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Rhetorical analysis, also called rhetorical criticism or pragmatic criticism, refers to the study of the influence of context on the interpretation of a text. It is the study of the literary message in relation to society and the history that produces and consumes it. The sentences themselves provide a semantic content but their interpretation depends on the context; rhetorical analysis focuses on this last aspect. Rhetorical analysis can be applied to any text: a speech, an essay, an advertisement, a poem, a web page, and even a sticker. When rhetorical analysis is applied to a literary work, the work is considered not as an aesthetic object but as an artistically structured communication tool.
Edward PJ Corbett defined that in rhetorical analysis a literary work is approached for what it generates and not for what it is. The difference with respect to other forms of literary criticism is that it does not stay within the work but rather projects itself outside the text. When Aristotle referred to his Rhetoric of him, he was pointing out that although an orator may be preceded by a certain reputation, the influence of his speech depends on what he says in particular before that specific audience. In the same way, rhetorical criticism obtains a characterization of the author from the text itself; from his look, from his ideas and attitudes, from his tone and from his style. Reading a literary work takes its author back in a different way than a biography.
According to Mark Zachry, a researcher at the University of Washington, rhetorical analysis requires the researcher to go beyond identifying an inventory of the parts of a text; this is only the starting point of the analysis. The research task is developed in the interpretation of the meaning of these components of the text, both in isolation and interacting with each other, for the people who approach it. It is about seeing how is the perception of the text by the readers according to its context. In the analysis it will be possible to identify characteristics of the reader that will condition the perception of the text in a particular way. Most texts will present multiple characterizations, so it is part of the analysis to consider the cumulative effect of their combination.
Example
Greg Dickinson analyzes the message of the Starbucks coffee chain, considering it not only as an institution or as advertising, but as a material, physical site, which is translated into rhetoric. Starbucks goes back to the cultural conditions of which it is constitutive: the color of the logo; the established practices of ordering, preparing and drinking coffee; the conversations around the tables and all the multitude of material and attitudinal aspects that Starbucks presents are both rhetorical statements and the implementation of the proposed rhetoric. Starbucks brings together the tripartite relationships between place, body and subjectivity. As a material and rhetorical place at the same time, Starbucks addresses and is the very site of a comforting and uncomfortable negotiation of these relationships.
Sources
Antonio Garcia Berrio . Rhetoric as a science of expressiveness (presuppositions for a general rhetoric). Studies in Linguistics, University of Alicante, 1984.
Greg Dickinson. Joe’s Rhetoric Finding Authenticity at Starbucks . Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 32 (4): 5-27, 2002.
Mark Zachry. Rhetorical Analysis. In The Handbook of Business Discourse, edited by Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini. Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Roland Barthes. rhetorical analysis. Language function. Accessed December 2021.
