Rhetorical Perspective

[Constance J. Ostrowski]

Having been silent on this list since I joined a few weeks ago (due to time
issues), I'll save a more thorough introduction for another post; right now,
I'll just work towards *ethos* (credibility) by identifying myself as
having a Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric and as integrating a rhetorical
perspective into the literature, language, and communication (composition
and speech) courses I teach and into what scholarship I can squeeze in.

Here I'm picking up one of the strands of this thread--the strand Seth
put forward on composition/rhetoric.  I want to pick it up using the following
statement as my starting point:

	Instead of reading "composition" as content and "rhetoric" as
	form, what I'm aiming for is seeing "composition" as the
	materiality and "rhetoric" as the operator.

I agree with Seth (and others) that setting up the composition/rhetoric
relationship as content/form is objectionable.  (I also object to the
synecdochal reduction of rhetoric to composition that exists in so many
academic job ads, and that obviously exists throughout large sectors of
academe, at the least.)  The relationship I see between them pretty much
forms the basis for my first-day introduction-to-the-course lecture with
which I start my comp. courses.  After defining rhetoric generally as
the art/science (ie., practice) and study of human communication (which
had as its origin and still has as its primary--though not only--focus
verbal [language-based] communication), I state that in the comp. course
the students will deal with basic principles of communication that they
will focus on applying in a particular context:  academic writing.

In other words, I see composition as a specific application of rhetorical
principles in a particular context/situation (academic writing, mainly
the essay), just as the speech course I teach focuses on the specific
application of rhetorical principles in the context of oral exposition, and
technical writing deals with the specific application in business/industrial
contexts, and journalism in . . . and so on.

Now, I'm interpreting the use of the word "composition" in this thread to
refer to the first-year writing course(s)--largely because Seth has
identified himself as working in Composition.   If another sense of the
word has been intended, please enlighten me.

Of course, I wonder how we might connect "composition" in the musical
sense to this discussion.  Is musical composition considered to be
something completely different from verbal composition (creating
expository prose), or do they pretty much follow the same principles,
using instead different media?

Connie Ostrowski
ostroc at rpi.edu
	(alum account)