MASTER RHETORIC SET

Rhetorical Situation

The context that gives birth to persuasive discourse and the context that persuasive discourse gives birth to

Rhetoric

The ability in any universal given case to observe the available means of persuasion

Constraints and Affordances

limitations on or enhancements of the effectiveness of an argument or persuasion outside of the other parts of the rhetorical situation

The Five Canons

The outline process of rhetorical discourse from start to finish by offering discovery for analysis that can be examined

Exigence

an urgent problem that can be addressed through rhetorical discourse

Kairos

The opportune time for rhetorical discourse selecting the right rhetorical situation for persuasion

Rhetorical Triangle

RHETOR - ISSUE - AUDIENCE

Extrinsic Exigence

an external outside knowledge motivating circumstance or concern that the audience already recognizes it exists outside of the rhetors rhetoric

Intrinsic Exigence

internal knowledge motivating circumstance or concern that the rhetor makes the audience aware of or care about through rhetoric

Invention

Discovering persuasive strategies

Arrangement

selecting and ordering persuasive strategies

Style

expressing persuasive strategies with specific language forms

Memory

memorizing persuasive strategies

Delivery

presenting persuasive strategies to an audience

Four Principles of Style

Correctness, Clarity, Ornamentation, Appropriateness

Correctness

Following the language conventions of the audience

• Standardized American English

• African American Vernacular English

Clarity

Transparency in communication

• Clear Language

• Enargeia: vivid depictions of a scene

• Strategic Obscurity

Ornamentation

Devices for manipulating language form

• Honorific language: Positive appraisals

• Pejorative language: Negative appraisals

Appropriateness

“One ring to rule them all”: adjusting style for rhetorical purposes and situations

The Three Levels of Style

Low Style, Middle Style, High Style

Low Style

Teaches or proves a point with neat and concise language that does not draw attention to itself but focuses on the content; e.g., instruction manuals, introductory textbooks, and newspaper articles.

Middle Style

Pleases, entertains, or holds the attention of the audience with language that is not overpowering but not underwhelming either; e.g., comedy routines, eulogies, speaker introductions

High Style

Moves the audience to action or sways their emotions with ornate, bombastic, striking, or forceful language; e.g., political campaign speeches, commercials, preaching.

Three Types of Figures

Figure of Speech, Figure of Thought, Trope

Figure of Speech

Rhetorically functional patterns in the arrangement or sounds of words or phrases, i.e., patterns in the forms of language (phonological, lexical, or morphosyntactic).

Figure of Thought

Types of speech acts, or rhetorical actions one can perform with language, that are not tied to a specific linguistic form (pragmatics).

Trope

A change in a word or phrase from its ordinary signification to another (semantics); often involves substituting a word or phrase for another.

Figures of Speech: Repetition

Anaphora (epanaphora): repeats the beginning word or words of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences; places a series of objects under a head or connects a series of attributes to one subject

Epistrophe (epiphora): repeats the ending word or words of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences; links multiple subjects to a single commonality or distributes an attribute to multiple entities

Figures of Speech: Balance

Isocolon: the same or roughly number of syllables or words appear in successive phrases or clauses; compares, contrasts, or equates parallel cases (eduction), or groups together members of a category (induction or definition)

Antimetabole: repeats and reverses key words in successive phrases or clauses; illustrates relationships of inversion, whether based on cause, identity, or reciprocity

Figures of speech: Lists

Asyndeton: a list of items that lacks any conjunctions; suggests more members of a category or blurs together members of a category

Polysyndeton: a list of items that contains more than one conjunction; suggests an exhaustive list of members of a category or distinguishes each item from the others

Figures of Thought: Questions

Rhetorical question: a question with an implied or obvious answer, as no explicit answer is expected or given; creates unity or disunity between rhetor and members of the audience; renders an idea eminently reasonable or unreasonable

Reasoning by question and answer: asking and answering one’s own questions as a means of advancing an argument; makes the rhetor seem reasonable; shapes the audience’s thought process

Figures of Thought: Direction and Indirection

Parrhesia (licentia): frank speech, usually in cases in which the rhetor has less power than the audience; rhetorically decreases or even inverts power differential; can enhance ethos among overhearers

