Rhetorical Theory Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

An essay that digests some of the themes in my new book entitled Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self. A version of this essay was delivered at the September Symposium of the English department at the... more

An essay that digests some of the themes in my new book entitled Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self.
A version of this essay was delivered at the September Symposium of the English department at the University of Houston - Downtown in 2019.

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- Rhetoric, Self and Identity, Transgender Studies, Critical Race Theory

This textbook is chiefly dedicated to interpretation students and possibly to other peaple interested in interpreting studies. In eight chapters, it deals with various theoretical and practical problems concerning the profession of interpreter. These are consequently formulated as instructions with the aim of improving the preparation of future interpreters. Thus the aim of the textbook is to provide students with a support in acquiring the appropriate culture in the public speaking. The publication itself results from pedagogical practice of interpretation teachers from their own experience with active interpreting as well as with training of public speaking in their mother tongue.
The first chapter is entitled Translation as a conscious activity. It describes the differences between translation and interpretation. It also outlines the cultural and historical context of interpretation as both a practice-oriented activity and a scientific discipline, from the first attempts at collecting, summarizinge, systemizinge and classifying the knowledge gathered to the current discussions over specific problems and issues.
The second chapter – Interpretation as communication – analyzes the specific aspects of this kind of rendition and the competences, including personality traits, which interpreters should possess as a consequence.
The third chapter – Interpreter as orator – focuses on interpreters as autono-mous authors of an utterance. It also outlines the paralinguistic and extralinguistic elements of communication, shows students how to cope with stress and other elements influencing their public performance.
The fourth chapter – Communication situations in interpreting – deals with communication situations which imply the use of interpretation – in all social sectors – with preference given to the Slovak language. It also analyzes the particular aspects of political public speaking.
The fifth chapter – The Slovak language as a communication code – is dedica-ted to the mother tongue and its cultivation. It points out some mistakes and styleistic flaws in Slovak public speaking and it also displays the linguistic characte-ristics of the Slovak language as a source language in the interpretation process.
The sixth chapter entitled Message of Antiquity for modern rhetorici focuses on the rhetorical theories of Classical Antiquity concerning public speaking. It contains an overview of the major Greek and Roman orators and it describes the development of rhetoric and homiletics in the course of the first centuries of Christian era up to the Middle Ages.
The seventh chapter – The rhetorical minimum for an interpreter – is a prac-tical manual of sorts. It contain information and tips to prepare efficiently for a public speech, which is intended as a training activity for interpretation lessons.
Finally, the eighth chapter – Common Latin expressions and maxims in the speech of today’s orator – is a sort of selective dictionary comprising Latin words and phrases used in contemporary Slovak. It also includes explanations of their origin and examples of their usage.
The textbook The Interpreter as a speaker is based on translation theory, communication theory, psycholinguistics, pragmalinguistics, as well as, general and specific rhetorical knowledge. Its goal is to help students improve their rhetorical skills. It also deals with some of the ethical aspects of the profession – the responsibilities of an interpreter, the extent to which modifications in the rendition are admissible, professional standards, etc. In addition to an excellent knowledge of the source and target languages, interpretation students need to develop good communication and public speaking skills.
This publication aims at eliminating scarcity and errors in the use of spoken language and in public speaking. The absence of efficient rhetorical preparation at university and in schools in general is a major flaw of any education system. Moreover, by writing this textbook the authors aim at filling the existing gap in the book market since there has not been written so far a similar manual of the kind in Slovakia.

- by Marcela Andokova and +1
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- Rhetoric (Languages and Linguistics), Rhetoric, Rhetorical Theory, Translation and Interpretation

Bilingual Latin-Polish edition of Cicero's De oratore.

