Velociraptor's Rhetoric

                I found George Kennedy’s article, “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric” to be thoroughly fascinating. Throughout the article, he tries to pin down certain universal rules for rhetoric since the definition of it has changed quite a lot over the past 2200 years or so. In order to develop these universal rules, he looks at animal communication and rhetoric in order to get at the most basic of definitions. I had never thought of animals having rhetoric before this, but after reading this article I agreed with George Kennedy. Rhetoric is more than spoken communication – there are “some features of communication in common among many species, including human beings, apparently favored by natural selection in evolution from the earliest forms of life.” (20)

                Kennedy first defines rhetoric as a form of energy such as – the energy forcing the speaker to act, the energy to act, the energy level in the message, and the energy for the recipient to understand the message. After making this one declaration, he quickly and concisely goes through eight other theses to sharpen this definition of rhetoric. These theses show how rhetoric has assisted evolution and natural selection. It also reveals that the traditional aspects of rhetoric actually precede the idea of speech.

                Kennedy’s first main thesis, “ Rhetoric is prior to speech,” helps to explain what he means by rhetoric is energy. He states that before speech can take place, there needs to be reason behind the communication – an exigence. But he is quick to say that speech only evolved in humans because rhetoric already existed in nature. Animals experience exigencies and reasons to act and communicate with others all the time. And it is because rhetoric was already a part of nature and the evolutionary chain that humans took the next step with rhetoric and used language and speech to communicate. Nature has favored communication all along because, even though it costs energy, it is far “less costly than physical motion, such as flight or fight.” (4)

                Upon understanding the idea that rhetoric has been a part of nature since before humans, it made me think of the movie “Jurassic Park 3,” specifically the velociraptors. One of the main aspects of the movie are the raptors and how they have complex communicational skills. Many of the theses that Kennedy states can be illustrated with this example.  

                The raptors in the movie have various different “calls” that they use depending on the situation. While the ability to create these different calls are a part of their anatomy, when to use them can be learned and imitated. Kennedy states that by observations, humans and animals can learn to understand features of each other’s rhetoric. In the movie, Grant observes and learns the raptor call for “help.” At the end, he imitates this call (with a raptor skull fossil) in order to confuse the raptors (so they won’t eat them).

                This only works because the meaning for the call was already understood by the raptor before Grant used it. This is also Kennedy’s second thesis – “the receiver’s interpretation of a communication is prior to the speaker’s intent in determining the meaning.” (7) At one point in the movie, the humans try to run into a herd of herbivores to disguise themselves but as soon as the other dinosaurs see the raptors they flee. The raptors use this confusion in order to work together and separate the humans. Actions are interpreted differently by the various animals and do not always match the original being’s intent.

                Kennedy also states that animals have the ability to lie in order to secure their own protection, seek out food, or find a mate. The raptors at one point set up a trap. They injure one of the people and leave him in plain sight of the others. When they go to rescue him, the raptors will then go in for the kill. This not only illustrates the idea that the meaning precedes action (of what to do with a downed comrade) but that rhetoric helps to determine survival of the fittest (thesis four). By being able to trick their food to come to them, they use less energy than they would if they had to chase them down. The velociraptors in the movie are designed to be smarter than primates but I believe that they illustrate aspects of Kennedy’s theses perfectly. Rhetoric is a form of energy that has been present in the world long before not only human speech but humans at all.