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.     

Speech and history

This essay explicates Chaim Perelman's concept of the universal audience as a tool that can be used to establish the reasonableness of arguments in rhetorical discourse. The concept is applied to the process of invention where it serves as a “check” on the reasonableness of the arguments being constructed.     

Consensus theory and religious belief

David Tukey has argued recently that the consensus theory of epistemic rhetoric reduces spiritual experience to a social construct and therefore denies the possibility of a divine reality. This essay argues that consensus theory can account for religious beliefs and spiritual experiences, and that consensus theory provides a useful framework within which to understand the rhetorical dimensions of these beliefs and experiences. Walter Rauschenbusch's classic A Theology for the Social Gospel is examined as a theology that is consistent with the basic tenets of consensus theory.     

Beyond genre theory: The genesis of rhetorical action

In this essay, I contend that traditional genre theory has an important inherent limitation: It assumes that a single controlling characteristic (often, but not exclusively, situation) is responsible for (and explains) the production of a genre of rhetoric. In contrast, the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action holds that four Burkean ratios—scene‐act, purpose‐act, rhetor‐act, and agency‐act—can be employed to explain how rhetorical discourse occurs (invention). After arguing that the theory of the Genesis of Rhetorical Action is a potentially powerful extension of genre theory on conceptual grounds (and noting that published genre studies reveal the limitations of this theory), I provide empirical evidence from the analysis of rhetorical discourse (research on the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse) to reinforce this argument. A new conception of genre theory is then advocated.     

Testing the rhetoric of China's soft power campaign: a case analysis of its strategic ambiguity in the Six Party Talks over North Korea's nuclear program

China's soft power campaign has spawned many scholarly studies on it, but few have examined its rhetorical aspect. Through keyword analysis, this research examines strategic ambiguity in China's public affairs rhetoric surrounding the Six Party Talks over North Korea's nuclear program. The two keywords, ‘the Six Party Talks’ and ‘da ju’ (big picture, overall view), are semantically open and central to China's rhetoric in defining ‘What is it?’ and ‘Why is it?’ with regard to the talks. Analysis shows that strategic ambiguity contributed to some of China's goals. However, it was not adjusted when it stopped working. Its effectiveness was undercut by certain inconsistent messages, and da ju failed to differentiate between domestic and international political context and was also culturally maladaptive. This research contributes to public diplomacy and public affairs rhetoric research.     

AIDS,Perspective by incongruity,and gay identity in Larry Kramer's “1,112 and counting”

AIDS activist Larry Kramer's 1983 essay, “1,112 and Counting,” was a key rhetorical event in the development of AIDS activism by gays. This analysis relies on perspective by incongruity to explain Kramer's attempts to stimulate AIDS activism by altering gays’ perceptions of the disease and its implications for their lives and identities. The author argues that the power of perspective by incongruity in this case is linked to its facilitation of genuine argument, a personalized form of persuasion that forces both arguer and audience to confront an argument's implications for their own identities and behavior as moral human beings. The conclusion suggests that “1,112 and Counting” functions as a variant of constitutive rhetoric that de‐constructs and re‐constructs audience identity.     

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.     

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.     

Audiences,metaphors, and the Persian Gulf war

This paper examines George Bush's Persian Gulf war addresses as a representative anecdote of Bush's campaign to build an international military coalition. The paper argues that in war rhetoric international audiences should be considered. A theorization of the international audience is offered. George Bush's public speeches are then analyzed as they use two metaphoric clusters. The SAVAGE cluster is used to justify a response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The CIVILIZATION cluster is used to justify an American‐led military response. The metaphoric clusters are shown to be persuasive to the international audience as they are adopted and recirculated by this audience. Conclusions and implications of the interaction of these two metaphoric clusters for future war rhetoric are offered.     

Jimmy Carter and the rhetoric of charisma

Jimmy Carter's unusual success in the Presidential Primaries of 1976 has been the subject of much discussion. One rhetorical explanation posits that Carter's message may be described in terms of Weber's concept of charisma, and Bormann's theory of rhetorical vision. The charismatic message was caught up in a unique rhetorical situation, the social fantasies attending the Bicentennial Celebration. Carter's rhetoric and the people's fantasies transcended along similar lines. This confluence helped to carry Carter to the White House.     

The edifice metaphor in rhetorical theory

The literature of rhetorical theory reveals a persistent sense of relation between the arts of rhetoric and architecture. The following essay looks first to assumptions of a germinal relation of force between the arts; and next, to assumptions of an analogical relation of form. The latter relation, developed primarily in terms of the “edifice metaphor,” is traced chronologically to the point of its decline among rhetorical theorists of the present century. Concluding suggestions are offered in explanation of the decline of the metaphor, and in affirmation of the need for viable new figures to express the processes of rhetorical disposition.     

