rhetoric

Definition:

1. The study and practice of effective communication.
2. The study of the effects of texts on audiences.
3. The art of persuasion.
4. An insincere eloquence intended to win points and manipulate others.

Adjective: rhetorical. See also:

• Classical Definitions of Rhetoric
• Rhetor
• Rhetorical Situation
• Figures of Speech

Etymology:

From the Greek, "I say"

The Three Branches of Classical Rhetoric

• deliberative (legislative, to exhort or dissuade)
• judicial (forensic, to accuse or defend)
• epideictic (ceremonial, to commemorate or blame)

The Five Canons or Offices of Classical Rhetoric

• inventio (or heuristics, invention)
• dispositio (or taxis, arrangement)
• elocutio (or lexis, style)
• memoria (or mneme, memory)
• actio (or hypocrisis, delivery)

Definitions of Rhetoric:

• "Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men."
  (Plato)



• "Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion."
  (Aristotle, Rhetoric)



• "Rhetoric is the art of speaking well."
  (Quintilian)



• "Elegance depends partly on the use of words established in suitable authors, partly on their right application, partly on their right combination in phrases."
  (Erasmus)



• "Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend."
  (Francis Bacon)



• "[Rhetoric] is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will."
  (George Campbell)



• "[Rhetoric] is the art of communicating through symbols ideas about reality."
  (Sister Miriam Joseph, The Trivium, 1947)



• "'Rhetoric' . . . refers but to 'the use of language in such a way as to produce a desired impression upon the hearer or reader.'"
  (Kenneth Burke, Counter-Statement, Univ. of California Press, 1952)

Pronunciation: RET-err-ik