Реторика и комуникация в обществото

Rhetoric and Communication in Society

DOI 10.55206/EDSI3727

Fee-Alexandra Haase

Independent Researcher

Previously Assoc. Professor at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University, University of Nizwa, and Cyprus International University

E-mail: f.haase1@gmx.de

 

Abstract: Whereas in modern languages the word concept is used as a loanword with an etymological tradition that traces it back to the Latin words conceptio and concipere, the localization, evaluation, and discussion of the concept as an idea within the humanities in the case of rhetoric is the interest of the following article. Focusing on the historical and systematical place of the concept as a term in the discipline of rhetoric, we trace the usage from the earliest occurrences in the classical rhetoric of Cicero for the legal rhetorical usage as a part of the invention (‘inventio’) of the rhetorician in the legal genre (‘genus iudicale’) to modern usage of the term ‘concept’ in contemporary rhetorical treatises. We will show that, although the systematic place of the concept changes throughout the history of the theory of rhetoric, it is continuously present as a constitutional element of the systematic organization of the theory of rhetoric. We argue that the concept is present as an element of the theory of rhetoric as a word, a concrete issue of the text, and a mental representation in the history of rhetoric ranging from a concrete figure of speech for a figurative language in classical rhetoric to an overarching means of the organization of the elements of rhetoric in the contemporary theory for the purpose of communication.

Keywords: concept, conceptualization – theory of rhetoric – humanities – mind and things – historical scholarly terms – contemporary rhetoric – classical rhetoric.

 

1. The Word Conceptio and the Term ‘Concept’ in the Ancient Theory of Rhetoric

We are interested in the function of the concept within the theory of communication that the discipline of rhetoric offers. Throughout its history, which began in the ancient Greek culture, the discipline of rhetoric has until now employed the concept and related terms in various systematic places of its system. These places we will show in the following diachronic study for the application of the term ‘concept’ and its associated meanings in theoretical writings of rhetoric. The study of concepts is a part of the research of the intellectual history (German: Begriffsgeschichte) of humanity that allows us to see continuity in human thinking (Mulsow, 2020). [1] Mulsow emphasizes that the history of concepts needs to be explored even beyond the classical past calling it a ‘deep intellectual history’. Büttgen et al. (2014) [2] equalize the German Begriff with the English concept, the French concept, the Greek katalêpsis (κατάληψιs) and the Latin comprehensio. All loanwords including German Konzept can be traced to a common Proto-Indo-European root. The Greek term ‘κατάληψιs’ is as Plutarch states (Plut. Cic. 40) [3] employed by Cicero in Latin translation. The Latin term ‘comprehensio’ occurs in rhetorical treatises like Cicero’s Orator (58.198) [4] in “universa comprehensio et species orationis” for ‘universal understanding and appearance of the speech’ besides concipere in the expression “igni ignem concipere” in De Oratore (2.190.). [5] While Helmig (2012) [6] mentions that in antiquity several words like like eidos / genos, logos, or koinon in the Greek language can be associated with ‘concept’ as the English meaning, and thus also in the linguistic tradition loanwords associated with them in English carry this meaning, we start with our inquiry of the textual function of the concept with the actual language that is the original language of the origin of this word, Latin, and the words that anticipate the use of this loanword. The term ‘concept’ can be found as a linguistic phenomenon in rhetorical texts besides philosophical texts and other cultural applications of rhetoric. The term ‘concept’ as conceptio emerged in the Latin language, was used in modern Neolatin and vernacular European language, and covered besides rhetoric specific subjects as element of the terminology of the register of scholarly language. Besides its basic meaning of conceiving as the beginning of pregnancy, the term ‘conceptio’ has been used in the Latin language for the depiction of abstract processes in the scholarly language of the humanities. In Latin the basic and most common meaning for conceptio is the conception of a child, while philology and rhetoric used it in an abstract way for mental representations.

In De Architectura Libri Decem of Vitruvius the word conceptio is employed for a wide intellectual understanding in expressions like “conceptio summa omnium naturae rerum” for the system of the universe (Vitr. 9.4.2) [7] and the whole world (“conceptio tota mundi”) (Vitr. 6.1.6.). [8] When stating that the creation of the world as ‘conceptio mundi’ seems to be composed (“Ita videtur mundi conceptio tota propter inclinationem consonantissime per solis temperaturam ad harmoniam esse composita.”), Vitruvius uses the verb componere, which has the meaning ‘to put together’, and describes with this meaning the conception as a formal process. The function of the concept in the cultural history of rhetoric shows, besides the fact that it functions in many cases as a methodological process and figure of speech, that it is used as a descriptive term for intellectual processes of formal figuration. Not only these differences, but also the similarities of associated meanings for the word concept since its first occurrence as conceptio and its names in other languages will be presented and discussed based on the question ‘Which place has the concept in the discipline of rhetoric?’  

