Part 2: Representation

To describe rhetorical theory as a function of representation can mean many things. It can mean that rhetorical theory is the theory of how representations are made, created, or manufactured for popular and public circulation. It can also mean that rhetorical theory is how we make sense of representations, offering guidance on how to interpret, decipher, or understand the meanings that circulate around us. In the chapters that fall under this heading, rhetorical theory is associated with key terms like “symbolic action,” “identification” and “meaning making.” As a function of representation, rhetoric also extends beyond speech’s spoken and written media, encompassing theories of the sign and the symbol, forms of arrangement like argument and narrative, modes of visual presentation, as well as specific spaces of circulation like the public sphere. Representation also describes rhetoric that enables groups to define their identities, boundaries, and communication practices. The chapters on counterpublics and Latinx rhetoric take this question up, asking how we can rethink rhetoric from the ground up as a set of representation practices that are specific to a community.