Rhetoric and New Rhetoric. Lesson 1.

Task 1. Study the rhetorical techniques again. Then, proceed to the task, and
decide which appeal is being used in the statement.
Techniques of ethos

Rhetorical technique

Patriotism and nationalism – appeals to the audience’s national identity, can

be used to divide or unite an audience

Progress – using words that encourage the idea that the future will be better,
without evidence or examples

History and tradition – encouraging the idea that the past was better,
without evidence or examples

Authority – using words, ideas or images of experts, government or well-

known figures

Values – using words or language that evoke a commonly shared positive

value or quality, such as common sense, justice, decency, morality

Techniques of logos

Rhetorical technique

Evidence and examples – statistics, data, research, clear facts about

people, events and issues
Definitional statements – simple, strong statements that present a
verifiable fact
Cause and effect statements – show how specific actions lead to desirable
or undesirable results

Comparison – comparing a group, person or situation to another in order

to highlight similarities or differences

Techniques of pathos
 Rhetorical technique

Humour – builds rapport, makes your audience happier and makes you
seem likeable

Personal attack – attacks a person, rather ideas

Emotive language – words that invoke deep feelings of fear, anger, hatred,
sadness, pity, joy

Inclusive rhetoric – draws the audience into the group; uses language such
as ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘friends’ to create a sense of belonging, inclusion

Testimonial rhetoric – using anecdotal evidence from events in someone’s

life

What rhetorical appeal do you think the author is using in the following
statement?
1. In my opinion, as a doctor specialising in this field, this course of treatment
will produce positive results in a matter of weeks. Ethos- Authority.
2. I warn you, those streets are not safe after dark because of the youth gangs
that congregate. Logos- Cause and effect statements
3. Researchers at the University of Murray have found that without an urgent
reduction in pesticide use the river will no longer be able to support current
salmon numbers. Ethos- Authority\Logos- Evidence and examples\ Cause
and effect statements
4. Opening presents on Christmas Eve has been a tradition in our family for
generations and should not be changed on the whim of one person. Pathos-
Inclusive rhetoric\ Personal attack
5. My thirty years of driving has taught me one thing, caution is the best policy
when driving on country roads. Ethos-Authority.
6. Our figures indicate that sales of this product have grown over 37% in the
last three years. Logos- Evidence and examples
Task 2. Watch the video and answer the following questions.
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-aristotle-and-joshua-bell-can-teach-us-about-
persuasion-conor-neill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2dEuMFR8kw

1. Who wrote Rhetoric: The Three Means of Persuasion?-Aristotle.

2. According to the video, why did people refuse to listen to Joshua Bell when
he wasn’t playing in the symphony hall?
It is due to the fact that his pefomance laced ethos- the concert hall,which held
credibility end ensured that the performance of the musician would be widely
appreciated.
3. What ensures that you build credibility and connection?
Ethos techniques help to build credibility. Pathos techniques provide
instruments for establishment of emotional connection.And the proclamation of
the concert itself helds pathos within, yet the subway station lacked this
component.
4. What do you think could have made Joshua Bell’s impromptu concert in the
subway a little more successful?
He may’ve used some poster behind him, or announce his performance to the
wider community, so that they may spread the word and attract more people to
his performance.
What is Rhetoric?
Rhetoric is the functional organization of discourse, within its social and cultural
context, in all its aspects. In rhetoric, the function is not to persuade, but to spot the
elements or methods that can be used to persuade in each situation individually.

The real power of eloquence is such that it embraces the origin, the influence, the changes of all
things in the world, all virtues, duties, and all' nature, so far as it affects the manners, minds, and
lives of mankind" (De Oratore 3.20).

The power of elocution, which for Cicero is another word for rhetoric, comes from
the change of manners, minds, and lives, as well as the construction of our
understanding of reality that occurs as a result of it.
Rhetoric is a primarily verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both
philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts.

Text can be understood in both its conventional, fairly limited sense, as well as in
its ambiguous, rhetorical sense. In the former sense, its is meant that any instance
of spoken or written language could be considered in isolation as a self-sufficient
entity of text.

Medium of the rhetoric is the written and spoken utterance of the word.
Philosophical rhetoric, on the other hand, is focused on the exploratory construction
of knowledge. From the perspective of philosophical art rhetoric steers men to
think deeply. Rhetoric also related to logic in some way. To summarise, it is the art
of knowledge-making. The three branches of rhetoric include deliberative, judicial,
and epideictic. The major elements of rhetorical theory are the rhetorical situation,
the audience, the pisteis or "proofs" (and their subdivisions), and the five canons of
rhetoric:,. Invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It is considered that
a situation becomes rhetorical only when a speaker or writer evokes an audience
within a text, embodies an exigence within the text that the evoked audience is led
to respond to, and handles the constraints in such a way that the audience is
convinced that they are true or valid.

