Rhetorical Emancipation: Apologia and Transcendence on Death Row.

Milford, Mike

The last statement of a condemned prisoner is a compelling rhetorical moment. Rhetors are given the opportunity to answer for charges knowing they cannot alleviate their circumstances. The statements analyzed here suggests that in such cases rhetors rely on transcendence as their preferred form of apologia. These statements show how the rhetorically malleable and strategically vital qualities of the situation may be manipulated to the rhetors' advantage. This analysis of the last statements of condemned prisoners shows how the purposeful enactment of transcendence may be used as a means of rhetorical emancipation through terminological control. Transcendence allows rhetors to align their interpretation of the situation with a broader communal value and escape answering the details of the charges against them.

TRANSCENDENCE (Philosophy); EXECUTIONS & executioners; DEATH row; DEATH row inmates; RHETORIC

Western Journal of Communication, 2019, Vol 83, Issue 3, p326

1057-0314

Academic Journal

10.1080/10570314.2018.1562563