The functions of epideictic: The Boston massacre orations as exemplar

Abstract

Existing theories of epideictic focus on the content of the speeches as “praise and blame,”; on the speaker's uses of the event or, more recently, on the audience's uses of the event. This essay argues that three pairs of functions define the epideictic experience for speakers and audiences and produce their characteristic message contents. Those pairs include definition/understanding, shaping of community, and display/entertainment. The utility of the perspective is indicated through an exemplary case of such “communal definition.”