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ERIC Number: EJ779606
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2003
Pages: 35
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0741-0883
EISSN: N/A
Creating Rhetorical Stability in Corporate University Discourse: Discourse Technologies and Change
Faber, Brenton
Written Communication, v20 n4 p391-425 2003
Written communication scholarship has shown that successful social change requires discursive stability. This study was designed to investigate how this stability is created. Critical discourse analysis of 30 corporate university articles investigated claims authors made about the expansion of market-based values into contexts of organizational learning and academic higher education. In total, 243 claims were examined for uses of modality, hedging, presupposition, and the progressive aspect. Results claim that articles used modality, hedging, and the progressive aspect to create strategic ambiguity that was resolved ideologically through presuppositions that reflect the assumptions of "the new capitalism." Results indicate that discursive stability is not solely a semantic issue but may occur pragmatically and syntactically as texts are structured to displace existing knowledge within contested spaces. Results also indicate that a heavy reliance on pragmatic features may characterize technologized texts, texts designed to create social change without input, democratic participation, or consensus building.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Adult Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A