Ancient rhetoricians already recognized the fact that rhetorical devices may not only have a positive affective impact or might be used to positively convince, win over or please an audience; rather, they may also be used to bring listeners to reflection and to shake them emotionally.

As the 'art of speaking well,' rhetoric aims to convince the listener and its success is measured by the degree of success in persuasion or conviction (persuasio). But success also is often based on the use of destructive verbal means, which do not persuade but rather disturb or confuse the listener both intellectually and affectively. The guiding thesis of this project is that the process of influencing the listener through rhetoric that produces negative emotions has not been sufficiently reflected upon and in particular has not been systematized, whether in ancient rhetorical theory or in modern discourse analysis and cognitive linguistic theory.

The goal of this interdisciplinary project is the analysis and explanation of strategies of affective irritation that can lead to confusion and ultimately to the intended persuasion of the recipient. To achieve this goal, representatives of classical philology, linguistics and literature will work together in order to investigate thoroughly the functional aspects of 'the rhetoric of mental irritation,' combining their methodologically different empirical, theoretical and historical approaches.