Rhetoric in Communication Studies: Art Form or Philosophy?
When we consider the field of Communication Studies, at the core is the study of Rhetoric. Rhetoric is one of the oldest fields of study (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001a; Sandler, Epps, & Waicukauski, 2010). Yet in the more than two millennia of Rhetorical investigation, we don’t have one, simple, clear definition of Rhetoric. Instead, Rhetoric has become the root of many types of investigation, and many forms of critique. For some scholars, Rhetoric is a tool used to persuade audiences to particular viewpoints and goals. For others, Rhetoric is the means by which we construct reality, and the means by which we show reality’s falseness. Thus, Rhetoric today exists as a continuum between Rhetoric as a tool and Rhetoric as a philosophical mode of inquiry.
For some today, the term “Rhetoric” has come to mean “empty words” or “false promises.” However, this is something of a misnomer…one ironically perpetuated by the communications field. That particular use of the term shows up in a lot of political commentary in the communications field of Journalism. Journalists critique politicians for making promises they can’t, or won’t keep. Ironically, the journalists are themselves performing Rhetorical criticism as they critique the speeches of those politicians. In fact, for many years, especially in the first 150 years of US history, the term “Rhetoric” was more accurately used to mean “speech.”
The central focus of Rhetoric is how we construct messages and place meaning in them through the use of symbols and their referents. This means that we use Rhetoric to create meaning and spread that meaning to others. We do this by assigning meaning (referents) to a word, image, or other objects (symbols) and convincing others that the meaning we assigned is real or exists. We analyze Rhetoric through a process we call Rhetorical Criticism, which gives us the opportunity to look at the messages and meanings that have been constructed. The goal of Rhetorical Criticism and the Communication Studies field of Rhetoric is to examine the symbols which compose a message, determine what those symbols mean, and critique how the symbols are communicated to audiences. This is not a new process: humans have been investigating Rhetoric since the earliest recorded histories were written through the use of Rhetoric to construct meaning.
Rhetoric has multiple definitions, and they conflict over whether rhetoric is an art form or a form of philosophic inquiry. Further, they conflict over whether rhetoric is inherently dangerous or beneficial, mostly due to the focus on persuasion.
Take a look at these definitions and explanations from the history of rhetoric. Which do you think are the best? The most accurate? Do they imply benefits or danger for society? Why?
- Plato: "Socrates: Is not rhetoric, taken generally, a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments" (Plato, 370? B.C.E./1875, p. 138)
- Aristotle: "The faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion" (Aristotle, 367-322 B.C.E./1991, p. 36)
- Cicero: "[Eloquent rhetoric has] so potent a force that it embraces the origin and operation and developments of all things, all the virtues and duties, all the natural principles governing the morals and minds and life of mankind, and also determines their customs and laws and rights, and controls the government of the sate, and expresses everything that concerns whatever topic in a graceful and flowing style” (Cicero, 55 B.C.E./2001, p. 338).
- Quintilian: "Rhetoric is the art of speaking well and the orator knows how to speak well" (Quintilian, 95?/1921, II.vii.38, p. 343).
- Francis Bacon: "The duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will" (Bacon, 1690/1893, p. 310).
- Friedrich Nietzsche: "What is called "rhetorical," as a means of conscious art, had been active as a means of unconscious art in language and its development, indeed, that the rhetorical is a further development, guided by the clear light of the understanding, of the artistic means which are already found in language" (Nietzsche, 1872-1873/1989, p. 21).
- Frederick Douglas: "I never rise to speak before an American audience without something of the feeling that my failure or success will bring blame or benefit to my whole race" (Douglass, 1882, p. 331).
- Kenneth Burke: "The most characteristic concern of rhetoric: the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends....the basic function of rhetoric, the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents" (Burke, 1950, p. 41).
- Lloyd Bitzer: "A mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action. The rhetor alters reality by bringing into existence a discourse of such a character that the audience, in thought and action, is so engaged that it becomes mediator of change. In this sense rhetoric is always persuasive." (Bitzer, 1968, p. 4).
- Michel Foucault: "[The problem is bringing] rhetoric, the orator, the struggle of discourse within the field of analysis; not to do, as linguists do, a systematic analysis of rhetorical procedures, but to study discourse, even the discourse of truth, as rhetorical procedures, as ways of conquering, of producing events, of producing decisions, of producing battles, of producing victories" (Foucault, 1973/1997, p. 5).
- Phillip C. Wander: "An ideological turn in modern criticism reflects the existence of crisis, acknowledges the influence of established interests and the reality of alternative world-views, and commends rhetorical analyses not only of the actions implied but also of the interests represented" (Wander, 1983, p. 18).
- Bizzell and Herzberg: "Rhetoric has a number of overlapping meanings: the practice of oratory, the study of the strategies of effective oratory; the use of language, written or spoken, to inform or persuade; the study of the persuasive effects of language; the study of the relation between language and knowledge; the classification and use of tropes and figures; and, of course, the use of empty promises and half-truths as a form of propaganda" (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001b, p.1).
References
Aristotle. (1991). On rhetoric: A theory of civil discourse. (G.A. Kennedy, Trans). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Original work published 367-322 B.C.E.
Bacon, F. (1893). The advancement of learning. London: P.F. Cassell & Company, Limited. Original work published 1605. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5500
Bitzer, L.F. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1 (1), 1 - 14. https://www.jstor.org https://www.jstor.org/stable/40236733
Bizzell, P., & Herzberg, B. (2001a). Classical Rhetoric: Introduction. In P. Bizzell & B. Herzberg (Eds.), The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present (2nd ed., pp. 19-41). New York: Bedford/St. Martins.
Bizzell, P., & Herzberg, B. (2001b). General Introduction. In P. Bizzell & B. Herzberg (Eds.), The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present (2nd ed., pp. 1-16). New York: Bedford/St. Martins.
Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Cicero. (2001). De oratore. In P. Bizzell & B. Herzberg (Eds.), The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present (2nd ed., pp. 289-339). New York: Bedford/St. Martins. Original work published 55 BCE.
Douglass, F. The life and times of Frederick Douglass: From 1817-1882. London: Christian Age Office.
Foucault, M. (1997). Lectures presented at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, May 1973. In Davidson, A.I. (trans.). Structures and strategies of discourse: Remarks towards a history of Foucault's philosophy of language (pp. 1-17), In A.I. Davidson (Ed.). Foucault and his interlocutors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Original lectures presented 1973.
Nietzsche, F. (1989). Friedrich Nietzsche on rhetoric and language. (S. Gilman, C, Blair, & D. Parent, eds/trans). New York: Oxford University Press. Original work published 1872-1873.
Plato. (1875) Phaedrus. In B. Jowett (ed./trans.). The dialogues of Plato, Vol. II, 2nd ed. (pp. 75-159). London: Oxford University Press. Original work published 370? B.C.E.
Quintilian. (1921). The instituto oratoria of Quintilian, vol I, book II. (H.E. Butler, trans). London: W. Heinemann. Original work published 95?.
Sandler, P.M., Epps, J.A., & Waicukauski. R.J. (2010). Classical rhetoric and the modern trial lawyer. Litigation, 36 (2), 16-20.
Wander, P.C. (1983). The ideological turn in modern criticism. Central States Speech Journal, 34 (1), 1-18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10510978309368110
