Compton-Lilly's "Development of Writing Habitus: A Ten-year Case Study"

How do people become writers over time, and how writing is situated within identity construction? In this case study, Compton-Lily follows Peter, an emerging African American writer from a low-income community from first-grade to high school. Compton-Lilly collected data from interviews, field notes, and writing samples while Peter was in 1^st grade, 5^th grade, 8^th grade, and 11^th grade. She then coded data from each data collection, identifying salient categories of information, and then coding data from the first and third collections into grounded categories organized by contrastive analysis. As Compton-Lilly considered the patterns, she was led to Bordieu’s notion of habitus, which emphasizes the identity dispositions people create over periods of time, and from which she develops the concept of a writing habitus. She found that Peter’s writing habitus consisted of four developed dispositions: meeting school expectations for reading and writing, being a good student, forming friendships and affiliations that involved reading and writing practices, and future goals that related to writing. Becoming a writer cannot just be about learning thesis statements or grammar, but is also related to dispositions which focus on individual purpose and social belonging. Social affiliation should be fostered inside the classroom and promoted outside the classroom. 

Reference:
Compton-Lilly, C. (2014). The development of writing habitus: A ten-year case study of a young writer. Written Communication, 31, 371-403.

Ginzburg's Rhetoric, History, and Proof.

At the beginning of this short book, Ginzburg says that he wants to know what history, rhetoric, and proof have in common. He says that history and rhetoric obviously have something in common, but what about proof? That seems to be the unlikely term. Yet, Ginzburg demonstrates that proof used to have something to do with both rhetoric and history—it was central—and that fact reveals the methodology of historians. Rhetoric is therefore naturally the term between history and proof. 

One example of this appears in Chapter 1, when Ginzburg states that Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rhetoric reveal how history, proof, and rhetoric were closely connected with one another. 

Ginzburg's book includes the following chapters: 

Introduction 

1. Aristotle and History, Once More

2. Lorenzo Valla on the “Donation of Constantine” 

3. AlienVoices: The Dialog Element in Early Modern Jesuit Historiography

4. Reflections on a Blank

Works Cited
Carlos Ginzburg. Rhetoric, History, and Proof. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 1999.

"Ethics of Engagement: User-Centered Design and Rhetorical Methodology," A Brief Summary and Notes

Michael J. Salvo writes that in technical communication, there has been a shift of observing users to participating with them. This article investigates 3 examples of participatory design: Pelle Ehn’s participatory design method, Roger Whitehouse’s design of tactile signage for blind users, and the design of an online writing program.

“Participatory design” is better than “user-centered design” because “participatory design” is more dialogic, which means it’s more focused on the relationship between designer and user instead of just the user (or just the designer). [But why is this article subtitled “User-Centered Design”?]

Some key terms in this article are as follows:

• Democratic workplace
• Two-way communication
• Collaboration
• Interaction
• Negotiation
• User-collaborators

Dialogic ethics, a two-way way of thinking, comes from Martin Buber’s book, I and Thou, in which Buber denounces the objectification of the human. When we treat one another as means, he says, we create an I-to-it relationship, whereas when we treat one another as ends, we create an I-to-you relationship, or an I-Thou relationship. We should always treat one another as human beings, and that is a dialogic relationship. Salvo writes, “When one engages another person as an individual, as a person, one recognizes the humanity of the other. This recognition makes it possible to know the other’s needs, which is the point of participatory design: to know from the other’s perspective what is needed to improve the usability of the design” (276).

Mikhail Bakhtin is interested in this concept, too, from a linguistic standpoint. And where Bakhtin is in linguistics, Emmanuel Levinas (Buber’s student) is concerned with identity when he says that the ethical self is one’s ability to see the humanity in others. One should see the self in the other and the other in the self. [That reminds me of Burke's “Four Master Tropes,” as well as Robert Solomon's philosophical work about human emotion emotions.]

When we author actions, we become responsible for them (276). Participatory design is to know the other’s needs and to see from their perspective.

