Theorizing Chemical Rhetoric

Toward an Articulation of Chemistry as a Public Vocabulary

Dados Bibliográficos

ID22693103
AutoresRobin E Jensen (0000-0002-0216-3589, University of Utah, autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume71
Fascículo3
Páginas431-453
Data de publicação2021-07-27
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Communication (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-9916 • E-ISSN: 1460-2466
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/joc/jqab011
OpenAlexW3164587036
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas92

Chemistry has been a pivotal part of scientific discovery and human life for centuries. This essay argues that chemical terms, tropes, figures, appeals, and narratives serve as powerful rhetorical features of public discourse. From affinities and atoms to dark matter and radioactivity, chemical rhetoric fulfills a central organizing function in contemporary society and shapes how people deliberate and delineate their identities, relationships, and communities. The present research demarcates chemical rhetoric as a form of nonexpert communication, and explicates its association with chemistry’s disciplinary history, as well as with technical chemical language’s grounding in key focal concepts. More specifically, it maps out a framework for defining and theorizing chemical rhetoric through three, interconnected lenses: historical–ecological, conceptual articulation, and vernacular. The overarching goal in this essay is to create an infrastructure for investigating chemistry’s longitudinal circulation and emergence as a shared public vocabulary.

Articulation (sociology) · Discipline · Epistemology · Linguistics · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Social science · Sociology · Vocabulary · Chemistry · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies