Abstract

The relationship of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ with the new rhetorics of the 20th century remains an issue among contemporary theorists of argumentation. In the _New Rhetoric_, Chaim Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca seem to be discontent with the approaches some contemporary rhetoricians take to the purpose of rhetoric, advocating instead for what they term “adherence,” which awaits to be clarified or even reconceptualized in many ways. We will revisit this foundational term to the NRP from the perspectives of “persuasion,” “identification,” “judgment,” and “modification.” These terms are taken to be most representative of the rhetorical theories in development, signifying the shift from a focus on the speaker’s intention to one on the audience’s reception. But we do not take these theories to be reducible to one term or another. By drawing upon Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification, we contend that wherever there is meaning, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is modification. Rhetoric modifies the changes of meaning in the audience’s cognitive environment.