Communication basics: Classical Rhetoric and the Cutting Edge Logic of Computers

Quintilian, a Roman rhetorician, organized rhetoric into its classical five parts.  Later rhetoricians like Campbell tried to also organize words into similar categories like those of the larger aspects of a public address.  Some have speculated that this is the source for the semantic domains of Eugene A. Nida called TEAR.   But I rather think that his semantic domains may have risen out of the success of computers and their technical language.

Computers and their wild success are based on approximately 6 major themes, logics, or categories. Computers are critical to understanding both the logic and the history behind my ARWAT approach to basic communication.  Nida could have derived his four categories from the language of computers.

He chose to speak of four primary semantic domains (as seen in the acronym TEAR):

Things
Events
Relations
Attributes

Things of course is not really much of a clue either way, but events, relations, and attributes all have the ring of computer relations or basic categories.  If you were to read the technical discussions in the computer field on relations, you would see some of this language.

It is no big stretch to expand Nida's TEAR to include the relations between parts and wholes.  And in the recent articles dealing with object-related relations in a computer context, there is some evidence that the sixth category could fit into one of the other five.  This is no place for that technical discussion.

Let it suffice to say that the language of computers with its six categories and the language of rhetoric with its five categories show a great deal of overlap.  While rhetoric speaks more to the macro level and computer language more to a micro level there is no reason not to see the parallels between them.

In any case, a pretty good case can be made for Nida's TEAR idea whether you argue for a classical origin in rhetoric or a cutting edge origin in computers.  I favor the latter, but I think there is further support from classical rhetoric that is helpful as well..

 I think lending further support to their method is the core course labels of undergraduate level linguistics classes while I was a student at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN).  They were:

Continuity and change  (this I believe parallels "Attributes", ex. old or new, etc.)
Bond and Barrier (this I believe parallels "Relations", ex. connected or disconnected, etc.)
Models and Theories  (wholes  - not listed by Nida, ex. these are each comprehensive competing options)
Rule and Freedom (this I believe parallels "Events", ex. the rules and freedoms in the game of Monopoly)
Sense and Nonsense  (this I believe parallels "Things", ex. a thing is something you can sense, nothing is not the same thing, etc.)

So perhaps Nida's idea of semantic domains, which I consider his best idea, may have the most lasting legacy because of its ties to computers and to the classics.  This blend would be a sales marketers dream.

Sincerely,

Jon