The rhetorical triangle---writer, reader, text, and context/purpose---in composition-rhetoric: A history

This dissertation is an historical and theoretical examination of the rhetorical triangle---writer, reader, text, and context/purpose---within the field of composition-rhetoric. It creates a history of the rhetorical triangle in composition-rhetoric from 1883-2005 and examines theoretical perspectives of the rhetorical triangle and its elements as they have been theorized and practiced by composition-rhetoricians.; This study begins by examining the early history of composition-rhetoric and how its foundational pedagogical philosophy, current-traditional rhetoric, denied the elements of the rhetorical triangle. It then discusses how the communications movement in education and the creation of the Conference on College Composition and Communication affected writing instruction between the years 1930-1960. It details how each of these events changed composition-rhetoric pedagogy and shows how these changes emphasized various elements of the rhetorical triangle.; The study then examines how the emergence of classical rhetoric and various pedagogical reforms of the 1960s assisted in reviving the rhetorical triangle as an heuristic in composition-rhetoric. It describes how various composition-rhetoricians theorized the rhetorical triangle as a whole during this period.; The penultimate section presents a history of the rhetorical triangle during the process movement in composition-rhetoric. It explains how rhetorical pedagogy and process pedagogy evolved from the early 1960s to the early 1990s.; The final section discusses how cultural studies and post-process pedagogy complicate the rhetorical triangle through their emphasis on context. It demonstrates how both of these theories emphasize understanding acts of written communication as context-specific events that cannot be generalized through the use of heuristics or other such models of communication.