1. Rhetorical Form, Lies & Euphemisms, and Myths & Metaphors
Chapters 5 -7 Hahn

2. Form Components
How the elements are combined, put together, the pattern, the style of presentation, delivery
Speech auditors don’t listen for form; they listen for content (i.e., do they agree with the speaker?)
As students of political language, we must attempt to understand how discourses work, how rhetors attempt to persuade us.
A sure “index” to a person’s political position could be found in the speaker’s “characteristic way of thinking, inevitably expressed in the type of argument” presented. –Richard Weaver

3. Perspective and Form
President Ronald Reagan’s “characteristic way of thinking” was in SYNECDOCHES.
Synecdoche is the most common form of METONYMY.
Metonymy involves RELATIONSHIPS between what is said and what is meant. The synecdoche form of metonymy invokes a part-to-whole (or whole-to-part) relationship.
The function of Reagan’s anecdotes—the narratives about particular instances, people, etc.—was to “stand for” whole classes of people in similar circumstances.
Problems with this? Does a single example prove anything?
See George W. Bush example on page 76.

4. Perspective and Form, continued
Presidential discourse is often designed more to REFLECT citizen attitudes than to CHANGE them.
Deliberative, Epideictic, Forensic Speech FORMS
“Even when a president does seem to be talking about policy-making, presenting information for the consideration of the citizenry—for example, in a crisis— the form of the address need not be perceived as an example of deliberative oratory in the Aristotelian sense, i.e., of a rhetor laying out the arguments of a position in an attempt to win the audience’s agreement. It may be that the president just needed a pretext to appear “presidential.”
“Crisis is sometimes most profitably studied as an act of presidential labeling.”

5. Identification Kenneth Burke and “consubstantiation”
Identification concerns “one’s ways of sharing vicariously in the role of leader or spokesman…allegiance and change of allegiance…one’s way of seeing one’s reflection in the social mirror…positive and negative responses to authority” (77).
While the most obvious way for politicians to identify with voters is through agreeing with them at the content level, identification cal also be accomplished through form. [Wordles and “WE”]

6. Independence Day
Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind.
Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today.
We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.
We will be united in our common interests.
Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.
We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.
And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:
"We will not go quietly into the night!
We will not vanish without a fight!
We're going to live on!
We're going to survive!"
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!

7. Wordles

8. Form and Persuasion Identification (77) Action (79)
Emotional Involvement (80)
Logic/Rationality (82)
Strength (83)
Honesty (84)
Grandeur (85)
Ideological Correctness (88)

9. Euphemisms to Lies Euphemisms & Disphemisms Lies and “not lies at all”
Simplifications
Generalizations
The Art of Saying Nothing (memorable phrases, earnestness, grand vision, jargon, nice words, etc.)
The Language Mechanisms in Combination

10. Myths and Metaphors Kenneth Burke: Water Metaphors
Terministic Compulsion
If you know the metaphors with which people describe a problem, you may be able to predict the nature of their solution even before they figure it out. (121).
obamacare
EXAMPLE:
Obamacare will destroy the country.
Obamacare will destroy the economy.
Obamacare violates the Constitution.

11. Edelman & American Mythology
All problems are caused by outgroups.
Our leaders are benevolent heroes who will lead us out of danger.
The function of the citizen is to work hard to do the bidding of the leader.

12. Parentian Approach You can’t fight city hall Our leaders know best
You cannot legislate morality
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
It doesn’t make any difference who we elect; they’re all the same.
The five myths all encourage passivity and conformity in the electorate (129).

13. Common Political Metaphors
(129)

14. Myths & American Ideology
Messianic Myth
The myth of Individualism & Hard Work
The myth of youth.
The myth of love and openness.
But, “citizen passivity is dangerous” (132).