INTRODUCTION TO

RHETORIC

English 10
Mrs. Stowe
 The Beginnings
Rhetoric:
◻ Dates back to the Greeks,

particularly Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.E.)
◻ Addresses the

relationship among
audience, purpose, and
speaker/writer
 Rhetorical Triangle
persona of
speaker / writer

ton
e

e
os

Interaction among
rp
pu

subject, speaker,
and audience
determines the
structure and
language of the
argument.

audience subject
medium
• The speaker/writer adopts a persona
• literally a “mask”
• not a negative term
• the character he or she wants the audience to
perceive
• the role he or she deems most effective for purpose
and audience.
• Are you speaking as a poet, comedian, or scholar?
• Are you speaking as an expert on ice skating, popular music, or a
software program?
• Are you speaking as a literary critic in your English class or as a
concerned citizen in your local community?
What Rhetoric Is NOT
◻ Rhetoric gets a bad rap in modern
usage/connotation.
◻ It is not necessarily something that blocks or
hides an essential truth; it is not a politician full
of hot air.
What Rhetoric IS:
1. The specific features of texts that
cause them to be meaningful,
purposeful, and effective for readers
or listeners
Consisting of:
2. diction
3. syntax
4. figurative language
5. organization, structure, and style
Diction
Word Choice
•formal v. informal
•abstract v. concrete
•archaic v. modern
•“innocent” v. “loaded”
•denotation v. connotation
•**Basically, the words you use to
communicate.
 SYNTAX
• Sentence Structure and Patterns
✓long v. short sentences
✓periodic v. loose sentences
✓active v. passive voice
✓patterns of balance and repetition
Figurative Language
• metaphor/simile
• metonymy / synecdoche
• oxymoron / paradox
• personification
• irony
• symbolism
• hyperbole / litote
• synesthesia
Organization
•What about a writer’s organization
(modes of discourse), structure, and
style makes the text meaningful,
purposeful, and effective?
What Rhetoric IS:
2. The art of finding and analyzing all the
choice involving language that a writer,
speaker, reader, or listener might make in a
situation so that the text becomes
meaningful, purposeful, and effective for
readers or listeners
CONTEXT
• Writers always write in response to a rhetorical
situation (time, place, circumstances; context)
that affects their decisions about what they say
and how they say it.
Traditional Canons (categories)
of Rhetoric:
1. Invention
2. Arrangement
3. Style
4. Memory
5. Delivery
 INVENTION
◼ How writers generate their ideas so that
they are most effective for the audience
◼ Aristotle, in fact, defines rhetoric primarily
as invention, "discovering the best
available means of persuasion."
❧ organization that will lead to an effective
text

❧ Arrangement of a Classical Oration

o Introduction
o Statement of Facts
o Division
o Proof
o Refutation
o Conclusion
 Arrangement of a Classical Oration

1. Introduction
○ exordium
○ introduces reader to the subject
under discussion
○ draws the reader in by piquing
interest
○ often establishes a writer’s ethos
 Arrangement of a Classical Oration

2. Statement of Facts
○ Narratio
○ provides factual information and
background material on the subject
○ establishes why the subject is a
problem that needs addressing
○ logos & pathos appeals
 Arrangement of a Classical Oration

3. Division
○ partitio
○ outlineswhat will follow
○ Some listings of classical
arrangement leave this part
out.
 Arrangement of a Classical Oration

4. Proof
○ Confirmatio

○ development needed to make the

writer’s case
○ logos
Arrangement of a Classical Oration

5. Refutation
○ Refutatio

○ addresses the counterargument

○ logos
 Arrangement of a Classical Oration

6. Conclusion
○ Peroratio

○ reminds reader of ethos

○ usually appeals to pathos

○ answers the question “so what?”

Style
○ choices writers make with
sentences and words
○ artful expression of ideas
Memory
● in earlier eras, literally committing the text to
memory
● now, how a writer taps into the “cultural memory”
of their audience
● also, what devices will the writer use to help
his/her audience remember the text and its
message.
 DELIVERY
◼ how to get the text to the audience
(Internet, newspaper, graphics, etc)
◼ how something is said or written
 APPEALS:
LOGOS, PATHOS, AND
ETHOS
 APPEALS
❖The writer uses appeals to
support his/her meaning:
•Logos
•Pathos
•Ethos
LOGOS
▪names the appeal to reason.
▪Aristotle wished that all
communication could be transacted
only through this appeal, but given the
weaknesses of humanity, he laments,
we must resort to the use of the other
two appeals.
PATHOS
▪names the appeal to emotion.
▪Cicero encouraged the use of
pathos at the conclusion of an
oration, but emotional appeals are
of course more widely viable.
• names the persuasive appeal of one's character,
especially how this character is established by means of the
speech or discourse.
• Speakers appeal to ethos to demonstrate that they are
credible and trustworthy.
• Aristotle claimed that one needs to appear both
knowledgeable about one's subject and benevolent.
• Cicero said that in classical oratory the initial portion of a
speech (its exordium or introduction) was the place to
establish one's credibility with the audience.
• First impressions are important!
• A person’s reputation or background might provide
them ethos. The writing itself might provide ethos by
being balanced, reasonable, sincere, knowledgeable,
etc.

ETHOS
 SIX KEYS TO
UNDERSTANDING
RHETORIC
SIX KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING RHETORIC:

1. Understanding Persona
The writer writes so that the audience
perceives him or her as a distinct character
(usually one who is educated, considerate,
trustworthy, and well-intentioned)
The reader makes inferences and judgments
about the character and personality of the
writer, analyzing how he or she appeals to the
audience
includes elements of tone, diction, image,
creation of voice
Six Keys to Understanding
Rhetoric:
2. Understanding appeals to an
audience
▪ logos, ethos, pathos
3. Understanding subjects
• treating the subject matter fairly, fully and
effectively
• offering other paths of interpretation,
analysis or argument
• claim plus support

Six Keys to Understanding

Rhetoric
Six Keys to Understanding Rhetoric:

4. understanding context
• understanding the time, place, people, events, and
motivating forces behind a piece and how they impact
the piece
 SIX KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING
RHETORIC
5. Understanding intention
• what is the writer’s aim or purpose
6. Understanding genre
* what type of writing is most
appropriate for a situation (formal
letter or casual email; poetry or
prose; scientific data or personal
anecdote)
 So What is Rhetoric?
• Plato: [Rhetoric] is the "art of enchanting the
soul." (The art of winning the soul by discourse.)
• Quintilian: "Rhetoric is the art of speaking well"
or "...good man speaking well."
• Francis Bacon: The duty and office of rhetoric
is to apply reason to imagination for the better
moving of the will.
• George Campbell: "[Rhetoric] is that art or
talent by which discourse is adapted to its end.
The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the
understanding, please the imagination, move the
passion, and influence the will."
Sources
◻ AP English Language and Composition Guide
◻ Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading
and Writing by Hephzibah Roskelly and David
A. Jolliffe
◻ The Language of Composition by Renee H.
Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin
Aufses
◻ http://rhetoric.byu.edu/canons/Canons.htm
◻ http://www.americanrhetoric.com