Discourse E-Book

Jean-Paul Metzger

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 330

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Discourse is not just a means of expressing thought; it is also an autonomous body, an act through which we aim to achieve a certain effect. Modern linguistics proposes a broader definition of discourse, as a discrete and unique enunciative process, where the speaker or author makes language concrete through speech (in the Saussurian sense), and describes the various acts (oral, illocutionary, perlocutionary) that discourse performs. This book examines discourse, an object of analysis and criticism, from a wide range of perspectives. Among the concepts explored are the contributions of rhetoric in the art of discourse, the evolution of multiple approaches and the main methods of discourse analysis conducted by a variety of researchers. The book deepens our knowledge and understanding of discourse, a concept on which any research related to information and communication can be based.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Preface

Introduction

PART 1: Epistemological Foundations

Introduction to Part 1

1 The Art of Discourse: Rhetoric

1.1. Thinking, speaking out, persuading

1.2. Ethos, pathos, logos

1.3. The rhetorical system

1.4. Contemporary rhetoric

2 Discourse Analysis

2.1. What do we mean by discourse?

2.2. A diversity of points of view

2.3. The different approaches in discourse analysis

3 Interdiscourse

3.1. Bakhtin and Foucault

3.2. Verbal interaction

3.3. Sociohistorical approach

4 Discourse and Communication

4.1. The problem of communication

4.2. Linguistics and discourse

4.3. The communicability of sense and reference

4.4. The communicability of the force of discourse

4.5. The communicability of noetic intention

PART 2: Discourse Analyses Developed in the Information and Communication Sciences

Introduction to Part 2

5 Sociolinguistic Analysis

5.1. A brief history of discourse analysis

5.2. The interdisciplinarity of discourse analysis

5.3. Discourse analysis and comprehensive sociology

5.4. Other approaches to discourse analysis

6 Content Analysis

6.1. Production conditions for statements

6.2. Empirical description of attitudes and opinions

6.3. More linguistic methods

6.4. Taxonomic analysis

6.5. Systematic analysis

6.6. Observation or experimentation

7 Documentary Analysis

7.1. Representation of the content

7.2. Index and concordances

7.3. Documentary interpretation

7.4. The Syntol system

7.5. Metalanguage

8 Logometry

8.1. What is logometry?

8.2. The logometric approach

8.3. Logometric software

8.4. Conclusion

Conclusion

References

Index of Names

Index of Common Terms

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1.1. The genres of discourse

Table 1.2. Rhetorical styles

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society Set

coordinated by

Valérie Larroche and Olivier Dupont

Volume 4

Discourse

A Concept for Information and Communication Sciences

Jean-Paul Metzger

First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUKwww.iste.co.uk

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USAwww.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2019

The rights of Jean-Paul Metzger to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935736

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78630-307-3

Preface

This book is part of the set: “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society”. This set is a state of the art collection of the latest theoretical developments started by researchers in Information and Communication Sciences (ICS) embracing their discipline. The authors of the set have put forward an interplay of concepts employed in the ICS community. These concepts are also used in other disciplines related to the humanities and social sciences (history, sociology, economics, linguistics, psychology, etc.) besides often fitting in line with the concerns of science and technology researchers (ergonomics, artificial intelligence, data analysis, etc.).

In this set, we aim to highlight the theoretical approaches used in ICS, which is often regarded as a cross-disciplinary field, from a deliberately conceptual point of view. We thought that this was the right choice to supplement the different epistemological works that have already been carried out in the field.

To describe in further detail the perspective adopted in each of these works, we should point out that it represents the point of view of researchers in ICS with a didactic aim and an epistemological focus. We will start by considering ICS as an academic discipline that contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge related to information and communication.

Thus, our theoretical reflection will be based on the analysis of a series of concepts widely used by the ICS community, and we will aim to make it accessible to humanities and social sciences students as well as useful for teachers and researchers in several fields and for professionals who wish to consider their practices. This interplay of concepts allows us to conceive 21st Century society in its social and technological aspects. It also helps shed light on human and technological relations and interactions.

So far, this series is expected to include a dozen works, each of which presents one of the following concepts, which are widely used in ICS: power, discourse, mediation, the dispositif, memory and transmission, belief, knowledge, exchange, public/private, representation, writing and aesthetics.