Cicero in his De Inventione (2.58) uses the term ‘conception’ (‘conceptio’) for the drawing of formulas in law, which he describes as a composing of juridical formulas in the expression “omnis conceptio privatorum iudicorum constituitur” for the process of drawing up the complete formula in a legal case. In Hubbell’s translation (1949, p. 221) the term ‘conception’ (‘conceptio’) is not literally translated:

Admodum oportet egerit. quare in iure plerumque versantur. ibi enim et exceptiones postulantur et agendi potestas datur et omnis conceptio privatorum iudiciorum constituitur. in ipsis autem iudiciis rarius incidunt et tamen, si quando incidunt, eiusmodi sunt, ut per se minus habeant firmitudinis, confirmentur autem assumpta alia aliqua constitutione.

Therefore such questions generally are disposed of in iure (before the praetor). For it is there that exceptions are requested and right of action is granted, and the complete formula for the guidance of the trial of private (or civil) actions is drawn up. Pleas for transfer rarely come up in the actual trial and if they do they are of such a nature that they have little force in themselves, but are supported by the aid of some other issue. (Tr. Hubbell) [11]

Cicero in De Oratore (2.190) [12] uses the verb concipere for a comparison of a fire, which can only be started by another fire (“igni ignem concipere possit”), with the mind (mens) that is only ready to understand the power of the orator (“mens est tam ad comprehendendam vim oratoris parata”), when the mind itself is inflamed by it and burning (“quae possit incendi, nisi ipse inflammatus ad eam et ardens”).

Quintilian writes in his Institutio Oratoria in Book I (1.10.4) [13] that he is not depicting an orator who at his time exists or once existed (oratorem, qui sit aut fuerit), but he had conceptualized in his mind (concepisse nos animo) the image of a perfect one (imaginem perfecti illius). Quintilian describes with the usage of the infinitive concipere imaginem perfecti illius (oratoris) in the perfect tense an action, namely the process of the conceptualization of the ideal rhetoric in the image of its personification by the perfect orator, which we can consider to have the same meaning as the making of a concept of rhetoric in contrast to Quintilian’s conceptualization of the imago as an abstraction. At another place in his Institutio Oratoria (8.5.2) [14] Quintilian speaks about the common custom that what is apprehended by the mind (mente concepta) is called perceptions in the expression “consuetudo jam tenuit, ut mente concepta sensus vocaremus.” In the introduction to Book VI of his Institutio Oratoria (6.pr2) [14] Quintilian uses the verb concipere in the expression “illium enim, de quo summa conceperam” for the one, in whom he had the highest expectations, to express a mental projection onto his son who had died, while he was writing the book:

At me fortuna id agentem diebus ac noctibus festinantemque metu meae mortalitatis ita subito prostravit, ut laboris mei fructus ad neminem minus quam ad me pertineret. illium enim, de quo summa conceperam et in quo spem unicam senectutis reponebam, repetito vulnere orbitatis amisi.

Night and day I pursued this design, and strove to hasten its completion in the fear that death might cut me off with my task unfinished, when misfortune overwhelmed me with such suddenness, that the success of my labours now interests no one less than myself. A second bereavement has fallen upon me, and I have lost him of whom I had formed the highest expectations, and in whom I reposed all the hopes that should solace my old age. What is there left for me to do? (Tr. Edgeworth Butler) [15]

In the introduction to Book XII of his Institutio Oratoria (12 pr.1) [16] Quintilian uses the verb concipere in the expression “opinione prima concipere” for an awareness of the burden (onus) of his conceptualizing (concipere) of the book by a first opinion (opinione prima) translated by Edgeworth Butler as “realised the difficulties when I first designed this work”. Quintilian uses the verb concipere in connection with image (imago) and the abstract participle plural ‘concepta’ for things perceived in the mind in both cases for the description of mental images. Quintilian (9.4.57) [17] mentions the enthymeme (enthymema) and calls it an oratorical syllogism. Quintilian (9.4.57) [18] states that the enthymema rhetoricus is a syllogismus. Quintilian equates the enthymema also with commentum, when Quintilian (9.2.107) [19] quotes Visellius, who calls enthymema also commentum, a Latin term we can translate to English as ‘conception’ and is probably the source for the post-classical usage of the Latin term ‘mentis conceptio’ for an enthymeme in Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX.

