Rhetorica
1 articleMarch 2018
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Abstract
Reviews 213 concerned primarily with prescriptive correctness. He traces pedagogies that have used these ideas at various times in western schools, but his biggest con tribution is examining theories that challenge this paradigm. For example, feminist stylistics, he contends, challenges the rules of convention. Pointing to the works of Cixous and Kristeva, Ray shows that textual structure and organization should be challenged as points of gendering stylistic choice. The last two chapters are on researching style and teaching style. Ray's chapter on researching style shows that there are still major gaps in the research; for instance, he notes that there have been no ethnographic studies on writing styles to date. Additionally, he describes the use of quantitative methods used to describe style, and data mining to describe stylistic featu res of writing. Beyond this, there are opportunities for research in rhetorical analysis, stylistics, and discourse analysis. The concluding chapter argues for better teaching strategies in the classroom. The fear is that teaching style will not liberate a curriculum but rather enslave it to prescriptive grammar study. Ray assuages these fears with suggestions for incorporating style in the classroom to develop writing, including ways in which classical rhetoric informs writing instruction in current theory. He invites interdisciplinary work in the classroom to discuss style from the perspective of various dis course communities enabling students to see diverse approaches to compo sition. Ray ends the chapter on a hopeful note: "For those teachers who adopt them, these guiding principles bring style out of the shadows of col lege writing classes, helping to improve students' writing while also per haps increasing their satisfaction in producing academic texts required for their success" (p. 219). A significant issue with Ray's book is that it does not quite live up to its lofty claim that "an in-depth, historical, and theoretical understanding of style helps teachers make writing more satisfying and relevant to stu dents" (p. 5). This may be true, but the topic is immense, and this is a rather slim volume. At best, Style is, as the title suggests, an introduction. The chapters do establish a framework for style, but they are not genuinely indepth discussions. However, Brian Ray's Style is an invitation for scholars to fill in those gaps, and I believe this book paves the way helpfully for future research. Robert L. Lively Arizona State University A. Pennacini, Discorsi eloquenti da Ulisse a Obama e oltre, Seconda edizione riveduta e corretta, Alessandria: Edizioni dell Orso, 2017 (I ed., 2015), 592 pp. ISBN 9788862746090. Adriano Pennacini é stato uno dei precursori, nell'universitá italiana, del tentativo di intrecciare lo studio delTantica técnica retorica con gli studi classici e con le nuove discipline della comumcazione. Presidente della 214 RHETORICA International Society for the History of Rhetoric dal 1991 al 1993, ha affidato a un corposo volume un 'eloquente' saggio del suo método di analisi della comunicazione persuasiva, che spazia dalla prima 'retorica' omerica fino a quella del (penúltimo) Presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America e comprende nell'oltre del titolo un esempio della origínale eloquenza di Jorge Bergoglio, papa Francesco. Raccolte di discorsi non mancano nelle biblioteche degli studiosi di retorica. Attingendo alia rinfusa in quella personale (assolutamente parziale e selettiva), posso ricordare: F. Sallustio, Belle parole. I grandi discorsi della storia dalla Bibbia a Paperino, Milano: Bompiani 2004 (anche in questo caso, una diacronicitá quasi esaustiva); G. Pedullá (cur.), Parole al potere. Discorsi politici italiani, Milano: Rizzoli, 2011; C. Ellis, S. Drury Smith (eds.), Say it Plain. A Century of Great African American Speeches, New York-London: The New Press, 2005; C.M. Copeland, Farewell Goodspeed. The Greatest Eulogies of Our Time, New York: Harmony Books, 2003; C. Knorowski (ed.), Gettysburg Replies. The World Respond to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Guilford, Connecticut: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Raccolte importanti (e ne ho elencate davvero pochissime fra le tante circolanti nelle varié parti del mondo), che offrono testi accompagnati spesso da riflessioni e inquadramenti generali, ma che difficilmente si prefiggono e realizzano lo scopo che ha avuto in mente Pennacini nel raccogliere discorsi anti chi e moderni accompagnati ciascuno da prove di analisi: quello, cioé, di«mostrare la durata...