Fictionality as Rhetoric: A Distinctive Research Paradigm

Fiction as a Practice Peter Lamarque (bio) Richard Walsh offers an admirably clear outline of his own “rhetorical” theory of fiction, with pithy and telling commentary on certain theories that he rejects. As so often when an exercise of this kind is done well, readers will find themselves swept along by the arguments and nodding with agreement. This was certainly my experience, and I found the picture on offer—for the most part—both persuasive and congenial. The focus here will be on unpacking that tiresome “for the most part.” [End Page 472] Everyone comes to the topic of fiction from some perspective or other, and this of course will have a profound effect on the constraints in the discussion. My own perspective is that of the analytic philosopher, with a particular interest in aesthetics and the philosophy of literature. Even that perspective can have a wide scope. My fellow analytic aesthetician, Kendall Walton, discussed by Walsh, has a view of fiction rather different from my own, and is prepared to countenance as “fictions” such things as paintings, dolls, and toy trucks. Not much sign of “rhetoric” there! But Walton’s target is an account of representation in general, and he stipulates that the terms “fiction” and “representation,” in his sense, are interchangeable. The point about perspectives is important. Walsh throughout is critical of theories of fiction that give prominence to reference, semantics, ontology, or “worlds.” He has good reasons why he wants to distance his own rhetorical account, involving fiction as a communicative act, from definitions of “fiction” based on those approaches. However, there is no inevitable conflict between his theory and other well-established enquiries, characteristic of analytic philosophy, drawing on different aspects of fiction and raising distinct sets of questions: enquiries into, for example, “empty names” and “negative existentials” (Everett and Hofweber), the logic of fiction (Woods), the metaphysics of fiction (Thomasson), emotion and fiction (Hjort and Laver), or the worlds of fiction (Wolterstorff). Needless to say, there is no reason why Walsh should agree with what philosophers say on these topics—the accounts are controversial and varied—but I am assuming he would not want to reject altogether the very enterprises involved. In other words, enquiries into fiction that centre on reference, semantics, and ontology seem entirely legitimate from the different perspectives they represent, relative to their own distinct framework of questions. Walsh makes a passing reference to a work I coauthored with Stein Haugom Olsen (Lamarque and Olsen—hereafter L and O), remarking that the model proposed in that book is “congruent with a rhetorical approach” but is to be rejected on the grounds that it “turns out to hinge upon a recuperation of Coleridge’s suspension of disbelief” (Walsh, “Fictionality as Rhetoric” 405). In fact, “suspension of disbelief” does not figure (by name) in that early book, but in a later book of mine the notion is briefly dissected for its possible meanings and set aside as unhelpful (Philosophy of Literature 213). Be that as it may (the phrase is unimportant), the idea that in recognising fictionality a reader adopts a “stance” constraining attitudes and expectations in response, is central to my view. I wonder, though, how different it is au fond to [End Page 473] Walsh’s view. On Walsh’s account our response to fiction rests on a “cognitive assumption that a rhetoric of fictionality is in play; an assumption that has the effect of minimising expectations of an utterance’s directly informative relevance” (“Fictionality as Rhetoric” 411): indeed, even more unequivocally, “to assume the fictionality of an utterance is to understand it independently of any directly informative relevance” (416). Furthermore, fictionality calls for a “reorientation of communicative attention achieved by the contextual assumption of fictionality itself” (412) and “elicits a specific range of cognitive effects” (413); “it has a basic effect upon the way in which the audience seeks to realise the relevance of the communication” (412). And in The Rhetoric of Fictionality, he writes: “The distinction between fiction and nonfiction rests upon the rhetorical use to which a narrative is put, which is to say, the kind of interpretative response it invites in being presented as one or the other...

In the study of argumentation there is a sharp and ideological separation between dialectical and rhetorical approaches, which needs to be remedied. The authors show how the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation can be instrumental in bridging the gap. By adopting a research programme that involves engaging in ‘normative pragmatics’, not only the critical normative and the empirical descriptive dimensions of the study of argumentation can be brought together, but also the dialectical and the rhetorical perspectives. In the research programme, which includes philosophical, theoretical, analytical, empirical and practical components, dialectical and rhetorical perspectives are articulated in each component. The authors make clear that the two perspectives can be reconciled with the help of the notion of ‘strategic manoeuvring’. Strategic manoeuvring, which is inherent in argumentative discourse, is aimed at reconciling the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical aims.

