Discourse classifications in nineteenth‐century rhetorical pedagogy

Abstract

An analysis of nineteenth‐century discourse classifications, together with the discourse “types” presented by classical pedagogy, helps to explain what was involved in the transformation of rhetoric into composition as it is taught in the American college curriculum. The difference between rhetoric and composition is in essence the difference between social action and academic artifact; this difference is analogous to the difference between rhetorical genre and compositional mode. Although formalism dominates pedagogy and classroom practice invites formalist reduction of social knowledge, genre theory invites us to look to the rhetorical situation the student is actually in and the rhetorical situations we want students to learn how to handle.