M2 Introduction to Rhetoric

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric UNIT - 2: INTRODUCTION TO RHETORIC Structure 2.0Learning Objectives 2.1Introduction to rhetoric 2.1.1 Art of Arguments 2.1.2 Power of Persuasion 2.2Elements of Rhetoric 2.2.1 Modes of Appeal 2.2.2 Composition of Classical Rhetoric 2.2.3 Diction, Syntax, Schemes and Tropes 2.3Summary 2.4References 2.0 Learning Objectives After studying this unit, you will be able to: ● Understand the Art of arguments ● Understand the Power of persuasion ● Understand modes of appeal ● Understand the composition of classical rhetoric ● Understand diction, syntax, schemes and tropes 2.1 Introduction to Rhetoric Rhetoric is the science of effective speaking and writing. and persuasion skills. And much more. In its long and turbulent history, rhetoric has been Page 1 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022

defined many times, served many purposes and varied in content. However, for most of history, it has retained its basic character as a discipline that teaches 1) understanding how language works in its oral and written forms, and 2) acquiring the skills to apply language resources to one's own speech. write. Discerning how language is working in others’ or one’s own writing and speaking, one must (artificially) divide form and content, what is being said and how this is said. Because rhetoric examines so attentively the how of language, the methods and means of communication, it has sometimes been discounted as something only concerned with style or appearances, and not with the quality or content of communication. For many (such as Plato) rhetoric deals with the superficial at best, the deceptive at worst (“mere rhetoric”), when one might better attend to matters of substance, truth, or reason as attempted in dialectic or philosophy or religion. Rhetoric has sometimes lived down to its critics, but as set forth from antiquity, rhetoric was a comprehensive art just as much concerned with what one could say as how one might say it. Indeed, a basic premise for rhetoric is the indivisibility of means from meaning; how one says something conveys meaning as much as what one says. Rhetoric is the comprehensive study of the effects of language, including its emotional impact and propositional content. But to see how language and thought work together, we first had to artificially separate content and form. 2.1.1 Art OF Arguments First, one must be familiar with the terminology. In this instance, the term argument refers to \"a reasoned attempt to convince the audience to accept a particular point of view about a debatable topic.\" Looking more closely at this definition, we observe that the argument is not irrational; it does not depend strictly on passion or emotion. Rather, argumentation represents a \"reasoned attempt,\" that is, an effort based on careful thinking and planning where the appeal is to the mind, the intellect of the audience at hand. Why? The answer to this is that one wants to \"convince the audience to accept a particular point of view.\" The key concept here is \"to convince the audience,\" that is, you must make them believe your position, accept your logic and evidence. Not only do you want them

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric to accept the evidence, but you want that audience to accept \"a particular point of view\" that point of view, or perspective, is yours. It is your position, your proposition. Understand that all too often the audience may be intrigued by the evidence presented, but that intrigue alone is not enough to convince them of the validity or authority of your position in the matter. You want the audience to accept your point of view about the topic whether it is gun control, safe sex, or stiffer prison sentences for criminal offenders no matter what age. Finally, there must be \"a debatable topic\" present for a true argument to develop. What is debatable? One cannot, for example, debate whether or not the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 1988 World Series or that Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser won the Most Valuable Player Award for that particular World Series. One cannot debate the fact that the Chicago Bulls won three consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) championships from 19911993 or that Evander Holyfield, while losing his heavyweight champion of the world title to Riddick Bowe in 1992 was able to regain the title 11 months later in 1993 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Those are indisputable facts. One cannot debate the fact that Rev. Jesse Louise Jackson lost to Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Democratic presidential primary. This is also true. However, what the concept of \"freedom\" means for black South Africans living under racism is controversial. Of course, there is debate about whether high school administrators should ban baseball caps from students in schools, such as the 1988 San Fernando Valley school year. It is an attempt to eradicate that gang violence is effective or excessive. Border. Again, the key principle here is that a topic must have at least two aspects: \"for\" (those who support the proposal under discussion) and \"against\" (those who oppose the proposed proposal). 2.1.2 Power of Persuasion Today, the power of persuasion plays a crucial role in society. In nearly every human encounter, we strive to gain influence or persuade others to see things our Page 3 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022

