Till Örebro universitet

The purpose of this study is to examine how three volunteer organizations present volunteer projects on their websites to identify who is constructed as central in the description of the project and which role is created for the reader. This study uses Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and Post-colonial theory as a theoretical framework to analyze visual and textual elements from three project descriptions. The findings indicate that the project descriptions of two of the organizations highlight the volunteer worker, while at the same time using a tourism discourse in creating the reader’s role. The findings also show that the third organization highlights the beneficiaries of the volunteer work, while creating the reader role of a friend. Additionally, the findings indicate the existence of underlying collective beliefs that can be connected to post-colonial structures in two of the project descriptions but not in the third. The conclusion is that who is highlighted, and the role created for the reader, differ between the three organizations. Two of the organizations focus more on the volunteer worker, and this coincides with the occurrence of Othering. The third organization focus more on the beneficiaries, with no occurrence of Othering.

This article argues that the American TV-series The Wire poses complicated political and ideological questions rather than attempting to deliver clear-cut answers or solutions to the problems represented. The Wire is analysed both as an aesthetic phenomenon (narratological and thematic analysis) and as a representation of societal elements (which demands analysis based on sociological, historical and criminological perspectives). After a brief overview of the series, the authors aim to generalise the results of the analysis of a particular part of the five-season series, namely the “Hamsterdam-episode”.

Stockholm är Sveriges största stad och marknadsför sig som ”The Capital of Scandinavia”. De flesta resenärer som besöker Sverige åker till just Stockholm. År 2010 nådde Stockholms län 10 miljoner kommersiella övernattningar. Det är lätt att ta sig till Stockholm med både flyg, tåg, båt, bil och buss. Stockholm har ett brett utbud av kongress- och mässanläggningar. År 2009 var Stockholm den sjunde mest populära staden i världen att förlägga kongresser på. I dagsläget är Sverige på väg ur den lågkonjunktur som startade år 2008. Sveriges BNP och valuta är på väg att stabiliseras och stärkas. Regeringen har även lagt in ett förslag om att sänka tjänstemomsen inom hotell- och restaurangbranschen. I denna rapport har vi valt att avgränsa oss till ett eget utvalt område inom Stockholm. Detta område innefattar 143 hotell med 20 054 hotellrum.De prognoser vi gjort gällande staden Stockholm och segmenten affärsresenärer och fritidsresenärer pekar på en ökning av besökare till staden. Detta kommer resultera i att hotellens beläggning, snittpris och RevPAR kommer att öka framtill år 2013. Efter år 2013 tror vi att segmentet affärsresenärer kommer att minska något procentuellt och kurvan för belagda nätter kommer att stabiliseras. Dock tror vi att segmentet fritidsresenärer kommer att öka procentuellt efter år 2013 och antalet belagda hotellrum kommer att successivt öka mellan åren 2011 – 2015. Vi tror att snittpris och RevPAR kommer att sjunka på grund av att en fritidsresenär generellt sätt inte betalar lika mycket för ett hotellrum som en affärsresenär gör.

Uppsatsen undersöker hur en religiös föreställningsvärld framställs och vill övertyga i den moderna berättelsen Ödehuset av William Paul Young. Detta kontrasteras mot en klassisk berättelse från 1678, Kristens resa av John Bunyan. Analysen utgår från ett narrativt perspektiv där handling, karaktärer och miljö är viktigaste begrepp för att ge metaforerna kontext. I narrativet finns peripetier – vändpunkter – som utgör undervisningen om föreställningsvärlden. Metaforerna kring dessa analyseras utifrån en trestegsmetod som innehåller sortering, generell och kontextuell analys. Metaforerna analyseras också med hjälp av metaforteori om riktningar, jämförelse med objekt, och kulturell prioritering. Resultatet visar en förskjutning i det metaforiska språket som betonar miljön, ”kvinnliga” uttryckssätt, och individualism. Metaforerna kategoriseras i natur och riktning och vill anknyta till det jordnära och till ett positivt växande som har med kärlek och inre mognad att göra. Till skillnad från det äldre metaforspråket är de inte heller så explicit knutna till Bibeln.

