History of rhetoric

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The Art of Persuasion:
Intro to Rhetorical Analysis

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What is Rhetorical Analysis?

 While the term "rhetorical analysis" is, at first, rather
intimidating for many people, it is easily understood (at least
at its most basic) when broken down and defined.

Rhetoric The art of persuasion
Analysis The breaking down of something
into its parts and interpreting how
those parts fit together

 In rhetorical analysis, then, we examine how authors attempt
to persuade their audiences by looking at the various
components that make up the art of persuasion.

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Everything’s an argument!

 Every text—oral, written, or visual—is, in some sense rhetorical;
each one is a strategic presentation of particular ideas.
 Human beings both produce and receive such texts; as such, we
must understand what they mean. Typically, this is done
implicitly; we understand the meaning of a text without thinking
about how or why it works the way it does.
 Rhetorical analysis asks us precisely that: to understand how
texts create meaning, how they construct knowledge, and how
they make us take action.
 Rhetorical analysis, then, helps us to understand explicitly
(rather than simply implicitly, as most of us do) how the
language of a text works and how we can use such language to
work for us.

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Rhetorical Analysis
Using the Joliffe Framework Design

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Rhetorical Situation: Exigence

Problem, incident, or situation causing the writer to write the
piece

What prompted the writing of this piece?

Most likely, the piece would not have been written if it had not
been for this.

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Rhetorical Situation: Audience

An audience has either an:

1. Immediate response

2. Intermediate response (think about later)

So, which type of response does the author want from the
audience?

In this way, the audience shapes the rhetoric.

No audience is a tabula rasa.

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Rhetorical Situation: Purpose

The author considers a purpose of the writing in a sense of
consideration for what the audience feels.

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Appeals: Logos

 An appeal to logic

 An attempt to persuade the reader by presenting a logical
argument

 If, then statements

 Syllogistic inferences/conclusions

 Deductive reasoning

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Appeals: Logos

The central appeal of anything is that it must be logical.

Without logic, nothing that follows is reasonable.

You must consider the logos within the author’s writing.

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Appeals: Ethos

 The ethical appeal

 An attempt to persuade based on moral grounds

 Right vs. Wrong

 Good vs. Evil

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Appeals: Pathos

 An appeal to emotion

 An attempt to persuade the reader by causing them to
respond to the way an issue/topic makes them feel

 Can invoke bias or prejudice

 Uses non-logical appeals

 Informal language

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Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle
Writer/ Ethos

Audience/ Pathos Context/ Logos

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Tone

 You must understand Logos, Ethos, and Pathos to understand
the Tone

 Logos, Ethos, and Pathos all contribute to determining the
Tone

 If you don’t recognize the Tone of the piece, you miss
everything that follows

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What is Tone?

 The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character,
or audience

 Conveyed through the author’s:
 Choice of words (diction)
 Word order (syntax)
 Detail, imagery, and language (figurative language)

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Organization/Structure/Form

 Always work chronologically when analyzing a piece of
literature.

 You cannot identify shifts in tone and other elements if you
don’t look at it chronologically.

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Surface Features: Diction

 What is diction?

 Diction is word choice intended to convey a certain effect
 To communicate ideas and impressions
 To evoke emotions
 To convey your views of truth to the reader

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Surface Features: Syntax

 What is Syntax?

 The arrangement and order of words in a sentence

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Surface Features: Syntax

1. Sentence Structure
- Short sentences are often emphatic, passionate, or flippant
- Longer sentences often suggest the writer’s thoughtful
response

2. Arrangement of Ideas in a Sentence
- Are they set out in a particular way for a purpose?

3. Arrangement of Ideas in a Paragraph
- Is there evidence of any pattern or structure?

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Surface Features:
Imagery & Figurative Language

The use of language to appeal to the senses

 Simile, metaphor

 Allusion

 Alliteration

 Etc.

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Surface Features

 Consider how surface features contribute to the message

 Syntactical elements are usually there for either parallelism
or difference

 All of those multisyllabic terms are there to show how things
in the piece are the same or different (antithesis, parallelism,
etc.)

 Figurative language is metaphorical; therefore, it makes
abstract things concrete

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A Brief History of Rhetoric:
Ancient Israel

 Rhetorical skills were required and found wanting in biblical
figure Moses as mentioned in Torah (c.1313 BCE)[6], where
Moses argued with God that he should not be the one to
deliver the message to the people by saying "Please, my
Lord, I am not a man of words..." (Exodus 4:10).

 To this God responded "Is there not Aaron, your brother, the
Levite?" (Exodus 4:14). Levites were the priestly tribe of
Israelites that were occupied primarily with teaching, at that
time, in public, therefore Aaron was expected to be such a
"man of words".

