Greetings CSSR and CASLL list members.
On my professional web page I have posted a number of internet search
results that may be of interest to colleagues who share an interest in
how the word "rhetoric" is being used online and where the field is
being taught in academic programs:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit/RhetLinks/index.htm
* (NEW) Result Counts for "Rhetoric and ... " through Google.ca, May
14, 2008
* Communication programs with strengths in Rhetoric. BA through PhD.
, October 2007
* Rhetoric Programs: Interdisciplinary. October 2007
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who are interested, here are some interesting pieces of
information from the Google.ca result counts at
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit/RhetLinks/RhetoricGoogle.htm I hope the
results of my curiosity these past two days will bring at least a small
fraction of the insight and laughter and puzzlement to my colleagues as
it did to me.
* *"Rhetorical studies"* (phrases were searched in " " marks as an
exact phrase) is found just about as frequently online as "writing
studies," but half as frequently as "composition studies." But we
are dwarfed by a ratio of 110 : 1 by mentions of "cultural
studies" on the internet.
* *The words "rhetoric" and "rhetorical,"* both results combined,
appear slightly more frequently than the words "persuasion" and
"persuasive" combined. So the word "rhetoric" is more common than
one might think, though it is hugely outnumbered by the result
counts for the words "media" and "writing" (the latter of which is
also a verb, raising its count).
* *Politics, sexuality, and technology* are the most frequently
mentioned topic/contexts associated with rhetoric, among more than
80 combinations I searched for. (I searched for phrase
combinations such as adjective/noun pairs like "political
rhetoric." Then, in a separate list I searched for slightly more
distant combinations joined by and/of -- "rhetoric and/of X" and
"X and rhetoric." )
* *Compared to the quantity of global internet chatter about
rhetoric, the discourse found on Canadian pages **(at least in
English) **is a very soft whisper*, especially on most of the
really popular topics. On average, the Canadian portion of all
results was 1.9% of the whole result count among the "rhetoric and
X" findings, and 3.3% of the result count among the conjoined
adjective/noun pairs. On my "rhetoric and X" chart, our pages
only seem to stand out on a few of the less popular topics,
starting half way down the , as our percentages of the whole
finally go above 3% of all hits.
* Considering that the average portion of Canadian results is 1.9 to
3.3 % of all hits, *Canadian results for "rhetoric and
professional writing/communication" stands out at a WHOPPING
29.7% of all results! * (15,810 all : 4,691 Cdn.) At the same
time, Canadian page instances of "rhetoric and"... for business,
engineering, marketing, public relations, and
organizational/corporate rhetoric were at 0.0% of all hits. (??)
*
*
* *Also at a high Canadian-portion of hits was the relatively less
popular topic "Canadian rhetoric" (774)*, with, unsurprisingly,
223 Canadian page hits (28.8%). Compare those results to
"American rhetoric" at 175,000 hits (5,080 of them on Canadian
pages), "Native American / Native / Aboriginal rhetoric" at 3,257
hits (42 on Canadian pages), and "Australian rhetoric" at 249
hits (1 on a Canadian page).
* *Apparently on Canadian pages people are NOT talking about the
second most popular topic on all pages, "sexuality and
rhetoric."* The ratio is more than 1 million hits on other pages
compared to a measly 9 hits on our pages. Hmmmmm. Maybe we
simply have other topics on our minds. Our pages seem to have a
lot more to say about #1 and #3 on the list (politics, technology).
* *The most common negative adjective/noun pair I found was "empty
rhetoric," *an invective which has been expressed on the internet
about 208,000 times. Still, 208,000 instances is much less
frequent than each of the top 10 topics of rhetorical discussion,
the most popular numbering in the millions of hits. The term
"good rhetoric" was the most frequent among the positive adjective
combinations I checked, but at 26,800 hits was still about 10x
less frequent than "empty rhetoric," proving that most people
would much rather complain or critique bad rhetoric than praise or
coach good rhetoric.
What a fun diversion it was to compile these Google.ca search result
lists. I now return to dealing with my May 15 deadlines and to
composing my CSSR and RSA conference papers for the end of the month.
--
Tania S. Smith
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Communication & Culture
University of Calgary
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~smit
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