Rhetorical Texts Research Articles

Decoding Metadiscourse Markers in Estonian Academic Texts: A Language-Specific Perspective

This article presents the development of a specialized data set for analyzing Estonian metadiscourse markers in academic usage, extending Hyland's interpersonal metadiscourse model to a non–Indo-European language. Our goal is to show how metadiscourse, as a feature of a writing tradition, can reveal aspects of writing in languages other than English, complementing the traditionally Anglo-centric perspective in metadiscourse research. By analyzing 21 Estonian linguistics research articles, we offer a transparent procedure to address methodological issues in metadiscourse studies and demonstrate the need for language-specific adjustments in the framework. We introduce statistical methods for analyzing multidimensional associations among marker categories, linguistic level, and rhetorical text structure. The findings suggest that Hyland’s metadiscourse model can be adjusted for specific languages, highlighting the influence of language structure on metadiscourse category variation and linguistic expression levels. The study reinforces that the distribution and manifestation of metadiscourse are shaped, among other factors, by unique writing traditions.

Phantom Mobility: Coercion, Conversion, and Letter Writing in Colonial Sri Lanka

Abstract This article takes a pan-historiographic approach in its analysis of three collections of artifacts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Sri Lanka: a set of contact narratives compiled by both the colonizing Portuguese and the dominant people group of the island, the Sinhalese; correspondence between King Dharmapāla and Pope Gregory XIII; and correspondence between the Sinhalese poet Alagiyavanna Mukaveti and King Philip III. In bringing together narratives of first contact between colonizers and colonized and letters from members of the Sinhalese elite requesting the restitution of land by the Portuguese colonizers, this article showcases examples in which local Sri Lankans performed rhetorical resistance through subversive means. In examining these artifacts, I offer for consideration the concept of “phantom mobility,” a rhetorical strategy that creates the appearance (and sometimes the illusion) of movement. In this rhetorical strategy, movement is conceived in terms of proximity or distance in relation to persons, places, events, etc. In this article, I suggest that phantom mobility can help illuminate how rhetors navigate colonial power dynamics in ways that expand our reading of rhetorical texts.

Mechanisms of Arguments in the Prophet’s First Sermon after the Confession: A Man Does Not Lie to His Family

Objectives: The study aims to reveal the argumentative mechanisms, values, and concepts embedded in the Prophet's sermon, and its rhetorical impact on enhancing the meaning and capturing the recipient's attention to the message's text.
 Methods: This study analyzes the argumentative verbal milestones in the Prophet's (PBUH) sermon from philosophical, rhetorical, and deliberate perspectives. It examines the introduction, semi-logical and reality-based arguments, as well as the role of argumentative links connecting ideas within the text. Additionally, it investigates the rhetorical, divine, and constructive methods, and their impact on enriching and persuading skeptical recipients of the new religion and messenger.
 Results:The study finds that this text, despite its brevity, is an argumentative text par excellence due to the presence of numerous argumentative mechanisms. It takes into account the eloquence level and acceptance of the argumentative message by the addressees. The researcher thoroughly studies and analyzes this text in its entirety, including letters, links, actions, and argumentative messages to achieve the desired result of this study.
 Conclusions: It is crucial to pay attention to rhetorical texts in general and the sermons of the Prophet (PBUH) in particular, to trace the rhetorical methods and argumentative mechanisms that persuade the addressees of the sermon's message.

The Adverse Impact of the Forbidden Scenes in the Present Performing Arts

From ancient time drama/performing art has remained as the major source of entertainment. One of the renowned text on dramaturgy is the Natyasastra of Bharatamuni. It is an analytical text of dramatic performance. Another rhetorician Viswanatha Kaviraja in his masterpiece the Sahityadarpana defines the schools of dramaturgy. In today’s society visual entertainment has undergone a sea change. Exposure, violence and the use of fairsex for entertainment is directly affecting the youths. Ethical values and humane qualities are declining from our society. There is a censor board which controls and certifies cinema under 4 categories. But visual entertainment bearing the forbidden scenes strongly affect the minds of the audience. So the ancient writers of dramaturgy discarded some scenes which might have some negative impact on the audience. This paper aims at studying the psychological impact of excess exposure in tune with rules of censor board and rhetorical texts of Sanskrit.

