A parrhesic rhetoric? –An approach to two contemporary rhetorical practices

Abstract

The free-speech or to speak boldly (parrhesia) calls our attention to the need to define the boundaries of rhetoric. In the classical conception, parrhesia and rhetoric were placed as discursive activities incompatible with each other. However, some distinctly modern communication activities have changed this space of mutual impossibility. Given the changes that rhetoric has suffered with mediatization, it is urgent to ponder the degree of influence between rhetoric and parrhesia. This paper describes today’s reciprocal influence between rhetorical and parrhesia. On the one hand, parrhesia appears to manifest itself rhetorically in advertising discourse as a rhetorical trope and being an indispensable figure of elocution from a pathos’s point of view. On the other hand, parrhesia seems to manifest itself in the professional and ethical practice of journalism as a kind of intrinsic speech that legitimizes journalist activity. Thus, the paper emphasizes the possibility of a Rhetoric of Parrhesic effect.