Nesta pesquisa, apresentamos uma nova tradução da Germania de Tácito para o português brasileiro, acompanhada de um estudo literário, no qual nos ocuparemos, primeiramente, do estabelecimento do gênero literário deste texto e dos problemas e dificuldades próprios deste e, depois, da construção do êthos da população germânica na obra, considerando preceitos do gênero epíditico da retórica e conceitos relativos à ekphrasis / In this research, we present a new translation of Tacitus Germania to Brazilian Portuguese. It is preceded by a literary study that firstly investigates the establishment of the literary genre of Tacitus text and the problems that arise from it, and then, the construction of the êthos of the Germanic people in Tacitus work, considering rhetorical precepts from the epideictic genre and concepts related to ekphrasis

When a disaster the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill takes place, is it natural for the news media stories, investigative reports, and public deliberation to focus almost exclusively on finding the person or group responsible for such a horrendous scene. Rhetorically speaking, the discourse surrounding the event can be characterized as a reductive form of praise and blame rhetoric (epideixis). However, these efforts, while well-intentioned, are troublesome because searches for the one technical cause and the sole personal culpability are thwarted by the sheer complexity of the ecological, technological, scientific, institutional, and communicative network required for such a disaster to take place. Thus, to demonstrate the insufficiency of extant models of disaster in a variety of fields, which tend to privilege human-centered approaches, Dead Man's Switch: Disaster Rhetorics in a Posthuman Age explores the ontology, technical documentation, and rhetorical theory of disasters through a posthuman lens. To find a more critical approach to understanding the nature of disasters in the twenty-first century, I ask the following questions: How do rhetoricians and technical communicators account more fully for the human and nonhuman forces at work in the precipitation of disaster? How do rhetoricians and technical communicators find an approach to ecological catastrophe that goes beyond the mere "environmentalist rhetoric" characterizing the public response? Through the application of several posthumanist theories, my project develops an approach to disaster that complicates traditional ways of approaching causality and blame. I use accident reports, news media stories, and popular literature as data for this project. By examining these texts, my project has broad implications for technical communication, rhetorical theory, and philosophy of rhetoric.

Cette thèse porte sur les nécrologies de presse : ce genre de discours est analysé à partir du cadre théorique de l’analyse du discours, en croisant les outils de la linguistique textuelle, de l’énonciation et de l’argumentation. L’analyse prend appui sur un corpus de quelque cinq-cents nécrologies, issues de toutes les catégories de la presse française contemporaine. L’objectif est de montrer que la nécrologie constitue une des formes modernes du rite funéraire en Occident. Pour ce faire, la thèse s’articule en deux parties : dans un premier temps, il s’agit de mettre en évidence le fait que la nécrologie est un genre de discours très ritualisé, dans ses diverses dimensions (médiatique, compositionnelle, pragmatique, énonciative). Cette forme routinière est indispensable à l’accomplissement du rite : l’ordre du discours vient effacer le chaos engendré par le décès. Dans un second temps, la thèse s’interroge sur la finalité rituelle de la nécrologie : à quoi bon écrire sur quelqu’un qui vient de mourir ? Il s’agit dès lors de montrer que la visée de la nécrologie consiste à manifester la présence du disparu, au-delà de son décès, à travers son évocation voire sa convocation dans le discours, afin d’affirmer des valeurs communes, rassemblant le nécrologue, le journal, le défunt et les lecteurs, conformément à la fonction du discours épidictique. La thèse s’attache à mettre en évidence le fonctionnement des marques linguistiques (notamment l’effacement énonciatif, le discours représenté, l’interpellation, la mise en scène des émotions, le recours à l’hyperstructure) qui montrent comment cette communauté de valeurs est ainsi reconstruite par la nécrologie, au moment où la mort d’un de ses membres éminents met sa cohésion en péril. / This thesis analyses press obituaries from a discourse analysis perspective and with a cross-disciplinary approach combining text linguistics, enunciation and argumentation theory. The analysis is based on a corpus of approximately 500 obituaries from all forms of contemporary French print media. It aims to demonstrate that obituaries are one of the modern forms of funeral rite in Western culture. To that end, it is divided in two parts: the first one shows that obituaries belong to a highly ritualised speech genre in all its dimensions (mediatic, compositional, pragmatic and enunciative). This routine form of expression is essential to the full performance of the rite: the order of speech restructures the chaos resulting from death. The study then questions the purpose of obituaries as a ritual: why write about someone who just died? It argues that this form of writing, characterised by its epideictic function, is a manifestation of the departed’s presence, beyond death, through their evocation or even summoning in speech. It asserts common values shared by the obituarist, the newspaper's editors, the deceased person and the readers. This work seeks to bring into light how linguistic markers (enunciative effacement, represented discourse, address form, staging of emotion, use of hyperstructure) indicate that obituaries are a way of reconstructing the cohesion of a community of values endangered by the death of one of its prominent members.

