Rhetorical Invention in the Context of Risk

Studies of science have demonstrated the degree to which evidence in science is also shaped by a shared set of beliefs and practices. Following Bloor (1991), social scientists have argued for a more reflexive approach to ques- 

By demonstrating the social constructedness of knowledge claims, rhetorical theorists have helped us understand the nature of the invisible negotiations and power relationships that influence knowledge in science. Rhetorical theory has provided a powerful tool for understanding the rhetorical 

See especially l ) 5mbroski, 1992 Hemdl, Fennell, Miller, 1991 Miller, 1989 Miller, 

My own work shares with Aristotelian theorists a belief that rhetoric is an inventional art—an art of finding out the available means of persuasion. It couples this Aristotelian perspective with a postmodern and feminist awareness that existing communication practices within industries are shaped and constrained by political and economic assumptions that may inadvertently silence or render invisible the kinds of information that decision makers need to assess and manage risk in hazardous environments. The problem of rhetorical invention—-revisited as problem of discovering or finding 

For my own purposes, 1 have turned to psychological and linguistic studies of gesture in order to penetrate the silences in technical documentation in hazardous environments. 

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