rhetoric

Literature

2022

We explain what rhetoric is, the elements of speech, figures and rhetorical questions. Its relationship with oratory and dialectics.

Rhetoric studies language from its content, structure and style.

What is rhetoric?

Rhetoric is the discipline who is interested in the study and systematization of the expressive procedures and techniques of the language, which in addition to their usual communication purposes have as objective persuade or embellish what was said.

It is a discipline that crosses numerous fields of knowledge, among which are the literature, the politics, the journalism, the advertising, the education, the right, etc.

The elements that rhetoric studies are in principle of a verbal type, that is, they belong to language, but not only spoken: written expression and even the joint use of images and text it may well result from your interest, especially in contemporary forms of elaboration of speeches.

The beginnings of this discipline date back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In the Ancient Greece it was widely studied, and understood as the ability to persuade others through spoken words.

Later it also had its place in the courts of Imperial Rome and constituted a fundamental part of medieval European education, where it occupied an essential place among the humanistic disciplines, at least until the time of the Romanticism.

According to the classical considerations of rhetoric, all discourse is configured from three elements:

  • Invention or invention. The selection of the contents of the discourse, that is, the particular choice of topics in the memory, in the common places (or topoi), the ideas of their own or inherited from third parties, in short, that may serve the communication purposes they have.
  • Device. The organization of the elements of the inventio in a structured, hierarchical whole, that is, organized according to the convenience of the plot, making use of stories, expositions or explanations to mobilize the other through emotional, rational or moral ways.
  • Elocutio. Equivalent to what we consider today "style", it is the choice of the ideal linguistic resources to verbally express the materials previously collected and ordered. This implies figures of speech, word games, etc.

Rhetoric, oratory and dialectic

Oratory is the application of rhetoric to oral discourse.

These three terms should not be handled as synonyms, since they are not, despite the fact that often in everyday speech we can use them more or less interchangeably. On the one hand, rhetoric is the "art of saying well", that is, the ability or talent to give what is communicated the expressiveness necessary to make it truly persuasive. On the other hand, the other concepts are:

  • Oratory. Considered by some as a literary genre, oratory could be understood as the form of application to oral discourse of rhetorical elements, that is, the ability to apply rhetoric to spoken discourse. Simply put, public speaking is the art of speaking effectively. For that reason, oratory and rhetoric have many common borders.
  • Dialectics. For its part, dialectics was understood by the ancient Greeks as "the art of conversation" (the word includes the Greek words day-, "reciprocity" or "exchange", and logos, “Word”), and it differed from oratory in that it taught to speak well in front of others, while dialectic taught to debate. The famous philosopher Socrates practiced dialectics with his students, challenging them through conversation to think about topics of interest to them.

Rhetorical figures

Also known as literary figures, the rhetorical figures are stylistic turns or resources, that is, mechanisms of language that serve to illustrate, beautify or stylistically enrich the discourse.

In both spoken and written language, both poetic and informal, these types of resources allow the individual to express more with less, altering the traditional or customary configuration of what is said. Some examples of figures of speech are:

  • The metaphor. It consists of a comparison between one thing and another, or in calling one by the name of the other, to show their common features, real or imaginary. For example: "The river was a long blue snake" or "The sizzling suns in its eyes intimidated me."
  • The hyperbole. It is a form of discursive exaggeration, the meaning of which is not literal, but figurative. For example: "I'm so hungry I'd eat a mammoth" or "She's so dumb she can't talk and walk at the same time weather”.
  • The personification. It consists of attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, in an obviously not literal sense. For example: "The morning greeted me with warm air" or "The wind whispered your name in my ears."
  • The Ellipse. This rhetorical figure consists of the omission of some content of the speech that is considered already said, obvious or that one wants to hide for some reason. Thus, repetitions that would spoil the speech, for example, are avoided, or a certain suspense can be generated. For example: “María and Néstor went to the cinema, and when they left they did not find their car” (the repetition of the subject is omitted), “I brought a gift to the child, but he already had it” (the gift is omitted).

Rhetorical questions

For their part, rhetorical questions or erothems are those that do not wait for an answer from the interlocutor, but rather fulfill an expressive function: emphasize what has been said, suggest an affirmation or a specific state of mind. In that sense, it functions as a figure of speech as well. For example:

  • "Should we allow the defendant to get away with it?"
  • "My God, when will this torment end?"
  • "Who but me could help you?"
  • "Will there be someone who can defend me?"

Aristotle's rhetoric

"Rhetoric" is a work by Aristotle that is made up of three books.

Aristotle of Estagira (384-322 BC) was one of the most important Greek philosophers of antiquity, considered together with his teacher Plato as the fathers of the philosophy western.

Among his many works, he wrote the Rhetoric, where he expresses his considerations on what he considered a tekhné. In other words, Aristotle defines rhetoric as a technique to persuade or refute. He describes it as the counterpart of the dialectic, which he dedicates to exposing.

The Rhetoric Aristotle is made up of three books: the first deals with the structure and species of rhetoric; the second on what can be reasoned and what is subject to reason or emotions; and the third on the most appropriate way of constructing discourses to persuade.

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