Rhetorical Topos Analysis: Considerations for a Systematic Method of Argumentation Analysis

Abstract

Aristotle’s conception of topoi makes them a suitable access point for rhetorical analyses that ask about argumentative strategies with respect to their socially anchored persuasive potentials. Topoi, understood as elements of argumentations with endoxal character, allow to reconstruct inventive, probative, elocutionary, and dispositional production decisions. Our paper brings together and further extends more recent developments towards rhetorical discourse analyses and thus makes a proposal for a systematic rhetorical topos analysis.