Rhetorical Method

Although there are rhetoric scholars who use qualitative and/or quantitative methods, when one talks about rhetorical methods, one is almost invariably talking about rhetorical criticism. Criticism has been and can be defined in many ways, but for rhetorical scholars, criticism has three main components. First, it involves a description. For instance, if a rhetorical critic were to critique Ronald Reagan’s Challenger eulogy, he or she might describe its subject matter (a farewell to and celebration of the astronauts who perished in the space shuttle explosion in 1986), its medium (television), and its form (the elements of the eulogy and how those elements were put together). Second, criticism requires an interpretation. Here, the critic is trying to answer the question: what is this text about? The interpretive component of criticism is also where the critic presents evidence to support her or his claims about the text. Returning to the Challenger eulogy, a rhetorical critic might argue that the text is about manifest destiny, the cultural story that Americans were destined to hold the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans because we are explorers. As evidence, the critic might cite Reagan’s words, “Their truest [Page 1503]testimony will not be in the words we speak but in the way they lived their lives and in the way they lost their lives—with dedication, honor and an unquenchable desire to explore this mysterious and beautiful universe.” Third, rhetorical criticism asks the critic to confer judgment on the text—Is it good? Is it bad? Is it successful? Is it unsuccessful? Is it valuable? Is it dangerous? A critic examining the Challenger eulogy might note that it is held up as one of Ronald Reagan’s finest orations, and that it showed Reagan’s political and cultural acumen because he delivered the eulogy in remembrance and celebration of national heroes in lieu of the State of the Union in 1986 because he recognized the depth and significance of this tragedy to the American people.

Readers may have already picked up two other considerations in rhetorical criticism: the critic and the text. The person who does rhetorical criticism is called the critic, and the object of that person’s critique is known as the text. In rhetorical methods, a critic analyzes single or multiple texts to express an informed preference, to understand how the texts fit into a larger social or political or historical or economic framework, to unpack meaning, and to give context to the text. In other words, the critic’s job is not only to identify that Ronald Reagan gave a speech eulogizing the astronauts who perished in the Challenger explosion, but it is also to explicate why Reagan gave a eulogy rather than a State of the Union address, why he delivered it from the Oval Office and on television, and why he alludes to the notion of manifest destiny in the context of space exploration. A good rhetorical critic wants to contribute to a body of knowledge about communication, whether that is presidential speeches, popular culture, or political discourse.

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