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- Title
Situating Speech: A Rhetorical Approach to Political Strategy.
- Authors
Martin, James
- Abstract
Ideas are increasingly acknowledged as factors in explaining political behaviour. But often they are treated as inert resources rather than dynamic instances of action in themselves. The latter, I propose, requires reflection on the character of speech - as the medium of ideas - in responding to and refiguring a prevailing situation. I undertake such reflection by setting out a rhetorical approach to political strategy. Building upon 'interpretive' advances in political science I shift the focus from stable cognitive frames to the dynamics of argumentation where ideas work expressively. I then explore the rhetorical aspect of strategising with attention to the way speech serves to orient audiences by creatively re-appropriating a situation. That approach is shown to be consistent with a 'dialectical' political sociology that emphasises the interaction of structure and agency. Finally, I sketch a method for undertaking rhetorical analysis and indicate how it might be applied to a concrete example.
- Subjects
RHETORIC &; politics; FRAMES (Social sciences); POLITICAL sociology; AGENT (Philosophy); RHETORICAL analysis; SITUATION (Philosophy); IDEA (Philosophy); KENNEDY, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963; INAUGURAL addresses of American presidents
- Publication
Political Studies, 2015, Vol 63, Issue 1, p25
- ISSN
0032-3217
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-9248.12039