Background
Bosmajian, Haig Aram was born on March 26, 1928 in Fresno, California, United States. Son of Aram and Aurora (Keosheyan) Bosmajian.
( Hotly contested and vigorously defended since it was fi...)
Hotly contested and vigorously defended since it was first written into the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech is a basic right that all Americans hold dear. But what of the freedom not to speak? Should, for instance, a special prosecutor be able to compel a mother to testify about, and incriminate, her own daughter? The freedom not to speak is an implicit "right" that holds great relevance for all of us-the freedom not to speak when commanded by church and state, not to sign an oath, not to salute a flag, not to assert a belief in God, or not to reveal one's political beliefs and associations. Bosmajian traces the history of the freedom not to speak from the Middle Ages and Inquisition to the twentieth century and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His history addresses the Civil War and Reconstruction loyalty oaths by Union Confederate soldiers, and the expulsion of Jehovah's Witnesses from schools for refusing to salute the flag, and includes an analysis of coerced speech in a variety of literary works. Bosmajian also contemplates the future of this right to silence and argues for the importance of a specifically labeled and firmly established freedom not to speak.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814712975/?tag=2022091-20
( To the public, judges handing down judicial decisions p...)
To the public, judges handing down judicial decisions present arguments arrived through rational discourse and literal language. Yet, as Judge Richard Posner has pointed out, "Rhetorical power counts for a lot in law. Science, not to mention everyday thought, is influenced by metaphors. Why shouldn’t law be?" Haig Bosmajian examines the crucial role of the tropemetaphors, personifications, metonymiesin argumentation and reveals the surprisingly important place that figurative, nonliteral language holds in judicial decision making. Focusing on the specific genre of the legal opinion, Professor Bosmajian discusses the question of why we have judicial opinions at all and the importance of style in them. He then looks at specific well-known figures of speech such as "the wall of separation" between church and state, justice personified as a female, or the Constitution as "colorblind," explaining why they are not straightforward statements of legal fact but examples of the ways tropes are used in legal language. A useful example can be found in Judge Learned Hand’s response to a 1943 case involving news gathering and monopoly. Hand found the need to protect the public’s right to the "dissemination of news from as many different sources, and with as many different facets and colors possible," an interest "closely akin to, if indeed it is not the same as, the interest protected by the First Amendment; it presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be folly; but we have staken upon it our all."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809316129/?tag=2022091-20
Bosmajian, Haig Aram was born on March 26, 1928 in Fresno, California, United States. Son of Aram and Aurora (Keosheyan) Bosmajian.
Bachelor, University of California, Berkeley, 1949; Master of Arts, University of Pacific, 1951; Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1960.
Instructor University Idaho, Moscow, 1959-1961. Assistant professor University Connecticut, Storrs, 1961-1965. Professor speech communications University Washington, Seattle, since 1965.
( Hotly contested and vigorously defended since it was fi...)
( To the public, judges handing down judicial decisions p...)
(Examines decadence in our language, especially that langu...)
(...a vital resource....)
(Great vintage book!)
Member National Council Teachers of English, Speech Comm. Association M C.
Married Hamida Just, February 27, 1957. 1 child, Harlan.