A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric

The Case of the “Sinner's Prayer” Online

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8934170
AutoresRobert Glenn Howard, Robert Howard (0000-0002-3071-2338, autor de correspondencia)
Año2005
Volumen116
Número2
Páginas172-188
Fecha de publicación2005-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaFolklore (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00155870500140214
OpenAlexW1835494918
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas27
Referencias citadas31

This paper seeks to rigorously define and illustrate the analytic category of “vernacular rhetoric” through an examination of the “Sinner's Prayer” as it appears on an amateur web page. In the online environment, this invitation to a traditional prayer performance seems to be a strategy for converting non-Christians. Through the application of the concept of vernacular rhetoric, however, it becomes clear that the deployment of the prayer can also function as an invitation for the already-converted to “testify” to their faith. In this way, the apparently evangelic prayer form also functions as an invitation for the already-converted to perform previously held values. By applying the concept of vernacular rhetoric to this example of online discourse, its value as an analytic category becomes clear because it can address the performative nature of World Wide Web-based documents

Aesthetics · Amateur · Art · Epistemology · Faith · Function (biology · Linguistics · Literature · Performative utterance · Political science · Prayer · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theology · Value (mathematics · Vernacular · Computer Science · Law · Media, Communication, and Education · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies