Rhetoric Essay Rhetoric

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Final assignment: Essay on rhetorics
Rhetorics, Culture & Democracy in conjunction with academic English
Name: Nick van den Berg
Date: 12 December 2014
ANR: 727339
Lecturers: G. Lyons, E. Oversteegen

If rhetoric, with all its conventions and rules, is an art as well as a technique, then how can it develop in the future (as arts must do) and thus survive as contemporary art?

It was in 1963 when Martin Luther King took the stage to call for an end to racism in the United States. His speech was delivered to over 250,000 people, but its impact was later to be known as one of the most important and remarkable speeches in American history. It led to an irreversible shift in thinking about our fellow human beings. However, Martin Luther King is certainly not the only one whose words have had a tremendous impact on the history of our world. From Alexander the Great to Theodore Roosevelt, there are numerable other speeches to be mentioned that have had a historical impact of a similar magnitude.

In that light, it is interesting to analyse what it is that made these artistic words such a difference. A difference that persuaded people to change their behavior. Thankfully, human history has created a term to define these great speeches. It is called rhetoric. In this essay we will try to determine whether rhetoric is an art, or merely a …show more content…

According to the Oxford Dictionary, rhetoric is to be defined as being “the art of effective or persuasive speaking and writing”. Considering the impact on people the speeches of Martin Luther King and others have had, it will come to no surprise that rhetoric is defined as being effective or persuasive. However, when it comes to the question of our essay, the dictionary already mentions that rhetoric is an art. Therefore, one could say that our essay question is answered and that we can proceed to the

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