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Jump to navigationJump to searchNew page: Image:lighterstill.jpgright|frame '''Rhetoric''' is the study of effective speaking and writing, the art of persuasion, and many other things related to the ap...
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'''Rhetoric''' is the study of effective speaking and writing, the art of persuasion, and many other things related to the application of language.
In its long and vigorous history rhetoric has enjoyed many definitions, accommodated differing purposes, and varied widely in what it included. And yet, for most of its history it has maintained its fundamental [[character]] as a [[discipline]] for training students
1) to [[Perception|perceive]] how [[language]] is at work [[oral]]ly and in [[writing|written]] forms, and
2) to become proficient in applying the resources of language in their own speaking and writing. (See [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Pedagogy/Pedagogy.htm rhetorical pedagogy])
Discerning how language is working in others' or one's own writing and speaking, one must (artificially) divide [[form]] and [[content]], what is being said and how this is said (see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/Content%20and%20Form.htm Content/Form]). Because rhetoric examines so attentively the how of language as the methods and means of [[communication]], it has sometimes been discounted as something only concerned with style or [[Phenomena|appearances]], and not with the [[quality]] or [[content]] of communication. For many (such as [[Plato]]) rhetoric deals with the superficial at best, the deceptive at worst ("mere rhetoric"), when one might better attend to matters of substance, [[truth]], or [[reason]] as attempted in [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/Dialectic.htm dialectic] or [[philosophy]] or [[religion]].
Rhetoric has sometimes lived down to its critics, but as set forth from antiquity, rhetoric was a comprehensive art just as much concerned with what one could say as how one might say it. Indeed, a basic premise for rhetoric is the '''indivisibility of means from [[meaning]]'''; how one says something conveys meaning as much as what one says. Rhetoric studies the effectiveness of language comprehensively, including its [[emotion]]al impact (see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Persuasive%20Appeals/Pathos.htm pathos]), as much as its propositional content ( see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Persuasive%20Appeals/Logos.htm logos]). To see how language and [[thought]] worked together, however, it has first been necessary to artificially divide content and form. [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/rhetoric.htm]
[[Category: Languages and Literature]]
'''Rhetoric''' is the study of effective speaking and writing, the art of persuasion, and many other things related to the application of language.
In its long and vigorous history rhetoric has enjoyed many definitions, accommodated differing purposes, and varied widely in what it included. And yet, for most of its history it has maintained its fundamental [[character]] as a [[discipline]] for training students
1) to [[Perception|perceive]] how [[language]] is at work [[oral]]ly and in [[writing|written]] forms, and
2) to become proficient in applying the resources of language in their own speaking and writing. (See [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Pedagogy/Pedagogy.htm rhetorical pedagogy])
Discerning how language is working in others' or one's own writing and speaking, one must (artificially) divide [[form]] and [[content]], what is being said and how this is said (see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/Content%20and%20Form.htm Content/Form]). Because rhetoric examines so attentively the how of language as the methods and means of [[communication]], it has sometimes been discounted as something only concerned with style or [[Phenomena|appearances]], and not with the [[quality]] or [[content]] of communication. For many (such as [[Plato]]) rhetoric deals with the superficial at best, the deceptive at worst ("mere rhetoric"), when one might better attend to matters of substance, [[truth]], or [[reason]] as attempted in [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/Dialectic.htm dialectic] or [[philosophy]] or [[religion]].
Rhetoric has sometimes lived down to its critics, but as set forth from antiquity, rhetoric was a comprehensive art just as much concerned with what one could say as how one might say it. Indeed, a basic premise for rhetoric is the '''indivisibility of means from [[meaning]]'''; how one says something conveys meaning as much as what one says. Rhetoric studies the effectiveness of language comprehensively, including its [[emotion]]al impact (see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Persuasive%20Appeals/Pathos.htm pathos]), as much as its propositional content ( see [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Persuasive%20Appeals/Logos.htm logos]). To see how language and [[thought]] worked together, however, it has first been necessary to artificially divide content and form. [http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Encompassing%20Terms/rhetoric.htm]
[[Category: Languages and Literature]]
