Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class.” College English, vol. 50, no. 5, 1988, pp. 477–494.

• Intro (477-79)
  • Recent discussion: put rhetoric within ideology, rather than ideology within rhetoric
    • rhetoric is already ideological; it is never innocent, always serving ideological claims
  • Three rhetorics of: (to describe the relations with ideology, also in classroom practices today)
    1. cognitive psychology: neutrality of science
    2. expressionistic rhetoric:
    3. social-epistemic rhetoric: ideology the center of classroom activities, strategies for self-criticism and self-correction.
  • Althusser: ideology vs. science
    • ideology: false
    • one version of Marxism: objective truth
  • Goran Therborn: no absolute, timeless truth, all are historically specific, from time and space
    • different choices of rhetorics: represent competing ideologies
    • invoking Foucault: power can be identified and resisted
    • from Therborn: see the discursive and dialogic nature of ideology
    • Three questions about ideology
      • what exists? (what is real)
        • epistemology: what does not exist? the visibility.
      • what is good?
        • standards: structured and normalized
      • what is possible?
        • Identifying who has power; ideology frames the future by limiting what can be thought of
• Cognitive (psychology) Rhetoric (479-84)
  • current-traditional rhetoric
    • university is based on the capitalistic concepts of efficiency; The practice of current-traditional rhetoric (positive, scientific, manageable) is a fit for university.
  • to be scientific: cognitive rhetoric is based on predictability and stability, the rationality of the mind
    • structure of minds responds to structure of materials
    • So, the Writing Process in pedagogy rather than writing products
  • Three elements in composing:
    • the task environment
    • writer’s long-term memory
    • writing process (further 3 stages): a goal-directed process
      • planning stage
      • translating stage: thoughts –> words
      • reviewing stage
  • What ideology frames cognitive rhetoric? the real is rational; or scientism
    • writers are trained to have full control of their writing process
    • language: a system of rational signs
  • cognitive rhetoric is a form of expressionistic rhetoric (488)
• Expressionistic Rhetoric (484-87)
  • believe in the goodness of human nature, and the goodness is distorted by society
  • centered on the individual subjects
  • metaphors can express authentic experience of the self
  • self is always revealing the context/situation it is in. In other words, the self does not escape from the frame of the context, while the situation corrupts the self.
    • to encourage students to resist the interpretations from the big Other, or the symbolic order within language.
    • individuals should stand beyond power or be in control of power
    • students need to listen to themselves
  • remain at the individual level: an indirect interaction with society by cultivating the self
  • assumption: universal human nature, the reliability of language, and the constructive effects of translational language
  • resistance realized in individual terms
    • isolation
  • What is possible?
    • represents the interests of a particular class; and neglect some other experience
• Social-Epistemic Rhetoric (488-92)
  • the real is located in a relationship involving
    • the observer, subject
    • discourse community
    • material conditions
  • new historicist perspective: knowledge is historically bound
  • knowledge: arena of ideological conflict:
    • against permanent rational structure, and question personal intuition
    • no arguments from transcendent truth; all arguments arise in ideology
  • against expressionistic rhetoric
    • self-autonomy from dialogue with social power/establishment
• Conclusion (492-93)
  • What is real? What is good? What is possible?
  • cognitive psychology rhetoric: objective understanding
  • expressionistic rhetoric: radical individualism, isolation
  • social-epistemic rhetoric: put ideology at the center
    • a rhetoric cannot escape the ideological question