way. People are always trying to persuade each other regardless of their age, profession, religion, or philosophical beliefs. Cialdini's six principles of persuasion are reciprocity, scarcity, authority, commitment, consistency, liking, and consensus. Understanding these rules will allow you to influence and persuade others. Obviously, doing so may not always be the right thing to do. 2.2 Elements of Rhetoric For the tasks imposed by the rhetorical approach some of the most important tools inherited from antiquity are the figures of speech: for example, the metaphor, or comparison between two ostensibly dissimilar phenomena, as in the famous comparison by the 17thcentury English poet John Donne of his soul and his mistress’s to the legs on a geometer’s compass in his “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”; another is the allegory, the extended metaphor, as in John Bunyan’s classic of English prose Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684), wherein man’s method of earning Christian salvation is compared to a road on which he journeys, and the comparison is maintained to such an extent that it becomes the central structural principle of the entire work. Such figures may be said to pertain either to the texture of the discourse, the local colour or details, or to the structure, the shape of the total argument. Ancient rhetoricians made a functional distinction between trope (like metaphor, a textural effect) and scheme (like allegory, a structural principle). To the former category belong such figures as metaphor, simile (a comparison announced by “like” or “as”), personification (attributing human qualities to a nonhuman being or object), irony (a discrepancy between a speaker’s literal statement and his attitude or intent), hyperbole (overstatement or exaggeration) or understatement, and metonymy (substituting one word for another which it suggests or to which it is in some way related— as part to whole, sometimes known as synecdoche). To the latter category belonged such figures as allegory, parallelism (constructing sentences or phrases that resemble one another syntactically), antithesis (combining opposites into one statement—“To be or not to be, that is the question”), congeries (an accumulation of statements or phrases that say essentially the same thing), apostrophe (a turning from one’s immediate audience to address another, who may be present only in the imagination), enthymeme (a loosely syllogistic form of reasoning in which the speaker assumes that any missing premises will be supplied by the audience), interrogatio (the “rhetorical” question, which is posed for argumentative effect and requires no answer), and gradatio (a progressive advance from one statement to another until a climax is achieved). However, a certain slippage in the categories trope and scheme became inevitable, not

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric simply because rhetoricians were inconsistent in their use of terms but because wellconstructed discourse reflects a fusion of structure and texture. One is virtually indistinguishable from the other. Donne’s compass comparison, for example, creates a texture that is not isolable from other effects in the poem; rather, it is consonant with a structural principle that makes the comparison both appropriate and coherent. Above all, a modern rhetorician would insist that the figures, like all elements of rhetoric, reflect and determine not only the conceptualizing processes of the speaker’s mind but also an audience’s potential response. For all these reasons figures of speech are crucial means of examining the transactional nature of discourse. 2.2.1 Modes of appeal Ethos, pathos, and logos referred to as the three modes of appeal. Ethos: Ethos is a way of persuading your readers of your credibility as a writer. It can be built-in in a way. The education level related to the topic may provide some built-in ethos. An essay about eating disorders, for example, would have strong ethos if it were written by a Psychology professor. In contrast, if the same professor had to write a paper on quantum physics, she or he would have no built- in ethos. There is no need to worry if you lack an ethos or credibility. As you write, you are also creating credibility for yourself. You can build your ethos by responsibly appealing to emotion and logic. Credible sources can also help you build your ethos. You can build your own ethos when you use expert research and opinion in your writing. Pathos: Pathos, simply put, is a way of appealing to our emotions. Pathos is a powerful persuasion technique since emotions are more powerful than logic. You must make your audience feel connected to your topic as a writer. This is where pathos can help. Think about the broad spectrum of human emotions: sadness, humor, pity, sympathy, anger, outrage; these are all things that motivate us. Pathos provides writers with a tool to get the audience emotionally invested in the message. Pathos is a powerful means of persuasion. But you should be very careful with pathos. Pathos is generally the least respected of the three ethical appeals in the academic community. In many fields of study, emotion is something that should Page 5 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022

be left out completely. Most of the time, the best advice is to be careful with pathos and use it wisely. Misusing pathos can negatively affect your ethos or credibility. Logos: Logos is the appeal to our logical side. Logos is about the facts we present in our writing and the logical manner in which we present our ideas. Having strong logos is one important way that we can build our ethos within an essay. For example, if you’re writing a research paper on the Plague in Medieval times, you’ll want to gather a good deal of research and then incorporate that research in an organized and effective manner. You should also make sure that your points or arguments are logical in nature, and you should avoid faulty logic. Ethos, pathos, and logos are all interconnected. When you write an argument, you’ll want to think about how these modes of persuasion work together to make for a strong argument overall. 2.2.2 Composition of Classical Rhetoric Classical rhetoric is the perception of how language works when written or spoken aloud or becoming proficient in speaking or writing due to proficiency in this understanding. Classical rhetoric is a combination of persuasion and argument, broken into three branches and five canons. In classical rhetoric, men were taught a discipline to eloquently express themselves through ancient writers like Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. Aristotle wrote the book on rhetoric, which focused on the art of persuasion in 1515. The five canons of rhetoric include invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. These were determined in classic Rome by the Roman philosopher Cicero in his \"De Invention.\" Quintilian was a Roman rhetorician and teacher who excelled in Renaissance writing. Oratory divided the three branches of genres in classical rhetoric. Deliberative oratory is considered legislative, judicial oratory translates as forensic, and epideictic oratory is deemed as ceremonial or demonstrative. According to Aristotle, the three branches of rhetoric are divided and \"determined by three classes of listeners to speeches, for of the three elements in speech- making — speaker, subject, and person addressed — it is the last one, the hearer, that determines the speech's end and object.\" These three divisions are typically called deliberative rhetoric, judicial rhetoric, and epideictic rhetoric.