- by Bartosz Awianowicz
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- Cicero, Rhetorical Theory, Ancient Roman Rhetoric, Literatura Romana

• This essay explores the literature/digital nexus from a narratological perspective and asks: how does the digital enter the traditional printed novel? The concept of the paratext – with the new categories of material peritexts and digital epitexts – serves as a theoretical frame to be discussed along with Paul Dawson's proposal for a discursive narratology and James Phelan's rhetorical approach to narrative in the attempt to fruitfully combine the two for a contextualized and cultural-aware narrative analysis.

- by Virginia Pignagnoli
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- American Literature, Narrative, Digital Media, Narratology
- by Jon Cotner
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- Rhetorical Theory

While contemporary communication theorists often avoid the concept of charisma due to its status as an ineffable mystical quality or a natural knack for persuasion, this essay argues that charisma is rather a technē. Using Max Weber's theory of charisma to analyze the major works of the famous community organizer Saul Alinsky, this study seeks to 1) revitalize charisma as a practicable rhetorical strategy, 2) define community organization as one variety of charismatic praxis, and 3) establish Alinsky as an overlooked figure in recent rhetorical history. In recent years, the concept of charisma has been largely ignored by people working in fields related to rhetoric. Although communication scholars showed a flurry of interest in charisma between 1960 and 1980, most contemporary work on this topic is done in the field of organizational psychology. 1 One possible reason for the dearth of new rhetorical scholarship on charisma is that researchers sometimes assume it is an inherent characteristic of some speakers—either you have it or you don't. Indeed, the Greek word for charisma (χάρισµα) roughly translates to " gift of grace, " suggesting that it is something that is inherited rather than learned. 2 Charisma is theorized as a mystical trait, one that is ineffable and irreducible, and therefore inimitable. The enigmatic account of charisma has discouraged communication scholars from undertaking any technical description of this phenomenon. However, a rhetorical theory of charisma that explains not only what it is but how it is done is essential for the effective critique of current speech, politics, and media.

- by Adam Ellwanger
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- Leadership, Rhetorical Theory, Charisma, Max Weber

Drawing upon the recent theoretical framework of Burkean concept of identification (ID), the current study aims at probing the interaction of content and form in two letters penned by Iran's Supreme Leader and addressed to the Youth on Jan. and Nov. 2015. To this end, the study seeks (i) to determine a role ID takes in the conveyance of intended assumptions to the targeted readers; and (ii) to observe if the writer's objectives, i.e. to identify himself with the readers and to realize his politically-religiously-infused creeds, result in success or failure; moreover, (iii) it seeks to determine how he achieved his end to attenuate the impacts of blazing inferno of Islamophobia and anti-Islam sentiments in his addressees. The whole corpus (about 3000 words), in light of van Dijk's Socio-cognitive approach, is critically perused to seek out contextually-coded expressions. The study tries to set out a manner in which political text/talk could be analyzed rhetorically employing ID concept. It was found that ID as a two-way process is a key component for both parties to identify with. It makes the readers align themselves with the writer and helps the writer to associate with the readers and accomplish his goals.

- by Bahram Kazemian
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- Rhetoric, Islamophobia, Rhetorical Theory, Identification
- by Leland G Spencer
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- Critical Theory, Religion, Christianity, Communication

This Foreword, about robots, written in both poetry as well as prose, introduces the edited collection _Androids, Cyborgs, and Robots in Contemporary Culture and Society_, edited by Steven J. Thompson (IGI Global, 2018). The link on the thumbnail cover at
https://www.igi-global.com/book/_/179222 will take you directly to the published Foreword, which is open access. The attached PDF, sent directly to me from IGI-Global to use here, is presented with written permission of the publisher.

