In Praise of Carbon, In Praise of Science: The Epideictic Rhetoric of the 1996 Nobel Lectures in Chemistry

This article explores the nature of epideictic rhetoric in science through aclose textual analysis of three Nobel lectures. It examines the effects of the
genre shift from original research reports to ceremonial speeches, revealing
significant differences from Fahnestock’s analysis of the genre shift from
forensic research reports to epideictic articles in the popular press, especially
a move toward greater candidness about the research process. Epideictic scientific rhetoric, therefore, can be said to celebrate the scientific method in general as much as it does the particular line of research at hand.