A Study On Barry Brummett's Communication Thoughts

The dissertation is a study on the communication thoughts of Barry Brummett,a representative figure in the paradigm transformation of American Contemporary Rhetoric.Barry Brummett is a rhetorician in popular culture era.He proposes theories such as "Rhetorical Homology","Rhetorical Style Criticism",and focuses on rhetorical form and its function.His communication thoughts are unique,representative,and valuable.They deserve the attention from domestic researchers.This dissertation mainly analyzes and solves three research questions:1)Why Brummett emphasizes Form and Rhetoric in communication research.2)What is Rhetorical Homology,and how Brummett uses it.3)How Brummett transfers Style,a concept from traditional rhetorical theory,into a modern rhetorical criticism.According to three questions above,this dissertation traces,discusses and reflects on Brummett's communication thoughts.Introduction part positions Brummett as a contemporary rhetorician,and illustrates the reasons for studying Brummett's communication thoughts.The main part is divided into five chapters,theory background,basic theory questions,theory core,applications,and reflections.The first chapter traces the background of Brummett's communication thoughts and analyzes the reason why he attaches importance to Rhetoric.Ancient rhetoric and modern communication seem to be different disciplines far from each other.In fact,rhetoric is closely related to communication.Rhetoric provides theoretical sources for contemporary communication research.However,with transition of media forms,the traditional rhetoric theory with persuasion as the core is unable to meet the contemporary needs.This chapter summarizes the change in rhetoric paradigm and concept,explores the relationship between rhetoric and communication,and analyzes the background of Brummett's communication thoughts from three aspects.The first is to review the paradigm change process.The second is to sort out the types and functions of contemporary rhetoric theories since the New Rhetoric Revival Movement.The third is to introduce the methods and principles of rhetorical criticism.The purpose of rhetoric criticism is to discover the rules of rhetoric forms for communication research.The second chapter analyzes the reason why Brummett attaches importance to rhetorical form."Form" is the starting point of Brummett's communication thoughts.Brummett's form study derived from Kenneth Burke,an American rhetorician.Burke believed that form is the basic way of thinking in everyday life,and Brummett inherits Burke's form thoughts,holding that the long-neglected concept of form still has great value in the contemporary era,and the rhetorical form is also the core element of the contemporary rhetoric theory.However,different from Burke,Brummett takes contemporary popular culture as rhetorical context,regards social phenomenon as text,and develops the rhetorical mechanism of meaning by analyzing discourse and audience participation.The third chapter discusses the concept,structure and function of "Rhetoric Homology",the core of Brummett's communication thoughts.First,this chapter traces the concept of Rhetoric Homology.Rhetorical Homology,based on the dynamic structure of historical changes,is a meta-dissemination thought with an open system Influenced by Kenneth Burke's "consubstantiality",Brummett continues to go beyond literary text and expand the application of rhetoric into popular culture and everyday practice.Rhetorical Homology aims to analyze the identification in media culture and form a rhetorical mechanism.Second,this chapter analyzes the structure of Rhetoric Homology.Homologous forms in popular culture can be concluded from such rhetorical dimensions as text,meaning and discourse.Media Close Reading and Rhetoric Pendatic Analysis are the principles for interpreting Rhetoric Homology.Media close reading attaches importance to form,rhetoric genres and audience.Rhetoric Pendatic Analysis reveals the rules of homologous forms in social issues based on the traditional five canons of rhetoric and Burke's pendatic analysisThird,this chapter concludes the values and functions of Rhetoric Homology.This chapter compares Brummett's thoughts with other contemporary theories.Brummett summarizes Postman's ideas as "Media Determinism".Rhetorical homology can make up the shortage of Media Determinism,and analyzes the audience's identification by seeking specific homologous forms.The fourth chapter discusses the application of Brummett's thoughts of"Rhetorical Style Criticism".This chapter analyzes the function of rhetoric style.Brummett's Rhetorical Style Criticism system is an extension of Rhetorical Homology,which aims at discovering audience identification.This chapter consists of two parts.The first one is to trace the transformation of Style concept and theory.Brummett insists that style is the central issue in the study of contemporary popular culture.Rhetorical style has expanded from Stylistics,the language decoration strategies,to social relation study.In application,Rhetorical Style can be used in the relationship analysis of audience in everyday media culture instead of persuasive text rules.Second,this chapter summarizes the content and function of Rhetorical Style Criticism System.Brummett built up his Rhetorical Style Criticism based on Rhetoric Homology,aiming to provide rhetoric rules for contemporary popular culture criticism.Rhetoric style criticism system includes "the primacy of the text","the imagined community","market contexts","aesthetic rationales" and "Rhetorical Homology".Rhetorical Homology is the base for social style analysis,with text and market as rhetoric field and audience as imagination community.Brummett named this system as Vernacular Rhetoric.It provides formal rules for individuals and communities.The fifth chapter evaluates Brummett's communication thoughts.The values are:He develops the traditional rhetorical criticism into an analysismethod of popular culture.He dedicates to finding rhetorical formal rules in the complex media culture.He emphasizes the audience's identification.Brummett develops the traditional literature rhetoric theory into a critical theory of popular culture.Brummett's communication thoughts are also representative:He transfers classical rhetoric theory to the rhetorical criticism of communication method,proves that the rhetoric still has important values in contemporary popular culture,and communication study as well.Second,Brummett discovers the function of Rhetorical Form from the perspective of media culture,with the attention focused on the relationship between form,audience and experience.He develops rhetoric research methods such as Rhetoric Style Criticism from the perspective of Rhetoric Homology,and makes critical analysis in the dimensions of audience persuasion,meaning production and discourse power.He inherits Burke's thought,takes popular culture,audience action,motive and emotion as text,and pays attention to the meaning and identification of rhetoric in the process of cultural communication.Brummett's idea of communication aims to analyze the issues of ideology,power,status and identity in popular culture.Compared with other contemporary communication studies,Brummett's communication thoughts hold a positive critical attitude and do not blindly deny the contemporary popular culture,but explore its positive elements,such as emphasizing the value of form and psychology of the audience.Brummett's communication thoughts are interdisciplinary study,which focus on rhetorical criticism in the contemporary context.He broke up the closed system of rhetoric theory,and devoted himself to creating an open and pluralistic popular culture critical system.Brummett's communication thoughts are of reference significance for China,providing ideas,theories and applications for Asian rhetoric and the "Absent" Chinese rhetoric.