QQC 6/21/17

"Rhetorical sovereignty is the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse."

Keeping this in mind, how effective do you think society is in embracing rhetorical sovereignty today?  Do you think our modern rights of freedom of speech/freedom of expression are sufficient enough to keep rhetorical sovereignty prevalent?

QQC - 6.21.17

Quote: "I suggest we begin by prioritizing the study of American Indian rhetoric—and the rhetoric of the Indian—in our graduate curricula and writing programs, focusing on the history of both secret and not-so-secret wars in the contact-zone. We should be teaching the treaties and federal Indian laws as rhetorical texts themselves, situating our work within both historical and contemporary contexts. We should also study the ideologies of Indianness and Manifest Destiny that have governed it all." 

Question: Do you believe that having this well rounded knowledge will in turn improve and drastically affect the way student's write? Does knowing both sides of a story significantly improve the writer's position and in turn enhance their writing perspective?

 

QQC

Quote: "More horrific than most scenes of writing, however, the boarding school stands out as the ultimate symbol of white domination, even genocide, through assimilation in the American Indian experience." (Lyons)

Question: Why do you think Lyons feels that the boarding school is the ultimate symbol of white domination?

QQC

Quote: "This forced replacement of one identity for another, a cultural violence enabled in part through acts of physical violence, was in so many ways located at the scene of writing. More horrific than most scenes of writing, however, the boarding school stands out as the ultimate symbol of white domination, even genocide, through assimilation in the American Indian experience."

Question: How can we still be the "home of the free" when we strip people of their cultures in order to force them to be like us, and then go on to write history as if we did it for their own good?

QQC 6/21/17

Quote: "Sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from the ravages of colonization: our lands, our languages, our cultures, our self-respect."

Question: In what ways can sovereignty help society? In what ways can it hurt society?

QQC

Quote: "A people is a group of human beings united together by history, language, culture, or some combination therein--a community joined in union for a common purpose: the survival and flourishing of the people itself."

Question: What other ways could we rhetorically describe people?

QQC

Quote: "At stake in this discussion are the peoples defined by the writing itself; thus one important tenet of rhetorical sovereignty would be to allow Indians to have some say about the nature of their textual representations."

Question: What are some examples in which Indians don't have a say about the nature of their textual representation?

 

QQC - Lyons "Rhetorical Sovereignty"

Quote: "Sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from the ravages of colonization: our lands, our languages, our cultures, our self- respect. For indigenous people everywhere, sovereignty is an ideal principle, the beacon by which we seek the paths to agency and power and community renewal."

Question: Does Lyons' idea of rhetorical sovereignty make up for immense losses and injustice indigenous peoples have endured? Is it a step forward, or just wishful thinking?

 

Lyons QQC

Quote: "At stake in this discussion are the peoples defined by the writing itself; thus one important tenet of rhetorical sovereignty would be to allow Indians to have some say about the nature of their textual representations. The best way to honor this creed would be to have Indian people themselves do the writing," 

Question: How do you feel about the way America tends to rewrite the narratives of certain cultures in their own context?

Quote: "Mainstream multiculturalism is not sovereignty per se because is abstracts a sense of culture from the people and from the land."

Question: Could this arguably coincide with cultural appropriation?  Does mainstream multiculturalism deface specific identities in an insensitive and thoughtless way?

QQC

"The logic of a nation-people...takes as its supreme charge the sovereignty of the group through a privileging of its traditions and culture and continuity."

Question: Can there be society without culture, traditions, etc.? Or can people live solely off of material motivations devoid of any sentimental connection to the people/surroundings they inhabit? Would that be considered a society?

Lyons QQC

Quote: "In other words, while recognizing Indian sovereignty in terms we can fairly describe as eternal and absolute, the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Cherokee cases ultimately caved in to what would become a persistent, uniquely American, and wholly imperialist notion of recognition-from-above."

Question: "Recognition from above" is the phrase that juts out here to me. I feel it rather accurately describes our treatment as an imperialistic nation. What rhetorical strategies did the government employ in the 18th century to oppress native sovereignty? What parallels can be drawn today?

Quote: "For without self-governance, especially in

America, the people fragment into a destructive and chaotic individualism, and without

the people, there is no one left to govern and simply nothing left to protect."

 

Question: Do you agree with this? What signs can we point to that a lack of self-governance can cause chaos and/or destruction? 

Quote: "Thinking in one’s own cultural referents leads to conceptualizing in one’s own world view which, in turn, leads to disagreement with and eventual opposition to the dominant ideology”

Question: How might one conceptualize their world view through culture? And how might this conceptualization be problematic to other people from other cultures? 