Nesta pesquisa, apresentamos uma nova tradução da Germania de Tácito para o português brasileiro, acompanhada de um estudo literário, no qual nos ocuparemos, primeiramente, do estabelecimento do gênero literário deste texto e dos problemas e dificuldades próprios deste e, depois, da construção do êthos da população germânica na obra, considerando preceitos do gênero epíditico da retórica e conceitos relativos à ekphrasis / In this research, we present a new translation of Tacitus Germania to Brazilian Portuguese. It is preceded by a literary study that firstly investigates the establishment of the literary genre of Tacitus text and the problems that arise from it, and then, the construction of the êthos of the Germanic people in Tacitus work, considering rhetorical precepts from the epideictic genre and concepts related to ekphrasis

This essay examines the epideictic genre by using qualitative method to analyze acceptance speeches from the Swedish Grammy awards. These speeches and their speakers are often described as rhetorically mediocre and there seems to be a notion within the music community that an acceptance speech is personal and without deeper meaning. From a functionalistic perspective on genre, these speeches can be seen as working together with other genres that carry information about the winners. Why would skilled performers who know how to entertain an audience choose to repeat rhetorical mistakes? This essay uses different perspectives on rhetorical situation and genre as well as multimodal analysis of verbal- and nonverbal communication, to argue that these particular speeches in this particular situation come with their own set of expectations and values that the speakers have to acknowledge if they are to meet the epideictic purpose: To unite the audience around common values and create an enjoyable collective memory. The results show that most of the winners do so by multimodal activity where verbal and nonverbal communication work together to highlight values that are part of each winner’s persona as well as values that are celebrated within the music community as a whole.

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Environmental rhetoric has the capacity to render private citizens a concerned public. In doing so, it can prompt in individual practices of what, in classical rhetoric, was described as civic virtue and engage them in activities of responsible citizenship that work toward practical change. Within the recent tradition of environmental public discourse in the United States, Rachel Carson and Al Gore have each realized this capacity in their use of environmental rhetoric, by addressing, respectively, the issues of pesticide pollution and global warming in ways that galvanized citizens as an active public. This thesis examines the reasons behind this effectiveness. It asserts that both Carson and Gore employed a modernized epideictic as a rhetorical tool through which on the one hand, enabled them to invoke the shared values and associated emotions that have the capacity to bind citizens together in common cause, and on the other hand, to convey their own ethical character as civic speakers worthy of trust and emulation. My project in this thesis is to comprehensively track the process of arousing those political emotions and character in the writings of Rachel Carson and Al Gore, both of whom entered the public discourse in moments of environmental crises.

