Young, Becker, Pike--Rhetoric, Discovery, and Change

Preface-

• The authors lay out the reason why they wrote the book. Pike (a linguist) worked with Becker and Young (rhetoricians) to combine tagmemics with composition studies. 
• The authors also assume that students have mastered grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc., so they don't cover those issues in this handbook.
• The authors side with St. Augustine's belief that 
  the process of dis- covering knowledge must be yoked with the process of communicating it and that, of the two, the first demands greater attention. And we believe, as he did, that psychological change in the audience, rather than elegant prose, is the immediate and proper goal of the writer. 
   
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  "Rhetoric, we argued, is concerned primarily with a creative process that includes all the choices a writer makes from his earliest tentative explorations of a problem in what has been called the "prewriting" stage of the writing process, through choices in arrangement and strategy for a particular audience, to the final editing of the final draft" 
  
  

Chapter 1: Seeks to define Rhetoric

• • The authors contend that the act of saying or writing anything falls under the category of rhetoric (I say = eiro in Greek)
  • Greek theories of rhetoric: truth and wisdom vs. persuasion and deception
  • • Plato-rhetoric is verbal cosmotology; the language of truth that appeals to man's rationality. 
    • He sees it as the "art of actual discourse rather than the art of eloquent expression."
  • Aristotle: "the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever." 
  •  Plato believed that eloquence was derived from truth and that spontaneity helped combat the b.s. of the Sophists. 
  • Aristotle saw it as morally neutral and capable of being used for good or evil. 
  • It is the lack of moral purpose that creates a Sophist.
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  • Roman developments 
  • • Cicero and Quintilian shaped the great tradition of Western rhetoric--building off of Aristotle.
    • Primarily spoken rather than written--used in law courts, political meetings, and ceremonies. 
    • It dealt with the probable instead of the clearly true. 
    • Five canons of rhetoric invented at this time: invention, arrangement, style , memory, and delivery
    • Invention-"elaborate checklist of mental acts." Discover of valid or seemingly valid arguments.
    • Arrangement: organizing discourse into stages and categories. For example: exordium, narrative, proposition, refutation, conclusion. The heart of the system is proposition and argument; the other parts made these two more effective. 
    • Style: framing effective sentences. Gives clarity, force, and beauty--metaphor, hyperbole, allegory, etc.
     
  • Decline of Classical Tradition
  • • Roman developments lasted until 19th century.
    • The growth of science during the enlightenment led rhetoric to expository modes. 
    • The art of invention lost its purpose.
    • The rise of the middle class also led to a reduction in aristocratic rhetoric.
    • We "now" focus on language instead of content.
     
  • Rhetorical Strategies and Images of Man
  • • Pavlovian Strategy- man as conditioned animal
    • Freudian Strategy- behaviors expressed via the unconscious mind and suppressed experiences and emotions. 
    • Rogerian Strategy-To change people's beliefs we must eliminate the sense of threat. Consensus building.
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  • Rhetoric as Process
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    • Rhetoric is a need in search of a discipline. 
    • The authors call for a new rhetoric that values the exchange of ideas and discussion instead of coercive discourse. 
    • They describe a process of creating discourse but don't say it's linear. It's recursive.
      
    Chapter 4: The Process of Inquiry-undulating and recursive
    
    • This chapter discusses "in detail what a person can do when he is confronted with problematic experiences."
    • Process of Inquiry--upon experiencing tension, writers seek "an explicit, conscious understanding of the problem and reconciliation of the uneasiness. It is the "movement from this feeling of uneasiness to some adequate solution."
    • Process can be divided into four "joints" (Platonic term) 
      
      Preparation: awareness of difficulty, formulation of difficulty as a problem, exploration of the problem. Language is used to communicate the problem, even with oneself.
      
      Incubation: A period of subconscious activity. Hard to define and discuss. Includes a subconscious intelligence beyond reason that can better deal with the complex and unfamiliar. Even after the person has shifted focus away from the issue, the subconscious continues to work it out.
      
      Illumination: Consists of an imaginative leap to a possible solution, a hypothesis. It is, however, still wrought by the working unconscious. (e.g. Newton theorizing gravity after watching an apple fall).
      
      Verification: A testing of the hypothesis. 
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    • This process of inquiry shows human intellect is the dialogue between reason and intuition.
    • Without a willingness to make mistakes, "original inquiry is impossible." Mistakes increase in intelligence.
    
