Speech Communication Scholars Research Articles

A Bibliographic Synthesis of Rhetorical Criticism

While conducting research for this article, I often came across this claim: Rhetorical criticism has traditionally been housed in speech communication de partments.1 One look at the bibliography for this article seems only to validate this claim; almost all of the journals and books are written by and for speech communication scholars. And really, this comes as little surprise when we con sider that the majority of the New Rhetoricians are communication theorists or that speech communication scholarship has been interested in analyzing specific communication situations. In all, the work of these scholars attempts to define the strategies employed, determine whether those strategies were effective to a specific rhetorical situation, and from that, articulate theories based on this care ful observation about different approaches to rhetorical criticism. However, I remain uncomfortable with making the claim that rhetorical crit icism grew up in speech communication, which to me implies that the field of rhetoric and composition does not have a history with rhetorical criticism. Yet many of the publications in our field give lie to that implied claim?Shirley Wilson Logan's We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth Century Black Women, for example, conducts rhetorical criticism of the public discourses and speeches of nineteenth-century black women, while Ken McAllister's Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture con ducts an in-depth rhetorical analysis of computer games in an effort to articulate a rhetorical theory that can account for games as a rhetorical text. The reason that rhetorical criticism has historically belonged to speech communication may simply be the fact that speech communication scholars have attempted to define and theorize it as a legitimate disciplinary concern. The purpose of this bibliographic synthesis is to provide rhetoric and composition scholars with a broad understanding of the field so that we can begin to theorize the work we do with rhetorical criticism and think through the ways in which we can enrich our own scholarship. Due to page-length limitations, I am unable to provide a synthesis of all the different approaches to rhetorical criticism. I have chosen to limit my scope to definitions, general methodology, and objects of rhetorical criticism, which com prise the first three sections. The final section will summarize four textbooks on rhetorical criticism, all four of which provide excellent starting places for those

The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership (review)

Leroy Dorsey's edited volume on the relationship between presidential rhetoric and leadership is a welcome addition to the growing body of work on the subject. The book includes chapters by political science, history, and speech communication scholars, including David Zarefsky, Stephen E. Lucas, James M. Farrell, Lawrence S. Kaplan, H. W. Brands, James R. Andrews, Thomas W. Benson, Meena Bose and Fred I. Greenstein, G. Thomas Goodnight, and John Murphy.

Critical Reflections on the Cold War: Linking Rhetoric and History

Rhetoric and history intersected dramatically during the Cold War, which was, above all else, a war of words. This volume, which combines the work of historians and communication scholars, examines the public discourse in Cold War America from a number of perspectives including how rhetoric shaped history and policies and how rhetorical images invited interpretations of history. The book opens with Norman Graebner's wideranging analysis of the rhetorical background of the Cold War. Frank Costigliola then parses Stalin's speech of February, 1946, an address that many in the West took as a declaration of war by the USSR. The development of NSC68 in 1950, often referred to as America's blueprint for fighting the Cold War, is the subject of Robert P. Newman's review. Shawn J. ParryGiles and J. Michael Hogan then focus on American propaganda responses to the perceived Soviet threat. H. W. Brands, Randall B. Woods, and Rachel L. Holloway examine the effects of liberal ideology and rhetoric on domestic and foreign policy decisions. Robert J. McMahon and Robert L. Ivie raise the issue of what it has meant to be the leader of the Free World and what the task of postCold War rhetoric will be in this regard. Scholars concerned with the role of words in public life and in the study of history will find challenging material in this interdisciplinary volume. Historians, speech communication scholars, and political scientists with an interest in the Cold War will similarly find grist for further milling.

The Development of Argument Analysis Skills in Children

Researchers across a number of fields have focused their efforts on learning how children master the social and communication skills necessary to manage conflict. For instance, sociologists and linguists are accumulating descriptions of children's disputing practices (e.g., Goodwin, 1990; Grimshaw, 1990; Maynard, 1986; Miller, 1986). Educational researchers are studying techniques that improve children's critical thinking skills (for reviews see Baron & Sternberg, 1987; Chipman, Segal & Glaser, 1985; Nickerson, Perkins & Smith, 1985). Such research efforts, while laudable, are nevertheless constrained by the lack of extensive evidence identifying the extent to which argumentation skills naturally develop, including how children learn to analyze arguments and apply procedures of adjudication. While communication researchers have initiated study of this problem, much remains to be learned (e.g., Benoit, 1984; Haslett, 1983; Katriel, 1985; Willbrand, 1981; Yingling & Trapp, 1985). As a response the present study provides an examination of one aspect of the problem, namely, the development of the ability to analyze arguments. Speech communication scholars have long recognized that the ability to analyze evidence and reasoning is crucial in formulating one's individual beliefs (e.g., Hample, 1980, 1981), and in communicating persuasively with others (e.g., McCroskey, 1969; Miller & Nilsen, 1966). Yet a number of studies show that adults often reason erroneously about arguments. For instance, adults often reason fallaciously about syllogisms,judging only the appearance features of the syllogism's premises or conclusion (Jackson, 1982; Steinfatt, Miller, & Bettinghaus, 1974). Many adults also reason incorrectly about conditional propositions (Ray & Findley, 1984). Moreover, most scholars recognize that analyzing arguments is not just making judgments about logical form but also knowing how evidence and reasoning are used by arguers (e.g., Kellerman, 1980; Miller, 1966). A functional approach to judging arguments recognizes that argument is public and functions to produce agreement between people within a shared system of knowledge about how to make and have arguments. Hence a functional approach to judging arguments focuses on learning how people come to know what others count as evidence and reasoning, and how people come to know what criteria others use to analyze evidence and reasoning to reach reasoned judgments about argumentative claims. Our direction in this study is to evaluate children's analyses of arguments with a framework that is able to detect theoretically-based changes in the qualitative features of argument analyses. Specifically our framework integrates Toulmin's (1958) theory of argument with research in social cognitive development that is interpreted with Werner's (Werner and Kaplan, 1963) conception of developmental change. Several lines of work in social cognitive development are interpreted with Werner's Orthogenetic principle (1948), which posits that with age and attendant social experience thought becomes more differentiated, abstract, and integrated. A consequence of this principle is that with age reasoning about social concepts such as fairness, morality, and friendship should and do change in qualitatively distinct ways, with each transformation replacing less functional modes of reasoning with more functional and adaptive modes of reasoning. Arguments are conceived by Toulmin (1958) as social products and organic wholes, situated in fields of discourse that evolve distinct standards for determining what counts as data and what are acceptable inference principles to use as warrants. Combining Wernerian theory with Toulmin's ideas, one would expect that children's skill in analyzing arguments includes learning to differentiate arguments within an ongoing stream of discourse, learning to differentiate and use criteria to evaluate evidence and reasoning, and learning to evaluate evidence and reasoning in ways that constitute an adequate refutation, given the expectations of proof within a given argument field. …