This thesis explores the renewal process within the Moderate Party from a postmodern perspective, focusing on epideictic rhetoric and theories of pseudo-events. By analyzing the party's strategic repositioning and communication methods, the study examines how the Moderates reshaped their public image and relationship with the electorate. Utilizing examples from political statements and internal documents, the thesis demonstrates how staged events and media appearances were used to direct public discourse. It also highlights how this renewal work contributed to shaping the party's identity and strategy in an era characterized by the increasing significance of media and image-focused political communication. This study thereby contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature of contemporary political communication and its effects on democratic processes and political engagement.

In releasing the songs "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" and "American Soldier" in the aftermath of September 11, country artist Toby Keith enacts a tradition that has been established in the world of country music since the Civil War, that of producing wartime songs of patriotism. I conducted an organic analysis of both songs as rhetorical acts produced and consumed within a particular rhetorical context. Because country music is fundamentally a discourse that celebrates the attitudes, values and experiences of its audience, I first analyzed these two songs as instances of epideictic rhetoric. As an epideictic rhetor, Keith reinforces the traditional values of the country music audience, uniting them in celebration of the communal identity that renders them a rhetorical community. That shared identity enables Keith to advance a rhetorical vision of a post-September 11 reality, attributing meaning to the events of September 11 and the ensuing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I use pentadic analysis to illuminate the vision presented in each song, and I utilize both media coverage and the Billboard charts to determine how well this vision "chained out" amongst the country music audience. Lastly, I utilize media coverage to explore the rhetorical context in which these songs were written and consumed. / Master of Arts

Les séries télévisées dramatiques américaines contemporaines (1990-2005) ont développé un mode de communication spécifique avec les téléspectateurs, fondé sur la construction d’une connivence entre le public et le programme, que nous étudierons en utilisant les principes de la rhétorique épidictique. Deux axes sont particulièrement importants et font l’objet d’une attention particulière : les seuils (titres, génériques, épigraphes, etc.) et les phénomènes d’intertextualité et de transtextualité.Les premiers sont devenus des lieux de jeu entre les producteurs du discours (chaînes, créateurs, producteurs exécutifs, scénaristes) et le public : oscillant entre normes industrielles et dynamisme créatif personnel, ils accompagnent les téléspectateurs dans leur entrée et leur sortie de la série et manifestent de forts enjeux marketing.Les phénomènes d’intertextualité et de transtextualité sont d’abord le spin off et le crossover, mais aussi tout le continuum des procédés de citation et de référence qui aboutissent à la constitution d’un texte-centon. Ils finissent par faire de la série télévisée un palimpseste, dans lequel chaque texte est l’écho de mille autres textes, d’événements de notre contemporanéité et nous rappelle les situations de notre vie.La série télévisée devient ainsi un rituel, non seulement de consommation (regarder son épisode chaque semaine), mais aussi au sens que la rhétorique épidictique donne à ce mot : elle permet de créer une communauté réunie autour de valeurs partagées. / Contemporary US TV dramas (from 1990 to 2005) have developed a specific communication process with their viewers, based on a strong proximity established between the audience and the program. In studying this issue we will apply the principles of the epideictic rhetoric. Two aspects are especially relevant and will thus receive particular attention: first the thresholds à la Genette (titles, opening credits, taglines, etc.), then the phenomena of intertextuality and transtextuality.Thresholds have become the loci of a game between the discourse producers (networks, creators, executive producers, writers) and the audience: navigating between industrial conventions and personal creative dynamism, they go alongside the TV viewer in its entrance and its exit of the series and embody significant marketing issues.The phenomena of intertextuality and transtextuality, on the other hand, are particularly apparent in both the spinoff and the crossover, as well as in a continuum of processes ranging from quotes to references. Altogether they lead to the constitution of a text-cento. Ultimately, they transform TV shows into a palimpsest, in which each text echoes thousands of other texts, key events of our contemporaneousness as well as reminders of the audience’s own life.In summary, TV shows have become a ritual in their own right, not only of consumption (watching an episode a week), but also in the sense that epideictic rhetoric gives to the concept: they create a community united around shared values.