Gates and Holmes - Expanding Rhetoric?

 My first reaction to Dr. Yancey’s question is to say that rhetoric is indeed changed as a result of including a new population.  Gates and Holmes are both discussing voices that have been marginalized.  In fact, Gates and Holmes themselves are voices that at one time would not have been heard at all.  Unlike the other rhetoricians we have studied, Gates and Holmes’s goal isn’t leading the audience to some transcendent Truth, the art of rhetoric as style is not their main focus, and their primary interest is not fixing misunderstandings.  They are interested in how socially marginalized people find their voice and power.  For Gates, rhetorical power is found in Signifyin(g) and being able to understand and participate in the verbal games that are part of it.  For Holmes, rhetorical power is found in revising and repurposing theological, apocalyptic language used to oppose civil rights to support the cause of civil rights.

My second thought was that while our scholarly conversation about rhetorical theory may change with the addition of Gates and Holmes, the rhetoric (or perhaps Rhetorics) they describe have been and continue to be used, whether they are officially recognized or not.  The Signifying(g) and Signifying Monkey that Gates describes find their roots all the way back in Yourba tradition.  Holmes describes how Shuttleworth went back to the Bible to support civil rights in his sermons.  Neither needs official sanction to reach their intended audiences.

Gates expands rhetoric by discussing Signifyin(g) and how it works.  Gates points out, “The Afro-American rhetorical strategy of Signifyin(g) is a rhetorical practice that is not engaged in the game of information giving…Signifyin(g) turns on the play and chain of signifiers, and not on some supposedly transcendent signified” (1557).  It is based on verbal word play, not on literal meaning.  In this game, to take literally what is meant figuratively is to lose.  Gates explains, “It is this relationship between the literal and the figurative, and the dire consequences of their confusion, which is the most striking repeated element of these tales” (1560).  Gates places Signifyin(g) in a theory of rhetoric that argues that standard English and African American Vernacular English intersect: “Ironically, rather than a proclamation of emancipation  from the white person’s standard English, the symbiotic relationship between the black and white, between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes, between black vernacular discourse and standard English discourse, is underscored here, and signified, by the vertiginous relationship between the terms signification and Signification, each of which is dependent on the other” (1555).  The use of the term “symbiotic” is important, as is the “vertiginous relationship” Gates describes.  AAVE is not separate from Standard English, but a discourse that is affected by, affects, and intersects with Standard English.

The examples Gates gives of Signifyin(g) reminded me of a Saturday Night Live sketch that Chris Rock used to do called “I’m Chillin.”  Here's a link to watch a clip:http://www.hulu.com/watch/289956
I think the rhyming at the beginning when Chris Rock’s character introduces his side kick and the “yo mamma” joke are most applicable to the Gates article.

Holmes expands rhetoric by describing how Shuttleworth used apocalyptic theology to advocate for civil rights.  Shuttleworth had a formalist, fundamentalist reading of the Bible, but “Shuttleworth ‘s canonized investment against personal sin did not diminish or dilute his prophetic convictions against larger, weightier injustices perpetuated in the public sphere” (816).  Holmes goes on to explain that “the microvirtues of piety and purity neither replaces nor overshadowed the macrovalues of social justice and inclusive democracy” (816).  Unlike other conservative theologians whose fundamentalism supports keeping in place discriminatory policies, Shuttleworth uses a literal reading of Scripture to support civil rights.  Shuttleworth takes apocalyptic language and revises it.  Instead of using theology to argue that great calamity would befall the nation if racist policies ended, he argues that great calamity would befall the nation if civil rights and social justice are denied.