Classical RHETORICAL ARGUMENTATION
Classical argumentative rhetoric is based on the natural ability. to speak. This natural ability is developed through conceptualization and practical exercises on general or social issues. Such a rhetoric combines linguistic, interactional and civic skills.
1. The rhetorical address
The rhetorical address corresponds to the discourse in its traditional sense, that is, “that which, in public, treats a subject with a certain method, and a certain length” (Littré, [Discourse]); a discourse is a “formal, ordered and usually extended expression of thought on a subject.” (W., Discourse). This concept of discourse has nothing to do with the concept of discourse as defined by Foucault (1969, 1971) or Pêcheux (Maldidier, 1990). Moreover, this meaning of discourse does not appear among the six meanings considered by Maingueneau in his founding presentation of “French discourse analysis” (1976, pp. 11-12).
A rhetorical address is a speech delivered by a speaker or orator to an audience, along the following lines.
— The orator adresses a pressing issue of general concern; typically the speaker seeks to influence an ongoing decision-making process that is developing under certain time constraints.
Classical rhetoric focuses on an orator, addressing an audience. In reality, a full rhetorical situation is one of choice, involving as many orators or voices as there are possible choices.
— The speech is a relatively long, planned monologue composed of a series of speech acts that construct a unified representation of the subject under dispute, and are intended to lead to action.
— It is produced in the context of a discursive competition that takes place between different speeches of mutual opponents, supporting incompatible proposals. The rhetorical address is given in a space of contradictory discourse, where all interventions are positioned in relation to each other. Even if the speaker tries to erase all traces of the counter-discourses that surround him, the speech is still structured by the competing discourses.
— The speech is delivered to an audience, composed of all the people who will play a role in the decision-making process relevant to the issue in hand. The audience is divided on what the right decision would be; it includes staunch supporters and opponents of each proposal, as well as undecided people, see roles. The traditional emphasis on persuasion suggests that the orator focuses more on the doubters and questioners, than on the staunch opponents. His task is to remove doubt, to create and guide opinion, see logos, ethos, pathos.
The rhetorical audience is both diminished and enlarged. It is diminished, because it is defined by its lack of knowledge and its indecision. But, at least within the framework of the New Rhetoric the audience is also elevated as a critical instance, somewhere on the way to achieving a universal, deeply rooted and justified consensus.
Argumentative rhetoric has theorized, codified, evaluated and stimulated this kind of public communication, which was the only kind of public address possible before the advent of radio, cinema, television and the Internet. Its theoretical object, the circulation of contradictory speeches within a decision-making group, remains well defined, see argumentation (II); Persuasion.
2. The rhetorical catechism
At least until the modern times, rhetorical argumentation was the backbone of teaching and education in the Western world. In the Middle Ages, rhetorical argumentation served as one of the three arts of discourse that made up the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), propaedeutic to the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music).
For pedagogical purposes, rhetoric has constructed a standard self-representation of both the production process of speech, and its product, the speech as delivered to the audience:
— A five-step production process, invention, disposition, speech, memory, pronunciation.
— Three genres of discourse, deliberative, judicial, epideictic.
— Three actors: the rhetorical interaction is functionally tripolar. It brings together “the speaker who wants to persuade, the interlocutor whom he must convince, and the opponent whom he must refute” (Fumaroli 1980, p. 3).
— Three discursive means of pressure focus on transforming the audience’s representations and desire for action. The speaker must:
– Inform and teach, through his logos, that is, through the cogency of his arguments and the plausibility of the facts as he reports them.
– Please and attract through his style, and the self-image, or ethos, he projects in his speech.
– Move to action, through pathos.
— According to the tradition, the actions aimed at producing these effects are concentrated in the strategic moments of the discourse:
The introduction is the ethotic moment.
The narrative and the arguments are dominated by logos.
The conclusion is the pathemic, emotional moment, through which the speaker hopes to wrest the final decision.
3. Organization of the process
The process of constructing argumentative rhetorical discourse is traditionally described as involving five stages. The corresponding Latin words are given in order to avoid possible confusion with the English words, of which they are false cognates.
(i) Inventio: Finding the arguments
“Invention [inuentio] is the invention of things, true or plausible, that would make the case convincing” (Ad Her., i, 3). The inventio is the cognitive step that corresponds to the methodical search for arguments, guided by the technique of “topical questions”, see common places.
The Latin word inventio does not mean “invention” understood as the creation of something that did not exist before. The meaning is “to find, to discover” (Gaffiot [1934], Inventio).
Psycho-linguistic research on the production of written and oral discourse has taken over the reflection on the inventio techniques.
Rhetorical arguments are found on the basis of an exploration of reality, guided by a natural, substantial ontology.
Religious argument has introduced a fundamental change in this vision. Good reasons are no longer plausible statements, but sacred statements drawn from the foundational sacred text and, to a lesser extent, from the texts of tradition.
(ii) Dispositio: Planning the sequence of arguments
“Arrangement [dispositio] is the ordering and distribution of the matter” (ibid.), that is, the planning of speech. Inventio and dispositio are the two cognitive stages of this process.
(iii) Elocutio: Expressing the argumentation
“Style [elocutio] is the adaptation of appropriate words and phrases to the matter under consideration” (ibid.).
The word style used in the Ad Herennium translation may suggest a superficial arrangement of the expression, but the elocutio is more than that, it corresponds to the “putting into language” of the arguments, to their semantization, corresponding to the whole linguistic expression.
