Terms of use and abuse : the recruiting rhetoric of cults
Cults are negatively regarded. The way in which they persuade people to join their movements is particularly criticised by, for example, the anti-cult movement. Cults do use language in specific ways to recruit new members. There are, however, other groups who use language similarly, for recruitment purposes, but without stigmatisation. A new framework for rhetorical analysis, incorporating both classical tradition and contemporary work in text analysis, is particularly useful at demonstrating this. This thesis develops such a framework and uses it to analyse the rhetoric of three cults, Scientology, The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Children of God, showing that cults' distinctive negative profile in society is not matched by a linguistic typology. Indeed, this negative profile seems to rest on the semantics and application of the term 'cult' itself. Not only does this analysis increase our understanding of rhetoric, it paves the way for new questions to be asked about the pejoration of cults.
Mooney, Annabelle Nell
P Philology. Linguistics ; PE English
Terms of use and abuse : the recruiting rhetoric of cults. Cults are negatively regarded. The way in which they persuade people to join their movements is particularly criticised by, for example, the anti-cult movement. Cults do use language in specific ways to recruit new members. There are, however, other groups who use language similarly, for recruitment purposes, but without stigmatisation. A new framework for rhetorical analysis, incorporating both classical tradition and contemporary work in text analysis, is particularly useful at demonstrating this. This thesis develops such a framework and uses it to analyse the rhetoric of three cults, Scientology, The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Children of God, showing that cults' distinctive negative profile in society is not matched by a linguistic typology. Indeed, this negative profile seems to rest on the semantics and application of the term 'cult' itself. Not only does this analysis increase our understanding of rhetoric, it paves the way for new questions to be asked about the pejoration of cults.
terms use_abuse rhetoric cult cults negatively regard way persuade people join movement particularly criticise example anti cult movement cults use language_specific way recruit new member however group use language similarly recruitment purpose without new framework rhetorical_analysis incorporate classical tradition_contemporary work text_analysis particularly useful demonstrate this develops framework_analyse rhetoric cult children god show cult distinctive negative profile society match linguistic typology indeed negative profile seem rest semantics application term cult itself analysis increase rhetoric pave way new question_ask cult