In post-classical writings on rhetoric, the participle is used as a form of an abstract noun, conceptus, for concept. Isidore notices in his Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX in Book II in De Rhetorica et Dialectica that rhetoric (rhetorica) is the science of good speaking in civil questions and eloquence (eloquentia) a legitimate and good abundance for persuading: “Rhetorica est bene dicendi scientia in civilibus quaestionibus, eloquentia copia ad persuadendum iusta et bona.” In lemma 7 Isidore mentions the four parts of the speech (de quattuor partibus orationis) introduction (‘exordium’), narration (‘narratio’), argumentation (‘argumentatio’), and conclusion (‘conclusio’). In his description of syllogistic reasoning Isidore mentions the enthymema, which he defines in Latin as a ‘conception of the mind’ (‘mentis conceptio’) in lemma 8: „Enthymema igitur Latine interpretatur mentis conceptio, quem inperfectum syllogismum solent artigraphi nuncupare.” Like Cicero Isidore uses the term ‘concept’ (‘conceptio’) as a rhetorical term for a form. Isidore’s translations from Greek to Latin contribute to the emergence of the term ‘conceptio’ in the post-classical literature about rhetoric and the usage of the term for figures of speech. So in his Etymologiae (1.37.13) [20] Isidore defines as Latin equivalent term to the Greek figure ‘synechdoche’ in Latin ‘conceptio’: “Synecdoche est conceptio, cum a parte totum, vel a toto pars intellegitur. Eo enim et per speciem genus, et per genus species demonstratur [sed species pars est, genus autem totum].” Isidore in his Etymologiae (1.16.1) [21] also equalizes the Greek syllaba with Latin ‘conceptio’ or ‘conplexio’, when stating:

Syllaba Graece, Latine conceptio sive conplexio dicitur. Nam syllaba dicta est ἀπὸ τοῦ συλλαμβάνειν τὰ γράμματα, id est a conceptione litterarum. Συλλαμβάνειν enim dicitur concipere.

Boethius writes in the treatise In Librum De Interpretatione Aristotelis Minor [22] in the chapter De Signis that the conception of the intelligence and the mind (intelligentia mentisque conceptio) is signified (significatur) by the voices (vocibus) after stating that the passions of the soul (animae passiones) belong to the intellect (intellectus) and that what exists in the voice (vox) signifies them:

Animae autem passiones intellectus sunt. 58 Igitur ea quae sunt in voce, intellectuum qui sunt in anima passiones, notae sunt eosque significant. 59 Quoniam his, id est vocibus, omnis significatur intelligentia mentisque conceptio.

 

Boethius mentions here that the conception of the mind (animi conceptio) and the passion of the soul (animi conceptio) are naturally for all humans “70 Ergo naturalis apud omnes homines est animi conceptio atque animae passio.” Cassiodorus writes in the Expositio in Psalterium in Caput XV De Eloquentia Totius Legis Divinae in section 3 about the fastucium that it is an ‘explicite conception‘ (‘explicata conceptio’): “Fastucium enim est per commata procedens ad depromendum sensum, naviter explicata conceptio.” [23]

In all examples we showed the term ‘conception’ (‘conceptio’) is used for a realization of a form of mental representation. The term ‘conception’ (‘con­ceptio’) as a drawn formula in Cicero’s De Inventione, Cicero’s usage of the verb concipere for the mind in his work De Oratore, Quintilian’s use of the verb concipere in the expression “imaginem perfecti illius (oratoris)”, and also post-classical writers like Isidore with his expression ‘conception of the mind’ (‘conceptio mentis’) refer to an intellectual process of making visual representations like the drawn formula the rhetorician uses in the legal speech or the image of the perfect orator, which Quintilian presents. Obviously with the knowledge of the Etymologiae of Isidore, in his dialogue De Divisione Naturae (4.3.3) [24] John Scotus Eriugena has the magister tell the discipulus that the figure or trope synecdoche is equivalent to the Latin term ‘conceptio’: “Ille siquidem tropus, qui dicitur συνεκδοχή, hoc est conceptio, in divinis eloquiis usitatissimus est.” Thomas Aquinas in Quaestiones Disputatae. De Potentia (9.6) [25] writes that every wise and intelligent one (omnis sapiens et intelligens) has from its wisdom a ‘conception’ (conceptio’). A son is wise and intelligent like his father. The ‘conception’ (‘conceptio’) of the father is the word, which is the son’s. Thomas Aquinas in this work concludes this syllogism stating that it follows that also the son has another son (“Ergo filius etiam habet alium filium”):

Praeterea, omnis sapiens et intelligens ex sua sapientia aliquam conceptionem habet. Sed filius est sapiens et intelligens, sicut et pater. Ergo habet aliquam conceptionem. Conceptio autem patris est verbum: quod est filius. Ergo filius etiam habet alium filium.