Interpreting repetition expressions in the writing of Trump’s addresses during the Covid-19 pandemic

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has driven a world crisis that requires world leaders to respond by voicing their policies and solutions. The political addresses serve to be the path for these purposes. This creates the need for effective rhetorical strategies or forms used by leaders, particularly presidents, to address the current issues which are not commonly beheld. This study shares the result of the inquiry on the use of repetition in President Donald Trump’s speeches during the Covid-19 Pandemic in America. The study attempts to interpret the type of repetition found in the speeches and their general meaning implications. As a textual study, this research gained data from three speeches of Trump specifically addressing the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic delivered during his attempt to handle the emergence and spread of the Coronavirus in the U.S. since in American literature, an address is also viewed as a literary work, this study deployed Goffman’s frame analysis which is also regarded as double hermeneutic for the analysis process. The findings, then, designate that Trump, in his addresses, applied seven types of repetition; from anaphora to root repetition. Further, the study found that anaphora serves to be the most used repetition, which means the main rhetorical instrument in the addresses. In terms of meaning implications, the repetitions apparently imply the reawakening of the jeremiad structure in the address and the affirmation of the American sense of greatness and role in the world. The findings of this inquiry are hoped to add more theoretical constructions and strategies for rhetoric texts for both crisis and socio-political communication contexts. Its practical contribution goes toward defining and exemplifying language expressions and functions in communicative text writing.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF «TED TALKS» VIDEO MATERIALS IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT A MEDICAL UNIVERSITY

The article examines the methodological potential of video materials from the TED Talks resource (Technology Entertainment Design) in the context of teaching English for Professional Purposes and Academic English at medical higher education institutions. The TED Talks video materials cover not only topical issues of natural sciences but also modern problems of education, culture, history, business, sustainable development, etc., therefore, they can contribute to the development of both hard and soft skills of undergraduate and Ph.D. students majoring in Health Care and Biology. Short TED talks delivered by experts from various spheres can be used to develop public speaking skills, analytical listening, rhetorical text analysis, etc. The paper presents several linguodidactic mechanisms aimed at the development, practice, and systematization of the above skills to optimize students’ mastering of grammatical constructions and lexical material. The methodological algorithm is represented by receptive, reproductive, and productive types of exercises and can be used to improve communicative competence and English language proficiency, to organize the classroom and extracurricular activities, as well as a distance learning mode. The research may be of interest to teachers of English at medical universities, as well as specialists from other fields, in the process of planning training sessions and developing educational and methodological materials.

LYRIC IN THE SECOND DEGREE: ARCHAIC AND EARLY CLASSICAL POETRY IN HIMERIUS OF ATHENS

AbstractThis article reconsiders the methodological issues posed by the reception of archaic and classical poetry in imperial rhetorical texts. It argues that references to ancient poems and poets in the works of imperial sophists are always already the product of appropriation and rewriting, and that the study of sophists’ engagement with poetry should go beyond Quellenforschung to explore how and why poetic models were transformed in light of their new rhetorical and imperial contexts. To illustrate this approach and its contribution to our understanding of both ancient-reception phenomena and imperial rhetorical culture, the article focusses on Himerius of Athens, a fourth-century c.e. sophist and teacher of rhetoric whose fondness for lyric poetry has caused his Orations to be used as a quarry for lyric fragments and testimonia. Himerius’ treatment of carefully chosen lyric models is here discussed with attention to his self-presentation and rhetorical agenda to show how the sophist appropriated the voices of diverse lyric icons to promote his school and negotiate his position in relation to the imperial administration. This analysis restores Himerius’ intellectual significance within late imperial culture and society, but it also demonstrates how a more in-depth study of the reception of ancient poetry in imperial sophistic literature has the potential to illuminate the strategies of cultural politics used by imperial authors to (re)construct Greek tradition.

