Rhetoric, Public Speaking, Literary Studies

Inside Higher Education has an interesting article on the relationship between public speaking, rhetoric, and literary studies, which suggests a divide for the writers of this blog.

To summarize, or, represent, certain aspects of this article: dating back to Ancient Greece, the study of rhetoric is a practical act that correlates to the development of a citizen-- a person studies rhetoric to use it in the Agora. In addition, rhetoric uses many different appeals- logical (logos), emotional (pathos), and credible (ethos). If you use logos without pathos (as science does), you only appeal to a certain portion of humanity, which diminishes humanity. Today, the field of Communication practices and performs this form of rhetoric.

Literary studies developed out of rhetorical studies. It focuses on how people communicate with one another; however, it focuses on knowledge for knowledge's sake. It does not ask the reader to become a citizen but to be a reader, maybe a consumer. The decline of rhetoric in the academic world correlates with the rise of rise of belle lettres in the academic world.

The article continues to discuss that at top universities and certain private universities, students in the liberal arts do not have access to public speaking but access to literature classes, such as Medieval Welsh Literature (Harvard); however, students in engineering and business take rhetoric classes to improve oral argumentation. The consequences of this, according to the article:

Top-tier rejection of rhetorical instruction, especially in the form of public speaking, seems to be about fundamental failures of undergraduate education in general and about failures of the humanities in particular. It is especially curious that in the face of calls for accountability in regard to student learning public universities have opted out of providing students with some very useful knowledge, while also failing to recognize the value of the discipline to humane studies.

Students that have liberal arts educations without public speaking miss out on an important part of education.

In addition to this article, there seems to be one other difference between rhetoric from the field of Communication and rhetoric in the field of English: in communication, there is an emphasis on the performance nature of argumentation; in English, there is a focus on the written form of argumentation but not on the performance.

Since I write from a rhetorical perspective in the field of communication, I would like to know:

(1) How writers from the English perspective conceive of rhetoric and politics?
(2) How do instructors of composition in English discuss politics?
(3) How do instructors of composition discuss emotional appeals in class?
(4) How do instructors construct citizenship, especially in relation to argumentation?
(5) How do instructors of composition conceive of an audience?

From a Communication perspective, one way to discuss this would be through Aristotle. To Aristotle, humans are political animals in relation to the root word, the polis (roughly translated, a city). Humans need to understand the issues that concern the polis—the issues and problems that affect that group of people.

When teaching rhetoric, rhetors need to understand audience demographics (age, socio-economic standing), audience beliefs (values, presumptions, virtues and vices), certain topics (in general and in relation to forensic, epideictic, and deliberative rhetoric), how to use enthymemes and examples, how to create and reinforce the character of the speaker in the minds of the audience, and how to move the will of the audience through the passions. This is, of course, in addition to the development of arguments. The topics in a typical public speaking course are: invention & arrangement (developing a topic, outlining a speech, knowing the correct topoi,), audience analysis, delivery, language, evidence/research, persuasive speaking, and refutation.

What are the main categories for composition?