Ethos, commonly translated as “ethics” and “moral character,” is a fundamental term in the history of the western rhetorical tradition. For “who does not know,” writes the ancient Greek philosopher and rhetorician Isocrates, “that words carry greater conviction when spoken by men of good repute than when spoken by men who live under a cloud
If visuality is understood broadly as the practices, performances, and configurations of the appearances, then the relationship between rhetoric and visuality is as old as the art of rhetoric itself. The ancients tied rhetoric to the world of mimesis, or the appearances, rather than to the realm of philosophical truth; this relationship has often unfairly
The tradition of rhetorical theory and practice in Britain is longstanding and vibrant. In the Middle Ages, Britain produced important contributions to rhetorical theory. The Venerable Bede (c. 672/73–735), for instance, provided a treatment of the stylistic aspects of discourse in his De schematibus et tropis, and Alcuin (c. 735–804), the British-born tutor of and
According to the doxa, rhetoric flourished in France under absolutism, enjoyed a fire-andbrimstone revival during the Revolution, and gradually disappeared in the nineteenth century, until it was reduced to the few figures of style school children still learned in the twentieth century. Actually, after 1700, interwoven rhetorical and anti-rhetorical strands shape a field that expands
During the early modern period, in Germany rhetoric was taught at grammar schools (Gymnasien), both Protestant and Jesuit, and at Protestant universities. Rhetorical theory provided a basis for writing, especially in Latin, serving as a means of communication for scholars throughout Europe. It influenced the theory of poetics as well as art, each of which
Rhetoric has been important for centuries in Italian literary culture. The first development of an Italian literary prose was thanks to a teacher of rhetoric in Bologna, Guido Faba: in the thirteenth century, he provided examples of elaborated prose in rhetorical models of letters and speeches. Other Italian works of the time represented a return
As in the rest of Europe during the “Siècle des lumières,” the decadence of rhetoric was a fact in Spain. Persuasion based on the rhetorical employment of language was neither considered important nor respected, consequently leaving poetry as much more highly esteemed than eloquence. There was only one exception, namely, sacred oratory – that is
Under the term style in rhetorical studies are grouped all those concerns with effective language that have been part of the rhetorical tradition from its beginnings in ancient Greece. In rhetorical manuals from antiquity through to the present, language issues are typically discussed at the levels of word choice, sentence structure, and passage arrangement according
The relationship between rhetoric and religion is fourfold: (1) rhetoric is a tool used by religious groups; (2) political rhetoric draws upon religious language; (3) religious systems contribute to the discursive constructions of their adherents’ worldviews; and (4) religious traditions contribute to rhetorical theory and practice. Religious systems use rhetoric as a tool for interfacing
Roman rhetoric aims to present practical and theoretical guidelines for effective verbal persuasion. In ancient Rome such precepts found an application most regularly in speeches made in the criminal and civil courts, but they were relevant also to debates on political policy in the senate and at popular assemblies. All of these oratorical activities were
The rhetoric of science is the application of the resources of the rhetorical tradition to the texts, tables, and visuals of the sciences. It is a relatively new form of rhetorical criticism that began over half a century ago with studies in science policy, shifted in the past quarter century to studies of science itself
“The Second Sophistic” is the name given by Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–245 ce) in his Lives of the sophists (481, 507) to the rhetorical style current in his day. The sophistic culture described by Philostratus involved highly educated members of the Greek elite improvising public declamations, often in the personae of famous figures from Greece’s
Semiotics is the study of signs and signification, including both linguistic and nonlinguistic signs. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), who coined the term and did innovative work in the area, regarded it as the study of that which supports inferences; that is to say, of how signs enable interpretive inference to other signs.