Audience is identified as some individual or collective "other" whom the rhetor

must identify, analyze in psychological and emotional terms, and then, by means of
the text, "change" in some way so that they will adhere to the rhetor's central idea
or thesis. There are three appeals, according to Aristotle, which are the rhetor and
audience share- authority of the rhetor (ethos), the emotions or "stages of life" of
the audience (pathos), and to systems of reasoning (logos). Basic transaction of
logos—assumptions, assertion or observation, and claim—is called an enthymeme.
According to Aristotle, speakers or writers arguing a case either construct
enthymemes or cite examples; those are the only two per suasive devices available.

Roman rhetoricians proposed the five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement,

style, memory, and delivery.

Invention is the art of generating effective material for a particular rhetorical

situation; Some rhetorical theorists have argued that invention is not a completely
appropriate term for this canon because the rhetor often does not generate new
material, but simply calls it forth from memory. Invention requires the rhetor to
assess the audience in order to determine what they feel, think, and know about the
subject he intends to speak or write about; to determine, at least provisionally, what
purpose he hopes his text will accomplish; and thus to decide what kinds of
material-—facts, propositions, ideas, and so on—he will inscribe in the text. For
many rhetors, these determinations are made subconsciously, simultaneously, and
perhaps even randomly.

Arrangement, sometimes called "disposition," is the art of ordering the material in a

text so that it is most appropriate for the needs of the audience and the purpose the
text is designed to accomplish. Every effective rhetor understands, at least
intuitively, that in most conventional situations a text must have a beginning, a
middle, and an end, but methods of producing this order differ widely.

Style, sometimes called elocution, is the art of producing sentences and words that
will make an appropriately favourable impression on readers or listeners.
Traditionally, the canon of style has included discussions of levels of language—
the grand, the middle, and the low, for example—as well as explanations of tropes,
or figures of thought, and schemes, or figures of actual expression.

Memory, the fourth traditional canon of rhetoric, seems to bear the most residue of
the oral culture in which rhetorical theory has its ancient roots; however, memory is
undergoing something of a revival in contemporary theory. In classical periods,
rhetors were expected to commit their speeches to memory. In later periods, the art
of memory was taught to young rhetors as a means of mental discipline, even
though they most often read texts that had been written out.The most commonly
taught mnemonic method was for rhetors to associate the parts of the speech with
visual images in some specific physical setting.

Delivery, the final traditional canon of rhetorical theory, once constituted the art of
using one's voice and body effectively when speaking? Elaborate theory and
pedagogy, in both classical periods and later in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, was developed to teach rhetors how to pronounce words, project their
voices, and move their faces, arms, hands, and even legs and feet.

Glossary of Major Concepts, Historical Periods, and Rhetors

Cicero was born in Italy and was given a patrician education, studying Greekwith
Greek teachers. De Orators (54 bce) is considered Cicero's mature statement on
rhetoric, andwas written to correct what he saw as the inadequacies of De
Inventions.

Classical Rhetoric in standard histories of rhetoric, this period extends from early
in the fifth century bce to around the beginning of the fifth century CE; it comprises
the principles and theories of rhetoric developed by philosophers and teachers
primarily in Athens, Rome, and the Roman Empire.

Commonplaces represent a recurring feature of rhetorical theory from antiquity

through the present. The term commonplaces emerged largely from a problem in
translation. In ancient Greek rhetoric, an orator could be expected to consult the
topoi, or places, of an argument. There were two types of topoi: Special topoi
furnished conventionally accepted propositions—-that is, material knowledge—for
particular kinds of speeches, and the common topoi furnished various options for
handling that knowledge—that is, patterns of development and inference. The
Greek term for the latter was koinoi topoi. Translated into Latin, the phrase
becomes loci communis; translated into English it becomes common places." The
removal of the space between words yielded the term.

Edward R J. Corbett (b. 1 9 1 9) For many years a professor of English at Ohio

State University, Edward P. J. Corbett is one of the half dozen or so scholars
responsible for reviving the study of rhetoric in American universities in the 1960s
and 1970s and for infusing the principles of classical rhetoric in the teaching of
college composition.

Dramatism is the name given to a philosophy of language and human relations that
Kenneth Burke developed in the course of writing his 1945 Grammar of Motives.
To some extent, dramatism was developed as a response to theories of human
motivation based on psychological, sociological, and scientific theories that Burke
felt did not encompass the full complexity of the human situation. Dramatism
begins with the belief that "a rounded statement of motives" must address each of
the following categories, which collectively comprise the dramatistic pentad: act
("what took place, in thought or deed"); scene ("the background of the act, the
situation in which it occurred"); agent ("what person or kind of person performed
the act"); agency ("what means or instruments he used"); and purpose. Sometimes
Burke adds a sixth term, attitude (the manner of the act), making the pentad a
hexad.

Enlightenment Rhetoric - major epistemological shift, which rhetorical theory

underwent in the era of European intellectual history known as the Enlightenment,
roughly from the early seventeenth century through the middle of the eighteenth
century. Reacting to the emphasis in science on experimentation, empiricism, and
inductive logic, rhetoricians promoted new ways of investigating reality and
constructing discourses to appeal to what (hey saw as the mind's "faculties."
Notable among the Enlightenment rhetoricians' concerns was a diminution (and
sometimes dismissal) of the role of syllogistic logic and a broadening of the scope
of rhetorical discourse to include explanatory, expository texts as well as
persuasive ones.