 

Here the formal structure of the syllogism and the equation of ‘conceptio’ and ‘verbum’ are references to the rhetorical figures.

2. The Term ‘Concept’ in Post-Classical European Rhetoric: A Figure of Speech in European Languages

In modern European history the rhetorical system favors the use of concept as a description for a figure of thought, and it is used in one of the fields that apply rhetoric, poetry. In the vernacular languages emerging from Latin the word conceptio continued in the Italian term ‘concetto’. In the English language the term ‘conceit’ did not emerge in the process of derivation from the Latin word but entered the language as a loanword from the Italian word concetto. As Abrams (1999) [26] in the entry conceit mentioned, it meant in the English language originally ‘concept’ or ‘image’ and “came to be the term for figures of speech which establish a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations. English poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries adapted the term from the Italian concetto.” Both the Italian term ‘concetto’ and the English term ‘conceit’ are used for a figure of thought. The Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik (1994) [27] entails the entries for ‘concetto’ and ‘conceptismo’. As Febel (1994, col. 311) [28] stated, the ‘concetto as a figure of thought means actually thought, concept, or design as equivalent to the English term ‘conceit’ in contrast to concept and since Dante for an intended abnormal plot or a play of thoughts and meanings. As Briesemeier (1994, col. 306) [29] mentioned, the term ‘conceptismo’ was used to describe the style of mannerism of the Spanish poetry in the 17^th century. Plett (2010, p. 45) [30] wrote that in the further development of rhetoric and its terminology the analogical metaphor in its audacious realizations will be named concetto or concept and become part of the mannerist or ‘metaphysical’ style. The invention of a (metaphorical) term for a thing for which no designation as yet exists (paupertas sermonis) receive the critical term catachesis).

Undocumented in antiquity, the term ‘conceptus’ emerged in post-classical European writings about rhetoric. The terms derived from the classical Latin term ‘conceptio’ in the vernacular languages employed for the figure of speech and the term ‘conceptus’ were known in post-classic rhetoric. Curtius (2013, p. 296) mentions that the expression ‘profunditas in conceptu’ used by Martianus Capella was not employed by Quintilian. Among the terms of classic rhetoric, the term ‘conceptio’  was used, which was adopted in medieval philosophy for ‘concept’. Gracián uses the expression ‘profundidad de concepto’ in his Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio (1725, p. 178) [32] Martianus Capella in De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii in Book V with the title De Rhetorica [33] wrote down the values of a rhetorical speech. Among them is the ‘profoundness of the concept’ (‘profunditas in conceptu’). The post-classical Latin term ‘conceptus’, which we  find in Martianus Capella’s De Nuptii Philologiae et Mercurii, was in the writings of modernity semantically partly used as an equivalent for ‘conceptio’, but also covered the meaning of an abstract concept as we use it in contemporary English. In Caspar von Barth’s Amphitheatrum Seriorum Jocorum Libris XXX Epigrammatum Constructum (1613, p. 9) [34] in the epigram De Scoppio the term ‘conceptus’ is used for conception:

1. De Scoppio.

Nobilitas Scoppi magna est balatronis in illo

Quod nescire suum se videt ipse genus.

Qui satus in castris, conceptus ubique, per ipsa

Milia, in exilio matre vagante, decem.

Excidit e genetrice alieno, paupere, tecto

Dein numquam certo nomine Patrem habuit.

Quemque habuisse olim visus, per depsuit ipse,

Confessus titulis matris adulterium.

Aedepol argute, Stooque ab acumine, tendit

Antiquum sibi de se fabricare genus.

In Delitiae Poetarum Germanorum (1612, p. 25) [35] published in Frankfurt in 1612 the term ‘concept’ (‘conceptus’) is used for a concept of poetry like love (amor) in the poem In Nuptiis Filiae D. Pauli Praetorii written by Johannes Major:

Tantum amor et vis dia potest haurire laborum,
Atque aliquis ventos olim perpessus et imbres
Carpit iter cursuque diem, noctemque fatigat,
Urget enim conceptus amor, non aura procellis
Feta domi cohibere potest, non solibus aestas,
Vincit iter durum dilectae cura Puellae.

