Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross Cultural Introduction Book

This is the first book to offer a cross-cultural overview of rhetoric as a universal feature of expression, composition, and communication. Kennedy addresses both what is general or common in all rhetorical traditions and what is unique or unusual in the western tradition. He explores analogies to human rhetoric in animal communication, possible rhetorical factors in the origin of human speech, and rhetorical conventions in traditionally oral societies in Australia, the South Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. The second half of the book provides an account of rhetoric as understood and practiced in early literate societies in the Near East, China, India, Greece, and Rome, identifying unique or unusual features of western discourse in comparison to uses elsewhere. The concluding chapter summarizes the results of the study and evaluates the validity of traditional western rhetorical concepts in describing non-western rhetoric.Read More