The Phenomenon of (Un)translatability Dilemma of Translating the Qur’anic Heart Words into English in( Repentance) Sūrat Al-tawbah

Translating the Qur’anic heart words into English has always been a strenuous and immense challenging task. Being the most rhetorical text, the Quranic heart words operate with clear-cut intent and cannot be replaced by what may be reflected as the corresponding word. The recent research paper mainly studies the (un)translatability phenomenon and the dilemma of translating the Qur’anic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah(Repentance) and investigates their rendition losses The key significance of this study is how the translators had attempted to attain cultural equivalence when rendering implied meaning and hidden meaning of Quranic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah. The main question of this study is: what is the phenomenon of (un)translatability dilemma of translating the Qur’anic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah? Moreover, three selected English translations of the Holy Qur’an are used by the researcher to accomplish this purpose: Marmaduke Pickthall’s (1996), Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s, Muhammad Taqiudin Al Hilali’s (1996), and M. A. S Abdul Haleem’s (2004). Furthermore, the research purports to identify the apt translation procedures and methods manipulated in translating these intended words. The study evinces that persistent, existing challenges and untranslatability dilemma, and translation loss were found. The study also reveals that translation of untranslatable Qur’anic heart words into English may cause translation losses which is a common occurrence and prevalent in the English translation of the Holy Quran in general and Sūrat Al-tawbah in particular.

Architectural Rhetoric in Shakespeare and Spenser by Jennifer C. Vaught

Reviewed by: Architectural Rhetoric in Shakespeare and Spenser by Jennifer C. Vaught Goran Stanivukovic Architectural Rhetoric in Shakespeare and Spenser. By Jennifer C. Vaught. (Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 24) Berlin: de Gruyter. 2019. xi+228 pp. €89.95. ISBN 978–1–5015–1793–8. The essence of this book lies in the word 'architectural' and in its different representations in the works of Shakespeare and Spenser. The book offers a thorough [End Page 280] and persuasive, comparative analysis of 'intertextual allusions' (p. 9) in the works of these two writers, evidenced in 'analogous characters, dwellings, and situations they imagine' rhetorically (p. 11). It makes a strong case for a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of textual and visual poetics in literature. The clear sense of architecture, however, contrasts with the fluid and flexible use of rhetoric. Jennifer C. Vaughtʼs approach to rhetoric is not applied to an extensively formulated theory and system, as it was developed and understood in the early modern intellectual sphere, but instead to language and discourse more broadly. There is a sense that rhetoric is used meta-rhetorically, not to explore how form, persuasion, and effective styles shape meaning, embody ideas, and affect the audience. Vaught sets out to 'examine the rhetoric of architecture throughout The Faerie Queene and in Shakespeareʼs history plays [. . .] [in] Troilus and Cressida, the Roman plays Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, the tragedies Macbeth and King Lear, and the romance The Tempest' (p. 1). This is a comprehensive corpus, and Vaught must be praised for engaging with such a large body of major plays within a coherent argument. For a book that puts emphasis on rhetoric, however, the absence of an in-depth analysis of rhetorical texts is glaring. The passing references to Peacham and Sidney only, and to Quintilian, suggest that rhetoric as itself materialist practice is not the thrust of the book. In her focused, tightly argued study, however, Vaught is excellent when she explores mnemonic and cognitive aspects of rhetoric and when she explains how memory produced effect by linking concrete architectural forms to specific ideas. Most of Vaughtʼs book comprises new readings of 'the world of things, from houses to hammers' (p. 9) as expressions of the body, especially of the permeable body. The solidity of architecture and 'things' and, in contrast, the permeability of the body, are brought together in excellent analyses of the mind-body dichotomy expressed in the language of architectural form and design. The book consists of six chapters, starting with a general discussion based on reading the motif of the permeable body in a literary corpus including The Faerie Queene (I and II) and 1–2 Henry 6, which establishes the methodological foundations for the book. The second chapter continues a discussion of the Henriad plays, but focusing on the expressive power of the language of rhetoric to embody political meaning. This chapter offers a thought-provoking analysis of the motif of the ruined castle in Richard II, a motif analogous to the kingʼs state of mind. From an analysis of exterior settings, the book moves to an exploration of interior spaces. The focus is on The Faerie Queene again, and on Britomartʼs embodiment and interiority in relation to the spatial interiority. The subject of Chapter 4 is the cityʼs ruins and walls, with Spenserʼs minor work 'Ruins of Rome' interpreted alongside a selection of Shakespeareʼs sonnets, Troilus and Cressida, and Coriolanus. Especially original is the exploration of linguistic and thematic parallels of Books IV and V from The Faerie Queene alongside Antony and Cleopatra, focusing on 'built environment' imagined as the body and framing psychological and mental states such as grief and anxiety. The final chapter examines depictions of the body and mind 'as analogous to hellish and story surroundings', to decaying and crumbling buildings, [End Page 281] and to an 'entrapping labyrinth' (p. 125). There remains much in Vaughtʼs probing and lucidly argued book that deserves critical attention and that will give her study currency beyond the bounds of literary studies. Goran Stanivukovic Saint Maryʼs University Copyright © 2022 Modern Humanities Research Association

The Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements

The Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements

Translation and the Rediscovery of Rhetoric, by Michelle Bolduc, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies

Michelle Bolduc’s Translation and the Rediscovery of Rhetoric is, as a work of scholarship, quite formidable. Its 443 pages include 1,324 footnotes and 71 pages of bibliography. Its historical focus is brilliant and complex, with chapters on medieval translatio, Cicero’s translation and replanting of Greek rhetoric, Brunetto Latini’s translation of Cicero, Jean Paulhan’s reinvention of rhetoric following Latini, and the New Rhetoric Project’s own taking up of this tradition in the twentieth century.From one perspective, the book can be read somewhat straightforwardly as a carefully selected history of rhetoric, and anyone who reads the book from this perspective would gain some serious knowledge of the rhetorical tradition. A clear narrative guides the reader along even as the story is a story of retrieval, moving forward by reaching back. The subnarratives within this larger telling are full of lively episodes that are historically revealing and biographically rich. At times the book reads almost like a series of intellectual mini-novels—with standout characters.However, the overriding concern here is not the characters or the stories—as interesting as those may be—but the illuminating of the historical process of translation in a very large sense—in the sense of the medieval topos of translatio, a sense that is dynamic and propelling and history forming and in fact explains how traditions generate. The principal characters in this story are all engaged in the translation of rhetorical texts, the transfer of meaning from one language to another—as well as, often, a transfer from one culture to another of rhetoric as a pedagogy and a sociopolitical practice. Opening up these civilizational channels through translation is part of the dynamic of translatio, and the outcome is, in part, to generate civilizational practices that address contemporary challenges by placing them in the light of a translation of historical rhetorical texts. So, for example, when Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca write The New Rhetoric as a culmination of that postwar intellectual arc that included Perelman’s work with the UN, they are engaged in a translatio whose purpose is to defeat violence through the recovery of rhetoric as a form of effective reasoning in conditions of uncertainty.Bolduc is quite careful to avoid any notion of a continuous rational development of the translatio of rhetoric over time, but she insists that breaks and failures can themselves (later) be seen to have contributed to this translatio in serendipitous ways. Her serious and extensive treatment of Brunetto Latini and Jean Paulhan is instructive here. And yet this is not only a work of careful historical scholarship. One of the book’s first examples of translatio is Alan of Lille’s mind-boggling account of the incarnation as mystical translatio, the Word translated into flesh, and the book’s afterword virtually concludes with a discussion of The New Rhetoric’s modern notions of communion and freedom. This is also a work of vision—and of multilingual hope.

Logos, Ethos, Pathos, Sustainabilitos? About the Role of Media Companies in Reaching Sustainable Development

As producers of economic and cultural goods, media companies are subject to a double responsibility: regarding how they operate and how they represent reality in their products. Thus, their social responsibility is primarily the “brain print” they leave on their audience. Communication of, about, and for sustainability through mass media is therefore essential to create a shared understanding of societal values on sustainability, creating public engagement, and contributing to sustainable development. Accordingly, the present study aims at understanding how media (companies) take their responsibility as key communicators in the public sphere and analyze how they communicate and thus construct the sustainability discourse through their products. For this, sustainability-related content produced and broadcasted by the two largest commercial media companies in Germany (RTL and ProSiebenSat1; n = 50 online articles and n = 89 videos, 601 min in total) was analyzed by qualitative content analysis and rhetoric text analysis to understand what and how media communicate sustainability. Results show that most media sustainability-related content addresses food issues, followed by issues regarding resources and the environment, thus contributing to the achievement of some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Namely: SDG#2 (zero hunger), #6 (clean water and sanitation), #13 (climate action), #14 (life below water), and #15 (life on land). These issues are primarily communicated logically, appealing to the audience’s reason (logos, 76%), while the ethical appeal ethos (22%) and the emotional pathos (2%) scarcely occur. The analysis also leaves room for discussion regarding the responsibility of media companies in their role as communicators of, about, and for sustainability; about how they fulfill their responsibility in accordance with the SDG Media Compact, and about the opportunities and risks of applying different rhetorical appeals.

Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages by Rita Copeland

Reviewed by: Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages by Rita Copeland Shea McCollough Rita Copeland, Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), xv + 432 pp. More than three decades have passed since Rita Copeland first published Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages (1991), a study that has become an indispensable resource for scholars thinking about the development of vernacular texts and interpretative models from late antiquity to the Middle Ages. That first book laid the foundation for a body of scholarly work from Copeland that, while dealing with the variously related topics of classical reception, pedagogy, and representation, is nonetheless bound together by the through-line of rhetoric, her most persistent and pervasive research interest. Her newest book, Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, is a delightful expression of that rhetorical preoccupation, demonstrating a sustained interest in the intertwined relationships between rhetoric, emotion, and ethics that developed and redeveloped from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages and offering a compelling and comprehensive narrative of the transformations of rhetorical thought and practice over nearly two millennia. Like the good rhetorician that she is, Copeland offers a map of the book's overarching scope in apophatic terms, outlining the contours of the study by simultaneously delineating what it is not: it does not endeavor to offer a comprehensive history of medieval emotions—à la Barbara Rosenwein's Generations of Feeling (2015), or any number of similar studies that Copeland mentions throughout her footnotes—nor is it an attempt to uncover and represent the emotional experiences of medieval readers per se, although readerly experience becomes a secondary interest in the book, particularly in chapter 2. Rather, what Copeland does embark upon is a twofold history of both rhetoric through emotion and emotion through rhetoric in the Middle Ages, a history predicated upon [End Page 240] a belief that rhetoric "represented the role of emotion in shaping persuasions" and that is ultimately "concerned more with production than with consumption of emotive content" (1). Copeland builds from these initial claims, describing the "double plot" of her book "as a reception history that commences with the Ciceronian rhetorics of antiquity, that develops on a long course, and that, at a later juncture, incorporates the Aristotelian perspective" (14). Following this robust outline, the rest of the text splits into two halves, emblematized by the figures of Cicero and Aristotle, respectively. Chapter 1 analyzes Cicero's theory of affectio as presented in De inventione, establishing emotion as a valid form of invention (the process of developing an argument), as opposed to an exclusive element of style, even though the stylistic understanding would eventually come to dominate the discourse of medieval rhetoric. Chapter 2 picks up on this thread and demonstrates how early Christian thinkers, primarily Augustine and Cassiodorus, expanded their understanding of style to accommodate an ethical dimension of rhetorical appeal invested in the cultivation of "textual affection" (59), whether for the scriptures or for Virgil. As this instilled love for texts grew commonplace, it became less imperative to explicitly outline the ethical valence of style in rhetorical texts, resulting in the paradoxical effacement of this notion from Christianized rhetorical treatises by the twelfth century. Chapter 3 narrates the rise of style to a place of preeminence in the "pragmatic rhetoric" of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries by close reading pedagogical treatises (112), love letters, Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, Petrarch's Seniles, and Chaucer's (again) Clerk's Prologue. Chapter 4 (re)turns to Aristotle's Rhetoric, the second piece of the book's "double plot," in order to "chart the routes through which Aristotelian rhetoric found its place in later medieval thought" (158). Copeland sketches the transmission history of the Rhetoric, arguing that the text effectively disappeared until resuscitated by a group of Arabic scholars—Al-Farabi (ca. 870–950), Avicenna (980–1037), and Averroes (1126–98)—whose commentaries treated the emotions "as both cognitive and moral forces in persuasion" (175). Chapter 5 extends the discussion of the Rhetoric's medieval afterlife by focusing on a shift in thinking about the emotions evident in Giles of Rome...