Each book in this set shares the same structure. A first part, called “Epistemological foundations”, summarizes and allows us to compare the theories which over time have developed and then re-examined the concept in question. A second part presents recent problematics in ICS, which involve the concept with the aim of establishing or analyzing the topic researched. This organization of the content can get rid of the restrictive meanings that concepts may take on in the public or professional sphere, or even in various disciplines.

The first four books examine in turn the concepts of power, discourse, mediation and dispositive (dispositif). In these first texts we come across two concepts with a strong historical background: power and discourse; and the two others have emerged instead in the contemporary period: mediation and the dispositive.

These books are the fruit of collective reflection. Regular meetings among the different authors have made collaborative development of these four texts possible. The content of these works and of the preparatory work on the other concepts also forms the basis that has been offered in several types of education for the past ten years or so. Thus, it has been tested before an audience of students at different levels.

Some authors have already been asked to write about the other concepts. The series coordinators will see that these authors follow the logic of the set and the structure of the first books.

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Jacqueline Deschamps (2018), Olivier Dupont (2018) and Valérie Larroche (2018), the three other teacher-researchers involved in the project of the set “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society”, for their commitment, perseverance and rich thinking which made it possible to develop this book. Although I take full responsibility for its content, I consider them to be co-authors.

Introduction

Originally, the term discursus (from the Latin discurrere, running on different sides) did not really relate to language. When in the 4th Century AD discursus took on the meaning of discourse, it was first of all that of a winding path, that of conversation and discussion, before designating any expression, spoken or written, of thought; the Greek rhetoric of logos and the Latin rhetoric of oratio, then become the rhetoric of discourse, of its parts (verb, complement, etc.), its disposal (exordium, proposal, narrative, etc.) and its genres (demonstrative, deliberative, judicial). The history of the term and its uses parallels the history of thought; thus, it was in the 17th Century, which became the century of transparency of language and thought in representation, that René Descartes was able to write a Discourse on the Method, in the sense of this ordered journey of which the adjective discursive still maintains its meaning.

However, even with rhetoric, discourse is not only a means of expressing thought, but above all an autonomous event; flowing from a speaker to a listener or reader, it is an act aiming for a certain effect, as shown by any discourse since that of the sophists. Modern linguistics proposes a broader definition of discourse, as a discrete and unique enunciative process, where the speaker or author makes language concrete in speech, in the Saussurean sense of the terms (Benveniste 1966), and describes, with John Langshaw Austin for example, the various acts (oral, illocutionary, perlocutionary) that discourse performs (Austin 1971). Psychoanalysis and sociology nowadays bring to any discourse the effective illumination of its unconscious or ideology. More generally, with the pre-eminence of the linguistic model, discourse is, as opposed to commented or sacred speech, an object of analysis and criticism and the field of discourse becomes the subject of much research.

Indeed, looking only at the current situation, discourse occupies an important place in research work, not only in the language sciences but also in the human and social sciences as a whole. In the field of sociology, Pierre Achard (1993) calls discourse “the use of language in a practical situation, considered as an effective act, and in relation to all the acts (linguistic or not) of which it is a part”.

For Dominique Maingueneau, one of the leading contemporary researchers in discourse analysis, the word discourse can refer to solemn statements, such as the president made a discourse, or to ineffective words, such as all of this is discourse, or to any restricted use of language: communist discourse, university discourse, retired people’s discourse, etc. This last use of speech is, according to the author, rather ambiguous, “because it can refer both to the system that makes it possible to produce a set of texts and to this set itself” (Maingueneau 2012).

Dominique Maingueneau lists the main features of a discourse:

– a discourse is a

transphrastic

organization (one not limited to the sentence). Speech is subject to organizational rules established within a given social group which apply to the layout of the text, the size of the statement, etc.;

– a discourse is

oriented

: it develops linearly over time and has an objective. This linearity is manifested in the speaker’s anticipated management of their speech, and this linearity changes according to the type of statement:

monolog

or

dialog

(for example, interruption of the production of the speech by the interlocutor);

– a discourse is a kind of

action

: any utterance is a linguistic act that seeks to change a situation (promise, affirm, order, etc.). Speech acts are of specific

discursive genres

(a medical prescription, a television news broadcast, a lecture, etc.) and aim for effects, a transformation of the recipients;