Paralepsis: brings up a subject by feigning not to bring up the subject; the rhetor can deny being responsible for what was said or its effects

Tropes

Synecdoche: referring to a whole by reference to a part, or referring to a part by referencing the whole; framing or characterizing a whole by its part, or amplifying a part by its whole

Metonymy: referring to an object by a separate, but closely associated object; framing or characterizing a subject by an associated part

Metaphor: referring to an object by way of an analogical stand-in; frames or characterizes the object in terms of another object from a different domain or sphere

Irony: making a statement by saying the opposite, creates humor or solidarity with an audience

Two Types of Memory

Natural Memory and Artificial Memory

Natural Memory

Untrained Memory

Artificial Memory

Trained and Cultivated Memory

Methods of Artificial Memorization

• Focus, Repetition, and Association

• Memory Palaces

• Commonplace Catalogues

Focus, Repetition, and Association

Focus on the thing you want to memorize, repeat it many times out loud, and associate it with a vivid image.

Memory Palaces

Recall a physical space that has clear segments and clear directionality for moving through it

With each segment as a different part of the speech, place an item you can associate with each thing you want to remember in the appropriate segment

Walk through the segments of your memory palace and look at each item to remind you of what you’re supposed to say

Commonplace Catalogues

Memorize and group commonplaces (or common topics) into categories according to similar subjects

Give each category a number or letter of the alphabet

“Scroll” through topics according to the number or letter in your mind

The Five Types of Cases

a way of characterizing an audience in terms of its attitudes toward the rhetor, issue, or argument

Honorable Case

the audience is sympathetic to the rhetor’s argument or the rhetor

Obscure Case

the audience is unfamiliar with or unknowledgeable about the issue

Mean Case

audience sees the issue or rhetor as unimportant or uninteresting

Ambiguous Case

the audience is unsure about the argument; they’re on the fence

Difficult Case

the audience is unsympathetic or even hostile to the rhetor’s argument or the rhetor 

The Six Parts of Arrangement

Exordium, Narration, Partition, Confirmation, Refutation, Peroration

Exordium

Captures the audience’s attention, usually by establishing exigence increasing the audience’s receptivity to the argument which begins establishing ethos.

Two Types of Exordium

Introduction and Insinuation

Exordium Introduction

For ambiguous, mean, and obscure cases talking directly and explicitly about the issue, tailored to the type of case.

Exordium Insinuation

For difficult cases only and talks about the issue indirectly by, using a related issue the audience is sympathetic to and then making a connection to the real issue.

Narration

Outlines the issue, its exigence (if not made clear in the exordium), and the dispute surrounding it, framing the issue in a way that increases the audience’s receptivity to the argument. Offers important background information, and defines key terms.

Partition

Previews, in order, the main parts or points of the argument. Can be in the form of a “step-by-step” thesis usually the briefest part of the six parts.

Confirmation

Clearly states the claims that support the thesis in the form of topic sentences with evidence, including research, and lines of reasoning to buttress these claims. It is usually the longest of the six parts.

Refutation

Shows how opposing position’s arguments are misguided, mistaken, unsupported, or limited and identifies any common ground between opposing positions.

Cicero’s Four Methods of Refutation

1. Show that one or more of an opposing side’s assumptions are not granted

2. If an assumption is granted, argue that the conclusion the opposing side draws from it does not follow

3. Show that the form of the argument is fallacious

4. Present an argument that is equally strong or stronger than the opposing side’s argument

Peroration

Summarizes the main argument and its supporting points reminding the audience of the stake they have in the issue. Raises larger questions or presents implications of the argument answers the “what now?” question.

Stasis Theory

is a method for determining the central issue or question in a debate in order to analyze and invent arguments.

Stasis (plural: stases)

is a kind of issue or question central to a dispute or argument.

Conjecture

questions or arguments about existence, occurrence, or quantity

Does x exist? Did x happen? How many x’s are there?

Definition

questions or arguments about categories, labels, or characterizations

What type of thing is x? What should x be called?

Cause & effect

questions or arguments about precipitating circumstances or consequences

What precipitated x? What are the consequences of x?