This particular study is part of a larger research project on ‘Discursive Representations of the Roma in European Media’. It focuses on the discursive representations of the Roma community in two influential Romanian newspapers, which are available both inprint and online. Drawing on a critical perspective, I intend to reveal the global forms of representation of this ethnic group and other social actors in two well-known daily broadsheets which are believed to be the leading newspapers on the Romanian market. The study includes the analysis of the most frequent themes in which Roma are portrayed explicitly or implicitly, along with the semantic macrostructure of the selected news reports published within a four-year period (2011-2014). Employing a variety of approaches under the repertoire of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper illustrates how Romanian newspapers build the discourse surrounding the Roma minority, especially in the post European Union accession context. First, I argue that Romanianmedia coverage of Roma issues is influenced or tries to imitate western media, especially British and French press; the construct of reverse discourse is used to legitimize or delegitimize controversial actions in which Roma/Romanians make headlines in the international news. It is also my query that political affiliation and sympathy of the selected newspapers do not influence the talk about Roma to a large extent. Secondly, in the context of European integration, the institutionalized discourse of recognition is based on a politics of universalism, where integration equals assimilation, abandonment of cultural identities, and the realization of a homogenous society

This thesis explores how verbal and nonverbal signs communicate attitudes and the rhetorical functions of such attitudinal signs. Attitudes are regarded as rationalized evaluations of attitudinal objects, and through their manifestation in signs an attitudinal gestalt is communicated. This gestalt is regarded as the audiences perception of the rhetors attitude. It is shown that the attitudinal signs function as ethical, logical and pathetic proofs and that they can create identification between the audience and the rhetor. The signs can have effects on the audiences perception of the attitudinal objects, their perception of the rhetor and influence the social dynamic of the discourse. A three-step method of rhetorical criticism is proposed, where the rhetors display of attitudinal signs is analyzed according to form & meaning, the attitudinal gestalts they convey, and the rhetorical effects they have.

Denna uppsats avser att analysera bokomslagens retoriska argumentation. Genom att studera vilka argument som förekommer på omslagen, är arbetets syfte att undersöka hur en potentiell läsare lockas till att köpa just den boken. Totalt tolv titlar, sex från Albert Bonniers förlag och sex från Norstedts, utgör analysmaterialet. Detta analyseras med hjälp av en hermeneutisk retorisk metod, tillsammans med teorier från den klassiska såväl som den visuella retoriken. Även litteraturvetenskaplig teori rörande bokomslagets uppbyggnad används. Efter genomförda analyser konstateras att pathosargument, som syftar till att väcka känslor hos den potentielle läsaren, är tydligt framträdande. Bland annat fungerar kontrasterande antiteser, realistiska fotografier, metonymier, utstickande färgval och evidentia i målande beskrivningar som känslomässiga appeller. Även ethosargument förekommer i stor utsträckning. Namnets storlek på framsidan, presscitat, författarfotografier samt bio- och bibliografisk information fungerar argumentativt i detta syfte.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of modern times. Environmental organizations do their utmost to inform the public about environmental problems and to invite action to prevent them. To this direction, they run campaigns with posters that combine images and text and evoke emotions in the recipient about these issues. The study focuses on such multimodal texts and analyzes the multimodal resources used in environmental campaign posters from a visual rhetorical perspective with a focus on fear appeals and their expected persuasiveness. More specifically, the study examines how the environmental organizations WWF and Greenpeace use fear appeal as a rhetorical strategy in their campaigns. The visual and textual resources are analyzed to identify the purpose, arguments and emotional appeals of the posters that seek to increase people's awareness and power to act. The study also examines how the rhetorical strategies and effectiveness of the multimodal resources differ between the two organizations. The study shows that the two organizations make use of appeals to fear in a way that matches their different profiles to create awareness and encourage action concerning climate change.

Dammvippor, tejp, dammsugare och grenuttag gör livet enklare att leva. Att hålla ordning och reda har under århundrade ökat livskvaliteten och ger välförtjänta pauser och skinande rent

This article discusses the ways in which counter-discourse is managed in institutionalised methods of deliberation. More specifically it studies two methods of public deliberation concerning nanotechnology policy, namely the consensus conference organized by the Region Ile-de-France in 2006-2007 and the public hearing organized by the Commission Particulière du Débat Public in 2009-2010. At a macro-discursive level, it becomes clear that the critiques against nanotechnology expressed by the various parties in these two methods vary only marginally. At a micro-discursive level, the ways in which critical reactions are advanced by the participants vary depending on the constraints that each method places.

In this paper, we examine two methods of public participation, namely consensus conference (conférence de citoyens) and public hearing (débat public). While both methods are used in order to involve the public in decision making about science and technology policy, they differ in a number of aspects. Consensus conference seeks the active participation of a selected group of citizens who are expected to elaborate cooperatively a text of recommendations. Public hearing seeks to inform the public and to collect as many reactions by it as possible. In our analysis, we consider the characteristics of these two methods described in the social and political sciences literature as institutional constraints that can play a role in the production of argumentative discourse. We focus our study on the discourse produced in two concrete instances of the application of these participatory methods on the deliberation over the development of nanotechnology in France. More specifically, we study the expression of counter discourse and seek to describe how the participants in the two deliberation processes end up managing the institutional constraints in order to have their criticisms expressed. In this way, we propose a bottom-up approach to the theorization of the role that institutional context plays in the practice of argumentation, and discuss the descriptive adequacy of existing definitions of the deliberative genre within argumentation studies.

