Teacher Discussion Forums

Otherwise known as "the artistic proofs" and are the basic the components of rhetoric.

They seem to have fallen out of fashion in education but I think these ideas may be useful to help students with presentations and public speaking; what do you think?

There is a pretty good definition here:
http://spot.pcc.edu/~dwerkman/lecture5.html

Melvin Bragg also did a good program on rhetoric in general in "In our time" on radio 4:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/ino ... 1028.shtml

Well, I have to say that the silence is deafening here. I'd have thought that where there was a tradition of rhetoric, the artistic proofs (persuasive appeals) and rhetorical canons would be the same in the L1 language particularly in Greece and perhaps Italy.

Anyone out there teach in Greece or Italy?
Are the Greeks or Italians good at giving presentations?

I remember that someone mentioned speach contests in China:

Do the Chinese know much about the principles of rhetoric?
Is it taught in Chinese schools?

I would also have thought that the persuasive appeals and rhetorical canons are almost as important a division in a presentation as reading, writing listening and speaking are when we want to analyse language skills.

I also do public speaking as a hobby (I'm a member of Toastmasters) so far these ideas from rhetoric have gone down very well there. I'm going to do a speach on rhetoric.

Anyone else out there do public speaking?
Have you used principles of rhetoric to compose your speaches?

http://www.algebra.com/algebra/about/hi ... .wikipedia
(Better link.)

Andrew Patterson wrote:Well, I have to say that the silence is deafening here.

I want to talk about silence. Because English grammars claim that Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time adverbials:
Ex: *He has seen her yesterday.
they keep silence about the unfavorable evidences. They have hidden away the examples in which Present Perfect stays grammatically with past time adverbials:
Ex: He has lived in Hong Kong in the past four years.
== As I have reported here repeatedly, no grammars whatsoever have talked about the time adverbials in the pattern of "in the past xx years".

As you see, since grammar books have kept the silence about the pattern, many Asian people use Simple Past only for it:
Ex: ?He lived in Hong Kong in the past four years.
== In schools, newspapers, even government statements, Asians mostly take Simple Past only, because they strictly followed the rule "Present Perfect doesn't stay with past time adverbials".

Then where is "the persuasive appeals and rhetorical canons"?

------------------
On TV I saw a documentary about human history, in which the host mentioned a book called "Forbidden Archeology". It reveals that, since the main stream of science has concluded we human beings have existed only for a comparatively short period of time, those evidences proven to the contrary will be ignored by current scientific theory. I then searched for the book and located the following introduction of it:

OVER THE PAST TWO CENTURIES, researchers have found bones and artifacts showing humans like us existed millions of years ago. But scientists have suppressed, ignored, or forgotten these pieces of evidence. Prejudices based on current scientific theory have acted as what Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson call a knowledge filter. According to Cremo and Thompson, we have thus come to accept a picture of prehistory that is largely incorrect. Forbidden Archeology is a call for a change in today’s rigid scientific mindset.
Quoted from: http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~ghi/fa.html

Then where is "a tradition of rhetoric, the artistic proofs (persuasive appeals)"?

Shun,

I asked you how you ordered your writing but from what you have written here, it is as if far from using persuasive appeals and rhetorical canons, you appear to order your writing from the viewpoint of "how can I slip in something about present perfect vs past simple."

What you wrote here is like a stream of conciousness. I fail to see what either discussion of present perfect vs past simple, or the purported evidence of humans being around for millions of years which you say has been ignored by scientists has to do with the study of rhetoric, or with each other for that matter.

By the way, if scientists ignore pursuasive evidence because it doesn't fit in with their theory, they are acting unscientifically. Far from being a reason to abandon scientific thinking, it is a reason to emphasise the need for it.

Andrew Patterson wrote:Shun,

I asked you how you ordered your writing but from what you have written here, it is as if far from using persuasive appeals and rhetorical canons, you appear to order your writing from the viewpoint of "how can I slip in something about present perfect vs past simple."

You got me. Wonderful!

Mmm, looks like this one isn't getting much attention.

OK, I am also trying to draw you into the discussion, but I was also wondering why nobody is replying here.

Is it because this subject seems too off the wall?
Do you think it has nothing to do with applied linguistics?
Is it because you don't know much about the subject (nor did I until recently, and I'd like to learn more.)
Is it because you don't think it's useful?
Is it because you think it is useful but don't think you have anything to add (I can't believe this one)?


I was also wondering about "neo-ethos" (I prefer the term kudos) is it a seperate artistic proof?

What about marking essays, Cambridge examinations use "content", "organisation and cohesion", "range and "accuracy", "style and format" and "target reader" as the criteria.

