The Rhetoric of 'Other' and the Use of Meta-Discourse

While the use of meta-discourse offers many rhetoricians a method of driving home a persuasive goal I believe rhetoricians outside of the western tradition must rely upon meta-discourse in order to persuade a difficult audience. By first understanding non-western rhetorician's relationship to their audience we can begin to better appreciate why the use of meta-discourse is crucial to their rhetorical survival. Non-Western rhetoric is constantly making moves to justify it's position in the community due to Western tradition's dominance. Western rhetoric is able to rely upon the hyper-protected cooperative principle in the way that they know the audience they are targeting has a basic understanding of the points and moves they are attempting to make. On the other end of the spectrum is non-western rhetoricians who wish to reach western audience members. Moving rhetorically through their own community may come second nature to non-western authors, yet it is when they move away from their community and enter a realm in which they are unknown that these rhetoricians must call upon meta-discourse. In order to influence these alien audiences, claims must be stated clearly and "provide vital clues for those who wish to analyze and answer it"(Toye, 49). The point of using meta-discourse in a non-western rhetorical text is to assure the objective these rhetoricians wish to communicate is understood to an audience that may not otherwise understand due to cultural diversity. By beginning a paragraph with, "I will argue..." the author is setting up their audience to receive their opinion and therefore better understand the reason for the construction of the text.

While meta-discourse may be a small part of the rhetoric of other, it ties into non-western rhetoric as a whole by showing how the dominance of western tradition creates and maintains the methods in which non-western rhetoricians must work from. 'Other' rhetoric must be constructed in a way that it expands outside of it's own community's context and makes itself known to the western world. Through a variety of methods, including meta-discourse, 'other' rhetoric has begun and continues to shed light upon the differences and similarities of western and non-western in order to distinguish itself amongst the massive community that is rhetoric.

By searching through blog posts of the past semester, I realize the importance of the dominance that western rhetoric has upon our studies and on how we perceive the rhetoric of 'other'. By exploring the rhetoric of 'other' we, as scholars, are able to better understand ourselves, our peers and our scholarly work due to the expansion that takes place when studying outside of western tradition. This makes it possible for us to study things such as meta-discourse inside of the 'other' which then enables us to continue the conversations we have begun past the doors of our small classroom. I have learned that without exploring the 'other' we can say little about western rhetoric; it is in the opposition that we can find a plethora of information and knowledge.