Abstract

This study is a critique of social constructionism, especially as it has informed composition pedagogies and the "collaborative learning" of Kenneth Bruffee and John Trimbur. After reviewing the social constructionist position and analyzing the philosophical debate surrounding the concept of consensus, especially in the works of Habermas, Lyotard, Foucault, and Rorty, it argues that the privileging of normal discourse in a consensus model of composition pedagogy will tend to replicate the status quo, effectively silencing the unorthodox thinker. Considering the rise of the class of intellectuals in late nineteenth-century England and Ireland as a representative example of power/knowledge dynamics within a discourse community, the study argues that any discourse that challenged the positivist, scientistic premises of this discourse community would have been situated outside the consensus of the community, and therefore would be abnormal by its standards. Yet, some such discourse did get a hearing from this community nonetheless; the esoteric prose of W. B. Yeats and Annie Besant serve as examples. By rhetorically analyzing the "abnormal discourse" of Yeats and Besant, then, the author constructs a rhetoric of abnormal discourse. The purpose of such a rhetoric is to enable any writers who would challenge the premises of a dominant belief-system to use rhetorical techniques that will allow their voices to be heard. ;In using the rhetorical techniques of effective abnormal discourse, the study argues, the writer of abnormal discourse de-emphasizes her unorthodox logos, or challenging subject matter, by foregrounding the ethos and pathos appeals of her argument. She thereby increases the likelihood that she will get a hearing from the dominant discourse community, despite their resistance to the unknown, the unproven or the unconventional--that which lies outside the consensus. ;The author then proposes an alternative pedagogy to the consensus model which includes writing that may challenge the consensus of the discourse community. This pedagogy employs both classical and postmodern rhetorical systems, combining the persuasive and argumentative strategies of Aristotle, Cicero, and other ancients with such postmodern insights as Gadamer's hermeneutics and Foucault's power/knowledge dynamics. By putting classical and postmodern rhetorics into creative tension with each other, such a pedagogy aims to enrich students' understanding of discourse and to heighten their critical consciousness of their own practices as constituting, and constituted by, many diverse and interacting discourse communities