Spanish Scripts

Once again I wasn't very fond of this article. I found it very odd that the author had an entire section regarding visual culture and visual subject but had no actual visuals in this entire section. It seemed very  contradicting to me to state how important they were yet, not include them. I also thought it was interesting that in this section the author discusses how sight is the most noblest sense of all. I feel that the past rhetoricians we have studied would not agree with this. Rhetoric is about persuasion so I feel hearing would be the most valuable sense of all. However, the author states that sight is the most noblest sense but, from their on out groups sight and hearing together.

I feel that once the author breaks down specific objects such as Tocapus and quipus that would have been a place to add images. I tried to visually picture these items based on the descriptions but it would have been easier if the author included some pictures. I also thought it was interesting when the author 

states "visual events and visual culture imply the existence of a visual subject." This reminded me of when people say behind every picture there is a story but often that story isn't blatant. Often authors just leave their portrait open to the interpretation of the viewer but this can lead to visual subjectivity. 

Tocapus and quipus were mentioned multiple times throughout the article. Why do you think these visual representations were so important? I get that they represent the culture I was just slightly confused why there was such an intense focus on them. 

Another connection I made while reading this article was regarding silence. The article discusses the importance of silence which reminded me of the Egyptian article we read last week. I think its interesting that both articles put an emphasis on the importance of silence. I felt this was interesting because, when reading about Western rhetorics silence wasn't a huge aspect of it. 

Also, after reading the article I noticed a focus on various different shapes such as the triangle and the rectangle. Why do think this article focused so much on shapes? Do you think there was a significance or was it just simply a component of the article? 

the article also states; " Our exposure to visual texts give us the opportunity to narrate events in a new, nonverbal way." Do you think visuals can be truly non verbal? Or will there always be an underlying verbal context. 

American Rhetorics

I have to start by saying I did not particularly like this reading. I felt that it asked so many questions back to back that it was hard to process them all. At one point it asked five critical thinking questions in a row that left my brain feeling over loaded. It also in my opinion jumped around a lot and I often felt lost.

Despite the confusion at points it was still a very informative piece of writing. I thought it was interesting when the article raised the point of, who has the authorization to speak for who? This brought me back to our discussion on race and how different ethnicities feel the need to speak for other ethnicities. It is common to make assumptions regarding other cultures with out first attempting to assimilate within the culture. As this article points out it is important to decipher between people of an actual population and people committing ethnicity fraud. It is up to readers and listeners to have enough knowledge to actively know what they are reading.

After reading the three chapters I found chapter three, Villanueva's chapter to be the most interesting. I think I liked this chapter the most because I had the most previous knowledge on it. In past classes I have learned about Barthes and then in this class and past classes I have learned about Burke. Villanueva raises many interesting questions regarding myth and ideology. For instance he states "ideologies, myths, and rhetorics enjoy symbiotic relationships." I can see the relationship among the three that Villanueva is claiming. For instance last semester I read Barthes Mythologies which had a portion of it dedicated to the idea of plastic.Essentially the myth around plastic is it can be transformed into anything. However, it takes ideologies and and rhetoric to decide the meaning behind the plastic material. Such as barbie is made of plastic but it was because of ideologies and rhetoric that it was decided that Barbie is a girls toy. Its interesting to think about how much the three concept intertwine.

I also found it interesting that Villanueva related his argument to Catholicism. A part of this argument he brings up the discussion of genocide. Genocide in this case restricted the ability to claim a completely non-Spaniard self definition that the population was striving for. This part of the text reminded me back to our discussion regarding genocide in class. Genocide is often the cause of a power struggle or an issue regarding race.

Question: Did you like on chapter more than another?
How do you see mythologies, ideologies, and rhetoric intertwined within society?

Confucius's Virtue-Centered Rhetoric.

Once again it was a nice break to read a non-western article regarding rhetoric. On the second page I was reminded of our readings about Sophists when the article said, "To examine the Confucius's discussion of the relationship among language, virtue, and persuasion. This reminded me of the sophists as well as Plato and his whole beliefs regarding virtue. Actually a lot of stuff in the article had me thinking back to sophistry.