QQC - Lyons

Quote:  “Thinking in one’s own cultural referents leads to conceptualizing in one’s own world view which, in turn, leads to disagreement with and eventual opposition to the dominant ideology” 

Question: Do you agree with this idea? Or do you think it's possible to stay true to our own culture without opposing others?

Lyons

Quote: Sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from the ravages of colonization: our lands, our languages, our cultures, our self-respect.


Question: How is the idea of sovereignty being shaped in today's society and how is it being addressed in the history of literature?

QQC

Quote: "Rhetorical sovereignty is the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse."

Question: How does this go against the Native American relationship with the white men?

QQC Lyons

Quote: "You can't give up what your don't own, after all; nor can you buy what's already yours."

Question: Can we not give up one language/culture for another if we do not technically own it? What would could it be interpreted to mean that we cannot "buy what is already" ours?- could this relate to language not being an objectified substance that we can just interchangeably 'purchase'?

QQC Lyons

Quote: "A people is a group of human beings united together by history, language, culture, or some combination therein—a community joined in union for a common purpose: the survival and flourishing of the people itself."

Question: Lyons seems to propose in his piece that rhetoric creates reality; he says that power is something that must be asserted by a people and then recognized. Is this kind of asserted power realistic? Is it possible for a united disempowered people to (re)obtain power through rhetoric? 

Lyons

"Our claims to sovereignty entail much more than arguments for tax-exempt status or the right to build and operate casinos; they are nothing less than our attempt to survive and flourish as a people. Sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from the ravages of colonization: our lands, our languages, our cultures, our self- respect."

What does this idea of "sovereignty" add to rhetoric for Natives and why is this important? 

QQC Gloria Anzaldúa

"She sees mestiza rhetoric as a way to repair, without erasing, the internal rips, that is, to make internal multiplicity into a positive discursive resource."

Q: Based off of Anzaldúa's analizarían of nepantilism, do you agree with this notion that through combination of theses "borderlands" it will help people come to understand the feeling of exclusion rhetorically? Why?

QQC 06/19/17

quote: "At Pan American University, I, and all Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents."

Question: why is this type of language and speech so frowned upon? Why does it matter how people talk when in reality it all means the same thing?

QQC 6.19.17

Quote: "My 'stories' are acts of encapsulated in time, 'enacted' every time they are spoken aloud or read silently. I like to think of them as performances and not as inert and 'dead' objects (as the aesthetics of Western culture think of art works.) Instead, the work has an identity; it is a "who" or "what" and contains the presences of persons, that is, incarnations of god or ancestors or natural and cosmic powers. The work manifests the same needs as a person, it needs to be 'fed'.

Question: Going off this quote, do you believe that our work and thoughts need to be constantly reworked and revamped in order to keep them "alive"? How would you qualify "feeding" your art?

QQC - Gloria Anzaldua

Quote: "Chicanas who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish have internalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a bastard language. And because we internalize how our language has been used against us by dominant culture, we use our language differences against each other."

Question: With Anzaldua's theory of the Mestiza consciousness in mind, how do you think this form of linguistic terrorism and "borderland" shapes Chicano into a heterogloss/isogloss (an isolation due to geography)?

QQC 6/19

Quote: "So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity. I am my language."

Question: Does this statement hold true for everybody. Are we just as identifiable through our language as our ethnicity?

Quote: "Often... we'll speak english as a neutral language. Even among Chicanas we tend to speak English at parties of confrences. Yet, at the same time, we're afraid the other will think we're agringadas because we don't speak Chicano Spanish. We oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be the 'real' Chicanas, to speak like Chicanos.

Question: Would you say the struggles of Chicana oppression both in and out of their specific community creates a counteracting conflict? It seems as though they don't want to embrace their roots in society but do in their own communities. They also seem to want to embrace the feminine plural of Chicanas but also hinder their independence by striving to model Chicanos.

QQC 6/19

Quote: "There are more subtle ways that we internalize identificiation, especially in the forms of images and emotions. For me food and certain smells are tied to my identity, to my homeland."

Question: How exactly does "smell" intertwine with "identity"? What are some characteristics of her home that she detailed? Where do most of her traditions and characteristics come from? Are they purely "Chicano" or a myriad of things?

Qqc

QUOTE: "For me like my father, being "macho" meant being strong enough to protect and support my mother and us yet being able to show love"

QUESTION: do you think this definition of macho is still relevant in today's world? How might another person define being macho? 

QQC

"We are your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration...Because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified. Racially, culturally, and linguistically, we speak an orphan tongue."

Question: Why does the majority population shun the minority population, and in what ways is this cultural struggle still relevant today?

QQC - 6/19

Quote: "Chicanos and other people of color suffer economically for not acculturating. This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict..."

