Rhetorical Perspective

[David Samuels]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding Phil Gaines, but why would a gloss of "rhetoric"
as "strategies of persuasion" mean that the Western model is the only one
out there?  Don't Navajos ever try to persuade each other?  (If you
conflate rhetoric and poetic, as many do, does that mean that a Western
model of poetics is the only one available?)

Best,

David Samuels

----------

>     Burke speaks to this quite nicely, right?  If we step back to seeing
>rhetoric as strategies for persuading/convincing, then naturally the
>Western model is only one.  The public discourse focus in the West
>continues the ancient tradition of legal, ceremonial, and legislative talk
>as the sites of rhetorical analysis and training, but certainly rhetorical
>(as assumed above) principles are at work to one degree or another in the
>whole range of types of linguistic interaction.  I say linguistic because
>I think that it is in language that the full panoply of rhetoric is
>exercised.  So, although to say that rhetoric is _only_ concerned with
>language would be too strong, it seems that it is mostly concerned with
>language.
>
>
>
>
>
>Phil Gaines
>
>Assistant Professor of English
>
>Montana State University
>
>
>
>----------
>
>>From: Peter Cramer <pcramer+ at ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
>
>>To: DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU
>
>>Subject: Re: Rhetorical Perspective
>
>>Date: Tue, Feb 2, 1999, 2:31 PM
>
>>
>
>
>
>>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)?
>
>
>
>



David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

VOX: (413) 545-2702
FAX: (413) 545-9494
email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu