Modern and Postmodern Rhetoric

Rhetoric in general has seen a decline from the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to the 20th century, rhetoric seemed to be one of the main subjects that were studied in universities. Today, the study of rhetoric seems to be much less common. I have met several people who didn't know what rhetoric was when I told them that I was majoring in it, and then I would have to explain. In the past, I think the existence of rhetoric was probably common knowledge, just like it is common knowledge that math and science exist. In the introduction of modern and postmodern rhetoric in the RT, we see what became of rhetoric at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States. the RT says that rhetoric in American universities has been reduced to a few classes that have to do with writing and speech. I have witnessed this downsize in the availability of the rhetorical classes, because as I was looking into it as a major, I was surprised at how rhetoric is a mere option within the English major, among creative writing, and literature studies.
The RT goes on to explain how rhetoric has been reinvented as discourse though the course of the 20th century as a solution to issues that have been raised through traditional theory and meaning. This goes to show that rhetoric has evolved during modern times from what it used to be in classical times.

Thomas Sheridan

Thomas Sheridan was the son of a school master, whom he received his education from. He later became a stage actor who was very talented, but found his interest in the English language and endorsed the idea of establishing fixed rules for the usage of language. He eventually became more interested in language than acting and became a proselytizer for elocution. Sheridan went on to write many works regarding his expanding interest, including the Lectures on Elocution, which talk about both written and spoken language being symbols. He agrees with John Locke that "language is the medium of reason, so voice and gesture are too the natural language of the passions". Sheridan agrees with the first half of this statement, but felt like the second part of the statement needed to be elaborated upon. The idea for elaboration on the issues of voice and gesture are where Sheridan seemed to pick up his work, since many of his works went along with linguistic anxiety, which is the popular passion for speaking correctly. Here we are able to see just how he established fixed rules for the language, since they did not exist before and this may be why he thought that Locke needed to expand on this later part of that statement.

John Locke

John Locke influenced a change in the direction of rhetoric during the eighteenth century through his common experience and perception of common sense. He was a popular public figure because he was involved in government and well informed with the rationality of religion. Locke’s governmental involvement, with the documents that he wrote, greatly influenced the democratic government system that we have today in the United States because our constitution was modeled after one of his written documents.

Locke was a conspirer against the monarchy in England, and later wrote his works somewhat as a counter against the monarchy.

Locke believed that all we know are our own thoughts, but we can expand on what we know through words. For example, he believed that we can expand on our thoughts through reflection, which is our conveying of thoughts from one person to the next person. Locke is not saying that all we will ever know are our current thoughts and ideas, but that what we currently know are from our ever-changing thoughts and ideas, which are able to expand through either written or spoken words from others. This makes sense because we are always developing and building upon what we know by what others have written down before us. This is basically the whole idea behind education.