- by Steven B. Katz
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- Robotics, Robotics (Computer Science), Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric
- by Alyssa Samek
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- Queer Theory, Rhetorical History, Rhetorical Theory
- by Jason Hannan
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- Intellectual History, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Language, Analytic Philosophy

Using critical rhetorical analysis (McKerrow, 1989) as a method of analysis and critique, and informed by critical whiteness studies (Nakayama & Krizek, 1995) and Black feminist thought (Collins, 1991), this project argues that NFL North Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton and NBA Oklahoma City Thunder’s point guard Russell Westbrook rhetorically perform an alternative Black masculinity that symbolically contests whiteness’s surveillance of male bodies who occupy Black positionality in the NFL and NBA via their performance of cool pose (Majors & Billson, 1992). Focusing on news and sports media coverage in the 2015–2016 season, this project also interrog- ates whiteness’s strategies to reconstitute Newton and Westbrook’s expressions of cool pose by inscribing Black masculinity with belit- tling and dehumanizing controlling images that favor whiteness and White masculinity. This manuscript closes with a discussion of the harmful repercussions of whiteness’s strategies in pro sports as well as the possibilities that athletes like Newton and Westbrook bring forth for social justice initiatives.

- by Linsay Cramer
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- Race and Racism, Critical Race Theory, Rhetorical Theory, Sport

Although felt as a vague though often powerful sense of the world’s presence as we engage in a rhetorical situation, ambience is the highly complex and integrated totality of the world’s environmental, behavioral, symbolic, and temporal dimensions and their fields of objects, agents, relations, and forces of which we may or may not become aware and with which we may or may not intentionally engage. Although we may feel it so, ambience is not merely a vague, amorphous background to our conscious acts which gives it meaning; rather, it is itself highly organized and organizing, developing from our interactions with the world in a series of succeeding integrative levels, each with its own structures based upon and providing purpose to the lower, earlier developed structures it supervenes and each providing meaning to the higher, later developed structures that depend upon it.

- by Stephen R Yarbrough
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- Rhetoric, Material Culture Studies, Context, Rhetorical Theory
- by Craig Rood
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- Ethics, Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric, Communication Ethics
- by Mark Gring
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- Social Movements, Rhetoric, Rhetorical Analysis, Rhetorical Invention

Repositioning speech, whether it is rhetorical speech or performative utterance, in its context, its space and its dynamics help us determine its scope and limitations and identify related elements. Through the prism of American interactionism or French anthropology, the study of the effectiveness of «speech acts» in their actuality (and not as pure linguistic category) brings out two major elements. Firstly, the necessity of speech to inscribe itself (in dual mode) in a situation or milieu, and secondly, the importance of proof in establishing and maintaining the efficiency of the language. Complementing speech, the physical dimension must also be fairly reconsidered, because it plays a key role in the system, by overcoming the «impotences» of speech.

- by Thibaut RIOULT
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- Pragmatism, Performing Arts, Rhetoric, Languages and Linguistics

The research explored what types and how rhetorical strategy correlated with the linguistics features in e-petitions through Change.org entitled "KPK dalam Bahaya". The data were e-petitions collected through Change.org. The analysis was holistically descriptive and included in qualitative research. The approach used critical discourse analysis by Fairclough that was using Fairclough's three-dimensional framework and the strategy of rhetoric by Aristotle. Those theories helped the researcher to find out how the rhetorical strategy and the linguistics features created persuasive meaning. The findings indicate that euphemism, metaphor, connectives, logical connectors, rhetorical questions, and modality support the rhetoric strategy constructing the meaning beyond the words. Through one of the rhetoric strategies, pathos persuades the readers to agree to the argument and sign the e-petitions. Due to the emotional appeals, all of these language instruments help the rhetoric to provoke the readers significantly.

The United States has long grappled with the question of how to maintain an appropriate combination of religion and politics in the public sphere. The current electoral cycle is no different, as Presidential candidates attempt to negotiate both the political and religious landscapes. This essay introduces a special forum on rhetoric and religion in contemporary politics and touches on some recent instances of how religious differences have played out in the current political environment. Some of the issues discussed include the separation of church and state, Mitt Romney’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Rick Santorum’s conception of the “war on religion,” and the controversy over contraceptives at religious institutions and Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on a Georgetown law student.

