Current developments of thetorical studies in Spain: thetoric from theory of literature

Abstract

Within the current framework of rhetorical studies carried out in Spain in the context of the Theory of Literature —although in a necessary and inescapable interdisciplinary relationship with other areas of research around discourse, whether literary or not— two trends stand out, whose developments start, from our point of view, from the general Rhetoric raised back in the 80s of the last century by Antonio García Berrio within the framework of the so-called Neorhetoric: we refer to cultural Rhetoric and constructivist Rhetoric. Our objective in this paper is to justify the provenance relationship that exists between these both and the former by analyzing their respective theoretical assumptions and practical scopes. In this sense, the connection of cultural Rhetoric and constructivist Rhetoric with the vast theoretical-methodological space of general Rhetoric allows and explains their consideration as parts of a possible Integrated rhetorical theory, which would result from the gradual expansion of the objects of study of general Rhetoric and, consequently, of the disciplines and methods necessarily involved in its description and explanation.