Chapter 1 Vocabulary - An Introduction to Rhetoric

Rhetoric

The faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion; the art of finding ways of persuading an audience

Audience

The listener, viewer, or reader of a text.

Texts

Any cultural product that can be read

Occasion

The time and place a speech is given or a piece is written

Context

The circumstances, atmosphere, attitudes, and events surrounding a text

Purpose

The goal that the speaker wants to achieve

Rhetorical (Aristotelian) Triangle

A diagram that illustrates the interrelationship among the speaker, audience, and subject in determining a text

Speaker

The person or group who creates a text.

Persona

The face or character that a speaker shows to his or her audience; his 'mask'

Subject

The topic of a text; what the text is about

SOAPS

A mnemonic device that stands for Subject, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, and Speaker; a handy way to remember the various elements that make up the rhetorical situation.

Rhetorical Appeals

Rhetorical techniques used to persuade an audience by emphasizing what they find most important or compelling. These include ethos (character), logos (reason), and pathos (emotion)

Ethos

A force appealed to by speakers to demonstrate that they are credible and trustworthy to speak on a given topic by displaying their 'character'

Logos

A force appealed to by speakers by offering clear, rational ideas and using specific details, examples, facts, statistics or expert testimony to back them up; the speakers 'embodied thought'

Counterargument

An opposing argument to the one a writer is putting forward.

Concession

An acknowledgment that an opposing argument may be true or reasonable.

Refutation

A denial of the validity of an opposing argument; often follows a concession

Pathos

Force that is appealed to by speakers in order to emotionally motivate their audience and their 'suffering' and 'experience' including their values, desires, hopes, fears, and prejudices.

Propagandic

Relating to the spread of ideas or information to further a cause.

Polemical

An aggressive argument that tries to establish the superiority if one opinion over all others. A type of argument that generally does not concede that opposing opinions have any credit; a 'hostile' argument

Connotations

Meanings or associations that readers have with a word beyond its dictionary definition, or denotation.