ЭЛОКУТИВНАЯ СПЕЦИФИКА МЕДИЦИНСКИХ МАССМЕДИЙНЫХ ТЕКСТОВ ТУРБУЛЕНТНОГО ПЕРИОДА В АСПЕКТЕ РИТОРИЧЕСКОГО ДЕКОДИРОВАНИЯ

Within the framework of the concept of rhetorical text decoding, a linguo-rhetorical reconstruction of the elocutionary strategy was carried out, implemented in the course of creating mass media texts of the turbulent period — pandemic interviews of the leading Russian doctors D. Protsenko and M. Lysenko. As a result of the analysis, the means of representing authorization and addressing tactics in the studied media texts were identified. Cases of combinatorics of addressing and authorization are noted. With the help of elements of SEO technology, keywords were found that act as an indicator of the tactics of axiological explication. The conclusion is made about the dialogueness and publicity of medical mass media texts of the pandemic time as a result of the implementation of the elocutionary strategy of text formation.

Toppling the Temple of Grandin: Autistic-Animal Analogies and the Ableist-Speciesist Nexus

In this article, we conduct an ideological rhetorical criticism of Temple Grandin’s rhetorical texts. Using our lived experiences as actually-autistic scholars, our critique fuses rhetorical theory with critical autism studies and critical animal studies. We specifically assess the analogical necropolitics central to Grandin’s portrayals of livestock and autistic people. We conclude that Grandin’s complicity in the animal-industrial complex renders her status as an animal advocate questionable and her status as an autistic advocate dangerous. The discursive intersections of speciesism and ableism in Grandin’s central analogies regarding autistic and livestock bodies renders both parties as subhuman, disposable, and potentially killable. We conclude with alternative ways of thinking about animality, autism, and the pursuit of multispecies justice.

Speaking in Hands: Early Modern Preaching and Signed Languages for the Deaf

Abstract This article demonstrates that deaf men and women were integrated into early modern communities through use of sign language, and that Protestant concerns about preaching and hearing promoted sign language as a legitimate form of communication. Historians have believed that the Protestant emphasis on preaching excluded deaf people from heaven. However, not only did contemporaries believe that deaf people could be saved, but debates on this topic prompted a wider assessment of the nature of hearing loss and sensory knowledge. Discussions about deafness therefore had implications for all congregations, as English preachers used well-known manual gestures from rhetorical texts to make their sermons accessible for both the ‘spiritually’ and the ‘physically’ deaf. The experiences of deaf people in early modern England demonstrate the importance of religious practices in shaping perceptions of disability and impairment. By focusing on deaf parishioners, it is possible to explore some of the impacts of the Reformation on ideas of embodiment while modifying literary accounts of the representation of disability in the period. A little-known part of early modern history, the role of preachers in the evolution of signed languages for the deaf offers new perspectives on Reformation history and the growing field of disability history.

A Reflection on the Digitization of Classical Rhetoric for Pedagogical Uses

In today's world, the traditional means of the dissemination of knowledge have become replaced by advanced digital platforms. This, alongside the context of the global pandemic that has propelled the usage of technological tools in the classroom, has created a conducive environment for innovative pedagogy. In this paper, a case for the digitization of classical rhetorical texts for pedagogical purposes is presented. To do this, principles of digital rhetoric are brought up followed by various examples of how the digital has been embraced (in the context of the wider principles of digital rhetoric) already in the pedagogical sphere. Finally, a potential proposal for an extension of the present work was put forward. Digitization and technology widely are the norms of our day and age. In viewing these elements from a pedagogical perspective, what can be seen is that there is an enormous opportunity not only in teaching the students that will walk through our doors but in preserving the rhetorical tradition that intrigues and fascinates the larger community of scholarship.

Memes, condensation symbols, and the changing landscape of political rhetoric

ABSTRACT This article analyzes a 2019 poster of Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar by setting it in the context of political memes. Extending recent work on meme rhetoric, and emphasizing the roll that condensation symbols and emotional appeals play in memetic display, I argue that our understanding of political messages like the Omar poster is enhanced when they are approached as memes. Such an approach considers rhetorical texts as fragments whose appeals are emotional rather than propositional and whose success lies not in winning arguments but in generating reaction and replication.

Authenticity and Credibility in Science Communication Design: A Rhetorical Approach

Abstract The communication of scientific knowledge is traditionally oriented towards objective truth and facts, and builds on the authority of science. This article argues that, besides or even opposite to these aims, creating authenticity has become a major factor of successful science communication. Conveying a “personal touch,” or giving the audience a feeling of “being real,” are crucial promoters of credibility. Significant methods of gaining trust and sympathy on the level of textual as well as visual presentation are disclosed by exploring a bestselling popular scientific book, and with references to ancient rhetorical texts.

