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Preferred term

rhetorics of play  

Definition

  • The term rhetorics of play comes from Brian Sutton-Smith's book The Ambiguity of Play. In it he defines rhetoric as “a persuasive discourse or implicit narrative… adopted by members of a particular group affiliation or discipline to lend validity to their beliefs and interpretations.” He divides play theories into the ancient Western rhetorics of fate, power, communal identity, and frivolity, and the more recent Western rhetorics of progress, the imaginary, and the concept of the self, and he writes about the subjective influences on these rhetorics. [Source: Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society; Rhetorics of Play (Sutton-Smith)]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/rhetorics_of_play

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