Functions and characteristics of verbal discourse: from rhetoric to anthropology

The essay describes a common research field between rhetoric and anthropology composed by these elements: (1) the forms and model of verbal language; (2) the analysis of the peculiar properties of orality; (3) the elements of distinction between orality and literacy; (4) the study of factors and conditions that make the spoken word effective, and in the fact that it can exercise persuasive power over the people to whom it is addressed. These topics have been analyzed by prominent authors such as Gorgias, Aristotle, Cicero, Perelman, Goody, Lévi-Strauss.