Page 125 - Šolsko polje, XXX, 2019, št. 5-6: Civic, citizenship and rhetorical education in a rapidly changing world, eds. Janja Žmavc and Plamen Mirazchiyski
P. 125
p. aczél ■ a road to rhetorica: teaching rhetoric as social sensitivity ...
rhetoric here still counts as a surprising or at least academically marginal
endeavour. Almost thirty years after the rebirth of free Hungarian pub-
lic life, the term “rhetoric” is still provoking mixed feelings in the coun-
try but also in other Central European countries like Croatia, Poland,
Slovakia, Slovenia or the Czech Republic – at least that’s what scholars
and teachers dealing with rhetoric often say and share with each other.
While at international conferences they recognize common problems and
attitudes stemming from the same, mainly historical-cultural root, they
also often complain about the lack of incentives to presently study rheto-
ric and pursue research in the field. Representatives of contemporary aca-
demic life have even more arguments when it comes to the hardly or even
“un-academic” nature of rhetoric. Among these they often quote its spec-
ulative nature in contrast with the required and expected statistical ac-
curacy of contemporary sciences or its outdated terminology that seems
overly self-explanatory without updates from modern scientific jargon.
The rebirth of rhetoric in Hungary more than a quarter of a centu-
ry ago was primarily caused by the growing need to teach the subject as it
was included in the basic level syllabus for university training programs in
1991 and later also in the national curriculum. The situation was rendered
more difficult in the 90s by the lack of prepared professionals who could
teach the subject; the available teachers could only teach rhetoric from a
structuralist-stylistic angle as a reinforcement of discourse and style anal-
ysis. The integration of reasoning and persuasion into teacher training is
still a highly challenging task. As rhetoric cannot be clearly positioned
within disciplinary boundaries, we have come to identify it with norma-
tive subfields of linguistics such as orthography, the culture of language
and proper articulation, which clearly strips the faculty of its original sig-
nificance as the science of public life Rhetoric considered almost exclu-
sively as a part of linguistics manifests an approach that denies the over-
whelmingly visual, – even sensual (Whitson and Poulakos, 1993; Hawhee,
2004; Aczél, 2019a) – social and cultural characteristics of the ancient
study. Therefore, the haunting need for the constant rediscovery of rhet-
oric as the complex creative study of social behaviour remains to be ful-
filled. The present paper offers a broad ‘road to rhetorica’, a way to dissolve
silence around and within rhetoric and, most importantly, an ancient-new
stand to teach it in schools.
Education and rhetoric in Hungarian context
According to the currently effective National Core Curriculum of Hun-
gary (2012, presently under revision), the content elements of rhetoric de-
fined for grades 9 to 12 (ages between 16–18 years) are related to text anal-
123
rhetoric here still counts as a surprising or at least academically marginal
endeavour. Almost thirty years after the rebirth of free Hungarian pub-
lic life, the term “rhetoric” is still provoking mixed feelings in the coun-
try but also in other Central European countries like Croatia, Poland,
Slovakia, Slovenia or the Czech Republic – at least that’s what scholars
and teachers dealing with rhetoric often say and share with each other.
While at international conferences they recognize common problems and
attitudes stemming from the same, mainly historical-cultural root, they
also often complain about the lack of incentives to presently study rheto-
ric and pursue research in the field. Representatives of contemporary aca-
demic life have even more arguments when it comes to the hardly or even
“un-academic” nature of rhetoric. Among these they often quote its spec-
ulative nature in contrast with the required and expected statistical ac-
curacy of contemporary sciences or its outdated terminology that seems
overly self-explanatory without updates from modern scientific jargon.
The rebirth of rhetoric in Hungary more than a quarter of a centu-
ry ago was primarily caused by the growing need to teach the subject as it
was included in the basic level syllabus for university training programs in
1991 and later also in the national curriculum. The situation was rendered
more difficult in the 90s by the lack of prepared professionals who could
teach the subject; the available teachers could only teach rhetoric from a
structuralist-stylistic angle as a reinforcement of discourse and style anal-
ysis. The integration of reasoning and persuasion into teacher training is
still a highly challenging task. As rhetoric cannot be clearly positioned
within disciplinary boundaries, we have come to identify it with norma-
tive subfields of linguistics such as orthography, the culture of language
and proper articulation, which clearly strips the faculty of its original sig-
nificance as the science of public life Rhetoric considered almost exclu-
sively as a part of linguistics manifests an approach that denies the over-
whelmingly visual, – even sensual (Whitson and Poulakos, 1993; Hawhee,
2004; Aczél, 2019a) – social and cultural characteristics of the ancient
study. Therefore, the haunting need for the constant rediscovery of rhet-
oric as the complex creative study of social behaviour remains to be ful-
filled. The present paper offers a broad ‘road to rhetorica’, a way to dissolve
silence around and within rhetoric and, most importantly, an ancient-new
stand to teach it in schools.
Education and rhetoric in Hungarian context
According to the currently effective National Core Curriculum of Hun-
gary (2012, presently under revision), the content elements of rhetoric de-
fined for grades 9 to 12 (ages between 16–18 years) are related to text anal-
123
