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LAWRENCE, SARAH M., Phd. December 2020 ENGLISH LAWRENCE, SARAH M., PhD. December 2020 ENGLISH A RHETORIC OF SELF-INJURY: ESTABLISHING IDENTITY AND REPRESENTING THE BODY IN ONLINE SELF-INJURY FORUMS Dissertation Advisor: Sara Newman This project examines how appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos are employed in representing concepts of body and identity in online self-injury communities and, thereby, generate community interactions and values. The study demonstrates that statements posted self-harmers are shared and reiterated throughout the community and help the community to develop shared meaning and support. The repetitive use of various lines of argument, manifested in rhetorical tropes also affect how individuals form ideas about identity and body and, in turn, help maintains a common understanding of identity and actions within the community. A RHETORIC OF SELF-INJURY: ESTABLISHING IDENTITY AND REPRESENTING THE BODY IN ONLINE SELF-INJURY FORUMS A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Sarah M. Lawrence December 2020 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Dissertation written by Sarah M. Lawrence B.A., Carlton University, 2006 M.A., Arizona State University, 2009 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2020 Approved by Sara Newman____________________________, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Stephanie Moody_________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Derek Van Ittersum_______________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by Babacar Mbaye____________________________, Chair, Department of English Mandy Munro-Stasiuk______________________, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------iv LIST OF TABLES-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS----------------------------------------------------------------------------------vii CHAPTERS I. Introduction----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Literature Review---------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------20 II. Ethics and Methodology -----------------------------------------------------------------22 Development of the Question -----------------------------------------------------------22 Ethics of Online Research ---------------------------------------------------------------25 Methodology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------36 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------55 III. Analysis – Level I -------------------------------------------------------------------------57 Antithesis -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------57 Emphasis (Significatio) -------------------------------------------------------------------64 Litotes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------66 Metonymy ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------68 Metaphor -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------71 Maxim --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------81 Rhetorical Questions ----------------------------------------------------------------------83 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------84 IV. Analysis – Level II ------------------------------------------------------------------------85 Data Set 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------85 iv Data Set 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------100 Data Set 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------117 Conclusion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------135 V. Discussion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------136 Identity ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------137 Body ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------140 Community -------------------------------------------------------------------------------142 Research Questions ----------------------------------------------------------------------145 Conclusion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------148 CONCLUSIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------149 REFERENCES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------159 APPENDICES A. Metaphors in the Data -----------------------------------------------------------------------166 B. Complete List of Cross-Posts ---------------------------------------------------------------173 C. Brief List of Examples of Self-Injury in Media ------------------------------------------177 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Comments in Data Sets 1, 2, and 3 -------------------------------------------------------------47 Table 2. Number and Type of Posts-----------------------------------------------------------------------49 Table 3. Cross-Post Categories and No. of Posts -------------------------------------------------------54 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to SARA NEWMAN, without whose patient, constant support, frequent draft edits, and calm presence this project would have impossible; DEREK VAN ITTERSUM and STEPHANIE MOODY, for the unique perspectives and contributions that pushed the project beyond its comfort zone; OWEN DOLBEAR, for always being there, always listening and discussing, for tutoring help, for patience, love, support, and constantly analyzing the Internet together; WINSTON THE PUG, who arrived at just the right time and gave adorable and cuddly support; and JILL LOWERY, who has seen me through more than expected and without whom I would not have arrived here. vii Introduction This dissertation examines, through rhetorical analysis, the interactions of participants in three online self-injury forums as they employ words to describe and share both their wounds and their experiences with self-injurious behavior. Based on analysis, this work discusses the establishment and maintenance of online community based on appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos and formation of endoxa. Self-injury, as discussed throughout this work, refers to the intentional harming of one’s own body by means of cutting, burning, or bruising the flesh. My analysis presents a rhetorical understanding of the argumentative process that occurs in establishing oneself as a member of a self-injury specific website - an undertaking that explores both the argument constructed by the user and the character of the online community that allows such an argument to be effective. The outcome of this process is a collaborative negotiation by forum users about what it means to be a self-injurer, and the establishment of individual ethos based on personal experiences of self-injury, individual yet understood by the community. My project expands on scholarship exploring rhetorical interactions in online communities with the goal of developing a better understanding of how the body of the user, a material presence available only offline, is represented to an online audience by means of words. In examining language as it is used in the forums, my project intertwines with the goals of Writing Studies and Disability Studies. As Brophy (2010) notes in her article calling for the development of a corporeal cyberfeminism, “Most interaction between individuals takes place within the context of language, and experiences are remembered, shared, reconstituted or constructed within language as well” (p. 935). Through an understanding of how language itself 1 is used as a tool of identity creation, writing scholars can better understand how language helps people establish and describe the body within online interaction and ethos construction. Language, as I demonstrate here, is a tool through which users of self-injury forums convey their experiences, re-define themselves, and push against the roles which medicine and psychiatry (and, indeed, the public) have prescribed for them. My study investigates how users of online self-injury forums represent their bodies and their embodied injuries, considering specifically how the body is a source of online ethos. In so doing, I examine the presence and formation of endoxa as an element of community creation. In understanding the users’ language in their attempts to present the physical body in words, scholars in Rhetoric and Composition are better equipped to understand the struggle for individuals who are marginalized as “disabled” to move beyond that status. To those ends, my research questions are the following: • In what ways is ethos generated and utilized in these online spaces? • What is the role of the physical body in these interactions? How is it relayed in language? • How is community formed and sustained, and what role does language regarding self- injury play in relation to this community? • How is ethos manifested in language? My analyses, found in Chapter Five, respond to these questions based on three sets of data, described in Chapters Three and Four. Chapter
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