion discussed during the semester.
The
course grade will be determined as follows:
Response paper and take-home essay exam: 20% apiece
Term paper: 60%
Because this is a seminar, I expect active participation from all students in all class sessions (defined as involvement which shows you have read and thought about readings ahead of time). If such involvement is lacking, we'll talk. If it is consistently and pervasively lacking, your final grade will reflect that fact.