Rhetoric and Composition are Different

Rhetoric connotes communication.

Composition is the assembly of a text. Certainly if I write a paper, that is a text, and therefore it communicates and is a form of rhetoric. Even how that paper is composed; typed or written, with pictures or without, the composition makes up a large portion of the rhetorical value of the text. If I built a building, that building will be littered with texts; large windows may imply transparency or access while stucco and cinder may make an appeal to modern styles and the relevancy of the business located there. The texts as a whole communicate whether through written language as in the essay or visual component as in the case of the building and are therefore rhetoric.

That being said if rhetoric is any text that communicates, than composition can be rhetoric but only in the case that the “composition” is describing the formation of a communicable text. If I compose a symphony in my head that is still composition, but it is not rhetoric until that composition can be transcribed into sheet music or otherwise disseminated to others.

It is possible I think that you could term certain types of philosophical viewpoints as forms of rhetoric because of their ability to create an intertextuality in circumstances that would not otherwise communicate. What I’m getting at is essentially a philosophical critique as would be used in debate. For example I recently read an author who proposed that by merely sharing the terminology “digital divide” we are further instigating that divide because people become susceptible to discriminating based on a two party system, those who are able to access technology and those who are not. This thought pattern is communicable through merely circumstance and not a traditional text and is also a form of rhetoric.