The Art of Oratory and Speech Culture

The roles that the Renaissance, Rationalism, and the Humanists had on the rebirth of rhetoric and public speaking

The end of the Middle Ages was witnessed by the birth of the Renaissance (1400–1600), and with it the rise of Humanism, a movement that brought such thinkers and writers as Petrarch, Francis Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Joseph Webber, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare.The Humanists The second period of the Renaissance produced a continued passion for classical study, which was later coined “Humanism” in 1808 by a German educator, F.J. Niethammer, to describe a program of study distinct from scientific and engineering educational programs. Of all the practices of Renaissance Europe, nothing is used to distinguish the Renaissance from the Middle Ages more than Humanism as both a program and a philosophy. The Humanists began by rediscovering lost Latin texts, rather than searching for classical Greek extants. The two most important classical authors of the Renaissance were Cicero and Quintilian, not Aristotle or Plato. Public domain. Interested in the human world as constructed through language, rather than the natural world, the Humanists focused on the human epistemologically. They emphasized the world of human culture and language, believing in the power of the word not only because it gives those with a command of it special advantage in daily interactions, but because of its inherent capacity to disclose to the world of humans.

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    Language and The Art of Oratory
    

This relation can be explored at three levels: (1) semiotic-evolutionary (2) structural comparative and 3) functional-discursive. From a semiotic-evolutionary perspective, there is a strong interdependence between language systems and thinking patterns. A central feature of languages is that they are systems of symbols designed for the purpose of communication. It is hardly possible to formulate a meaningful thought without using language. The much debated distinction made by structuralists between langue and parole, as well as the distinction between the competence and performance of language users acquire a new significance in rhetorical theory through a change of focus. From a structural-comparative perspective, the situation-adjusted language use involves understanding its persuasive potential as well as the speaker’s ability to influence beliefs and behaviors through the power of symbolic action. This viewpoint stood in contrast to the position of many philosophers who treated discourse as a neutral channel for representing an otherwise objective, independent “truth.” From a functional-discursive perspective, language acquires meaning and value in actual use depending on socio-cultural contexts and historical conditions. On examining language use, Halliday proposed three categories of meaning: ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. By emphasizing the functioning of public discourse, scholars of rhetoric have drawn attention to communicative acts that affected the entire community and are typically performed before the law courts, the legislative assemblies, and occasional gatherings of the citizens at large.

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