[Note here the great irony of a poorly written article or book: it assumes authority by virtue of being written, but if it is poorly written, then it contradicts itself! That’s was the irony that Plato called attention to when he was writing in the Phaedrus!]

Dialogic ethics thus becomes a counter-statement to Katz’s ethic of expediency. In short, a dialogue is listening and speaking. Both. Not just one. For all participants. Design should work the same way. Thus, users ultimately should have a hand in design (288). 

[I wonder if the amount of listening which needs to be done is proportional to a person’s ultimate ethos. Listening is receiving and learning. Speaking is teaching and presenting and showing. Speaking is promoting something.

There are times when we should listen more than we speak and other times when we should speak more than we listen. It depends on the situation, but the bottom line here is that we treat others as agents and not objects. What if others are treating us as objects? Then what? Then we have a duty to treat ourselves as an agent and get out of there. Also, we shouldn’t unduly silence ourselves as long as we say what is good.]

From Michael J. Salvo, “Ethics of Engagement: User‐Centered Design and Rhetorical Methodology,” Technical Communication Quarterly 10.3 (2001): 273‐290.

Berlin's "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class," A Brief Summary and Notes

Teaching writing and rhetoric is teaching a certain kind of ideology. “Ideology is . . . inscribed in language practices, entering all features of our experience” (669, I’m using Susan Miller’s edited collection, The Norton Book of Composition Studies, 2009). How and what we teach makes assumptions that we can’t get away from, and each of the following 3 ways of teaching promotes a different ideology: cognitive rhetoric, expressionistic rhetoric, and social-epistemic rhetoric.

Cognitive rhetoric, which might be the continuation of current-traditional rhetoric, claims to be scientific. It has been based on psychology and emphasizes the real and the rational. Berlin cites Flower and Hayes as an example and states that this rhetoric “refuses the ideological question” because of its basis on science (671-672). I think Berlin also say that it is to some degree capitalistic.

Expressionistic rhetoric emphasizes the speaker and is therefore elitist. In this section, Berlin cites Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Jung. Thus, power lies in the individual. He then cites Peter Elbow and Donald Murray. Expressionistic rhetoric emphasizes talk about “Me.” Expressionistic is a response to and critique of capitalism and scientism, though the agencies of corporate capitalism easily use this one to their advantage, too.

Social-epistemic Rhetoric is the last one discussed in this essay, and Berlin cites Kenneth Burke as an example. From this perspective, the real is a relationship between people, but that doesn’t make everything relative. We make our own histories. Berlin then cites Ira Shor and Karl Marx.

In conclusion, I’d like to cite two of what I think are Berlin’s most important statements. First, “[A] way of teaching is never innocent. Every pedagogy is imbricated in ideology, in a set of tacit assumptions about what is real, what is good, what is possible, and how power ought to be distributed” (682).

Finally, “A rhetoric cannot escape the ideological question, and to ignore this is to fail our responsibilities as teachers and as citizens” (682).

[When I read all this, it seems to me that if Berlin is correct, then we could take his logic forward and assume that, to some degree, every action is also an argument and every way of doing something assumes some particular way of thinking that would "give evidence" to the action. I'm suddenly reminded of Wayne Booth's book, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, but now is not the time to take a closer look at that.]

From Berlin, J. A. (1988). Rhetoric and ideology in the writing class. College English (50) 5, 477‐494.

Rude, "Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication," A Brief Note

While Technical Communication is commonly defined as a practice and not a field of research, any well-established field should have general research questions. So, what are the research questions in the field of Technical Communication? This is a difficult question because the field is a hybrid of many different fields, such as rhetoric, design, speech, psychology, education, computer science, etc. But questions are important, and good questions generate more questions.

To find the answer, Rude looks at 109 books, analyzing them on the large-scale, to see what questions the field is asking. Rude believes that Technical Communication’s main question is this: how do texts (defined broadly) mediate knowledge, values, and action in social and professional contexts?

From this question, Rude examines 4 related questions that divide the field into 4 main areas (though some of the questions can be in more than one area):

Questions of

• Disciplinarity: Who are we? Why are we here? What is our history, and what is our future?
• Pedagogy: What should we teach and how?
• Practice: How should texts be ethical and effective? What are the best practices?
• Social Change: How do texts function as agents of knowledge making, action, and change?

