Rhetoric
20124067 童利娅
1. Definition of Rhetoric:
Aristotle in Rhetoric:
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available
means of persuasion.
Sonja K. Foss in Rhetorical Criticism:
Rhetoric is the human use of symbols to communicate.
James Herrick in The History and Theory of Rhetoric:
Rhetoric is the systematic study and intentional practice of effective
symbolic expression.
Sonja K. Foss, Karen A. Foss & Robert Trapp in Contemporary Perspectives on
Rhetoric:
Rhetoric is the unique human ability to use symbols to communicate
with one another.
Kenneth Burke in A Rhetoric of Motives:
Rhetoric is the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to
induce actions in other human agents.
2. Rhetoric and Human Life and Actions
According to these definitions, human life is closely related to rhetoric, since
human are the agents of rhetoric by using symbols to communicate and persuade,
which would cover most of the behavior in human life.
Kenneth Burke conclude that: “Man is the symbol using, making, and mis-using
animal, inventor of the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments
of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection.”
Martin Heidegger also stated that “language is the house of being”.
Therefore, human beings are rhetorical animals, and almost all kinds of behaviors
in human daily life, including thinking and perception, verbal and non-verbal
behaviors, can be interpreted rhetorically as long as they contain meaning and the
intention to influence others or the self.