Thursday, March 24, 2011
Defining rhetoric
Before we start today’s discussion, I’d like you to take a few minutes and explain Covino and Joliffe’s definition of rhetoric in your own words. Recall that they define rhetoric as “a primarily verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts” (5). What do you think this definition means? What is interesting or significant about it?
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I think the most interesting thing about this definition is that it is "primarily verbal." Any other time I've studied rhetoric, I've always simply applied it to written works and literature. However, it makes sense that the definition should be "primarily verbal" because rhetoric reaches beyond the words that appear on a page. Rhetoric is present in all form of language as the vehicle through which meaning is derived. It is a study of how words are grouped together whether they be written, spoken, or expressed in some other form. I also appreciate that the definition includes "philosophical and practical" meaning. Literature, and communication in general, blow me away because they are so immensely complex. Using rhetorical tools, we try to break down and understand the complexities of language both to attain their literal meaning and whatever deeper thoughts an author is attempting to convey.
ReplyDeleteRhetoric is present in every word, phrase, and statement to evoke some sort of emotion or reaction out of an audience, whether it is intentional or not. The meanings of the written words morph over time (although the words themselves remain unchanged) because the texts are read differently in different situations and with different mindsets. This, interestingly, means that no words can be wholly objective or "truthful" and all texts are active. The world does not exist in a vacuum; neither does text.
ReplyDelete(the first half of my response was erased)
ReplyDeleteAlso, because of changing times, Covino and Joliffe's definition is in some ways obsolete. Nowadays, most texts are not given in speech form, but are instead in a paper format that the audience either reads through print, or more recently, digitally. With computers, texts written for a particular audience hundreds of years in the past can now be found with a simple internet search. Because of this, the initially intended audience is not the only people who will necessarily be exposed to the text.
Rhetoric is a form of communication which is relevant in the context of a specific moment. It discusses the thoughts and ideas behind a topic in order to move people to react in a certain way. I think this definition is significant because it highlights the idea that the author is motivated to get a specific reaction out of the reader. The rhetor must consider the context in which he or she is writing to create an effective piece. In combining these factors, rhetoric becomes an art form because it must be well articulated.
ReplyDeleteI see this definition as a description of rhetoric as a means of communicating ideas to a specific (but possibly unknown) group of individuals. I take this as being different then just straight prose, but bordering on it's own type of category, neither artistic, nor purely practical. I take this definition to mean that rhetoric is something that is meant to persuade or convince an audience of a specific idea, and although it may be an art, it is not artistic in it's form. I am interested in the interchange between the philosophical and practical sides of the definition and functionality of philosophical rhetoric in a modern and functional context.
ReplyDeleteThis definition uses some advanced vocabulary which the authors elaborate upon later in the chapter, so it is these aspects which I find require the most focus. Situationally contingent, I believe, is a way of saying that the setting in which the rhetor writes a text is significant. The Greek term they use for this is kairos. "Epistemic," as an idea, also ties into this idea because it is concerned with what the "probable truth" of the text is, given the setting in which it is studied. Specifically, a reader from a low-income background might analyze a text in a more practical way, and a reader from a wealthy background might view it in a materialistic, consumer sense.
ReplyDeleteRhetoric, as a field of study, has to account for rhetors and auditors of all different backgrounds, and therefore is significant to include in the definition.
Joliffe and Covino do not define rhetoric with a simple explanation of ‘this is the word and this is what it means.’ The definition they give us is much more about how rhetoric can be so contingent upon many aspects. The way in which they present the information is understandable as rhetoric is hard to define in an exact way, because it encompasses so many different highly variable things. It is not only the way in which the information is being presented, but also how the rhetor presents it to the audience.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that they choose to describe rhetoric as they do because they are attempting to encompass all that rhetoric entails as succinctly as possible, which is certainly no mean feat. In order to do this, they must use many words and phrases that have multiple layers and meanings to them, such as ‘potentially active’ and ‘situationally contingent’.
Rhetoric is the art of carefully sculpting words and sentences to serve a specific and meaningful purpose. A person will use specific rhetorical styles differently, depending on the unique and specific circumstances of that person at that particular moment in time.
ReplyDeleteRhetoric is, or should be, an agent of change. It is "philosophical" in that it provides a broad framework for understanding human communication on an abstract level. At the same time, the thing itself is "practical" because it is used in many of the discourses that we are surrounded with in our daily lives. It is the driving force behind any type of persuasion; it shows up perhaps most obviously in political spheres. However, what we might term a "business rhetoric" is even more prevalent in our consumer culture, and plays a large part in advertising (which is its own form of persuasion). Furthermore, much of our own daily conversations revolve around rhetoric as we subtly or unsubtly express our biases.
