"Stay hungry. Stay foolish" : genre and rhetorical strategies in commencement addresses

Abstract

 Recent decades witnessed a growing influence of commencement addresses on netizens around the globe due to the increased accessibility of digital records. Characteristically, celebrities from different industries are invited to speak at these ceremonies and give advice to the graduates. Many of them narrate their past experience based on their autobiographical memories and recount how they overcame adversities in significant life events. This dissertation adopted a two-phase analysis to examine 10 commencement addresses given by iconic figures from different fields of expertise. Firstly, a genre analysis was conducted to investigate topical and linguistic elements and the staging patterns of commencement addresses. Secondly, detailed coding and analysis of lexico-grammatical resources were applied to the personal narratives within these texts. Rhetorical strategies were analyzed using framework of the experiential and interpersonal metafunctions of Systemic Functional Linguistics, namely the TRANSITIVITY analysis and the APPRAISAL system (Halliday, 1978; Martin & White, 2005). The findings showed that there are no fixed patterns for organizing generic themes apart from the opening and closing sequences, yet there are typical linguistic and syntactic elements for presenting ideas in a structured manner. While common themes found in this study are largely consistent with previous literature concerning this genre, several new emerging themes were also identified. A myriad of rhetorical strategies corresponding to the three Aristotelian appeals was adopted by the speakers, such as the use of charged language and humor. The deconstruction of personal narratives revealed various approaches to the choice and allocation of lexico-grammatical resources in achieving persuasion.