- by Brett Lunceford
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- Rhetoric (Languages and Linguistics), Religion, Sociology, Cultural Studies
- by Eliza Gellis
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- Rhetorical Criticism, Rhetorical Theory, Christine de Pizan, Feminist Rhetorics

Using Burke’s notion of terminological screens, we perform a cluster analysis on Donald Trump’s inaugural address. We discovered keywords that appeared to point to Trump’s stock campaign phrase, Make America Great Again: we, Washington, D.C., people, you/your, and America. Our analysis seeks to explain how the phrase's rhetorical presence in Trump’s inaugural address opened and closed possibilities for unity and division, and ultimately allowed for an inaugural speech reception on par with prior presidents

- by Jim A. Kuypers and +1
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- Rhetorical Analysis, Political Science, Rhetorical Criticism, Rhetorical Theory

Increasingly, rhetorical scholars are using fieldwork and other ethnographic, performance, and qualitative methods to access, document, and analyze forms of everyday in situ rhetoric rather than using already documented texts. In this book, the authors argue that participatory critical rhetoric, as an approach to in situ rhetoric, is a theoretically, methodologically, and praxiologically robust approach to critical rhetorical studies. This book addresses how participatory critical rhetoric furthers understanding of the significant role that rhetoric plays in everyday life through expanding the archive of rhetorical practices and texts, emplacing rhetorical critics in direct conversation with rhetors and audiences at the moment of rhetorical invention, and highlighting marginalized voices that might otherwise go unnoticed. This book organizes the theoretical and methodological foundations of participatory critical rhetoric through four vectors that enhance conventional rhetorical approaches: 1) the political commitments of the critic; 2) rhetorical reflexivity and the role of the embodied critic; 3) emplaced rhetoric and the interplay between the field, text, and context; and 4) multiperspectival judgment that is informed by direct participation with rhetors and audiences. In addition to laying the groundwork and advocating for the approach, Participatory Critical Rhetoric also offers significant contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism more broadly by revisiting the field’s understanding of core topics such as role of the critic, text/context, audience, rhetorical effect, and the purpose of criticism. Further, it enhances theoretical conversations about material rhetoric, place/space, affect, intersectional rhetoric, embodiment, and rhetorical reflexivity.

- by Danielle Endres
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- Rhetoric, Ethnography, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Methods

presented at National Communication Association convention, Chicago, IL November 2014.

- by Meredith L Martin, PhD and +1
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- Rhetoric, Rhetorical Criticism, Church History, Rhetorical Theory

Turntables and Tropes is the first book to address remix from a communicative perspective, examining its persuasive dimensions by locating its parallels with classical rhetoric. Through identifying, recontextualizing, mashing up, and applying rhetorical tropes to contemporary digital texts and practices, this groundbreaking book presents a new critical vocabulary that scholars and students can use to analyze remix. Building upon scholarship from classical thinkers such as Isocrates, Quintilian, Nāgārjuna, and Cicero and contemporary luminaries like Kenneth Burke, Richard Lanham, and Eduardo Navas, Scott Haden Church shows that an understanding of rhetoric offers innovative ways to make sense of remix culture.

- by Scott Haden Church
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- Rhetoric, Popular Culture, Media Ecology, Mashups

Heeding Karma Chavez’s (2015) call to imagine rhetoric as
“something entirely different,” I introduce what I call an
Afrafuturist Feminist (AFF) rhetorical approach with the aim of
offering one means by which rhetorical studies can move beyond
normative white constructions of citizenship. In this piece, I flesh
out a theoretical framework that explores the ways Black women’s
truthtelling engineers rival conceptions of Blackness, creating
spaces for us to reimagine what citizenship can look like in the
lived experiences of Black Americans. I invoke the phrase, “in and
out of frame,” to preliminarily consider how Black women like
Assata Shakur and Cardi B employ rhetoric as threat to negotiate
citizenship in the 20th and 21st centuries.

