Description
As I mentioned in the recorded lecture, rhetoric is a complex topic and is used to describe many things these days. Often, you might have heard the word “rhetoric” when someone accuses someone else of deliberating, distorting the truth or using less-than- ethical methods in order to persuade.
In this course, we will take a more open ended approach to rhetoric. We will think about it as what language does.
As mentioned also in the lecture, one way of thinking about what rhetoric is is to consider its millenia-old relationship with philosophy.
Rhetoric = concerned with what something does, its effect.
So when we look at something rhetorically, we don’t ask, necessarily, whether it is true or false. We are more interested in how it is designed to create certain effects.
What language or images or symbols or any form of media does is evident in the world around us, in the social media we consume, in the way people speak to us, in the way we communicate to others. Really, anywhere we look, we find communication being used to create a certain effect on us.
With this in mind, please consider the following writing prompt. Once again, consider the following questions as a starting point for your thinking. You don’t have to answer them one by one.
What are the places in your life that you experience persuasion? In other words, when do you feel that communication is very deliberately trying to create an effect on you?
What are the places in your life that you feel that you need to be the most persuasive? In other words, when do you feel compelled to communicate in order to create an effect on people?
For each prompt, please be sure to give a few concrete examples, even if they are hypothetical.
Format
Approx. 750 words
