Book review: Hilde van Belle, Kris Rutten, Paul Gillaerts, Dorien van de Mieroop and Baldwin van Gorp (eds), Let?s Talk Politics: New Essays on Deliberative Rhetoric

DAGATTI, MARIANO

Discourse & Society

Sage Publishing

Lugar: Los Ángeles; Año: 2018 vol. 29 p. 108 - 109

0957-9265

Let´s Talk Politics explores the multifaceted relationships between rhetoric, citizenship and politics, using the study of rhetoric to engage with ?an understanding of citizenship as a political ?practice? that is related to identification with, and deliberation on, public issues? (p. 3). This exploration of ?citizenship-in-context? is consistent theoretically with the so-called ?rhetorical turn? in argumentation studies, the shift from the idea of rhetoric as the art of persuasion to rhetoric as a way of understanding how language functions in the establishment of social relationship and social identities in particular.Let?s Talks Politics is aimed at specialists in political argumentation and rhetoric, especially working in a pragma-dialectic framework, although it might be of interest to social scientists, especially political scientists as it addresses significant cases of political argumentation. Its main contributions are, from an empirical point of view, the variety of cases and dimensions considered; from a theoretical one, its reflection on links between argumentation and rhetoric. However, it is harder to define more specifically how this compilation of works by researchers of different institutions, profiles and purposes contributes to the advancement of the field. Except for the issue of official apologies, there is no real connection between the theoretical and the practical part, but only certain common references. Although the theoretical part raises remarkable questions on how could argumentation and rhetoric help to think on deliberation, official rhetoric, multiculturalism, the absence of a final chapter that links the various case studies to this issue deprives the reader of a clear conclusion.