RHETORIC IN RESPONSIBILITY: AN ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTORY LINGUISTICS SYLLABI by Breanna Erwin
This paper presents the results of a study conducted on twenty randomly selected syllabi regarding the subject of Introduction to Linguistics. The study examines language and rhetoric used to convey responsibility and relational expectations between the instructor and students. In this study, I selected twenty syllabi from a collection provided by Dr. Bowie. I assessed patterns in pronoun usage and subject/object naming conventions. The roles of individual responsibility, as well as shared responsibility between students and instructors, is concluded from these patterns. Findings indicate that a vast majority of responsibility for success is placed on the students and that pronoun usage is largely disproportionate, and as such, plays a key part in assigning said roles.
When pursuing a degree in higher education, it is common for the first week of a course to involve reviewing a syllabus of some kind. Syllabi are helpful documents that allow students to review the semester ahead at a glance. They contain information regarding school policies, student codes of conduct, and resource information amongst other things. Most importantly, syllabi are the framework for the entire course, summarizing course objectives, detailing in-class expectations, modes of communication, deadlines, assignment details, and teacher/student roles and expectations. In this paper, I wanted to pursue a rhetorical analysis of syllabi and answer the following questions: What role does language play in assigning responsibility within the confines of a syllabus? Can language create positive or negative connotations that may affect a student’s immediate impression of a course or instructor? What kind of language is used when presenting syllabi? What modes of rhetoric, both visual and textual, do these syllabi provide?
Syllabi exist within a rare sphere where they alternate between first-, second-, and third-person narratives. While most forms of writing and propriety admonish authors from switching perspectives, syllabi are able to do so due to the nature of their content; it is a mix of reality and the hypothetical. Successful syllabi must not only lay groundwork for the inevitable—required materials, deadlines, policies, etc.—but also the hypothetical, such as missed work, emergencies, and other unforeseen circumstances. Because the use of language is polarized between the two scenarios, I will be breaking the majority down into two-subsections: pronouns and subject/object noun usage. Following McCaulay (1997)[1], I collected data and created charts to demonstrate my findings as well as using descriptive statistics to identify and support my claims of an imbalance in pronoun usage. Please refer to Appendix A for full syllabi information as they will be referred to based on the conventions given below.
Table 1 examines the basic uses of pronouns throughout the syllabi. The pronouns range from personal, to objective, to possessive. The most commonly used pronouns are “you” and “your”, thus placing most of the responsibilities, possession, and expectations on the students. While this data is not surprising, due to the nature of syllabi and the target audience being students, what I find most interesting is the staggering disparity in the use of “I” and “my” among syllabi. Results of this study indicate a lesser-present source of responsibility placed upon the instructors of the course. We seldom see the uses of pronouns that define responsibility and expectations to the course instructor through self-appointment. While the use of “us”, “we”, and “our” could very well be unifying pronouns, due to other faculty involvement from teacher’s assistants, discussion leaders, and student teachers, much of it is used to refer to other staff members and rarely does the surrounding context provide a connotation that groups the instructor with the students. Data marked by the asterisks illustrate outliers that skew the data. In Syllabus 15 the instructor includes a student code of conduct that lists pledges beginning with the word “I.” This usage is inconsistent with the assumption that “I” statements refer to the author of the syllabus.
Table 2 represents the data collected regarding the different uses of the select nouns “student,” “instructor,” and “professor.” Subjects are easily identified as the doers of actions while objects are the recipients. By looking at the chart, one can see how there is a large variation between how often “students” is used versus “professor/instructor” in general. There is an even larger discrepancy between “student” as a subject in contrast to “instructor/professor” as a subject. We can see that the nouns regarding students are more highly operative as a performer of an action, while the nouns of instructor/ professor favor being a recipient.
Scoping into a smaller scale, we can take Syllabus 18 and examine percentages of pronoun and noun use within a single syllabus.
These percentages show the staggering differences in usage between student and instructor centered language. “You” makes up for 44% of the nouns (more specifically, pronouns) used, while “your” also accounts for a high percentage at 29%. These two terms that are derivative of the same root subject account for 73% of the subjects referenced. Though “instructor” is used a measly 5%, it is also notable that the term is only referenced as an object rather than a direct and responsible party of any action.
At its most basic foundations, rhetoric goes far beyond singular word choice and is most often recognized as bodies of text that aim to convey certain topics by means of persuasion. James Seitz (2019)[2] states that, “Perhaps most conspicuous is the extent to which so many of our syllabi these days attempt to reassure students that their education will be a pleasant, secure, and agreeable experience, with multiple support services should the situation become difficult. I’m not suggesting that students shouldn’t receive assistance when needed—just that the contemporary syllabus reflects the anxiety over student comfort so characteristic of the corporate university.” I disagree with this sentiment to an extent. While I agree that the overall purpose of syllabi is to present an agreeable limit of expectation within a course’s scheduling, across my studies of syllabi I have found that seldom do teachers offer a coddling experience. While there are sentiments of encouragement scarcely peppered throughout these syllabi, I have found that most syllabi hold connotations of strict self-discipline when assigning student-owned responsibility. This form of rhetoric is present in many syllabi:
- “Your grade is your responsibility, not ours.” – Syllabus 19.
- “If you have already missed a homework or exercise, you will not be given another chance in case of alien invasion, etc. which causes you to miss a homework or exercise later in the semester.” – Syllabus 6.
- “late homework cannot be accepted.” – Syllabus 8.
- “No late or handwritten homework will be accepted.” – Syllabus 9.
- “Please note that even if you do miss the due date for an assignment, you are strongly encouraged to complete all assignments in this course. As such, I will accept late assignments up until the last day of class” – Syllabus 14.
- “However, I understand that missing class—either in full or in part—is sometimes unavoidable, so you don’t need to worry about a small number of exceptional absences having any direct negative effect on your grade.” – Syllabus 7
[1] Macaulay, Monica, and Colleen Brice. “Don’t touch my projectile: Gender bias and stereotyping in syntactic examples.” Language 73, no. 4 (1997): 798-825. doi:10.1353/lan.1997.0031.
[2] Seitz, James. “Syllabus.” New Literary History 50, no. 3 (2019): 457-460. doi:10.1353/nlh.2019.0042.
[3] Ibid.
Breanna Erwin is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate in English with a minor in History. Selected by David Bowie.
Breanna Erwin is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate in English with a minor in History. Selected by David Bowie.