Writing CommonsRhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art, study, and practice of effective communication that utilizes language and symbols to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience. For audiences, rhetoric functions as a lens, an interpretive framework, that can help you can better understand why people say what they say and do what they do. For writers, rhetoric provides a framework for strategically using language to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience while also fostering critical thinking, effective communication, and adaptability in various contexts. Mastering rhetoric can help you construct compelling arguments, engage with diverse audiences, and effectively convey complex ideas--especially in tricky situations.
Rhetoric concerns perception, interpretation, and communication

Rhetors who engage in rhetrickery endeavor to hide the truth, to close your mind to openness (especially strategic searching), evidence, and critical thinking. Photo Credit: Moxley

Rhetoric concerns perception, interpretation, and communication

Rhetoric Definition

Rhetoric may refer to

  1. a text, a discourse
    • “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” (Burke 1969)
  2. the art, practice, theory, and study of effective communication, which involves the strategic use of language to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience (Lunsford & Ruszkiewicz, 2019)
  3. a method for creating change
    • Rhetoric functions as a symbolic tool for change is through the use of powerful language, metaphors, and symbols that can evoke strong emotions and create compelling narratives (Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M., 2003). These linguistic devices have the potential to transform abstract concepts into relatable stories and vivid images, allowing audiences to grasp complex ideas and feel more personally connected to the issues being discussed.
    • “[R]hetoric is 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 (Blitzer 1968, 4).
    • “The study of how people use language and other symbols to realize human goals and carry out human activities . . . ultimately a practical study offering people great control over their symbolic activity” (Bazerman 1988)
    • Rhetoric serves as a means for individuals and communities to engage in productive dialogue and deliberation, fostering understanding, empathy, and collaboration (Young, I. M., 2000). In this sense, rhetoric can function as a catalyst for change by facilitating meaningful conversations and promoting consensus-building.
  4. a pedagogy, a catechism, a dogma

Synonymous Terms

In modern times, rhetoric — as a subject of study — may also be referred to as composition studies, writing studies, or communication studies.

Related Concepts: Critical Thinking; Critical Literacy; The CRAAP Test; Rhetorical Knowledge; Semiotics

Why Does Rhetoric Matter?

As you can surmise from the above discussion, knowledge of rhetoric is a foundational skill: rhetorical knowledge can help you interpret or communicate successfully. Thus rhetoric can help you have more successful personal relationships, and it can help you find success in school and professional settings.

The Conference on College Composition — the major conferences for researchers and teachers in writing studies — defines rhetorical knowledge in its flagship article on teaching writing in postsecondary education as a foundational concern:

“The assertion that writing is “rhetorical” means that writing is always shaped by a combination of the purposes and expectations of writers and readers and the uses that writing serves in specific contexts. To be rhetorically sensitive, good writers must be flexible. They should be able to pursue their purposes by consciously adapting their writing both to the contexts in which it will be read and to the expectations, knowledge, experiences, values, and beliefs of their readers. They also must understand how to take advantage of the opportunities with which they are presented and to address the constraints they encounter as they write. In practice, this means that writers learn to identify what is possible and not possible in diverse writing situations. Writing an email to a friend holds different possibilities for language and form than does writing a lab report for submission to an instructor in a biology class. Instructors emphasize the rhetorical nature of writing by providing writers opportunities to study the expectations, values, and norms associated with writing in specific contexts. This principle is fundamental to the study of writing and writing instruction. It informs all other principles in this document” (Conference 2015).

In his book The Rhetoric of Rhetoric (2004), Wayne Booth argues that knowledge of rhetoric is essential for avoiding violence and promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts. Booth asserts that effective communication and persuasive discourse can help people navigate disagreements and misunderstandings without resorting to violence or aggression. By engaging in what listening rhetoric, Booth believes rhetorical knowledge can help people can engage in meaningful conversations, find common ground, and work towards mutually beneficial solutions:

[Rhetoric refers to] “the entire range of resources that human beings share for producing effects on one another: effects ethical (including everything about character), practical (including political), emotional (including aesthetic), and intellectual (including every academic field). It is the entire range of our use of “signs” for communicating, effectively or sloppily, ethically or immorally. At its worst, it is our most harmful miseducator — except for violence. But at its best — when we learn to listen to the “other,” then list to ourselves and thus manage to respond in a way that produces genuine dialog — it is our primary resource for avoiding violence and building community (Booth, p. xi-xii).

