David Blakesley
Volume 5
Chapter Description
This essay presents a working definition of rhetoric, then explores its key terms to help you understand rhetoric’s nature as both an applied art of performance and a heuristic art of invention and creation.1 The definition also situates rhetoric in the social processes of identification and division. The definition goes as follows: “Rhetoric is the art of elaborating or exploiting ambiguity to foster identification or division.” The chapter develops the meaning of rhetoric, art, elaboration, exploitation, identification, and division, modeling a process that anyone can follow with their own definitions of this or any complex concept. In the end, you should see rhetoric as more than “mere rhetoric” or “the art of persuasion.” You will learn to see rhetoric’s presence in all situations that involve people using words and images to teach, delight, persuade, or identify and divide. You will also learn the value of rhetorical listening for understanding the social, cultural, and plural nature of identity and, thus, our capacity for identification (or division) across contexts.
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