Much energy has already gone to pedagogy and practice, but “a sustainable academic field is built on research questions that develop knowledge” (205). In other words, what are these researchers trying to discover? [But wait a minute: is Rude not implying a separation between knowledge and pedagogy and practice here? If so, why? Do we need to?]

From Carolyn D. Rude, “Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 23.2 (2009); 174‐201.

Todd's Burkean Invention in Technical Communication, A Brief Note

While technical communicators and scholars have called for more studies between the intersections of rhetoric and technical communication, in this article, Todd writes that they haven’t done much with the canon of invention, and what has been done with that canon comes only from classical rhetoric. His article discusses what Burke has to add to these discussions. The article focuses on how Burke might be used in the technical communication classroom and other settings, and mentions several Burkean terms like the pentad, ambiguities, propoedentic or nimbleness of thought, limits of agreement, joycing or what Todd calls etymological extension, finding the complex in the simple, expanding the circumference, and four master tropes, all of which are shown to be invention strategies. Personally, I am surprised that Burke’s notion of form is missing here, but I will have to perhaps write something that adds to this discussion as well.

Jeff Todd. 2000. Burkean Invention in Technical Communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, January 2000; vol. 30, 1: pp. 81-96.

Miller's Treating Professional Writing as Social Praxis, A Brief Note

While other scholars have used many theories to talk about professional writing and to think about text and context, in this article, Thomas Miller draws on classical rhetoric because it justifies a social and ethics of technical and professional writing. Technical writing, after all, has a strong emphasis on purpose, practicality, and the fulfillment of goals. For civic humanists like Aristotle and Isocrates, the emphasis was on making a morally good person who demonstrated phronesis, or practical wisdom, the capacity to say the right thing at the right time, solving problems when perfect knowledge wasn’t possible. Miller writes, “For Aristotle (and for civic humanists generally), practical wisdom is based on a broad-based understanding of the shared experiences and traditions of the community that enables us to discover what is best in a particular situation” (57-58).

So, there should be no division between theory and practice. Professionals run in to problems when they know more than they can put into practice. They have to learn common sense and how to apply principles in order to be successful. Knowledge is not an object, but is socially constructed.

Civic humanism manages the so-called divide between theory and practice. We can’t pretend that rhetoric is just theory whereas composition is the techne, the practice of that theory. Technical writing is social action. Writing is not amoral, and neither science nor writing is free from values (63). Miller sounds a lot like James Berlin's 1988 argument in several parts of this article. Humans can’t be reduced to information. We’re much more than that.

An uncritical but fragmented knowledge can be dangerous to humanism (69). Separating context and text can be, too. We should teach technical and professional writing as social praxis so that it becomes more than just a skills class--so that it becomes practical in the most important sense of that word.

Miller, Thomas P. 1991. "Treating Professional Writing as Social Praxis" JAC. Vol. 11, 1: pp. 57-72.

Miller's Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing, A Brief Note

Miller clearly explains her argument in these terms:

“I wish to argue that the common opinion that the undergraduate technical writing course is a ‘skills’ course with little or no humanistic value is the result of a lingering but pervasive positivist view of science.”

The positivist view that Miller is arguing against seems to be similar to, if not the same thing that Burke calls semantic meaning and argues against in "Semantic and Poetic Meaning." Positivism reduces science to the testable, and words are not science but they get in the way of knowledge. From that perspective, only sensory data is pure knowledge. 

For Miller, positivism has unfortunately influenced the teaching of technical writing in at least 4 ways.

1. First, we talk about clarity, but the term clarity is not objective because we can't actually explain what it means.
2. Second, we talk about style and form without talking about invention. Does science invent? Or discover?
3. Third, we teach that tone should be objective and impersonal, but there are real people reading our writing.
4. Fourth, we talk about levels of audience.

But philosophers don’t believe in positivism, anymore, and rhetoric is actually epistemic. In other words, words are themselves forms of knowledge, and knowledge is created. Science is about symbols and arguments, not just about material things. In short, science is a form of rhetoric.

Since communication occurs in communities, we should talk about understanding in technical communication and not just skills because discussions on skills tend to emphasize the writer, whereas a focus on understanding emphasizes both writer and reader. And that focus on both writers and readers is necessary because we don't want to neglect the one while privileging the other.

From Carolyn R. Miller, “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.” Johndan Johnson‐Eilola and Stuart A. Selber, Eds., Central Works in Technical Communication, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Johnson's "User-Centered Technology," A Brief Note

In User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts, Robert Johnson takes James Kinneavy’s application of I.A. Richard’s rhetorical triangle and appropriates it to technology, concluding that technical communication and usability studies can benefit from centering technology on users instead of designers. Users are practitioners, producers, and citizens, he writes (46).

In other words, rhetorical theory can be used to talk about artifacts in technical communication and usability studies. Technology, like speeches, are designed for users and not designers. But, historically, designers were privileged over users, and to some degree, they still are, but they shouldn’t be because the audience plays a key role that cannot be neglected: the end of technology is users--people, human beings. The rhetorical situation triangle thing of speaker, audience, and purpose, should be used to talk about and think about technology.

In short, users are practitioners, producers, and citizens.

Here's the citation for the book:

Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts. State University of New York Press.

Wikramanayake's Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle's Rhetoric, A Brief Summary

Wikramanayake responds to Grimaldi’s 1957 article by saying that Grimaldi only discusses how pistis is used in 1354-1356 in the Rhetoric, arguing that Grimaldi is wrong on the grounds that the entire treatise needs to be discussed, not just the first bit. So, for Wikramanayake, while pistis is used in 3 senses throughout Aristotle’s Rhetoric, one of these senses, the “pledge of good faith” at 1375a10 is not relevant to Aristotle’s rhetorical theory. 

There are only two other meanings—not Grimaldi’s three—and they overlap with one another: 1) the state of mind that is produced in the audience and 2) the means whereby that state of mind is produced. Wikramanayake’s first meaning—the state of mind produced in the audience—corresponds with Grimaldi’s third meaning, whereas Wikramanayake believes his second meaning is similar to Grimaldi’s second meaning. Wikramanayake contends that Grimaldi’s first meaning, pisteis as subject matter or source material, does not exist in Aristotle because whenever Aristotle talks about source material or subject matter he uses either circumlocution, or topos or eidos. 

So, Wikramanayake’s second meaning is limited to pisteis atechnoi as well as pisteis entechnoi, the latter of which for Wikramanayake includes ethical, emotional, and logical demonstration. Furthermore, the logical part of pisteis entechnoi contains demonstration by enthymeme and paradigm. Wikramanayake then contends that Grimaldi excludes enthymemes and paradigms from logical proofs, but demonstration is one of the proofs. In fact, enthymeme is, as Aristotle says, the body of proof, not just an appendage, so Grimaldi must be wrong.

Wikramanayake, G. H. 1961. “A Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.” The American Journal of Philology 82(2): 1961, pp. 193-196.

Grimaldi's Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle's Rhetoric, A Brief Summary

Traditionally, the pisteis entechnoi have been defined as ethos, pathos, and logos, where ethos and pathos have been equated with non- or quasi-logical, and where logos has been equated with the logical and the enthymeme. But the way Aristotle uses the word pistis has no univocal meaning and is difficult to define, and what he actually means is much more nuanced. Furthermore, the misunderstanding of the different meanings of pistis have created much confusion and many seeming inconsistencies. In this article, Grimaldi analyzes sections 1354-1356 from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to give three different meanings of the word pistis: 

1. first, pistis is source material that can induce belief in an audience. This is where we find the atechnoi and entechnoi pisteis, which Grimaldi calls ethos, pathos, and pragma. 
2. Second, pistis is the method whereby the source material is used to produce pistis in the audience. This pistis, like episteme, is the result of demonstration. It is under this definition of pistis where enthymemes and paradigms are employed. 
3. Finally, pistis is the state of mind—belief—that has been produced or induced in the audience.