Research in rhetoric and social protest strives to discover how organized, uninstitutional forces use symbols and symbolic actions to promote or resist change in societal norms and values. Its focus ranges from interpersonal to mass communication, from the colonial period to the present, from moderate to radical elements, and from formal discourses to the rhetoric
Aristotle defines rhetoric as the art of determining the available means of persuasion in a particular case. This can be interpreted in a number of ways. When considered narrowly, the study of rhetoric can be equated with the psychology of persuasion or with informal logic. However, when that definition is read along with the rest
South Asia usually refers to the geo-cultural area traditionally known as the Indian subcontinent and consists of contemporary Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet, and the Maldives. The region has a rich tradition of conceptualization of the arts of argumentation, oration, and literary embellishment, marked by a flair for categorizing even the
Rhetoric as the study of forms of self-expression has many meanings depending on the context in which it is used. For theorists and practitioners of public speech, it is concerned primarily with the study of persuasion. For those interested in cultivation of effective expression, rhetoric concerns the use of style and development of polished writing
The rhetorical tradition began with, and has remained linked to, the public discourse of official forums. Aristotle named these deliberative, forensic, and epideictic rhetoric. Although these first appeared as genres and later included additional forms of address, such as the sermon and the essay, the distinctive focus of rhetorical theory and criticism into the mid-twentieth
The democratic ethic that has dominated the intellectual history of the United States has shaped a rhetorical practice driven by the socio-cultural influence of the word. The result has been a rich multiplicity of voices that defy generalization, yet define a complex texture. The first rhetorical period, approximately the first century and a quarter of
Although the area of northern and central Asia is comprised of a large number of independent and sovereign nations, including the Russian Federation and the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, its recent history is dominated by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). For most of the twentieth century each
Insofar as rhetorical practice travels through systems of symbolicity, so-called channels or modes of communication are the discursive spaces within which rhetoric operates. And insofar as rhetorical practice should culminate in some sort of adjustment or change in audients’, readers’, or viewers’ knowledges, feelings, self-identities, and/or behaviors, the ways in which those dimensions of individuals
Interactions between rhetoric and philosophy have always been marked by concerns (and sometimes controversy) about the scope, status, and interdependence of the two disciplines. The reason is that while both disciplines are concerned with discourse, their aims are different. Philosophy is chiefly concerned with discourse as a medium to express and test knowledge, whereas rhetoric
Any understanding of the relation between rhetoric and poetics will depend on how each category is conceived. The term “rhetoric” can mean “rhetorical discourse”; or the suasory practices observable in any given piece or kind of discourse; or the art or theory of rhetorical performance. Further, “rhetorical discourse” may be defined narrowly or broadly –
The study of rhetoric and politics examines the role of persuasion in the political process. The study of rhetoric most commonly begins with readings from ancient Greece and Aristotle’s handbook, On rhetoric. Classical scholars conceived of rhetoric as a practical art involving the performance of public oratory in the contexts of politics, law, and ceremonial
Postmodern rhetoric is a set of discursive and critical practices that diverge from persuasion by means of ethos, pathos, and logos. Where classical rhetoric addresses a known and identifiable audience, postmodern rhetoric puts into question the identities of the speaker, the audience, and the messages that pass between them, interrupting and displacing senders, receivers, and
Pre-Socratic rhetoric is an overarching concept that captures not only the traits of Hellenic rhetoric that were demonstrated by the sophists who immediately preceded Socrates, but also the antecedent forces that shaped sophistic views on thought and its relationship to expression. The dialogues of Plato and the development of the Socratic movement have often been
This article examines the fields of rhetoric and psychology, each from the perspective of the other, and both from the meta-perspective of a psychologist-turned-rhetorician who retains equal measures of respect (and disrespect) for both. Rhetoric and psychology each study persuasion but from radically different approaches that reflect their contrasting origins in the humanistic and scientific
One of the most persistent problems of persuasion in the modern era has been the domination and subordination of racial “others,” yet race has received little attention from rhetoricians until relatively recently. Not until the second half of the twentieth century were sustained explorations of race and racism pursued by rhetorical scholars in either Speech
The conjoining of the terms “rhetoric” and “history” suggests at least three related but distinct areas of study. One, the history of rhetoric, focuses on rhetorical theory and practice during particular periods of time; entries on various aspects of this area abound. Two others are the focus here: rhetorical processes in history and the rhetoric
“Language is itself the collective art of expression, a summary of thousands upon thousands of individual intuitions” (Sapir 1921, 246). When exploring rhetoric in relation to language we usually have in mind the nature and functions of the communication systems used by humans in different times and in different parts of the world. Some of
Logic and rhetoric are such broad subjects that in order to profit from their comparison we must make at least one division in each field. Logic in the narrow sense is mainly concerned with the consequence relation (“following from”), and a well-documented tradition exists from Aristotle’s Prior analytics to the present that explores this question.
