外研社辩论赛blog

I'm very happy to see that we finally have a place where everyone can chitchat. This site, in my opinion, can be of tremendous help to anyone involved in the debating competition. So bravo FLTRP. As a newcomer to this blog, I would like to open a discussion on the importance of rhetoric. Rhetoric, as everyone knows, has been closely related to public discourse since ancient Greece. Debating is a kind of public discourse, which falls into one of the three rhetorical settings by Aristotle, namely deliberative oratory. I think rhetoric ought to play a very important role in debating, and in these two years I've been trying to see if the debaters have realized its importance. I should say that, based on what I have drawn from my observation, the result is not very good. It seems to me that debaters have been too occupied with the desire to win to imploy some more "subtle" tactics. For example, in debating the goal is to convince your audience, so you need to establish a connection with your audience, which in this case, is the adjudicator. And while this seems to be a quite obvious point, a lot of debaters have neglected it. Establishing a good image and using it as a means of arousing your audience's emotion has been a very important aspect in public discourse. The way you talk, the way you handle "facts", even the way you dress are all key elements.

There are three rhetorical terms that I'd like to share with you:
logos: refers to proofs available in the words, arguments, or logic of a speech. It's the study of inference making or reasoning, a study closely related to logic.
pathos: "putting the audience in the right frame of mind" this term is often used to refer to the affective or emotional appeals that give persuasive messages their power to move an audience into action.
ethos: the persuasive potential of the speaker's character or personal credibility. This proof should develop from what the speaker says in the course of his speech.

It's my personal understanding of debate that, for both the proposition and opposition sides, it should be much more than just defining the motion in such a way as to lead the debate in a favourable course, or to follow a very clear and rigid set of procedures so as to win over the other party. Debating should not only be of winning, but also be of true persuasion, of true character, and of personal advancement.

You who are reading this short passage may strongly object to what I have said above, so I'd very much like to know what you think of rhetoric and debat. Thank you very much, and have a nice day.