Thoughts on Rhetoric

Week 7--So who legitimized rhetoric?

If you had to provide a brief account of the impact of Cicero on technical communication today, how would you do it? What would that impact be? Also, what messages have you learned from the Rhetorica ad Herennium?


I would say that Cicero’s impact has to do with rhetoric becoming a legitimate endeavor which should not be questioned. The impact of this is that the field can grow once it is legitimized and the ideas which are developed within the field can be disseminated to a wider audience. Those who have the leisure time to get educated need to be able to turn to endeavors which will not cause ridicule or which will cause others to question their abilities.

The idea that there is a methodology which can help an individual construct an argument is very important in technical communication. Technical communication is not only about discussing ideas but learning what methods to use to apply these ideas. The impact of this idea can be seen in all the different manuals which set specific criteria which need to be met for a specific type of document or text. Each field has its own set of manuals so this concept of a structured methodology has gained much popularity.

I think another one of Cicero’s ideas which is influential in technical communication is the concept that all fields need orators: “if anyone should wish by speaking to put these same arts in their full light, it is to oratorical skill that he must run for help.” A person can have knowledge but being able to share the knowledge is very important. Enter the technical communicator. The scientist can design the product, make it work, but someone has to tell/show the consumer how the use the product. The argument in “De Oratore” that to become an orator a person must master many different areas is questioned because there is not enough time in the day to do all this. So it makes sense that people will specialize. One person can create the product and another can communicate its uses. Expecting that one person can do it all is not realistic.

I have learned two specific messages from Rhetorica ad Herennium. The first is that one should use ones own examples to help illustrate the concept which one is trying to explain. Creating ones own examples reinforces the idea which one is trying to teach. I think that most teachers today do not use their own examples because they do not have time to create them. The demands on their time are so great that they are forced to use the examples which are provided to them, usually in the textbooks which they use. Also, teachers are required to use the textbooks which they require students to purchase. I know that one of the evaluation questions at my institution is “Does the instructor use the required texts?” If an instructor created all his own materials and required that his students purchase a textbook, then his score for that particular question would not be very good. This question sends the message to the students and the instructor that the information which is valid is that found in the textbooks. Our evaluation instrument does not ask students, “Does the instructor use instructor-made materials?” to substitute the other one.

One method which many of us use is to take student examples to demonstrate something which we are discussing. Students seem to like this method (especially when their names are not visible) because it validates their own writing. Having the instructor use it as a teaching tool changes the focus on the writing from writing done by professionals (who students think do everything perfectly the first time) to student writing.

One other thing I learned from this text is that no sentence construction that I can think of is original. I remember doing an exercise in a Shakespeare class in which we had to identify as many of these rhetorical elements (some were a little different) as possible. I remember thinking that Shakespeare was such a genius to be able to manipulate the language to fit those structures and at the same time manage to create meaning which moved the plot forward. But if these rules were the types of things which the rhetoricians were teaching, I can see why Socrates or Plato would be against it. They seem very stifling to think of what should be done and what has to be avoided and that language can be knowingly manipulated to create a certain effect and that the knowledge becomes commodity.

posted by Prof Santoy @ 6:55 PM