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric In legislative or deliberative rhetoric, the speech or writing attempts to get an audience to take or not to take an action, focusing on the things to come and what the crowd can do to influence the outcome. Forensic or judicial rhetoric, on the other hand, deals more with determining the justice or injustice of an accusation or charge that happened in the present, dealing with the past. Judicial rhetoric would be the rhetoric used more by lawyers and judges who determine the core value of justice. Similarly, the final branch — known as epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric — deals with praising or blaming someone or something. It largely concerns itself with speeches and writings such as obituaries, letters of recommendation and sometimes even literary works. With these three branches in mind, the application and usage of rhetoric became the focus of Roman philosophers, who later developed the idea of five canons of rhetoric. Principle among them, Cicero and the unknown author of \"Rhetorica ad Herennium\" defined the canons as the five overlapping divisions of the rhetorical process: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Invention is defined as the art of finding the appropriate arguments, using thorough research of the topic at hand as well as of the intended audience. As one might expect, arrangement deals with the skills of structuring an argument; classic speeches often were constructed with specific segments. Style encompasses a broad range of things, but most often refers to things like word choice and speech structure. Memory is less known in modern rhetoric, but in classical rhetoric, it referred to any and all techniques of aiding memorization. Finally, delivery is similar to style, but rather than concerning itself with the text itself, it's focused on the style of voice and gesture on the orator's part. 2.2.3 Diction, Syntax, Schemes and Tropes Diction and syntax are two important aspects of style; both these aspects play an integral part in the formation of sentences in a text. The main difference between Diction and Syntax is that diction refers to the choice of words while syntax refers to the arrangement of words. Therefore, they both play an equally important role in forming a sentence. In this article, we are going to look at the connection Page 7 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022

between these two aspects by analyzing the difference between diction and syntax. What is Diction? Diction refers to the specific choice of words by a speaker or a writer. It is the choice of words or diction is an important aspect in deciding the quality of a text. When selecting diction, a writer has to pay attention to factors like accuracy, clarity of a word as well as suitability to the context. An author can use different types and varieties of words in a text; he can use simple, common words or formal, unique words. Words can also be classified according to different registers. For example, the word home can be also used as house, lodging, place of residence, adobe, domicile (formal), digs, pad (informal). Diction should depend on the context. If you are writing an informal text, i.e., an essay, a letter to a friend, the word home is appropriate. But, you will probably find the term place of residence in an official document. The following sentence pairs has the same meaning but contain different diction. Example 1: He gazed at the cerulean firmament. He looked at the blue sky. Example 2: He found the silence intolerably irksome. He didn’t like the silence.

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric What is Syntax? Syntax is the arrangement of words in a language. It can be also described as the set of rules and principles that govern sentence structure in a language. Syntax is generally concerned with aspects like word order, subject–verb agreement, case, mood, etc. Every accurate and proper sentence or utterance can be taken as an example of syntax. However, syntax alone doesn’t make a proper sentence. For instance, the sentence ‘Colorless, green ideas sleep furiously.’ is syntactically correct, but it has no meaning. Syntax plays an important role in the written word. Just like in diction, it is the duty of the writer to choose a suitable syntax to suit the context. For example, if he is writing a story for children, he should use simple sentences. But if he is writing for a more mature audience he can use a combination of compound and complex sentences. In literature, especially in poetry, the writers have the freedom to use deviant word arrangements. For example, ‘So fair and foul a day I have not seen.’ – I have never seen a day so fair and foul. Page 9 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022

Difference Between Diction and Syntax Meaning Diction is the choice of words in a sentence. Syntax is the arrangement of words in a sentence. Areas Diction is concerned with registers of language, formality level, etc. Syntax is concerned with the word order, agreement of subject and verb, etc. Though diction and syntax deal with two different aspects of language style, both are essential to form a meaningful sentence. The choice of syntax and diction create a unique style for the author.

Art of Public Speaking: Introduction to Rhetoric 2.3 SUMMARY At the end of unit, we have learnt: ● Art of arguments ● Power of persuasion ● Modes of appeal ● Composition of classical rhetoric ● Diction, syntax, schemes and tropes 2.4 REFERENCES ● https://owl.excelsior.edu/rhetorical-styles/argumentative- essay/argumentative-essay-modes-of-persuasion/ Page 11 of 11 All Rights Reserved. Vol. TLE001/03-2022