– a discourse is

interactive

: any discourse is part of a verbal exchange between two partners, such as the

oral interaction

in a conversation. Nevertheless, the

interactivity of

discourse, beyond oral interaction, is conceived as: “an exchange, explicit or implicit, with other enunciators, virtual or real, it always implies the presence of another instance of enunciation to which the enunciator addresses himself and in relation to which he constructs his own discourse”;

– a discourse is

contextualized

: the meaning of the discourse is indeterminate outside of a context. The same statement produced in different places corresponds to so many different discourses. In addition, discourse participates in elaborating its context, which it can modify during its development; for example, a speaker can have a friendly conversation with an interlocutor and then, because of his particular status (doctor, teacher, etc.), have a more conventional conversation with the same interlocutor (doctor towards a patient or teacher towards a student);

– a discourse is managed by a

subject

: the subject-speaker

I

takes responsibility for their speech. Note that the enunciating subject is not necessarily represented in the statement (the word

I

is not always present). On the other hand, the subject’s responsibility for his or her speech is engaged to a greater or lesser degree. One example proposed by Dominique Maingueneau is that of the statement

it is raining

. The speaker who says it is responsible for its content. However, they can reduce their degree of involvement:

perhaps it is raining

, or make another person responsible for this statement:

according to Paul, it is raining

, or modulate it:

really

,

it is raining

;

– a discourse is subject to

norms

: each language act is subject to particular norms that justify its presentation: “any act of enunciation cannot be performed without justifying in one way or another its right to present itself as it is presented”; thus, a

question

, as a statement, implies that the speaker does not know the

answer

and that the interlocutor is likely to provide it;

– a discourse is part of an

interdiscourse

: it has very diverse relationships with other discourses; in particular, each discourse belongs to a genre that determines, in its own way, its own interdiscursive links. A history book, for example, does not quote in the same way and use the same sources as a tourist guide.

On the other hand, there is often a tendency to use text instead of discourse and vice versa. However, it is necessary to distinguish between the two concepts.

Discourse is a “statement, characterized not only by textual properties, but above all as an act […] performed in a situation (participants, institution, place, time); this is reflected in the notion of language behavior as the implementation of a genre of discourse in a given situation” (Adam 1999).

A text, on the other hand, is an abstract entity derived from a discourse, a concrete object from which the context has been removed. For Dominique Maingueneau, we speak of texts for “oral or written verbal productions that are structured in such a way as to last, to be repeated, to circulate far from their original context”. In common usage, we speak of literary or legal texts but we do not use “text” to designate a conversation.

From a language-teaching perspective, Eddy Roulet uses the word discourse, rather than text:

“the term discourse has the triple advantage of neutralizing the written dimension, clearly marking the difference between the two levels, grammatical and discursive, and referring to a minimal unity which is no longer at the level of the proposal but of the act” (Roulet 1987).

On the other hand, the word discourse lends itself better to integration, which seems increasingly necessary in the study of large masses of words, with social, interactive, referential and psychological dimensions. We will come back to this text/discourse opposition in Chapter 2, entitled “Discourse analysis”.

In the first part of this book, we will briefly describe the art of discourse, drawing on the main contributions of rhetoric, as it has developed over the centuries, from antiquity to the present day. We will then explore the multiple approaches to discourse analysis and their evolution over the past 50 years. Then we will present part of the work of two authors who were only indirectly interested in discourse; the philosophers Mikhaïl Bakhtin and Michel Foucault made, each from their own point of view, essential contributions to reflections on this topic and, consequently, to its analysis. Finally, drawing on the work of the philosopher Paul Ricœur, we wonder how discourse allows intersubjective communication.

In the second part, we will review the main methods of discourse analysis used by many researchers and taught by many teachers in information and communication sciences: sociolinguistic analysis, content analysis, documentary analysis and analysis of textual data, developed separately, which fall within different theoretical frameworks, pursue objectives specific to them and yet share the same object of analysis (discursive matter) and similar problems, including the decisive problem of constituting the textual corpus upon which they operate.

PART 1Epistemological Foundations

Introduction to Part 1

It is through rhetoric and argumentation that we will begin to explore the concept of discourse. Rhetoric is the art of persuading through speech. It is about convincing the listener or audience of what is true and what is false. The means at its disposal are based on reason or involve affect. Persuasion creates a kind of emotional climate that can lead to adherence. This climate increases the acceptability of arguments by enhancing the psychic receptivity of the listeners. Rhetoric is demiurgic insofar as it is the means by which we build and hold power over this world. It has shaped Western civilization from the 5th Century BC to the present day. Everything that people imagine and socially create is related to speech and its capacity for persuasion which influences belief, order and obedience.