Uppsatsen är ett försök till att beskriva de kvalitativa aspekterna i lärande situationer och redogör för en begreppsgenealogi mellan utvecklingspsykologiska teorier och teorier från retorikens didaktik.

Syftet är att med hjälp av retoriken, talekonsten, ge en förklaringsmodell till olika kunskapsprocesser med hänsyn till skapandet av en individorienterad tillit.

Den teoretiska utredningen tar sin utgångspunkt i det retoriska begreppet pistis – som kan översättas med tillit, tro och övertygelse – där begreppets historiska betydelse utreds, för att sedan förklara hur det kan användas individorienterat i kunskapssammanhang.

Slutsatserna av studien visar på vikten av en grundläggande tillit för inlärning av kunskap och för den personliga utvecklingen. Utifrån denna grundläggande tillit undersöks vikten av att tillgodose behov vid inlärning - som ett medel till en mer kvalitativ inriktning på kunskapen. Det individen lär sig karaktäriseras då av en mer subjektiv kunskap, som är färdighetsorienterad och som skapar handlingsklokhet.

A rhetorical analysis of the educational interactive film “Riskprofilen”, produced by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Swedish: Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap). This essay uses the theories and methods of Procedural Rhetoric, as described by Professor Ian Bogost, and Visual Rhetoric, as described by Professor Brigitte Mral to analyse the interactive and visual component parts of the artefact, and compares them to the intended purposes of the artefact as stated by documents pertaining to its creation, found to be those of educating the public; marketing the agency; and driving traffic to its webpage. The artefact is through analysis found to fulfil the purposes of marketing the Agency and of likely increasing traffic to the website upon which it is hosted. Regarding the primary, educational purpose this analysis finds that the artefact does not teach a user the accident-avoidance strategies it claims to do, but is dependent upon further materials.

In this article, the invention of new forms of desire that target the gendered body in consumer culture is examined through the lens of the visual rhetoric of shop-window mannequins. The article is a result of cross-disciplinary research combining rhetorical and sociological theories and methods. Inspired by nonverbal methods and theories of embodiment, successive modernities and gender, the changing ethos and personae of mannequins from the 1930s until today are decoded. The shop window could be seen as a microcosm of consumer culture and is, therefore, interesting to study over time to unveil its shifting ideals. The empirical data consist of over 1000 pictures of window displays. Questions that are asked in analysing the empirical material are the following: (1) What ethos and personae do the shop-window mannequins nonverbally express? (2) How do the ethos and personae they nonverbally express change during the transformation of modernity? and (3) Are there any differences between the ethos and personae nonverbally expressed by the male and female mannequins, as well as within each gender? In the two first sections, a theoretical understanding of the concepts of ethos and persona as forms of embodiment that emerge through the interaction between the shop-window mannequins and the consumer is developed. In the third section, the empirical technique that has been used to capture the ethos and personae expressed by the shop-window mannequins is treated. In the fourth section, the notion of successive modernities is introduced, as the study aims to observe the transformation of the ethos and personae of male and female shop-window mannequins during the course of modernity. Also a gender perspective is added as the observation shows differences between and within each gender category. In the fifth section, the result of the analysis of the empirical materials is presented.

Progymnasmata som förening av praktik och teori. Retorik är ett skolämne. Förhållandet mellan retorik och didaktik är därför ett centralt forskningsfält inom retoriken. Författaren hävdar att retoriken är en didaktik som utgår från elevernas egna övningar och där den teoretiska reflektionen är en följd av den egna praktiken. Detta manifesteras tydligast i det retoriska övningsprogrammet progymnasmata. Övningarna tränar grundläggande färdigheter, där en av de viktigaste är förmågan att skilja mellan res, sak, och verba, uttryckssätt, samt att förena dem på bästa sätt. Artikeln söker presentera den pedagogiska tanken bakom progymnasmata.

Ända sedan antiken har man i de västerländska skolorna övat sin framställningsförmåga med hjälp av en serie retoriska övningar kallade progymnasmata. I dessa "förövningar" fick eleverna lära sig att återberätta fabler, förlänga och förkorta berättelser, berätta roliga historier, finna tesen i en text och utlägga dess betydelse. De övade sig i att argumentera för och emot, prisa och smäda, göra livfulla beskrivningar och att karaktärisera personer genom inlevelse i olika roller.