Johann Micraelius’ lexicon of philosophical terms Lexicon Philosophicum Terminorum Philosophis Usitatorum (1661, col. 310–312) [36] gives us in its definitions of concept (‘conceptus’) an impression about the still existing awareness of the word conceptus as a term associated with the fields of rhetoric, philosophy, logic, and grammar in the trivium of the liberal arts. In the philosophical terminology provided in his Lexicon Philosophicum Terminorum Philosophis Usitatorum the term ‘conceptus’ is equalized with ‘archetypus’. Micraelius also differentiates between ‘conceptus formalis’ and ‘conceptus objectivus’ and equates conceptus with notio in ‘notio notionis’ or ‘notio secunda’, which is a term present in the work of logicians, grammaticians, and rhetoricians. Furthermore, Micraelius’ differentiates the term ‘concept’ (‘conceptus’) into ‘conceptus realis’, ‘conceptus intentionalis’, and ‘conceptus nominalis seu verbalis’ referring to Thomas Aquinas and Ockham.

(1)  Conceptus est assimilatio rei conceptae in intellectu.

(2)  In omni conceptis est proportio ad rem conceptam, sive illa proportio sit summetrica seu paritatis, sive analogias seu similitudinis.

(3)  Conceptus est (1.) aut archetypus. (…)

(7)  Conceptus objectivus conseqventer est notio notionis, i. e. notio secunda, qvales sunt in Logicis, Grammaticis, Rhetoricis.

(8)  Conceptus item alius est realis. alius intentionalis. alius nominalis seu verbalis.

 

The New Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1756, n.p.) [37] edited by Bailey and published in London presents the following definition of conception as both an act and product of the mind: “Conception is an act of the mind or the product of it, as thought, action or principle; the simple idea of apprehension that a person has of any thing without proceeding to affirm or deny any matter or matter related to it.” Johnson’s English Dictionary (1828, p. 217) [38] has several entries related to conceit. The entry of the noun conceit lists the meanings ‘conception’, ‘thought’, ‘understanding’, ‘readiness of apprehension’, ‘fancy’, ‘imagination’, ‘fantastical notion’, ‘opinion in a neutral sense’, ‘pleasant fancy’, ‘gayety of imagination’, ‘sentiment’, ‘striking thought’, ‘fondness’, ‘favourable opinion’, ‘opinionative pride’. The entry of the verb to conceit comprises the meanings ‘to conceive’, ‘to imagine’, ‘to believe’. Conceited has the meanings ‘endowed with fancy’, ‘proud’, ‘fond of himself’. The noun conceitedness has the meanings ‘pride’, ‘opinionativeness’, ‘fondness of himself’. Johnson’s English Dictionary (1828, p. 218) [39] lists as derivations from concept the adjective conceptacle with the meanings ‘that in which anything is contained’, ‘vessel’, conception with the meanings ‘conceiving’, ‘growing quick with pregnancy’, ‘the state of being conceived’, ‘notion’, ‘idea’, ‘image in the mind’, ‘sentiments’, ‘purpose’, ‘apprehension’, ‘knowledge’, ‘conceit’, ‘sentiment’, ‘pointed thought’, conceptious with the meanings ‘fruitful’, ‘pregnant’, and conceptive with the meaning ‘capable to conceive’.

 

3. Recent Movements of the Theory of Rhetoric –

The Terms ‘Rhetorical Concept’ and ‘Concept of Rhetoric’

The terms ‘rhetorical concept’ or ‘concept of rhetoric’, as used within the discipline of rhetoric, aim at the distinction of terminology of rhetoric, which refers to complex theoretical ideas in the process of the production of the rhetorical speech. In the German scholarly tradition, the concept and the history of concepts are scientifically housed in a discipline called Begriffsgeschichte (‘history of concepts’). Across the Germanic language family, the Indo-European language family, and other language families we can see the emergence of the scholarly term ‘concept’ besides vernacular forms. The term ‘Konzept’ (‘concept’) is used as a term in contemporary rhetorical research in Germany for ideas within the history of rhetoric, which are terminologically documented in its terms since antiquity. Knape (2005, p. 145) [40] mentions that invention refers to the part of rhetorical production of images called Inventivik, which is as the task of finding or inventing (“als Findungs- oder Erfindungstätigkeit” the first step of the concrete work on the texture (“die erste Stufe der konkreten Arbeit an der Textur”). It is directed towards contents, themes, and mental concepts, especially mentally planned strategies of persuasion for previously determined aims governing the following work on the image (calculus of content and concept) (“Sie richtet sich auf Inhalte, Themen, gedankliche Konzepte, vor allem auch gedanklich vorgeplante Strategien der Überzeugung im Dienste vorab festgelegter Zielsetzungen, die die weitere Arbeit am Bild leiten (Inhalts- und Konzeptkalkül).

