Vernacular Rhetoric

Vernacular Rhetoric

1. purposeful, post-structural, critical rehtoric

   • Purposeful
     • it serves a purpose; it has an aim, a direction, it does something
   • Post-Structural
     • it sees knowledge as interpretive, subjective, and local. Not fixed account of the truth. No single "social good". Culturally contingent
   • Critical
     • intrinsically engaged in critical project, not just used for criticism

2. Ono & Sloop

   • Civic
     • discourse meant for a large population
     • Discourse that broad based consumer groups by
     • not everyone has access to participate, only listen
   • Vernacular
     • everyday discourse within smaller communities
     • a limited demographic within a larger civic community
   • Dominant and Outlaw Discourse
     • the logic in which an argument or position makes sense
   • Dominant
     • approved, widely accepted or circulated
     • became common sense (doxa)
     • institutionally supported, structually codiefied
   • Outlaw
     • marginal minority outside dominant logio-
     • incommensurate with logic of dominant discourse
     • Unsanctioned
   • Outlaw / Civic
     • doesn't remain here for long because it is not sustainable, class example - Gay Rights

3. Howard

   • Dialectic Vernacular
     • vernacular always emerges bound-up with its surrounding institutional powers
     • the vernacular can only be understood in reference to its alternate, the institutional
     • therefore, the vernacular is never wholly separate from the institutional