rhetorolect

English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin rhētorica from Ancient Greek ῥήτωρ (rhḗtōr, “public speaker”) + from Latin lectus, form of Latin legō (“I read”).

Noun edit

rhetorolect (plural rhetorolects)

A type of discourse that has a characteristic configuration of topics, themes, and arguments.
- 2003, Vernon Kay Robbins, David B. Gowler, L. Gregory Bloomquist, Fabrics of Discourse: Essays in Honor of Vernon K. Robbins, →ISBN, page 175:
  If the elaborations "catch on" in some way, and themselves become developed, it is likely that we are looking at the creation of a "rhetorolect," a configuration of topoi and their argumentation that "is generated through a process whereby widely recognized topoi are recontextualized and reconfigured to create conventions that support reasoning in new contexts."
- 2007, Robert L. Webb, John S. Kloppenborg, Reading James with New Eyes, →ISBN:
  In other words, within each rhetorolect or language environment there are social places (like the household, the empire, nature) and cultural spaces (like God's world, the Diaspora, the kingdom) in which people think, speak, feel and act to construct meaningful lives.
- 2007, Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen, Risto Uro, Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism, →ISBN:
  Early Christian wisdom rhetorolect blends human experiences of the household, one's interpersonal body, and the geophysical world (firstspace) with the cultural space of God's cosmos (secondspace). In the lived space of blending (thirdspace), God functions as heavenly Father over God's children in the world, whose bodies are to produce goodness and righteousness through the medium of God's wisdom, which is understood as God's light in the world. In this context, wisdom rhetrolect emphasizes "fruitfulness" (productivity and reproductivity). The goal of wisdom rhetrolect is to create people who produce good action, thought, will, and speech with the aid of God's wisdom.
- 2012, Duane F. Watson, Miracle Discourse in the New Testament, →ISBN, page 42:
  This Lukan discourse, then, directs the demons' identification of Jesus as the Son of God toward prophetic rhetorolect that features the coming of an anointed one who will oversee God's kingdom on earth.

Usage notes edit

This term is used primarily when discussing religious texts.