The circle of life: Rhetoric of identification in Steve Jobs' Stanford speech

We sought to understand from a rhetorical perspective the sources of the runaway popularity of Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech. Our analysis shows the rhetorical sophistication of this speech in terms of mutually reinforcing use of established dynamics, canons, and devices of rhetoric. We find however that these aspects of classical rhetoric are imbued with and reinforced by Burkeian identification processes that permeate the speech. We contend that an important aspect of leaders' rhetorical competence, and an enabler for constructing evocative, impactful rhetoric is the skillful employment of processes of identification.