In a kind of dialectical inversion, rhetoric becomes the instrument for understanding and interpreting the discourse of others. The hermeneutic method is based on rhetoric. It interprets the intentions of texts and allows the exegesis of political, religious, or other discourse. Learning to speak is also learning to think. Rhetoric supports judgment and imagines solutions because it opens to us the knowledge necessary for our world view. It develops ideas, structures thought and provides an organizational model. Learning to talk is also learning to live in, society through the ability to speak well and be understood. Without the words to express them, our ideas are sterile, inconsistent or even non-existent.

While rhetoric is an important dimension of a theoretical approach to discourse, it is through the multiple variants of discourse analysis and interpretation that discourse achieves its status as a scientific object in its own right. The emergence of an autonomous field of research on the theme of discourse is part of the evolution of language sciences and more broadly that of the human and social sciences, starting in the 1950s. Discourse analysis maintains complex relationships with these sciences, in constant redefinition. It is more of a scientific movement which is at a crossroads than a clearly defined discipline forming a homogeneous block, with its purpose, methodology and concepts. Despite the variety of approaches to discourse analysis, and of the concepts and theories used in it, all approaches agree, despite some reluctance, on a single definition of its purpose established by Madeleine Grawitz (1990) who observes that all research in this field:

“[…] nevertheless assumes that statements are not presented as sentences or sequences of sentences but as texts. However, a text is a specific mode of organization that must be studied as such by relating it to the conditions in which it is produced”.

To consider a text by linking it closely to its production conditions is to consider it as a discourse. Without claiming to be exhaustive, we thus review several major approaches to the analysis and interpretation of discourse originating in linguistics: the enunciative approach, the communicative approach, the conversational approach, the sociolinguistic approach, the pragmatic approach and the semiological approach. Each of these is part of a specific theoretical framework and induces a particular conception of discourse as an object.

In contrast to these approaches, two authors were only indirectly interested in discourse, although each made an essential contribution to the way in which we think about it and, subsequently, to its analysis. These are the philosophers Mikhaïl Bakhtin and Michel Foucault, one Russian, the other French. While unaware of each other, they both defend the view that any verbal or textual sequence is only a fragment of a larger whole: the discourse, which many authors nowadays call interdiscourse.

Then, drawing inspiration from the work of the philosopher Paul Ricœur, we will ask ourselves how discourse allows intersubjective communication. Paul Ricœur notes that:

“A theory of discourse, unlike the theory of language without a speaker, must involve factors that must be called psychological: belief, desire, commitment, etc., factors that can be introduced on the basis of the non-psychological elements of discourse”.

The essential meaning of message, sender, receiver is based on an order of intentions which is only revealed by transcendental reflection (in the sense of Husserl and phenomenology; descriptive psychology becomes transcendental phenomenology).

Starting with the logical core of the discourse, we will directly access the foundation of communicability: what is first communicated by a speech is its logical character, which brings it out of itself and opens it up to another speaker. The logical theory of statements allows us to admit that a message is made communicable by the process of universalization involved in it. Nevertheless, logical theory is not the only element to consider in analyzing the communicability of speech; what is communicated in a speech is not only its logical (or propositional) sense but also its strength, in John Langshaw Austin’s sense: a statement has the value of an assertion, or of an order, or of a promise. Sending a message is the delivery of a discourse with sense and strength. Finally, in reaching the last level, that of intention, communicability extends beyond sense and forces to include what the speaker communicates of themselves. This one transmits an intention of recognition.

1The Art of Discourse: Rhetoric

1.1. Thinking, speaking out, persuading

In antiquity, taught by certain sages called sophists to their clients, the art of rhetoric later found its way into the educational curriculum to such an extent that it became the main subject. Rhetoric was perceived, until the 19th Century, as an education for the elite that allowed them to have the privilege of speech. Language, as a science reserved for leaders, has always made it possible to exclude those who are not able to speak.

For Marc Fumaroli (2016) or Joëlle Gardes-Tamine (2011), who have studied the different forms of rhetoric over the centuries, it can be linked to two philosophical traditions:

– the sophistic tradition, according to which rhetoric must persuade. Although introduced by sophists such as Gorgias of Leontinoi, this conception, put forward by Aristotle, defines it as “the ability to consider, for each issue, what may be appropriate in order to persuade”;

– the stoic tradition that maintains that rhetoric is the

art of good discourse

. For this tradition, this art requires good morality and is therefore equivalent to the art of wisdom. Its representatives are Quintilian (2001) and Cicero (2003).