So, depending on how we define pistis, we will be talking about something slightly different. If pisteis are source materials for proofs, then those proofs lie in ethos, pathos, and pragma. But if pisteis are modes of demonstration, then they are enthymemes and paradigms. Hence, Grimaldi argues that the enthymeme must not be equated with the third definition of pistis, but the enthymeme instead employs the pisteis entechnoi, the source material. The enthymeme thus embodies the pisteis, giving them form so they can be used to persuade an audience. [And now I wonder if we can say something like induce belief.]

Grimaldi also recognizes that ethos and pathos are not non- or quasi-logical because as human beings, we make judgments and accept propositions with feelings, emotions, will, character, and intellect. 

From Grimaldi, William M. A. 1957. “A Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, 1354-1356.” The American Journal of Philology 78(2): 1957, pp. 188-192. 

Aristotle, On the Soul Book 3.3

Book 3.3 is about the imagination. Many philosophers believe that thinking is perceiving. [At least, they use metaphors to describe thinking in terms of perceiving.] But this is not entirely the case because that would mean that everything that we see was true, and we are sometimes deceived by our senses. The sun, for example, looks small but is actually many times larger than the earth. But seeing things as they really are is always true, but it is possible to think falsely. Thought belongs to no creature which doesn’t have the power to reason.

Imagination is different from both perception and thought. It always implies perception, and is itself implied by judgment. It’s not in our power to form opinions about whatever we want because our opinions must be either true or false. When we form opinions we are immediately affected by them.

Imagination is a form of judgment, but it is not always right. Is it opinion?

“[O]pinion implies belief (for one cannot hold opinions in which one does not believe)” (428a20). Lower creatures don’t believe, but many have imagination. “Again, every opinion [doxa] is accompanied by belief [pistis], belief by conviction, and conviction by rational discourse [logos]” (428a20). Some creatures have imagination, but no reasoning power, no logos.

“Since sight is the chief sense, the name phantasia (imagination) is derived from phaos (light), because without light it is impossible to see” (429a). 

A Note on the Topics of Aristotle

Wow. Look at this definition! “Now syllogism is a statement [logos] in which, certain things having been posited, something other than the posited necessarily results through what is posited” (100a). We have something—and something else comes in to being from it! Where’s Aristotle’s On Coming to Be and Passing Away when I need it? J

Then:

“Apodeixis [logical demonstration] occurs whenever the syllogism is drawn from things that are true and primary or from things that are of the sort as to have taken the first principle of knowledge of them from what is primary and true; but a syllogism is dialectical when drawn from generally accepted opinions” (100a-100b18). Things that are true are persuasive in themselves and by themselves. Opinions, or endoxa, are things that seem right to all people or most people or the wise, meaning most of the wise, or the most well-known as authorities.

Dialectic is useful for 3 purposes: mental training as a method to undertake discussion on any subject, serious conversation that lets us restate what other say to us, and philosophical science, since dialectic enables us to state both sides of an issue and thereby more easily see what is true and what is false.

“We shall possess the method completely when we are in the same situation as in rhetoric and medicine and such faculties: that is, [able] to accomplish what we choose from the available means; for neither will the one with rhetorical skill persuade by every means nor will the doctor heal, but if none of the available means is neglected we shall say that he has knowledge adequately” (101b).

[What exactly is “available means”?]

From Topics Book 1.1-3

Revisionist Historiography and Rhetorical Tradition(s), A Brief Note

The rhetorical tradition used to be something we could talk about in a cool way. It was our history. But some people didn’t like the term tradition. Tradition, Sutton believes, promotes uniformity, consistency, while excluding “the rare, the exception, the unique” (qtd. in Graff and Leff 12).

The history of rhetoric “is itself a rhetorical achievement” (12). But tradition doesn’t have to be a bad word, and it brings with it important considerations. We need a tradition from which to measure our innovations. And without a tradition, we lack a collective identity.

We need a sense of tradition that is both stable and flexible. The tradition should also be pedagogical.

Baldwin is cited as saying that everything after Aristotle was decline. Then we have Walter saying that classical rhetoric is interesting because of its “different starting points, its myriad assumptions, its contrasting aims” (qtd. in Graff and Leff 14) which, as stated on page 14, consist of

·         the metaphysical (Protagoras and Plato)

·         the social (Isocrates and Cicero)

·         the epistemological (Descartes, Locke, Campbell)

·         the educational-ethical (Quintilian)

·         the theological (Augustine)

·         the esthetic (Blair)

·         the logical (Whately)

·         and the psychological (Winans)

In short, some notion of tradition is desirable—otherwise, how do we have an intellectual community?

Pedagogy is sensitive to the whole, but also sensitive to the one. We all teach and need to, but teaching is individual. Not just one person, but one time and place, too.

Pedagogy is what we have in common. It is also the theory combined with the practice.

From Richard Graff and Michael Leff. 2005. “Revisionist Historiography and Rhetorical Tradition(s).” The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition. Ed. Richard Graff, Arthur E. Walzer, and Janet M. Atwill. 11-30.

Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria Book XII, A Brief Summary

Quintilian says that this part is, for him, the hardest.

So, Quintilian writes, let the orator be a good person who is skilled in speaking, as Cato says. “But this view of mine has further implications. I am not only saying that the orator must be a good man, but that no one can be an orator unless he is a good man” (12.1.3). Rhetoric lets us see things on many sides of a question, so one who can see both good and evil wouldn’t be intelligent if he or she chose evil over good—that person would be a fool.

“Moreover, the mind is never at liberty even to study this noble art unless it is free of all vices: first, because virtue and vice cannot coexist in the same breast, and a single mind can no more harbor the best thoughts and the worst than the same man can be both good and bad” (12.1.4-5). An evil mind is essentially torn apart by itself. What room is there in this mind for goodness? What room is there in this mind for literature, art, or culture, for anything uplifting or edifying?

But what of those imperfect people who spoke so well, like Demosthenes and Cicero? Neither was perfect, but they were good men. Even Pythagoras sought not to be called a wise man, but a lover of wisdom (i.e. a philosopher). Cicero, too, was a great orator, yet he also never claimed to be wise. And even if there were a bad person who persuaded many people, Quintilian would deny that this person was an orator. Good speaking doesn’t mean just persuading a lot of people to do something. It means influencing people to do what is right.

The best person to persuade others of what is good is the person who has first persuaded himself or herself of what is good and has acted on it. The bad person is inconsistent and may speak and act in a way that is other than what he or she really feels or believes, while good people “will never lack for honourable words or an Invention that provides honourable matter” (12.1.30). 

Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria Book VI, A Brief Summary

Book VI

Here, Quintilian discusses how the peroration, a part of a speech, consists of both the factual and emotional and how facts and emotions are used and appealed to. Both speech and action can provoke tears, but attempting to arouse tears shouldn’t be done by the unskilled because the reward is either tears or laughter. And laughter when a speaker wants tears is failure. [We’ve all seen movies like this. I wonder if this is why movies sometimes seem cheesy: a director wants viewers to be moved to tears or some other tender emotion but fails and the audience is instead moved to laughter. I am suddenly reminded of Monuments Men, a movie I once saw during which I felt the director was trying to force me to be emotional. Have you experienced this? What media were you watching or reading?]

Quintilian continues by saying that while proofs may make people think something, emotions make them want a thing. Emotions are effective in persuasion because people tend to believe the things that they want. Quintilian writes, “For as soon as they [listeners of a speech] begin to be angry or to feel favourably disposed, to hate or to pity, they fancy that it is now their own case that is being pleaded, and just as lovers cannot judge beauty because their feelings anticipate the perception of their eyes, so also a judge who is overcome by his emotions gives up any idea of inquiring into truth; he is swept along by the tide, as it were, and yields to the swift current” (6.2.6). But emotions function on the part of the speaker as well as on the audience. A speaker who is dry and shows no emotion is no fun to listen to, just as an audience who doesn’t feel much emotion may not be as persuaded as one that does. Hence, Quintilian writes, “The life and soul of oratory, we may say, is in the emotions” (6.2.8). Without emotion, everything else is dull, pale, and dry.