Question: What difference can you see today between first generation hispanic culture and second generation hispanic culture within the United States?

QQC Anzaldua

Quote: For me like my father, being "macho" meant being strong enough to protect and support my mother and us yet being able to show love"

Question: How do you define being macho?

QQC #7

Quote: "Attacks on one's form of expression with the intent to censor are a violation of the First Amendment. El Anglo con cara de inocente nos arrancó la lengua. Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out."
Question: At what point does forcing people to assimilate become less about them fitting into our culture, and more about us feeling better about ourselves for being around people similar to us? Is stripping someone of their culture, like cutting out their tongue so to speak, even a humane act?

QQC ANZALDUA

Quote: " Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity."
Question:Do you feel often being identified by your language, where ever you go? Do you feel by this quote, you are who you are because of  your ethnic background or by the language and way you speak?

Quote: "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language."

Question: How does this apply to society today? Are people judged in a negative light if they do not know how to speak a native language? 

QQC

Quote: "Chicanos and other people of color suffer economically for not acculturating."

Question: Do you agree that minorities suffer economically or otherwise if they don't adopt American values and culture? Explain why you agree or disagree.

QQC Anzaldua

Quote: "I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue--my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence."

Question: Do we still have this problem of silencing Spanish women voices? What criticism does our society make about Spanish women (or Spanish speakers in general) the most?

QQC Anzaldúa

Quote: For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed. And for images, words, stories to have this transformative power, they must arise from the human body -- flesh and bone -- and from the Earth's body -- stone, sky, liquid, soil.

Question: To help me better understand Anzaldúa, what rhetorical theorists or movements could she be related to? I saw maybe some elocution movement in her work, but I would like to know if there are other connections that can be made.

Quote:"Words manipulated at will. As you can see, "difference" is essentially "division" n the understanding of many. It is no more than a tool of self-defense and conquest."

Question: Who have we studied that would agree/disagree with this quote, that words manipulate?

QQC

Quote: "We are robbed of our female being by the masculine plural. Language is the male discourse."

Question: In the Spanish language there are examples of what could be considered to 'rob' our female identities. Are there examples of this in the English language? For every language, is there a way that we as a society could prevent these characteristics from robbing females of their identities?

QQC - Anzaldúa

Quote: "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language."

Question: Why do you think people get judged by their language?

QCC

Q: "When invoked in rite, the object/event is "present"; that is, "enacted", it is both a physical thing and the power that infuses it. It is metaphysical in that it "spins it energies between gods and human", and its task is to move the gods."

Q: Do you think Anzaldúa, art is the power that infuses it? Can it be through communication or spirituality?

Gloria Anzaldua

Quote: Rhetorician and composition scholar Andrea Lunsford has called this mixed discourse a "mestiza rhetoric," with "mestiza" referring not only to the specific racial and cultural mixing that has produced the Mexican American people, but also to a more generalized concept of internal multiplicity, or complex identity, that is expressed in language drawn from a variety of culural sources. Lunsford describes Anzaldua's "new kind of writing style" in this way: "She shifts from poetry to reportorial prose to autobiographical stream of consciousness to incantatory mythic chants to sketches and graphs - and back again, weaving images from her multiple selves and from many others into a kind of tapestty or patchwork quilt of language."


Question: What differentiates this type of rhetoric to all the other theorists that we've spoken about and their ideas of rhetoric? How does Gloria differentiate specifically from all the other women theorists that we've spoken about thus far?

Gloria Anzaldua QQC

"Let's all stop importing Greek myths and the Western Cartesian split point of view and root ourselves in the mythological soil and soul of this continent. White America has only attended to the body of the earth in order to exploit it, never to succor it or to be nurtured in it."

How does her standpoint make clear her awareness of cultural boundaries in America?

¡QQC! 7

Quote: "Burke suggests that rhetors typically adjust their conduct to the external resistance they expect in the audience or situation.... In invitational rhetoric, in contrast, resistance is not anticipated, and rhetors do not adapt their communication to expected resistance in the audience. Instead, they identify possible impediments to the creation of understating and seek to minimize or neutralize them so they do not remain impediments."

Question: Is this a better or worse way of getting your point across? Morally is it obtrusive?

QQC

Quote: "The speaker's role very often may best be described as Paternalistic, in the the rhetor adopts a let me help you, let me enlighten you type, let me show you the way approach." (Gearheart)

Question: How can this idea of breaking away from rhetoric as persuasion become problematic? What if the rhetor has factual knowledge which they feel the need to make people aware of who otherwise would be completely ignorant towards the issue?

QQC FOSS AND GRIFFIN

Quote: "The speaker's role very often may best be described as paternalistic, in that the rhetor adopts a let me help you, let me enlighten you, let me show you the way approach."

