Thoughts on Epideictic Rhetoric

            Certainly the Convocation address uses both an epideictic approach and an informative one.  However, this speech presages a shift to an epideictic role.  As mentioned earlier, there is an epideictic nature to presidential crisis rhetoric.  Yes, this seems obvious when considering the ceremonial nature of some responses to crisis situations.  However, as seen, it also comes into play during news conferences and interviews.  When looking at President Steger’s responses to 4/16, one finds scattered epideictic moments throughout his utterances.  When considering the epideictic dimension of his responses, one must keep in mind the community building nature of epideictic rhetoric.

            Discussions concerning the nature of epideictic rhetoric go back thousands of years.  For instance, it was Aristotle who said epideictic speeches invite audiences to participate in a ritual celebration.  More recently, Richard Chase opined that “praise and blame," not delivery, is what distinguishes epideictic discourse from other types.[55] However, it is also considerably more than praise or blame, celebration or lament.  Lawrence Rosenfield, for instance, argued that epideictic encompasses both the speech and the object of the speech, what he called “the luminosity of noble acts and thoughts."[56] I like this last characterization.  The epideictic speech acts to both embody and highlight “virtue, goodness, the quality inherent in object or deed"; in other words, a person, item, or event’s inherent goodness compels the speaker to acknowledge it.[57] We will see hints of this when President Steger characterizes the Hokie Spirit in later speaking opportunities.

            In contrast to Rosenfield, some believe that epideictic rhetoric is effective only when it successfully functions as a ritual.[58] Such is the case, they argue, since  “ritual achieves meaning and function that is beyond the potential or ordinary, pragmatic behavior and language."[59] Taking into account the ritual dimension of epideictic, researchers following this line of reasoning argue that epideictic rhetoric reinforces a society’s communal values.[60] In a sense, epideictic works to provide both order and a sense of communal identity.

            I am inclined to believe, though, that this function of epideictic does not necessarily draw its strength from the ritualized setting in which it occurs, but rather from the overall situation to which it responds and how the speaker’s response fits in with the needs of a particular audience.  Much of what President Steger said in the epideictic vein was about Virginia Tech identity, or the community that is Virginia Tech.  Celeste Condit assigned epideictic a “communal definition,"[61] and emphasized that through epideictic discourse, “the community renews its conception of itself and of what is good by explaining what it has previously held to be good."[62] It is a way of “rekindling settled values through a process of steady inculcation."[63] Or, put another way, a connecting of  “people to a greater consciousness" and the creation “in the members of the audience a recognition of their oneness, a sense of communality."[64]

            In a most basic sense, then, epideictic is a type of community building discourse.  As Cynthia Sheard wrote, epideictic “strengthens social or institutional cohesion by generating a kind of communal knowledge, a set of palatable cultural truths."[65] For a University community, this level of epideictic understanding would mean that we look at how the community talked to itself as a community; we look at how it defines itself, and how that vision is carried forward into the future.

            Here we see another parallel between the rhetoric of United States Presidents and President Steger.  Mary Stuckey, writing of presidential speaking, stated that, “more than any other participant in the national conversation, the task of articulating the collective culture . . . belongs to the president."[66] His “ability to articulate a specific vision of national identity is greatest on ceremonial occasions, when the speech act itself centers on national values."[67] Using these national values, the president will instill the nation’s loss with meaning.  Thus, “the troubling event will be made less confusing and threatening, providing a sense of comfort for the audience."[68] No less so were Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff, and alumni looking to President Steger to help define the terrible loss for them.