Few would deny media’s increasingly central role in the everyday lives of most individuals, particularly in first and second world countries. And increasingly, few would deny media’s rhetorical influence in how people come to understand themselves and those around them. News media shape the way individuals see their communities as well as those on the
As an area of investigation, “medieval rhetoric” refers to the discipline taught as rhetoric in the liberal arts curriculum of western Europe, as well as to how that art was adapted to communication practices for secular and ecclesiastical purposes, between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries. Study of medieval rhetoric includes examining the continuance of
An overview of rhetoric in the Middle East should begin with the recognition that the terms “rhetoric” and the “Middle East” are not neutral, as they reflect the ideological and cultural values of the Occident. There is a general consensus that the notion of rhetoric, coined by Plato in the fourth century bce to define
For centuries, rhetoricians, communication scholars, and practitioners have recognized narrative’s rich descriptive and persuasive appeal. Numerous essays, books, and monographs address the nature and functions of narrative in disciplines as varied as rhetoric and communication, biology and anthropology, psychology and sociology, political science and public policy, and theology and philosophy. Throughout rhetorical history, narrative has
The word “nonverbal” is used to describe the many ways human beings communicate without overtly using words. Typically, this encompasses body movements (gestures, facial expressions, eye behavior, touching); body positioning (posture, distance from and alignment to others); and vocal behavior (rate, pitch, intensity). Sometimes physical (appearance) and environmental (architecture, design) features are also included. History
Rhetorical study in Canada resists neat categorization, in part because it is a relatively recent phenomenon characterized by a rich diversity of perspectives and approaches, and by a comparatively fluid conception of what it means to engage in scholarly activity in rhetoric. As an academic specialization, rhetoric emerged in Canada only in the last two
Rhetorical practice and teaching existed in ancient native cultures in Mexico, mainly in the Aztec and Mayan civilizations (Beristáin & Ramírez Vidal 2005). Western rhetorical tradition was introduced into Mexico with the European conquest and Catholic evangelization: the triumph of the occidental civilization in the “new world” was due to the success of European rhetoric.
Chinese rhetorical thought can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn period (770– 476 bce). The word for “rhetoric” in Chinese came from Confucius’ (551–479 bce) speech in The book of changes: “The gentleman advances in virtue, and cultivates all the spheres of his duty. His honesty and good faith are the way in
The history of Korean rhetoric is the history of translation of and communication with its neighboring foreign cultures. From its early period of the Three Kingdoms to the later Yi dynasty, Korea sought its own ways of expression under the influence of Chinese culture. More recently, from the beginning of the twentieth century to its
Throughout central and eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria), classical rhetorical studies pertain to a longstanding tradition of research on antiquity, while contemporary rhetoric scholarship focuses on democratic discourse and the political context in postcommunist times. A major challenge throughout the area is the diffused location of both classical and
The term “epideictic” derives from the Greek epideixis, translated as “showing forth” or “display.” According to Aristotle’s classification of rhetorical genres in The art of rhetoric, epideictic discourse is concerned with topics of praise and blame, deals with the present, and is addressed to an audience of spectators, rather than judges (1358a–b). Epideictic relies on
In 1967 the assertion that rhetoric is epistemic attracted immediate attention from rhetorical scholars. The assertion was taken to imply that rhetoric generated a sort of knowledge. The purpose of the claim was to establish a fresh justification for the study and practice of rhetoric. In short, it was an answer to a line of
The field of communication has historical roots in the interplay of human speech and ethics. Our journals record scholarly investigation of communication ethics beginning in 1934 with Pellegrini’s Quarterly Journal of Speech essay, “Public speaking and social obligations.” The founding scholarly work on speech and ethics is Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics. Aristotle’s public descriptive account of
“Rhetoric” and “ethnography” are slippery concepts, each describing a practice or methodology as well as a class of textual objects. And while “rhetoric” describes an identifiable field of study more than does “ethnography,” which is most often associated with cultural anthropology, each is an inter- and cross-disciplinary enterprise whose character can vary depending on its
