Are You Expressive or Rhetorical?

When I teach courses in Communication, I always start by describing a useful little continuum that shows how different people approach their communication lives.  

On one end of the continuum are “Expressors.”  These are people who feel that real communication comes naturally from within, that words are there to accurately capture how you feel, what you think, who you are. Expressors believe that good communication is mostly unfiltered, unedited, it flows out from you in an authentic, genuine “expression” of how you truly think and feel.  

On the other end are “Rhetoricians.”  Before “expressing” something, rhetoricians first craft their messages so that they can better achieve their intent. Instead of just “letting it flow,” a rhetorical communicator will first think a little about who is receiving this, how it will be heard, how to adjust the message so it has its best chance for success. Rhetoricians are careful and intellectual about their talk, they want more control over how the communication will flow.

Expressive and Rhetorical theories of communication are both powerful, both valid, both very familiar in the world.  Think about which side you are on, because understanding where you stand on these theories is important if you’re trying to improve your communication experiences, skills, and outcomes.  

Here are a few bullet points about each of these theories that can help you better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.

*  Expressive v. Rhetorical camps naturally war with each other.  “You just blurt out whatever’s in your head!”  “You never say what you really, really think.” This also means they usually mis-understand each other, and misrepresent each other to others.

*  No one is exclusively just an expressor or just a rhetorician.  We all edit our messaging somewhat, and we all express our thoughts and feelings without censorship sometimes.  But people tend to be more toward full-on Expressiveness, or more toward full-on Rhetoricalness.

*  Rhetoricians value being adaptive. They are open to new techniques, in fact, they avidly want to learn new techniques, and perfect techniques they already use.  Expressors often want to get better at expression -- ie, to really capture and clearly communicate their feelings -- but they tend to pull back from “artificially” learning techniques that don’t feel natural or authentic to them.

*  Rhetoricians can be authentic expressors, but they can also use “authentic expressiveness” as a technique to influence others (esp if they are influencing expressors who are only comfortable with other expressors).

*  Both Expression and Rhetoric have moral strengths and failures.  If you are truly expressing your inner thoughts in an honest way, then you would be constantly saying awful things to people, and no one is ever completely and unbendingly honest (we’d hunt you down as a social monster if you were). However, if you never express your true inner states (ie, politicians, at least in public), then you’ll probably go nuts as a human being.  And being rhetorical doesn’t simply mean being fake or “manipulating others,” it means trying to craft messages so they accomplish something that’s important to you (and, at least in good moral rhetoric, accomplish things that are also important and valuable to the person to whom you’re directing those messages).