Rethinking Reagan’s Closing Statement: The Rhetorical Anecdote, Synecdoche, and Ethotic Argument

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar II
  In Paper Session: Public Address and Political Issues

Abstract

Scholars of presidential debates and argumentation theorists dismiss anecdotes as insufficient evidentiary forms. The purpose of this essay is to explicate a theory of the rhetorical anecdote and argue how this complexly condensed narrative-based strategy combines synecdoche with ethotic argument to engender representations of presidential identity. I support my claims through a close textual analysis that reconsiders how Reagan’s anecdote in the second 1984 presidential debate functions in the discursive ways mentioned above.

Author

• Christopher Oldenburg, Univ of Memphis