The Concept of Audience Between “General Rhetoric” and “Audience Rhetoric”

Abstract

 summary: This paper deals with the concept of audience, at a theoretical level, as a pivot concept in Imad Abdelatif’s notion of audience rhetoric, comparing it to the concept of “listener” in Mohamed Elomari’s notion of general rhetoric. It accordingly denotes the importance of concepts in the foundation of rhetorical notions, thus, seeking to find out the rhetorical visions of the two conceptions. This research paper reckon on the epistemological analysis, which highly values the importance of concepts in the foundation of intellectual works in general, incorporating their cognitive and communicational functions. It also emphasizes that the creation of a terminological system is not subject to the linguistic derivation of terms only, but it rather goes further seeking the optimal use of their concepts according to the insights of the various speeches rhetorical conception. Especially that these two rhetoric notions are based on their interpretation to the rich Arabic rhetorical heritage.