Discourse analysis, Narrative

Theoretical models posit that the perception of situations consists of two
components: an objective component attributable to the situation being perceived and a
subjective component attributable to the person doing the perceiving (Murray, 1938;
Rauthmann, 2012; Sherman, Nave & Funder, 2013; Wagerman & Funder, 2009). In this
study participants (N = 186) viewed three pictures from the Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT; Murray, 1938) and rated the situations contained therein using a new measure of
situations, the Riverside Situational Q-Sort (RSQ; Wagerman & Funder, 2009). The RSQ
was used to calculate the overall agreement among ratings of situations and to examine
the objective and subjective properties of the pictures. These results support a twocomponent
theory of situation perception. Both the objective situation and the person perceiving that situation contributed to overall perception. Further, distinctive perceptions of situations were consistent across pictures and were associated with the Big Five personality traits in a theoretically meaningful manner. For instance, individuals high in Openness indicated that these pictures contained comparatively more humor (r = .26), intellectual stimuli (r = .20), and raised moral or ethical issues (r = .19) than individuals low on this trait.

This thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of the Western representation of the Kosovo conflict and its resolution in the year 1999. By reviewing political, scholarly and media rhetoric, the thesis examines how the dominant narrative of "genocide in Kosovo" was created in Western discourse, arguing that it gained its persuasive force from the legacy of the collective memory of the Holocaust. Using the framework of Kenneth Burke's theory of Dramatism and Walter Fisher's theory of the narrative paradigm, this thesis aims to understand how language, analogy and collective memory function in rhetoric to shape audience perceptions and guide political and military action. The study illustrates the mechanics of the operating rhetoric by analyzing two primary sources, the rhetoric of U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

This thesis examines the duality of meaning conveyed by John Milton's use of language in the epic poem, Paradise Lost, specifically repetition, pairing, alliteration and puns. Following a long tradition of close readings, especially critics RA. Shoaf and Christopher Ricks, I argue that Milton conceives the Fall of Adam and Eve as a falling into polysemy, or multiplicity of signification. Very few critics have undertaken a close reading of words that signal coupling in the poem, and their relationship to pairs and oppositions relevant to Genesis. Shoaf identifies pairs and oppositions in the poem as duals and duels, and connects them to binaries in the theology. However, he overlooks a great deal of evidence which supports his theory of the dual and the duel, and also disregards many significant examples of duality in Milton's wordplay that other critics identify, including alliterative pairs and words that convey ancient etymologies.