- by Ashley R Hall
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- Rhetoric, Black/African Diaspora, African American Studies, Rhetorical Theory

Michèle Lowrie argues that a reader with knowledge of the Roman tradition would pick up on the conventional inter- and intratextual figurations of civil war that knit together the poem’s apparently disunified textual surface. Reference to historical events surrounding Antony, allusion to passages in Greek and Latin literature, including Horace’s own compositions, where the civil war context is apparent, and the deployment of cultural tropes of social collapse, such as prostitution within marriage, depict a disturbed society in terms that have since become opaque. By addressing a culturally specific addressee, “Romane,” Horace indicates that he speaks to an audience not only unified by shared values, but also in possession of the interpretive skills necessary to supply what the poem implies but does not overtly say.

- by Michele Lowrie
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- Latin Literature, Civil War, Horace, Rhetorical Theory
- by Roberta Martina Zagarella
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- Philosophy, Philosophy Of Language, Rhetoric, Giambattista Vico

En cualquier caso, nuestro interés se centra en la apertura del sentido, e
igual que Monaco, adelantamos que la clasifcación que proponemos es una
mera construcción teórica, y que sus fronteras son imprecisas. Partimos de
todas formas con cierta ventaja con respecto a Monaco, ya que intentamos
defnir niveles de sentido y no elementos individuales dotados de sentido
icónico, simbólico o indicial. En este sentido nuestra investigación corre
paralela a perspectiva del análisis fílmico multimodal (Multimodal Film
Analysis) propuesta por Bateman y Schmidt: “Our Approach, to be refned
as we proceed, is the essentially to divide the process of interpretation into
several related layers of description” (2012), y desarrollada más recientemente por Wildfeuer (2016).
Para describir los niveles de sentido partiremos de Jean Mitry y su texto,
Esthétique el Psychologie du Cinéma. Tomo I (Les structures) (1963), que es
también el punto de partida utilizado por Christian Metz en su artículo,
“Une étape dans la réfexion sur le cinema” (1964).

This book examines the history of ethnic minorities--particularly Chicano/as and Latino/as--in the field of composition and rhetoric; the connections between composition and major US historical movements toward inclusiveness in education; the ways our histories of that inclusiveness have overlooked Chicano/as; and how this history can inform the teaching of composition and writing to Chicano/a and Latino/a students in the present day. Bridging the gap between Ethnic Studies, Critical History, and Composition Studies, Ruiz creates a new model of the practice of critical historiography and shows how that can be developed into a critical writing pedagogy for students who live in an increasingly multicultural, multilingual society.

- by Iris Ruiz
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- Rhetoric (Languages and Linguistics), History, Cultural History, Rhetoric

What are the obstacles to believing that narratives can argue? How can we be assured that narratives argue well? This article will explore major objections to accounts of narrative argument and literary truth, and explore a theory of narrative reasoning that emphasizes identification as a vital part of argument. In exploring the account of narrative offered by Walter Fisher in light of concerns with narrative in rhetorical studies and philosophy, I explicate a renewed sense of identification and narrative reasoning that can meet many of these objections to giving narrative a role in human communication and argument. Of particular interest are the resources available in narratives for active identification by an auditor or reader as good reasons for action or belief in their own extratextual activities.

- by Scott R. Stroud
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- Aesthetics, Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric, Literature

This poem was written for a collection of expressions for and memories of Art Young, put together by the staff of the Pearce Center for Professional Communication for Art Young, Campbell Chair of Technical Communication and Professor of English at Clemson University. Art retired emeritus at the end of 2008, but has recently come back to share his wisdom in a few projects, including my new Writing in the Disciplines (WID) Initiative at Clemson University. I reproduce this poem here to honor him and his career of teaching students (and faculty) to think and write critically and creatively--"across and (using poetry) against the curriculum." Art, this one is for you.