The online handbook Silva Rhetoricae (2007) edited by Burton at Brigham Young University is an online project of rhetorical devices, which employs the term ‘concept’ as a classifying category for overarching, specific ideas within the rhetorical system it presents. [41] Besides such self-referencing approaches made by scholars of rhetoric, the discipline also encountered interdisciplinary terminological mixtures with other disciplines like linguistics. In the USA Brockriede in Dimensions of the Concept of Rhetoric (1968, p. 1) [42] combined rhetoric and modern communication studies stating that “the conception of rhetoric broadly as the study of how interpersonal relationships and attitudes are influenced within a situational context assumes the presence of the rhetorical impulse”. According to Brockriede, “the concept of rhetoric must grow empirically from an observa­tion and analysis of contemporary, as well as past, events. The dimensions should be selected, developed, structured, and continuously revised to help explain and evaluate particular rhetorical acts.” In postmodern linguistics the ‘conceptual metaphor’ is a figure of words that represents a concept. McGee (1982, p. 23) [43] in A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric wrote about concepts and their historical change in the discipline of rhetoric:

The contemporary history of rhetoric is the opposite of the typical history of other social sciences. (…) Rhetoricians battle an opposite problem: we are overwhelmed with a history which goes back through two millennia of conceptualizing to pre-Socratic Greece. Supposedly, each writer who creates or modifies a concept does so on the warrant of experience with real phenomena, actual cases of „rhetoric.“ Over time, however, the connection between theory and practice is muddied. A proliferation of concepts forces us to pay more attention to what has been said about rhetorical practice than to actual public address.

As for the relevance of the term ‘concept’ in past epochs of rhetoric, its specific rhetorical meanings, which it had in past centuries, are no longer reflected within contemporary dictionaries. In the contemporary English language the term ‘conceit’ has various meanings. So conceit in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2022) [44] has the meanings ‘unduly favorable estimation of one’s own abilities or worth,  ‘estimation or opinion of something, especially when favorable’ as an archaic meaning, ‘a witty expression or fanciful idea’, ‘a fanciful poetic image, especially an elaborate or exaggerated comparison’, ‘result of intellectual activity’ and ‘a thought or an opinion’ as obsolete meanings, ‘a decorative article’, ‘a knickknack’, and ‘an extravagant, fanciful, and elaborate construction or structure’. The verb is chiefly used in British English for ‘to take a fancy to’ and exists as an obsolete word for ‘to understand’ and ‘to conceive’. Since its occurrence in Middle English, the noun has been used for ‘mind’ and ‘conception’ in a derivation from Anglo-Norman conceite and Late Latin conceptus.

An example of the use of the term ‘concept’ for areas of the discipline of rhetoric in contemporary rhetorical studies is its application by the OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.) [45] stating regarding the rhetorical situation that “many people have heard of the rhetorical concepts of logos, ethos, and pathos even if they do not necessarily know what they fully mean”. Barthes in Rhétorique de l’Image (1964, p. 49) [46] pioneered in regard to the use of the term ‘concept’ for rhetorical concepts when he wrote about abondance as the French equivalent to the Latin word for the concept of copia: “Le sème „abondance“, au contraire, est un concept à l’état pur, coupé de tout syntagme, privé de tout contexte.” The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition (1996) [47] was set up with the intention to cover principles, concepts, applications, practical tools, and major thinkers of the discipline rhetoric. Covino and Jolliffe (1995) [48] in Rhetoric. Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries treat concepts. The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001) [49] has no entry related to the concept. As for the state of contemporary textbooks on rhetoric, these aim to present terms and concepts of rhetoric, such as the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, which was published by Thomas O. Sloane in 2001 and contains 250 entries, some relating to rhetoric, others to other areas of the humanities. According to the description provided on the website of the publishing house (n.d.) [50], the Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies edited by Jasinski and published in a printed edition in 2001 followed by an online edition in 2012 is as a format “an alphabetized glossary (with appropriate cross listings) of key terms and concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies.” Fiehler mentions in Rhetoric. Rhetorik of Sociolinguistics. Soziolinguistik: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft (2006, p. 2555) [51] the problem of the ambivalence of the concept of rhetoric due to its historical length:

Der Begriff und die Disziplin Rhetorik besitzen eine ebenso lange wie wechselvolle Geschichte. Wie viele zentrale wissen­schaftliche Begriffe, ist auch der Begriff Rhetorik – nicht zuletzt als Resultat dieser Geschichte – mehrdeutig und unscharf.

The concept and the discipline of rhetoric have a long and changing history. Like many central scientific concepts, the concept of rhetoric is – not least as a result of this history – ambiguous and not precise. (Tr. F.-A. Haase)

As for the term ‘concept’, it entails aspects of visual imagery, but it seems that the most striking feature of the term ‘concept’ in the discipline of rhetoric is the formalized figuration of the representation as a rhetorical means, which can be a formalized reasoning argumentation or a figure of speech. Skinner (1999, p. 62) [52] in Rhetoric and Conceptual Change that since antiquity, rhetoricians have used the principle of “re-description” to maintain their concepts as these change.

