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the etymology of excuses: aspects of rhetorical performance in Greece
Author(s) -
HERZFELD MICHAEL
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1982.9.4.02a00020
Subject(s) - rhetorical question , etymology , blame , rhetoric , sociology , parallels , bureaucracy , allusion , epistemology , attribution , construct (python library) , linguistics , aesthetics , history , philosophy , law , social psychology , psychology , politics , political science , mechanical engineering , computer science , engineering , programming language
Excuses often take strikingly similar rhetorical forms in widely divergent kinds of situation. These forms, according to 1. L. Austin, may work by evoking ideas about impersonal agencies such as fate through etymological allusion; their conventionality makes them socially acceptable as well as highly adaptable. Using the example of modern Greece, this essay explores some implications of Austin's insight for the study of blame attribution in particular cultures by examining parallels in rhetorical treatment of fate, the national bureaucracy, and the international superpowers as agents of disaster. Particular emphasis i s placed on the retrospective character of blame attribution in all three domains and on the consequent inadequacy of “fatalism” as a descriptive and analytical construct. [etymology, semiotics, symbolism, rhetoric, excuses, cultural construction of events, Greece]