Connecting Past and Present: A Rhetorical Analysis of How Forensics Programs Use Storytelling to Promote Team Legacy

Abstract

Forensic educators have faced long standing criticism, within our discipline and beyond, in regards to the true educational benefits of forensic competition with particular scrutiny towards oral interpretation events. Although forensic interpretation events may seem like fun raucous performances, they are in many ways are grounded in sound pedagogy of oral interpretation scholarship. However in recent years, forensic oral interpretation has evolved to move beyond mere rendering of a text. In many ways forensic interpretation has shifted towards a paradigm of performance studies. Therefore, I shall reexplore past criticisms of forensic interp in order to argue for new ways to interpret interpretation and build a stronger bridge between forensic pedagogy and the communication discipline. As a forensic educator and coach I am aware that I will face criticism from colleagues about the academic legitimacy of intercollegiate individual event speaking. An outsider observing a forensic tournament might enjoy watching the oral interp events the most, even if they do not understand some of the strange speech norms. It is not only the norms but the modes of forensic competition that have caused the practice of oral interpretation to face particular scrutiny. Although, forensic interpretation may have been birthed from oral interpretation of literature it has since become its own medium of study. Geisler (1985) pointed out that forensic interpretation events vary from the non-competitive oral tradition of interpretation. Forensic 22 interpretation is highly nuanced and in some ways inaccessible to outside audiences. Whereas the academic field of oral interpretation has evolved into a more comprehensive study of performance. Performance studies addresses not only traditional stage performances, but also daily performance and cultural rituals. Performances academically grounded in performance theory are implemented in a very differently textured setting, while forensic oral interpretation varies from contemporary performance studies scholarship. In many ways it functions as a cursory introduction to the practice of academic based performance. Because performance scholarship is often rooted in dense language that is foreign to the untrained ear, forensic oral interpretation provides another frame in which to understand performance theory. Performance studies focuses on performance theory while competitive oral interpretation teaches students the necessary practice of performance. Although forensic interp can serve as a basis for comprehending performance scholarship, it faces criticism from disciplinary scholars as disingenuous performance lacking sound pedagogy. In order to understand this tension and justify forensic interpretation practice I will first introduce the academic function of performance studies, then explain the criticism forensic oral interpretation receives from performance scholars, before finally clarifying performance pedagogy within forensic interpretation. Performance Studies Performance studies was originally defined as oral interpretation. In order to understand the layered academic terrain of performance studies it is necessary to grasp the foundation of the discipline, then discuss the paradigmatic shift to performance studies. Oral Tradition. Most definitions surrounding the tradition of oral interpretation pay close attention to the literature selected. Yordon (2002) defined oral interpretation as the “artistic 23 process of studying literature through performance and sharing that study with an audience” (p. 4). Lee and Gura (2005) argued that communicating the meaning of a text and the aesthetic performance of the literature are the primary components of oral interpretation. Their explanation places an emphasis on how a text is used to guide performance and they ground much of their definition of in the reader’s duty to perform within the parameters of the author’s intent. Further, Rossi and Goodnow (2006) stated, “the communication of textual content and form is a central aspect of the interpreter’s art” (p. 46). The foundation for interpretation of literature is based in how the interpreter can communicate emotional development of throughout an author’s script. In order to interpret literature it is important to have an understanding of the script being performed to create a performance of a script. Holloway Allen, Barr, Colley, Keefe, Peares, and St. Clair, (1982) defined oral interpretation as “the art of eliciting in the mind of a listener the imagistic, intellectual, and emotional potential of a piece of literature through the subtle appropriate use of voice and body” (p. 45). Bowen, Aggert, and Rickert (1978) stated that interpretation of literature “offers a fusion of literature and communication” (p. 12). A text in this way can be brought to life through performative reading of the text. In this understanding of interpretation the interpreter should be able to evoke audience imagination through masterful elocution, to compensate for a lack of physicality. By these standards, oral interpretation is an art form that is supposed to bring forth emotional processing of an author’s text through proficient use of technical performance skill. Forensic interpretation was not only conceived around the principles of oral interpretation, it has relentlessly clung to the principles even as the academic field has matured. An oral interpretation paradigm initially limited the expression of a worldview to the reading and analysis of canonical literary texts, but a performance studies paradigm would open up many texts to be analyzed and performed. 24 Paradigm Shift As scholars of the oral tradition began to develop and expand their academic discipline, the overall ideological standard of the field adapted. Pelias and VanOosting (1987) described that oral tradition shifted to a performance studies paradigm to adapt with changes in both oral tradition and Communication as a discipline. This paradigmatic shift warrants the question of what performance studies actually is. In this shift, instead of defining how interpretation is different from acting, everyone in cultural contexts is a actor/performer of culture. Elizabeth Bell, in her widely popular introduction to performance studies text, Theories of Performance, stated in the opening chapter, “Oftentimes, we get so involved in any one set of ideas, or one specific performance, that we forget that all theories and performances are products of their times and larger world-shaping views” (p. 1). Performances can thus be thought of as a reflection and/or criticism of the world in which we live. This is reflected beyond mere costuming for stage but also in contemporary attire. Pelias and VanOosting (1987) framed “performance as a social act relying upon emergent principles and cultural conventions of enactment” (p. 224). Culture, in this understanding, is a performative act. Although one cannot spell description without script, a performance studies approach to studying the drama of a text, to exploring the human drama, enacted daily. Bell (2008) structured performance theory as a means to make clear why and how performance aids in intricate social and political understandings through multiple creative forms. In many ways, theatre, rituals, parades, protests, or even acts of terrorism are not only creatively expressive forms but very powerful transformative mediums. Performance is not only a way that people understand culture, it can also be a site to change views about culture. Conquergood (1992) described performance as existing in a space between rhetoric and ethnography. Often the ways in which performances 25 are negotiated and understood is through an individual’s systematic processing of culture. Performance then, is a facet of cultural production that is apparent in performances outside of a theatre. Boal (1995) argued traditional theatre was occupied by the social elite and theatre was a means of controlling messages communicated to the masses, but performance can become a location for cultural opposition. Performance studies is not necessarily limited to the construction of theatre, but rather how humans communicate as drama. Shultz (2000) stated that Kenneth Burke theorized that all human interaction is played out through “dramatism”. Human beings process the world through stories and dramatism thus functions as a symbolic interaction of metaphors used by humans to distinctly communicate their experiences. In this way the stage is more than a physical structure to observe others acting out culture, it is a fluid space that aids in viewing culture happening around us. This posits that performance is not just a site outside of ourselves to observe, it is something that we do in order to describe contemporary life. Many facets of ourselves are thus elements of a story; there are heroes and villains, ebbs and flows, and yes the perfunctory beginning, middle and end. West and Zimmerman (1987) argued that even gender is a performance element in our symbolic life metaphors. Performance studies moves beyond the realm of textual analysis but into a complex method of informing our processing of the world we live and the cultural conscriptions adhered to our bodies. Fox (2007) argued that performance of the self has the potential to alter how one perceives their position in the world. Our bodies can cast us into particular roles. The ways in which people present themselves is a performance of identity. Warren (1999) framed the body as a performative site that is irrevocably distinguished by political, ideological, and historical inscriptions that act as an interactive canvas of alternative experiential knowledge. Aspects of the self that are often perceived as private can function as performative indicators of identity. Fox 26 (2007) explained how his body was marked as a cultural signifier of a sickly gay man. His Skinny Bones demonstrated how our bodies lo