I also saw Aristotle's influence when it discussed the construction of pathos and the use of language in classical Chinese works. However the Confucius definition of rhetoric did stray away from Aristotle's definition of rhetoric. They differed because Aristotle's definition of rhetoric is all the available means of persuasion and Confucius put more emphasis on the idea of virtue. Another difference between Confucius rhetoric and past reading regarding rhetoric is Confucius suggests that rhetoric is participatory. I have always though of rhetoric as unavoidable. Primarily everything is rhetoric and I never saw it as an option to participate in it or not too. But according to Confucius rhetoric is a participatory discourse. Calling rhetoric discourse also varied from out past readings because we always saw them as separate components of language.

I became a little confused when the article discussed the term, Yan. I tried to think about this word in relation to how it would be used in the English language but for some reason I couldn't wrap my head around it. Does anyone have a simple way of defining it?

I also found it interesting that the article suggests that action plays a larger role in rhetoric than words. This reminded me of the saying "don't tell me you're going to do something just do it" or "actions speak louder than words" I guess I could agree with this because actions truly do carry more weight than simple words. Would you agree that actions carry more weight than words when it comes to rhetoric?

The Confucius attitudes towards speech once again brought me right back to the sophistry way of thinking. "Confucius stresses repeatedly that flattery, clever words, and pretentious amiable appearances are seldom associated with virtue." Hello this is such a sophistry thing to say. But as we know they would claim this and then all their speeches would be contradictory and use clever words and flattery.

Egyptian Rheotric

I found it very interesting to read an article that was not focused on Western Rhetoric. The part I found the most interesting was reading over the Egyptian cannons.

The first of their cannons is silence. I found this to be the most interesting of all the cannons because when I had previously thought of rhetoric I had not considered silence to be a component. According to Egyptian rhetoric though silence is both a moral posture and a rhetorical tactic. After reading it and the more I thought of if I guess I could see silence as being a rhetorical strategy. For instance, when someone gets arrested the cop always says "You have the right to remain silent" It is then up to the person being arrested if they choose to utilize silence to their benefit.

The second egyptian cannon is Kairos. This cannon recognizes that speech must occur however, it also recognizes how difficult speech can be because you can't always find the right words. This portion brought me back to the readings regarding the sophists since they always had so much emphasis on the power of giving a speech.

The third egyptian cannon was restraint meaning to hold back your emotions, covering up your anger, and regulating carefully. To me this cannon seemed like a cannon that would be emphasized in a country where women are oppressed. Telling someone to cover up emotions seemed like something that would be said by a man to a woman he wanted control over. I don't know what life was like in Egypt for women that was just the vibe I got.

After reading all the various different materials I found it interesting that I never saw anything regarding persuasion. It constantly talked about the power of speech but never talked about persuading people. This is the main difference I saw between western rhetoric and egyptian rhetoric.

What differences did you see between western and egyptian rhetoric?
Wat were your thoughts on the Egyptian cannons?

2012 CCCC Chair's Address

I really enjoyed reading Malea's address to the CCCC convention. She uses incorporates multiple stories of people that were at the convention. I thought this was a powerful rhetorical strategy because, it was a way to spark emotion within the audience. It also makes her stories more credible because the people in them are sitting in the audience so obviously they are true. Did you think the stories were necessary for her speech?

I saw many similarities between the piece we read by Dr. Villanueva and this piece. I think I mainly saw these similarities when it came to the topic of colonization and western rhetoric. I especially saw this when she discusses Walter Mignolo's book and how the book begins; "the belief that Western civilization and European modernity "was the [zero] point of arrival of human history and the model for the entire planet came to be taken for granted."This brought me back to our discussion of how Western rhetoric has taken over and its hard to find non western rhetoric material. She makes note of this too when she says that indigenous rhetoric has almost been eradicated.

