ipl-logo

Mary Louise Pratt's Rhetorical Analysis: Arts Of The Contact Zones

891 Words4 Pages

Pratt’s Rhetorical Analysis
Stanford college professor, Mary Louise Pratt, spoke on the “Arts of the Contact Zones” in 1990 to collaborating professors in an effort to change the teaching of multi-cultural literacy. Drawing the idea of cultural literacy from an ideological standpoint, she desired to criticize the traditional approach to teaching and embrace what she calls “contact zones.” Pratt has done studies on what she defines contact zone as, she remarks that contact zones are social spaces were two cultures meet with each other. Her aim, however, is very clear that she wants to convince a group of educators to help create a new standard in education that is student-centered and has the intentions in what she calls the contact zone. Pratt …show more content…

Gauman Poma, speech provides a long analogy to her point that perspective can change our understanding of culture. Gauman Poma wrote a letter as an Andean citizen to his Spanish King. A text that included over 800 pages and 400 illustrations, Poma sought to describe life from the perspective of an Andean. He provided insights and knowledge about the life of an Andean citizen in a way his King could understand. Sadly, when Poma sent off his big book of information, his culture had been deemed illiterate in the minds of academia and his stories were lost. Pratt claims, that if the receivers had observed the reading and pursued to learn from it, they would have stored a better understanding of what life was like for the Andean subjects. Nevertheless, this text didn’t fit within the existing understanding of Andean culture and what was almost lost for it. As a replacement, another text, written by a Spanish, Andean citizen living in Spain colored the perspective in a Spanish positive light and was assumed to be the right perspective. Written in standard Spanish without illustration The Royal Commentaries of the Incas by Garcilaso de la Vega, was and up to Pratts speech considered to be the precise narrative for understating the Incan culture. Pratt would have this example surprise us into understanding that by disregarding several perspectives in favor of the right

Show More
Related
109 Words | 1 Pages

Josie Appleton’s piece opens with her introducing the fact that body modification has lost its mark of being taboo. Appleton then transitions into describing the different kinds of people that modify their bodies and why they do it. The fact that people used to mostly use tattoos to identify with a group and are now using them to define themselves is heavily enforced. The rest of the piece describes in great detail the different ways people use piercings and tattoos to better understand themselves and mark important milestones. The piece concludes with Appleton claiming that body modification should only be for fashion, because bringing significance to it causes problems.

Read More
539 Words | 3 Pages

In July of 1988, Dorothy Ann Willis Richards, the Texas State Treasurer at the time, gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. The room was filled with democratic supporters to whom Richards emphasizes the need to for American politics to "do better." Her speech was intended to persuade the audience to vote for the Democratic party in the upcoming election, rather than the Republican party. Richards attempts to persuade the audience through her use of humor, repetition, and personal anecdotes. Richards kicks off her speech with the humorous statement ,"After listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.

Read More
1221 Words | 5 Pages

Bryson Esplin Mr. Johansen ENG 101 1 February 2023 Rhetorical Analysis of Julie Petersen’s “Analysis Essay: Is Macbeth A Tragic Hero?” One true problem with writing posted to the internet is the inability to prove what, if anything, is true or credible. With common phrases such as “Don’t believe everything you read” and “Fake news,” it has become more important than ever to know what articles are reliable. One example of a source that claims to be trustworthy but is questionable at best is the website AskPetersen.com. Julie Petersen, who runs the website, claims to have everything to help readers “write a perfect essay” (Petersen, “Blog”).

Read More
1009 Words | 5 Pages

America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. This phrase is sung with pride and passion by American citizens. However, some of America’s hardest working citizens are shackled down by a factor that they have no control over. Poverty, is what’s keeping citizens imprisoned while they should be living free. An appalling 44 percent of homeless Americans are employed (http://nationalhomeless.org/).

Read More
410 Words | 2 Pages

Emma Marris uses many types of persuasive elements in her essay “Emma Marris: In Defense of Everglade Pythons”. In her writing she persuades her readers that the pythons should be allowed to be in the everglades since it is not their fault that they are there in the first place. She uses metaphors to relate to the reader and word choice to enhance her writing.

