Rhetorical Perspective

[Peter Cramer]

Barney,

Re:  your comments below. . .

I don't think there's any doubt that rhetoric is a key part of the
Western Tradition, but I have the following questions:  1) Is rhetoric
only concerned with language?  2) Is rhetoric only concerned with public
discourse?  3) For a perspective to be considered rhetorical, must it be
realized in the classical Western model (handbooks, political and legal
applications)?

Peter

Excerpts from mail: 2-Feb-99 Rhetorical Perspective by John Bernard
Bate at MIDWAY
> Regarding James and Zouhair's discussion about a distinct rhetorical
> perspective:
>
> I think taking a comparative approach, to begin with, might help delineate
> what a 'rheotical perspective' might be.  Is not the such a perspective a
> socially and historically specific ideology of language?  That is, is not
> 'rhetoric' one of the basic ideas westerners have developed over the years
> regarding what language is, how it works, and what kinds of persons can do
> what kinds of things in and in terms of any particular language?  Does it
> not also have a very particular model of discursive interaction associated
> with it (i.e. the rhetor/multitude, the single speaker addressing a large
> group)?  In India, specifically Tamil south India, no such model of
> discursive interaction was depicted in some 2,000 years of continuous
> literary production until 1893 when a king, for the first time, addresses
> his troops massed before his fortress walls.  Kings -- or minister or other
> high status individuals -- NEVER address audiences; there are dialogues but
> no rhetors/multitudes.  No Ciceros.  Indeed, considering the tradition of
> poetic praise of apical entities (kings, gods, etc) the multitude addressed
> the king!  Similarly, nothing resembling Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, no thesis
> outlining the 'arts of pursuasion,'  was produced in Tamil until 1949.
> (They've been coming thick and fast since then!)  2,000 years of continuous
> production.  Fantasitically complex grammars and poetics throughout.  But no
> rhetorcs, per se.  There are other ideologies at play here which I won't go
> into now.  But it seems to me that the 'rhetorical perspective' may
> profitably be parochialized a bit in order to contrast that particular
> ideology of language with others that may be at play in different places and
> times.
>
> Barney