An experimental study of the effect of three speech variables on listener comprehension

Though the scope of Aristotle's Rhetoric is at once broader and more limited than Bacon's theory, the Englishman owes most of his primary rhetorical doctrines to his predecessor. The two philosophers agree on the nature and general function of rhetoric, its place among the arts and sciences, its psychological basis, and the use to which it puts logical, ethical, and pathetic proofs. Some of Aristotle's hints are expanded by Bacon, mainly those regarding the philosophical style, and Bacon often corrects what he takes to be inconsistencies and errors in Aristotle's work. Moreover, because he looks to the past only for material to change and augment, Bacon does original and important new things to Aristotle as he re‐works him for a new English rhetoric.     

Aristotle on psychology and rhetoric

When Aristotle's Rhetoric is viewed in the light of his psychological treatise, De Anima, it becomes evident that the latter work both illuminates his conception of rhetoric and reveals the psychological assumptions underlying his theory of persuasion.     

Villains and heroes of the great depression: The evolution of Father Coughlin's fantasy themes

This article traces the development of Father Charles E. Coughlin's rhetoric as it evolved over a six‐year period during the height of his popularity, from 1930 to 1936. Bormann's Fantasy‐Theme method was used to evaluate Coughlin's rhetoric. The findings offer insight into Symbolic Convergence Theory by demonstrating how Coughlin attempted to integrate his political and personal agenda with changing social context and audience needs. The implication is that fantasy themes are open systems, which are circumstantially constructed and thus evolve and change over time.     

Richard Nixon and presidential mythology

Richard Nixon's rhetoric is analyzed according to four themes which have evolved in his public speaking. Together these themes comprise Nixon's view of Presidential Mythology.     

The axiological foundations of Plato's theory of rhetoric

This essay examines Plato's theory of rhetoric to discover the values implicit in that theory. Plato's assumptions about rhetoric and his uses of it initiate a different tradition of thought in Western rhetoric, a tradition which embraces lies, censorship, and deception to inculcate “correct” thought and action in audiences.     

Juan Luis Vives: Tradition and innovation in renaissance rhetoric

Juan Luis Vives, like many sixteenth‐century humanists, sought to reform the arts of rhetoric and dialectic. This essay argues that Vives' efforts to rehabilitate the disciplines of discourse may well have been the most original of his century. Vives' discussion of elecutio—the essence of rhetoric—is considerably more distinguished than that presented by the better known Peter Ramus.     

Restorative Rhetoric and Social Media: An Examination of the Boston Marathon Bombing

This study analyzes Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s rhetoric via Twitter following the Boston Marathon Bombing, exploring how a leader engaged in crisis communication using social media. Guided by restorative rhetoric, we examine how Menino included strategic communication (alleviate risk and restore public safety) and humanistic communication (focusing on the more substantive issues of crisis leadership) in his tweets. Our analysis is grounded in the five tenets of restorative rhetoric as a theoretical lens: initial reaction; assessment of the crisis; issues of blame; healing and forgiveness; and corrective action and rebuilding through a rhetorical vision. The findings demonstrate the utility of social media in aiding leaders as they provide critical information and guidance amid high uncertainty while also initiating the healing process, including fostering resilience.     

The return of the beloved: The chiasmus and the messianic secret of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln designed certain of his major speeches with a chiasmus for a model. This stylistic device governs the integration of form and function in Lincoln's presidential rhetoric, and it suggests that more than one level of meaning is operating. The chiasmus reveals that Lincoln saw himself as called by God to fulfill a special messianic mission.     

Muscle spasticity in functional aphonia and dysphonia

Gains Suetonius Tranquillus, Roman historian and biographer of the first and second centuries A.D., wrote De Rhetoribus,the only Latin treatise concerned directly with pre‐Ciceronian rhetoricians and providing information on the strong opposition to rhetoric, the radical changes in the educational system of Rome, and the influence of otherwise unknown rhetoricians. After placing Suetonius in the rhetorical tradition of the early Roman Empire, a translation of De Rhetoribus and an extensive commentary on the major points are presented. The major significance of Suetonius's De Rhetoribus in the history of rhetoric was its demonstration that transplanted Greek rhetoric survived the dark ages of the early Roman Republic because rhetoric was a source of political power.     

Research contribution to vowel theory

Though remarkably unsuccessful in unmasking Communist conspirators, Joe McCarthy left a powerful legacy as a great demagogue and witchhunter, a legacy that continues to haunt political discourse today. This essay seeks to explain the power of McCarthy's rhetoric and its apparent resistance to exorcism by historical fact through the literary genre of fantasy. McCarthy, in this view, could not be discredited or argued against because he took no positions. He presented his audience with a sustained moment of hesitation and wonder in which every claim on credulity was offset by a denial of its legitimacy. In the process of creating this fantastic world, a certain ethos was created, an ethos that ultimately overshadowed and conquered its creator.     

