USA

In this study I describe how individuals living in Laredo, Texas, a city situated in the U.S. - Mexico border region, make sense of their identities through their experiences in the Washington Birthday Celebration (WBC). By focusing on communication as means for creating cultural identities, this study provides insight into how communication is used in the construction and performance of cultural identities. Specifically, I focus on The Society of Martha Washington, one of the several affiliate organizations that participates in the WBC, in order to answer the following research questions about the enactment of cultural identities in the WBC: (1) What cultural identities are enacted at the WBC and how do participants use communication to enact these expressed identities? How do participants enact their cultural identities beyond the WBC? I argue that although the WBC is intended to foster a collective identity, it poses a problematic contradiction since it implicates the enactment of various identities wherein status differentials are enhanced.

USA

This thesis will study the rhetoric of this contemporary revolution-turned- social movement, by using cluster analysis. It explores the use of rhetoric of confrontation and rhetoric of peace to further the Zapatista cause, seeking to identify any changes in their message during the last ten years of the revolution

USA

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the growing literature of constitutive rhetoric, originally coined by Maurice Charland. Through a case study of the US/Mexico border fence, I ilustrate that the communicative tactics of articulation, appropriation and image events have the potential to act as interpellative strategies of identity construction. Through my analisys, i show how these strategies function in constitutive rhetoric in both verbal discourses and in visual rhetoric through image events. I also note that lack of discourses in an argument may have implications that are equally significant to those that are present.