Övningarna har haft ett mycket stort inflytande genom att de lärde eleverna att uttrycka sig inom etablerade genrer och gav dem kunskap om de grundläggande retoriska konventionerna, vilka åtminstone fram till romantiken styrde all skriftlig och muntlig framställning.

Afthonios, retoriklärare i Antiochia på 300-talet e.Kr, skrev den mest spridda versionen av progymnasmata. Hans betydelse för utbildningsväsendet kan knappast överskattas. Ett epigram sammanfattar: "Vill du bli vän med retoriken, lär av Afthonios praktiken". För första gången har här Afthonios' grekiska text översatts till svenska och försetts med inledning och kommentar av docent Anders Eriksson.

This paper discusses the relationship between rhetoric and hermeneutics. It is a studyconducted through a generative method where two different rhetoric students haveanalyzed three rhetorical objects and afterwards have compared their results and theninterpreted the differences and similarities. The purpose is to find what makes aninterpretation legitimate and plausible and what binds rhetoric and hermeneuticstogether through meta analysis. The study shows that doxa is a fundamental elementthat connects rhetoric to hermeneutics and that it is more relevant to discussintersubjectivity than legitimacy, which is harder to define and achieve. An importantresult is also that the dialogue in the interpretation process has been found to be acatalyst for new research findings and of increased knowledge.

Hans Järta kritiserade i början av 1800-talet den själlösa användningen av statistik. Hans tankar är aktuella 200 år senare.

This thesis aims to investigate how Swedish Companies can appropriate products that have strong cultural connections towards other nations or cultures and reintroduce them onto an international market in an authentic way, with emphasis on their Swedish locality. To do this, the study used the booming market of Swedish Craft Gin Distilleries. With a multimodal approach and a comparative analysis of five different Swedish Craft Gin Producers and their international websites, the study explored how authenticity and locality are discursively constructed in the branding and promotion of Swedish Craft Gin Brand published in English for an international audience and market. Additionally, the multimodal analysis was complemented with an analysis of the intentions behind semantic choices and strategies in the marking, based on interview material from the Swedish podcast Gin Podden (The Gin Podcast). The study found that all of the five target distilleries use common themes and values to accommodate meaning, such as the handcrafted and the small scale, Swedish quality, technology and sustainability. Furthermore, the study found that locality is the key feature within construction of authenticity on the market, and that this is constructed and strengthened multimodally through written and visual elements.

This bachelor's thesis is about exploring what rhetorical power a daily newspaper’s front page might possess in affecting a nation’s emotion with regards to the portrayal of news. More specifically, we study how the news about the war in Ukraine presented on the front pages of Swedish newspapers may contribute to the sense of alarm regarding the current situation in Sweden. The material consists of four front covers from two newspapers, two from Svenska Dagbladet and two from Aftonbladet, from the 25th and 26th of February, the first two days after the war broke out. Our theoretical framework aims to propose a nuanced multimodal view on pathosanalysis that is based on the combined insights from linguistics and argumentation studies on the perspective of emotions with our own proposal for a visual addition. The analysis shows how emotions are conveyed through the linguistic structure of the headlines, the choice of images and the overall composition of the front page. We were able to provide potential links from the emotions conveyed in the material to the unease experienced in Sweden during that time even though further research is required for verification. The results also indicate an interrelation between objectivity and the need for sales in newspaper front cover with regards to prior research on magazine covers.

In the article a new concept, “Actio Capital” is introduced. Actio refers to how a speech is delivered in a public setting. The concept is intended to provide an overall description and understanding of a speaker’s resources with regard to actio. Actio Capital is a theoretical model that describes the development of a speaker’s actio from actio resource, to asset, and finally to Actio Capital. The model is inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and symbolic capital along with the analysis of both classical and modern handbooks and recent research about actio, as well as an empirical study of university lecturers.

The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of actio. Actio refers to how a speech is performed in a public setting. Actio differs from nonverbal communication in general in that actio is performed in a rhetorical situation with the intention to be persuasive.

The primary interest is to find theories to define actio and find out how actio affects the interpretation of a speaker’s delivery. Therefore, the goal of the research is to try to find interpretive concepts for actio that can be used in the theory and analysis of actio in different rhetorical materials, as well as to find out what recipients perceive regarding a speaker’s actio, and in what way actio influences their interpretation of the speaker.

