New rhetoric is an

interdisciplinary field Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, ''Rhetorics: New Rhetorics'', in Wolfgang Donsbach (ed.), ''The International Encyclopedia of Communication'', approaching for the broadening of classical rhetorical canon.New and Alternative Rhetorics - William DeGenaro, ''Who says?: working-class rhetoric, class consciousness, and community'', Univ of Pittsburgh Press, 2007, p.5

Overview

New rhetoric is a result of various efforts of bringing back rhetorics from the marginal status it attained by its image and negative connotations of "political lies, corporate spin, long list of Greek and Roman terms for patterns of expression no one knowingly uses,

purple prose In literary criticism, purple prose is overly ornate prose text that may disrupt a narrative flow by drawing undesirable attention to its own extravagant style of writing, thereby diminishing the appreciation of the prose overall. Purple prose i ...

, boiler-plate arrangement schemas, unimaginative reproductions of bullshit and so on"George Pullman, ''Rhetorically Speaking, What's New?'', Georgia State University, What is the New Rhetoric? conference if not to its previous place of a discipline "associated with social and intellectual prestige" then at least to the level of the other contemporary fields in the social, cultural and linguistic studies. Notoriously the field emerged after the work of

Chaïm Perelman Chaïm Perelman (born Henio (or Henri) Perelman; sometimes referred to mistakenly as Charles Perelman) (20 May 1912 – 22 January 1984) was a Belgian philosopher of Polish-Jewish origin. He was among the most important argumentation theorists ...

and

Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1899–1987) was a Belgian academic, sociologist and longtime co-worker of the philosopher Chaïm Perelman. She volunteered in 1948 to support his work and developed several aspects of the '' New Rhetoric'' independently in ...

in their book ''The New Rhetoric'' (1969)Thomas M. Carr, Jr. ''Some Consequences of The New Rhetoric: A Critical Study'', Argumentation 7: 475-479, 1993 but both the notion and the idea for the need of "new" rhetoric, different from the "old" one can be traced to the works of

Kenneth Burke Kenneth Duva Burke (May 5, 1897 – November 19, 1993) was an American literary theorist, as well as poet, essayist, and novelist, who wrote on 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, criticism, and rhetorical theory. As a literary theorist, Burke ...

- ''A Rhetoric of Motives'' (1950) and ''Rhetoric - Old and New'' (1967). What helped the emergence of new rhetoric was the ideas of the

epistemic Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledg ...

status of rhetoric, the notion of a clearly definable rhetorical core, and others. An attempt to apply new rhetoric as a social philosophy was made by the Polish philosopher

Mieczysław Maneli Mieczysław Maneli (born Moshe Meir Manela; 22 January 1922 – 9 April 1994) was a Polish lawyer, diplomat and academic best remembered for his work with the International Control Commission (ICC) during the Vietnam War, especially the 1963 " ...

in his 1994 book ''Perelman's New Rhetoric as Philosophy and Methodology for the Next Century''. Maneli wrote: "The New Rhetoric is modern

humanism Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and Agency (philosophy), agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The me ...

. The struggle for humanism never ends. The most essential features to a humanistic approach to life are: individuals should be given the chance to develop their personal talents and energies, they should be able to be creative and become happy...Their essence and value are creativity and self-determination...Once new rhetoric took as its basic proposition that nothing is absolutely good or sacred except human dignity, one must constantly search for new values, for better forms, and ways of life. There are three specific areas that is especially important for modern humanism: social and individual justice, freedom from oppression with a genuine opportunity for a decent life; and tolerance and privacy." New rhetoric attempts to preserve the original field but it also has tense relationship with it. For example, New rhetoric attempts to break up with the formalistic and logocentric (i.e.

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

) Neo-Aristotelian analysis in favour of interplay between

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory) In literary theory, a text is any object that can be "read", whether this object is a work of literature, a street sign, an arrangement of buildings on a city block, or styles of clothi ...

and

context In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event ...

, but according to DeGenaro it does not succeed to place itself outside the "Western-patriarchal" tradition with being unable to departure from "elite backgrounds and scopes of study" to a diversity of voices, topics, etc. This probably makes new rhetoric rather a ground for

postmodern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...

rhetoricNot the rhetoric of

postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

but postmodern theory and analysis in rhetorics. which "puts into question the identities of the speaker, the audience, and the messages that pass between them"Gary E. Aylesworth, ''Rhetoric, Postmodern'' ''The International Encyclopedia of Communication'', with evaluating the

intersubjective Intersubjectivity describes the shared understanding that emerges from interpersonal interactions. The term first appeared in social science in the 1970s and later incorporated into psychoanalytic theory by George E. Atwood and Robert Stolorow, ...

philosophyBarry Brummett, ''Some Implications of "Process" or "Intersubjectivity": Postmodern Rhetoric'', Philosophy & Rhetoric, Penn State University Press, 1976 because of the idea inherently accepted in postmodernistic philosophy that "differences cannot be overcome, in

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

ian fashion, by cancelling them under a higher-order

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...

, but must be eroded or defaced in the course of traversing them".Gary Aylesworth,
Postmodernism
', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

References

{{Reflist, 30em Rhetoric Structuralism Formalism (philosophy)