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