Our concepts form part of what we bring to the world in our efforts to understand it. The shifting conceptualisations to which this process gives rise constitute the very stuff of ideological debate, so that it makes no more sense to regret than to deny that such conceptual changes continually take place.  

As for the discipline of rhetoric, its continuity across cultures emerging from Greece required a permanent translation process of the concepts. Rhetori­cians found themselves confronted with the situation that the traditional kairos as a rhetorical situation with speaker, speech and audience was being called into question by the influence of new media and new forms of media communication. In current research among scholars the term ‘concept’ is used for specific areas of the rhetorical discipline, as preserved in treatises and handbooks. Each of these areas conveys a specific understanding of rhetoric and is linguistically encoded with terms, the terminology often reflecting the language in which the concept first emerged historically.

4. The Contemporary Theory of Rhetoric: The Concept as Means of Renovation of Traditional Rhetorical Conceptions

In the definition of conceit in the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary (n.d.) [53] the tradition of rhetoric is still presented by its main meanings ‘favorable opinion’, ‘a result of mental activity: thought’, ‘individual opinion’, ‘a fanciful idea’, ‘an elaborate or strained metaphor’,‘use or presence of such conceits in poetry’, ‘an organizing theme or concept’, and ‘a fancy item or trifle’. On the contrary, concept has in the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary (n.d.) [54] the general meanings ‘something conceived in the mind: thought, notion’, ‘used in phrases like what a concept to say that a notion is self-evident’, and ‘an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances’. The equation of conception with rhetorical persuasion is a recent approach in the theory of rhetoric presented by Meyer in What is Rhetoric? In the introduction to What is Rhetoric? (2017, p. 10) [55] Mayer makes the claim to present a “new conception of rhetoric as it will integrate the preceding ones” like the “three basic concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos”. In the prefatory note Meyer (2017, p. XIV) [56] describes rhetoric as a ‘single conception’ that is a bridge between different notions like ‘conflict’, ‘persuasion’, ‘conviction’, ‘emotion’, ‘reasonable judgment’, and ‘rhetorical inference’:

Rhetoric has been used to reinforce the identity of communities through common stories such as epics, thereby going beyond the task of settling disputes (for which it was also intended). But now the question is a philosophical one: how might we harmonize heterogeneous notions such as conflict and persuasion, conviction and emotion, reasonable judgment and rhetorical inference if not by relying on a single conception of the problematic in human affairs.

As for Mayer (2017, pp. 10–11), “the theory of questioning is what allows us to find a common root to all the conceptions of rhetoric produced so far”, and rhetoric as what is “conceived of as a figurative mode of speaking” [57] is the prevailing contemporary scholarly understanding of rhetoric, while it is also rooted in argumentation. In the introduction of a new translation of the Rhetoric of Aristotle by Waterfield Yunis (2018, p. xxiv) [58] mentions as ‘key concepts of the rhetoric’ the three genres of deliberative, judicial, and epideictic speech that as ‘generic qualities of a speech’ “affect its most important features, namely, its subject matter, function, mode of proof, place of delivery, audience reception, and style.”

We will now discuss examples of the use of the concept in the contemporary theory of rhetoric. Early authors of rhetorical treatises used the noun concept (conceptio) and the verb to conceive (concipere) for the mental process of forming a rhetorically relevant mental representation of knowledge. Lyne and Miller (2009, p. 167) [59] put it into a historical framework stating “Plato’s representation of this issue (i.e. the relation between rhetoric and knowledge; F.H.) in the dialogue Gorgias is apparently the beginning of the conceptualization of rhetoric in relation to bodies of knowledge.” The word body (Latin corpus) is in classical rhetoric used for a mental representation the rhetorician is able to produce. Quintilian uses the word corpus in Book V (5.8.2) [60] in order to teach this process with the expression “appearance of a body” (“species corporis”) related to the formal conceptualization of a body by means of the ornamentum argumentorum of the cause (causa) presented in the oration of the legal rhetoric’s genus iudicale. Edgeworth Butler translates the passage as follows:

[2] atqui cetera, quae continuo magis orationis tractu decurrunt, in auxilium atque ornamentum argumentorum comparantur, nervisque illis, quibus causa continetur, adiiciunt inducti super corporis speciem.

