Glossary of Rhetoric Terms - S

S

• Salience/Agenda; Meaning/Spin. The basic components of all rhetorical struggles.

• Salon. Intellectual assembly in an aristocratic setting; primarily associated with France in the 17th and 18th centuries.

• Salutatio. (Latin) A written greeting.

• Sannio. (Latin) the fool. The role to avoid when using humor in a speech.

• Scesis Onomaton. (Latin) omit the verb. A style of repeating an idea using words or phrases similar in meaning in close proximity.

• Scholasticism. Rhetorical study of Christianity that was intellectually prominent in 11th-15th century Western Europe, emphasizing rhetorical concepts by Aristotle and a search for universal truth.

• Scientific Method. A system of observing and analyzing data through induction; prominent school of thought since the 17th century whose proponents are often critical of rhetoric.

• Scientific Reasoning. Moving from axioms to actual conclusions. Also Syllogistic logic.

• Scientism. In Weaver, applying scientific assumptions to subjects that are not completely natural.

• Scientistic. Kenneth Burke. Way of looking at the nature of language as a way of naming or defining something. ex. 'It is' or 'It is not.'

• Second Sophistic. Rhetorical era in Rome that dealt primarily with rhetorical style through some of the Greek Sophists' concepts, while neglecting its political and social uses because of censorship.

• Semantics. Philosophical study of language that deals with its connection to perceptions of reality.

• Semiotics. Branch of semantics concerning language and communication as a system of symbols.

• Senatus. Latin for Senate. The group of elders who governed Rome.

• Sensus communis. A society's basic beliefs and values.

• Sententia. Applying a general truth to a situation by quoting a maxim or other wise saying as a conclusion or summary of that situation.

• Shui. Formal persuasion in ancient China.

• Sign. Term from semiotics that describes something that has meaning through its connection to something else, like words.

• Signifying. Term from semiotics that describes the method through which meaning is created with arbitrary signs.

• Simile. A figure of speech that compares unlike things, implying a resemblance between them. For example (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), "'He entered the combat in body like the strongest bull, in impetuosity like the fiercest lion.'"

• Skepticism. Type of thought that questions whether universal truth exists and is attainable by humans.

• Solecismus. Ignorantly misusing tenses, cases, and genders.

• Sophists. Considered the first professional teachers of oratory and rhetoric (ancient Greece 4th century BC).

• Soraismus. The ignorant or affected mingling of languages.

• Sprezzatura. The ability to appear that there is seemingly little effort used to attain success. The art of being able to show that one is able to deceive. Baldessare Castiglione.

• Spin. In Vatz, the act of competing to infuse meaning into agenda items for chosen audiences.

• Starting Points. In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, the place between the speaker and audience where the argument can begin.

• Stasis System. System of finding arguments by means of looking at ideas that are contradictory.

• Status quo. Latin: The generally accepted existing condition or state of affairs.

• Straw man. An argument that is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.

• Studia humanitas. Latin: Humanistic studies deemed indispensable in Renaissance-era education; rhetoric, poetics, ethics, politics.

• Syllepsis. A word modifying others in appropriate, though often incongruous ways. This is a similar concept to zeugma.

• Syllogism. A type of valid argument that states if the first two claims are true, then the conclusion is true. (For example: Claim 1: People are mortal. Claim 2: Bob is a person. Therefore, Claim 3: Bob is mortal.) Started by Aristotle.

• Syllogistic Logic. See Scientific Reasoning.

• Symbol. A visual or metaphorical representation of an idea or concept.

• Symbolic inducement. Term coined by Kenneth Burke to refer to rhetoric.

• Sympheron. (Greek) Path that is to one's advantage.

• Symploce. A figure of speech in which several successive clauses have the same first and last words.

• Synchysis. Word order confusion within a sentence.

• Syncope. The omission of letters from the middle of a word, usually replaced by an apostrophe.

• Synecdoche. A rhetorical device where one part of an object is used to represent the whole. e.g., "There are fifty head of cattle." (Head is substituting for the whole animal). "Show a leg!" (naval command to get out of bed = show yourself)