The Rhetoric of Religious Cults: Terms of Use and Abuse (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781403942852)

This study's departure point is the notion that "cults" have a distinctive language and way of recruiting members. First outlining a rhetorical framework, which encompasses contemporary discourse analysis, the persuasive texts of three movements--Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and Children of God--are analyzed in detail and their discourse compared with other kinds of recruitment literature. Cults' distinctive negative profile in society is not matched by a linguistic typology. Indeed, this negative profile seems to rest on the semantics and application of the term "cult" itself.

Author: A. Mooney
ISBN-10: 1403942854
ISBN-13: 9781403942852
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 08/02/2005
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.86h x 5.92w x 0.68d