In this Book

Invention as a Social Act

Book
Karen Burke LevFevre. Foreword by Frank D'Angelo
1986
summary

The act of inventing relates to the process of inquiry, to creativity, to poetic and aesthetic invention.

Building on the work of rhetoricians, philosophers, linguists, and theorists in other dis­ciplines, Karen Burke LeFevre challenges a widely-held view of rhetorical invention as the act of an atomistic individual. She proposes that invention be viewed as a social act, in which individuals in­teract dialectically with society and culture in dis­tinctive ways.

Even when the primary agent of invention is an individual, invention is pervasively affected by rela­tionships of that individual to others through lan­guage and other socially shared symbol systems. LeFevre draws implications of a view of invention as a social act for writers, researchers, and teachers of writing.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page, Copyright page

pp. i-vi

Contents

pp. vii-viii

Foreword

pp. ix-13

Acknowledgments

pp. xiii-xvi

1. Introduction

pp. 1-9

2. A Platonic View of Rhetorical Invention

pp. 10-32

3. Invention as a Social Act

pp. 33-47

4. A Continuum of Social Perspectives on Invention

pp. 48-94

5. The Role of Language: A Foundation for a Social Perspective on Invention

pp. 95-120

6. Implications of a Social Perspective on Rhetorical Invention

pp. 121-142

Notes

pp. 143-160

Bibliography

pp. 161-173

Author Biography

pp. 174-174

Back Cover

pp. 175-175
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