Architectural Rhetoric and the Iconography of Authority in Colonial Mexico: The Casa de Montejo by C. Cody Barteet

Reviewed by: Architectural Rhetoric and the Iconography of Authority in Colonial Mexico: The Casa de Montejo by C. Cody Barteet Sarah J. Constant C. Cody Barteet, Architectural Rhetoric and the Iconography of Authority in Colonial Mexico: The Casa de Montejo. New York: Routledge, 2019. 180 pp. ISBN: 9781138585652 Architectural Rhetoric and the Iconography of Authority in Colonial Mexico: The Casa de Montejo is a tale of two cities—the Xui Maya city of Tihó and the Spanish colony of Mérida—ultimately united through a series of cultural campaigns that sought to exert Spanish authority in colonial Mexico. In this book, Barteet expands upon his previous dissertation research on Early Modern Latin American visual culture as well as past historical studies of the Casa de Montejo that “have mainly considered the façade as a reflection of European aesthetics with limited analysis of its iconography” (11). Lucid descriptions, original photographs, and dozens of archival artifacts evidence colonial anxieties in sixteenth-century Yucatán. Architectural Rhetoric strives to provide a bridge between two cognate disciplines: architectural history and rhetorical studies. Notably, Barteet understands the construction of the Casa de Montejo through Henri Lefebvre’s [End Page 466] “spatial triad” and describes how it may be used to explain the tensions that arose between the center and periphery of Mérida (18). Barteet explains how spatial practices (e.g., architectural styles), representations of space (e.g., the grid-planned city), and spaces of representation (e.g., real and imagined spaces) function as part of a causal loop. In this way, Barteet positions the Casa de Montejo as a social space for reading and understanding conflicts between Indigenous peoples, Spanish colonizers, and the Spanish monarchy. Architectural Rhetoric is divided into two main sections: the first “considers the significance of the building to a Hispanic audience,” and the second considers “how the façade and its urban location resonated among the Xiu Maya of Yucatán” (22). Barteet argues that Spanish conqueror Francisco de Montejo intentionally built the Casa de Montejo on the sacrosanct plaza mayor to symbolically diminish the influence of the Spanish monarchy in the New World and to exert his individual authority as governor over the Indigenous peoples. Barteet illustrates how the construction of the Casa de Montejo may be placed within Lefebvre’s imagination of the spatial triad in order to identify exactly how this building defied Spanish monarchical traditions and initiated a struggle for authority in the Yucatanean province. Barteet extends his analysis of the Casa de Montejo beyond the realm of architectural history and into the field of architectural rhetoric, revealing what different examples of iconography in the Casa de Montejo uncover about colonial tensions within and between Yucatán and the transatlantic world. For example, Barteet argues that Herculean imagery in the Plateresque façade exalts Montejo as the protagonist in the ongoing Yucatanean colonization narrative. Later, Barteet examines both the political and social contexts in which Montejo operated as Yucatán’s adelantado, or governor, through an analysis of “multivocal” iconography in the Plateresque façade (93). Barteet introduces a rhetorical text—the requerimiento—an official policy document concerned with the proper treatment of Indigenous peoples that encouraged the colonizers to “establish alliances through peace accords and gift-giving practices in order to foster a climate capable of hosting a successful colony” (92). Here, connections between the virtuous iconography discussed in earlier chapters and the requerimiento arise, strengthening Barteet’s case for an architectural rhetoric, or a connection between what is written in policy texts and what is therefore “declare[d] in stone” (93). In the second half of Architectural Rhetoric, Barteet examines Maya perceptions of the Plateresque façade and its place in the oft-contested city center. Barteet recalls that Mérida’s identity was “neither solely Spanish nor solely Maya” but existed somewhere in between, occupying a sort of “dual identity” (116). Barteet discusses the social and political importance of mapping practices, which may include the mapping of metaphorical or conceptual spaces such as books, art objects, and geographical locations where “two or more cultures engage one another” (116). In the penultimate chapter, a story of a power struggle often defined by dichotomous...