Laura / 04120100074 September 21st, 2011

The Rhetoric
Modern life is filled with opportunities to speak in front of others. Politics and education, in particular, are areas where people spend much of their time speaking to others. Despite the importance of public speaking itself, there is a poll, which the result is there are a lot of people that afraid of speaking in front of many people, even more than the fear of death. Therefore at the ancient Greece time, people hire Sophists, a teacher of public speaking (rhetoric), to instruct them in basic principles of persuasion. Aristotle is generally credited with explaining the dynamics of public speaking. The rhetoric consists of three books: one, which primarily concerned about public speakers, second focusing to the audiences, and third attending to the speech itself. His rhetoric is considered by historians, philosopher, and communication experts to be one of the most influential pieces of writing in the Western world. The rhetoric could be considered Aristotles way of responding to the problems he saw. Aristotle also has his own definition of rhetoric, which is the available means of persuasion. There are two assumptions about the rhetoric according to Aristotles theory. First, effective public speakers must consider their audiences. This assumption underscores the transactional process in communication. Within a public speaking context, Aristotle suggests that the speaker-audience relationship must be acknowledge. Therefore, there is a term audience analysis, which refers to an assessment and evaluation of listeners. Second, effective public speakers use a number of proofs in their presentations. Its underlying Aristotles theory pertains to what speakers do in their speech preparation and their speech making. Aristotles proofs refer to the mean of persuasion, and, for Aristotle, three proofs exist: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos refers to the perceived character, intelligence, and goodwill of a speaker. Pathos refers to the emotional proof; emotions drawn from audience members. And Logos refers to the logical proof; the use of arguments and evidence in a speech. These three proofs tend to be critical for the speech effectiveness.

According to Aristotle, logos is the one that created more effective message. Nestled in these logical proofs is something called syllogism. The term of syllogism defined as a set of propositions that are related to one another and draw a conclusion from the major and minor premises. In other word, syllogism is nothing more that a deductive argument, a group of statement (premises), that lead to another group of statements (conclusion). Aristotle was convinced that, for a persuasive speech to be effective, a speaker must follow certain guidelines of principles, which called canons. There are 5 canons according to Aristotle. First is invention, which a canon of rhetoric that pertains to the construction or development of an argument related to a particular speech. Aids to invention are identified as topics, which refers to the argument of speaker uses. Speakers look to what are called civic spaces, a metaphor suggesting that speakers have locations where the opportunity to persuade others exists. The second canon is called arrangement. Arrangement pertains to speakers ability to organize a speech. It has to start with an introduction, which includes gaining audiences attention, connections with the audience, and providing an overview or the speakers purpose. Then, there is body, which refers to the part of an organizational strategy in a speech that includes arguments, examples, and important details to make a point. And then it ends with a conclusion, part of an organizational strategy speech that is aiming at summarizing a speakers main points and arousing emotions in an audience. The third canon is style, which refers to a canon of rhetoric that includes the use of language to express ideas in a speech. In style, there are also another terms, such as glosses and metaphor. Glosses refers to outdated words in a speech, and metaphor refers to a figure of speech that helps to make the unclear more understandable. The fourth canon is memory, which refers to speakers effort in storing information for a speech. Last canon is delivery. It refers to the nonverbal presentation of speakers ideas. Yet, there are also three types of rhetoric: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative. Forensic rhetoric pertains to speakers prompting feelings of guilt or innocence from audiences. Epideictic rhetoric is a type of rhetoric that pertains to praising or blaming. Lastly, deliberative rhetoric is a type of rhetoric that determines an audiences course of action.