History of Rhetoric and Writing
Background
Our present-day notions of effective writing borrow heavily from schools of rhetoric developed over 2,500 years ago in Ancient Greece. At that time, rhetoric was both an art and a process of using language (spoken only, no writing at that time) and all available language features to promote the intended purpose of any oral communication between people.
Major Figures
Some of the people, from Ancient Greece and more recently, who contributed to our present-day notions of rhetoric include Aristotle, Cicero, Quintillion, Blair, Bain, and Campbell.
Rhetorical Departments
Campbell thought rhetoric to be comprised of a series of "departments" or steps, each of which serves a specific purpose. These departments are:
- Invention / Discovery
Purpose: To invent or discover a "topic" or subject of any oral communication - Arrangement / Organization
Purpose: To determine the most effective arrangment or organization of the contents of any oral communication in order to make it most effective - Style (elocution ---> speech)
Purpose: To determine the most effective style or manner in which any oral communicaton will be delivered in order to make it most effective. Today, applied to writing, style refers to- Kind of diction
- General or specific
- Abstract or concrete
- Formal or informal
- Latinate (usually polysyllabic) or Anglo-Saxon (usually monosyllabic)
- Common words or jargon
- Referential (denotative) or emotive (connotative)
- Length of sentences (measured in numbers of words)
- Kinds of sentences
- Grammatical: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex
- Rhetorical: loose, periodic, balanced, antithetical
- Functional: statement, question, command, exclamation
- Paragraphing
- Length (measured in numbers of words and sentences)
- Kind of movement or development
- Use of transitional devices
- Kind of diction
- Memory
Purpose: To promote, through a series of mental devices, associations, or exercises, the memorization of the contents of any oral communication in order to make it most effective - Delivery
Purpose: To determine the most effective manner of delivery (voice, tone, pace, etc) of any oral communication in order to make it most effective
Changes in rhetoric through the 19th Century
The purpose of each rhetorical department, and thus rhetoric as a whole, has changed over the centuries, mostly as a result of the use of rhetoric to support and communicate the ideas and forms of the Christian church. Rather than an art form to be used to facilitate any oral communication, rhetoric came to be seen as a resource to aid the study of God's word, to explain it to others, and to persuade them to accept it. Specific changes include:- Invention (the need for or the importance of invention) was replaced by the delivery of "God's word" through the rise of Christianity—no reason to seek, the answers are given
- Arrangement was replaced by development of standardized forms (Christian church rituals)
- Memory and Delivery were dropped with advent of writing which provided a convenient form of long-term preservation
Present-day focus on style
Style is the only feature of classical rhetoric left in current-day English Departments. Its importance is now applied to writing, which has replaced oral speech as the preferred method of transmitting and preserving culture, as well as expressing literacy (the combination of speaking, reading, and writing in various representational forms), through informative essays, reactions / responses to reading assginments, and research papers.
What about the other rhetorical departments?
- Invention / Discovery ---> Moved to science programs
- Arrangement / Organization ---> Moved to business, management, and computer programs
- Memory and / or Delivery ---> Moved to speech and / or theater programs
Today, rhetoric focuses on skill with language to:
- Narrate
- Describe
- Instruct
- Persuade
Style is still important to effective language skills, particularly writing. Remember that in the classical sense, style is taking thoughts collected by invention and putting them into (arranging) words for effective delivery through speaking. Cardinal Newman called style "Thinking out into language."
Style still acknowledges the intimate relationship between matter and form, between ideas and their presentation. Style then can be an "available means of persuasion," a means of arousing the appropriate emotional response in your audience, and the means of establishing the desired ethical image (ethos). Style is all the added circumstances and means you can attach to language to produce the desired result.
Three ways of improving your writing style
- Study precepts or principles
- Grammatical competence
Grammar concerned with correctness (smallest unit is morpheme), rhetoric with effectiveness (smallest unit is word) - Adequate vocabulary
Words are the building blocks of all writing. Best way to develop and improve vocabulary is to read, a lot. But larger words are not necessarily the best. - Purity, propriety, and precision of diction
Prime quality of style is clarity - Composition of sentence
Usual pattern for sentence is S(ubject)-V(erb)-O(bject). Sentences can be elaborated by adding modifying words to these main components, or by changing their order.
- Grammatical competence
- Imitate the style of others
- Practice in writing
Precepts, principles, and imitation can teach you how to write, but only through writing will you actually learn how to write. You learn to write by writing.