Read More
446 Words | 2 Pages

Sciascia uses the element of irony throughout the short story in order to enhance the theme of hope and deceit… Sciascia evokes the element of irony in the title of the story as well because the story is called the long crossing and the journey that these travelers thought they were going on was in fact not long at all, it was a voyage that led them to the other side of their homeland of Sicily. Irony is used when describing how some of the travelers paid for the expedition by borrowing from money lenders. Some who borrowed from the lenders had no intention of paying the money back because they figured they had suffered enough abuse their whole lives regarding money, and once they figured that once they arrived in America they will owe no one. “The cunning ones among them borrowed from the money-lenders with the secret intention of defrauding them, just this once,

Read More
890 Words | 4 Pages

The purpose of published “Silent Spring” was to alert and inform everyone about the danger the environment is in due to the spraying of pesticides. Carson wanted to let the public know the truth about pesticides that governments and health organizations were hiding from everyone. In the beginning of Chapter 2 Rachel states “The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of the air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal material. ”(5). This quote explains Carson’s whole purpose of the book in one sentence; to bring change in the world by preventing the widespread use of DDT and dangerous pesticides.

Read More
572 Words | 3 Pages

Next, A Woman in Berlin used rhetoric to appeal to the targeted audience. For example, the text states, “‘Forgive me. It’s been so long since I had a woman.’ He shouldn’t have said that. Next thing I know I’m lying with my face in his lap sobbing and bawling and howling all the grief in my soul (Page 104).”

Read More
1058 Words | 5 Pages

The letters help grasp a further understanding of Spanish culture during colonial rule, but they are also valuable in that they give us insight on the culture of the land from the Natives themselves. Because of the lack of a proper writing system, nationalism, and poor education during those times, it’s hard to discern the voices of those under colonial rule. Katari however, despite being illiterate, depicts Aymara culture outside of Spanish influence. He emphasizes ideas of individualism through exclaiming “What is Gods is Gods and what is Cesars’ is Cesar” and nationalist identity through his alias of the Inca king “Tupac”. Katari’s quote about God sticks out because it demonstrates that although the majority of Aymara were poorly educated, they were still competent enough to conceptualize a message that compares Christianity to the exploitation done by Spanish officals.

Read More
429 Words | 2 Pages

Mark Twain, an 18th century humorist, was known for his critical and satirical writing. In one of his most famous essays, “ Fenimore Coopers Literary Offenses” Twain addresses Coopers inability to realistically develop a “situation” and his failure to effectively back up his stories in order for them to be more plausible. To dramatically convey his unimpressed and sarcastic attitude, he applies biting diction, metaphors and hypophora throughout this work . By continuously using biting diction, Twain develops a mocking tone towards Fenimore Cooper’s incapability to create even the simplest of storylines. In the title of the work a sarcastic tone is evident; the word choice is utilized to reinforce the argument stating how Coopers work is an offense to the world of literature.

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

In America’s history, child labor was fiercely criticized. Many activists of child labor laws and women’s suffrage strived to introduce their own viewpoints to the country. Florence Kelley was a reformer who successfully changed the mindset of many Americans through her powerful and persuading arguments. Florence Kelley’s carefully crafted rhetoric strategies such as pathos, repetition, and sarcasm generates an effective and thought provoking tone that was in favor of women’s suffrage and child labor laws. Florence Kelley uses pathos continuously throughout her speech.

Read More
1513 Words | 7 Pages

In spite of the importance of bringing matters of culture and power to the schools, I think too many cultural studies theorists are remiss in suggesting that pedagogy is primarily about schools and, by implication, that the intersection of cultural studies and pedagogy has little to do with theorizing the role pedagogy might play in linking learning to social change outside of traditional sites of schooling.6 Pedagogy is not simply about the social construction of knowledge, values, and experiences; it is also a performative practice embodied in the lived interactions among educators, audiences, texts, and institutional formations.

Read More
1203 Words | 5 Pages

Everyone wants the truth and with Leonard Pitts Jr. you get it. Pitts writes for the Miami Herald daily newspaper in southern Florida. His style is very unique in all of his writings, and different from other authors. Pitts mostly focuses on the outbreak of the daily news. For instance, Don’t Lower The Bar on Education Standards is strictly states lowering the bar will not fix anything it will only decrease the standards.

Read More
912 Words | 4 Pages

Award winning writer, George Orwell, in his dystopian novel, 1984, Winston and O’Brien debate the nature of reality. Winston and O’Brien’s purpose is to persuade each other to believe their own beliefs of truth and reality. They adopt an aggressive tone in order to convey their beliefs about what is real is true. In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston and O’Brien use a variety of different rhetorical strategies and appeals such as parallel structure, pathos, and logos in order to persuade each other about the validity of memories and doublethink; however, each character’s argument contains flaw in logic. Winston debates with O’Brien that truth and reality are individual and connected to our memories.

Read More

More about Mary Louise Pratt's Rhetorical Analysis: Arts Of The Contact Zones

Related Topics

Open Document