Portal:Rhetoric/Intro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rhetoric is a derivation of the Greek term rhetorike, which first appeared in Plato's dialogue Gorgias. The formal study of rhetoric began in Greece during the 5th century BCE. Paid itinerant teachers called Sophists taught their students the art of effective public speech-making, or oratory. Plato likened rhetoric to cookery, implying that it was an art of appearance rather than truth. Aristotle, a student of Plato, redefined rhetoric in his treatise on the subject as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." Eventually, the scope of rhetoric was expanded to include written as well as spoken discourse, and now includes any form of symbolic communication. Some contemporary definitions of rhetoric include Kenneth Burke's "the use of symbols to induce cooperation in those who by nature respond to symbols" and George Kennedy's "the energy inherent in emotion and thought, transmitted through a system of signs, including language, to others to influence their decisions or actions."
Though rhetoric's reputation suffered during the Age of Enlightenment, when influential writers like Thomas Sprat and John Wilkins of the Royal Society condemned it as meaningless bombast or unwelcome ornamentation, rhetoric is currently enjoying a renaissance in universities across the world.