Rhetoric can be a force for evil, or it can be a force for good. Rather than sow division, rhetoric can be a powerful tool for good. By listening to one another, by seriously considering counterarguments, and by working to find common ground, we can help one another. Photo Credit: Moxley

Summary of Related Terms & Phrases

Rhetorical

Rhetorical refers to

As suggested above, the term rhetorical can be used positively or disdainfully. In colloquial discourse, if someone says you’re being rhetorical, that’s not a compliment. It’s a suggestion that you’re engaged in rhetrickery, sophistry, or persuasion. For many people rhetoric is synonymous with insincerity, persuasion, and ritual discourse. In turn, if someone says That’s just rhetoric! or Oh, ignore that guy. He’s just being rhetorical, then you know they associate rhetoric with rhetrickery–i.e., inauthentic, manipulative language.

Yet for writers and speakers who work as knowledge workers, the term rhetorical refers to how well a message accommodates the needs of its readers. In the life of a writer, a message that’s not rhetorically appropriate is a failed effort. Thus, if a writer, editor, boss, or critic says, Wow, that’s a solid, rhetorical job, then you know they’ re complimenting how well you composed the message for its audience(s).

Rhetors

The term “rhetor” is derived from the Greek word “rhētor” (ρήτωρ), which refers to an orator or a public speaker skilled in the art of rhetoric. Rhetors are writers, speakers, knowledge workers . . . who engage in rhetorical analysis and rhetorical reasoning to interpret and compose texts.

Rhetoricians

Rhetoricians refers to people who study or practice rhetoric.

Rhetoricity

Rhetoricity is the degree to which a rhetor’s written, spoken, and visual language is appropriate given the rhetorical situation. Texts with a high rhetoricity score are those that are written and designed in ways that most appeal to their audiences. Texts with low scores are ones that ignore what the reader, listener, or user thinks, feels, and knows about the topic.

Rhetrickery

The term rhetrickery was coined by Wayne Booth (2004) to refer to “The whole range of shoddy, dishonest communicative arts producing misunderstanding — along with other harmful results. The arts of making the worse seem the better cause” (p. 11). Thus, rhetrickery refers to occasions where writers, speakers, and knowledge workers aim to fool their reader by using intentionally vague language, ignoring counterclaims, misrepresenting knowledge claims, and appealing to pathos and ethos over logos.

Techno-rhetoricians

Techno-Rhetoricians are rhetoricians who focus on investigating digital matters, such as the effect of new writing tools on composing, interpretation, or literacy.

Rhetorical Knowledge

For college-level writers, rhetoric is so integral to reading and writing that the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Writing Project (2011) identifies rhetorical knowledge as a core outcome of postsecondary education: “To be rhetorically sensitive, good writers must be flexible. They should be able to pursue their purposes by consciously adapting their writing both to the contexts in which it will be read and to the expectations, knowledge, experiences, values, and beliefs of their readers” (Council 2011).

  • Booth. (2004). The rhetoric of rhetoric : the quest for effective communication. Blackwell Publishing.
  • Carter-Tod, Sheila. “Rhetoric(s) A Broader Definition“. Composition Studies, 2021

Works Cited

Aristotle. (2015). Rhetoric (p. 25). Aeterna Press. (Original work written 350 B.C.E.)

Bazerman, Charle (1988). Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison U of Wisconsin Press.

Bitzer, Lloyd. (1968). “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1:1: 1-14.

Booth. (2004). The rhetoric of rhetoric : the quest for effective communication. Blackwell Publishing.

Burke, Kenneth (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. University of California Press

Conference on College Composition and Communication (October 1989). Revised November 2013, Revised March 2015. Principles for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing …, https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/postsecondarywriting.

Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Writing Project (2011). Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, http://wpacouncil.org/aws/CWPA/asset_manager/get_file/350201?ver=2975.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

Lunsford, A. A., & Ruszkiewicz, J. J. (2019). The art, practice, theory, and study of effective communication, which involves the strategic use of language to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience. In Everything’s an argument (8th ed.). Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford University Press.

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