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The Greeks

 The earliest mention of oratorical skill occurs in Homer's Iliad, where heroes like Achilles, Hektor, and
Odysseus were honored for their ability to advise and exhort their peers and followers (the Laos or army) in
wise and appropriate action.

 With the rise of the democratic polis, speaking skill was adapted to the needs of the public and political life of
cities in Ancient Greece, much of which revolved around the use of oratory as the medium through which
political and judicial decisions were made, and through which philosophical ideas were developed and
disseminated. For modern students today, it can be difficult to remember that the wide use and availability of
written texts is a phenomenon that was just coming into vogue in Classical Greece.

 In Classical times, many of the great thinkers and political leaders performed their works before an audience,
usually in the context of a competition or contest for fame, political influence, and cultural capital; in fact, many
of them are known only through the texts that their students, followers, or detractors wrote down. As has
already been noted, rhetor was the Greek term for orator: A rhetor was a citizen who regularly addressed
juries and political assemblies and who was thus understood to have gained some knowledge about public
speaking in the process, though in general facility with language was often referred to as logôn techne, "skill
with arguments" or "verbal artistry." See, Mogens Herman Hansen The Athenian Democracy in the Age of
Demosthenes (Blackwell, 1991); Josiah Ober Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton UP, 1989); Jeffrey
Walker, Rhetoric and Poetics in Antiquity (Oxford UP, 2000).

 Rhetoric thus evolved as an important art, one that provided the orator with the forms, means, and strategies
for persuading an audience of the correctness of the orator's arguments. Today the term rhetoric can be used
at times to refer only to the form of argumentation, often with the pejorative connotation that rhetoric is a
means of obscuring the truth. Classical philosophers believed quite the contrary: the skilled use of rhetoric
was essential to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying arguments.

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The Sophists

 Organized thought about public speaking began in ancient Greece.[citation
needed] Possibly, the first study about the power of language may be attributed to
the philosopher Empedocles (d. ca. 444 BC), whose theories on human knowledge
would provide a basis for many future rhetoricians. The first written manual is
attributed to Corax and his pupil Tisias. Their work, as well as that of many of the
early rhetoricians, grew out of the courts of law; Tisias, for example, is believed to
have written judicial speeches that others delivered in the courts.

 Teaching in oratory was popularized in the 5th century BC by itinerant teachers
known as sophists, the best known of whom were Protagoras (c.481-420 BC),
Gorgias (c.483-376 BC), and Isocrates (436-338 BC).

 The Sophists were a disparate group who travelled from city to city making public
displays to attract students who were then charged a fee for their education. Their
central focus was on logos or what we might broadly refer to as discourse, its
functions and powers. They defined parts of speech, analyzed poetry, parsed close
synonyms, invented argumentation strategies, and debated the nature of reality

 The word "sophistry" developed strong negative connotations in ancient Greece
that continue today, but in ancient Greece sophists were nevertheless popular and
well-paid professionals, widely respected for their abilities but also widely
criticized for their excesses.

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Isocrates

 Isocrates (436-338 BC), like the sophists, taught public speaking as a means of human
improvement, but he worked to distinguish himself from the Sophists, whom he saw as
claiming far more than they could deliver.

 He suggested that while an art of virtue or excellence did exist, it was only one piece,
and the least, in a process of self-improvement that relied much more heavily on native
talent and desire, constant practice, and the imitation of good models. Isocrates
believed that practice in speaking publicly about noble themes and important
questions would function to improve the character of both speaker and audience while
also offering the best service to a state.

 He thus wrote his speeches as "models" for his students to imitate in the same way that
poets might imitate Homer or Hesiod. His was the first permanent school in Athens and
it is likely that Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum were founded in part as a
response to Isocrates. Though he left no handbooks, his speeches ("Antidosis" and
"Against the Sophists" are most relevant to students of rhetoric) became models of
oratory (he was one of the canonical "Ten Attic Orators") and he had a marked
influence on Cicero and Quintilian, and through them, on the entire educational system
of the west.

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Plato

 Plato (427-347 BC) famously outlined the differences between true and
false rhetoric in a number of dialogues, but especially the Gorgias and
the Phaedrus. Both dialogues are complex and difficult, but in both Plato
disputes the Sophistic notion that an art of persuasion, the art of the
Sophists which he calls "rhetoric" (after the public speaker or rhêtôr),
can exist independent of the art of dialectic.
 Plato claims that since Sophists appeal only to what seems likely or
probable, rather than to what is true, they are not at all making their
students and audiences "better," but simply flattering them with what
they want to hear
 Plato coined the term "rhetoric" both to denounce what he saw as the
false wisdom of the sophists, and to advance his own views on
knowledge and method.
 Plato attempts to distinguish the rhetoric common to Socratic
questioning from Sophistry.

