Throughout the introduction I found my mind focusing primarily on style and how it affects rhetoric. However, when I began to read Locke, my mind focused on "words." Similar to ideas within Jennie's blog, I found myself thinking about how specific words can be interpreted and the effects that has on persuasion, which seems to give rhetoric its power.
Each time period we have covered contains different approaches to rhetoric. These approaches seem very interesting, but I often hear about how "flawed" the English language is. How much is lost within the translation of many of these pieces? In what ways were these texts interpreted within those time periods and cultures? What "words" did they use that carried the most weight? Even within modern-day America we have many different cultures, each reader interpreting texts differently. Within our class alone, there are most likely a wide variety of political views and cultural backgrounds, each pointing our interpretations in different directions. Each of us use different words within our speech and text. These are just a few of the thoughts which flooded my mind while reading Locke.
Though my mind was filled within different thoughts about words, language, and cultures, my views on rhetoric remain the same. Rhetoric, actually, seems to be even more intriguing. Despite the many varying faculties of our race, the principles of rhetoric remain the same.
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