This double heritage has led the authors to propose multiple definitions of the art of rhetoric. Rhetoric is a form of Aide-Mémoire for Roland Barthes (1970), while for Arthur Schopenhauer (1999) or John Stuart Mill (1987) it is the technique of public speech. For Antelme Édouard Chaignet (2012), its aim is to persuade and convince; a goal that is systematically associated with it in current awareness and in the teaching of the French language. According to the English philosopher Francis Bacon, it is “the art of applying reason to imagination for the better moving of will”; and, for the American Richard Weaver, it is an art of emphasis.

Despite all these definitions, which are often clearly divergent, the term rhetorical art refers first and foremost, and historically, to the rhetorical system, which is the different techniques used to construct and organize one’s discourse, in order to convince and persuade the listener. On this basis, Michel Meyer states that three historical and competing definitions of rhetoric can be distinguished:

– rhetoric is manipulation aimed at the audience (this is Plato’s idea who considers it as a

fallacious verbal movement

);

– rhetoric is the

art of good speech

. According to Quintilian, rhetoric is an

ars bene dicendi

(an

art of speaking well

), an expression that refers to the notion of eloquence;

– rhetoric is the ability of an orator; in this sense, it is the ability to develop a discourse that must convince an audience in a given ethical and social context.

Contemporary research has examined rhetoric in all its aspects, and its interpretations have increased. Michel Meyer points out a difficulty in establishing a proper definition of rhetoric: “rhetoric can be drawn from all sides, but it will be at the expense of its unity, if not by arbitrary reduction and extension which will in any case contradict one other” (Meyer 1999).

Jean-Jacques Robrieux proposes a definition that should reconcile all these points of view: “rhetoric is the art of expressing oneself and of persuading” (Robrieux 1993).

Despite these differences of opinion, rhetoric has remained true to its origins. According to Michel Meyer, “unity is an internal requirement of rhetoric”. In other words, there is an unchanging technical basis within rhetoric, despite the variety of its approaches and implementations. This is because the internal logic of rhetoric applies to religious or political discourse as well as to law or literature, to advertising and, undoubtedly, to everyday language.

For the ancient Greeks, rhetoric is the discipline of speech in action, of speech as action. A general definition of rhetorical art must therefore take into account the act of communication:

“Rhetoric is the discipline that places [philosophical problems, as well as scientific,] in the human and more precisely inter-subjective framework, where individuals communicate and confront each other concerning [the] problems at stake; where their linking and de-linking are at stake, where one must please and manipulate, where one lets oneself be seduced and above all, where one tries to believe.” (Meyer 1999)

1.2. Ethos, pathos, logos

From the beginning, rhetoric has distinguished three fundamental notions: logos, pathos and ethos. This is a distinction that Cicero sketches when he writes that rhetoric consists in “proving the truth of what is affirmed, winning to itself the goodwill of the listeners, awakening in them all the emotions that are useful to the cause”. Michel Meyer calls these three notions oratory instances. The relations between these three procedures make it possible to distinguish rhetorical genres (or oratory institutions for Quintilian): legal, political, literary, economic and advertising in particular.

Firstly, rhetoric implies rational discourse. The argument thus makes it possible, through logic (word from the Greek logos), to persuade the audience. That being said, logos designates both reason and speech (or the word). According to Joëlle Gardes-Tamine, since the ancient Greeks, these two meanings have coexisted. The conception of rhetoric as the art of rational discourse was defended by Socrates while that of rhetoric as an art primarily related to speech was promoted by the orator Demosthenes.

Rhetoric also takes into account the emotional relationship between the audience and what is stated and what is meant by the term pathos. Reason is not the only instrument of rhetoric; the audience must also be charmed. For Michel Meyer, pathos has three ingredients: the shock question, the pleasure or displeasure it provokes and the feeling it generates (like love or hatred).

Finally, ethos refers to the speaker, their virtues and their morals. The ethos is above all the image that the speaker tries to project of themselves through their speech. This notion was put forward by Cicero (2003) in Roman times, whereas pathos and logos are Greek concepts. For Aristotle (2007), in fact, the logos comes first while for Plato (2008) the pathos, and not the truth, prevails in the language game; the logos (reason) relates to philosophy, the master discipline, and not rhetoric (Ijssling 1976).

