User:NEG22/Modern Rhetoric

Modern rhetoric refers to the rhetorical theories and practices advanced during the period beginning in the mid-seventeenth century as distinguished from those in common practice during the period of antiquity. During this period, noted for conquest and the rise of nation states, a parallel departure from the broad use of classical Latin and a move to the use of the vernacular is in evidence. A more widespread use of print media is characteristic of this period as opposed to the oral discourse which predominated during the classical period.

Modern rhetoric has gone through many changes since the age of ancient Rome and Greece to fit the societal demands of the time. Kenneth Burke, who is largely credited for defining the notion of modern rhetoric, described modern rhetoric as, "Rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic, and is continually born anew; the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." Burke's theory of rhetoric directed attention to the division between classical and modern rhetoric. The intervention of outside academic movements, such as structuralism, semiotics, and critical theory, made important contributions to a modern sense of rhetorical studies.

Women in Modern Rhetoric
While women's contributions were often overlooked in the history of modern rhetoric, Jane Donawerth recognizes how particular women writers did contribute to rhetorical theory in the 18th and 19th centuries, often through what she terms "poaching."

Educator and fiction writer Maria Edgeworth through parody, satirizes traditional male rhetoric through the persona of a clever shrew in her "Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification” (1795). In so doing, she mocks traditional rhetoric while demonstrating how manipulative it can be.

In her Home-Schooling textbook, “The Youth’s letter Writer” (1840), Eliza Ferrar appropriates male rhetoric by using her main character, Ana, to help her father teach a young boy to write letters to his family. She eventually takes over the task from her father. Ferrar uses Anna’s character not only to demonstrate the rhetorical principles of letter writing, but also to feminize them.

Frances Willard wrote Woman in the Pulpit (1889), blending her own words together with letters and essays of both male and female preachers to advocate for preaching by women. In this way, she creates a collage, using arguments both for and against and by both men and women to reinforce her own arguments that preaching is an activity that both men and women should do.

Major Theorists
Belgian philosopher, Chaïm Pereleman (1912-1984), held that scientific approaches had failed to solve the moral and social problems of humanity. He rejected belief in God or any other source of absolute truth and advocated for a public discourse centered on human values. In collaboration with Madame Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Pereleman advanced the notion of the centrality of the rhetorical audience, contending that it is essential that one know the audience one wants to convince. Their theory that the audience is necessary to rational discourse is advanced in then their work, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (1958)

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca posit that the audience is constructed by the speaker and advance the concept of a universal audience and a particular audience. The speaker aims to change or strengthen what facts, truths and presumptions the universal audience believes. With respect to the particular audience, the speaker attempts to change or strengthen the values that audience holds. The distinction between those categories is that facts, truths and presumptions are considered to be real, while values are considered to be the way people judge themselves and each other.

Support and criticism
Some critics disagree with a changing definition of rhetoric, including Brian Vickers, who argued that modern rhetoric demeans classical rhetoric: "It first reduces its scope, and then applies it to purposes that it never dreamt of." He also critiques Burke's writing on modern rhetoric, saying it is, "A [rhetorical] system that rearranges the components of classical rhetoric so idiosyncratically as to be virtually unusable."

Kenneth Burke was heavily influenced by modern social stratification and the way which symbols allow social unification and polarization, particularly in A Rhetoric of Motives. Burke sees these social changes as a social drama, acted out in rhetorical performance. Burke also employs Freudian principles in his works on modern rhetoric. He highlights the importance of modern psychology, where identification of the audience plays a key role. The principle of identification, as Burke explains, is the speaker appealing to the audience's opinions and ideals. Identification is crucial for modern rhetorical study and the principal of constitutive rhetoric.

Other influences
A significant event, deemed the "linguistic turn," drastically changed how modern rhetoric was theorized and practiced. The linguistic turn linked different areas of study by their common concern for symbol-systems in shaping the way humans interpret the world and create meaning. Interpreting the world and creating meaning is the basis for Richard E. Vatz's "Myth of the Rhetorical Situation," Philosophy and Rhetoric, Summer: 1973 and The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion, Kendall Hunt, 2012, 2013. This is a change from the traditional understanding of words being labels for ideas and concepts, to the notion of language constituting social reality.

The public sphere was studied by scholars such as Jürgen Habermas and Gerard A. Hauser. Jürgen Habermas described the public sphere as the sphere of private people coming together as a public that is accessible by all, to openly discuss the general rules governing society. Gerard Hauser described the public sphere differently in terms of rhetoric. Hauser explained it to be formed by the dialogue surrounding issues, emphasizing how the members of society that engage in the dialogue were the components of the public sphere. The public sphere grows by attaining more members who will engage in the vernacular. Hauser's definition of the rhetorical public sphere still shares the notion of open debate and accessibility, assuming that the participants are actively engaged in the discourse.

Conclusion
Some scholars that support the notion of modern rhetoric offer normative models that differ from classical rhetoric. Modern rhetorical study, some say, should stress two-way communication based on mutual trust and understanding to improve the speaker's ability to persuade. Acknowledging that all communication and symbols are rhetorical, scholars of the field also call for a continued expansion of the objects of study, in order to improve communicative practices and bring about more egalitarian speech.