Korean Rhetoric

Schiappa (a scholar) states that not everything is rhetoric when it comes to a “rhetorical turn”.  Author of the article, “Towards a Rhetoric of Communication, With Special Reference to the History of Korean Rhetoric,” Jon Sung-Gi suggests that there are three ways to discuss Korean Rhetoric.  Firstly, apply Western tradition to Korean.  Second, examine translated terms and figure out the implications and historical context in rhetorical terms.  Lastly, creating a new rhetorical frame for both Korean and Western traditions.  The last approach seems familiar to the question of whether or not it’s possible to have a universal rhetoric.  Sung-Gi only makes reference to the second and third approach within this paper, believing in its utmost importance.

The author notes that terms in themselves such as “translation” and “rhetoric” take on a different meaning within cultural context.  Taking the word “susa”, for example, has its roots in Japan, but later came to be a Korean word.  Looking at the Korean version of the Japanese book of rhetoric, there are no findings of the word.  Referring the history, the Enlightenment Period (Western tradition) had a huge influence on Korean rhetoric.  Japanese hesitated to use the term “susa” because it referred to language as ornamental.  Thus, Koreans had the same problem.  Contrastingly, “susa” refers to something totally different in China.  “Susa” is “a virtue proposed in an ethical context.”  In the traditional times of China, the discourse on “susa” was above all ethical discourses.  So, referring to Sung-Gi’s argument, we must be careful when we use terms and how we translate these terms since there are varying outlooks on the term from many cultures.

Sung-Gi proposes that when it comes to Korean rhetoric, there should be a general frame for rhetorical comparison.  As by definition, rhetoric is known to be “the art of speaking well”.  Lauren Pernot affirms Sung-Gi’s notion by declaring that this definition fails to persuade us.  Additionally, Kenneth Burke’s idea of mental and emotional energy does not fit accordingly in this category.  It is pertinent to Sung-Gi to relate to rhetoric as a communicative viewpoint when dealing with a Korean one.  This way, it can be seen as an intercultural standpoint, the approach the concerns Sung-Gi the most.  He emphasizes that “rhetoric is inseparable from hermeneutic”.  Hermeneutic is the art of communication.  For Sung-Gi, it isn’t that simple.  To him, rhetoric is viewed as, “above all an epistemological framework to help us understand rhetoric from the point of view of intercultural comparison.”

There are five modes of rhetoric according to Foss and Foss: conquest rhetoric, conversion rhetoric, benevolent rhetoric, advisory rhetoric, and invitational rhetoric.

 

4 thoughts on “Korean Rhetoric

  1. Michael.Guerriero@stonybrook.edu

    I think the concept of a universal rhetoric is a complex idea that is definitely worth exploring. However, I do not think the thing we should be looking for is “one rhetoric to rule them all,” but rather a way of navigating between the different rhetorics that we are still discovering (and it should be noted that spell-check does not yet acknowledge the plural form of rhetoric, which I hope will change in the future). I imagine a theory that unites all rhetorics but is not actually a rhetoric itself. Unfortunately, we still have a lot more to learn about world rhetorics before we are ready to make this theory.

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    1. Amy.McDougal@stonybrook.edu Post author

      Thanks, Michael for the feedback. I did notice that spell check won’t allow us the plural form of rhetorics. I summarized Sung-Gi’s thoughts on rhetoric, I do feel it may be difficult to attain a universal rhetoric, but as I stated in my midterm paper, there should be some equalities.

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