Norman Thomas at the Townsend convention of 1936

Frederick Wiseman's film High School is a rhetorical documentary about the exercise of power in an institutional setting. Wiseman uses selection, framing, and editing within and between sequences to depict the high school as a place where power is exercised through the double bind, reducing students to conformity, boredom, apathy, and empty gestures of rebellion. The double bind is most forcefully expressed in the invisible network of contradictory messages about the relations between power and sexuality. This essay examines the verbal and visual elements of the film to describe how Wiseman invites his audience to respond.     

Constituting “the People” as Rhetorical Interruption: Barack Obama and the Unfinished Hopes of an Imperfect People

This article explores how Barack Obama's oratory positions “the people” as a site of ongoing rhetorical negotiation regarding national identity, ideology, and potentiality. Like the subjects implicated in Charland's consideration of constitutive rhetoric, “the people” of Obama's rhetoric emerge as the choosers, deciders, and accomplishers of collaborative identity performance. Unlike Charland's subjects, however, Obama's rhetoric of imperfection and dissent positions “the people” as never fully constituted but always engaged in the act of constitution. The people, like the country they constitute, are flawed, never perfect, and always in the process of perfecting.     

Pepper Spray Cop and the American Dream: Using Synecdoche and Metaphor to Unlock Internet Memes’ Visual Political Rhetoric

Social media are increasingly important in protest movements for communication and organization. As such, scholars should consider these ephemeral messages as a tool for understanding such movements’ rhetoric. This article draws on Kjeldsen’s method for the critique of visual political rhetoric and adds consideration of intertextuality, synecdoche, and metaphor to demonstrate a method for the rhetorical analysis and a critique of Internet memes as visual, political rhetoric. The Pepper Spray Cop meme arising from Occupy Wall Street is presented as a case-study example. The article considers the centrality of the intertextual nature of memes as a unique form of visual rhetoric in activist contexts and contributes to the literature on user-generated and activist rhetoric.     

Rhetorical criticism of political myth: From Goldwater legend to Reagan mystique

This essay identifies the American Western myth and the myth of the birth of the nation as political myths depicted by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan in their 1964 and 1980 presidential campaigns respectively. While Goldwater and Reagan rely on the Western myth through 1964 to “define” America and promote political beliefs, Reagan joins the Western myth with the myth of the birth of the nation after Goldwater's resounding defeat to provide a rhetorical ground for moderating his political views and broadening his audience. In the essay, a model of political myth based on form and function is described and then applied to three addresses, one by Goldwater and two by Reagan. Analysis of the speeches reveals a symbiotic relationship between the Western myth and the birth myth that joins individuality with community in a heroic tale of America's growth as a nation. It also shows that Reagan's rhetoric expresses this symbiosis while Goldwater's does not.     

The Good Will Hunting Technique

“The Good Will Hunting Technique” analyzes and enacts rhetorical paradigms present in popular culture. The main objects of examination are Gus van Sant's film, Good Will Hunting, and Eminem's music video “Mosh.” The author extracts positive aspects of popular culture to feature a rational-affective approach to rhetoric. The notion of mind–body rhetorical collaboration, which stems from Behavioral Doctrine developed during Germany's Weimar era, combines an emphasis on exteriority with traditional notions of rhetoric to establish a method for progressive action in lived reality.     

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.     

Engagement: rhetoric’s tale from the field

‘Engagement’ has since the mid-1990s led to a series of initiatives and campus centers wherein many universities attempt strategies that are primarily administrative and programmatic. By contrast, our tale from the field points to an inherent and original connection between rhetoric and engagement; we propose that the fundamental principles of rhetoric and communication equip scholars to work effectively toward the goal of engaged research and teaching. Our stories from the University of Texas Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium and from the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College indicate that there is significant value and power in taking to heart the lessons of the discipline for our own actions and lives as educators. Acting on what we know directs us toward such concepts as invention, discovery, argument, deliberation, advocacy, and intervention – the rhetorical instruments needed to change the academic culture and create environments for engaged learning.     

The Rules-Based Process of Revealing/Concealing the Family Planning Decisions of Voluntarily Child-Free Couples: A Communication Privacy Management Perspective

Critical literature has largely ignored the element of purpose in Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad, along with its attendant philosophy of mysticism. Chiara Lubich's 1977 Templeton Prize Acceptance Speech presents rhetorical critics with a valuable opportunity to observe in practice the features of a rhetoric of purpose, as Burke has disseminated them. In fact, analysis of Lubich's speech according to Burke's criteria of purposive rhetoric suggests the existence of a discrete sub‐class of purposive rhetoric identified here as the mystical narrative.