The Rhetorical Analysis of Corporate Speakers: Three Approaches to Warren Buffett’s Letters to Shareholders

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

This panel answers Cyphert’s (2008) call for serious attention to the rhetorical criticism of the public discourse of business leaders by analyzing three letters to shareholders by Warren Buffett. The presenters each use one of three methods of criticism: metaphor, narrative rationality, and modal materiality. The intention is to demonstrate that rhetorical criticism is useful for the study of business communication and that the rhetoric of corporate officers repays serious rhetorical criticism.

Sub Unit

• Association for Business Communication

Chair

• Jean Goodwin, Iowa State University

Individual Presentations

• Metaphors We Trade By: The Natural in the Financial Rhetoric of the Sage of Omaha - David Russell, Iowa State University

• 'Narrative Rationality' in Warren Buffett’s Letters to Shareholders - Anish Dave, Iowa State University

• Letters to the Business Public: The Material Intersections of Wall Street and Main Street - Dale Cyphert, University of Northern Iowa

Respondent

• Randall Iden, Northwestern University

Session Organizer

• David Russell, Iowa State University