TY - JOUR
T1 - When a Woman Owns the Farm: A Case for Diachronic and Synchronic Rhetorical Agency
AU - Wolford, Rachel
PY - 2016/6/8
Y1 - 2016/6/8
N2 - This article explores rhetorical agency and the case study of a woman farmland owner in Iowa, who was unprepared to inherit her farm and its management responsibilities because her now-deceased family members had prohibited her from participating in the farming discourse during the preceding decades. Drawing on postmodern theories of rhetorical agency, I argue that agency is multiple, shifting in form within particular contexts, according to a person’s identity, knowledge and experience, and access to discourse. I develop a model of synchronic and diachronic rhetorical agency, positing that agency comes into focus at specific temporal (synchronic) moments in one’s life when action through language can potentially occur, and as a more enduring form (diachronic), developed over time as an emergent characteristic through one’s resilience and experience as an interlocutor within discourse.
AB - This article explores rhetorical agency and the case study of a woman farmland owner in Iowa, who was unprepared to inherit her farm and its management responsibilities because her now-deceased family members had prohibited her from participating in the farming discourse during the preceding decades. Drawing on postmodern theories of rhetorical agency, I argue that agency is multiple, shifting in form within particular contexts, according to a person’s identity, knowledge and experience, and access to discourse. I develop a model of synchronic and diachronic rhetorical agency, positing that agency comes into focus at specific temporal (synchronic) moments in one’s life when action through language can potentially occur, and as a more enduring form (diachronic), developed over time as an emergent characteristic through one’s resilience and experience as an interlocutor within discourse.
M3 - Article
SN - 1525-3120
SP - 30
JO - Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture
JF - Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture
ER -