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Aristotle

 Plato's student Aristotle (384-322 BC) famously set forth an extended
treatise on rhetoric that still repays careful study today.
 In the first sentence of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle says that "rhetoric
is the counterpart [literally, the antistrophe] of dialectic." As the
"antistrophe" of a Greek ode responds to and is patterned after the
structure of the "strophe" (they form two sections of the whole and are
sung by two parts of the chorus), so the art of rhetoric follows and is
structurally patterned after the art of dialectic because both are arts of
discourse production. Thus, while dialectical methods are necessary to
find truth in theoretical matters, rhetorical methods are required in
practical matters such as adjudicating somebody's guilt or innocence
when charged in a court of law, or adjudicating a prudent course of
action to be taken in a deliberative assembly
 He identifies three steps or "offices" of rhetoric--invention,
arrangement, and style--and three different types of rhetorical proof:
ethos, logos, and pathos

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The Romans

 The Romans, for whom oration also became an important part of public
life, saw much value in Greek rhetoric, hiring Greek rhetoricians to
teach in their schools and as private tutors, and imitating and adapting
Greek rhetorical works in Latin and with Roman examples.

 Roman rhetoric thus largely extends upon and develops its Greek roots,
though it tends to prefer practical advice to the theoretical speculations
of Greek rhetoricians.

 Cicero (106-43 BC) and Quintilian (35-100 AD) were chief among
Roman rhetoricians, and their work is an extension of sophistic,
Isocratean, Platonic and Aristotelian rhetorical theory

 Latin rhetoric was developed out of the Rhodian schools of rhetoric. In
the second century BC, Rhodes became an important educational
center, particularly of rhetoric, and the sons of noble Roman families
studied there

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The Cannons of Rhetoric

 Aristotle and other Greek rhetoricians thought of rhetoric as
having five canons or established principles. These
principles outline the systems of classical rhetoric
 Invention: To discover the available means of persuasion
 Arrangement: To select and assemble the argument
effectively
 Style: To present the argument cogently and eloquently
 Memory: To speak extemporaneously
 Delivery: To effectively use voice, gestures, text, and images

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Invention:
To discover the available means of persuasion

 Exigence and audience are the primary building blocks of a
rhetorical situation, in which a person is compelled to
communicate with an audience.
 . We must figure out what to say to achieve our desired goal. And
this is the role of the first canon of rhetoric: invention.
 A rhetorical situation demands that we discover:
 The audience and their needs/desires/thoughts regarding the
situation.
 What types of evidence (facts, testimony, statistics, laws, maxims,
examples, authority) to employ with the particular audience.
 How best to appeal to the audience (logic, emotions, character).
 Which topics to employ to examine the situation and generate ideas.
 The best timing and proportion for communication (kairos).

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Arrangement:
To assemble the argument effectively

 The 5-paragraph essay model many of us learned is based on classic Greek
and Roman structures. Its parts include:
 Introduction (exordium)
 Statement of fact (narratio)
 Confirmation or proof (confirmatio)
 Refutation (refutatio)
 Conclusion (peroratio)

 . In the classic model, the introduction must also set the tone for the audience
and make them favorably disposed toward the speaker.

 The Greeks especially were concerned that any who would speak in public
establish his ethos and community connection as part of introducing an
issue.

 The confirmation or proof section contrasts with the refutation. The former
constructs the argument; the latter challenges the argument of the
opposition.

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Style:
To present the argument cogently and artistically

 The canon of style concerns the choices rhetors make to
form statements that will have calculated (surmised) effects
on the audience.

 Style is most often thought of as making choices about the
levels of language, i.e. grand, middle, and low. And style also
concerns the choices one makes of tropes and schemes.

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Memory
To speak extemporaneously

 The ancient Greeks thought that reading a speech from a text
was sign of a poor rhetor. And a poor rhetor was an ineffective
politician. A citizen might hire a logographer to write a speech,
but the citizen would then memorize it for delivery.
 In addition, the systems of classical rhetoric were designed to
be used on the fly. Several of the famous Sophists used to
entertain crowds by expounding upon any given subject
extemporaneously. The canon of memory helped them retain
and marshal set bits of argument as well as whole discourses.
 Modern rhetors no longer rely on the canon of memory. We have
computers and Tele-Prompt-Rs to help us deliver effective
addresses. The ability to sustain an effective extemporaneous
speech has been largely lost except to those rare individuals
who have a natural talent for speaking on the fly.

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Delivery:
To effectively use voice, gestures, text, and images.

