János S. Petőfi’s Linguistic and Textual Theory and the Recovery of the Historical Thinking about Rhetoric

Abstract

The present paper carries out a study about the possibilities of mutual enrichment resulting from the interrelationship of the Text-Structure World-Structure Theory (TeSWeST, from the German “Text-Struktur Welt-Struktur Theorie”) by János S. Petőfi and the rhetorical model, that is, the explanatory system for the construction and communication of rhetorical discourse within the framework of the so-called rhetorica recepta, traditionally formed by the operations —partes artis or oratoris officia— of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and actio/pronuntiatio. More specifically, our aim is, on the one hand, to account for the enrichment of TeSWeST from the examination of rhetorical elocutio —an enrichment which also leads us to the need for a redefinition of the traditional rhetorical operations in the light of the components and categories of TeSWeST; and on the other, to try and explain the enrichment of the traditional rhetorical system through the recovery of the rhetorical operation of intellectio —from the review of historic texts dealing with rhetorical theory, such as Institutiones oratorias, by Sulpitius Victor, and De rhetorica liber, by Aurelius Augustinus.