Rhetorical Perspective

[James Cornish]

In reference to Barney Bates comments:

> 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.
>

Great point.  I personally have a problem with the public/private angle
so much at stake in the historical rhetoric I've read the last couple of
years. I mean it makes a lot of cultural sense to me that because of the
historical circumstance, the Ciceros did what we perceive them to have
done.  I think our honoring of those feats of language seated in the
weight of the historical trajectory we inhabit has to be questioned like
I see you doing.  But at the same time we have to use what the thinkers
we inherit have found.  You see my hesitance here.  I want to move away
but the attraction is enormous.


--
James Warren Cornish -  Texas A&M University
English Department/ Discourse Studies
213B Blocker Bldg. M/S 4227
College Station
TX  77840-4337
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