The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric is a comprehensive survey of the latest research--as well as the foundational teachings--in this broad field. Featuring 150 original, signed articles by leading scholars from many different fields of study it brings together knowledge from classics, philosophy, literature, literary theory, cultural studies, speech and communications. The Encyclopedia surveys basic concepts (speaker, style and audience); elements; genres; terms (fallacies, figures of speech); and the rhetoric of non-Western cultures and cultural movements. It covers rhetoric as the art of proof and persuasion; as the language of public speech and communication; and as a theoretical approach and critical tool used in the study of literature, art, and culture at large, including new forms of communication such as the internet. The Encyclopedia is the most wide ranging reference work of its kind, combining theory, history, and practice, with a special emphasis on public speaking, performance and communication. Cross-references, bibliographies after each article, and synoptic and topical indexes further enhance the work. Written for students, teachers, scholars and writers the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric is the definitive reference work on this powerful discipline.

Interaction is a prominent part of our everyday life and experience; daily reality is constructed within the interactions that individuals establish with those around them, with whom they share experiences in a concrete context. Objects, phenomena and individuals permanently influence each other through this dynamic process. The authors of this volume engage in an on-going interpretative process of defining this influence, giving considerable attention to the way participants to interaction try to understand each other, to interpret each other’s activity and prove this in an explicit or implicit way through a variety of semiotic codes (verbal, nonverbal or paraverbal). The authors, implicitly, address the question: how do social actors (in their quality of translators, writers, painters or teachers) see the world around and the interactions between its constituent parts/activities/processes? The primary goal of Perspectives on Interaction is to bring together concerns, approaches, interpretations and analyses on the proposed topic. The authors, members of a young research group (“Cultural Spaces”), have examined various aspects through which interaction manifests itself in social practices, linguistics, translation studies, didactics and literary discourse. This has made possible the gathering of the material under four headings which constitute the chapters of the book: Translation as Interaction; Aspects of Social Interaction; Texts and Representations in Interaction; Interactive Practices in Literary Discourse. Ideas have been organized around some important key points: communication, action, interaction, competence, performance, linguistic and nonlinguistic signs. The volume will appeal to researchers and students working within the fields of translation, education, arts, discourse and literature, and offers inspiring topics and relevant research.

The nine contributors to this collection examine rhetorician Kenneth Burke’s understanding of transcendence, applying it to a wide range of social and political issues, including racial and presidential politics.

Kenneth Burke's innovative use of dramatism and dialectical method have made him a powerful critical force in an extraordinary variety of disciplines—education, philosophy, history, psychology, religion, and others. While most widely acclaimed as a literary critic, Burke has elaborated a perspective toward the study of behavior and society that holds immense significance and rich insights for sociologists. This original anthology brings together for the first time Burke's key writings on symbols and social relations to offer social scientists access to Burke's thought. In his superb introductory essay, Joseph R. Gusfield traces the development of Burke's approach to human action and its relationship to other similar sources of theory and ideas in sociology; he discusses both Burke's influence on sociologists and the limits of his perspective. Burke regards literature as a form of human behavior—and human behavior as embedded in language. His lifework represents a profound attempt to understand the implications for human behavior based on the fact that humans are "symbol-using animals." As this volume demonstrates, the work that Burke produced from the 1930s through the 1960s stands as both precursor and contemporary key to recent intellectual movements such as structuralism, symbolic anthropology, phenomenological and interpretive sociology, critical theory, and the renaissance of symbolic interaction.

This book contributes to the ongoing debate over the future of rhetorical theory and criticism by presenting the stands taken by a variety of prominent Burkean scholars on the following issues: the nature of the Burkean system, Burke and feminism, Burke and postmodernism and multiculturalism, and the nature of symbolic action. It demonstrates that Kenneth Burke anticipated many of the issues rhetorical theorists and critics face as they enter the 21st century.

Humor and laughter play a vital part in our everyday social encounters. This book is concerned with the exploration of the psychology of humor and laughter by the foremost professional researchers in these areas. It examines the major theoretical perspectives underlying current approaches and it draws together for the first time the main empirical work done over the course of this century. Peter Berks brings this story up to the moment.The two major parts of the book deal with perception of and responses to humor, and its uses in society at large. The chapters themselves range from cognitive aspects of humor development, through the functions of humor and laughter in social interaction, to the use of humor by comedians and by the mass media. One of the general features of the volume is the concern with the variety of techniques and research methods which are used in studies aimed at understanding our responsiveness to humor and the contexts in which we create it.Humor and Laughter contains chapters by psychologists with longstanding research interests in humor and laughter, including Thomas R. Shultz, Mary K. Rothbart, Goran Nerhardt, Michael Godkewitsch, Walter E. O'Connell, and Harvey Mindess. Humor and Laughter presents wide-ranging theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives on an important area of human behavior and social interaction. This book should interest many behavioral scientists and practitioners, particularly those in social and clinical psychology, psychiatry, child psychology and education, sociology, and related disciplines.