    Chapter 6: Preparation: Exploring the Problem (Heuristics)
  • Students of rhetoric face a challenging situation: they must move through the process of inquiry based on deadlines in addition to proposing original solutions to problems.
  • Therefore, he must have a time-efficient process with which to achieve these lofty goals. The authors "believe...that although methods cannot be developed that infallibly lead the writer through the process to an adequate solution, we can develop methods that will be helpful in his search."
  • Heuristic, heuretic, and invention--systematic inquiry that provided a mothod for gathering information about a problem and asking fruitful questions. 
  • Heuristics are NOT rule governed algorithms that if followed produce the desired output. 
  • A heuristic serves three functions:
    1) helps the investigator retrieve relevant information stored in his/her mind.
    2) draws attention to important info that can be obtained through direct observation, reading, experimentation, etc.
    3) It prepares the investigators mind for the intuition of an ordering principle, or hypothesis.
  • Ill-defined problems cannot be solved by rule-driven approaches. 
  • The human ability to use language and shift perspectives helps us explore the world.
  • In this system there are: the perceiver, the perceived, and the symbolic system that the perceiver uses to encode his perceptions. 
  • PARTICLE, WAVE, and FIELD
  • a unit of experience can be viewed through analogy/metaphor of a particle, wave, and field.
  • particle- static; wave- network of relationships; field- part of a larger network.
  • A particle view would: recognize is static nature; select from the dynamic whole a static part; pretend things aren't related or joined; isolate the unit as a chunk.
  • The wave view recognizes some dynamic feature of the unit, noting flow or movement in time, space, or a conceptual framework. It points out the nuclear component, or peak point, of the unit. It emphasizes the fustion, smear, or absence of distinct boundaries between the unit and some other unit or units. 
  • To take a field perspective it must: occupy a place in a system; be seen as a system itself--composed of interrelated subsystems; 
  • "Viewed as a particle a unit has appropriate or typical distributions in temporal and spatial patterns, in classes and systems of classes, each of which constitutes a higher- level unit; viewed as a wave, a unit interacts with other units in a larger context that can itself be considered a higher-level wave unit in a still larger dynamic context."

  
  

  Hierarchies Of Perspective

  • "We may choose to include reference to two or even three of the perspectives, while keeping one of them in greater prominence.

  
  Perspectives on Concepts

  • We can explore a particular thing by shifting our perspectives: a house instead of a mansion-definition through negation. 
  • "A concept thus can be seen as dynamic, as an evolving thing with a unique history."
  • Houses can be singular and definite-particle. 
  • "The perspectives can also be used profitably to study such a question as "When is civil disobedience justified?" The term civil disobedience can first be studied as an abstract, static state of af- fairs; next as a dynamic, changing social situation; then as the con- ceptual framework for discussing the interplay of personal, social, moral, religious, governmental, geographic, and economic dimen- sions in human affairs."

  
  The Heuristic Procedure

  • The authors combine particle, wave, and field with contrast, variation, and distribution in a table to exemplify how units (or experience) might be conceived of differently based on how the terms overlap.
  • The purpose of the chart is to "guide and stimulate intelligence, particularly intuition, which is able to deal with enormous complexity in an original way.
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  Solving Problems Systematically

  • We do not often engage with exploration for the sake of exploration; normally we have a goal in mind. 
  • The authors give an example of how moving through the chart could help provide a method by which people could not only envision on write about a house or a tree, but also tackle issues of linguistic by moving from the particle to the field through contrast, variation, and distribution. 
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  Chapter 11: Writer and Reader--Strategies for Change
  

  • This chapter focuses on "procedures that can aid in developing a discourse designed to change the reader's image: to reconstruct some feature of it, to add to it, or to alter its quality.  This chapter also deals with developing and organizing a discourse. 
  •  Reconstructing the reader's image: 
  • traditional argument
  • Western persuasion assumes that men are rational beings. They can be persuaded by reason. 
  • The authors break down logical arguments into inductive and deductive reasoning
  • Inductive, or empirical, proceeds from observations about particular things to a generalization about the things.
  • Deductive argument proceeds from generalizations, or premises, to valid inferences about particulars.
  • Categorical argument-of which syllogism belongs.
  • People often argue initially from general truths and then filter those down to specific cases...the particular cases are seen as members of the classes and therefore share the characteristics of the classes. 
  • These logical arguments can be used as models or templates for forming/shaping an argument. 
  • In syllogistic arguments, however, the author must be careful not to omit premises unless he/she is sure the reader shares that understanding/belief that the premise is obvious and true.
    
