I'm a rhetorician, no doubt, but I'm also interested in language qua language, not just as it's used for rhetorical purposes. So things like this analysis with NYTimes' On Language columnist Ben Zimmer (rest in peace, William Safire) are particularly interesting to me. You don't even have to watch the video to ponder what commenter #3 says, which is what I want to bring to your attention here anyway: linguists should be linguists, not rhetoricians.
Interesting. I don't know that the two are so easily separated. Perhaps what we ought to be arguing for isn't that one discipline should be in its corner while others with shared interests are in different corners; perhaps the linguists need rhetorical knowledge and awareness and that rhetoricians need to be able to talk about language (if written and oral communication, as opposed to visual, etc. communication, is what they do) with some level of expertise.
Your thots? The comments are open!
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