Rhetorical memory, synaptic mapping, and ethical grounding

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
William Dodson (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Stephen Yarbrough

Abstract: This research applies neuroscience to classical accounts of rhetorical memory, and argues that the physical operations of memory via synaptic activity support causal theories of language, and account for individual agency in systematically considering, creating, and revising our stances toward rhetorical situations. The dissertation explores ways that rhetorical memory grounds the work of the other canons of rhetoric in specific contexts, thereby expanding memory's classical function as "custodian" to the canons. In this approach, rhetorical memory actively orients the canons as interdependent phases of discursive communicative acts, and grounds them in an ethical baseline from which we enter discourse. Finally, the work applies its re-conception of rhetorical memory to various aspects of composition and Living Learning Community educational models via practical and deliberate interpretation and arrangement of our synaptic "maps."

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2014
Keywords
Rhetorical memory, Synaptic mapping
Subjects
Memory $x Moral and ethical aspects
Rhetoric $x Moral and ethical aspects
Neuroplasticity

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