Qu’est-ce qu’une fiction ? Anatomie des fictions de Freud à Lacan

Permanent Defamiliarization as Rhetorical Device; or, How to Let Puppymonkeybaby into Unnatural Narratology Stefan Iversen (bio) Brian Richardson’s work on the unnatural, spanning more than ten years, presents and refines two insights that continue to strike me as original and important. The first is the observation that what Richardson calls “anti-mimetic tendencies” are an integral part of (not only modern) literary narratives. The second is the idea that most of the dominant unified theories of narrative have been hindered in dealing adequately with these tendencies, due to their implicit or explicit reliance on models of storytelling derived from the way in which nonfictional narratives typically function. The following suggestions should be situated in the context of this broad appreciation of the general thrust behind Richardson’s contribution to narrative theory. What I want to suggest is that rather than talking about the unnatural narrative as a certain type of fictional narrative, an autonomous innovative or experimental text, we might consider talking pragmatically about the unnatural as a rhetorical device, defined in relation to existing processes of sense-making, rather than in relation to existing texts or poetics. While inspired by, and in most instances compatible [End Page 455] with, Richardson’s position, the approach suggested is motivated by an attempt to address a concern raised by the observation that the idea of the unnatural as antimimetic is based on what I find to be a debatable distinction between fiction and nonfiction. A pragmatic, rhetorical approach might be considered better designed for addressing not only the different functions of unnatural devices but also the many cases where such devices appear locally in otherwise traditional types of narratives, or appear outside of generic fiction, be it in poetry, in everyday communication, or in rhetorical discourse, such as advertisements. An example of the last is the advertisement featuring “Puppymonkeybaby,” a video spot aired in 2016 to promote the soft drink Mountain Dew Kickstart. The main protagonist of the short narrative is a CGI-generated, photorealistic, and fully animated hybrid creature with the head of a dog, the torso of a monkey, and the legs of a human baby. I establish my thesis through a short discussion of one of the main premises underlying Richardson’s definition of unnatural narratives, followed by a rereading of one of the most canonical, systematic attempts to address strangeness in semiosis, the concept of defamiliarization1 as presented by Shklovsky in “Art as Device.”2 Richardson defines unnatural narratives as those that “defy the conventions of nonfiction narratives and of fiction that closely resembles nonfiction” (“Unnatural” 1). This definition is “based on a significant distinction between fiction and nonfiction” (13). The idea of the antimimetic as that which defies the mimetic or nonfictive makes sense only when one relies on a fundamental “affirmation of the fiction/nonfiction boundary” (13). Under what logic does this boundary function? According to Richardson, the boundary between fiction and nonfiction is policed with reference to what he calls “the pragmatic theory of fictionality” (13) and “the standard conception of fictionality” (13). However, what this standard, pragmatic conception might entail remains a bit vague. Two understandings of the difference between fiction and nonfiction to which Richardson does not subscribe are clearly presented: he does not believe that fiction is recognizable through “distinctive syntactic components” (13), and he does not subscribe to the “more recent [theory of fictionality] offered by Nielsen, Walsh, and Phelan” (13n7). One may see these as two ends of a spectrum of ideas concerning how to distinguish imaginary from non-imaginary discourse. At the one end, we find what Herman would call an exceptionalist [End Page 456] position,3 which states that fiction is ontologically and/or formally distinct from nonfiction, and essentially operates with two mega-genres, one where everything is fictional and another where nothing is fictional. At the other end, we find the idea that fictionality, construed as the invitation to maximize the relevance of a particular discourse unit by understanding it as invented, is a quality often, but not only or necessarily, tied to generic fiction. With respect to this pragmatic position (Nielsen et al.), it makes sense to discuss fictionality outside of generic fiction...

In this article, I discuss some influential Chinese theories of fiction and concepts of fiction in ancient times, as well as some contemporary trends in Chinese theories of literature, genre and fiction. This involves discussing several aspects, such as concepts of literature, genre and fiction, the role and status of fiction, recent developments in fiction theory, and the impact of cultural values and political climate etc.. I will also discuss certain features of Chinese theories of fiction and concepts of fiction in the context of influential theories and concepts of fiction in Western culture, such as those in Gregory Currie's The Nature of Fiction and Kendall Walton Mimesis and Make-Believe. Are these theories applicable to Chinese fiction? Are they reconcilable with Chinese theories and concepts of fiction? And finally, is it possible to create credible transcultural theories and concepts of fiction?

This essay takes a rhetorical pragmatist perspective on current questions concerning educational goals and pedagogical practices. It begins by considering some challenges to rhetorical approaches to education, placing those challenges in the theoretical context of their posing. The essay then describes one current rhetorical approach—based on Kenneth Burke’s dramatism and logology—and uses it to understand and redescribe another rhetorical approach—Jesuit teaching of eloquentia perfecta. Proceeding in this way, the essay presents both a general theoretical framework for discussing educational aims and a specific practical example of how such aims might be achieved.