There are two kinds of emotion: pathos and ethos. Some say ethos is permanent, while pathos is temporary, and this belief is somewhat right for Quintilian. Ethos is whatever is said and done about what should be done or what is honorable. The ethos we want to see in a speaker is goodness. A “speaker’s character shines through his speech” (6.2.14).

A speaker who wishes to arouse emotions must be aroused by them also. Yet emotions are not completely in our own power. Speakers who have the greatest power have cultivated what the Greeks call phantasiai, which could be called “visions.” It is like the imagination, where one can see before one’s eyes things that aren’t present. So, to some degree speakers can will emotions via imagination and practice. [Isn’t this also what actors do?]

Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, A Brief Summary of Book XI

While appropriateness is often discussed in oratory, what is it? It has to do with seeing what is both expedient and becoming, both of which generally go together. “What is always and in all circumstances becoming for everyone is to act and speak in an honorable way; conversely, it is never becoming for anyone ever to act or speak dishonorably in any circumstances” (11.1.14).

Don’t boast. Demosthenes: “it becomes us to blush, even when we are praised by others” (11.1.22).

Don’t be disorderly.

Different styles are appropriate to different people. Like clothes.

“In the orator himself, the most attractive qualities are humanity, approachability, moderation, and kindness. There are also some very different characteristics which become a good man: hatred of the wicked, emotional involvement in the public interest, readiness to punish crime and injury, and, as I said at the beginning, everything that is honourable” (11.1.42).

To say is to do:“Pronuntiatio is called actio by many people” (11.3.1). Cicero calls actio “a sort of language” in one passage, and “a kind of eloquence of the body” in another. Actio is voice and movement. People are affected by what they hear, and emotions languish unless they “are kindled into flame by voice, face, and the bearing of virtually the whole body” (11.3.3).

Quintilian then goes on to discuss stage actors and belief, quality and use of voice. Aspiring orators should practice passages learned by heart and learn passages that vary, which involve different situations and require different inflexions of the voice. Then Quintilian discusses delivery, singing, and gesture. Also the head, the face, including eye lids, cheeks, eyebrows, nose, and lips. Neck, shoulders, arms. And our hands—they seem like a common language of humanity. Hence, hand gestures. Finally, dress.

Objects of delivery: conciliate, persuade, and move. Pleasure is corollary. Conciliation comes from acceptance of character or charm of style. Persuasion comes from proofs; movement from emotions.

Orators can even allow pauses for reflection. 

Quintilian's Institutio Oratorio, A Brief Summary of Book X

Writing, speaking, and reading are inseparably connected. If we want to be good speakers, we should also try to imitate, listening to and reading the best authors. No one author is perfect, so we should read a variety of the best. We should also read poetry, imitating what is good. Then, we should seek to excel and be even better than those we are reading. Those expert writers were different in their day than we are in ours, of course, so we shouldn't try to imitate them perfectly.

The pen is the best teacher of eloquence. Great difficulty precedes true excellence, but we shouldn’t try to perfect every tiny little thing in every sentence—meaning we can’t be perfectionists. Quintilian says he doesn’t know who’s worse: those who are pleased by everything they write, or those who are pleased by nothing they write. How can we perform our duty to the public if we’re always trying to perfect everything and revise what we’re writing instead of doing our best in the time allotted and then publishing it? We can only write and speak according to our ability, so we shouldn’t become annoyed with ourselves. We must not be idle; nor must we make excuses to not study until our minds are fresh or we are “feeling like it.”

In short, there’s no value in an orator who takes too long to produce something.

Translating is also useful. So is meditation. And memory.

A Brief Summary of the Antidosis of Isocrates

In this fictional defense speech, Isocrates pattern what he says after Socrates’ own defense speech when he, Socrates, was accused of corrupting the youth.

The following notes will, unfortunately, read more like a bulleted list than a discussion of Isocrates’ ideas. Nevertheless, the ideas are cool, and the list is, I think, worth reading.