I think it was also interesting that she incorporates the role a teacher plays in the classroom. This discussion brought me back to class when we discussed how teachers are essentially paid to change the minds of students. Malea supports this by discussing how her students learn about Western Rhetoric essentially so they can be mini versions of Malea. Do you that is possible for a teacher to teach without influencing the beliefs of students? Can learning be separated from emotions.

Victor Villanueva

I always highly enjoy reading Dr. Villanueva's stuff and this article was no exception. He always has a way of capturing and holding the readers attention. He is a breath of fresh air because everything he discusses is still relevant today. That is not to say the other reading are not still relevant they were just much harder to relate to then Villanueva's article.

He discusses heavily the issues of race and how it hinders certain racial groups within society. A lot of what Villanueva was discussing brought me back to the Aristotle reading. In a particular part of his essay he mentions that as Americans we tend to blame inequality of particular groups on the group itself. If there is a high amount of Chicano drop outs it is because they are lazy, not because the American education system was structured to favor particular race groups over others. This reminded me a lot of Aristotle's fallacies because often they argue that humans think in terms of because B happened after A then B was caused by A. Because Chicano drop outs increased it was because they were lazy.

Often this is our society's mentality of thinking that people fail because they don't try. However, what is it like for people born into a country where the foundation wasn't built for them? The opportunities aren't present because they are not part of the dominant race. Do you think it is possible to ever live in a society that is 100% equal for everyone? I personally do not think it is possible. The sad truth is these social constructions regarding race have become to engrained in our society.

He uses personal anecdotes throughout his entire article which I feel helped keep my attention throughout.Was there a particular anecdote you connected with over another? I think I particular like that Victor included the anecdote about the principal at his daughters school. I liked this anecdote because, it makes Victor a credible source. He has seen these issues first hand and is willing to share. As we have learned from Aristotle credible sources are important in the world of rhetoric.

Burke

As always Burke still highly confuses me but I tried to pay close attention to the ideas he was trying to convey. When he mentions the five terms; act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose this made some sense to me. To me primarily all situations can be analyzed using these five characteristics. It is especially easy to analyze TV shows and movies based on these characteristics. I know this because in several of my previous COM classes we have used Burke’s dramatic pentad to analyze messages in the media, movies, and TV shows. However, in this introduction piece reader can learn about these five terms and how they explain the motives of people.

He discusses how these terms can be used to simplify a much bigger picture. He believes that these terms could be easily understood by anyone and do not require much explanation. I think he makes a very good point, for instance explaining a movie would be much easier by using the pentad to break down the plot, instead of just rambling on about the movie. He also brings up that even with how simple these five components are there is still available room for confusion to occur. He discusses how vastly different people are and that therefore situations are interpreted vastly different. For instance everyone has a different interpretation for what family means to him or her. This is caused by the fact everyone had a different experience when it comes his or her personal family.

Burke also brings up this whole notion of the symbolic. As I have learned previously Burke had this notion that man is the symbol using, symbol making, and symbol-misusing animal. I think we will read more on it but Burke is heavily into the notion of the symbolic.  He brings up the idea of the symbolic in order to Segway into his ideas regarding transformation. When talking about transformation Burke discusses that it is ambiguity that leads to transformation. This makes sense because, from what I understand transformation is when an individual changes their mind because they were influenced or persuaded to do so. Essentially rhetoric influences the motives of an individual causing him or her to change their mind. However, if a statement or an idea had no room for ambiguity then the individual would never change their mind. However, because an argument or statement has multiple interpretations and is seen to be ambiguous then a persons mind can be changed too. Do you guys think it is easy to have a term that is not ambiguous? For instance is there a term you think everyone would interpret the same?

Although I do find Kenneth Burke to be super confusing I also find him to at least be less conceited than the previous rhetoricians we have read about. He seems to try to understand people more than Plato and the other rhetoricians we have read. Burke searched to understand humans and how they think. Whereas the previous philosopher are searching for an absolute truth and do not strive to understand people because, they already feel they know everything.  Do you guys agree? Or do you see previous concepts we have learned about in Burkes work too?