Rhetorical Perspective

[Peter Cramer]

Hello

Thanks for the responses.

hmm.  For me, this question of a distinct rhetorical perspective is a
difficult one.  Is it an effort to explain poetics with an emphasis on
tropes and figures?  Is it a kind of alternative and parallel tradition
to philosophy, as C. Perelman suggests?  Is it related to "applied
linguistics" or "pragmatics" with an emphasis on using discourse to
accomplish some aim?


Excerpts from mail: 29-Jan-99 Re: Rhetorical Perspective by Zouhair
Maalej at GNET.TN
> Hi all,
> Although I do not pretend to be a specialist of rhetoric, it seems to me
> that I have read about major distinctions between linguistics and
> rhetoric. I can suggest Leech's _Principles of Pragmatics_ (1983), which
> discusses pragmatics as a new/modern rhetoric, and proposes a
> distinction along these lines between semantics and pragmatics. I can
> also think of Orecchioni's _L'Implicite_ (in French), where she proposes
> for communication, among other things, a linguistic competence and a
> rhetorical competence.
>
> Cheers
> Zouhair
> James Cornish wrote:
> >
> > Peter Cramer wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > I'm Peter Cramer, a doctoral student in rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon.
> > >
> > > I'm interested the following questions:  Is there a distinct
> > > "rhetorical" perspective?  If so, how can we characterize it, and what
> > > is its relation with perspectives from other fields such as linguistics?
> >
> > I think I would differ from Michelle's comment that there isn't a
> > distinct "rhetorical perspective" in that all this is a matter of
> > focus.  Coming from the "discourse of historical rhetoric," distinctions
> > are made to delimit and categorize concepts and processes so that others
> > can understand them.  If rhetoric is finding the means of persuasion,
> > then linguistics is find the means of language.  I think it could be
> > argued that there IS a difference but only in discursive focus.
> > --
> > James Warren Cornish -  Texas A&M University
> > English Department/ Discourse Studies
> > 213B Blocker Bldg. M/S 4227
> > College Station
> > TX  77840-4337
> > 409-845-3542 ex. 40