Retorikkens

Retorikkens is a Swedish term often used to refer to rhetoric in its possessive or adjectival form. In Swedish-language discourse, retorik denotes the discipline that studies effective communication, persuasion, and argumentation, especially in public speaking and writing. Retorikkens appears in various titles and phrases discussing the field, such as retorikkens historia ('the history of rhetoric') or retorikkens principer ('the principles of rhetoric').

Rhetoric has ancient roots in Greece and Rome. Aristotle's Rhetoric articulated core concepts of ethos (credibility), pathos (emotional appeal), and logos (reason). The classical five canons—invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery—formed a framework for constructing persuasive discourse. Roman writers like Cicero and Quintilian expanded these ideas for public speaking and education. In later periods, rhetoric intersected with philosophy, politics, and, with modern media, critical theory and communication studies.

Modern usage: Rhetoric is studied within fields such as communication, linguistics, media studies, and rhetorical criticism. The scope now includes visual rhetoric, digital rhetoric, and argumentation theory, examining how messages persuade, frame, and influence audiences in political, legal, commercial, and online contexts. In Swedish academic tradition, retorik is taught in universities and colleges, and retorikkens is used to denote topics within the discipline in encyclopedic and scholarly writing.

See also: Rhetoric, Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Cicero. Retorikkens remains a central term in analyses of persuasive communication and its historical development.