At the end of the course participants will be able to - Understand the tradition of Rhetorical studies from ancient Greeks to today. - Know the relationship between Ethics and Rhetoric. - Acquire advanced rhetorical skills in Spanish language - Acquire knowledge of the theory of argumentation - Critically evaluate the contemporary rhetorical discourses and understand how media constructs reality.

In the current society of information and communication, Rhetoric as a powerful instrument of persuasive speech has become of special interest again in the varied areas of our social, artistic and scientific activities, such as politics, literature, publicity or audio-visual communication. In fact, in the last decades, Rhetoric has experimented a remarkable development, especially since the irruption of the so called New Rhetoric, which intends to offer a system for text analysis capable of reaching out from the ¿purely literary¿. This course presents a study of both the constitution of Rhetoric from a linguistic perspective and the theories of argumentation. It will cover the forms of messages and utterances (from the most rhetorical to the apparently neutral ones), the ways of construction of common meanings and the influence of discourse figures in order to define the different procedures of the argument methods. 1. Reinterpreting classical Rhetoric 2. Rhetoric and Pragmatics 3. Critical discourse studies. Discourse and society 4. Rhetoric of humor 5. Rhetoric and Grammar

- Discussion on assigned readings (relevant texts on the course topics) - Presentation of the general contents of the course by the professor, of the assigned texts and the students' debates. - Presentation of daily problems in which students would be able to apply the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired though the course.