Quality

questions of or arguments about value or evaluation

Is x moral or immoral? Is x beneficial or detrimental? Is x worth the time, money, or effort?

Action

questions or arguments about what should be done

What should be done about x? What policy should be enacted in response to x?

Jurisdiction

procedural questions or arguments about resolving issues in the other stases

Who should determine the definition of x? How should we decide what action to take to combat x?

Topics

generalized lines of argument that rhetors can use to discover support for claims in matters of dispute (the questions of stasis); the topics serve as the major premise in enthymemes

Common Topics

lines of argument that can be used in virtually any rhetorical situation.

Special Topics

lines of argument that can only be used in certain rhetorical situations.

Possible / Impossible

makes an argument about the potentiality of an event

Past Fact / Future Fact

makes argument about what occurred or will occur

Greater/Lesser

makes an argument about an entity in terms of its magnitude based on some underlying value

Extrinsic Proof

Support for a persuasive goal that the rhetor imports into their rhetoric it is not composed or invented by the rhetor but used as part of the intrinsic proofs the rhetor invents

Data

Facts, statistics, or other empirically based information or research (not logos)

DAFCA

Who discovered or assembled the data?

What ideological screens are filtering the data?

What other sources corroborate this data?

Who vouches for the data’s accuracy?

Testimony

a report about some state of affairs by either a subject matter expert or someone with direct or indirect experience

What are the two types of testimony?

Community authorities and Proximate authorities

Community Authority

any person or entity who is judged to be an expert or qualified to offer testimony based on their credentials, education, or reputation in the relevant community

SICA

Sponsors: Who is the authority indebted to?

Ideology: What sets of commonplaces drive the authority’s claims?

Credentials: Does the authority have expertise relevant to the argument?

Accuracy: Are the authority’s claims correct?

Proximate Authorities

someone who is qualified to offer testimony because of their closeness to the event or subject in question; often witnesses

Evaluating Proximate Authorities

Motivation: What are the stakes? Is there outside pressure?

Corroboration: Does the authority agree with other credible authorities?

Position: Did the authority clearly see or experience the event or subject?

Condition: Was the environment conducive to accurate perception?

Cognition: Was the authority’s state of mind conducive to accurate observation?

Rendition: Is the testimony mediated?

Logos

the appeal to the issue which is being debated or issued

Pathos

direct appeals to the audiences attitudes and feelings

Ethos

appeal to the credibility of the rhetor

Induction

movement between premises the progress from particulars to universals

Deduction

reasoning in which the conclusion is entailed in the premises if the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true; also known as a syllogism

4 types of premises (Aristotle)

1.Scientific: premises accepted by experts

2.Dialectical: premises accepted by wise and learned people

3.Rhetorical: premises accepted by members of the community or the audience

4.False: mistaken premises or outright lies

Enthymemes

a rhetorical syllogism or deduction in which major premises are drawn from or based on the audience’s values, beliefs, and assumptions

Probabilities

any statement that asserts or predicts an event, action, or state of affairs as likely or generally true

Signs

any statement that posits a correlation between two physical facts, events, or states of affairs

Fallible vs. infallible signs

Fallible sign: two correlates that often accompany one another; most signs are fallible

Infallible sign: two correlates that always accompany each other; few signs are infallible

Physical vs. cultural signs

Physical signs: usually don’t change, but can

Cultural signs: are culturally relative and change over time

Maxims

wise sayings that are widely applicable and generally accepted by a community as true

Commonplaces

general assumptions about the world that are widely accepted in a community;  a webbed agglomeration of commonplaces forms an ideology

Premise

Any statement laid down, supposed, or assumed as the basis or foundation of an argument leading to a conclusion

Proposition

Any statement in an argument whether a premise or conclusion

Argument

a reasoning process in which a less certain statement is arrived at by inference from a more certain statement

Major Premise

The general statement that bridges the minor premise and the conclusion 

Minor Premise

The subject of the minor premise fits into the larger category of the major premise

Conclusion

Say something about the subject of the minor premise based on the major premise.

Eduction

an argument whose conclusion about one case is based on a parallel case; argument based on particular to particular