conflict & communication online, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2016
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Trygve Svensson
Three dimensions in rhetorical conflict analysis: A topological model

Conflict is omnipresent in human relations. So is rhetoric in conflict situations. Hence, there is a danger of taking conflict and its different forms of resolution for granted when we do rhetorical analysis. “Rhetoric” is often used as a general and non-scientific term in the social sciences; the same is the case for “conflict” in rhetorical scholarship. Hence, there is a need for concrete analytical tools. This article suggests a topological model to analyze three dimensions of rhetoric in conflict resolution, management or handling. Using “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” the famous last speech of Martin Luther King Jr., as an example, I use the model to give an analytic overview.

The author:
Trygve Svensson (born 1978) lives in Oslo with his wife Line, and their children Amina, Selma and Jakob. Trygve has been (among others) deputy minister (Labor), political adviser, communication consultant, teacher, fisherman and theater technician.
He is currently a Ph.D. fellow at the University of Bergen and writes about rhetoric and conflict resolution. He has also published several articles in Norwegian and international newspapers and journals. Many of his texts can be read online at www.voxpublica.no. Trygve recently received a grant from the Norwegian Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt ord) to work on a book-project about rhetoric and conflict resolution.

eMail: Trygve.Svensson@uib.no, Website: http://www.uib.no/personer/Trygve.Svensson