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Publicised claims of young people’s low literacy rates on international assessments concern parents, teachers and policy-makers in Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ). Policymakers often turn to policy solutions from elsewhere when faced with crisis narratives. In this illustrative case study, we have captured a particular moment in ANZ as the diffusion of international literacy policies informed by the Science of Reading (SOR) has morphed into a particular policy strain: structured literacy. Policy diffusion captures the movement of policy across borders, grounded in assumptions that ‘best practices’ transfer equally from one context to another. Drawing on discourses from the science of reading (SOR) movement, intermediary associations in ANZ wield grey literature in public media spaces to persuade politicians, teachers and the public to take up imposed policy. In this article, we combined a Foucauldian-informed view of discourse with the classic rhetorical tools of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos and kairos) to analyse a sample of government literacy policy statements, grey literature and media articles to critically consider how the contest was framed for the public and teachers and its potential effects.

Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthian church details the various problems it faced, with the primary issue in 1 Corinthians 14 being the use of spiritual gifts. Churches today are not free from similar issues, making Paul’s letter particularly relevant, especially regarding spiritual gifts. This article interprets 1 Corinthians 14:1–40, focusing on Paul’s persuasion of the Corinthians towards proper use of spiritual gifts. The interpretation employs a text-centred rhetorical approach called ‘text-generated persuasion-interpretation’ (TGPI), which avoids imposing a predefined rhetorical model, whether ancient or contemporary. Following Tolmie and Snyman’s framework, the study identifies the dominant rhetorical strategy in each pericope and examines how Paul uses rhetorical techniques to enhance his communication’s effectiveness. The article highlights Paul’s rhetorical objectives in 1 Corinthians 14:1–40 and how he achieves them. Specifically, it addresses two key questions: (1) How can the author’s primary rhetorical objective be described? (2) How does the author achieve this objective? The conclusion asserts that Paul’s rhetorical strategies in 1 Corinthians 14 effectively guide churches towards proper use of spiritual gifts, making his teachings relevant to contemporary church issues.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implicationsReading 1 Corinthians through rhetorical criticism is common, although there is no consensus on approach. This article, allowing the text to speak for itself, aims to enhance understanding of Pauline rhetoric, its application to modern church practices, and New Testament scholarship. Using the TGPI method, it integrates classical rhetorical criticism and socio-historical aspects to offer a fresh perspective on the chapter, making Paul’s teachings more relevant to contemporary audiences.

This article interprets the persuasion of Paul’s communication to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 12:31b–13:3 from a text-generated persuasion-interpretation (TGPI) rhetorical perspective. Text-generated persuasion-interpretation is not based on ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric and differs from ancient rhetorical analyses. Ancient Greco-Roman rhetorical analyses reimpose rhetorical categories on the text, analysing it within the confines of those rhetorical categories that merely mention rhetorical stylistic devices and techniques that the author uses to persuade the audience. Instead, this rhetorical approach is done by reconstructing the rhetorical strategy from the text itself, in other words, how Paul used rhetorical arguments and rhetorical techniques when persuading the Corinthians to pursue unity and order, by eulogising the excellencies of love. Paul’s persuasive strategy from 1 Corinthians 12:31b–13:3 was constructed and analysed. The descriptive analysis of the author’s persuasive intent was constructed from the text itself, proving that the means the author uses to persuade the readers can be based on the text alone. The author’s dominant rhetorical strategy was defined from the text, by determining his primary rhetorical objective in the particular section. This article showed that Paul employed various rhetorical devices to enhance his persuasion. The first is the argument based on disillusionment. The second are rhetorical techniques such as explicit contrasting, conspicuous words and metaphors, binary, hyperbole, parallelism, repetition, rhythm, and antithesis to persuade the Corinthians to desire ‘the far more supreme way’ as the exclusive stimulus for practising spiritual gifts.ContributionThis article offers something new in the sense that the rhetorical method of interpretation, called a text-generated persuasion-interpretation, is applied to 1 Corinthians 12:31b–13:3 for the first time. With a renewed interest in rhetorical interpretation of the texts, this methodology allows for its improvement with further research, as it has the potential to incorporate multidisciplinary approaches to the text. Furthermore, this article demonstrates that the dominant rhetorical objective of the text and the persuasion of the author can be derived from the text without relying on ancient rhetoric. Finally, the article shows that new rhetorical insights, such as new rhetorical techniques used to enhance the author’s persuasion, can still be discovered, as they have been discovered in this study.

