Category: Response

Blog 10: Rhetorical toolkit for analysis

Having studied rhetoric from the perspectives of Writing Studies and technical communication, it is rather refreshing to read what a historian like Richard Toye thinks of rhetorical theory. Although Toye has done a decent job presenting the basic elements of rhetoric, I would opt for a different presentation order.

The foundational knowledge of rhetoric––with respect to oratory––begins with the types (branches) of speech: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative. The next most important element of rhetoric would be the five canons: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

Toyes then goes into explicating the three appeals: logos, ethos, and pathos. While the Aristotelian triangle is famous among classical rhetoricians, I think it is important that students learn about the rhetorical situation first.

Credited to Lloyd Bitzer, the rhetorical situation is a heuristic for understanding any given communicative moments that require rhetorical decisions. A rhetorical situation includes the following: Author/stance, audience, message, purpose, medium, genre, design, and context. The particulars of a situation help a rhetorician to understand the strategies or methods one employs to resolve a given challenge.

A simpler version of the rhetorical situation is sometimes presented as the rhetorical triangle, which focuses on the author, audience, and purpose.

The branches of speech, five canons, three appeals, rhetorical situation, and the rhetorical triangle make up the basic package of rhetorical toolkit, which can be used to perform simply rhetorical analysis on texts (broadly defined).

What I appreciate about Toye’s presentation, though, is the coverage of visual rhetoric. Although it is becoming common that rhetoric texts now commonly tip their hats to visual communication, it is important to note that some rhetorical elements are more applicable in visual situations that others. For instance, the branches of speech cannot be ported directly into visual analysis. Most of the five canons might be used to analyze visual design. The rhetorical appeals and rhetorical situation are the two methods that can be more effortlessly applied to visual rhetorical analysis.

For the purposes of discussion, I ask:

Which of the above “methods” do you find most useful for a rhetorical analysis?
Why are some methods privileged over the others?

Toye, Richard. Rhetoric: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [Chapters 2 & 3]

Blog 9: Rhetoric as classical education

One of the most intriguing things I have learned from studying rhetoric is its influence on our education systems. We seldom reflect on histories that lead to the development of current educational ideologies, structures, and approaches. Through rhetoric, we can get a glimpse of how and why certain disciplines endured while others were replaced by new disciplines in the passage of time.

As a historian, Richard Toye opens his book with a discussion of typical public assumption of rhetoric, but he quickly moves into discussing (in Chapter 1) how rhetoric underlies the founding of a liberal education system in the classical Greek and then Roman eras.

In the period after Aristotle’s death, rhetorical study became an increasingly essential part of upper class young men’s education. Their studies would include the progymnasmata–a series of basic rhetorical exercises–as well more advanced forms of practice and explorations of theory. (p.15)

Toye shows how rhetoric went dimmed in the Dark Ages and was revived in the Renaissance as one of the three parts in a “Trivium” curriculum (the other two parts were grammar and logic). Came Enlightenment and Revolution periods, rhetoric was classified as classical learning and “was at the centre of the humanist education” (p.23). Enlightenment shaped “the way that rhetoric was delivered and received” (p.24).

The next big turn in rhetorical education did not come until the 18th century, when the printing press popularized mass literacy, and mass media became a focus for rhetoricians.

Today, we associate rhetoric mainly to political speeches and public policies (rightfully given the origin of rhetoric in demagogy). However, like the medieval times, we have lost focus of its uses and purposes since the majority only thinks of rhetoric as flattery or pandering to specific audiences.

At many times and in many places, rhetoric has been seen as a complete system of education, sufficient to prepare rulers for the task of governing–it has also been highly controversial, seen by some as a technique by which the unscrupulous can deceive the masses. (p.31)

As scholars we should investigate how rhetoric fits in our everyday lives, and how might we go about leveraging on the classical knowledge that has guided humanity through civilizations. For discussion, I pose these questions:

Why should we bother to study rhetoric today, anyway?
What are some instances of rhetoric you see in your everyday life? What makes them stand out to you?
Toye says, “Rhetoric cannot be conceived purely in terms of text and language, separate from the technical means by which it is conveyed to listeners and readers” (p.4). How have these “technical means” evolved over the past few decades, and what impacts did/do they have on the ways we persuade others?

