COM 321 Herrick Chapters 6-11

Final Exam Review

Rhetoric of display

A critical and theoretical movement emphasizing the visual aspects of rhetoric

Dramastic pentad

Burke’s “grammar of motives",” consisting of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose

Trivium

The three minor studies of grammer, rhetoric, and logic in medieval schools

Narratio

Body of the letter setting out the background of the problem to be addressed.

Capatitio benevoluntatiae

Section of a letter securing the goodwill of the recipient

Conclusio

The conclusion of a letter

Conversio

A teaching method in which the structure of a sentence was varied so as to discover its most pleasing form

Dictaminis(ars)

The rhetorical art of letter writing; the craft of composing official letters, contracts and other documents

Dictatores

Teachers and practitioners of dictamen or letter writing; also any person skilled in rhetoric

Exordia

In letter writing, the methods of securing goodwill

Modus inveniendi

In Augustine, the means of understanding scripture

Modus proferendi

The means of expressing the ideas found in scripture

Petitio

Specific request, demand, or announcement in a letter

Poetriae(ars)

The art of poetry; one of the three medieval rhetorical arts. Highly prescriptive approached to writing poetry.

Praedicandi(ars)

The art of preaching; one of the three medieval rhetorical arts

Quadrivium

The four major studies in medieval schools, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy

Quaestiones

Debatable points suggested by senteniae, or passages from ancient authorities.

Salutatio

the greeting in a letter

Scholasticism

A closed and authoritarian approach to education centered on a disputation over a fixed body of premises derived largely from Aristotle

Senteniae

Isolated statements from ancient sources

Theme

In medieval preaching theory, a biblical text that provided the basis for developing a sermon, toward the goal of improving the moral conduct and religious understanding of the audience.

Affectus

For the italian Humanist, the source of emotion or passions in the human mind.

Classicism

A resurgence of interest in the languages and texts of classical antiquity

Hermeneuctics

The science of textual interpretation

Literae humanae

The liberal arts

Neoplantonism

A body of philosophic and religious ideas loosely based not only on Plato’s idealism, but also on incorporating ideas from astrology, magic, alchemy

Notaries

Rhetorically trained secretaries responsible for negotiating, recording and communicating the many agreements and enabled Italian commercial cities to function.

Pathologia

The study of emotions

Res

The substance matter of one’s arguments

Sprezzatura

In Castiglione’s *The Book of the Coutier*, the orator’s essay grace and casual self-confidence

Studia humanitatis

Humanistic studies, or studies proper to the development of a free and active human mind- rhetoric, poetics, ethics, and politics

Umanista

Scholars advocating the values of the humanistic movement

Uomo universale

The universal man, the ideal type of an educated person in the Renaissance.

Verba

The words in which the subject matter of an argument was advanced

Vita activa

The active life, or life of political involvement

Vita contemplative

The contemplative life of prayer and study

Acutezza

In Vico, rhetorical wordplay or wit

Belletristic movement

Rhetorical movement in the late 18th an early 19th centuries that emphasized considerations of style in rhetoric, expanding rhetoric into a study of literature, literary criticism, and writing generally

Burden of proof

In Whately, the responsibility to bring a case against the status quo sufficient to challenge its enjoyment of presumption.

Faculty of psychology

The view that the mind consisted of “faculties” or capacities including the understanding, the imagination, the passions, and the will.

Fantasia

For Vico, the power of imagination to order the world, active when humans formulate myths.

Ingenium

For Vico, the innate human capacity to grasp similarities or relationships.

Irony

When indirect statement carries direct meaning, or something is taken to stand for its opposite.

Metaphor

A comparison of things not apparently similar

Metonym

The substitution of a part for the whole

Perspicuity

In Hugh Blair, clarity of expression

Plausibility

In Campbell’s theory, discourse that is instantly believable because of its close association with an audience’s experience of their social world.

Presumption

A “Pre-occupation of the ground,” in Whately’s terms. An idea occupies.

Prudence

practical judgement

Sensus communis

For Vico, common beliefs and values that provide the basis for society

Synecdoche

The whole object represents the part

Taste

In Kames and Blair, a developed appreciation of aesthetic experiences.

