Trackback Ideas

For my trackback composition, I'd like to continue discussing cultural rhetorics by tracking back the evolution of comparative rhetoric.  This topic may be too large to completely cover in the trackback composition, but I'd like to use this opportunity to learn more about the study of other rhetorical traditions.  I've begun compiling a list of potential rhetors who have contributed to the study of comparative rhetoric or it's beginnings as contrastive rhetoric, but some of them do not specifically elaborate on the concept explicitly.  With this in mind, I plan to discuss how the work of each rhetor has contributed to the evolution of comparative rhetoric from contrastive rhetoric.  Below is a list of rhetors that I'm considering including in my trackback composition.  This is just a start, so I'd welcome any other suggestions.

LuMing Mao
George Kennedy
Ulla Connor
Mary Garret
Vernon Jenson

I hope that focusing on the evolution of comparative rhetoric from contrastive rhetoric is an appropriate scope for this assignment.  I want to look at cultural rhetorics, but I don't want to attempt to cover too much with the assignment.  As with suggestions for possible rhetors, I'd also welcome any suggestions for modifying the scope of my trackback composition.

Shifting our study of rhetoric

Trends towards globalization force cultures, which were previously content with isolation, to continually come into contact with each other.  As a result of this contact, rhetorical traditions are also continually interacting with each other and, therefore, our conceptions of rhetoric must also readjust to describe the rhetoric contained within these contact zones.  With this idea in mind, I’m not even sure if mutually exclusive rhetorical traditions exist anymore.  Is it possible for different rhetorical traditions to come into contact with one another and still retain their mutual exclusivity?  Possibly not.  Take for example LuMing Mao’s characterization of Chinese citizens living in America.  According to Mao, these citizens may embody a rich Chinese rhetorical tradition, but their contact with the Western rhetorical tradition has shifted their rhetorical patterns towards a new rhetoric, a rhetoric that is both Chinese and American.  Although this new rhetoric is both Chinese and American, I wonder where this amalgamation stops.  If Chinese-American rhetoric comes into contact with Afrocentric rhetoric, does the new rhetoric reflect a Chinese-American-Afrocentric rhetoric?  Would this imply an eventual amalgamation of all rhetorical traditions that all humans would embody?  That might seem like a stretch, but as I continue to think about it, I wonder if it really is that implausible.

As rhetorical scholars, how should our study of rhetoric shift to accommodate for  globalization?  Do we maintain that mutually exclusive rhetorical traditions still exist or do we accept that mixing of rhetorical traditions are inevitable?  I tend to favor the latter.

The abundant style

Erasmus’ abundant style seems to prioritize the ability to vary a basic idea into any number of forms; however, before rhetorically expanding on a basic idea, one must also be aware of strategies to compress an idea into its simplest form.  This compression seems to be the most practical aspect of abundant style and can be seen today in argumentation theory.  Erasmus states that one must be competent in compression of an idea to avoid expanding an idea arbitrarily, which is the foundational purpose of argumentation models.   Whether Toulminian or pragma-dialectical, argument theory asks us to simplify an existing argument into the claims and reasons given to support those claims.  In the classroom, modeling in this way allows students to see the structure of arguments in such a way that they will hopefully recognize a variety of ways in which to expand on reasons and claims.

In my mind, Erasmus’ plethora of expansion in De Copia parallels Aristotle’s topoi.  Once an experience rhetor has identified the basic idea that we wish to communicate, he can then use his expansion skills to vary the presentation of the idea and achieve the “magnificent speech of man.”  Although one would think to consider the writings in De Copia as models to be imitated, B/H suggest that Erasmus’ models be used as evidence of a much larger point.  I find it hard to describe the abundant style in the same way that I would describe formal/informal or high/middle/low styles.  Instead, I see Erasmus’ treatise (as B/H do) as more of a philosophy similar to Aristotle’s topics. Fluency in the abundant style allows an effective rhetor to have at his disposal any number of presentation methods for the same idea.  

It’d be interesting if one could model the various modes of style for others to apply in various situations.  That seems like an ambitious task, but it might help in formalizing instruction in some small way.