Taking a metaperspective on rhetorical education

This essay takes a metaperspective on what it means to talk about rhetorical education, the subject of this collection. After exploring different senses of what the term may mean, the essay addresses three issues touched upon but not fully developed in the collection: first, the idea that rhetoric has no subject matter of its own but may instead be applied to any subject; second, why there is a cultural and historical moment in which questions of rhetorical education especially come before us; and third, why we should think about rhetoric outside the academy. This review concludes by suggesting that Cicero’s vision of The Orator sums up the aspirations for rhetorical education suggested in this collection.     

Significance of the rhetorical and humanistic tradition for education today

This article intends to illuminate the educational significance of the rhetorical and humanistic tradition. This tradition exerted a great influence upon Western education in the past, but its significance has been largely overlooked by the current philosophy of education. This is probably owing to the centuries-old prejudice against rhetoric and “pedantry” espoused since Plato. Against such criticism, this article intends to defend the educational value of the rhetorical and humanistic tradition by retrieving three essential features as noted by its major theorists—Protagoras (ca. 490–420 B.C.), Cicero (106–43 B.C.), and Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444). These features include public spiritedness, a broader understanding of language, and multi-perspective knowledge. Protagoras, Cicero, and Bruni (each in their own historical context) criticized the closed attitude of philosophers toward monopolizing truth and stood in favor of the public sphere where important matters could be openly discussed. Second, they criticized the philosophical understanding of language as a mirror that represents truth and presented a wider understanding of language that considers the speaker–listener relationship. Third, they developed their concept of multi-perspective knowledge, which was opposed to the philosophical knowledge directed toward a special object, as seen in the Platonic Ideas. The re-evaluation of these three features is absolutely necessary if we wish to rescue the rhetorical and humanistic tradition from the blame of parochial chauvinism. By retrieving these features, the rhetorical and humanistic tradition can help to make contemporary education more publicly open (less closed to specialists), more sensitive to the power of language, and more appropriate within the multi-cultural and multi-lingual experience of the modern world.     

Saving rhetorical children: sexuality education discourses from conservative to post-modern

Sexuality policy is currently changing at global, national and local levels. This move is affecting the sexuality education discourses in education policies around the world. However, the changes are not always translating into a direct re-thinking of approaches, and in some cases result in a push for more conservative policy. This paper provides a discourse exemplar for understanding the broad range of sexuality education discourses currently at work in education policies and policy movements internationally. It is intended for use in sexuality education policy research, conception and practice. The different constructions of ‘the child’ at the core of the various discourses are examined, including the ways in which the different discourses attempt to ‘save’ these children from perceived sexuality problems through education. The article posits that such rhetorical children should not ‘stand in’ for the needs of actual children in sexuality policy, without being explicitly acknowledged as constructs.     

The rhetorical construction of the nation in education: the case of Flanders

This paper examines what can be learnt from ‘new rhetoric’ (focusing on the work of the American rhetorician Kenneth Burke [1897–1993]) about (national) identity and discusses how nationalism can be taught from such a rhetorical perspective. Despite the ‘deconstruction’ of nation(alism) as a grand narrative, there is a new tendency towards emphasizing national identity, caused by trends such as globalization and multiculturalism. In the language and literature teaching curriculum, this paradoxical situation often causes frictions for teachers who very often are expected to teach standard language and national literature. The hypothesis is that rhetoric is a tool to deal with these tensions in the curriculum. This paper focuses on Flanders as a case‐study. Together with pre‐service teachers it analysed the rhetorical construction of Flanders from a dramatistic perspective. It is argued that Burke’s concepts are useful tools to make students ‘symbol‐wise’: to understand the way national symbols work, and to develop critical engagement with, as well as on behalf of, those symbols.     

Creativity through a rhetorical lens: implications for schooling,literacy and media education

This article, which is speculative in outlook and emerges from an extended literature review on this subject, takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of ‘creativity’– whether in relation to literacy, schooling or the economy, is constructed as a series of rhetorical claims. These rhetorics of creativity emerge from the contexts of research, theory, policy and practice. Initially, we distinguish 10 rhetorics, which are described in relation to the philosophical or political traditions from which they spring. The discussion then focuses on four rhetorics – play, technology, politics/democracy and the creative classroom – which have most relevance for understandings of literacies and the way in which these are nurtured, encouraged and expressed in different social settings. This article aims to summarise the rhetorics and their major concerns, while considering how selected ones might apply to an instance of media literacy. Key questions addressed in this article ask whether creativity is more usefully understood as an internal cognitive function or an external cultural phenomenon; whether it is a ubiquitous human activity or a special faculty; whether it is necessarily ‘pro‐social’ or should be dissident; and what the implications of a culturalist social psychological approach to creativity might be for analyses of the media literacy of children and young people.     

