Comparative Rhetoric An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction

by Kennedy, George A.

• ISBN13: 9780195109337
• ISBN10: 0195109333
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Comparative Rhetoric is the first book to offer a cross-cultural overview of rhetoric as a universal feature of expression, composition, and communication. It begins with a theory of rhetoric as a form of mental and emotional energy which is transmitted from a speaker or writer to an audienceor reader through a speech or text. In the first part of the book, George Kennedy explores analogies to human rhetoric in animal communication, possible rhetorical factors in the origin of human speech, and rhetorical conventions in traditionally oral societies in Australia, the South Pacific,Africa, and the Americas. Topics discussed include forms of reasoning, the function of metaphor, and the forms and uses of formal language. The second part of the book provides an account of rhetoric as understood and practiced in early literate societies in the Near East, China, India, Greece, andRome, identifying unique or unusual features of Western discourse in comparison to uses elsewhere. The concluding chapter summarizes the results of the study and evaluates the validity of traditional Western rhetorical concepts in describing non-Western rhetoric. Addressing both what is general or common in all rhetorical traditions and what is unique or unusual in the Western tradition, Comparative Rhetoric is ideally suited for courses in rhetoric, rhetoric theory, the history of rhetoric, intercultural communication, linguistic anthropology, andcomparative linguistics.

Author Biography

George A. Kennedy taught classics, comparative literature, and rhetoric at the University of North Carolina for twenty-eight years.

Table of Contents

Rhetoric In Societies Without Writing

Rhetoric Among Social Animals

Rhetorical Factors in the Early Development of Human Language

Rhetoric in Aboriginal Australian Culture

Formal Speech in Some Oral Cultures

North American Indian Rhetoric

Rhetoric In Ancient Literate Societies

Literacy and Rhetoric in the Ancient Near East

Rhetoric in Ancient China

Rhetoric in Ancient India

Rhetoric in Greece and Rome

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