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In:Developing New Identities in Social Conflicts: Constructivist perspectives
Edited by Esperanza Morales-López and Alan Floyd
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 71] 2017
► pp. 41–66

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Chapter 3
The discursive construction of reality in the context of rhetoric

Constructivist rhetoric

Published online: 26 July 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.71.03puj
Abstract
In this chapter, I reflect on the rhetorical origins of the constructivist tradition and its current revival in this latter discipline. I begin with a brief history of the evolution of rhetorical thinking from its origin in antiquity, considering its subsequent conversion into a mere treatise on stylistic resources; this understanding of rhetoric would last for centuries in the West, and would lead it to its decline, until it later recovered during the twentieth century. Its development over the last hundred years is summarised on three levels: (1) restoration of the tradition inherited (inventory of tropes and figures of speech), (2) recovery of all five rhetorical operations and their political and social reuse and (3) configuration of constructivist rhetoric. This third level is my proposal. I define our understanding of the totality of discursive-rhetorical strategies, and the construction of diverse rhetorical speeches, as the way we make conscious our cognitive experiences.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The epistemological basis of ancient sophistry (constructivism Avant la Lettre) and its historical disrepute
  • 3.The beginnings of the recovery of rhetoric in the twentieth century
  • 4.The revival of rhetoric and constructivism: The return to elocutio and the third level of revival of rhetorical thinking
  • 5.The connection between rhetoric and discourse analysis
  • 6.A final word
  • References
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