And yet those other forms of eloquence, which have a more continuous sweep and flow, are employed with a view to assisting and embellishing the arguments and produce the appearance of super inducing a body upon the sinews, on which the whole case rests; (Tr. Edgeworth Butler)

Quintilian in Book X (10.1.87) [61] describes the action of making the body of eloquence (corpus eloquentiae facere) as the phrase (phrasis) of poets, which Edgeworth Butler equalizes in his translation with style. Quintilian uses the word ‘body’ for the imaginative realization of the speech. In the Institutio Oratoria the words in rhetorical arrangements are presented in an act of conceptualization in the process of rhetorical practice. We can consider concepts to be pivotal points within the research approach of rhetoric, which allows us to understand rhetoric from various perspectives. The following terms for concepts are used in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric edited by Sloane in 2001. [62] The terms refer to the below-mentioned areas of concepts of rhetoric.

Table 1.

Concepts of the Historical Dimension and Places of Rhetoric  Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001) [63]

 

Conceptualization of rhetorical elements in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001) [64] is also done in a methodological dimension, the speech-immanent use of figures, and the areas of argumentation, topology, and stasis theory:

Table 2.  Conceptualization of  Rhetorical Elements  Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001)

The Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies (2001) [65] lists more than 200 concepts across the fields of the discipline of rhetoric. The Guide of the Writing Program presented by the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (n.d.) of Arizona State University mentions concepts announcing that “we want to share some more concepts related to rhetoric, each of which we will work with more carefully as the semester moves along.” [66] It lists nine concepts (Table 3, left side). As key concepts in writing and rhetoric the Columbia College Chicago (2017) [67] lists ten concepts, some of which are traditional classical rhetorical concepts and some of which emerge from modern contemporary rhetorical theory (Table 3, right side):

       

Table 3. Concepts in Rhetoric in the Guide of the Writing Program

New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences of Arizona State

University and Key Concepts in Writing and Rhetoric of the

Columbia College Chicago

 

The general concepts of rhetoric that exist at the level of a classifying category for rhetorical terms, which we find in contemporary rhetorical research and described in the previous part, comprise all areas in which rhetoric is involved and are not limited to the didactical concepts of the production of rhetorical speech. In the historical terminology of the discipline of rhetoric the specific use of concept as a rhetorical term is the description of a formal figuration as a rhetorical figure. In the rhetorical writings we examined here the process of conceptualization described as conceiving (concipere) by ancient rhetoricians, the term ‘concept’ employed as a stylistic representation in figures of speech like the synecdoche and syllable, and the conceptual framework of forms of reasoning like the enthymeme are documented. The tradition of existing concepts and the emergence of new concepts in rhetoric, which contemporary research in this discipline aims to describe, is the subject of studies of rhetorical processes within the discipline of rhetoric. The concept as an element of the theory of rhetoric is an example of three different kinds of manifestation: It occurs as a word in the theory of rhetoric at a time when it was also a word in the general thesaurus of the Latin language. Its concrete function in the theory of rhetoric as description of an element of rhetoric comes along with the status of a concrete issue: In the application of the theory of rhetoric, rhetorical speech, the concept is manifest as a concrete rhetorical element, e.g., as the rhetorical figure of metonymy. In the recent usage of the applications of this element, we can observe that the contemporary theory of rhetoric emphasized the manifestation of this element applicable to any idea as a mental representation. As a tendency in the development of the theory of rhetoric, we can say that the ancient use of the concept as a rhetorical device has been replaced by the modern use of conceit as a figure of speech with a continuity of its function as a device. On the contrary, postmodern rhetorical treatises employ the term ‘concept’ as a category for the classification of the theoretical elements in the theory of rhetoric beyond stylistic devices.

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Fee-Alexandra Haase, PhD in rhetoric (Tübingen 1997), most recently associate professor at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University, University of Nizwa, and Cyprus International University with research interests across history, theory, and contemporary rhetoric with language and communication studies. “The Aesthetics of Rhetoric in On the Sublime of Longinus” Dialogica 5.1 (2024), “Saying and Speaking: A Voice-Centered Theoretical Approach to Communication and Media in the Aristotelian Tradition”. Eon 5.2 (2024), “Beyond Mona Lisa’s Smile: A Theoretical Approach to the Persuasion of Likeness in the Digital Image in the Age of Machine Learning Algorithms”. (Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication 5 (2022).

Manuscript was submitted: 10.07.2025.

Double Blind Peer Reviews: from 10.11.2025 till 10.12.2025.

Accepted: 13.12.2025.

Брой 66 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“ (януари 2026 г.) се издава с финансова­та помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП7/23 от 08 декември 2025 г.

Issue 66 of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (January 2026) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP7/23 of December 08, 2025.