SPEECH COMMUNICATION & RHETORIC

Important Ideas for a Complicated Age

What is the power of speech? Why are some forms of speaking productive while are others are deemed dangerous? What does it mean to live in a culture that places such a high value on the right to speak and yet goes to great lengths to ignore the question of how words work and the ways in which they can make a difference in everyday and political life? Why does the close and critical study of speech tell us something important about who we are and what we might become – as individuals, members of shared cultures, and as citizens?

In short, what is the potential of speaking? This is an old and significant rhetorical question. This does not mean that the question defies answer. It means that every generation is called to find its voice, come to terms with the language into which we are thrown, and invent ways of speaking that redress violence, enable shared understanding, and energize new forms of collective understanding.

The study of rhetoric is an ancient art. It is also an urgent contemporary problem. The capacity to speak has been defended as a defining quality of what it means to be human. While derided in mass culture, an understanding of the theory and practice of rhetoric may be essential equipment for living, especially when the work of speaking is understood as an embodied and performative act. Seen this way, rhetoric is a form of power that has very much to do with how we invent ourselves, how we appear to others, and how we define shared and public ways of life.

While it may be a gift, the ability to speak in ways that matter is not a given. Political and corporate institutions may shape and constrict the ability of citizens to express opinion and render the collective judgments that enable democracy. Conflict and violence strip human beings of their voice and leave them unheard and, in a very real way, unseen. The formation of identity and the grounds of public life rest heavily on the development of shared vocabularies and norms of understanding that are far from stable and which frequently create marginalization and thwart the recognition of particular individuals and groups. In this light, the study of rhetoric and communication have much to do with understanding the theoretical and practice relationship between speaking, collective action, and ethical-political life.

There is no single way to study the practical arts of rhetoric and communication. At the University of South Carolina the program and its faculty are committed to providing undergraduate and graduate students with an opportunity to critically investigate the potential of rhetoric in respect to the defining problems of our age. The question of how oral and written discourse is invented, performed and interpreted is a rhetorical question that matters – for all of us.

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