Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion.

• Author: Cyphert, Dale
• Position: Book Review

Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion. By Jean Nienkamp. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001; pp. xiv + 170. $35.00.

Jean Nienkamp introduces her project as an argument for including another bit of new territory within the seemingly boundless realm of everything rhetorical. Arranged in two parts, Nienkamp offers precedents from classical, traditional and contemporary rhetorical theorists, as well as a twentieth century understanding of human psychology to develop an argument "for including the persuasion we do inside our heads under the rubric of rhetoric." Along the way, however, Nienkamp illustrates the way in which her perspective illuminates issues of ethical behavior, epistemology, moral agency, identity and language--issues that initiated the ancient discussion of rhetorical behavior and remain at the core of current discussion. She sets her perspective against both "traditional" and "expansive" conceptualizations, either of which has limited rhetorical action to public language acts, but this thoughtful survey does not merely add another "rhetoric of" to the list. Instead, Nienkamp sketches a framework that could all ow contemporary rhetorical theory to move beyond some of its most troublesome vexations.

Overtly persuasive public expression, in the traditional sense of rhetoric as civic discourse, does not happen, Nienkamp argues, except as a rhetor reconciles the internal "voices" that represent contradictory urges of emotional response, social discipline, or habits of personality. The classical tradition has understood rhetoric in the context of public address, but Nienkamp demonstrates the extent to which a cultivated internal rhetoric has been an assumed element of moral development. In Part I, tracing the thread from ancient philosophers to the British Enlightenment, Nienkamp's aim is not to convince us that theory has overlooked some significant sphere of rhetorical communication, but to demonstrate the connection between internal rhetorics, moral agency, and public rhetoric.

Rhetoric emerged within a culture that understood the psyche to consist of multiple parts. Homer's portrayal of gods, heroes, and others engaged in discursive debate, argument and justification has been seen as evidence of an emerging "rhetorical consciousness," in James J. Murphy's words, which Nienkamp calls internal rhetoric. Nienkamp highlights the ways in which Homer gives voice, and thus cultural meaning...