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This thesis examines the manner in which Ronald Reagan responded to the Tower Commission Report concerning his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. It explores the following questions: 1) What were the factors leading to a rhetorical situation as defined by the media and which required Ronald Reagan to provide a public response of self-defense; 2) what strategies of apologia did Reagan employ; and 3) how did the media and the White House characterize the outcome of Reagan's speech? Data for analysis were drawn from nationally recognized newspapers that shaped public perception of the Iran-Contra Affair: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. In addition, The Tower Commission Report and Ronald Reagan's March 4, 1987 speech were used as primary texts. It was found that the events of the Iran-Contra Affair qualified as a crisis, and exemplified an exigence needing a response. The thesis demonstrated that the Iran-contra Affair was an appropriate case for study as a rhetorical situation. Analysis demonstrates how Ronald Reagan made full use of the conventional apologetic strategies of denial, bolstering, differentiation, and transcendence to regain lost credibility; moreover, analysis provides further evidence of the utility of genre criticism.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the rhetorical strategies used by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson from the 1970's to the 1990's. Specifically, this study examines Jackson's use of narrative to empower himself, his constituency, and his political ideologies without possessing a traditional political platform. Jackson raised political and social consciousness regarding the positions he held by telling persuasive, strategically constructed narratives. By examining Jackson's narrated approach to politics, arguments can be constructed to demonstrate how Jackson rhetorically operates from an unorthodox platform in the political arena. A functionalist view of narrative, as defined by Lucaites and Condit (1985), is applied to Jackson's 1984, 1988, and 1992 Democratic National Convention addresses in order to account for "tangible" objectives being carried out by the narrative discourse form. In doing so, the study argues that Jackson's narratives initially functioned: to empower Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition; to bolster public approval ratings of Jackson from 30% to 54%; and later to promote Statehood for Washington D.C. / Graduation date: 1994

This dissertation examines the function and relevance of invective in late 4th century oratory. I bring together recent approaches to performance, humor, and legal studies in order to reevaluate the role of character depiction, and especially character assassination, in forensic rhetoric. Both on the comic stage and in the courts, evoking derisive laughter from the audience was an important mechanism for effecting social control. I demonstrate how the orators draw from Old and Middle Comedy to depict opponents as character types, like braggarts (alazones), flatterers (kolakes), and comic prostitutes (male hetairai/pornoi). I argue further that speakers do not use invective to skirt legal issues; rather, they tailor their arguments about character to the legal charge. In the Athenian system, the concept of legal relevance was broad and subject to manipulation. The only mechanism of restraint on a speaker was the threat of being shouted down (thorubos) by the jury. Invective, therefore, was not automatically “out of bounds”. Moreover, issues of character and morality were of increasing public concern in 4th-century Athens (as evidenced by Xenophon, Middle Comedy, and oratory alike). To the minds of Athenian jurors, information about character provided important evidence for reaching a just verdict. / text

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Can the political eloquence of Louis-Joseph Papineau, one of the great Canadian orators of the nineteenth century, be revived? There are still no significant studies on the logic of argumentation or on the image of a certain representation of the political crisis set by the orations of the Honorable Speaker of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada. The following thesis focuses on Louis-Joseph Papineau's political discourses of 1830-1837. By the analysis of the representations and the reasonings, of the argumentation, of the rhetorical functions fulfilled by the discourses and also by the analysis of the social vectors at work in these, this document establishes landmarks and proposes a topographical outlook of Papineau's political rhetoric. It seek;s to show the topic organisation and functioning of this rhetoric, in a nineteenth century setting of oratorical and political culture.

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Tradução e estudo dos discursos para Demônico, para Nícocles, Nícocles, e Evágoras de Isócrates. A introdução se concentra na relação de Isócrates com a tradição poética grega. / Translation and study of the speeches to Demonicus, to Nicocles, Nicocles, and Evagoras of Isocrates. The introduction focuses on Isocrates\' use of the Greek poetic tradition.

Trata-se de uma dissertação sobre o pensamento filosófico de Agostinho de Hipona em relação à beleza do discurso e à utilidade da retórica e da eloqüência, temas que aparecem no livro IV do De doctrina christiana (Da instrução cristã) e, por isso, dentro da reflexão sobre o ideal de uma educação tipicamente cristã. Na Antigüidade, embora a eloqüência estivesse intrinsecamente ligada à arte retórica, esta questão, para Agostinho, deve ser tratada em conexão com algumas orientações da filosofia moral e da teologia cristãs, situadas para além da técnica. Em comparação com o antigo ideal oratório romano, sobretudo o ciceroniano, a maior importância conferida por Agostinho à Bíblia cristã, isto é, à sabedoria e à moral dos autores bíblicos, traz novos significados para o termo \'eloqüência\'. Além disso, o aprendizado oratório, que se alicerçava na doutrina e no hábito, é dessa vez resumido e transmitido por Agostinho segundo um método radical de imitação, cujos modelos passam a ser os escritores bíblicos e eclesiásticos, aqueles inspirados por Deus e gratificados com a união da eloqüência à sabedoria. / This dissertation is about the philosophical thinking of Augustine of Hippo in relation to the beauty of speech and the usefulness of rhetoric and eloquence, themes that appear in Book IV of De doctrina christiana (On Christian Teaching) and therefore within the reflection on the ideal of education typically Christian. In Antiquity, although the eloquence was intrinsically linked to the rhetorical art, this issue, for Augustine, it must be treated in connection with some directions of Christian moral philosophy and theology, located beyond the technique. In comparison to the antique ideal of Roman oratory, especially the Ciceronian, the greater importance given by Augustine to the Christian Bible, that is, to the wisdom and morality of the biblical authors, bring new meaning to the term \'eloquence\'. Moreover, the learning of oratory, which was based on the doctrine and habit, this time is summed up by Augustine and transmitted according to a radical method of imitation, whose models have to be the biblical and ecclesiastical writers, those inspired by God and rewarded with union between eloquence and wisdom.