Fictionality is a term used in various fields within and beyond literary theory, from speech act theory through the theory of fictional worlds, to theories of “as if.” It is often equated with the genre of the novel. However, as a consequence of the rhetorical theory of fictionality developed from the early 21st century, the concept has gained ground as an autonomous communicative device, independent of its relation to any genre. Theories of fictionality have been developed (1) prior to the establishment of fiction as a genre, with Plato, Aristotle, Philip Sidney, and Pierre Daniel Huet; (2) with the establishment of fiction by Blankenburg and some of the first novelists, such as Daniel Defoe and Horace Walpole; (3) after the establishment of the novel, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hans Vaihinger, John Searle, Kendall Walton, Dorrit Cohn, Richard Walsh, and others. From the 1990s, the debates on fictionality have centered on questions of whether fictionality is best described in terms of semantic, syntactic, or pragmatic approaches. This includes discussions about possible signposts of fictionality, encouraged by the semantic and syntactic approaches, and about how to define the concept of fictionality, as either a question of text internal features as argued by the semantic and syntactic theorists, or as a question of contextual assumptions, as held by the pragmatists. Regarding fictionality as a rhetorical resource, among many other resources in communication at large, has a number of consequences for the study of fictionality and for literary theory in general. First, it contributes the insight that literature is similar to other acts of communication. Second, overtly invented stories do not have to follow the rules of non-invented communication. Third, a rhetorical approach to fictionality makes visible the ways in which fiction interacts with and affects reality, in concrete, yet complicated ways.

The chapter aims at determining through a rhetorical analysis the extent in which private medical services are offered to small and medium enterprises over the Internet. The multidisciplinary approach to e-health systems is stressed. Authors present a short description of contemporary changes in health care – client relation as well as the Internet influence on human activity, particularly focused on virtualization of SME and new challenges for medical practice and the medical services market. Rhetorical approach as research methodology is described at length. Subsequently, online offers of four international private medical companies are undergo analysis: two operating in Taiwan and two operating in Poland. Cases from countries of different culture, dissimilar health care systems, a different role of small and medium enterprises and a different level of technology and information systems have been chosen for comparison. The research shows how Internet offers reflect classical rhetorical structures and cultural diversity on the rhetorical level. Internet as e-health medium, from the rhetorical perspective, seems to be still used in very traditional, mainly profit-oriented way.

Through this article, I explore the issue of tolerance in the Western thought from a rhetorical perspective. I assume that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflects the framework in which Europeans democracies argue and think today. Consequently, I analyze the Universal Declaration with the help of Toulmin’s model in order to put its backing into light, and compare it to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. This backing, I argue, echoes the contemporary vision of tolerance in Western democracies. Afterwards, I therefore analyze the concept of tolerance in a multicultural world. This reflection comes within the scope of the current researches in rhetoric as they were launched by Perelman’s Treatise on Argumentation first published in 1958. Having inherited from the 19th-century renewed interests in linguistics and semiotics, the contemporary researches assume an evolutionary and anthropological perspective on rhetoric and argumentation, seen as natural activities of human beings. This discipline, notably developing in the school of Brussels in argumentation [See Danblon, Emmanuelle, La Fonction Persuasive, Paris: Armand Colin, 2002], inspires itself both from Aristotle’s works and from the cognitive movement in contemporary linguistics. It seeks to establish a link between the emergence of rationality and rhetoric and takes its grounds in cognitive sciences as well as anthropological studies, philosophy, logics and theories of emotions. At present, it addresses several issues such as the status of rationality, persuasion and the place of rhetoric and argumentation in contemporary societies.

In this paper, we analyze the persuasive effects of conspiracy theories from a rhetorical and argumentative perspective. In particular, we scrutinize a case-study – the story of the “Stamina cure” in Italy –, interpreting it as a particular instance of conspiracy theory. First, we explain what conspiracy theories are, and why they are relevant within the contemporary health debate. Second, we situate our analysis in relation to other theoretical accounts, explaining why a discursive approach may be required to study conspiracies. Third, we investigate our case-study through the lenses of the three “entechnic” proofs of rhetoric:logos, ethos, andpathos. We conclude that a rhetorical approach can shed significant light on how conspiracies achieve their persuasive effect and it provides a first step toward the elaboration of a more comprehensive model to better address the practical and political implications of conspiracy argumentations.

This chapter approaches the question of pronouns from a rhetorical perspective, focusing on literary fiction as inventive discourse. Standard models of pronouns, especially linguistic ones, are based on non-inventive language uses. In the rhetorical approach, it becomes evident that parts of the grammar of literary fiction work differently from non-fictional conversational discourse. Focusing on pronouns, the chapter argues that it is a mistake to impose real-world, non-invented, narrative situations on fictional narratives. Having presented the semiotic framework of Charles Sanders Peirce, I offer a new reading of his ‘concept of’ the indexical sign in order to examine deictic and personal pronouns in literature.

The premise of this article is that developing persuasive justification is fundamental to the construction and emergence of policy innovation. Nevertheless, given that policy innovation has been typically treated as given, existing public policy research on innovation says little about the process through which the rationales for innovative policies are established. A rhetorical approach is introduced as a new perspective to illustrate this process. In particular, I focus on the case of happiness indices, which is selected because it represents a noninstitutionalized idea which challenges the incumbent way of measuring social progress by GDP‐related indicators. Rhetorical analysis is then applied to a body of documents advocating this ambitious innovation, through which I reveal five distinct types of legitimation strategies (i.e., logos, authorization, cosmology, scientization, and teleology). These rhetorical strategies are used in a supplementary manner to describe a policy idea—utopian in many people's eyes—as appropriate and desirable. The concluding discussion section highlights the wider implications of the empirical findings.

In August of 2013, Roberto Flores and Alfredo Zarate, two Ciudad Juarez bus drivers, were killed while working. The murderer, according to eyewitnesses, was a woman between 30 and 50 years old. She purportedly wore a blonde wig and a baseball cap to conceal her identity. Eyewitnesses also told investigators that the murderer made remarks before killing the bus drivers, such as you think you're so bad? Ciudad Juarez was once considered the murder capital of the world, so the news of two more murders was hardly news. Thus, this dissertation presents a case that demonstrates the normalization of quotidian violence-a process achieved through everyday cultural acts. Days after the murders, local news media received a confession. The author, who called herself Diana la Cazadora de Choferes (Diana, the hunter of bus drivers), claimed that she had vengefully murdered the bus drivers in response to the raped and murdered female maquiladora workers of Ciudad Juarez. This confession brought together a variety of discourses about maquiladora labor in Mexico, feminicidios (the unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juarez), organized crime, and governmental impunity. From a rhetorical perspective, this confession also hinted at discourses of rhetorical agency, social movements, the rhetorical construction of truth and credulity, and the role of mythology within modernity. Throughout this dissertation, I take a variety of critical, cultural, and rhetorical approaches as I construct and contextualize Diana, following McGee's (1990) fragmentation theory. McGee argues that rhetors make discourses from scraps and pieces of evidence. Critical rhetoric [as opposed to rhetorical criticism] does not begin with a finished text in need of interpretation; rather, texts are understood to be larger than the apparently finished discourse that presents itself as transparent (p. 279). Thus, in this dissertation I examine several scraps of discourse that together, point toward one rhetorical construction of Diana la Cazadora de Choferes-not a complete or finished construction, but one that is put forth toward a specific telos: the illustration of what I term retorica moribunda, precarious rhetorics of life and death in contemporary Mexico.

This paper seeks to offer an alternative approach to the study of prejudice than that based upon the notion of categorization which is currently influential in cognitive social psychology. It is argued that the categorization approach assumes the inevitability of prejudice and ignores the issue of tolerance. The assumptions of the categorization approach are criticized, and it is suggested that, by focusing on categorization as a cognitive process, it has overlooked an opposing process—that of particularization. The result has been a rather mechanical and bureaucratic model of cognition. A less mechanical view is possible if the relations between the two processes of categorization and particularization are considered from a rhetorical perspective, which examines the argumentative nature of thought. For theoretical and empirical reasons, this perspective does not equate prejudiced thinking with rigid categorization; instead a rhetorical approach permits a distinction between prejudice and tolerance on the basis of content, rather than form, and thereby avoids assuming the inevitability of prejudice.

This chapter is a presentation of an ongoing project whose aim is to distinguish the major features that are shared and that differentiate various genres of academic writing by using a rhetorical and discourse analytical approach. It discusses a number of multilevel distinctions between academic abstracts and academic summaries with regard to drafting and editing processes, as well as evaluating practices. While there is no consensus about a universally acknowledged definition of an academic abstract, there are tacitly accepted practices for writing abstracts in various academic and professional settings in keeping with disciplinary conventions and constraints. On accounting for specific research and on reviewing major research findings, academic abstracts and summaries have to comply with several discourse and metadiscourse conventions. From a rhetorical perspective, the summary belongs to the forensic genre through its past-oriented discourse: the author reviews and evaluates what she/he has already done. Keywords: academic abstracts; academic summaries; academic writing; forensic genre; metadiscourse conventions