Recent decades of research into political discourse and political rhetoric have revealed how language and rhetorical figures in particular are employed by politicians to shape political realities and persuade voters. However, little is known about the overall use of figures beyond metaphors. Therefore, a quantitative content analysis was conducted on the use of figures by Flemish politicians to explore which figures were used and how political (election result and political affiliation), speaker-related (seniority and renown) and delivery context factors (organization level and presence of the press) might influence this use. Our sample revealed both a great variety and frequency of figures beyond metaphors. Our findings also suggest a gap between rhetorical theory and practice as the range of figures studied most in literature does not accord with the figures found in our sample. Moreover, striking similarities were observed in figure use across speeches, as half of the used figures were repetitions. Although the figure use was not dependent of the political context or speaker-related factors, it was dependent of the delivery context, which suggests the existence of rhetorical registers. These findings might suggest that instead of being mainly strategic, the use of figures could also reflect a shared cultural view on political speech making. Theoretical and practical implications for rhetorical speech analysis are discussed and illustrated.

Previous scholarship highlights the physical, social and informational barriers to participation in tourism and hospitality for people with disabilities. The provision of reliable and up-to-date information, especially via websites, is crucial to ensuring accessibility and inclusion in hospitality services and experiences as it enables essential pre-visit planning. It also establishes a communication platform for wider social advocacy. This study sought to examine the website communications of three case study hotels known as being accessibility champions in New Zealand to evaluate how well they communicated information about inclusion and the accessibility of their hotel services, including in-hotel dining experiences, to customers with disabilities. An evaluation of the website communications of accessibility champions may reveal wider lessons for other hotels to improve their provision of information as well as contribute to broader social change in the hospitality industry. This interpretive study employed Greenwood et al.’s three-phase analysis process to analyse the design, content and rhetorical elements of the website communications. Findings of the study reveal common themes, strategies and tactics for the design and delivery of accessibility information on the hotel websites. Rhetorical analysis reveal how the three websites used persuasive communication to create a common social narrative around inclusive hospitality.

This article analyses 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 from a rhetorical perspective. Unlike previous attempts by scholars to analyse the letter in terms of ancient rhetorical theory, this article illustrates how the rhetorical strategy can be reconstructed from the text itself; therefore, it is identified as a text-centred rhetorical analysis, which follows a minimum theoretical approach. In practical terms, the overall rhetorical strategy needs to be identified and followed by an outline of dominant and supportive arguments, including an overview of the rhetorical techniques employed. This article illustrates how Paul used a second thanksgiving for the believers’ actions to benefit his cause and to vilify his opponents. The integrity of Paul’s Gospel is confirmed by including the believers’ collective experience of suffering in the history of persecution and by pointing to the immanent judgement that awaits their opponents.

This study explores the rhetorical strategies used by US President Donald Trump's proposal for the forced displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It employs a pragmatic analysis framework to scrutinize Trump's statements, focusing on pragmatic presuppositions and speech acts. By examining purposively sampled extracts from Trump's White House meetings, this study provides an in-depth analysis of Trump’s rhetorical strategies in his proposal for the forced displacement of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The findings highlight Trump's discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his rhetoric of forced displacement, disregarding international law and Palestinian rights. His speech acts employ various functions, shaping the dominant narrative surrounding Gaza and Palestine. At the same time, his approach to conflict resolution relied on economic incentives and US control, neglecting the conflict's intricacies and power dynamics. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of Trump’s rhetorical approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its implications for international relations.

Today, foundation models simulate humans’ skills in translation, literature review, fact checking, fake-news detection, novel and poetry production. However, generative AI can also be applied to discourse analysis. This study instructed the Gemini 2.5 model to analyze multimodal political discourse. We selected some fragments from the Trump–Zelensky debate held at the White House on 28 February 2025 and annotated each sentence, gesture, intonation, gaze, and facial expression in terms of LEP (Logos, Ethos, Pathos) analysis to assess when speakers, in words or body communication, rely on rational argumentation, stress their own merits or the opponents’ demerits, or express and try to induce emotions in the audience. Through detailed prompts, we asked the Gemini 2.5 model to run the LEP analysis on the same fragments. Then, considering the human’s and model’s annotations in parallel, we proposed a metric to compare their respective analyses and measure discrepancies, finally tuning an optimized prompt for the model’s best performance, which in some cases outperformed the human’s analysis: an interesting application, since the LEP analysis highlights deep aspects of multimodal discourse but is highly time-consuming, while its automatic version allows us to interpret large chunks of speech in a fast but reliable way.