Contemporary semiology and linguistics base their epistemology on these three pillars of classical rhetoric. Roland Barthes (1970) thus associates the logos with the message, the pathos with the receiver and the ethos with the sender.

In addition, three approaches to rhetoric have run through history, one or other of these points of view (logos, ethos, or pathos) taking over to the detriment of others and conditioning, therefore, the whole oratorical art of a given geographical space and time. This tripartition was at the origin of the break-up of rhetoric as an official discipline that led to its disappearance from the baccalaureate program at the end of the 19th Century in France.

1.3. The rhetorical system

“Rhetoric is divided into five parts, which represent the five main moments through which the person who composes and delivers a speech passes,” writes Olivier Reboul (2001).

These are the main parts of the first works on rhetoric. Since Quintilian, the rhetorical system has comprised five moments.

This partition was especially valuable for the teaching of rhetoric and eloquence. For Aristotle, these steps are useless; what is essential is the exposition of the thesis and the arguments that demonstrate it. These phases are generally called by their Latin names, because Quintilian’s Treatise on Rhetoric has long served as the basis for teaching: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, actio and memoria. Each of them uses different disciplines (logic for dispositio, stylistics for elocutio, etc.).

1.3.1. Invention

Invention is the first of these phases. Invention is seeking, as completely as possible, the means of persuasion relating to the thesis to be defended. However, identifying the most relevant type of discourse is central. This phase also refers to Cato the Censor’s precept: “possess the subject, and the words will follow”, which can be compared to the more recent statement: “What is well conceived is clearly stated, and the words to say it happen easily” (Boileau 1872).

According to Herennius’ Rhetoric (Anonymous 1923) “invention consists in finding the true or plausible arguments to make the cause convincing”. Invention thus represents the basis of the rhetorical system, that is: the cause (or subject), the type of discourse to be implemented, the framework of the argumentation to be used and the reasoning to be presented. According to Aristotle (2015b) or Quintilian (2015), the speaker must perfectly master their cause, also called the subject or the fact in the judicial genre, otherwise they will not be able to persuade the audience.

For Joëlle Gardes-Tamine (2011), the cause is a real challenge that the classics call the material. The authors recommend using questions to determine its outline. These questions depend on the type of speech chosen; thus, if we are dealing with a judicial speech:

– did it happen? (exploration of the fact);

– what does it consist of? (definition);

– how can it be described? (characterization);

– which branch of law should be used? (reference to doctrine and case law);

– the seriousness of the harm caused or the violation of the law (quantification).

In addition, three main genres of discourse are usually distinguished: judicial discourse, deliberative discourse and demonstrative (or epideictic) discourse. Genre must be here clearly distinguished from literary genres (novel, theatre, poetry, etc.) even if it is closely related with the latter. Genre, in rhetoric, corresponds to the form of action that speech exerts on three types of audiences. Each genre is specific and differs from the others in terms of actions, time, reference values and the type of arguments chosen:

Table 1.1.The genres of discourse

Audience

Tense

Act

Values

Type of Argument

Judicial

Judges

Past

Accusing versus defending

Just versus unfair

Enthymema (or deductive)

Deliberative

Assembly

Future

Advising versus discouraging

Useful versus harmful

Example (or inductive)

Demonstrative

Spectator

Present

Praising versus blaming

Noble versus vile

Amplification

It should be noted in passing that for Chaïm Perelman, the distinction between these types of discourse is often questionable, and he encourages us to see it as relative (Perelman 1958).

After determining the type of discourse, the speaker must develop his or her arguments. These are the means of persuasion that Aristotle calls the evidence, which fall under the headings of ethos, pathos, or logos.

For Aristotle, who neglects this triad, the speaker has two types of evidence at his disposal: extra-rhetorical and intra-rhetorical evidence. Modern rhetoric describes them as extrinsic and intrinsic respectively. Extrinsic evidence is given before the invention phase and includes:

– legal texts, case law and custom;

– old and recent testimonies;

– contracts and agreements between parties;

– confessions under torture;

– and oaths.

Intrinsic evidence is created by the speaker, such as the highlighting of a biographical detail in the context of a eulogy of an illustrious character. For Jean-Jacques Robrieux, these intrinsic proofs are either examples (inductive argument) or enthymemes (deductive argument)1.

