Discourses of Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is a tradition distinctive to American political culture, and this book focuses on major debates and discourses that shaped this tradition. It sheds fresh light on key Congressional debates in the early American Republic, developing and applying an approach to fallacy theory suitable to the study of political discourse.

Autorentext
JUHANI RUDANKO is Professor of English at the University of Tampere, Finland. His recent work has focused on the system of English predicate complementation in recent centuries, and on the pragmatic analysis of political discourse in the early American Republic. His previous publications include Changes in Complementation in British and American English.

Inhalt
Introduction Informal Fallacies in Two Procedural Debates on the Bill of Rights in the Summer of 1789 The Decision of August 13, 1789 Divisions of Freedom of Speech: Debates of November 1794 Freedom of Speech under Threat: the Sedition Act of 1798 Contesting and Defeating the Sedition Act of 1798 '[T]his most unnecessary, unjust, and disgraceful war': Attacks on the Madison Administration in Federalist Newspapers during the War of 1812 Woodrow Wilson and the Threat to Freedom of Speech Concluding Observations Notes References Index