Tropes

Rhetorical devices

Communicative action

In Habermas, the interactive process of critical argumentation; a key to overcoming the problems of ideological domination

Communicative competence

For Habermas, the conditions under which rational communication is possible

Critical theory

the systematic means of analyzing discourse for its hidden assumptions and implications

Elite audience

In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, and audience of trained specialists in a discipline

False consciousness

In Habermas, a flawed and thus distorting views of reality, of the world, and of people.

Falsifiability

Philosopher Karl Popper’s idea that scientific claims are not subject to proof, but to being shown to be false.

Intersubjective agreements

Agreements forged among independent participants in dialogue on the basis of open and fairly conducted argument

Ideology

Irrational or unexamined system of thinking

Logical positivism

The intellectual effort to bring scientific standards to bear on the resolution of all issues.

Particular audience

The actual audience of persons one addresses when advancing an argument publicly.

Presence

In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, the choice the emphasize certain ideas and facts over others, thus encouraging an audience to attend to them.

Public sphere

For Habermas, public setting where ideas of concern to all people can be discussed and refined

Starting points

In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, points of agreement between a rhetor and an audience that allow argumentation to develop

Universal audience

In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, an imagined audience of highly rational individuals; an audience of all normal, adult persons.

Archive

For Foucault, “the set of rules which at a given period and for a given society” define, among other things, the “limits and forms of the sayable” and “The limits and forms of conversation”

Bagre

Initiation rite and speech of the Lo Dagaas people of Ghana, arranged as a story

Conversion model

In Gearhart’s critique of traditional rhetoric, the model the holds that the goal of rhetoric is to convert others to one’s own views

Deconstruction

In Derrida, the work of destabilizing discourse by dissecting its underlying structures of meaning and assumptions

Discourse

For Foucault, systems of talk within the limits of particular disciplines or practices

Epistemes

The totality of discursive practices of a society over an extended period of time

Excluded discourse

In Foucault, discourse that is controlled by being prohibited

Invitational rhetoric

In Foss and Griffin, a rhetoric that does not require or assume intent to persuade on the part of a source

Jian shi

In ancient China, itinerant political advisors

Panopticism

Foucault’s term for the phenomenon of increasing surveillance in modern societies.

Petits recits

For Lyotard, the “small narratives” which characterize local human communities and particularly marginalized groups.

Plen

In ancient China, the art of disputation

Queer theory

An intellectual movement that sees gender as a product of symbolic interaction and the social negotiation of meaning and gender, sexuality and self as social constructed.

Shui

In ancient China, the art of persuasion

Structuralism

An early 20th century movement in discourse studies, following the work of Levi-Strauss, that affirmed the presence of underlying structured or “grammars” in myths and other narrative forms.

Transgression

To read a text for what a traditional reading would overlook, dismiss, or omit; violating the received interpretation of a text in search of its submerges meanings.

Actor-Network Theory

A theory in which material objects and concepts play important roles as they interact with human agents in large social systems

Coherence

In Fisher, the degree of consistency among elements in a narrative; whether the components of a story appear to hang together

Constraints

In Bitzer, “persons, events, objects, and relations which are parts of the situation because they habe the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify exigence”

Consubstantiality

Commonality of substance in Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical theory

Dialogues

In Bakhtin, chains of assertion and response that reveal the presence of different voices.

Exigence

In Bitzer, “an imperfection marked by urgency; … a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which os the other than it should be”

Fantasy themes

For Bormann, when stories or plot lines come to define the group and its values

Fantasy types

For Bormann, basic plots which are repeated in group or organizational stories

Fidelity

For Fisher, a concern for whether the components of a story represent accurate assertions about reality

Fitting response

In Bitzer, rhetoric that is dictated to the rhetor by the rhetorical situation

Form

In Burke, arousing and fulfilling desire in an audience

Generalized symmetry

In Actory-Network theory, the idea that an object may assume a kind of social agency once reserved to human symbol users.

Heteroglossia

For Bakhtin, the many languages that proliferate in any culture

Organizational saga

For Bormann, a longer story which presents the history of the group in the form of a legend

Polyphonic

Many voiced; Bakhtin’s term for quality of narrative in which each character is fully developed and speaks fully about his or her prespective on the world.

Rhetorical audience

In Bitzer, an audience capable of being influence by discourse and of being mediators of change

Rhetoric of fiction

Booth’s insight that, in narrative, “the author’s judgment is always present”