What is Rhetoric?

1
What is Rhetoric?

• Introduction to Rhetoric as a Topic of Study

2
What are we going to study?

• The history of Rhetoric as a topic consists of
  2,500 years of communication practice, theorizing
  as to how that practice works, and teaching as to
  how to best produce it. In other words, a body of
  literature as to
• Theories,
• Models, and
• Practice

3
The study of Models

• speakers, speeches, and written discourse--is
  generally done in courses perhaps titled "history
  of X type of rhetoric"

4
The study of Practice

• communication production--takes place in public
  speaking, oral interpretation, interpersonal,
  small group, listening, and writing courses. by
  examining the historical personages, literature,
  and social circumstances which produced our
  understandings of how communication operates.
• Rhetorical Studies examine these questions from a
  humanistic point of view.

5
How may we define the topic?

• Over the course of 2,500 there have been numerous
  definitions for the term "Rhetoric." Let's note
  three main approaches, the details and
  significance of which we will examine in greater
  detail through the course.

6
Three Definitions

• -Rhetoric is the art of discovering all the
  available means of persuasion in any given case
  (Aristotle)
• -Rhetoric is adjusting ideas to people and people
  to ideas (Bryant)
• -Rhetoric is communication which helps people
  think alike so that they may share values,
  dispositions toward actions, and actions. (Burke
  and Perelman)

7
So why do we study Rhetoric who needs it?

• Every discipline which seeks to convey its
  subject matter in order to gain adherents
• Every individual who wants their communication to
  have impact
• Any speaker or writer must use rhetoric if they
  are to succeed.

8
Why is Rhetoric Important?

• Humans cooperate by the social act of
  constructing mutually compatible interpretations
  of reality. Rhetoric is the refinement of the
  communicative life of the individual for the good
  of the society. It is essential to democracy
  (more on this later)

9
Course Overview

• Well be studying rhetoric and rhetoricians from
  three major periods
• Pre-modern--Sophists, Gorgias, Isocrates, Plato,
  Aristotle
• Modern--Locke, Vico, Bitzer,Burke, Perelman,
  Vatz
• Postmodern--Foucault, Althusser Habermas