ReplyDeleteThe aspect of rhetoric that stood out to me most was the way in which rhetorical truth is shared between the rhetor and the audience transitionally. One can take different sides in discourse or discussion, and yet find truth that both sides share. This part of rhetoric fascinates me because it is part of everyday living that people often times do not notice that they partake of. When intentionally used, rhetoric can be extremely affective and moving. Even the slightest implication of rhetoric can have a powerful affect over words.
ReplyDeleteCovino and Joliffe's description of rhetoric can be condensed to mean "manipulating language, words, sentences, etc. to persuade an audience to adopt a particular way of thinking". They admit that persuasion and rhetoric often receive negative connotation, but at the same time it needs to be respected, much as poetry is respected, as an art form. What particularly interests me is the employment of Kairos in rhetorical strategies. We often times overlook the power that location, timing and tone have a profound impact on the effectiveness of rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteCovino and Joliffe’s definition of rhetoric as “a primarily verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts” describes a rhetoric that is much broader than that described in other previous definitions. The first aspect of the definition, “primarily verbal” gives credence to the fact that rhetoric can sometimes exist in other arenas—for example in visual advertisements. “Situationally contingent” acknowledges the legitimacy of the ancient Greek concept of kairos and similarly the relatively recent idea of the rhetorical situation, as expressed Lloyd Bitzer. Both kairos and the rhetorical situation posit that rhetoric is spurred by external events—that rhetoric cannot occur at any time, but must be an appropriate response to other catalysts. In using the word “epistemic” to describe rhetoric, Covino and Joliffe indicate that rhetoric must be deliberately created by the speaker. The speaker must have a clear idea of the outcome of the speech. A speech in which the speaker inadvertently compels the audience to action, or compels an action contrary to what he intends would not fall under the category of rhetoric. In describing rhetoric as both “philosophical and practical,” Colino and Joliffe are expressly addressing a chief point of contention in the ancient rhetorical text, Gorgias, by Plato. The beginning of the text exposes two opposing interpretations of rhetoric, championed by two different characters. The character of Gorgias believes that rhetoric is an invaluable skill for the young men of Athens to master since it enables them to sway any large crowd—a skill which will consequently make them very powerful. In contrast, the character of Socrates examines rhetoric from a moral perspective, and holds an entirely different opinion of rhetoric. From Socrates’ viewpoint, rhetoric has two faces, one dishonorable, which is used to persuade large audiences, and the other, infinitely more respectable, deemed philosophical rhetoric—a question-and-answer style of oratory which services as a vehicle in the quest to discover “absolute truth.” Covino and Joliff use the words “practical and philosophical” to acknowledge that both interpretations of rhetoric have credibility and that both types fall under their definition. The last part of the definition “active text” revisits the idea of kairos, in that rhetoric arises only from the existence of an exigence; which is, in Bitzer’s words, “an imperfection marked by urgency.” The significance of Covino and Joliff’s definition is that it incorporates previous, seemingly contrasting definitions of rhetoric into a cohesive idea that is flexible enough to remain applicable in the ever-evolving world of rhetorical analysis.
ReplyDeleteThere were several parts of Covino & Joliffe’s definition of rhetoric that strike me as particularly interesting and/or informative, especially insofar as it presents rhetoric in a different light than I have previously experienced.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I find the heavy emphasis on the situationally contingent nature of rhetoric to be quite informative. While I suppose it has always been an implied part of previous explanations, the integration of kairos presents significant ramifications for rhetoric and the analysis thereof. It illuminates, also, strategic decisions to be made in the practice of rhetoric. Given the context-dependent nature of the art, it doesn’t particularly matter if a rhetor creates a technically flawless text if such a text is not well-received by the audience for any number of reasons (timing, state of mind, predisposition, etc.).
Secondly, I found the explicit definition of rhetoric as a “primarily verbal” art to be interesting. This is interesting in the context to the deliberately broad definition of “text” that Covino & Joliffe provide later, wherein they extend the term to virtually any spoken or written word. Although they mention it briefly later in the text, it seems to me to be short-sited to not include visual representations of rhetoric. Visual rhetoric has certainly become increasingly powerful in recent years, but even at the time of publication (1995) visual rhetoric had been important for decades. I suppose that visual rhetoric is encompassed by their definition of text insofar as it is generally composed of symbols that represent the verbal. However, it still seems to fall short of a full appreciation of the evolution of rhetoric from the classic to the present.