    Developing the message
  • a logical argument usually only forms a nucleus for the argument as a whole.
  • The authors provide this heuristic for developing an argument
  • 1) Introduction
    a) Direct the reader's attention to the subject or problem. b) Explain your experience with the subject, the reasons
    why you can write with authority.
    c) Establish bridges with the reader by pointing out shared
    beliefs, attitudes, and experiences.
    2) Background
    a) Explain the nature of the problem - its history and causes. b) Explain its relevance to the reader's problems, desires, and interests—the reasons why the problem is impor-
    tant to him. 
    3) Argument
    a) State the major premise. Include any information that is necessary for making it clear and acceptable.
    
    

    2. b)  State the minor premise. Include any information that is necessary for making it clear and acceptable. (It is usually the minor premise that needs the most substantial sup- port. Cite authoritative statements, facts, statistics, per- sonal experiences and experiences of others, and so on.)
       
    3. c)  State your conclusion.
       
    4. d)  Demonstrate the superiority of your position by pointing
       out defects in the premises or inferences of alternative positions. Explain why the alternatives cannot solve the problem; or if they can, why your solution solves it better.
       

    4) Conclusion
    a) Explain the implications of the argument, such as the
    benefits to the reader of accepting it and the undesirable consequences of rejecting it
    
    
    Expanding the reader's image:
    

    •  Stating and explaining the thesis
    • Reify the abstract.
    • Novice writers often fail to root their generalizations in the world of experience. 
    • The purpose in writing determines the way an author deals with the reader's image. Expository writing does not seek to replace the image of the reader but to clarify and and emphasize. 
    Developing the Message 
  • The thesis and explanation are embedded in a larger structure to increase their effectiveness.
  • The author's include this heuristic for an informative discourse
  • 1) Introduction a) Direct the reader's attention to the subject or problem.
    

    
    

    b) Explain your experience with it.
    
    

    
    

    2) Background
    a) Explain the nature of the problem-its history and causes. b) Explain why the problem is important to the reader.
    3) Thesis and explanation a) State the thesis.
    b) Develop it.
    4) Conclusion
    a) Explain the implications (social, philosophical, psycho-
    logical, and so on) of the information.
    b) Summarize your discussion: the problem (2a), your thesis
    (3a), and your explanation (3b).
    
    Changing the quality of the reader's image
    

    • Traditional argument often has the effect of either strengthening or weakening belief rather than revolutionizing it, and writing apparently designed to give new information often serves instead to clarify what is obscurely known.

     Increasing the reader's commitment
    

    • Readers sometimes have conflicting views.
    • To change the reader's mind from doubt to conviction to writer must diagnose the source of conflict in the reader's mind. Therefore, he must remove the obstacles that prevent conviction. 
    • To strengthen the readers commitment: 1) show him that the inconsistencies or conflicts, are only apparent and can be explained away, or 2) that the idea is consistent with beliefs that he holds strongly, or 3) that although there are inconsistencies, alternative positions are even more inconsistent and therefore even more open to objection.

    Clarifying the reader's image.
    

    • Must also diagnose the source of the reader's confusion.
    •  Two kinds of difficulty, one from obscure generalization and the other from inadequate development. 
    • When trying to clarify an abstraction, make sure the reader can assimilate it by citing several instances that are familiar to him. 

    
    Chapter 14: Editing--Plots in Discourse
    

    • The author's compare the development of thought in writing to plots in stories--they follow logically and link together smoothly. 

    • Language is unique to a person, but it is also largely socially constructed. 
    • Our use of language reflects the way we see the world. 
    • The effective writer takes into consideration the social demands of writing--the potential problems that his readers will face in trying to comprehend his message--and takes care that his discourse does not become incomprehensibly personal. (The curse of knowledge.)

    Editing paragraph structures
    

    • In Counter-statement fCen neth Burke puts it this way, "A work has form in so far as one part of it leads a reader to anticipate another part, to be gratified by the sequence"
    • Many paragraphs arouse anticipations that are never fulfilled. There are two causes 1) no topic sentence or 2) the sentences that follow the topic sentence don't develop the idea.