Invention in Rhetoric and Composition (Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition)
Janice M. Lauer
Language: English
Pages: 276
ISBN: 193255906X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Invention in Rhetoric and Composition examines issues that have surrounded historical and contemporary theories and pedagogies of rhetorical invention, citing a wide array of positions on these issues in both primary rhetorical texts and secondary interpretations. It presents theoretical disagreements over the nature, purpose, and epistemology of invention and pedagogical debates over such issues as the relative importance of art, talent, imitation, and practice in teaching discourse. After a discussion of treatments of invention from the Sophists to the nineteenth century, Invention in Rhetoric and Composition introduces a range of early twentieth-century multidisciplinary theories and calls for invention's awakening in the field of English studies. It then showcases inventional theories and pedagogies that have emerged in the field of Rhetoric and Composition over the last four decades, including the ensuing research, critiques, and implementations of this inventional work. As a reference guide, the text offers a glossary of terms, an annotated bibliography of selected texts, and an extensive bibliography. Janice M. Lauer is Professor of English, Emerita at Purdue University, where she was the Reece McGee Distinguished Professor of English. In 1998, she received the College Composition and Communication Conference's Exemplar Award. Her publications include Four Worlds of Writing: Inquiry and Action in Context, Composition Research: Empirical Designs, and New Perspectives on Rhetorical Invention, as well as essays on rhetorical invention, disciplinarity, writing as inquiry, composition pedagogy, historical rhetoric, and empirical research.
invention from the mid 1960s to the present. and then relates them to five issues that have circulated around invention pedagogy both historically and recently: 1) the relative importance of four formative factors in the development of a writer’s inventional powers; 2) the merits of different inventional strategies; 3) the social nature of invention; 4) the character of invention as interpretive or productive; and 5) the role of rhetoric in either constructing or conveying knowledge. Each of
grammar of a language enables us to generate an infinite variety of sentences. In its capacity for generating that variety, the pentad functions much like an Aristotelian general topic” (8). The purpose of dramatism is” not to dispose of ambiguity, but to study and clarify the resources of ambiguity.” Aligning dramatism and rhetoric, Blakesley explained, it becomes possible to extend the definition of rhetoric from “the art of finding the available means of persuasion” to “the art of elaborating
pentad provides a vocabulary and methodology for analyzing motives in language. Enthymeme—Defined by Aristotle as a form of rhetorical reasoning, the enthymeme is one of the two modes of rhetorical proof (the other being example). Enthymemes are claims supported by probable premises that the speaker assumes the audience will accept. As such, they form the basis of arguments. Epicheireme—A more complex form of rhetorical reasoning used to structure proofs according to five parts: the proposition,
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca discuss at length the loci or topics that speakers can use to build arguments. Like Aristotle, the authors define loci as the headings under which arguments fall, separating them into common loci (loci that can be used in many situations) and special loci (loci that are situation or discipline-specific). The largest part of The New Rhetoric looks in depth at two major loci or argumentative schemes: association and dissociation. Associative schemes, which attempt to
of thumb that often help in solving certain kinds of problems without providing guarantees (192). Although heuristics are not problem-solving formulas (like algorithms), Perkins believes that they are ways of preventing premature closing, redirecting thinking, and making creators more aware of their thinking processes. Because many heuristics are general, Perkins explains, people must modify them to fit particular situations and needs. This process of modification itself, he argues, can lead to