Are some marking schemes better than others?
Could you mark essays according to the principles of rhetoric?
What about presentations?
How do you evaluate presentations?
Is anyone out there an examiner who marks presentations according to a marking scheme?

I'm looking forward to your replies.

Going back to your original question, Andrew, I imagine that yes, it would be one useful approach to help students with public speaking and presentations. However, as this would be equally true for students needing to work on these skills in their own language.

Students of EFL/ESL would probably need to worry about pronunciation, intonation and quality of language, while, as I understand it, the three artistic proofs concern the content of the discourse. If your speech lacks the three proofs, it'll be unconvincing no matter what language it's in.

Lolwhites wrote:

Going back to your original question, Andrew, I imagine that yes, it would be one useful approach to help students with public speaking and presentations. However, as this would be equally true for students needing to work on these skills in their own language.

From time to time, students actually say as much. I occasionally hear something like, "I'd never thought of that, I'll use that in my Polish writing," and it always makes me feel good. So far however, I have been concentrating on the Cambridge criteria for writing and the principles outlined in "dividing up the middle", which nobody replied to. Seems nobody is interested in the process of writing or speaking.

Speaking is different from writing as it is usually a two way process. The LCCI examination includes a mark for discourse management.

Students of EFL/ESL would probably need to worry about pronunciation, intonation and quality of language, while, as I understand it, the three artistic proofs concern the content of the discourse. If your speech lacks the three proofs, it'll be unconvincing no matter what language it's in.

From the point of view of classical rhetoric this is where either Cicero or Quintillian comes in.

One text I have suggests that Cicero originally said that there was nothing new to learn in rhetoric then promptly blew everyone away by introducing the five rhetorical canons, another text suggests it was Quintillian who invented them. Either way, they are:

• Inventio (invention) is the process that leads to the development and refinement of an argument.
  dispositio (disposition, or arrangement) is used once arguments are developed,to determine how it should be organized for greatest effect.
  Once the speech content is known and the structure is determined, the next steps involve elocutio (style) and
  pronuntiatio (pronunciation [not pronounciation], or delivery).
  Finally, memoria (memory) comes to play as the speaker recalls each of these elements during the speech.

That would suggest that a second language speaker needs to concentrate on pronunciation or delivery.

I'm interested in how a speaker arrives at conclusions ("by him or herself"), and if and how in doing so they influence the "listener", but my interest only would extend to the processes involved in informal, unrehearsed and jointly negotiated (path and meaning-wise) speech. It's hard to see the relevance of rehearsed speech delivered to captive audiences for the majority of ESL students (most of whom aren't out for that particular kind of challenge, and acknowledgement if they "win" by "convincing people" that they are "right") - I mean, most opinions are not absolute, gaining and maintaining any is more like "work in progress" (at least, for me as an EFL teacher in Asia).

FH wrote:

It's hard to see the relevance of rehearsed speech delivered to captive audiences for the majority of ESL students (most of whom aren't out for that particular kind of challenge, and acknowledgement if they "win" by "convincing people" that they are "right") - I mean, most opinions are not absolute, gaining and maintaining any is more like "work in progress" (at least, for me as an EFL teacher in Asia).

I'm wondering if this is just the way that they do things in your part of the world or whether you are only talking about general English. (What is your part of the world, btw, Asia is a heck of a big place and the culture varies dramaticall depending where in the continent you are.

In all the business English courses that I have ever run, the ability to argue you case is always included in either explicitly in the sylabus or at least in the coursebook. I have yet to see it set out in terms of classical rhetoric, however.

Anyone do English for polititions/diplomacy:?: Maybe it would be more relevent there.

I've taught in China and Japan, so when I say Asia I'm referring primarily to the Orient.

Here's a book that I thought presented some pretty effective tips on how to be naturally more persuasive (by making use of modals and other bits and bobs of grammar) - no stilted and ineffective fixed phrases in sight:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =5422#5422

Hey, I like Larry's conversation gambits:

Are you familiar with Conversation Gambits, by Eric Keller and Sylvia T. Warner? It's published by LTP, and the edition I have is dated 1988, but there may be a more recent one.

Some gambits that may interest you are:

In a case like this...
In this sort of situation...
The point is...
But the real question is...
But can't you see...
To start with...
Another thing...
Perhaps I should mention...
Oh, I almost forgot...
What's more...
Not to mention the fact that...
Plus...
Plus the fact that...
Not only that, but...
The reason is...
That's the reason why...
Let me put it another way.
What I mean is...
Don't misunderstand me, ...
I'm afraid that just isn't true.
The fact of the matter is...
Some people say...
But in fact...
You've probably heard that...
Many people think...
The fact of the matter is...
But actually...
Yes, but...
That would be great, except...
Even so, ...
Possibly, but...
Look at it this way.