Oratorical style and performance in the epideictic speeches of American presidents

Abstract

Epideictic speeches have often tended to be overlooked in rhetorical studies as texts that are merely ornamental in nature and function; however, their apparent innocuousness may conceal a subtle, cumulative role in political persuasion and consensus-formation. This article discusses the rhetorical style of epideictic memorial speeches by American presidents. Drawing on rhetorical scholars from Aristotle to Jakobson and Burke, the author considers the poetic function of language. In epideixis, there is a strong rhetorical integration of text, audience, performance and environment. Even in prosaic political contexts, language can be deployed poetically, and linguistic choices by political speakers contribute to the evaluation by the audience of a speaker's charisma. Using memorial speeches as an example of literary/non-literary hybridity, the author observes that the key persuasive element in epideixis is its poetic predictability.

Sharing values to safeguard the future: British Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration as epideictic rhetoric

“…My methodology draws on Critical Discourse Studies, and more specifically on the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) (Heer et al, 2008; Krzyżanowski, 2010; Reisigl, 2017; Reisigl and Wodak, 2001, 2009; Richardson, 2017a; Richardson and Wodak, 2009; Slavíčková, 2013, 2014; Wodak and De Cillia, 2007; Wodak et al, 1999), in order to make sense of (1) the field of remembrance and its genres (e.g. ceremonies, speeches, stories, testimony, music, minutes of silence) and (2) the ways that they reflect the complex interplay between collective remembering (Wertsch, 2002) and social and historic contexts.…”

“…Commemoration represents a blended rhetorical genre that brings together the epideictic and forensic species of rhetorical argument, operates through a combination of praise/censure and accusation/defence, and draws on the special topics of (dis)honour and (in)justice. In such discourse, the language of values and praise typical of epideictic rhetoric is blended with narrative accounts of the past and the language of (self)identification, deictically fixed to the here and now (Billig and Marinho, 2017; Slavíčková, 2013, 2014). They ‘retrieve the past for the present’ (Wodak and De Cillia, 2007: 346), the ideal rhetorical consequence of which is that ‘we’ associate ourselves with the praised actors and actions of the past and disassociate ourselves from those criticised.…”

Evoking values or doing politics?

“…Commemorative speeches of politicians play a subtle role in the garnering of public consensus, working to consolidate myths about social in-groups and out-groups (particularly nations), and hence contributing to processes of group inclusion and exclusion (Slavíčková 2013(Slavíčková , 2014Wodak et al 1999;Wodak and De Cillia 2007). Slavíčková (2013Slavíčková ( , 2014 has analysed the rhetoric of US Presidential Memorial Day speeches, and the ways that they fit within the wider context of American political communication and represent dimensions of the nation's self-image over time. Ensink and Sauer (2003) analyse commemorative speeches by world leaders on the Warsaw Uprising as part of a wide-ranging case study on memory in public discourse and its functionalization in ceremonial contexts.…”