Silent Persuasion in the Classroom: Rethinking Student Silence as Rhetorical Agency
Presentation Room
Borderlands Digital Humanities Center (BDHC), Library Room 201
Presentation Type
Plenary Session
Start Date
24-4-2026 12:45 PM
End Date
24-4-2026 2:00 PM
Abstract
In most educational settings, rhetorical participation refers to the recognized ways people communicate and persuade. It is measured almost exclusively through verbal contribution, a norm that frames silence as disengagement or deficit. This assumption overlooks the communicative work performed through the body itself, particularly among students navigating linguistic, cultural, or institutional constraints. I ask: how might embodied silence be theorized as a form of rhetorical agency among students positioned at the margins of institutional power? I propose the concept of silent persuasion, which refers to rhetoric enacted not through speech but through the body's presence, posture, stillness, and restraint. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and border rhetorics, I argue that the body in silence is never neutral; it carries meaning, history, and resistance (Anzaldúa, 1987; Royster, 1996). Within classroom spaces structured by authority and evaluation, embodied silence can function as negotiation, refusal, or strategic self-positioning. These are meaningful communicative acts that speech-centered models of participation fail to recognize. Methodologically, I employ rhetorical criticism and theoretical synthesis, reading across scholarship on embodiment, marginality, and institutional power to build a conceptual framework that centers the body as a site of meaning-making. I draw on Hawhee (2004) and Ratcliffe (1999) to theorize embodied silence not as the absence of communication but as its own form of persuasive presence. Through this framework, I contribute a conceptual vocabulary for rhetorical theory and pedagogy that challenges who counts as a rhetorical agent in institutional spaces. By reframing embodied silence as praxis, I invite scholars and educators across disciplines to reconsider what participation looks like when it emerges from the margins. References Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books. Hawhee, D. (2004). Bodily arts: Rhetoric and athletics in ancient Greece. University of Texas Press. Ratcliffe, K. (1999). Rhetorical listening: Identification, gender, whiteness. College Composition and Communication, 51(2), 195–224. https://doi.org/10.2307/358842 Royster, J. J. (1996). When the first voice you hear is not your own. College Composition and Communication, 47(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/358272
Silent Persuasion in the Classroom: Rethinking Student Silence as Rhetorical Agency
Borderlands Digital Humanities Center (BDHC), Library Room 201
In most educational settings, rhetorical participation refers to the recognized ways people communicate and persuade. It is measured almost exclusively through verbal contribution, a norm that frames silence as disengagement or deficit. This assumption overlooks the communicative work performed through the body itself, particularly among students navigating linguistic, cultural, or institutional constraints. I ask: how might embodied silence be theorized as a form of rhetorical agency among students positioned at the margins of institutional power? I propose the concept of silent persuasion, which refers to rhetoric enacted not through speech but through the body's presence, posture, stillness, and restraint. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and border rhetorics, I argue that the body in silence is never neutral; it carries meaning, history, and resistance (Anzaldúa, 1987; Royster, 1996). Within classroom spaces structured by authority and evaluation, embodied silence can function as negotiation, refusal, or strategic self-positioning. These are meaningful communicative acts that speech-centered models of participation fail to recognize. Methodologically, I employ rhetorical criticism and theoretical synthesis, reading across scholarship on embodiment, marginality, and institutional power to build a conceptual framework that centers the body as a site of meaning-making. I draw on Hawhee (2004) and Ratcliffe (1999) to theorize embodied silence not as the absence of communication but as its own form of persuasive presence. Through this framework, I contribute a conceptual vocabulary for rhetorical theory and pedagogy that challenges who counts as a rhetorical agent in institutional spaces. By reframing embodied silence as praxis, I invite scholars and educators across disciplines to reconsider what participation looks like when it emerges from the margins. References Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books. Hawhee, D. (2004). Bodily arts: Rhetoric and athletics in ancient Greece. University of Texas Press. Ratcliffe, K. (1999). Rhetorical listening: Identification, gender, whiteness. College Composition and Communication, 51(2), 195–224. https://doi.org/10.2307/358842 Royster, J. J. (1996). When the first voice you hear is not your own. College Composition and Communication, 47(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/358272