Lecture # 1 Orality, Literacy, Rhetoric

Oral and Literate Culture

I. Oral Culture

1. Imagine a culture without writing (no google, no books)

2. Temporal presence: Past is gone, future has not yet arrived, the present is everything
3. Example: imagine a tree falling in the woods. Now imagine a recording of the tree
falling in the woods.
a. First is an event/occasion.
b. The second is a process.
c. Illustration: Imagine video of the tree falling in the woods. There is the
process of the “tree-falling-to-the-ground” and making a sound rather than
the event, “sound of tree falling”.
4. In oral cultures words are primarily events.
a. Example of reciting a poem by heart and shared experience of the audience
vs. passing out a text of the poem for the members of the audience to read
(to themselves, individually)
b. Compare with PowerPoint
c. Compare with act of proclamation and reading
d. Reading is an interior process; development of printing is the pre-condition
for the discovery of the subject (Cartesian philosophy) and rise of
individualism.
5. Example: “oral tradition” Homeric studies, biblical studies, use of memetic devices,
repetition, parallelism
6. Revival of the “performative” function of language
a. Language often viewed as informative or descriptive.
b. Austin called attention to how language is also performative. How we do
things with words. Examples: christening of a ship, marriage vows.

II. Literate Culture(s)

1. In literate cultures words are primary artifacts.

a. Codification of knowledge
b. Transfer of knowledge requires learning (reading and writing); compare with
language learning
2. Language learning
a. Capacity of language learning appears to be largely innate rather than
learned.
b. Babies have capacity to learn every possible natural language
c. Even children of deaf parents learn how to speak
d. Futility of “modern” parents trying to teach children language (as opposed to
reading and writing).
3. Orality is innate, literacy must be learned
4. Question: does a tree falling in the woods make a sound if nobody hears it?
a. Depends on the description
 b. Oral vs Literal cultures
5. Technologization of the Word.
6. J.L. Austin and Ordinary Language Philosophy
a. Recovery of the “pragmatic” aspect of linguistics
b. Language does not only describe or inform but can be a form of action
(“speech acts).
i. Marriage vows. “I take you, Jane, to be my lawfully wedded wife”
ii. Christening a ship “I christen thee the Queen Mary”
iii. Will and testament. “I bequeath to my brother Charles, my books and
papers”.
c. Revival of the performative aspect of language (cf. oral cultures)

II. Rhetoric
1. The tradition of public speaking is rooted in the study and practice of rhetoric.
2. Teaching and practice of ancient rhetoric is rooted in the Greek polis; politics as a
deliberative process of citizens.
3. Types of Speeches
a. Legal or forensic speeches, focusing on prosecution or defense. Concerned
justice or injustice.
b. Deliberative speeches, focusing on recommending or warning and whose
thematic focus was benefit or harm.
c. Ceremonial speeches, focusing on praise or blame and whose thematic focus
was merit, service, honor or demerit, mischief, or wrongdoing.

4. Rhetoric and philosophy

a. Plato’s criticism: rhetoricians as perverters of the truth; based on inadequate
psychology
b. Aristotle’s answer:
i. a theory of rhetoric as distinct from philosophical argument and
example
ii. the state of the mind of the audience and the ways of appealing to
their prejudices and emotions and
iii. style, its basic virtues such as clarity and appropriateness) and the
use of metaphor.
c. Rhetoric and Philosophy: Relationship between techniques of persuasion and
rational decision-making

5. Aristotle, rhetoric as the art of persuasion (Speaker-Audience) (SOAP); Rhetorical

triangle: speaker, message, audience, purpose.
a. Speaker: source of the message
b. Occasion:
c. Audience: recipient of message
d. Purpose: relation between speaker and the audience

6. Ethos, Logos, Pathos

a. Rhetoric persuades through character of the speaker (ethos)
b. Emotional state of the listener (pathos)
 c. The force of the speech’s argument (logos)

7. Structure of speech (beginning, middle, end)

8. Aristotle’s Rhetoric and modern public speaking

a. Ethos as Character and Credibility
b. Pathos as Emotional Impact
i. Criticism: flattery, demagoguery
ii. Ethics of Rhetoric
c. Logos as Practical reasoning
i. Aristotle: inductive vs. deductive reasoning; types of evidence e.g.
written evidence (contracts), testimony.
ii. Topoi: topic and use of language (style)
iii. Toulmin: Practical reasoning: claims, backing (support), exceptions
iv. Claims, evidence, illustrations, audience participation

9. The 5 Canons or Principles of Ancient Rhetoric

a. Invention: in Aristotle, the “proofs” or how to find material that addresses
the issue at hand.
b. Arrangement: Advice about how to divide the subject matter of the speech.
Common sense advice about the arrangement of the subject matter.
c. Style: Use of stylistic elements of speech: figures, types, analogies, rhythm
cadence etc.
d. Memory: Use of techniques to memorize speech (mnemonic devices) i.e.
parts of speech like parts of a colonnade.
e. Delivery: for the ancients, delivery was a matter of pronunciation and
gestures, much like classic English Shakespearean acting.

10. The modern American literary critic and theorist of rhetoric, Kenneth Burke,
modified Aristotle’s notion of rhetoric to focus on identification rather than
persuasion, thus responding to criticisms of rhetoric as emotional. Burke described
the “rhetorical situation” in terms of dramatic action.
a. The act: what?
b. The scene: when or where?
c. The agent: who?
d. The agency or method or means: how?
e. The purpose or motive: why?

[A]ny complete statement about motives will offer some kind of answer to these five
questions: what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene), who did it
(agent), how he did it (agency), and why (purpose).” –Kenneth Burke