In Appreciation of the Kind of Rhetoric We Learn in School: An Institutional Perspective on the Rhetorical Situation and on Education

Authors

Kathleen F. McConnell, San Jose State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

August 2010

Publication Title

Quarterly Journal of Speech

First Page

278

Last Page

299

Keywords

Contrivance, Institutionality, Invention, Rhetorical Situation, School

Abstract

Theoretical discussion of the rhetorical situation has been dedicated largely to questions of its ontology and of how it is constituted. Where this ontological orientation has inclined theorists to treat the concept as a theoretical premise, an institutional orientation would instead frame constructivist accounts of the rhetorical situation as a political-pedagogical commitment and treat the ethical obligations that arise from any given situation as bound to specific institutional forms. From an institutional perspective, the rhetorical situation is to conscience as the institution of school is to education. The distinction of both rhetorical situations and schools lies not in their contrivedness per se, but in the inventional capacities their contrived qualities sustain.

Comments

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2010. Find the published version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2010.499106.

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Recommended Citation

Kathleen F. McConnell. "In Appreciation of the Kind of Rhetoric We Learn in School: An Institutional Perspective on the Rhetorical Situation and on Education" Quarterly Journal of Speech (2010): 278-299.