Translate

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Communication Basics: Combining the Strengths of Rhetoric, Grammar and Logic

There are many angles from which to explain the strength of my idea on communication basics.  One of the angles is from that of classic rhetoric, grammar and logic.  From this angle the strength of the method I use is that it combines the strengths of rhetoric, grammar and logic; rather than depending on primarily grammar. 

Contemporary schooling has turned the basics of classic education into the 3 R's of reading, writing and arithmetic.  In classic education the big 3 were rhetoric, grammar and logic.  When I studied linguistics in college I now realize that the greatest gain I experienced came from combing rhetoric, grammar and logic.  Yet it is the renewed use of rhetoric that was the real source of greatest insight. 

Classic rhetoric recognized four classes of meaning plus the whole that unites them.  I have simplified those four classes or categories down to amount, relationship, action and thing.  This is not discovered in reading or writing classes that rely mainly on grammar.  Likewise, logic is no longer taught as essentially logic, but is now mathematical logic and so is taught indirectly through mathematics. 

So what all of this boils down to is using a method that does not set aside the insights of classic rhetoric, that does not exalt grammar too much and that does not ignore the logic of mathematics.  That is what my linguistics professors in college handed on to me as a legacy.  I thank them very deeply for their insights and for the experience of excitement rather than boredom as I approach language.  

Sincerely,

Jon