William Keith

Identity, rhetoric and myth: A response to Mailloux and leff 1

Abstract Mailloux and Leff urge us to seek a transdisciplinary ground for the study of rhetoric; this essay agrees but argues that neither Leff nor Mailloux has taken sufficient notice of the institutional and historical differences between Speech Communication and English, thus rendering the putative ground unstable. By offering an tentative account of the distinctive general orientation of Speech Communication rhetoricians, I hope to engage a substantive dialogue on the practical conditions of an interdisciplinary study of rhetoric.

On the Origins of Speech as a Discipline: James A. Winans and Public Speaking as Practical Democracy

This article argues that the history of the speech field is best understood by examining the primary sources for its institutional and pedagogical origins, and that public speaking instruction originates in a complex understanding of the civic implications of speech pedagogy.

Statistical Genre Analysis: Toward Big Data Methodologies in Technical Communication

This article pilots a study in statistical genre analysis, a mixed-method approach for (a) identifying conventional responses as a statistical distribution within a big data set and (b) assessing which deviations from the conventional might be more effective for changes in audience, purpose, or context. The study assesses pharmaceutical sponsor presentations at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug advisory committee meetings. Preliminary findings indicate the need for changes to FDA conflict-of-interest policies.

The Problem of Pluralistic Expertise: A Wittgensteinian Approach to the Rhetorical Basis of Expertise

This essay draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work to argue for a practice-oriented concept of expertise. We propose that conceptualizing types of expertise as having a family resemblance, relative to the problems such expertise addresses, escapes certain limitations of defining expertise as primarily epistemic. Recognizing the pragmatic purchase on actual problems a Wittgensteinian approach provides to discussions of expertise, we seek to understand the nature of expertise in situations where the people who need to make a difficult decision do not possess or have access to the epistemic status that traditionally confers expertise. These are situations where people need to answer difficult questions that, while they may be informed by expertise in the epistemic register, are ultimately decided by expertise that weighs certified knowledge against the intractable characteristics of a particular situation. We suggest that there is not—even deep down on a conceptual level—only one kind of expertise, but multiple kinds of expertise that resonate with diverse kinds of problems.

Rhetoric and paradox in scientific revolutions

In this paper we argue that scientists intending to be revolutionary face certain rhetorical constraints. These constraints contain contradictory requirements, forcing a rhetorical paradox on the would‐be revolutionaries. We examine the nature of this paradox and the available resolutions to it.

De Rhetorica Fullerae

I should say at the outset that I actually like this book a lot, but I am not sure how comfortable I am with liking it. It is the sort of innovative, exciting, exasperating, infuriating, and provocative book thats good even when its bad, because it sets everyone to talking and arguing about all kinds of things. Initially, I will give a brief gloss (if such a thing makes sense in reference to a piece of Steve Fullers writing) of the main points of the book and of its virtues. Then I would like to single out two issues for brief discussion: Fullers conception of rhetoric and in what sense he is still a philosopher, in both his case studies and curriculum, despite advertising to the contrary.

Rhetorical criticism and the rhetoric of science: Introduction

Rhetoric, and the field of Communication generally, are much given to self‐reflection, a tendency lamented by some and embraced by others. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkars essay The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science, is a critique that simultaneously exposes, organizes, and evaluates the prevailing assumptions of rhetorical theory and criticism. Dense, imaginative, scholarly, and witty, his essay and its responses are sure to be discussed for years to come.

We are the Speech Teachers

This article discusses the point and purpose of disciplinary history in communication, and offers an account of pedagogical, performative, and melioriative threads in our disciplinary history.

Crafting a Usable History

As we approach the centennial of the National Communication Association in 2014, it is worth reflecting on what we know, do not know, and ought to know about the intellectual and institutional history of our field, and why that history matters. A question arises about the term ‘‘the field,’’ a highly contested concept. If we are willing to historicize our concepts fully, we won’t be able to settle in advance what ‘‘speech’’ or ‘‘communication’’ mean, and then let those concepts guide the construction of a history. Any honest history will be messy, and not just at the edges. However, we can find our way about if we keep in mind the dialectic between material, institutional circumstances, and concepts like speech and communication. Sometimes, as Gerry Philipsen points out in this Forum, institutional considerations drive conceptual ones, as in the early field (‘‘Here’s all the things we will be teaching*wouldn’t ‘speech’ be a good covering label for them?’’). In other cases, especially more recently, conceptual issues have driven institutional arrangements (‘‘OK, if we’re called ‘communication,’ what things should we be teaching in our department?’’). And as David Beard persuasively argues here, tracing these many and varied mutual influences, including extra-curricular, interdisciplinary, and methodological ones, would form the basis of a history of the field and eventually allow us to trace the genealogy of ‘‘speech’’ and ‘‘communication.’’ So, in my view, a history of the field starts from a history of the academic departments that were the precursors to the departments, mostly called communication nowadays, where people subscribe to this journal and belong to NCA. Much of the historical materials we have so far, with two major exceptions, tend toward reminiscence and anecdote and verge on the antiquarian; they rarely go beyond work published in the journals, and much archival work remains to be done. Scholars find little motivation to work on the history of the field at all, let alone to make a career of it. While celebrating exciting new work being done on the interdisciplinary frontiers of rhetorical theory, we should be aware that such work might be enhanced, as Josh Gunn argues here, by a productive dialogue with the past, creating perspective by incongruity, and opening fruitful new connections to our past. The founders of this discipline deserve the genuine respect of being treated as our intellectual equals*both engaged and critiqued by us. For example, Darrin Hicks

Understanding the ecology of the public speaking course

ABSTRACT This essay explores the nested interdependencies and feedback systems that help explain why the “basic” or introductory communication course can only evolve slowly and with difficulty. It considers differences between the basic course and first year composition, and the challenges for bringing them into a closer alignment around a civic theme.