The goal of rhetoric during the Renaissance was the mastery of spoken or written language to affect a particular audience in an intended and predictable manner. Mastery entailed an understanding of language in its relation to human psychology, the use of formal procedures for turning theory into practice, and the education of others in both
Rhetoric is the art and study of human symbol use. As a discipline, rhetoric began in ancient Greece as a practical art of persuasion, applied principally to political, legal, and judicial contexts. Gender refers to the cultural constructs of masculinity and femininity imposed upon biological sex by any particular culture – what it means to
The word “rhetoric” comes from the Greek rhêtorikê, which means “the art of speech,” “the art of speaking”: the etymology shows the role played by the ancient Greeks in the field which constitutes the subject of this article. The art of speaking exists in many civilizations, but Greek antiquity has given it a distinctive, rigorous
Ethos, commonly translated as “ethics” and “moral character,” is a fundamental term in the history of the western rhetorical tradition. For “who does not know,” writes the ancient Greek philosopher and rhetorician Isocrates, “that words carry greater conviction when spoken by men of good repute than when spoken by men who live under a cloud
In classical rhetorical theory, invention was one of the five essential canons and referred to the activity or process of creating a message (a speech, an essay, a poem, etc.). (On the other canons, see Arrangement and Rhetoric; Delivery and Rhetoric; Memory and Rhetoric; Style and Rhetoric.) Over time, rhetoricians have explored some recurrent questions
Logos (plural logoi) is a polysemous Greek term, which generally has been used in rhetoric to refer to the component of persuasion grounded in logic or reason as opposed to that based on emotion or character, although these distinctions are not entirely unproblematic. The Greek noun logos derives from the verb legô (to speak), and
For several decades now the role of public memory in shaping the present has occupied the attention of scholars across the humanities. From Holocaust studies to architecture, literature and visual culture, colonialism, and queer theory, students of the subject are seeking to explain how and to what ends we avail ourselves of the past. Among
Derived from the Greek verb paskhein, meaning to be in a certain condition, to experience, or to suffer, pathos is one of the three principal sources of rhetorical proof along with ethos and logos. Typically translated into English as “emotion,” pathos is a key term in the ancient debate between philosophy and rhetoric because it
This description of rhetoric in Africa will focus on two primary tendencies, namely, the valorization of the virtues of classical antiquity on the one hand, and the highlighting of an ethos of cosmopolitanism and the politics of the private on the other. These two disparate discursive operations are often complementary and give a deeper meaning
Rhetoric, argument, and persuasion come together in the study of argumentation. According to a handbook definition, argumentation is a verbal, social, and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing a constellation of propositions justifying or (in case the standpoint is negative) refuting the proposition expressed in
This article presents an overview of recent rhetorical studies by scholars from universities in Central and South America, where there is a renewed interest in this field. Generally, rhetorical studies in Central and South America are concerned with the main theoretical notions of literary criticism in antiquity; the application of such notions to the analysis
A basic sociological assumption is that human behavior is patterned, not random. Such patterns form social structures or stratifications that reflect the persistent and regularized social relations that the patterns facilitate. The social stratification made possible by these hierarchies affects life chances, resources at our disposal, and relations of inequality in the distribution of social
Rhetoric and dialectic are closely related theories of (and trainings in) persuasion. They have some distinct bodies of doctrine (e.g., the topics of invention and the enthymeme belong to dialectic; the theory of disposition and the figures of speech to rhetoric) but over time they have also overlapped and annexed each other’s territory. Theorists today
The category of arrangement (Greek oikonomia, taxis; Latin dispositio) in classical rhetoric includes both the “natural” ordering of the parts of a speech and the changing or truncating of that order to adapt to specific circumstances. While it may also embrace the ordering of premises in arguments, those concerns are fully treated under invention rather
As rhetoric originally was closely tied to the oral presentation of a speech, delivery, understood as the best management of voice and body, was naturally of interest to the art. Thus, in the traditional rhetorical system, the so-called rhetorical canon, delivery made up the fifth and last part (Greek hypokrisis, Latin actio or pronuntiatio). Of