A Brief Overview of

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A Brief Overview of

• English 325
• February 2009

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Rhetoric
Rhetoric can be used asboth analytic and
productive art Analytic ? Analysis Heuristic ?
Production
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Definitions
Aristotle Rhetoric is the faculty of
discovering in any particular case all of the
available means of persuasion. Cicero 
Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five
lesser arts invention, arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery."  Rhetoric is "speech
designed to persuade. Quintilian  Rhetoric is
the art of speaking well" or "...a good person
speaking well.
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Definitions
Kenneth Burke "The most characteristic concern
of rhetoric is the manipulation of men's
beliefs for political ends....the basic function
of rhetoric is the use of words by human agents
to form attitudes or to induce actions in other
human agents. Lloyd Bitzer "...rhetoric is a
mode of altering reality, not by the direct
application of energy to objects, but by the
creation of discourse which changes reality
through the mediation of thought and
action. Gerard A. Hauser "Rhetoric is
communication that attempts to coordinate social
action. For this reason, rhetorical communication
is explicitly pragmatic. Its goal is to influence
human choices on specific matters that require
immediate attention."
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Characteristics of rhetorical discourse

• Planned
• Adapted to an audience
• Shaped by human motives
• Responsive to a situation
• Persuasion-seeking
• Concerned with contingent issues

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Social functions of the art of rhetoric

• Rhetoric tests ideas
• Rhetoric assists advocacy
• Rhetoric distributes power
• Rhetoric discovers facts
• Rhetoric shapes knowledge
• Rhetoric builds community

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Over millennia, rhetoricians have endeavored to
categorize rhetorical strategies in order to
teach rhetoric

• Scan the upcoming slides to see some ways of
  categorizing our persuasive rhetoric
• Which terms or strategies seem familiar to you?
• Which might you have to look up, in order to gain
  another tool for arguing well?

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Classical Rhetoric Aristotle
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Classical Rhetoric Aristotle
Figures ? Rhetorical aspects of speech Schemes ?
Figures that use word order or syntax Tropes ?
Figures that use the sense or meaning of the word
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Classical Rhetoric Aristotle
Schemes anaphora, epistrophe, anadiplosis,
climax, symploce, parison, isocolon, chiasmus,
hendiadys, oxymoron, zeugma, epizeuxis,
epanorthesis, epanalepsis, antanaclasis,
polyptoton
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Classical Rhetoric Aristotle
Tropes simile, metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche, personification, irony, paradox,
hyperbole, litotes, aporia, anacoenosis,
comprobatio, epitropis
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Classical Rhetoric The Romans
The Progymnasmata
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Definitions of rhetoricshift in the 1700s
Belletristic Rhetoric
Hugh Blair Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres Alexander Jamieson A Grammar of Rhetoric
and Polite Literature Privilege the readers
taste over the writers eloquence reading
and study of literature have more value than the
production of eloquent writing
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Rhetoric and English Studies

• Focus on Belletristic Rhetoric in the mid-1800s
  opens the way for the establishment of the study
  of the literary arts as a focus for English
  departments.
• Meanwhile, the first tech writing course is
  offered in 1860, for specific situations English
  Engineering Technical Writing

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Rhetoric is part of contemporary English Studies
programs in several guises Which have you heard
of before?Which sound worth investigating?

• Composition/Rhetoric
• Technical and Professional Writing
• Visual Rhetoric
• Digital Rhetoric
• Cultural Rhetorics

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Rhetorical AnalysisWe can use what we know
about producing textto see how another author is
trying to persuade us

• Heres an analytical step you may know already
• Ask which rhetorical appeals are being used
• Logos logical appeal
• Pathos emotional appeal
• Ethos ethical appeal
• Check the next slides for more analytical steps.

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Rhetorical Analysis Basic Questions
Speaker/Author Who is the author/speaker? How
does he or she establish ethos (personal
credibility)? Does he/she come across as
knowledgeable? fair? What is his/her intention in
speaking? To attack or defend? To exhort or
dissuade from certain action? To inform or
convince? To explore or meditate? To praise or
blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?

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Rhetorical Analysis Basic Questions
Audience Who makes up the audience? Who is the
intended audience? Who have been or might be
secondary audiences?

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Rhetorical Analysis Basic Questions
Text What is the content of the message? Can you
summarize the main idea? How does the author or
speaker appeal to reason? to emotion? What is the
form in which it is conveyed? What is the
structure of the communication how is it
arranged? What figures of speech are used? Are
there allusions the author makes? What kind of
style and tone are used, and for what purpose?

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Try it yourself
What rhetorical appeals are being used in the
following advertisements? What can you judge
about the target audience for these
advertisements? Which rhetorical strategies
being used in these advertisements seem likely to
be effective for the audience? Which seem less
likely to be effective? Why?

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Congratulations!Youre a rhetor!
Take a quick look back through these slides,
and note down three strategies youd like to use
to be a more effective reader and writer in the
future Also note down a question to ask about
rhetoric