Constitutive Rhetoric

On viewing identity as an outcome of address

Charland is a Burkean

Charland is a Burkean

• He is concerned with identification, which as Burke says, must happen prior to persuasion

Charland is a Burkean

• He is concerned with identification, which as Burke says, must happen prior to persuasion

• These forms of address happen “spontaneously, intuitively, even unconsciously”

Charland is a Burkean

• He is concerned with identification, which as Burke says, must happen prior to persuasion

• These forms of address happen “spontaneously, intuitively, even unconsciously”

Charland is a Burkean

• He is concerned with identification, which as Burke says, must happen prior to persuasion

• These forms of address happen “spontaneously, intuitively, even unconsciously”

• So Charland, like Burke, wants a rhetorical theory able to account for how group and individual identities form “beyond the realm of rational or even free choice, beyond the realm of persuasion”

Some Grounding Questions:

Some Grounding Questions:

When have you found yourself addressed in a way that changes how you appear to yourself and others?

Some Grounding Questions:

When have you found yourself addressed in a way that changes how you appear to yourself and others?

Can you consider examples of how your identity as a citizen of a city, state, or nation was formed by specific kinds of address?

Some Grounding Questions:

When have you found yourself addressed in a way that changes how you appear to yourself and others?

Can you consider examples of how your identity as a citizen of a city, state, or nation was formed by specific kinds of address?

What about your identity as a fan or follower of a specific sport, team, art form, artist, etc?

Some Grounding Questions:

When have you found yourself addressed in a way that changes how you appear to yourself and others?

Can you consider examples of how your identity as a citizen of a city, state, or nation was formed by specific kinds of address?

What about your identity as a fan or follower of a specific sport, team, art form, artist, etc?

Are even more fundamental qualities such as race, gender, sexuality, religious identity an outcome of constitutive rhetoric?

Charland’s Case

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois• Prior to a specific speech act in 1967, the term

“Quebecois” simply referred a resident of the city of Quebec.

•

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois• Prior to a specific speech act in 1967, the term

“Quebecois” simply referred a resident of the city of Quebec.

• But, when an organization publically declared “We are Quebecois” that term began to name a totally different entity:

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois• Prior to a specific speech act in 1967, the term

“Quebecois” simply referred a resident of the city of Quebec.

• But, when an organization publically declared “We are Quebecois” that term began to name a totally different entity: The French-speaking Canadians who sought to separate from the nation.

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois• The declaration (and the referendum that

followed) helped constitute a new political identity

Charland’s Case

The “constitution” of the peuple Quebecois• The declaration (and the referendum that

followed) helped constitute a new political identity– previously, to be a “French Canadian” was a cultural and linguistic but not a political status.

Charland’s Case

The ideological “trick”:

Charland’s Case

The ideological “trick” (p. 137):• It seems as though the Quebecois were always

already “there” just waiting to be named.

Charland’s Case

The ideological “trick” (p. 137):• It seems as though the Quebecois were always

already “there” just waiting to be named.• But for Charland, that “natural” identity was in

fact created in speech.

Charland’s Case

The ideological “trick” (p. 137):• It seems as though the Quebecois were always

already “there” just waiting to be named.• But for Charland, that “natural” identity was in

fact created in the address. • Note, too that these constitutive narratives

both create and constrain identity.

Charland’s Case

Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive:

Charland’s Case

Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive:• Consider the effect of being addressed in a

way that give you a new point of self-recognition

•

Charland’s Case

Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive:• Consider the effect of being addressed in a way

that give you a new point of self-recognition• Such speeches “give order to human experience

and…induce others to dwell in it to establish ways of living in common, in communion in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life” (Fisher quoted in Charland, 142).

Charland’s Case

Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive:• Consider the effect of being addressed in a way that give

you a new point of self-recognition• Such speeches “give order to human experience and…

induce others to dwell in it to establish ways of living in common, in communion in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life” (Fisher quoted in Charland, 142).

• Thus, constitutive rhetoric is “akin…to…conversion that ultimately results in an act of recognition of the ’rightness’ of a discourse and of one’s identity….”

Constituting the Party

Constituting the Party

The rant that started the movement