Achieving extra‐genre rhetorical goals: Disarming expectations

Abstract

Though genre theory in rhetoric and rhetorical criticism has been the subject of much research regarding situations, audience expectations, and characteristics of particular genres, there is no discussion of how a speaker might successfully violate genre in order to talk about issues she or he feels are more important. An instance of this exceptional situation is John Hampden Chamberlayne's 1881 Confederate memorial speech, “Graves of the Cray.” Chamberlayne's approach of “disarming expectations” may be generalized within a communication rules perspective, opening new lines of research into the other side of genre theory, and new opportunities for the integration of humanistic and social scientific theory and research.

Key concepts:

• John Hampden Chamberlayne
• communication expectations
• communication rules
• Contingency Rules Theory
• disarming expectations
• genre
• rhetoric.