Zappan, Lunsford, and Ede

Do the Lunsford/Ede distinctions between classical and modern rhetoric hold? Do we need to revise them in light of Zappan’s observations about digital rhetoric?

I do agree with the chart that Lunsford and Ede propose on page 40 in the article. I thought it was particularly interesting how Lunsford and Ede mentioned Aristotle and his emphasis on logic rather than emotion, because while Aristotle does mention emotion, he sees it something that interferes with reason and thus with rhetoric, and prefers logic as a more reasonable argument. This never sat well with me as I always found passion a great motivator; as a teacher, I always hear that as long as you are passionate about teaching, you can interest kids in pretty much anything. Lunsford and Ede point out how this logic/emotion is flipped on its head in modern rhetoric; the emotion that is portrayed really is vivid in more modern rhetoricians texts. I feel like Anzeldua is one that jumped to my mind immediately as an example of a psychological proof, as Lunsford and Ede called it.

As for Zappan, I feel that his ideas would have paired nicely with Lunsford and Ede’s table, particularly with the idea of the relationship between the rhetor and the audience and the goal of being communicative (last two points). I got excited when I saw that Zappan wrote “She notes their success in persuasion, effected, however, through a heteroglossic cacophony of voices, offering opportunities for reader participation and interactivity...” (p. 320). I thought of Bakhtin’s heteroglossia and thought of how essential this theory has become to online and digital communication. The idea of many voices can be found in many digital outlets, such as blogs, wikis, websites, and online communications like email and Google Docs. This also ties back into the idea of Lunsford and Ede’s table where they say that the rhetor-audience relationship is cooperative, characterized by emphatic, two-way communication (pg. 40). This, of course, is the opposite of the traditional top-down rhetoric but is essentially so; the difference of context has made it hard to appear authoritative, and with the amount of information within our reach in the digital age, there is no longer such a distinct divide between scholar and student.

Zappan also speaks to the idea of the goal of communication that Lunsford and Ede mention in their comparative table. 

This is emphasized when Zappan mentions the simplicity of the digital world in combining physical, social, psychological, and linguistic cues into something like a website that is interactive and communicate in function. If Zappan would add anything to the differences between modern and traditional rhetoric, I feel he would add anonymity and interactivity. I feel like the idea of anonymity on the Internet is something that is very non traditional; typically, even if in text (as compared to oration), the audience knows who the author is, but online, “No one knows you’re a dog,” to borrow Dr. Yancey’s/New York Times’ phrase.