Question: Do you think one is more likely to listen to a speaker with this paternalistic approach as opposed to someone like John Locke who was more cut and dry?

QQC - Foss and Griffin

Quote: "Value is created when rhetors approach audience members as "unrepeatable individuals" and eschew "distancing, depersonalizing, or paternalistic attitudes." As a result, audience members feel their identities are not forced upon or chosen for them by rhetors." (Foss and Griffin, pg.11)

Question: Is it possible to uphold and create value when invitational rhetoric is addressed to a larger audience? How can one be certain that they are using the correct approach to ensure that every individual does not feel like they are being agglomerated with the rest, and stripped of their own persona?

QQC 7

Quote: "Implicit in a conception of rhetoric as persuasion is the assumption that humans are on earth to alter the 'environment and to influence the social affairs' of others."

Question: Do you agree with this statement? Can you give an example how humans alter the environment and social affairs?

QQC #7

"Invitational rhetoric is an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationship rooted in equality, immanent value, and self-determination."

 Are there any flaws in approaching rhetoric this way? The issue with Quintillian views are that they're naive in assuming that there's no such thing as an ulterior motive, but with invitational rhetoric the focus is on working towards a good moral center. Does that absolve it from issues?

QQC 7/14

"Worth cannot be determined by positioning individuals on a hierarchy so they can be ranked and compared or by attending emblems of external achievement, for worth cannot be 'earned, acquired, or proven.'"


Question: How could this ideology ever be effectively practiced in society? Are there any communities in this world that take on this ideology?

qqc

Quote: "When audience members feel their sense of order is threatened or challenged, they are more likely to cling to familiar ways of thinking and to be less open to understanding the perspectives of others.   



QUESTION: This quote shows how an audience will better connect with someone who shares similar thoughts, values, and ideas. Do you think that ignorance plays a role in this? And do you think this quote is accurate in today's world, especially the political arena? 

QQC - Foss and Griffin "Invitational Rhetoric"

Quote: " Invitational rhetoric constitutes an invitation to the audience to enter the rhetor's world and see it as the rhetor does. In presenting a particular perspective, the invitational rhetor does not judge or denigrate others' perspectives but is open to and tries to appreciate and validate those perspectives, even if they differ dramatically from the rhetor's own."

Question: Personally I agree with and find the definition of "invitational rhetoric" to be good and just, but do you see any situations where this take on rhetoric could be problematic?

QQC - 6.14.17

Quote: If invitational rhetoric is to result in mutual understanding of perspectives, it involves not only the offering of the rhetor's perspective but the creation of an atmosphere in which audience members' perspectives can be offered. We propose that to create such an environment, an invitational rhetoric must create three external conditions in the interaction between rhetors and audience members--safety, value, and freedom.

Question: Is this a realistic goal when it comes to sharing perspective and presenting information in modern day? Do individuals actually work towards creating an understanding environment including safety, value and freedom? 

QQC #7

Quote: "The value of the self derives not from a recognition of the uniqueness and inherent value of each living being but from gaining control over others."

Question: Do you agree with this statement? What role do you think this need to "gain control over others" can play in everyday life?

QQC 7 - Invitational Rhetoric

Quote: "Worth cannot be determined by positioning individuals on a hierarchy so they can be ranked and compared or by attending to emblems of external achievement, for worth cannot be earned, acquired, or proven."

Question: Can you prove your worth? How then can worth be determined or measured?

Quote: "Worth cannot be determined by positioning individuals on a hierarchy so they can be ranked and compared or by attending emblems of external achievement, for worth cannot be 'earned, acquired, or proven.'"

Question: Taking out of account worth in the sense of money, is worth really something that cannot be earned, acquired, or proven? Does this mean that moving up in the career hierarchy is meaningless if we did not earn it, acquire it, or prove it?

Invitational Rhetoric

Quote: Implicit in a conception of rhetoric as persuasion is the assumption that humans are on earth to alter the "environment and to influence the social affairs" of others.

Question: Would the term implicit have the same meaning as the term discourse?

QQC Invitational Rhetoric

Quote: "When audience members feel their sense of order is threatened or challenged, they are more likely to cling to familiar ways of thinking and to be less open to understanding the perspectives of others. When a safe environment is created, then, audience members trust the rhetor and feel the rhetor is working with and not against them."

Question: Is offering an effective mode of rhetoric? Can we separate our desire to persuade from rhetoric and instead seek mutual understanding and insight?

Invitational Rhetoric

“Embedded in efforts to change others is a desire for control and domination, for the act of changing another establishes the power of the change agent over that other.”

In contrast to this traditional view of rhetoric, do you think invitational rhetoric could be more persuasive to audiences by being more open and accepting?