Argumentation is fundamentally exhortative: arguments can be understood as invitations to emulate the lives of those who make the arguments. The human exemplar of an argument's substance, e.g. Jesus Christ as exemplar of Christianity, is the paradigm for this theory in which the arguer's identity is seen both as equal in importance to and…

Rufus Choate, a Massachusetts lawyer and orator, has been described as a "unique and romantic phenomenon" in America's history. Born in 1799 in Essex, Massachusetts, Choate graduated from Dartmouth College and attended Harvard Law School. Choate's goal was to be the top in his profession. Daniel Webster was Choate's hero. Choate became…

The communication discipline has advanced the belief that arguing (high argumentativeness) is a constructive communication activity. Recent research efforts have attempted the integration of principles from argumentation, interpersonal communication, and conflict management, and several benefits of high motivation to argue and skill in informal…

As a significant part of America's political heritage, the national political convention keynote address has become an institution of the American political process. Politicians and journalists borrowed the term "keynote" from the vocabulary of music to refer to the setting of campaign themes. Convention speakers learned that it was…

Noting that a series of mechanical rules created for pairing and placement of judges at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) may be useful in developing a computer program to pair tournaments, this paper focuses on the methods used to pair rounds at the NDT and also looks at some pairing options frequently employed by other debate tournaments. The…

An alternative conception to the idea that the audience determines the nature of a speech. (CH)

An exploration of systems concepts applied to argumentation and causal theory. (CH)

In order to clarify and define the subject matter of argumentation, this paper examines the two senses of argument identified by D. J. O'Keefe and then proposes a third sense of argument as another legitimate perspective in argumentation. As discussed in the paper, O'Keefe's two senses of argument are a thing people make and a kind of interaction…

Everything taught as rhetoric today can be traced to Aristotle, but his rhetoric needs to be updated. The five elements of his rhetoric--invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery--were designed for public orators, but rhetoric has since come to mean the written rather than the spoken word. Peter Ramus redefined rhetoric in the sixteenth…

This journal issue is devoted to the critical social theory of the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas and its implications for argumentation theory and practice. Topics discussed in the six articles are: the main themes of Habermas' research and their relevance to argumentation, Habermas and the dialectical perspective on argumentation, a…

The argument of this paper is that psychotherapy is essentially a rhetorical process that, as an alternative to or substitute for religious rhetoric, seeks to lead people to a secular state of grace. The paper first acknowledges the work of four scholars who have written about the rhetoric of psychotherapy: Erling Eng, Pedro Lain Entralgo, Lloyd…

Arguing that systematic analysis of message strategies ought to become a major focus of study within the field of speech communication, this paper offers a limited case study to illustrate the kinds of strategies that might be uncovered. The paper places the illustration within a persuasive context and indicates the kinds of approaches a speaker…

A study examined the attention getting value of nonsensical and sexual humor used in liquor advertisements to determine if one was more effective than the other in attracting male magazine readers. Thirty-two Starch-scored liquor ads taken from 1976 and 1977 issues of "Time,""Newsweek," and "Sports Illustrated" were analyzed by three male readers.…

The purpose of this booklet is to disseminate limited-circulation papers relating to value proposition debating (nonpolicy argument). The six papers provide information on the following topics: the theoretical implications of debating nonpolicy propositions, criteria for evaluating nonpolicy argument, situationally guided standards for evaluating…

Among the many philosophic insights offered by Richard M. Weaver, rhetorical scholars have perhaps been most intrigued by his establishment of circumstance and definition as morally dichotomous sources of argument. Challenging Weaver's assumption that the identification of a rhetor's fact or genus preferences supplies necessary insights into the…