To unveil these arguments in the intra-rhetorical context, rhetoric “places” or topoi are used. Topos (singular of topoi) is a central concept of rhetoric, according to Georges Molinié (1997). It involves a logical-deductive schema which modern linguistics considers to be a figure of style. In ancient rhetoric, topoi represent the technical evidence for the argument, as well as reference for the invention. The Logique de Port-Royal (Arnauld 2011) defines them as follows: “chief general categories to which can be related all the evidence used in the various matters under discussion”.

Aristotle was the first to propose an operative use for them, in his work The Topics (Aristotle 2015a). For him, the rhetorical place is the meeting point for multiple oratorical reasonings, operating on certain subjects and according to certain procedures pre-established by rhetorical art. For Cicero, “the places […] are like the labels of the arguments under which we look for what there is to say in one or the other direction”.

Stylistics classifies these places, these topoi, among the common places, or clichés, when they become over-used and stale. Among these common places are the answers to the famous questionnaire: who, what, where, when, how much, how, why? There are also the places of a personality (their family, their homeland, their profession, their way of life, etc.) or literary places (the charming and picturesque place, the place of the romantic encounter, etc.).

1.3.2. The Disposition

The Disposition (the taxis in ancient Greek: arrangement, ordering) focuses on the structure of the discourse, its arrangement, its coherence with the rhetorical places. For Olivier Reboul, it has an economic role: its function is to forget nothing and to avoid repetition during the argumentation. It also offers a heuristic method (it encourages methodical questioning). Finally, it is in itself an argument. Thus, the purpose of the disposition is to “make the cause intelligible, [to] make the speaker’s point of view adopted”. For the anonymous author of Herennius’ Rhetoric, “the disposition serves to arrange the materials of the invention in such a way as to present each element in a given place” (Anonymous 1923).

The disposition must present the evidence and arguments, while reserving moments for emotion. The canons of rhetorical disposition (going very quickly to the facts, presenting the best argument at the end, setting up transitions, etc.) are found in the methods used in teaching the construction of articles, essays or composed commentaries. The analytical, dialectical, or even causes-facts- consequences outlines are derived from it. Disposition is also a framework widely used in poetry, literature or drama.

The rhetorical tradition recommends three orders of exposition:

– that recommended by Quintilian, which consists in starting with strong arguments and then progressing top-down, or vice versa;

– that called the

Homeric Order

, which consists in presenting strong arguments in exordium and epilogue and, in the meantime, treating the public with respect and consideration;

– finally, that which consists in exposing in order the logical arguments, the arguments that appeal, the arguments that move (

docere, placere, movere

, or educate, please, move, according to Aristotle’s prescription in

Poetics

).

Several authors have throughout history, proposed types of outline, comprising two, three, up to seven parts. Classical rhetoric retains four parts which are called: exordium, narration, digression, epilogue (or peroration).

1.3.2.1. The exordium

The introduction of the speech is called the exordium, and its role is mainly phatic: it aims to capture the audience’s attention. For Olivier Reboul, the purpose of the exordium is to make the audience docile (in a state of listening), attentive (in a state of following reasoning) and well-disposed through emotional arguments related to ethos. For example, the demonstrative genre proposes an exordium that seeks to engage the audience. A particular use of exordia consists in getting to the heart of the matter, as in this famous quotation from Cicero: “quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?2”. Despite this direct approach, the exordium must introduce the cause or facts.

1.3.2.2. The narration

The narration is a presentation of the facts and the cause in an objective way, while moving in the direction of the discourse. According to Cicero, narrative is the basis of the other parts; it requires all the speaker’s talent. Unnecessary in the deliberative genre, it is essential in judicial discourse because it makes the reasoning which is to follow concrete. Narrative can involve history, legends or fiction. The story must be clear and chronological, short (no unnecessary sequences), and credible (facts may be false but must be plausible). In the Middle Ages, narrative became an autonomous practice, separate from genre, with the sermon and the exemplum.

1.3.2.3. The digression

The role of digression is to distract the audience, to soften them up before the peroration. It often uses figures such as hypotyposis (or ekphrasis), a process of bringing a description to life so that listeners (or readers) can see a picture emerge and come to life. For Herennius’ Rhetoric, digression can mean indignation, commiseration, detestation, insult, apology, conciliation, rebuttal of outrageous statements.