PurposeCompanies documents such as annual reports incorporate narratives of repetitive rhetorical strategies as effective mechanisms adopted by companies' boardrooms to promote strategic change and strategic choices. These mechanisms can be viewed as persuasive appeals to facilitate boardrooms’ discourses. Despite the contribution of previous research through narrative analysis domains, conceptualization of narrative practices remains a relatively neglected area in the extant accounting literature.Design/methodology/approachThe analytical framework is rooted in Aristotle's three pillars of rhetorical proofs: ethos (credibility/trustworthiness), pathos (emotion/identification through cultural domains) and logos (reason/rationale) in investigating narrative extracts regarding persuasive appeals adopted by Carillion's board through annual reports that facilitate discourse regarding Carillion’s strategic choices. Further, the authors emphasis on repetitive rhetorical slogan strategies embedded in the annual reports regarding Carillion's acquisitions strategy. We viewed acquisitions narratives as rhetorical communication artefacts and analyzed the repetitive rhetoric slogans in these corporate documents.FindingsFindings of this study show how persuasive strategies and repetitive slogans trigger the discourses of Carillion's annual reports by drawing on perspectives from upper echelon theory, impression management and communication patterns. Findings reveal that Carillion’ board strategically use repetitive rhetoric slogans to shape optimistic corporate future performance which might be different from the feasible reality. Finally, the authors argue that corporate executives are striving to construct an alternative reality stem from their initial unrealistic aspiration to lead their sector of less controlled market share. Findings of this study have theoretical and managerial implications.Research limitations/implicationsThe key limitation of this study lies with the case study as the research methodology. Subjectivity remains inherent in interpreting the findings of this study. Future studies may adopt or adapt the authors’ analytical framework to examine other domains underpinning corporate reporting practices.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study have practical implications for boardrooms and policymakers. Findings of this study have theoretical and managerial implications. The level of optimism has its impact on the mood of financial decision-makers, and when there is a high level of optimism, managers may consider making more investment decisions and therefore making many acquisitions. Managerial overconfidence has been widely documented in the literature. Overconfident managers systematically overestimate the probability of good outcomes (and correspondingly underestimate the probability of bad outcomes) resulting from their actions.Social implicationsManagerial overconfidence refers to overestimation of managers' own abilities and outcomes relating to actions which are under their control. Executives believed that they have ultimate control over outcomes, which leads them to underestimate the probability of failure generally. According to self-attribution bias, many people tend to excessively credit their own skills for good results and overly credit external factors for bad outcomes.Originality/valueThe study explores the repetitive rhetorical slogan strategies embedded in the annual reports regarding Carillion's acquisitions strategy. Further, the study reveals how Carillion's board engaged through the early report with discourse and repetitive slogans to maintain their legitimacy. Findings reveal that Carillion’s board strategically uses repetitive rhetoric slogans to shape optimistic corporate future performance, which might be different from the feasible reality. Finally, the authors argue that corporate executives are striving to construct an alternative reality stem from their initial unrealistic aspiration to lead their sector of less controlled market share.

This research aims to examine the effects of public service advertisements on individuals in Turkey in order to ensure vaccine acceptance during the pandemic. For the relevant objective, a mixed methodology was utilized. In the first phase of the research, 25 public service announcements published during the pandemic were subjected to a classical rhetorical analysis to emphasize the discourse strategy that they reflect. Rhetorical analysis revealed that 46.16% of the examined PSAs feature logical discourse (logos), 29.5% feature emotional discourse (pathos), and 22.2% feature moral discourse (ethos). In the second phase of the research, neurometric (EEG) and biometric (GSR, Eye Tracking) measurement instruments were used to assess the impact of each persuasion strategy identified through rhetorical analysis on individuals. The results of an experiment with 69 participants showed that the emotional discourses (pathos) in PSAs have a greater impact on viewers’ cognitive performance and attention. In particular, it was determined that the n400 potential was activated in the brains of the participants in response to PSAs which represent pathos rhetoric, and that their biometric responses based on eye movements and electrification on the skin differed in the 400–600 ms range. Consequently, it is anticipated that the current study will benefit from two aspects. First, within the scope of the examined literature, this study is the first to combine neurometric measurement with a rhetorically-based qualitative analysis. It is anticipated that the related mixed methodology will offer researchers an alternative viewpoint. Second, it is anticipated that the findings will contribute to the understanding of how society can be persuaded to adopt the appropriate behavior patterns in situations such as a global pandemic, as well as the impact of discourse strategies on individuals.