This book is the edition of the Proceedings of the International Colloquium “Rhetoric and Argumentation in the Beginning of the XXIst Century” which was held at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra, in October 2-4, 2008, and was organized by Henrique Jales Ribeiro, Joaquim Neves Vicente and Rui Alexandre Grácio. The main purpose of the Colloquium was to commemorate the publication in 1958 of the books La nouvelle rhétorique: Traité de l’argumentation, and The Uses of Arguments, by, respectively, C. Perelman/L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and S. Toulmin. But another important goal was to take stock of the state of rhetoric and argumentation theory at the beginning of a new century. It was a unique event, without parallel in Portugal and worldwide - considering its theme and its aims -, which gathered some of the World’s most renowned rhetoric and argumentation theorists: Alan Gross, Douglas Walton, Erik Krabbe, Frans V. Eemeren, F. Snoeck Henkemans, Guy Haarscher, John Anthony Blair, Marianne Doury, Oswald Ducrot, Ruth Amossy. The book includes a variety of very important contributions to rhetoric and argumentation theory, ranging from those that naturally fall within the subject matter, to the areas of philosophy, linguistics, communication theory, education theory and law theory. The “art”, as it was called in the Medieval curricula, is no longer a discipline amongst others and has became, according to the view of some specialists and largely owing to Perelman and Toulmin influences, a “new paradigm” of rationality for our age, which auspiciously encompasses all fields of knowledge and culture. The book is divided into five parts: I- Historical and philosophical studies on the influences of Perelman and Toulmin; II- Studies in argumentation theory; III- Linguistic approaches to argumentation theory; IV- Rhetoric; and communication theory / education theory approaches to argumentation; and V- Law theory approaches to argumentation.

Since antiquity, the notion of rhetoric has been associated with Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. Their theories are central to the understanding that, on the one hand, rhetoric can be used for persuading and convincing an audience, and on the other, for becoming an eloquent speaker. Based on this understanding, the study of rhetoric was for many years regarded by scholars as a meaningless enterprise as it was perceived as a study of linguistic ornamentation. However, in the beginning of the twentieth century, scholars regained an interest in the study of rhetoric in recognition of rhetorical skills being important for communication in modern society. Like speakers in public life, e.g. politicians, who had always acknowledged the role of rhetoric, all sorts of communicators, mediators and scholars became interested in rhetoric as a practical tool for building up texts meant for the public sphere as well as an analytical tool for the critique of public argumentation. This led to the development of new theories from New Rhetoric over Rhetorical Criticism to theories of genre and discourse, reflecting the view that rhetoric must be understood and used against the social and cultural framework in which it is embedded. The contributions of this book reflect this multi-faceted approach to rhetoric, discourse and genre through their focus upon and analysis of different institutionalised discourses. Thus, within the three sections of political, journalistic and organisational discourse, the articles discuss various discourse types and their rhetorical features, contributing to the understanding of rhetoric and discourse having significant influence on human action and interaction in society.

Kuypers, King, and their contributors explore the conception of rhetoric of eleven key American rhetoricians through analyses of their life's work. Each chapter provides a sense of that scholar's conception of rhetoric, be it through criticism, theory, or teaching. The communication discipline often highlights the work of others outside the discipline; however, it rarely acclaims the work of its own critics, teachers, and theorists. In this collection, the essays explore the innate mode of perception that guided the rhetorical understanding of the early critics. In so doing, this work dispels the myth that the discipline of Speech Communication was spawned from a monolithic and rigid center that came to be called neo-Aristotelianism. Scholars and researchers involved with the history of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism and theory, and American public address uill find this title to be a necessary addition to their collection.

Rhetoric and rhetorical theory have been gaining in prominence throughout the 20th century. As leaders in all fields give careful attention to issues in communication, rhetoric becomes increasingly central to a range of disciplines. Many of these leaders have shaped rhetorical theory through their work in other fields, and rhetoric becomes more and more difficult to define and delimit. This reference is a guide to major trends and developments in rhetoric and rhetorical theory during the last 100 years. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for major and minor rhetoricians, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Peter Elbow, and Linda Flower. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a brief biography, an analysis of the figure's rhetorical theory, and a current bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The figures included represent a range of rhetorical schools. An extensive introduction discusses these schools, and the volume concludes with extensive bibliographical material.

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since "argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced," says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite." Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres-forensic, deliberative, and epideictic-is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds." These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience."

"Rhetoric, broadly conceived as the art of making things matter, is both a practice and theory about that practice. In recent decades, scholars of rhetoric have turned to approaches that braid together poetics, performance, and philosophy into a "practical art." By practical art, they mean methods tested in practice, by trial and error, with a goal of offering something useful and teachable. This volume presents just such an account of rhetoric. The account here does not turn away from theory, but rather presumes and incorporates theoretical approaches, offering a collection of principles assembled in the heat and trials of public practice. The approaches ventured in this volume are inspired by the capacious conception of rhetoric put forth by historian of rhetoric Jeffrey Walker, who is perhaps best known for stressing rhetoric's educational mission and its contributions to civic life. The Practice of Rhetoric is organized into three sections designed to spotlight, in turn, the importance of poetics, performance, and philosophy in rhetorical practice. The volume begins with poetics, stressing the world-making properties of that word, in contexts ranging from mouse-infested medieval fields to the threat of toxin-ridden streams in the mid-twentieth century. Susan C. Jarratt, for instance, probes the art of ekphrasis, or vivid description, and its capacity for rendering alternative futures. Michele Kennerly explores a little-studied linguistic predecessor to prose-logos psilos, or naked speech-exposing the early rumblings of a separation between poetic and rhetorical texts even as it historicizes the idea of clothed or ornamented speech. In an essay on the almost magical properties of writing, Debra Hawhee considers the curious practice of people writing letters to animals in order to banish or punish them, thereby casting the epistolary arts in a new light. Part 2 moves to performance. Vessela Valiavitcharska examines the intertwining of poetic rhythm and performance in Byzantine rhetorical education, and how such practices underlie the very foundations of oratory. Dale Martin Smith draws on the ancient stylistic theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus along with the activist work of contemporary poets Amiri Baraka and Harmony Holiday to show how performance and persuasion unify rhetoric and poetics. Most treatments of philosophy and rhetoric begin within a philosophical framework, and remain there, focusing on old tools like stasis and disputation. Essays in part 3 break out of that mold by focusing on the utility and teachability of rhetorical principles in education. Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor update stasis, a classical framework that encourages aspiring rhetors to ask after the nature of things, their facts and their qualities, as a way of locating an argument's position. Mark Garrett Longaker probes the medieval practice of disputation in order to marshal a new argument about why, exactly, John Locke detested rhetoric, and the longstanding opposition between science and rhetoric as modes of proof that has lasting implications for the way argument works today. Ranging across centuries and contexts, the essays collected here demonstrate the continued need to attend carefully to the co-operation of descriptive language and normative reality, conceptual vocabulary and material practice, public speech and moral self-shaping. The volume promises to rekindle long-standing conversations about the public, world-making practice of rhetoric, thereby enlivening anew its civic mission"--