Rhetorical Persuasion Research Articles

Gauls in the Roman Senate: A Rhetorical Analysis of Claudius’ Speech Preserved on the Tabula Lugdunensis

Abstract The Tabula Lugdunensis, unearthed at Lyon in 1528, preserves part of a speech that emperor Claudius delivered to the Senate in 48 CE, to argue in favour of admitting the elites of north-western Gaul to the Roman senate. This article presents a rhetorical analysis of the speech. Modern readers have labelled the style of the speech ‘bombastic’ and ‘pedantic’, while criticising its many historical examples. An examination of the speech in terms of inventio, dispositio and elocutio, however, demonstrates that Claudius carefully constructs the ethos of an erudite and open-minded authority. Two moments of rhetorical persuasion can be distinguished: first, the Senate meeting in Rome itself and, second, the publication of the bronze inscription at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls at Lugdunum. Not much deliberative rhetoric was perhaps needed to persuade the senators to agree with their emperor; the display of the inscription, on the other hand, could be interpreted as a form of epideictic rhetoric, which may have given a significant boost to the self-confidence of Roman citizens in Gaul. While some senators in Rome may have disliked the lengthy historical exempla in the oral speech, visitors to the sanctuary in Lugdunum may have appreciated seeing Gaul included in the long history of Rome.

Negation in Research Articles Conclusions: Rhetorical Functions and Move Analysis

Extensive studies have been conducted in various sections of research articles, including the abstract, introduction, discussion, and other segments. Remarkably, the conclusion, a component of this academic genre, has received relatively scant attention in genre analysis. Conclusions, serving as the concluding segment, play a crucial role in recalling the previously addressed issues, highlighting key research findings, acknowledging limitations, and suggesting implications for further research. In light of this, authors employ an array of interactive resources to engage with their readership effectively. As an essential part of interactive resources, negation is used to be neglected in discourse analysis. Hence, this study aims to explore the relation between negation and moves in research conclusions. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine how negation contributes to rhetorical persuasion with a focus on its functions and distribution across disciplines. This study shows the rhetorical functions of negation and describes the distribution of negation across disciplines and moves. The findings not only indicate that authors from distinct disciplines exhibit varying preferences in the utilization of negation in their research article conclusions, but also provide some pedagogical implications.

Древнегреческий театр как школа для города: почему Сократ не был театралом

The article explores the phenomenon of ancient Greek theater, portraying it as a unique space where an entire cityscape unfolded before the eyes of thousands of spectators. Despite its mesmerizing effect, there's ongoing debate about its educational impact. In the first part of the article, sources are analyzed in which ancient authors argue for or against the notion that the theater, for which Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides composed, and which was occasionally attended by Socrates, could serve as a kind of school for adults and adolescents. Plato's dialogues, featuring Socrates as the central figure, dissect the differences between philosopher, playwright, and sophist wisdom, suggesting that the theater may not have been primarily aimed at enlightening the masses, but rather at showcasing persuasive rhetoric. Aristotle and Aristophanes stress the importance of playwrights acting as guides for citizens, albeit acknowledging that not all possess the wisdom to effectively mentor citizens in civic engagement and personal growth. In the second part, the article analyzes select tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, seen as valuable sources for instructing citizens. These playwrights' works are depicted as poignant reflections of the challenges faced by inhabitants of various cities, with heroes striving to offer guidance to themselves or others. Based on Aristotle's classification of tragic forms, it suggests that protagonists in these tragedies undergo transformative experiences, whether through reversal, discovery, calamity and spectacle. This also opened up wide opportunities for spectators to project what was happening on stage onto themselves and their city, taking guidance from the playwrights and becoming a special kind of disciples.

The Speech of President Qais Sa’id in the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries: A Study Analysis from the Perspective of Aristotle’s Persuasive Rhetoric

The Speech of President Qais Sa’id in the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries: A Study Analysis from the Perspective of Aristotle’s Persuasive Rhetoric

COVID-19 Crisis Management in Newspaper Articles: A Diachronic Analysis

Abstract The present study focuses on how the COVID-19 crisis was dealt with and represented in newspaper articles in the period January 2020-February 2022. To this end, a corpus of articles was compiled from the Times using Sketch Engine (https://www.sketchengine.eu/), in order to manage and investigate the corpus quantitatively; discourse and genre analyses were applied for the qualitative approach. After providing a definition of the coronavirus timespan and the term crisis, the paper explores how the language used changed over successive periods of crisis management and communication (Coombs 2010). It also shows how the unpredictable development of the pandemic had an effect on communication flows, which in turn affected how the crisis unfolded. Different types of information were conveyed through the media that played a crucial role in selecting what to convey (and what not to convey) to the readers and how to represent it. This significantly contributed (and continues to contribute) to the development of the readers’ opinions and sentiments, fuelling their worries and feelings of uncertainty, weakness and risk (Denti 2021; Wodak 2021). Future research will focus on metadiscursive features and the changes in rhetorical persuasion (Hyland 2005), and on the politicisation of the crisis (Musolff et al. 2022; Thielemann and Weiss 2023).