 For the Greeks, a good speaker was a good person. It was
difficult for them to believe that eloquence could reside in an
unworthy individual.
 This idea seems naive to us today, especially after a parade of
sliver-tongued, 20th century despots and scoundrels. In many
cases today, we believe that too much skill in public speaking
must be a sign of the speaker's deceptive ability and intent. How
far we've come from that Greek ideal.
 But, like the Greeks, we still find the ability to speak effectively,
or write well, a prime source of entertainment. Anyone who
would engage the public sphere on issues of civic concern
would do well to consider the canon of delivery, i.e. the
conventions of modern speaking and writing.

+ Rhetorical theories &
strategies

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Stasis Theory

 Stasis names a procedure within rhetorical invention by which one
would ask certain questions in order to arrive at the point at issue
in the debate, the "stasis."

 Four such basic kinds of conflict were categorized by the Greeks
and Romans: conjectural, definitional, qualitative, and translative.
Questions to Find Type of Question Type of Stasis
Stasis
Did he do it? Of fact Conjectural stasis
What did he do? Of definition Definitional stasis
Was it just/ expedient? Of quality Qualitative stasis
Is it the right venue for Of jurisdiction Translative stasis
this issue?

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Stasis Theory

 Stasis is a way of looking at an argument’s structure to decide
the type of issue the argument addresses
 . The questions would be posed in sequence, because each
depended on the question(s) preceding it. Together, the
questions helped determine the point of contention in an
argument, the place where disputants could focus their energy,
and hence what kind of an argument to make.
 A modern version of those questions might look like the
following:
 Did something happen?
 What is its nature?
 What is its quality?
 What actions should be taken?
 Here's how these questions might be used to explore a "crime."

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The Syllogism

 A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one
proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the
premises) of a certain form
 In Aristotle's Prior Analytics, he defines syllogism as "a
discourse in which, certain things having been supposed,
something different from the things supposed results of
necessity because these things are so." (24b18–20) Despite this
very general definition, he limits himself first to categorical
syllogisms (and later to modal syllogisms)
 The syllogism is at the core of deductive reasoning, where facts
are determined by combining existing statements, in contrast to
inductive reasoning where facts are determined by repeated
observations.

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The Syllogism

 A syllogism (henceforth categorical unless otherwise specified)
consists of three parts: the major premise, the minor premise, and the
conclusion.
 In Aristotle, each of the premises is in the form "Some/all A belong to
B," where "Some/All A" is one term and "belong to B" is another, but
more modern logicians allow some variation.
 Each of the premises has one term in common with the conclusion: in a
major premise, this is the major term (i.e., the predicate) of the
conclusion; in a minor premise, it is the minor term (the subject) of the
conclusion.
 For example:
 Major premise: All humans are mortal.
 Minor premise: Socrates is a human.
 Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

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Examples of Syllogisms

 Example #1
 All men are animals.
 All animals are mortal.
 All men are mortal.

 Example #2
 No reptiles have fur.
 All snakes are reptiles.
 No snakes have fur.

 Example #3
 All kittens are playful.
 Some pets are kittens.
 Some pets are playful.

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Enthymemes

 An enthymeme, in its modern sense, is an informally stated
syllogism (a three-part deductive argument) with an
unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to
lead to the conclusion.

 In an enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it
is assumed.

 In a broader usage, the term "enthymeme" is sometimes
used to describe an incomplete argument of forms other
than the syllogism.

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Three Parts of an Enthymeme

 The following quotation is an example of an enthymeme
(used for humorous effect).
 "There is no law against composing music when one has no ideas
whatsoever. The music of Wagner, therefore, is perfectly legal." —
Mark Twain.

 The three parts:
 There is no law against composing music when one has no
ideas whatsoever. (premise)
 The music of Wagner, therefore, is perfectly legal. (conclusion)
 Wagner has no ideas. (implicit premise)

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Toulmin on Argument

 The theory of argument that informs discussion of argumentative invention in
this course is drawn from Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument. Toulmin's
theory was designed, among other things, to analyze the practical arguments
of everyday life.
 Toulmin's theory based on a layout of argument elements (as depicted below).
The basic elements may be defined roughly as follows:
 Claim--A statement or proposition that the arguer wants the audience to accept.
 Data--The statements or reasons put forward by the arguer to get the audience to
accept the claim.
 Warrant--When the arguer relates the data to the claim, a relationship between the two
is asserted or assumend. The warrant is an inference rule that "authorizes" this
relationship. (Warrants are best thought of as conditional statements in "if, then" form.
 Backing--The principles of the field at stake in the argument from which the warrant is
abstracted or drawn.

 In Toulmin's view, every acceptable argument may be layed out using these
elements. However, arguments in actual discourses infrequently express their
warrants and backing in words. These elements are usually suppressed by
arguers.

History of rhetoric

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History of rhetoric