Analyzing Speeches

Rhetors respond to situations

Exigences: Something in the situation demanding response. Long-term or immediate.
Constraints: Elements of the situation which rhetoric must recognize

Characters: Not just who, but what they are like. What is the character of each?
Plot Line: Sequence of events
Protagonist/Antagonist: Struggle is at the center of narrative. Protagonist forces the action; Antagonist meets with opposition
Climax: Moment of greatest tension; The turn in the action
Denouement: Resolution

The dramatistic process provides motivation for action.

The terms are abstract. Examples: <Democracy> <Liberty> < Freedom>
They invoke ideology, beliefs and attitudes. <Liberty> is a word that we can invoke to protect ourselves from the powerful. It is a term that is invoked to help us sort out friendly nations from not-friendly nations. We cannot point to liberty. We can point to other things -- a newspaper criticizing the government -- and call it <liberty>.
They are historically grounded. Ideographs generally have historical narratives that tell us of the importance of our embracing the action principles of the ideograph. For example, we tell the story of the Alamo as about Texans' fight for liberty. The Statue of Liberty serves as a focal point for ancestors who came to this country seeking <liberty>.
They have an energy to motivate action. We invoke ideographs to shape action, behavioral complexes of people working toward ends.

Colonialism was initially an economic system. Colonial countries were owned by the mother country and operated for its benefit. Initially they were seen as a place to extract raw materials, later as exclusive markets to sell the manufacturing goods of the mother country.
Became a powerful ideograph in the 1960s. African nations were achieving independence from their colonial masters. The movement was being celebrated with a narrative of the people living under colonialism oppressed by the colonial masters. (Notice the slave metaphor.) So, the freedom granted to previously colonial nations became a way of talking about the aspirations of people talking about their oppression and the anti-colonial movement in Africa became a beacon of hope for these people.

The antiwar rhetoric opposed to Vietnam presented it as a war to retain an American colony.
Those in the Black Power movement found the ideograph a way to talk about their own aspirations.

Ideographs used in discourse bring the full weight of certain beliefs and attitudes of the culture to bear on a particular situation.

Because ideographs invoke central value systems they have powerful motivational force.