Definitions of Rhetoric

From RhetorClick

This page will have definitions of rhetoric according to authors from our past and current theories courses. Authors are listed alphabetically by last name.

Bizzell, Patricia

• "Rhetoric is the study of the personal, social and historical elements in human discourse--how to recognize them, interpret them, and act on them, in terms both of situational context and of verbal style."

Donald C. Bryant

• "I take rhetoric to be the rationale of informative and suasory discourse."
• "Rhetoric, or the rhetorical, is the function in human affairs which governs and gives direction to that creative activity, that process of critical analysis, that branch of learning, which address themselves to the whole phenomenom of the designed use of language for the promulgation of information, ideas, and attitudes."
• "We may say that the rhetorical function is the function of adjusting ideas to people and of people to ideas."

Burke, Kenneth

• "The key term for the 'new' rhetoric would be 'identification."

Ehninger, Douglas

• "A rhetoric I define as an organized, consistent, coherent way of talking about practical discourse in any of its forms or modes."

Fogarty, Daniel

• Rhetoric is "the science of recognizing the range of the meanings and of the functions of words, and the art of using and interpreting them in accordance with this recognition."

Frye, Northrop

• Rhetoric is "the social aspect of the use of language."

Halloran, Michael S.

• "The tradition of classical rhetoric, then, is defined principally by the image of the Orator as a cultural idea. He appears in Greece as the man who possesses arete, in Rome as 'the good man skilled in speaking,' later as The Renaissance Man, and later still as the Enlightenment's 'man of reason'."

Nichols, Marie Hochmuth

• Rhetoric is "the theory and the practice of the verbal mode of presenting judgment and choice, knowledge and feeling....It works in the area of the contingent, where alternatives are possible."

Perelman, Chaim

• "Classical Rhetoric, the art of speaking well--that is, the art of speaking (or writing) persuasively--was concerned to study the discursive ways of acting upon an audience, with a view to winning or increasing its adherence to the theses that were presented to it for its endorsement."
• "For the ancients, rhetoric was the theory of persuasive discourse and included five parts: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and actio."
• "The new rhetoric is a theory of argumentation....The part played by the audience in rhetoric is crucially important, because all argumentation, in aiming to persuade, must be adapted to the audience and, hence, based on beliefs accepted by the audience with such conviction that the rest of the discourse can be securely based upon it."

Richards, I.A.

• Rhetoric "should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies," "a persistent, systematic, detailed inquiry into how words work."

Weaver, Richard

• Rhetoric is the "intellectual love of the Good," and "seeks to perfect men by showing them better versions of themselves."

References

1. Breuch, Lee-Ann M. Kastman. "Post-Process 'Pedagogy'." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. 116. Print.

2. Bryant, Donald C. "Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its Scope." Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Boston, MA: Blair Press, 1994. 271, 282. Print.

3. Ehninger, Douglas. "On Systems of Rhetoric." Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Boston, MA: Blair Press, 1994. 319. Print.

4. Fogarty, Daniel John. Roots for a New Rhetoric. New York: Bureau of Publication; Teacher's College, Columbia University, 1959. Print.

5. Frye, Northrop. The Well-Tempered Critic. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1963. Print.

6. Halloran, S. Michael. "On the End of Rhetoric, Classical and Modern." Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook. Eds. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Boston, MA: Blair Press, 1994. 333. Print.

7. Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. Rhetoric and Criticism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963. Print.

8. Perelman, Chaim. "The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning." Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook. Ed. Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Boston, MA: Blair Press, 1994. 146, 153, 158. Print.

9. Perelman, Chaim. "Rhetoric and Philosophy." Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Invention in Writing. Eds. Richard E. Young and Yameng Liu. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1994. 51. Print.

10. Richards, I.A. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press, 1936. Print.

11.) Weaver, Richard M. The Ethics of Rhetoric. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953. Print.