Composition: History & Theory: 1960 - 1969
Cognitive Rhetoric
Description
James Berlin, in “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Classroom” (1988), gives the impression that cognitive rhetoric, popular during this time period, may have descended from current-traditional rhetoric, a nineteenth century “positivistic epistemology” that focused on “practical [marketable, managerial] knowledge” amidst booming university enrollments (480). Cognitive rhetoricians believed that there were three elements involved in composing: the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing processes that go into the writer’s mind. There were also three elements involved in completing the writing process: the planning stage, the translating stage, and the reviewing stage. The cognitive method of writing was both goal-seeking and problem-solving. Cognitive psychology, Berlin explains, underpinned cognitive rhetoric’s emphasis on thought process, empirical data, and scientific method. Using the work of Janet Emig, Linda Flower, and John Hayes, Berlin observes that cognitive theory views writing as “another instance of ‘problem-solving processes people use every day’” in “‘the real world of college and work’” (qtd. in Berlin 481), privileging the rational. As a result, Berlin sees production, capitalism, and commodification as the goals of writing during this time. Cognitive rhetoric located truth outside of human beings, considering “the existent, the good, and the possible […] as indisputable scientific facts” because cognitive rhetoric is a product of the new American university, an institution designed to prepare students for competitive capitalism (484). By emphasizing its connection to science, cognitive rhetoric resists the claim to any particular ideology; however, Berlin thinks that cognitive rhetoric refused to acknowledge its acquiescence to the dominant social and economic climate of American culture.
Date of Upload
3/14/09