Abstract

Abstract Mailloux and Leff urge us to seek a transdisciplinary ground for the study of rhetoric; this essay agrees but argues that neither Leff nor Mailloux has taken sufficient notice of the institutional and historical differences between Speech Communication and English, thus rendering the putative ground unstable. By offering an tentative account of the distinctive general orientation of Speech Communication rhetoricians, I hope to engage a substantive dialogue on the practical conditions of an interdisciplinary study of rhetoric.