Retoryka a kultura języka
Rhetoric and language culture

Summary/Abstract: This sketch is dedicated to considering the relation between classical rhetoric and language culture. The latter is understood as oriented exclusively (or mainly) towards categories of proper language use, norms of language use, and criteria determining such norms. Deviations from the norms and violation of the criteria are frequently considered a (phonetic, grammatical, lexical, etc.) language error. The author demonstrates the convergence between language culture and classical rhetoric, where proper language use (Latinitas or Hellenismós) is one – yet not the only (along with appropriateness, clarity, ornateness) – criterion for evaluating the value of utterances/statements. Hence the final thesis: the word rhetoric is a hypernym of language culture.

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