As it is well known, rhetoric is an art of discourse, an art of persuasion and information of particular audiences in particular situations. Rhetoric became an art that was taught to students in Ancient Greece, and during centuries it was one of the most important subjects in the course of humanities. Nevertheless, some scientists are of the opinion that true rhetoricians are not taught but born, just as good writers or singers, and that teaching rhetoric is a much more difficult task than teaching foreign language or arithmetic.
In Ancient Greece rhetoric was mostly a means of political persuasion, and due to the fact that most of the population took active participation in politics and it was encouraged, rhetoric was developing at a furious pace, but was designed only for one purpose. Years later Aristotle has redeemed the meaning of rhetoric. He has put the persuasive value of a rhetoric speech as the most important aspect of the art, and because of this it became applicable to any subject and area of human activity. Aristotle was of the opinion that rhetoric can be defined by any specific situation that requires persuasion. He stated that rhetoric cannot be considered only as an academic subject and must be spread far beyond the academic areas.
In the modern world rhetoric skills are of huge importance. Many jobs all across the world require a person to be persuasive. For example, persuasive skills are very useful in marketing and online sales industry that has emerged during the last decade. Employers require people who need to convince, who have strong persuasion skills that will attract new customers or buyers to use the products of a company.
Aristotle is known for developing of the main principles of rhetoric. He laid the basis for the new science. The Rhetoric, his significant work about the new discipline, is now considered the most important research work on the art of persuasion. James Golden et al. (67) stated that “the most important single work on persuasion ever written”. This work was not meant to be published, being rather a collection of his lectures and the comments his students wrote in response to them. Plato, the disciple of Aristotle, was the author of The Phaedrus, the last dialogue in the Rhetoric, and there he states that rhetoric is “winning the soul through discourse”. In my opinion, this moderate point of view perfectly describes the goal of rhetoric: to persuade and show the advantages of a particular position to the audience.
Unlike Aristotle, Wayne C. Booth regarded rhetoric a little differently. He was of the opinion that any narrative is a form of rhetoric. He stated that the argumentation of the author defending his point of view and interest (secret or obvious) predetermines the reaction on and reception of their work by the audience. The most of those interests, as Booth states in his Rhetoric of Fiction, is based on ethics and morality. The narrator is the one who decides what the audience will think of his work and how it will perceive it. Because of this, he calls the narrator the “implied author”, and also the narrator’s alter ego. This is him who chooses, “consciously or unconsciously, what we read” (Booth, 98). In his later work, The Rhetoric of Irony Booth explores irony and the way it is used in literature. Another work, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, Booth reflects on different factors that make the person change their opinion. He states what can be done in order to persuade a person that defends their opinion. He also researches on the topic of a discourse where two diametrically polarized points of view conflict.
In his article The Rhetorical Stance Wayne Booth reflects on the importance of the audience for the rhetorician. He is of the opinion that unless a person is given a purpose, an audience that will either support or oppose to their arguments, there is little purpose of writing any narrative or persuasion speech. He provides examples of students who wrote compositions an essays of very low quality, with poor vocabulary and very dull for reading, because they understood that except the professor nobody will ever read them. They did their assignments just in order to complete the task, but not to defend their point of view or persuade. But after one of the students was told that he has to write a speech that he will present in front of the audience, and the aim of this speech is to persuade the people listening to it, the student submitted a perfectly written, interesting work. This is why it is so important that the rhetorician recognizes the purpose of his speech, and this is why the audience that will react in a certain way is absolutely necessary to write a good speech.
Booth also emphasizes that a good rhetorician will always search for ways of drawing attention during the speech, to make the audience truly interested and excited. He writes that for him personally as for a teacher, a bad or unconvincing narrative is better than a boring one.
“This country isn’t just carbon neutral, it’s carbon negative” by Tshering Tobgay is a speech delivered on the TED International Conference dealing with the way the little country of Bhutan is solving the problem of global warming. This is a great lecture on sustainability, ecology, and economics, that the country maintains in a perfect balance. From the rhetoric point of view, the speech is very persuasive and interesting. The speaker actively interacts with the audience, first showing them the details of his national costume and joking about some of its parts, and then showing many pictures for the audience to receive a colorful image that illustrates what he is talking about. Every few minutes the speaker asked questions or made jokes that allowed the audience to make little breaks and enjoy the listening. Tshering Tobgay did not look into any notes, he was speaking completely without any hints which made a good impression. His speech was clearly organized into an introduction, several main points and a strong conclusion. This is, in my opinion, another very important aspect of speaking in public: to persuade someone, it is important to give your speech a neat structure so that the audience understands the reasons and the outcomes, and is able to logically follow the speaker in his thoughts. The speech made a pleasant impression on me as a listener, and it was very persuasive.
There are many elements that need to be taken into consideration while preparing a good persuasive speech. Language is the most important tool for a rhetorician, but unlike book authors, rhetoricians must present their work to people directly. This means that acting skills are of no less importance. The ability to see what is principal and what is the background and emphasize the main points, to accent the most important words and underline the main topic, to make pauses after questions and to feel free joking and laughing with the public, to manage the intonation and the speed of speaking and good diction are the most important things that distinguish a skillful rhetorician from a person that is simply able to arrange their thoughts on paper. Although many researchers nowadays think that true rhetoricians are born, not taught, in my personal opinion, rhetoric should combine natural talent with a decent amount of learning and practicing. Profound acting skills required to deliver persuasive speeches can be learned and improved, and training can be very helpful. In my personal opinion, most people of different professions should become interested in rhetoric as this is a universal discipline that allows the person to express their thoughts more clearly and comprehensibly, and this can help in many life situations.
Works Cited
Booth, Wayne C. Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. University of Chicago Press, 1974. Print.
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. University of Chicago Press, 1983. Print.
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetorical Stance. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 14, No.3, Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, 1963: Toward a New Rhetoric. Oct. 1963, pp. 139-145. Web. 13 June 2016.
Golden, James L., Goodwin F. Berquist, William E. Coleman, Ruth Golden and J. Michael Sproule (eds.). The rhetoric of Western thought: From the Mediterranean world to the global setting, 9th ed. Dubuque, IA (USA), 2007: p.67. Print.
