Rhetorical Criticism Key Terms

Flashcards covering key terms from a lecture on rhetorical criticism, including Neo-Aristotelian criticism, Feminist criticism, Ideological criticism, Narrative criticism, Burkean criticism, and Aristotelian rhetoric.

Neo-Aristotelian Criticism

A traditional approach to rhetorical criticism that uses Aristotle's rhetoric as a basis for critique, primarily aiming to measure the effectiveness of public address based on the canons of rhetoric.

Aristotle's 4 Canons of Rhetoric

Invention (context, ethos, pathos, logos), Arrangement (organization), Style (language choices), Delivery (oral and physical presentation).

Feminist Criticism

A social and political movement aimed at improving the lives of women through equality, immanent value, self-determination, and disruption of hegemonies.

Hegemony

Dominant and/or oppressive systems of ideology, thinking, and practice.

Ideological Criticism

Analysis beyond the surface structure of an artifact to discover the beliefs, values, and assumptions it suggests, focusing on how ideologies are privileged and repress others.

Ideology

A pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of some aspect of the world.

Narrative Criticism

Analysis of stories to understand how they help us understand ourselves, inform our history and culture, create understanding of our present and future, reinforce and challenge ideologies, and constitute persuasive appeals.

Narrative Paradigm

Stories help us understand ourselves; Stories inform our history and culture; Stories create understanding of our present and future; Stories reinforce and challenge ideologies; Stories constitute persuasive appeals.

Burke's Piety

The sense of what goes with what, involving the putting together of experiences to fit the totality of our experiences and orientations into a unified whole, serving as a mechanism for maintaining social order.

Burke's Orientation

Perspectives about how the world operates stemming from experience, central to our decision-making processes and shaping anticipations of what will occur.

Identification (Burke)

A means or ends that promotes consubstantiality and can be achieved through common ground, rituals, physical markers, or a common enemy.

Consubstantiality

Becoming substantially one with another through identification, allowing us to share our substance, although this state is temporary and incomplete.

Frames of Acceptance (Burke)

Organized systems of meaning by which we understand our historical situation and adopt a role within it, including tragic and comic frames.

Tragic Frame (Burke)

Defines villains as criminal and evil, rationalizing the world as a cold, hard place, sharpening the awareness of personal ambition as a motive in human acts.

Comic Frame (Burke)

Shifts from crime to stupidity, from criminals to fools, encouraging identification with fools and leading to human enlightenment where villains are simply mistaken.

Pentad (Burke)

A methodology for the study of human motivations and relationships using dramatic terms: Act, Agent, Agency, Scene, and Purpose.

Ratios (Burke)

When elements directly affect another element, creating a relationship where one element dominates, such as Act-Agent (once a cheater, always a cheater).

Rhetoric (Aristotle)

The faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

Logos

Appeals to logic, relating to the canons through being a form of proof for invention and having two primary modes of reasoning: inductive and deductive.

Inductive Reasoning

Draws from multiple data points/specific to make a general conclusion about specific evidence. Includes argument from example and argument from analogy.

Deductive Reasoning

Broad/generally accepted statement to specific statement and draw relationship between the 2 for conclusion. Includes causal generalization and argument from sign.

Enthymeme

Although not a complete syllogism, a proper enthymeme must contain at least one premise and a relevant conclusion with an unspoken premise that is typically a broad claim.

Stasis

Refers to types of questions: translative (jurisdiction), conjectural (fact), definitional (definition), and qualitative (quality/justice).

Burden of Proof

The obligation of a party to provide a minimum amount of proof for their affirmative proposition.

Toulmin Model

Data + Warrant = Claim. Dimensions of evidence effectiveness include credibility, relevance, and threshold.

Rhetorical Criticism

A Qualitative research method designed for the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes. Involves humans creating rhetoric, symbols as the medium, and communication as the goal.