Retoryka i językoznawstwo – obszary spotkania
Classical rhetoric and modern linguistics: Meeting fields

Summary/Abstract: The article is attempt to comparison of two fields of knowledge: classical rhetoric and modern linguistics. Contemporary linguists treat rhetoric as a historical and pre-scientific discipline. Rhetoric also seemed to be too prescriptive and formalized for many theorists. After the reform of artes liberales which was made in Renaissance by Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée) rhetoric was limited only to the art of oratory and theory of style (stylistics). In 18th century rhetoric (like all the humanities) was thrown away from “garden of sciences.” And in 19th century even this classical concept of art was rejected. This is the reason that nowadays many scholars look at rhetoric rather distrustfully. The author of this article argues that classical rhetoric is modern and useful to contemporary linguistics. In conclusion the author suggests that in discourse studies rhetoric should be understood as a general frame for next detailed researches.

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