Rhetorical Perspective

[Peter Cramer]

Excerpts from mail: 5-Feb-99 Re: Rhetorical Perspective by doug sweet at BEST.COM
> I've been reading this list and thinking the last three or so days, and with
> great trepidation I suggest that "Rhetorical Perspective" is redundant, and
> that therein lies the discussion.


This appeals to me, but if "rhetoric" is equivalent to "perspective",
then rhetoric is indeed "always 'there'" as Constance J. Ostrowski
mentioned.  This is the "big rhetoric" view where everything is
rhetorical.

If this is the case, then how to respond to those who would argue that
rhetoric concerns persuasion, a special use of language, and that
linguistics concerns human communication in general.  R. Jakobson makes
an argument similar to this concerning poetics in "Closing Statement:
Linguistics and Poetics":

"Poetics deals with problems of verbal structure, just as the analysis
of painting is concerned with pictoral structure.  Since linguistics is
the global science of verbal structure, poetics may be regarded as an
integral part of linguistics"  (350).

Jakobson, R.  (1960) "Closing Statement:  Linguistics and Poetics" in
*Style in Language* Ed. Thomas Sebeok.  MIT.