Rhetorical and discursive constructions of Newfoundland regionality

Abstract

Newfoundland and Labrador regionality is a textual event. Broadly speaking, this means that we know place through the myriad semiotic instances that construct it, maintain it, and transform it. Regionality comes out of the seemingly insignificant (yet intensely consequential) choices in everyday regional texts. The clause organization of a national ode, the vocabulary choices in a local novel, the colour saturation of a T.V. advertisement, and even the physical size and weight of a highschool textbook about Atlantic Canada narrate regionality both to local residents and to those outside the region. With the goal of understanding recent textual constructions of Newfoundland and Labrador regionality, this study examines five different texts and, always, considers them within some context of use. These texts include the following: Sir Cavendish Boyle's "Ode to Newfoundland"; Bernice Morgan's novel Random Passage; E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Shipping News; the grade nine textbook Atlantic Canada in the Global Community; and the Imagine That Newfoundland and Labrador tourism campaign, which has appeared both on television and in print form.

To discuss these texts, I draw upon three methodological approaches: the discursive, the rhetorical, and the social. Discourse analysis, as this dissertation understands it, means close examination of grammatical resources and their effects in constructing and maintaining communities. Michael Halliday's work in systemic functional linguistics forms the basis of my grammatical study, while Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen's recent research into visual grammars informs my discussion of visual semiosis. My second theoretical approach, rhetorical analysis, considers how symbols form regional attitudes, induce regional action, and bring about regional identification and divisions. KeMeth Burke's insights concerning symbolic action, identification, and consubstantiation lend strength to my rhetorical examinations. Of course, all discursive and rhetorical acts are also social acts. For example, Random Passage, with its repetition, simple syntax, and clause arrangement constructs a mundane outport history that has been read as "authentic." The Shil}ping News constructs region as a tourist space, Atlantic Canada in the Global Community as a cooperative and harmonious one. I draw upon the sociological thinking of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens to understand how textual patterns connect with the social world.

Ultimately, the objective of this dissertation is to demonstrate how focussed and delicate textual analysis provides an important means of understanding regional narratives and their appeal. In a province where local resources are facing crisis, one resource, discourse, is more powerful and valuable than ever. In this context, particularly, discursive, rhetorical, and social analyses are invaluable.