Rhetoric of Persuasion in Religious Talk

Rhetoric of Persuasion in Religious Talk

Stance in article highlights: The promotion of Covid‐19 research

AbstractCovid‐19 was the greatest public health crisis of a century, accounting for millions of deaths and initiating an urgent surge of published biomedical research. In this climate of social anxiety, researchers scrambled to publicize their work and achieve a medical breakthrough. The use of journal highlights, a brief bullet pointed list summarising the novel results of a study, is an important tool in this promotional endeavour. In this study we focus on the stance taken by authors in this genre by examining 300 highlights dealing with the virus and comparing them with 300 from articles in the same 16 journals on other issues. Our results show significantly greater use of stance markers in the Covid highlights with hedges, boosters and self‐mention particularly marked. Our study offers both a description of stance in highlights and an understanding of the potential impact of the intense, high‐stakes competition generated by the pandemic in biomedical publishing. We believe this offers a valuable contribution to the literature on stance, academic discourse and rhetorical persuasion.

A meta-discursive analysis of engagement markers in QAnon anti-immigration comments

Abstract To better understand QAnon’s anti-immigration rhetoric, the study conducted a meta-discursive analysis of one of the group’s active Telegram channels by drawing on Hyland’s (2005) model of interaction. Specifically, engagement markers in their immigration-related discourse were analyzed to see how they contribute to endorsing the group’s macro conspiratorial arguments. The results illustrate a complex rhetorical manipulation and nearly unanimous expression of hate toward immigrants, with the use of ‘directives’ and ‘questions’ being the most prevalent metadiscursive markers. The former suggests that the commenters were more assertive or commanding in their tone, while the latter located within rhetorical persuasion, aimed at stimulating negative attitude toward immigrants. Conversely, a low frequency of the ‘shared knowledge’ markers indicates a lack of interest to establish credibility and constructive dialogue with the audience. The study aimed to unpack the nature of anti-immigration extremist discourse on social media, and its potential to incite violence among public.

Performing social policy diffusion: Reflections on agents as social protection policy entrepreneurs in Africa

A growing literature explains the diffusion of social protection policies and, in particular, cash transfer programmes throughout Africa since the early 2000s as a paradigmatic policy transfer process. Most contributions emphasise the central role of transnational development agencies in this process, which is typically characterised as ‘donor-driven’. This article argues that individual agents, notably consultants who were commissioned by agencies to perform various roles in persuading African governments to introduce social protection, played a dual role insofar as many also shaped the positions of the agencies that hired them. They achieved both by deploying a range of influencing strategies associated with policy entrepreneurship, such as rhetorical persuasion, demonstration, and advocacy events. Other tactics, identified by the author from in-depth interviews conducted with 26 influential agents, include ‘piggybacking’, ‘Trojan horse’, and ‘accelerator events’. Although these agents believe in the value of their work, some expressed concern about their role in driving policy changes in African countries that appear to reflect the ideas and preferences of the international community, rather than aligning with the policy priorities of national governments.

The thing that made me think

Abstract Given the threatening consequences of anthropogenic climate change, it is vital to modify energy-intensive daily routines to minimize individual energy consumption. However, changing daily routines is challenging due to their abstract, future-oriented nature and the comfort they provide. Interactive technologies can play a crucial role in facilitating this process. Instead of relying on rhetorical persuasion through information and appeals, we propose two design approaches within the research agenda of the MOVEN research group: (1) employing friction to disrupt routines, and (2) advocating for the interests of natural entities using counterpart technologies. Regarding the disruption of routines, we explore the use of humor as a design element to dampen the resulting resistance (i.e., psychological reactance). Moreover, we reflect on the opportunities of counterpart technologies as a new interaction paradigm in the context of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the potentials and limitations of individual behavior change for a holistic, sustainable transformation.

Bruno Latour’s Detour

In this article, I argue that the work of Bruno Latour has straddled two conflicting intellectual traditions: the relativism of 20th-century postmodernism (which deconstructed the realist pretensions of scientism) and the realism of 21st-century New Materialism (which seeks to sublate the postmodern linguistic turn and embrace science alongside critical theory). I connect these twin tendencies to their ancient precursors among the Greek sophists and presocratic philosophers and argue that Latour’s strange position between relativism and realism recalls the historical tension between the philosophical and rhetorical traditions. Latour has embodied both of these intellectual currents, shifting only his focus but never his commitment to deconstructing the distinction between nature and culture. By connecting the conflicting tendencies of postmodernism and New Materialism back to the ancient sophists and presocratic philosophers, I argue that Latour effectively ontologizes rhetorical persuasion as the ‘language’ of every being, human and nonhuman alike.