In order to do so two different sources of material have been used. One is classical and modern handbooks and recent research about actio as well as nonverbal communication in a wider sense. This literature has been analysed and interpreted. The other is observations and recordings of four university lecturers who were observed by student focus groups. After each lecture, the members of the groups discussed the teacher’s actio, and the conversations were recorded. The lectures and conversations were both transcribed and analysed.

In the study of literature and research, the following features have emerged as important aspects of actio. Actio is perceived as an activity that informs the recipient/audience about the speaker’s character, including his emotional state. Actio is also an activity that finds its meaning and interpretation in relation to the context. Actio is performed within society, where traditions, rituals, manuals and so on influence people’s understanding of what is appropriate in different situations. Actio is accordingly a personal activity as well as a part of a human social order. It is deeply rooted in history and its context. As a result of this study some rhetorical concepts are suggested that are intended to describe, explain and define actio, namely: ethos (character), pathos (feelings), decorum (propriety) and kairos (“the right moment”). These concepts can make clear and explain some of the processes that are ascribed to actio throughout history. In order for the concepts to define actio some specific aspects of the concepts are more closely examined and presented Accordingly ethos, pathos, decorum and kairos are concepts that can provide theoretical frameworks and analytic dimensions to research about actio.

Focus in the study of teachers’ actio has been on the receivers’ interpretations. The statements presented in the analysis reveal which aspects of actio the members of the group had noticed, and how they interpret these aspects. The analysis shows that in order to interpret lecturers’ actio, members of the group refer to qualities of actio. It is not what the lecturers do, but how they do it, which makes a difference in the interpretation of the lecturer. Qualities of actio meaning those aspects of actio that create the nuances, and make actio appear with variation. The qualities that have appeared to be important for the interpretation of a speaker’s actio are energy, dynamism, and tempo. Energy relates mainly to the intensity of different bodily movements, dynamism relates to the variation of, e.g. gestures or postures, and tempo relates to speed, timing and rhythmic variations in actio. It is emphasised that these “actio qualities” open up a new perspective on actio for rhetorical research. Altogether the empirical body of material of university lecturers has shown that certain “qualities in actio”, the multimodal activity and the receivers’ preconceptions and expectations affect the interpretation of actio.

Finally a new concept, “Actio Capital”, is introduced. Actio Capital is a theoretical model that describes the development of a speaker’s actio from actio resource, to asset, and finally to Actio Capital. The model is inspired by Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and symbolic capital along with the analysis of both the handbooks and research, as well as the empirical study. Actio Capital is intended to provide an overall description and understanding of a speaker’s resources with regard to actio. On the whole, all human beings – assuming they are healthy – have the same resources of actio, i.e. the same basic physical ability to use their bodies for gestures, variation of voice and so on. Which of these actio resources a person will use, which will become a person’s actio assets, depends on a variety of different things like personality, what kind of life she has lived etc. Depending on how these assets are used, for instance with the help of actio qualities, they can become Actio Capital. Which of a speaker’s actio assets that will be recognised and valued as capital varies from situation to situation according to the circumstances.

This article explores timing, kairos, in human interaction by analyzing nonverbal communication. The skill of timing, being able to do “the right thing at the right time,” is important for rhetorical agency. What are the silent processes in human interaction, and how do they influence the possibility for a kairotic moment to occur? Empirical material consisting of theater rehearsals has been analyzed. The findings show that the actio qualities: tempo and energy, as well as phronesis, are important factors for the appearance of a kairotic moment.

Within Rhetoric there is a wide and complex variety of concepts used to explore and discuss our societies´ different discursive phenomenon. When analysing speakers nonverbal communication, the concept of Kairos have distinguished it selves as more important than others. The concept is trying to make clear and explain some of the processes that at times can seem inconceivable with our nonverbal communication. Kairos and Kronos were the two Greek terms used to refer to time. Kronos was used when referring to measured time; like hours, minutes and so on. Kairos had a more qualitative, interpreting, cultural-based meaning. The concept of kairos captures the process that can be so difficult to comprehend when everything crystallizes to exactly the right moment for someone to act or speak, or both. The primary focus in the article is on explaining how the concept of kairos can help us to understand the sense of timing in our nonverbal communication. One of the aspects that are important for kairos is the sense of rhythm that develops in a situation. A speaker with a good sense of rhythm can come across as very persuasive. In order for kairos to happen someone has to know or believe that he knows that “now” is the time to act. It is an understanding that doesn’t come by itself but demands an active and aware speaker. The speaker has to be aware of the ongoing creativity in the situation, the creativity that charge the sequence with the tension between what is possible and what is not, and does this every time. So, whether kairos appears “now” depends on a range of reflections over a number of ongoing processes in the context, one of them, I mean, relates to rhythm.