Research reports

Rowland offers a helpful synthesis of the defining characteristics of myth in rhetorical discourse. But his insistence on too rigid an approach to mythic criticism risks diminishing the importance of the critical method and impoverishing the perception of rhetorical artifacts. Root metaphors in Rowland's thinking distort the nature of rhetoric and the work of the critic.     

“By any means necessary”: Re‐reading malcolm X's MECCA conversion

Many scholars have misunderstood and misinterpreted Malcolm X's pilgrimage to Mecca in the spring of 1964. Instead of treating the conversion within its historical moment, scholars have de‐politicized this crucial event by ignoring the historical, political, and rhetorical dynamics of the situation. In this essay, I argue for a rhetorical reading of Malcolm's Mecca pilgrimage. Malcolm's conversion to orthodox Islam facilitated his attempts to actualize his political mission of internationalizing the battle for civil rights. Converting to orthodox Islam also enabled Malcolm to appropriate the rhetoric of the Koran to legitimate his political mission of indicting the United States on human rights violations at the United Nations.     

Robespierre: High priest of the Jacobins

During the turbulence of the French Revolution, a small foppish provincial lawyer arose to preach a rhetoric of virtue designed to legitimize Jacobin rule. Assuming a Christlike ethos, Maximilien Robespierre inspired a cult that met weekly to read his speeches and sing hymns of praise. The Festival of the Supreme Being marked the climax of Robespierre's reign of virtue.     

Speaking Like a State: Listening to Benjamin Franklin in Times of Terror

This essay reconstitutes Benjamin Franklin's characteristic political style as a particular inflection of liberal irony, arguing for a way of speaking today that checks arrogance with humility and attempting to unlock the psychosocial economy of political enjoyment implicit in this rhetoric. To do so, the essay traverses four bodies of discourse (including recent political thinking about civic character, Franklin's oratory in 1787 at the constitutional convention, passages from his letters, and an excerpt from his autobiography) in order to extract strategies for managing situations in which democracy becomes prone to the enjoyments of terror and tyranny.     

Campbell's the philosophy of rhetoric and the advancement of rhetorical theory: The integration of philosophical antecedents

George Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric is one of the most significant works of rhetoric in the new‐classical period. Campbell's work provides an example of theory development, for his theory integrates competing psychological/philosophical theories of his era. Campbell's classification aligns the ends of discourse with specific mental faculties: Rhetors enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passions, and influence the will. The philosophy of association underlies the materials for these appeals, utilizing ideas obtained from experience and memory. The foundation for this structure, common sense philosophy, supplies information (i.e., testimony) and assumptions essential to all reasoning. Implications for work on rhetorical theory development are addressed.     

John Wesley on rhetoric and belles lettres

Students of public address have long admired the rhetorical works of two of the leading ministers of the eighteenth century—Hugh Blair and George Campbell. Little has been said, however, about the rhetorical theory of another eighteenth‐century preacher, John Wesley. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Wesley's views on rhetoric and belles lettres. Since most of the subjects covered by Blair in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres were also discussed by Wesley in his Journal, Letters, and essays, Blair's pattern of organization is followed here. Hence the study considers Wesley's precepts on taste, genius, style, the speaker's content and organization, delivery, poetry, and historical and philosophical writing.     

The rhetoric of Indonesian technology development: An analysis of B.J. Habibie's speeches 1

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the rhetoric of Habibie's speeches in order to explain his rhetorical strategies in intensifying Indonesian science and technology development using Kenneth Burke's ‘dramatistic analysis’. It examines significant key terms selected from Habibie's campaign speeches (1983–1993), discusses the symbolic relationships among the key elements of the drama of Indonesian technology development, as well as interprets the rhetor's strategies and motivations. It also describes the significance of Habibie's roles in recent political develompent with the background of Indonesian ideologies and traditional values. It concludes that Habibie's rhetoric points to ‘technologically modern society’ as the national goal, technologists and scientists as the leaders, and intensive science and technology development as the means, which marks a dramatic change in the already changing traditional concepts of development, political leadership and prosperity.     

Rhetoric and knowing: The search for perspective

Attempts to describe the possible relationship of rhetoric to knowing inevitably lead to conceptual distinctions. This essay argues that distinctions which relegate rhetoric to social, or explicit, or contingent knowledge incorrectly restrict our view of the rhetoric‐epistemic relationship. An alternative perspective which avoids such distinctions is suggested.