Modern Rhetoric
The Forms of
Discourse and the Main Intentions
Study materials—Dr. S. Sreekumar &
Prof. Mangalapratapan
Introduction
The term “discourse” comes from the
Latin word “discursus”, which means “running to and fro”. Discourse is a
process of reasoning, which, as everyone might have experienced at some time or
other, involves a ‘to and fro movement’ in the mental space. However, the idea
of a mechanical ‘back and forth’ movement disappeared in course of time and is
almost non-existent in the definition given to discourse by The Encarta Encyclopedia (2002). It defines discourse as “a
serious and lengthy speech or piece of writing about a topic”, or “a serious
discussion about something between people or groups”. The Oxford English
Dictionary also agrees with the above observation of Encarta and defines discourse as “a lengthy treatment of a subject”
or a “lecture/ speech”.
Literary critics and theoreticians, however, had
always used the term in a causal way but with the ascendancy of the discipline
of Linguistics after the 1950s, the term “discourse” received a new validity.
Moreover, during the 1970s a critical practice called “Discourse analysis”
provided a new theoretical significance for the term “discourse”.
In poststructuralist criticism,
discourse has become an important term replacing “text” as the name of the
verbal material which is the primary concern of literary criticism. [A note to
the scholar: Terms like “novel”, “drama” or “poem” are not preferred by the
structuralists and poststructuralists. They want to refer to such materials as
“text”. A “text” is any written/spoken material, be it the Bible or a doctor’s
prescription].
·
The
deconstructive critical practices view the text as something not at all
connected with social/historical conditions.
·
On
the other hand, discourse is a social practice. It is language in use. It is
not the product of a timeless linguistic system, but of particular social
conditions, class structures and other power relationships.
·
In
Althusser and other Marxist critics, discourses of the various state
machineries are attributable to the social/material conditions and class
hierarchy.
·
In
Michel Foucault, ‘discourse-as-such’ becomes the central subject of analytic
concern.
[In the ensuing pages, we will be
closely looking at the Foucaultian as well as the Bakhtinian concepts of
discourse and how these have opened a new dimension in literary thinking and
dialectics].
- Discourse and Rhetoric
The Greeks classified Liberal Arts
into two:
TRIVIUM and QUADTRIVIUM
Trivium. Logic,
Rhetoric and Grammar were considered as the significant parts of Trivium.
Quadtrivium. Arithmetic,
Astronomy, Music and Geometry were considered as the significant parts of
Quadtrivium.
The
concept of “language as discourse” is closely connected to the above perception
of Liberal Arts and the role of rhetoric in it.
- Discourse
and Linguistics.
A new branch of Linguistics, Pragmatics, has defined discourse as “language in use”. Pragmatics
is not concerned with language in its abstract form. Dr.Johnson had this in his
mind when he defined discourse as ‘mutual intercourse of language”.
c. Discourse and Narrative Theory
Gerald Prince distinguishes
two significant meanings for the term ‘discourse’ within the domain of
Narrative Theory.
i.
the
expressive plane of a narrative rather than its
content plane —
“the narrating rather than the narrated”.
ii.
discourse
is distinguished from story because the
former evokes a link between “ a state or event and
the situation in which that state or event is linguistically evoked”. Onega and
Landa call the linguistically evoked situation “discourse situation”.
I. Views of different Theoreticians
a. Michel
Foucault on Discourse
Foucault,
an influential architect of postmodern discourses views discourse in the
context of the developments in postmodernism. He projects the multiplicity of
meanings and the problematized nature of the spheres of representation. For
him, discourses are “large groups of statements” which are “rule-governed
language terrains” defined by “strategic possibilities”. Foucault further
states that a particular discourse has “a set of rules and conventions and
SYSTEMS OF MEDAITION”.
i. What are the
boundaries of discourse?
è
Foucault
says that the boundaries are created by discursive formations. The term
“discursive” is used in opposition to “intuitive” and means “proceeding by
argument or reasoning”.
è
A discursive situation arises whenever we can
define regularity (order, correlations, positions, functions and
transformations) between objects, types of statements, concepts, or thematic
choices.
According
to Foucault, every society has to abide by certain procedures during the
production of discourses. These procedures can control, choose, assimilate and
redistribute any segment. Foucault feels that the purpose of the procedures of
discourse is to ward off “powers and dangers”.
The primary
argument of Foucault is against supplementing discourses to the brute facts of
the world. He is of the view that even these brute facts of the world are
enabled or constructed in discourses.
