The rhetoric of the economically disadvantaged : analyzing a marginalized discourse.

Abstract

Those who engage in contemporary begging activities compose and enact public rhetoric daily across the United States, and the collection and analysis of rhetoric from this discourse community is particularly important in a consumer capitalist society where those who are economically disadvantaged do not receive much academic consideration. This project attempts to provide a better understanding of the public rhetoric of those who beg in the modern setting via a Foucauldian critical apparatus in order to establish the speech acts of this marginalized discourse community as legitimate instances of an exercise of social action and public speech. A Foucauldian analysis of this indigent discourse community is valuable because it emphasizes the importance of surfaces in meaning production and reception, the interconnectedness of marginalized and mainstream subgenres of rhetoric, and operations of power in these interactions. While the study of such public expressions of need and urban poverty will not act as a solution to the complex network of issues that contribute to the persistence of begging as a social phenomenon or the creation of laws that violate the rights of those individuals, the findings and analysis of this research does support and encourage the recognition of this group as equally entitled to participation in public expression and involvement.