This study proposes a modern Aristotelian rhetorical theory--that rhetorical communication is that human communication within which persons deliberatively interact. A number of corollaries follow from the fundamental postulate and include: (1) persons function as the essential agents of the rhetorical communicative process; (2) a person's processes function communicatively through a system of receiving, internally orienting, and transmitting activities; (3) each person's communicative activities are channeled by the ways in which he anticipates events; (4) in rhetorical communicaton a person's processes function through a system of involving, judging, and asserting activities; (5) a person's rhetorical activities are channeled in relation to a human communicative context; (6) any human communicative context can present an occasion for rhetorical activity; (7) the apparent structure of a human communicative context constrains the range of a person's rhetorical activity; (8) a person's rhetorical activities are channeled through interaction with the activities of significant others; (9) in a rhetorical relationship persons share a common focus of activity; (10) the pattern of a rhetorical relationship evolves through deliberative interaction; and (11) in a rhetorical relationship, persons acknowledge interpersonal influence. (Author/LL)