占领华尔街运动的修辞批评

围绕2011年美国金融中心纽约爆发并迅速席卷全国的占领华尔街运动,运用社会运动修辞批评有关理论对这场声势浩大的运动进行修辞学解读。从修辞学角度看,占领华尔街运动可以描述为占领运动者通过占领行为的各种形式影响政府或有关机构从而改变现状。作为修辞者,占领运动者审时度势,采取了众多修辞形式,如选择具有象征意义的场所、静坐、贴标语、喊口号、游行示威、演讲、唱歌等。这场运动之所以能够发生并持续相当长的时间,一个重要的原因是运动修辞者提出了一个能打动人心的主张,并有效地运用了“可获得的”修辞手段。

A Rhetorical Critique of the Occupy Wall Street Movement

In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street Movement erupted in the financial center of New York City, and rapidly swept across the whole country.This paper, on the basis of some relevant theories of social movement criticism, conducts a rhetorical criticism of this event.Rhetorically, the movement can be described as its participants'' endeavor to utilize all kinds of forms to persuade the government or relevant institutions to change the status quo.As rhetors, these participants adopted various rhetorical means, such as selecting symbolic venue, sitting-ins, chanting slogans, putting on protest signs, staging protest marches, making speeches, singing songs, etc.The reason why such a social movement could occur and sustain itself for a long time was largely that the movement rhetors presented an appealing claim and effectively utilized all the means "available" in that rhetorical situation.