The elocutio is characterized by four qualities, the grammatical correctness (latinitas), the clarity of the message (perspicuitas), the adaptation of the message to suit the audience (aptum) and the density and richness of its expression (ornatus). A discourse may be rejected as defective on any one of these levels, see destruction.
The English word elocution currently refers to “the skill of clear and expressive speech, especially of distinct pronunciation and articulation” (W., Elocution); elocution clearly belongs first to pronuntiatio, and only peripherally to elocutio, as expression and style.
(iv) Memoria: Memorization of speech
Speech must be memorized because it is intended to be delivered orally, without the use of paper or autocue. As the invention process, memorization involves cognitive factors. The cultural importance of this memorization work, which may seem anecdotal, has been demonstrated by Yates (1966).
(v) Pronuntiatio: Delivering the speech
“Delivery [pronuntiatio] is the graceful regulation of voice, countenance, and gesture” (ibid.).
The Latin word pronuntiatio not only refers to this physical process of speech production and modulation, but also expresses the idea of an assertive speech: a pronuntiatio is a “declaration, announcement, proposal” (Gaffiot [1934], Pronuntiativus). The judge does not say or read his judgment, he pronounces it. The rhetorical tradition sees delivery as the moment of performance, and dramatization of the discourse, which requires a special training of the body, the gesture and the voice. The orator, the preacher, the actor are subject to the same constraints of public performance, though their techniques, social status and messages are quite different.
In short, finding arguments, ordering them, expressing them in writing: the rhetorical prescriptions are particularly well suited to general academic essays. They seem clear and they are easy enough to teach — but, unfortunately, not so easy to put into practice.
In the Divisions of Oratory Art, Cicero has framed the concepts of ancient rhetoric as a series of question-answers, “very much like a catechism”, as Bornecque notes ([1924], p. VII). Rhetoric may have suffered of such an ostensibly pedagogical presentation, where everything has to be done and said by the book.
4. Textual organization of the speech
This process leads to a finished product, the speech delivered in a specific situation. It is articulated in parts, traditionally called:
Introduction (exordium)
Narration
Argumentation (a confirmation followed by a rebuttal)
Conclusion.
The argument is the central part of the speech. Contrary to a simplistic view of discourse, there is no opposition between argument, narration and description. Argumentative narratives or descriptions, like literary narratives or descriptions, are made from a particular point of view.
5. Extensions and restrictions of rhetoric
Ancient argumentative rhetoric has been redefined on various dimensions.
— Limitation to its expressive dimension. Argumentative rhetoric can be oriented towards persuasive communication or the quality of expression.
— Generalization to its persuasive dimension. Nietzsche assimilates the rhetorical function to the persuasive function of language, see persuasion.
— Restriction to its linguistic dimension and liquidation of its cognitive dimensions. The apparent logic of the five components of rhetorical production was profoundly challenged in the Renaissance (Ong 1958). The three components related to thought (invention, disposition, memory) were separated from those related to language (expression and delivery). Inventio, the bone of argumentation, was cast out of rhetoric and language was no longer considered to be the fundamental moment of the discursive process. An orphan of the inventio, rhetoric redefined its object, moving away from social discourses to focus on literature and belles-lettres, and developing a passion for the autonomous study of the discourse variations and stylistic figures.
A language deprived of thought and a thought deprived of language: this orphaned rhetoric would become the target of violent attacks from Locke, S. Ornamental fallacies. In France, in the nineteenth century, Fontanier ([1827], [1831]) was the emblematic figure associated with this “restricted rhetoric” (Genette, 1970), in opposition to the so-called “general” rhetoric, which was revived by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958) — The question of reviving an integral concept of rhetoric remains a topos of rhetorical studies.
— Generalization along its linguistic dimension. A rhetoric limited to figures of speech can itself be called “general”: this paradoxical expression corresponds to the “Group μ” approach in their General Rhetoric (1970). The problems of figures are taken up in a structuralist framework, and figures are reconsidered under the two basic dimensions of language, the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic axis. Issues of argumentation, public speaking, interaction or communication, are not considered, nor is the aesthetics of figures. This General Rhetoric was practically the only concept of rhetoric to be considered in the French literature during the 1970s, and Perelman’s New Rhetoric occupied only a marginal position. Wenzel devoted an avenging paragraph to this “alarming” view of rhetoric (1987, p. 103; see Klinkenberg, 1990, 2001). The contrast with the status of rhetoric in the Speech and Communication Departments of the United States could not be greater.
— Extension to ordinary speech. The rhetorical approach can be extended to everyday forms of speech, insofar as they involve face management (ethos), practical data processing oriented toward a practical end (logos), and a correlative treatment of affect (pathos) (Kallmeyer, 1996). The rhetorical trilogy can thus be seen as the ancestor of the various theories of the functions of language (Bühler 1933, Jakobson [1960]), in a completely different theoretical atmosphere. This extension also preserves a fundamental characteristic of rhetorical speech: to alter reality and participate in the structuring of ongoing action. This view may resonate with Bitzer’s evocation of the dialogue between fishermen at work in the Trobriand Islands, and his definition of the “rhetorical situation” as involving a degree of “urgency”:
Rhetorical situations may be defined as complexes of persons, events, objects and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence, which can be partially or completely removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence (Bitzer [1968], p. 5).
— Extension to any semiotic domain. Rhetoric naturally extends to the co-verbal and paraverbal signifiers. Moreover, any strategic implementation of a semiotic system can be legitimately be considered as rhetorical practice; the rhetoric of painting, of music, of architecture, for example.