The Rhetoric of Oratory in English and Arabic: An Applicable Study to One of Imam Ali's Oration

Abstract

Languages have different means of communication, some of which are verbal and others nonverbal. For the sake of expressing, stating, asking, requesting and emphasizing certain types of information, we sometimes tend to use some of these verbal or nonverbal means either directly or indirectly. Therefore, scholars and rhetoricians have studied most of these means and the properties that can lead speakers to select a highly effective discourse in order to get a successful understanding of meaning in its literal sense as well as to choose the correct lexis to unambiguously comprehend the intended meaning. They also have tackled the ways of getting a persuasive discourse by using different aspects, some of which are syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, poetic, stylistic, etc. One of these ways that are used to get a persuasive speech and to sway an audience's opinion is the style or art of oration.