Toye, Richard (2013). Rhetoric: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [Introduction & Chapter 1]

Blog 3: Let there be light, or, data transmission

What intrigued me the most in Blum’s chapters 5 & 6 is the science of internet, where he finally talks about how fiber optic cables work to enable the internet. The way Blum has described it, the internet is wired like a nervous system across the world, where geography matters. While Blum has not made the connection clear, the early infrastructure of the telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse (1791-1872), has great influence on the development of the internet. Blum has only briefly touched on the telegraph when he spoke of Porthcurno (or Porth Kernow) and the Telegraph Museum.

[By the way, an interesting read: The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers]

Many of us might not know digital information can be transmitted through signals. Early technology uses electronic voltage to carry binary information. Modern internet uses optical signals because they are faster and less likely to get lost during transmission. Here, AllAboutCircuits.com provides a quick technical description of how optical transmission works:

Electrical signals from digital circuits (high/low voltages) may be converted into discrete optical signals (light or no light) with LEDs or solid-state lasers. Likewise, light signals can be translated back into electrical form through the use of photodiodes or phototransistors for introduction into the inputs of gate circuits.

Through fiber optic technology, data are transported by light pulses. As Blum simply puts it, light goes in on one end, and out the other. It is this simple mechanism that enables the most basic of the internet.

And what I saw was not the essence of the Internet but its quintessence––not the tubes, but the light. (p. 163)

This adds another layer to our understanding of the physicality of the internet. Surely we have considered the material conditions of the internet––tubes and fibers and human labor––we have yet to discuss how the internet relies on physics––the nature and properties of matter and energy––to work.

Light, as ever present and yet invisible to us, carries all that we communicate through the internet. Maybe it is this philosophical notion of presence and invisibility that contributes to how we used to see the internet as magic.

My questions for this week are:

How might we make visible what is invisible about the internet (tubes, light pulses, undersea cables)?
What are the effects of internet conglomeration? (Consider Blum’s review of Tata Communications)

Blum, A. (2012). Tubes: A journey to the center of the internet. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. [Chapters 5 & 6]

Blog 2: Metaphors of connection & connectivity, or, blue dots and lines

In Blum’s chapter 3, we follow the author’s journey into Equinix, Inc., the corporate giant that powers data centers around the world. In Palo Alto, Blum spent most of his time chatting with Equinix founder Jay Adelson talking about one term we use almost on a daily basis: connection.

If you look up Equinix’s website, you will see that the term “connection” is sprinkled all over the pages. It’s as if Blum was doing the company free PR by emphasizing the term in his book. Even his chapter was titled, “Only Connect.”

As I try to avoid getting too caught up with the technicality of internet connection, I have brought myself to thinking about the idea of connection/connectivity instead.

The meaning of connection is like a by-product of the internet. I can’t remember a time I speak of connection as in tying things together, or coupling people (ok, sometimes I do). But these days whenever I use the term I typically mean network connection. The imagery that comes with it is the oh-so-cliche world map (that has to be blue, mind you) with connecting dots and lines.

In my experience with words, “connection” has been used almost exclusively in positive light. Hardly do we speak of being connected as though it was a bad thing. Folks in computer science would say connection is all you need, so would the counselors over at career services.

We often think of being connected as being rich and resourceful. The metaphors of connection and connectivity are links, maps, bridges, or even the more abstract notions such as love and understanding. With such positive portrayals, the idea of “internet connection” could never go vile. Rather, it is desirable.

Consider such rhetoric (and I can’t wait for us to discuss the rhetorical appeals of internet technologies). Why do we popularize a positive outlook for internet connectivity? Who does this benefit most?

Then, in chapter 4, Blum introduces us to the concept of peering, which is a whole other way to look at connections. I would go on to geek out about P2P sharing and mutual benefits of “peers” but I am going to leave this entry here as it is.

My questions for this two chapters are:

What are the social implications of our overwhelmingly positive impression for internet connectivity?
What new metaphors might we use in the future to describe connection/connectivity? Think about the Internet of Things…

Blum, A. (2012). Tubes: A journey to the center of the internet. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. [Chapters 3 & 4]