Early childhood family education

If they came with instructions, then you wouldn't need us reads the poster on the classroom door. It is a pleasant morning in early September and my twelve-month-old daughter, Laura, and I are going to our first day of school. Laura and I enter the infant and toddler room with anticipation.Barb Rose is a free lance writer living in St. Paul, MN, and the mother of a 2-year-old named Laura.     

关于谚语的修辞手法

谚语的长期使用,其价值和作用是非常明显的,谚语中各种修辞手法的灵活运用能更精炼、明白、准确地传情达意,富有极强的表现力,为人们所重视,为群众所喜闻乐见。本文就谚语的几种常见修辞手法来分析谚语这一特殊用语形式,以引起大众对它的关注和品味其魅力。     

Genetic rhetorical criticism: An alternative methodology for studying multi-versioned rhetorical works

This essay presents genetic rhetorical criticism as an alternative methodology for the study of multi-versioned rhetorical works. In contrast to methodologies of textual authentication, which focus on the synchronic delivery of public address, genetic rhetorical criticism focuses on the diachronic movement of writing that both precedes and exceeds the work’s introduction to public history. It does so by affirming the value of unauthorized versions of rhetorical works, which deepen the field’s understanding of both particular rhetorical works and the textual dynamics of rhetoric. To support these claims, this essay reassesses the textual histories of both Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and Kenneth Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives. Engaging both works simultaneously shows that there are fundamental features of textuality that unite speech-centered and writing-centered rhetorical works. It also demonstrates that the textual histories of rhetorical works can support multiple scholarly interpretations.     

Revisiting the rhetorical curriculum

The aim of the special strand on ‘Revisiting the rhetorical curriculum’ is to explore the educational potential of a new rhetorical perspective, specifically in relation to different traditions within educational and rhetorical studies. This implies that we do not only look at education in rhetoric, but that we position education also as a rhetorical practice. In this introductory article, we introduce a broad perspective on rhetoric by exploring concepts from new rhetoric to set the scene for this special strand. We elaborate briefly on the relationship between rhetoric and education, which is reflected in the classical concept of paideia. We specifically relate the new rhetorical perspective to curricular issues and introduce the different contributions that are part of this special strand. The article ends by discussing what can be learned from (new) rhetoric about language, culture and education in a post- (or anti-) foundational world.     

Early childhood education in Guyana

Conclusion The problems of adequate housing for children's programs remain. Many teachers will not catch up with prevailing theories and practice in early childhood education in more technologically advanced countries for a while. Curriculum implementation at classroom level still needs much attention. The budget provided for early education keeps shrinking due to high inflation. Despite the problems, however, the introduction of a national early childhood education program was good for families who could not afford fee-paying schools for their children. “Going national” at the outset was problematic because of the number of issues that needed attention simultaneously. It however, removed the need for lobbying, which can be a long and arduous process before success is achieved. A national program of early childhood education also enabled nursery teachers to surmount many of the problems associated with their image as mere childminders and the low-liest on the rungs of the education ladder. For children, this program also performed an important socialisation and cognitive-developmental function and it forced parents to take another look at early childhood as a definite learning period in the life of the child. Liloutie Christina Taharally was closely involved in the administration of the national early education program, and the training and supervision of nursery teachers in Guyana. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 1985 Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children with Meg Barden Cline of the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.     

Some rhetorical figures historically considered

The American Female Moral Reform Society was one of the first ante‐bellum reform movements to be founded and controlled by women. This paper examines the rhetoric of the society's primary organ, The Advocate of Moral Reform, to discover how these women justified abandoning their traditional feminine roles to pursue social change. The analysis reveals that through skillful casuistic stretching of the feminine ideal, the women were able to justify non‐traditional actions in the name of traditional values. In so doing, the movement also created a new feminist consciousness that recognized the essential victimage of all women and their power to instigate social change.     

试论修辞的基本规律

修辞的基本规律是人们在修辞言语创造和理解的全过程中所必须遵循的一般规律或规则,主要包括切境律、择取律、主体律和美感律,它们贯穿于修辞的全过程。只有遵循这四条规律,才能使修辞有据可依、有理可释、有法可用、有果可求,它们是人们进行修辞的必要条件。     

The rhetorical theory of isocrates

In the lexicon of contemporary liberal‐democratic legal practice, to “think like a lawyer” is to have mastered the fundamental, rational principles of “the law, “ a mastery which confers a technical, professional understanding of legal practices unavailable to ordinary, untrained people. This essay invites critics to take a different approach to jurisprudence, one that looks at the ways in which laws are negotiated within the broader rhetorical culture and then transformed into legal edicts. Using a case study of the “Separate But Equal” doctrine, the authors offer a set of characteristics that demarcate the rhetorical substance of legal practices within American rhetorical culture.     

新词新义的修辞构建

从修辞构建及其作用的角度审视新词新义,总结出新词新义的两个特点:一是体验性的修辞构建,二是修辞构建的思想主导性.并尝试从修辞构建的角度,分析新词新义的一些修辞手法,以这一独特视角探讨新词新义的修辞哲学及其评价体系.