Entrepreneuring and family firms cofounders' familiness at work through rhetoric appeals

PurposeThis research objective was to explore how Romanian IT family businesses' co-founders enable entrepreneuring through familiness practices. The authors explored what familiness practices emerge and how these are facilitated and supported by the rhetoric framework.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on Romanian IT entrepreneurs' practice from five case studies of IT family businesses and purposive revelatory cases, the authors considered the family co-founders' narratives and representations of familiness presented in 31 interviews.FindingsThe respondents' communication in entrepreneuring is a joint collaborative effort of the family co-founders to function well. Family entrepreneurs generate positive perceptions in favour of enterprising families using persuasive communication via rhetoric appeals to familiness ethos, familiness logos and familiness pathos, leading to constructive conflict management. The rhetoric of persuasion supports family entrepreneuring.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors conducted multiple case studies, profiling technological co-founders and family entrepreneurs in the challenging circumstances of an emerging economy.Practical implicationsThe analysis of the use of rhetoric contributes to a better understanding of familiness practices in the family business. Through appeals to ethos, family business entrepreneurs enforce family values built on shared history, complementarity and moral exemplarity. The appeals to logos in entrepreneuring involve fulfilling complementary roles, alignment and continuous learning and coaching. The appeals to pathos are about emotions and how the family entrepreneurs' discourse enforces constructive handling of emotions.Social implicationsThe perceived familiness communicated through appeals to ethos, logos and pathos contributes to legitimating the family firm structures.Originality/valueTheorising from family entrepreneurs' familiness practices, the authors suggest that entrepreneuring requires good communication of the representation of familiness for co-founders, employees and other stakeholders to also serve constructive conflict handling. The perceived familiness communicated through appeals to ethos, logos and pathos helps family businesses leverage their unique strengths and resources in the entrepreneuring process.

Persuasion through people: The rhetorical categories of documentary subjects in Michael Moore’s films

ABSTRACT Michael Moore’s documentaries have been central to the development of the contemporary political documentary and have served as an instrument of political activism or, as some argue, even propaganda. Delving into the underlying mechanisms, in this article, I examine the ways in which documentary subjects are persuasively deployed in Moore’s documentaries. An analysis combining close reading, qualitative content analysis, and rhetorical analysis points to key rhetorical categories of documentary subjects. These subjects’ embodiment of six main rhetorical categories displays a correlation with Aristotle’s cornerstones of rhetoric: ethos, logos, and pathos. Further, the categories demonstrate how moral emotions are utilised in constructing the ethos of documentary subjects. In addition, the article addresses the significance of identification in Moore’s persuasive rhetoric. This research participates in deconstructing the mechanics of persuasive mediated communication and contributes to outlining a theory of audiovisual rhetoric.

The interpersonal semantics of rhetoric

Abstract Different from previous linguistic studies on rhetoric, which primarily concern the ideational semantics and the logic of sentences, this article attempts to deal systematically with the interpersonal semantics of rhetoric by drawing on the comprehensive appraisal framework of systemic functional linguistics (Martin and White 2005) and explores the mechanism of rhetorical persuasion in science communication via appraisal through a case study of the gene-modification (GM) debate in China. It first examines the rhetorical appeals of the subsystems of appraisal and then based on a self-constructed and coded corpus of GM debate discourses, it compares how institutional (the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and the Greenpeace Organization) and individual stakeholders (Cui Yongyuan and Fang Zhouzi) of different ideological interests in the GM debate mobilize the interpersonal semantic resources to rhetorical effects to persuade the audience of the safety/danger of the GM technology and products. The analysis reveals that while the opinion leaders choose ‘soft’ persuasion by heavily using affect and judgement resources, the institutions opt for ‘hard’ persuasion by utilizing more appreciation resources. The four parties all prefer contracting resources over expanding resources of engagement, which restricts the space of negotiation. Their communicative motives are interpreted through the lens of the rhetoric theory, and the implications and consequences for science communication in the post-truth era are discussed. Theoretically, the paper contributes to understanding the persuasion mechanism of appraisal and to understanding the science vs. society, and government vs. citizens relationship.

