Literary Arts (Sep 2023)
New Rhetoric and Contemporary Rhetorical Criticism: An Approach to the Rhetoric of Education (Focusing on Children’s Literature)
Abstract
New rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism have so much potential to create useful and effective points of view in criticism with an educational approach. This research, using a descriptive-analytical method based on collecting library data, explained the necessities of the rhetoric of education, described new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism, and analyzed the efficiency of their features in response to the rhetoric of education needs. According to the results of this research, new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism with features including attention to both the text and the audience, moving the adjective ‘rhetorical’ from describing the type of the text to describing the method of criticism, borrowing from other disciplines, being unlimited in using of methods and tools and approaching to create formulas, are the most appropriate theoretical backgrounds to shaping a scientific model of criticism with an educational approach. The use of these backgrounds has requirements the most important of them is preparing the rhetorical matrices that relate text elements to the audience aspects. Keywords: Rhetoric, New Rhetoric, Rhetorical Criticism, Education. Introduction The rhetoric of education has never been perfectly expressed in literary works. This research has been done to fill this gap, clarify and deepen new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism, realize their potential, display their scope of influence, find a theoretical refuge in new literary sciences for criticism with an educational approach, and prepare a theoretical background to eliminate the disorder and uselessness of educational approaches in criticism. The necessities of this research can be listed as follows: paying enough attention to rhetoric potentials and increasing this field influence, increasing scientific accuracy of literary criticism in educational approaches, eliminating the disorder of educational, moral, and ideological criticisms, and meeting the needs of criticism with the educational approach in literature domain itself. Backgrounds of this research can be found in different approaches of literary theory and criticism such as ideological Criticism (for example: Marxist criticism), audience-oriented theories and criticisms (like reader-response theory), and inefforts of formalists. Each of these approaches could appear as one aspect of all aspects of new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism, and in this field, they have many defects. The literary review of this research is mainly in the children’s literature domain. In Persian, we can hardly find an article that has approached this research at least from one aspect. Also, the studies with educational approaches couldn’t reach any conclusion by referring to the responses of the audience. Materials and Methods This research has been done with a descriptive-analytical method based on collecting library data. Studying, taking notes, classifying, describing, explaining, and analyzing are activities that have advanced this research. This research by referring to library references, described new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism and their features clearly and classified their features, explained the rhetoric of education and its necessities and appearances by referring to references, and finally, analyzed the efficiency of new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism features in response to the rhetoric of education needs. In addition, by referring to references and analyzing, it explained the requirements of achieving the rhetoric of education through new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism. Research Findings According to the findings of this research, new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism with their features have the best responses to the rhetoric of education needs: Attention to both the text and the audience connects deeply new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism to the rhetoric of education. Extending the domain and performance to the out-of-literature domain and borrowing from other disciplines such as psychology, provides conditions to form the rhetoric of education because the complexity of the audience requires using the other sciences related to him/her. Moving the adjective “rhetorical” from describing the type of the text to describing the method of criticism lets the rhetoric flow in all sections of literature, including children's literature which has a special place in the rhetoric of education. Extending the domain of the text to the entire area of human discourse lets the rhetoric of education include all different types of texts. Being unlimited in using methods and tools, finding new methods and creating new tools, and meeting the needs of the rhetoric of education in innovations, trials, and experiments. Approaching to create formulas lets the criticism with an educational approach be formed with scientific accuracy required. Achieving the rhetoric of education through this passage has requirements that the most important of them are preparing the rhetorical matrices that relate text elements to aspects of the audience, creating formulas in entries of such matrices, and considering the variables caused by differences of the audiences in these formulas. Discussion of Results and Conclusion The rhetoric of education in this research is considered as scientific treatment by educational aspects of the texts, classifying, analyzing, and evaluating the educational influences of the texts on the audiences, and approaching as much as possible how the author can impact consciously on his/her audience. The rhetoric of education in this definition is related to the educational influences of the texts, and criticism with an educational approach. New rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism rose in the 20th and 21st centuries following the great and fast innovations and changes of literary theory and criticism and huge social, political, and scientific changes, after a relatively long time rejection of the rhetoric, not only are more useful from their previous versions in terms of impacting the human life and solving the human problems, but also their domain, subjects, tools and methods, have changed basically. Thus new rhetoric and contemporary rhetorical criticism as explained in the research findings have so much potential to organize educational approaches in criticism and achieve the rhetoric of education, fill the gap, and respond to the necessities explained in the introduction.
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