Foucault claims
that discourse does not just produce disciplines and institutions and
discursive objects—it also produces itself.
Foucault tries
to define discourse in The Archaeology
of Knowledge thus: “By discourse, then, I meant that which was produced
(perhaps all that was produced) by the group of signs. But I also meant a group of acts of formulation, a series of
sentences or propositions”. Foucault speaks of clinical discourse, economic
discourse, the discourse of natural history and psychiatric discourse.
Edward Said’s theses on
Orientalism are very much connected with Foucault’s ideas on discursive
formations. Orientalism is the means through which European Culture identified
and construed the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily,
ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively.
b.
Mikhail Bakhtin on Discourse
Mikhail Bakhtin uses discourse
in the sense of the Russian word ‘slovo’.
‘Slovo’ means an individual word or a
method of using words that presumes a type of authority.
Hence,
authoritative discourse is the privileged language that “approaches us
from without; it is distanced, taboo, and permits no play with its framing
context”.
On
the contrary, internally persuasive discourse is discourse which uses
one’s own words, which does not present itself as ‘other’, as the
representative of an alien power.
Discourse,
which has been made more ‘literary’ and elevated is ennobled discourse .
This is less accessible.
Based on Bakhtin theories, Tzvetan Todorov
gives a tissue of textual quotes on discourse: Discourse is language in its
“concrete and living totality”. Discourse is language as a “concrete total
phenomenon”. Discourse is “utterance”.
Bakhtin’s
most influential work, Problem’s of
Dostoevsky’s Poetics, refers to discourse as “language in its concrete
living totality, and not “language as the specific object of linguistics”.
Bakhtin insists that language should not be viewed as something arrived at
through a completely legitimate and necessary abstraction from various aspects
of the concrete life of the word”. In this work, he also speaks about
“double-voiced discourse arising out of “dialogic Interaction”.
c. Roger Fowler on discourse
Roger Fowler, another
theoretician, sees discourse from the point of view of beliefs, values and
categories. These constitute a way of looking at the world. Different modes of
discourse encode different representations of experience; and the source of
these representations is “the communicative context within which discourse is
embedded”.
Till
now, we have seen the critical terrain of discourse embedded in ideology. Both
Foucault and Bakhtin have based their explications of the term on ideology.
Roger Fowler gives another dimension to the views of Foucault and Bakhtin by
bringing in the communicative context.
II. FORM AND FUNCTION OF DISCOURSE Discourse is primarily composed to accomplish
specific functions. Function and form are connected with each other. [The art
of writing is associated with the very attempt to give form to ideas]. The
process of writing is always associated with the very attempt to formulate a
distinct discourse. In this process, we find words generating new ideas and
presenting a thesis embodied in a form. There are four kinds of discourses that
we employ in our daily life.
è
Exposition,
è
Persuasion/Argument,
è
Description
è
Narration.
These four kinds of discourse fulfill four basic
needs.
è
Exposition
= to explain or inform of something/somebody.
è
Persuasion/argument
= to convince or persuade somebody.
è
Description
= to describe a thing/feeling.
è
Narration
= to narrate what has happened.
a.
Exposition.
The
central tenet of exposition is to explain something, i.e. to clarify an idea to
the reader/ audience, to analyze a situation, to define and validate a term or
to give directions/ instructions.
b. Persuasion/argument.
Both
persuasion and argument attempt at convincing somebody. In persuasion, one
attempts to appeal emotionally and tries to bring about a change of attitude.
There is limited use of logic in this attitude. In argument, the main intention is to supplement logical means that
precipitate change in attitude or point of view.
c.
Description. In
description the intention is to present the details of what one perceives
through one’s senses. Effective description creates a dominant impression and a
mood or atmosphere that reinforces the writer’s purpose. Any description
involves naming, detailing and comparing.
d. Narration. The primary
function of narration is to present an event to the reader—“what happened and
how it happened”. It is impossible to render a form without narration to
anything we experience. It is an operative mechanism of human consciousness
which renders form to any sort of recorded experience or event.
Conclusion
Thus,
the forms of discourse signify the immediacy of one’s experience in a context,
which in turn, shapes the unity and cohesion in a larger composition.
I am greatly indebted to Mr. Mangalapratapan [ Director, Fluenzy
Center, Coimbatore & Pollachi] in the preparation of this study
material—Dr. S. Sreekumar
sir,
ReplyDeletevery much useful