- by Steven B. Katz
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- American Literature, Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric, Literature

cours rhétorique et argumentation, département LEA, Université Paris 3 Sorbonne nouvelle

This study codifies the category of the alt-right anti-hero and the antihero’s characteristics. In examining alt-right digital rhetorics, the authors found allusions to heroism in manifestos by killers, both recent and historical, that highlighted heroic actions from alt-right perspectives that were in direct contrast to progressive efforts toward multiculturalism, gender rights, immigration, and other systemic equities. The authors found alt-right anti-hero examples in Breaking Bad’s Walter White, American Horror Story: Cult’s Kai Anderson, and Westworld’s neo-Western anti-hero, Man in Black, all of whom reflect a growing form of aggressive masculinity in U.S. society.

- by Lara Lengel
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- Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Television Studies

This contribution draws attention to the rhetorical aspects of Homeric poetry. Recent scholarship has shown that speeches in the Iliad and the Odyssey display various patterns, techniques and strategies of persuasion that were in later times taught by Greek and Roman rhetoricians. The first part of this essay explores the complex relationship between Homeric poetry and classical rhetoric. The second part examines the rhetorical techniques of Polyphemus, the Sirens, Calypso and Odysseus. It is argued that a rhetorical perspective on Homeric speeches can inform and enrich the reading experience of the Odyssey. A few didactic applications are suggested.

- by Casper C de Jonge
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- Homer, Rhetoric, Rhetorical Theory, Homeric poetry

Drawing on feminist liberation theology, this essay argues for an expansion of generic formulations of prophetic rhetoric to explicitly include the discursive practices of female rhetors who exhibit the substantive and stylistic characteristics of prophecy codified in James Darsey’s (1997) The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America. Contrary to Darsey’s view that the prophetic tradition is inherently patriarchal, this essay advances the position that the Hebrew Bible’s "prophetic-liberating principle" provides a foundation from which to re-evaluate the a priori exclusion of female radicals from the prophetic genre. Thus, this essay openly resists any suggestion that the prophetic tradition, rooted in the books of the Hebrew Bible, is centered exclusively—or even primarily—around white male elites. In marking out a place for female radicals within the rhetorical canon as exemplars of this distinct tradition, this essay reinforces the generic requirement that candidates for inclusion within the prophetic genre have a legitimate claim to outsider status within their own social and/or political context.

- by Kerith Woodyard
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- Theology, Liberation Theology, Biblical Studies, Feminism

L'ouvrage offre des outils rhétoriques pour la maîtrise de trois enjeux de l'écriture de l'histoire: comment produire un discours acceptable sur un sujet polémique? Comment mettre en mots les intuitions de la phase de découverte? Peut-on... more

- by Victor Ferry
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- Critical Theory, History, Epistemology, Education

Nous publions ici la préface et des extraits de la seconde édition : De la Rhétorique, ou De la composition oratoire et littéraire par Auguste Baron, deuxième édition, Bruxelles — Librairie Polytechnique d’Aug. Decq, 1853 [1re éd. 1849,... more

- by Scott R. Stroud
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- Comparative Literature, Pragmatism, Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric
- by Diane Davis
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- Critical Theory, Ethics, Jean-Luc Nancy, Émmanuel Lévinas
- by Jason Barrett-Fox
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- Composition and Rhetoric, Film Studies, Feminism, Rhetorical Theory

This essay responds to recent exigencies that ask scholars to honor histories of cultural rhetorics, engage in responsible and responsive cultural rhetorics conversations, and generate productive openings for future inquiry and practice. First, the authors open by paying homage to scholarship and programs that have made cultural rhetorics a disciplinary home. Next, they consider the varied ways in which “culture” and “rhetoric” interface in cultural rhetorics scholarship. The authors provide case studies of how cultural rhetorics inquiry shapes their scholarship across areas of rhetoric, composition, and technical communication. Finally, they close by discussing the ethics of doing cultural rhetorics work.

- by Donnie Johnson Sackey and +1
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- Cultural Studies, Rhetoric, Cultural Rhetorics, Writing Studies