The "countercommencement" address (sometimes composed in reaction to the traditional commencement address) may be usefully criticized as an example of the rhetorical genre known as the "secular jeremiad." This provides a conceptual framework for interpreting the motives and meanings of such an address, which is typically…

Although many studies have been undertaken by literary critics and stylisticians on African English literary texts generally and Nigerian English prose fiction specifically, there has been little or no analysis of dialogue and discourse in such texts. An examination of the phenomenon of speech as manifested in conversational pieces in Nigerian…

this paper uses an interdisciplinary research methodology to engage the resources provided by the humanities and the liberal arts in a discourse analysis of Unitarian Universalism. The paper describes Unitarian Universalism as a contemporary religious-rhetorical movement and distinctive persuasion which nurtures an evolving, enriching religious…

An illustrative rather than an exhaustive bibliography on approaches to rhetorical criticism, this update of an earlier publication lists more than 150 selections. The bibliography is divided into sections on: (1) discussions of the Burkean approach; (2) applications of the Burkean approach; (3) discussions of the fantasy theme approach; (4)…

Using rhetorical and historical approaches, this paper examines speech excerpts of four speakers active during the civil rights movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The paper's first section discusses Malcolm X and a speech delivered two months before his assassination; the second section studies James Allen speaking on…

An examination of letters left at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C. between November, 1984 and April, 1986 revealed that the memorial serves as a rhetorical situation that urges its visitors to eloquence. The memorial is an excellent proving ground for situational theory because the interaction of site and perception is vital to…

Three typical television news reports broadcast on the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" in early 1987 were analyzed (1) to test the validity of the assumption that news reports of this type are persuasive and therefore can be classified as rhetoric and (2) to gain insights into the message structure of the reports. The three reports…

Drawing on Michael Halloran's genre of public proceedings, the Iran-contra hearings can be viewed from a celebratory or epideictic perspective, with several conceptualizations of the genre combined to illuminate the functions of the hearings. The primary function of the hearings, at least from an epideictic viewpoint, was the reassurance of the…

A study explored rhetorical strategies and dynamics within a single speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, l852 in Rochester, New York, which was considered by speaker and audience to be an Independence Day speech. An examination of the text suggests that Douglass embarked on a strategy of attention-shifting--turning the attention of…

Conventional wisdom holds that the right-wing John Birch Society disintegrated during the late 1960s. An examination of the society's periodical readership indicates that it has, instead, expanded. Moreover, this expansion occurred during a period of ideological dissonance for the organization, a fact that undermines confidence in the explanation…

The belief that science attempts to objectively depict reality is based on a positivist philosophy which is currently considered a discredited theory. This essay advances the argument that science can be considered a rhetorical enterprise; that is, that scientists attempt to influence one another's beliefs concerning the acceptability of theories…

Competing views of written texts, of the process of writing, and of the purposes of the scholarly investigation of written discourse appear inherently at odds. Today composition theory is often demeaned as being only pedagogical while literary study is granted the status of a self-fulfilling academic pursuit. What is needed is a model or matrix…

The role of invention in contemporary rhetorical theory poses two problems: how to deal systematically with both the general topics and the more specific topics that respect the different modes of knowledge, and how to incorporate these topics into a conceptual framework that includes other elements of discourse for which theories or partial…

This study compares the concept of nonviolence with traditional rhetoric because both endeavor to establish civil discourse as a standard for social and political interaction. The five chapters in the study uncover suggestions by contemporary rhetorical theorists for establishing civil discourse, trace the development of classical rhetoric and the…

This centrally focused collection of articles and lectures examines literary interpretation and the relation of literature to language. The first of the book's three parts introduces the distinction between natural discourse and fictive discourse (verbal structures that function as representatives of natural utterances). It also deals with the…