Though I think I prefer Norlin's translation in the Loeb edition the quotations found below come from the text found in Isocrates I on pages 205-264 of Mirhady and Too's translation.

I think that’s Isocrates’ main argument is this: a rhetorical education—an education about words and using them well—will bind communities together, help people reason effectively, and give people the faculty to judge intelligently because what comes out of a person is evidence of what is inside him or her.

Here are a few specific points Isocrates makes (and here comes the bulleted list):

• Speech is an image of a person’s thought (207).

• Speech is synecdoche for character (216). It reflects who we are on the inside. Isocrates quotes his own previous speeches so people can read them and see for themselves what kind of a person he has been in the past. By reading those speeches, people can get an idea of his character.

• We’re similar to those with whom we associate (223). They influence us and we influence them.

• Philosophy is supposed to be a good thing, though it’s been “unjustly slandered” (237). We should seek the truth, but also judge nothing without discussion (238) because we need one another to discover truth.

• Since older generations hand down practices to younger generations, the education of youth is of prime importance. Philosophy is for the soul what exercise is for the body (239). We need both, and the two disciplines are not totally separated, since the body influences the mind and the mind the body.

• A speaker doesn’t need full knowledge (episteme), but doxa (240). [Is full knowledge for mortals even possible, I wonder?]

• Students must obey teachers (241) because teachers are trying to help students to learn.

• Nature and innate ability are both important, and so is practice. Nature can be and is improved by practice.

• We need an education of what it means to be human (244).

• We do what we desire. Often, we desire pleasure, profit, or honor (245).

• The best speakers are responsible for most good. The best leaders pay more attention to logoi than other things (248). So, the power of speech doesn’t make people into criminals (249). (Only the misuse of the powers of speech does.) We teach our students the same things that we do and are. (This me of James Berlin's "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class" in College English 50(5):477-494.)

• The power to speak is the power to judge. Speaking well involves judging well. Speech is responsible for all our inventions (251). Speaking well is a clear sign of a good mind. True speech is the image (eidolon) of “a good and faithful soul” (252 this is also on 207, but the Greek says eikon instead of eidolon).

• We use the same arguments on others that we use on ourselves.

• Speech “is the leader of all thoughts and actions” (252).

• What some people call philosophy isn’t philosophy (254). Those who are wise (sophoi) “are those who have the ability to reach the best opinions (doxai) most of the time” while philosophers are those who gain that wisdom as quickly as possible.

• Speaking well is thinking intelligently (255). The more a person wants to persuade the more that person will strive for virtue: since the capacity to be a good person involves the capacity to do the right thing at the right time, and since speech is a subset of action, a good person who can speak well will say the right thing at the right time.

On Theology and Logogy, A Brief Summary of Chapter 20 from On Symbols and Society

20.From The Rhetoric of Religion, 1-3, 183-196.

Kenneth Burke's The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology has many statements in it worth pondering. The book seems more profound each time I read it. The excerpt from Gusfield’s On Symbols and Society only covers pages 1-3 and 183-196, so this brief summary will only provide 3 very short paragraphs from Burke's book.

Introduction: On Theology and Logology

Theology is words about God (theos + logos). Logology, then, would be words about words (logos + logos). Statements theologians have made about God can be used metaphorically to talk about words, whether people believe in God or not. And it is also possible to thereby analyze statements about God as if they spoke about reason and language (logos). God-terms are summarizing words because they function as combining all into one.

Tautological Cycle of Terms for “Order”

The term order applies to nature and political “un-nature,” socio-political “order.” But might the terms in socio-political order become used in nature?

“Order” is how things are organized. But if “order” is a command, then other terms such as “obey” and “obedience” are implied. If things are innocent, then they cannot just “obey,” however. They may also “disobey” “order.”

The religious principles of faith and obedience are thus grounded in language (187). Things move. People act. Acting brings responsibility. Implicit in the idea of an act is free will. Pride is the attitude which results in disobedience. Humility is the attitude which leads to obedience.