Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
rhetoric [Grk 
(téchnē)]
Classical rhetoric was a politically and ethically established style of teaching effective public speaking. The system was codified by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintillian into five departments: ‘invention,’ ‘arrangement,’ ‘style,’ ‘memory,’ and ‘delivery.’ Aristotle identified three branches of rhetoric: ‘deliberative’—legislative rhetoric, the purpose of which is to exhort or dissuade; ‘judicial’ or forensic rhetoric, which accuses or defends; ‘epideictic’ or panegyric rhetoric, which is ceremonial in nature and commemorates or blames. Classical rhetoric considered what is today studied in the domains of stylistics and pragmatics, and laid the foundations of modern linguistic theory. While medieval and early modern rhetoric retreated into the study of figures of speech and tropes, the ‘new rhetoric’ of the last thirty years has been conceptualized as a social-psychologically grounded tool of communication (new rhetoric, Hovland), as a means of researching intelligibility (applied rhetoric), as a theory of argumentation (nouvelle rhétorique, Perelman), and as a sociopolitical institution of democratic societies. Within linguistics, rhetoric can be seen as a part of the pragmatically grounded text linguistics, characterized by (a) the pragmatic aspects of a speech act, where one is conscious of its effect and perlocution, and (b) by the changing textinternal features of a situatively suitable, argumentative and stylistic structure. ‘Rhetorical’ here means any kind of persuasive use of language in private (everyday use) and in the public arena (politics, advertising, law). Rhetoric stands at the interdisciplinary intersection of linguistics, sociology, and language psychology.
References
Aristotle. 1982. ‘Art’ of rhetoric, trans. J.H.Freese. Cambridge, MA.
Billig, M. 1987. Arguing and thinking: a rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge.
Erickson, K.V. (ed.) 1974. Aristotle: the classical heritage of rhetoric. Metuchen, NJ.
Hovland, C.I. et al. 1953. Communication and persuasion. New Haven, CT.
Kennedy, G. 1963. The art of persuasion in Greece. Princeton, NJ.
——1980. Classical rhetoric and its Christian and secular tradition from ancient to modern times. London.
Lausberg, H. 1960. Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, 2 vols. Munich. (3rd edn Stuttgart, 1990.)
——1963. Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik, 2nd rev. edn. Munich. (4th corr.
edn 1971.)
Leith, D. and G.Myerson. 1989. The power of address: explorations in rhetoric. London.
Levi, J.N. (ed.) 1990. Language in the judicial process. New York.
Martin, J.E. 1992. Toward a theory of text for contrastive rhetoric. New York.
Medhurst, M.J. 1990. Cold war rhetoric: strategy, metaphor, and ideology. New York.
Murphy, J.J. 1974. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: a history of rhetorical theory from St. Augustine to the Renaissance. Berkeley, CA.
Nash, W. 1989. Rhetoric: the wit of persuasion. Oxford.
Perelman, C. 1989. Rhétoriques. Brussels.
Perelman, C. and L.Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The New Rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation, trans. J.Wilkinson and P.Weaver. Notre Dame, IN.
Renwick, J. (ed.) 1990. Language and the rhetoric of the Revolution. Edinburgh.
Steinman, M., Jr. 1967. New rhetorics. New York.
Bibliography
Vickers, B. 1981. Bibliography of rhetoric studies 1970–1980. Comparative Criticism 3.316–22.
argumentation, figure of speech, trope
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