AHSS 2030 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Cooperative Principle, Fide, Pathos
Legendry and the Rhetoric of Truth
• Most legend scholars hold that legend has some relation to belief; more specifically,
that legends involve a debate about a belief
• that legend is concerned with matters of truth
➢ First and foremost, a legend makes a claim about the truth of an event
➢ It has long been noted that legendry possesses what has been called its own
elief laguage. This is the laguage of traditio-a common fund of knowledge
that fors the elief oaular ith hih ouiatios are onstructed
ad hih are eeted together ith the appropriate liguisti odig
agets
➢ Without recourse to this belief language of agents, objects, forces, and signs, a
proposition or narrative may be misinterpreted or totally misunderstood
o A Europea, for eaple, ould likel reogize a perso ith a horse’s
hoof as the devil. A North American might miss this identification
• Paul Grie’s ooperatie priiple for oa fide ouiatio is ased o four ais,
one of which is the Maxim of Quality: say only what you believe to be true
➢ Truth, in other words, is to be assumed unless something serves to signal
otherwise
➢ Legends, however, make what are perceived to be extraordinary claims
o Because legendary narratives tend, regardless of their subject matter, to
make such claims, they require the deployment of a rhetoric to allay
doubts and foil challenges.
• There are two claims that a legend can make regarding its truth
➢ The first is for the truth of the account as it is given.
➢ second claim that some—but not all— legends make
o Some legends make claims that go beyond the facts
o The facts themselves call for further interpretation
o Ie. A narrator told of a wealthy man who had a telephone installed in the
mausoleum where he planned to be entombed, because he felt that he
would come back to life. He promised to call his wife when he did.
Several years later they found that his wife died of a sudden heart attack
after she picked up the phone. When they checked the mausoleum, they
found the receiver off the hook
▪ This legend presents a set of facts but asks the listeners to make
the following inferences as well: that the man came back to life
and called his wife; she was so shocked to hear his voice that she
died.
• Rhetoric is the art of persuasion
➢ But if the leged’s rhetori of truth is leared, it is ot epliitl taught. There are
o auals for its istrutio or shools dediated to its pratie. It is a folk or
eraular rhetori
➢ Ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), logos (information)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Ethos
➢ The authority of the source
o The authority of a source depends, to some extent, upon the social
position of the narrator and/or the reputed source of the narrative.
o how the narrator and source are presented can be embodied in the
discourse itself (entechnic), or it may stand outside the discourse
(atechnic)
o The authority of the source may rest less on social status than on
attributes of character. The character of the source, and the physiological
and psychological state of the source, often becomes critical in producing
a credible account
➢ Risk to the Narrator
o The more risk a narrator takes in telling a tale, the more likely the story
would be perceived as true
➢ Distancing
o Distaig refers to the degrees of separatio etee a arrator ad
the presumed source of the narrative
o Georgina Smith classifies narrative in terms of such distances. They are
either
▪ iorporated that is, eorates
▪ sei-iorporated aouts of eets attahed to a relatie,
aed fried, or loal harater
▪ detahed arratives told without attribution of sources and
the person or persons to whom the events purportedly
happened).10
o Because distancing relates to the position of the narrator with respect to
the events recounted, distancing is included in the category of ethos
o Distancing directly relates to the authority of the narrator
o The more unambiguous the source of a narrative, the more believable
the narrative is likely to be. Likewise, the closer the connection of a
narrator to his or her source, the more credible the account is likely to be
o The first-person memorate is likely to be the most suasive type of
account, for the narrator claims to report something he or she has
experienced. The narrator takes full responsibility for the
account.11 There is no basis for suggesting that story elements have been
misapprehended or corrupted in a chain of transmission. To question
suh a arratie ould e to hallege the arrator’s judget,
truthfulness, and perhaps even sanity
o More distanced accounts are generally less credible. Distances, however,
are relative. Accounts from family members and close friends are more
distant than a first-person narrative, but they are not so distant as an
account from a person with whom the narrator has no social connection:
a friend of a friend, or some otherwise unnamed or unspecified source
➢ Judgment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com