On Galen's medical rhetoric

In ancient Greece, medicine was closely linked to rhetoric as it needed the tools to persuade the audience and logically justify the methods of treatment. During the imperial period, mastery of rhetorical techniques became an essential characteristic of educa-tion and belonging to the intellectual elite who highly valued im-provised public speeches and debates, including those on scien-tific topics. Galen, as one of the brightest and most prolific writ-ers of the Antonine and Severan periods, occupied a key place in this culture of the so-called “Second Sophistic”. However, the study of his style still belongs to the category of desideratum. The difficulty lies mainly in the fact that his compositions are extremely diverse in terms of their volume, genre specificity, and target audience, and in each case, require careful correlation of the text with its context. The question is considered of what modern researchers understand by “Second Sophistic” and what criteria determine whether a particular author belongs to this phenomenon. One of these criteria is paideia — a classical school education in grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, which provided many common formal features recorded in the writings of Greek and Roman authors of that period. And although Galen does not directly speak about his rhetorical education and skepti-cally comments on the methods of rhetorical persuasion, the list of his works devoted to questions of grammar and rhetoric, which is preserved in his autobiographical writings, testifies to his excellent mastery of the subject. On the other hand, even skimming of his writings points to Galen's expertise in compos-ing so-called “progymnasmata” and his mastery of literary gen-res: narration, eulogy, invective, comparison and description, refutation, etc., which allowed him to become an outstanding physician, polemicist, commentator, and inventor of scientific discourse.

Promoting a New Kind of Education: Greek and Roman Philosophical Protreptic, by Daniel Markovich

Promoting a New Kind of Education: Greek and Roman Philosophical Protreptic, by Daniel Markovich

“Money Doesn’t Like Noise”

Politicians create a political persona with their audience in mind, and their speeches are crafted to involve receivers in a promising future. They intentionally create a stream of ideas to engage the audience and arouse their emotions to make affective appeals. Using the frameworks of Hyland's Model of Metadiscourse and Aristotle's Rhetorical Persuasion Theory, the present study analysed Akufo Addo's address to the nation on October 30, 2022, when the country was facing economic difficulties. The study found that attitude markers, self-mentions, reader pronouns, and directives of metadiscourse markers are persuasively used in the data. The study concludes that Akufo Addo relied heavily on these metadiscourse markers to draw on pathos appeals, harmonise with the audience, and achieve the purpose of persuasion in the address. The findings of the study have implications for reflections on language and politics.

Aristotelian Time, Ethics, and the Art of Persuasion in Shakespeare’s Henry V

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur’s walls, and his St. Crispin’s Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine themselves in the future, understanding the present as part of their own history. Henry’s invocation of an imagined future that understands the present as a theoretical past betrays a surprising indebtedness to Aristotle’s notion of time as “a measure of change with respect to the before and after.” Drawing on Aristotle’s theory that time depends upon a perceiving mind and that those unconscious of change mistakenly “join up the latter ‘now’ to the former and make it one,” this essay argues that Henry succeeds in altering his auditors’ behavior, and thus generating the history he desires, by merging their shared, lived present with his own fictive temporalities. A mode of persuasion famous in its ethical ambivalence, Henry’s rhetoric reveals how the very ontological assumptions governing perceptions of time may be manipulated, for good or ill, amid audiences who fail to critically envisage their own counterbalancing, imaginative histories.

Persuasion by Projection: Charles Piazzi Smyth and the Performance of Scientific Expertise

In 1864, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, set out to measure the Great Pyramid of Giza in order to prove that its design had been devised by none other than God himself. Smyth’s actions and conclusions were informed by the work of John Taylor, a book publisher who sought to thwart Britain’s adoption of the French metric system by demonstrating that the Great Pyramid was a storehouse of sacred measurements from which the English inch originated. As an eccentric but otherwise respected scientist, Smyth was no stranger to the procedure of having a theory vetted by the academic community. In addition to authoring several books on the subject of Pyramid Metrology, he employed the photographic lantern slide to disseminate the boldest idea he had ever proposed. Initially performed before learned societies, Smyth’s lectures became so popular with fringe movements, such as British-Israelism, that he eventually engaged a Manchester photographer to reproduce his slides for public sale. Through a study of extant lecture transcripts and glass slides, this article examines how Smyth’s photographs were imbricated in a rhetoric of persuasion that was grounded in the performance of scientific knowledge.

You Cannot Judge an Argument by its Closure

he best arguments are distinguished by more than logical validity, successful rhetorical persuasion, or satisfactory dialectical closure. Argument appraisal has to look beyond the premises, inferences, and conclusions; it must consider more than just the objections and replies, and resolutions that satisfy the arguers might not satisfy outside critics. Arguers and their contexts can be important factors for assessing arguments. This conclusion is reached by considering several scenarios in which similar arguments—up to and including complete word-for-word identity—merit different critical responses.