Making Meaning of Rhetoric and Discourse

I know this is really late, but it was my birthday and I was busy having my cake and eating it too. Plus, I was reading “Multimodal Discourse” and “What is Rhetoric” for days on end and it took me forever to discern the difference between discourse and rhetoric. I could probably spend years writing about the two and I know some scholars spend lifetimes in this branch of learning, but I’ll try to keep this discussion brief. The following thoughts are probably going to be a bit disjointed and discontinuous, but thus was my brain trying to grasps these theories.

In the quotes at the beginning of the introduction of “What is Rhetoric,” Paolo Valesio said “…rhetoric is the functional organization of discourse…In other words: rhetoric is all of language, in its realization as discourse.” I think this encapsulates the difference and similarity of the two concepts and puts it into a (somewhat) straightforward view I can understand. Rhetoric, then, is the way in which discourse of a subject can be put into an arrangement of words in attempts to persuade or influence thoughts or action an audience. Discourse is the various contexts in which a particular subject matter can be discussed.

So now that I understand the difference between the basics of the two concepts, I am struggling over the similarities and differences between the five canons of rhetoric and the four strata of discourse. Kress and Van Leeuwen talk about how a subject as to be articulated to be interpreted. This articulation, I think, is a combination of the five canons that make up rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery). For rhetoric to be affective, discourse first has to be articulated (or invented?) and produced (or arranged?) in such a way that the author persuades the audience to understand and accept his ideas.

Like I had mentioned, I had taken a class called “Rhetorical Criticism” during my final semester at Penn State and it was one of the hardest classes of my education. From what I remember (I’m kicking myself for getting rid of my notes… what was I thinking?!?!) we discussed why the word “rhetoric” gets a bad connotation when it is essentially just a way of discussing things. Perhaps rhetoric evokes negative views because it is a way in which the author argues his ideas in a persuasive manner and uses terminology (or jargons) specific to a particular field. However, this is just an interpretation of whatever rhetoric the author was using and if the audience was not persuaded by it, then maybe the rhetoric was not affective in the first place. Nevertheless, the discourse may have not been produced in the right mode or distributed in the most successful way. Discourse has to pay attention to stratal configurations, which is to say one can discuss the same content but has to be aware of the audience in his choice of rhetoric. I found this website about New Media and although it is informative and useful, because my level of understanding of New Media is beyond this level, its “meaning making” is not of valuable significance to me.

I think I can say with reasonable knowledge that media is perhaps a way of being rhetorical for what ever the content of the medium is (props to McLuhan and his theory of “the medium is the message”). I’ve told people before (only half-jokingly) that I am in the field of New Media Studies because in this era, I live in a torrent of media and if I am to be brainwashed by its content, then I at least want to know why. I also want to learn how to communicate effectively, to understand why certain elements of design lend themselves to particular interpretations and how different modes of communication affect and produce cultures.

There was a phrase that I highlighted in “Multimodal Discourse” that says “media add a further layer of signification.” Although this phrase is describing how different mediums can change the affect of text, it can also be looked at as a way to view remediation. As the medium or design changes, so can the interpretation and the affect of the message. Cliché or not, a picture says a thousand words, but it can also have numerous interpretations. I believe everyone has something to say and in this era there are a billion ways to say it. Perhaps media is then the epitome of multimodal discourse.

sidebar: i was reading The Onion and i came across this article that reminded me of the canon of delivery...

Public-Speaking Student To Make Point Of Gesturing

ABILENE, TX—Jonathan Cranland, president of the Eisenhower High School public-speaking club, announced Tuesday that he will gesture for emphasis during Friday's public-speaking district finals. "When I read the Gettysburg Address," Cranland said, "I will lend weight to key passages with dramatic hand flourishes, impressing upon judges and audience members alike the importance of said passages." Cranland added that he is also strongly considering thumping the podium or shaking his fist. "People will see how serious I am if I shake my fist," he said. "If I simultaneously shake my fist and raise my voice, that will be an overwhelming double whammy."