Date of Award
2009-01-01
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English Rhetoric and Composition
Advisor(s)
Helen Foster
Abstract
Postmodern theories describe human subjectivity as fragmented. (Faigley 12). Unlike Enlightenment thinkers, who theorized the Cartesian subject as an autonomous, stable, rational self with "privileged insight into its own processes" (111), postmodern theorists "decisively [reject] the primacy of consciousness and instead [have] consciousness originating in language, arguing that the subject is an effect rather than a cause of discourse" (Faigley 9).
The idea that language constructs who subjects are, how they are, and who they may and may not become is very powerful, for it suggests subjects cannot consciously know themselves apart from language. Self-knowledge results from social, institutional, and political discourses surrounding subjects and from discursive interactions with others.
As a result, postmodern theorists, especially in disciplines such as Rhetoric and Writing Studies, have posited different theories of ontology to describe the conditions in which postmodern subjects exist and to suggest how subjects might intervene in their own existence to create meaning and to develop a more critical consciousness of themselves, others, and the world around them. These theories, however, tacitly or explicitly privilege language's role in constructing subjectivities.
The idea that language, alone, constructs subjects, however, is problematic. Subjects exist in spaces of both discourse and silence, they use speech and silence to communicate intentions, and they come to know the world through both.
For this reason, this Thesis argues theories of subjectivity must include both language and silence. It first examines the theories of Althusser, Foucault, and Foster. Then, it reviews theories of silence, and considers the ways in which silence is epistemological, ontological, rhetorical, and ideological. Finally, using Foster's theory of subjectivity, it suggests one way in which silence might be included in a theory of subjectivity before suggesting how silence might be studied in a first-year composition course.
Language
en
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
Copyright Date
2009
File Size
93 pages
File Format
application/pdf
Rights Holder
Nikki Ann Agee
Recommended Citation
Agee, Nikki Ann, "Silent Subjects: Silence in Theories of Subjectivity" (2009). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 196.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/196