Page 123 - Šolsko polje, XXX, 2019, št. 5-6: Civic, citizenship and rhetorical education in a rapidly changing world, eds. Janja Žmavc and Plamen Mirazchiyski
P. 123
A Road to Rhetorica: Teaching Rhetoric
as Social Sensitivity and Behaviour
Petra Aczél
In the preface to his ground-breaking volume on rhetorical criticism Ed-
win Black stimulates and disturbs the rhetoric-tuned reader with the
assumption that
no books seem to inspire a deathlike hush so dependably as those on the
subject of rhetoric. Aristotle’s Rhetoric, for the supreme example, in-
stead of initiating the vigorous discussion and exploration of the subject
[…] was followed […] by two millennia of feeble echoes […], finally mov-
ing Welldon in the nineteenth century to remark the Rhetoric as a ‘soli-
tary instance of a book which not only begins a science but completes it.’
(Black, 1978, p. xvii).
Black – as a scholar of criticism – urged to retrieve rhetoric from this
spiral of silence by wanting variety in the methods of rhetoric and a deep-
er, wider understanding of rhetorical discourses.
How far have we come since the middle of the last century with our
efforts to give rhetoric the voice it deserves? The answer to this cannot be
that straightforward and clear. By the end of the 20th century, rhetoric –
through recurring fatal phases and revivals – has seemingly been reduced
to a rather derogatory term. In general and popular understanding, rhet-
oric is still about the manipulative use of language to coerce people into
believing and doing what they would otherwise not believe or do. It is the
practice of stirring emotions and anger with no essential rational input,
it is the destituous verbalism and declamation that exploits an unnatu-
ral mode of communication. Rhetoric is the opposite of action in every-
day language use: it rather misleads or entertains where one has to think,
121
as Social Sensitivity and Behaviour
Petra Aczél
In the preface to his ground-breaking volume on rhetorical criticism Ed-
win Black stimulates and disturbs the rhetoric-tuned reader with the
assumption that
no books seem to inspire a deathlike hush so dependably as those on the
subject of rhetoric. Aristotle’s Rhetoric, for the supreme example, in-
stead of initiating the vigorous discussion and exploration of the subject
[…] was followed […] by two millennia of feeble echoes […], finally mov-
ing Welldon in the nineteenth century to remark the Rhetoric as a ‘soli-
tary instance of a book which not only begins a science but completes it.’
(Black, 1978, p. xvii).
Black – as a scholar of criticism – urged to retrieve rhetoric from this
spiral of silence by wanting variety in the methods of rhetoric and a deep-
er, wider understanding of rhetorical discourses.
How far have we come since the middle of the last century with our
efforts to give rhetoric the voice it deserves? The answer to this cannot be
that straightforward and clear. By the end of the 20th century, rhetoric –
through recurring fatal phases and revivals – has seemingly been reduced
to a rather derogatory term. In general and popular understanding, rhet-
oric is still about the manipulative use of language to coerce people into
believing and doing what they would otherwise not believe or do. It is the
practice of stirring emotions and anger with no essential rational input,
it is the destituous verbalism and declamation that exploits an unnatu-
ral mode of communication. Rhetoric is the opposite of action in every-
day language use: it rather misleads or entertains where one has to think,
121