Treatment/training of speaking problems: A study in reification

The methods of the hard sciences cannot be used exclusively for investigation of the concepts commonly used in communication research. In addition to numbers, social scientists use interpretation and imagination to achieve the ability to criticize, suggest, and advise, but are unable to achieve a sufficiently high degree of probability to predict and control components of the reifications they study. Communication apprehension, reticence, and shyness are illustrations of the kinds of reifications with which speech communication scholars work. Hard investigation is required to discover heuristics to guide improvement in the individual case as well as to acquire a supply of technical resources with which to effect behavior change.

Four approaches to interpersonal communication: Review, observation, prognosis

This paper uses four focal points to review interpersonal communication research conducted by speech communication scholars. These four foci include the dialogic approach which stresses authentic communication; the cohesion approach which explores how communication is related to interpersonal outcomes; the message process approach which stresses verbal and nonverbal exchange patterns in dyads; and the rhetorical approach which stresses the strategic nature of communication behavior in dyads. Research in each of these areas is reviewed and selected observations about the nature of that research are offered. The paper concludes with a prognosis for future developments in interpersonal communication.

Conservative resistance revisited—A reply to Medhurst

This essay reexamines the rhetorical features of conservative resistance movements in light of recent rhetorical analyses of the STOP ERA, Right‐to‐Life, and anti‐gay movements by speech communication scholars. Four characteristics of conservative resistance are found to recur in combination in such movements: efforts to prevent or rescind change, reiteration of moralistic ideology, fear of losing traditional values, and a Manichaean world view.

Sounds of the south: The rhetorical saga of country music lyrics

The past decade has seen speech communication scholars taking a broader view of rhetorical discourse, and among the subjects of analysis have been the rhetorical strategies of popular music. This study focuses on the lyrics of recent country songs and discovers a distinctly Southern rhetoric beneath the veneer of what appears to be a national medium.

Habermas’ theory of communication: A critical explication

The theory of communication proposed by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has important implications for argumentation scholars, contemporary rhetorical theorists, and students of human interaction processes. This essay explicates and evaluates essential features of Habermas’ theory and indicates ties among Habermas’ concepts and the work of several speech communication scholars.

TOPOIand rhetorical competence

This essay argues that the speech communication scholar can make genuinely original contributions to the general study of communicative development, particularly to the investigation of strategic communication. The thesis advanced is that speech communication scholars need to return their attention to message strategies, but within the framework of the underlying cognitive and cultural structures through which they are created.

Conflicting views of conflict an analysis of basic speech communication textbooks

This article reports the analysis of thirty‐eight textbooks intended for the basic undergraduate speech communication course and published since 1970. The analysis focuses on how and to what extent communication in conflict is treated in these textbooks. Four categories reflecting differences in approaches to communication in conflict as well as in extensiveness of treatment are identified. The approaches discovered are contrasted with the orientations suggested by recent books and articles on the subject of communication in conflict by speech communication scholars.

A strategy of explanation: Richard M. Nixon's August 8, 1974, resignation address

This essay uses the nature of the genre of apologia as outlined by speech communication scholars as a framework to examine Richard Nixon's apology to the nation on the occasion of his resignation. Mr. Nixon conformed well to the requirements of the subgenre, explanation, but erred in areas not suggested in contemporary writings on apologia. The gravity of Nixon's misdeeds and the incongruity of his admission of guilt overshadowed the strategy of explanation which he employed to defend himself.

Cultures in conflict—a generic and axiological view

Government and poll data released in 1971 and late 1972 suggest that the nation remains culturally divided. Speech communication scholars have broadened the scope of rhetoric in order to more adequately describe, interpret, and evaluate this intensely moral or ethical conflict. The central purpose of this essay is to identify the different assumptions regarding decision‐making systems, interaction, and goals between the establishment and the counter culture which make the rhetorical conflicts so profound and inevitable. Generic and axiological methods are useful critical research tools for such an effort. The generic approach provides the foundation for viewing the establishment and the counter culture as distinct rhetorical genres. The axiological perspective distinguishes the major economic, political, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and philosophic value judgments used as premises for persuasion by each culture. Ultimately, a dialectic, rather than consensus, model would appear to be the most useful way ...