Chapter 15: Rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences.[2] Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.
Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion”, and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, he called it “a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics”.[3] Aristotle also identified three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric, or phases of developing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.
From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, rhetoric played a central role in Western education in training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets.[4]
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply
Image
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
CC BY-SA 2.0
An overview of Rhetoric.
Although this video focuses on the role rhetoric plays in writing sound arguments, the concepts match the role it plays in developing oral arguments.
License
This clip is part of an 8 weeks free online course ‘Introduction to Communication Science’ given by the University of Amsterdam.
License
Mythos
The Concept of Mythos
While mythos was not part of Aristotle’s original framework, some modern rhetoricians have proposed adding it as a fourth mode of persuasion:
Mythos refers to the narrative or story-based appeal. It taps into shared cultural stories, beliefs, and values.
Mythos can be a powerful rhetorical tool because:
It connects the speaker’s message to overarching cultural narratives
It appeals to the audience’s sense of identity and shared history
It can make complex ideas more relatable through storytelling
Mythos, or narrative-based appeal,
plays several important roles in creating this connection:
Evoking Emotions
Mythos taps into the audience’s emotions by:
- Engaging multiple areas of the brain simultaneously, activating both language processing and emotional centers
- Using emotional triggers – words or phrases associated with specific feelings
- Providing vivid sensory details to create a more immersive experience
These techniques help evoke strong feelings that tend to linger longer than those generated by facts alone.
Creating Empathy and Understanding
Storytelling through mythos fosters empathy by:
- Allowing the audience to connect with characters whose experiences reflect their own
- Helping the audience feel understood by the storyteller
- Sharing personal stories that create a sense of intimacy and vulnerability
This empathetic connection makes the message more relatable and impactful.
Tapping into Shared Cultural Narratives
Mythos connects the speaker’s message to:
- Overarching cultural stories and beliefs
- The audience’s sense of identity and shared history
By doing so, it helps ground the message in familiar territory, making it more accessible and meaningful to the audience.
Building Trust and Credibility
Effective use of mythos can enhance the speaker’s ethos by:
- Demonstrating vulnerability, which can disarm audience cynicism
- Connecting the speaker’s experiences to those of the audience
- Showing authenticity through personal storytelling
This trust-building aspect of mythos complements and enhances the traditional ethos appeal.
Not only are we persuaded through written and spoken messages, we are also impacted by visual messages.
Visual Rhetoric
https://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons
