Identity Formation Through Constitutive Rhetoric

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?

Charlands Case

Charlands Case The constitution of the peuple Quebecois

Charlands 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.

Charlands 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:

Charlands 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.

Charlands Case The constitution of the peuple Quebecois The declaration (and the referendum that followed) helped constitute a new political identity

Charlands 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.

Charlands Case The ideological trick :

Charlands Case The ideological trick (p. 137): It seems as though the Quebecois were always already there just waiting to be named.

Charlands 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.

Charlands 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.

Charlands Case Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive:

Charlands Case Constitutive rhetorics can be seductive: Consider the effect of being addressed in a way that give you a new point of self- recognition

Charlands 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).

Charlands 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