Abstract
This article aims to provide a diachronic rhetorical profile of the annual American Memorial Day presidential speech as an example of epideixis, focusing on four sample texts selected from a corpus of 27 speeches and using the discourse historical approach as the primary mode of analysis. The function of epideixis in rhetoric is primarily aesthetic and affective, but this predominance can obfuscate ideological content in texts. Despite some variations between presidents, the article shows that, as a sub-category of the commemorative genre, Memorial Day speeches are relatively homogeneous in structure and style. The analysis locates the discursive role of the speech as a ‘field of action’ within the wider context of American political communication. Despite being thought of as a genre that is free of overtly political content, the Memorial Day corpus offers discrete snapshots of a nation’s self-image over time, but can also be viewed holistically.
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