COMM401 1 29 13 Tensions in Defining Rhetoric Substance vs surface Literal vs figurative Stable situation vs unstable situations Normal vs poetic Argument vs style Everyday vs rare Reflective vs constructive o Scholars have argued over whether rhetoric reflects our worlds or whether it constructs our world Rhetoric Isocrates that which of all the faculties which belong to the nature of man is the source of most of our blessings o Can be taught o Can be used as a tool of leverage blessing it can get you things Plato rhetoric is the knack of producing pleasure in the audience o Just telling the audience what they want to hear Aristotle Let rhetoric be defined as an ability in each case to see the available means of persuasion Cicero rhetoric is speech designed to persuade Kenneth Burke The use of language as a symbolic means of including cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols Campbell and Burkholder persuasive discourses written and oral encountered face to face or through the electronic or print media that seek to affect attitudes and actions Richard Weaver We have no sooner uttered words that we have given impulse to other people to look at the world or some small part of it our way Llyod Bitzer rhetoric is a mode of altering reality not by the direct application of energy to objects but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action o Change reality though the use of language o Way we talk changes the way we think and act Rhetorical Criticism Analyzing and explaining the persuasive functions of 1 31 13 public discourse Elements of Criticism Descriptive Claims What does it look like What is it made of What are its parts ex Daisy ad instead of saying outside say trees birds sky Interpretive claims What does it do How does it work Creating fear evoking emotion Evaluative Claims How does it do its job Is it good bad likeable Saying the ad is powerful because it plays on fear appeals building on an interpretive claim building on a descriptive claim Simple Sentences Straight forward short concise sentences 2 5 13 What does it mean to say rhetoric is situational Bitzer article Response to a situation An answer will give it significance Need a situation in order to have a discourse only rhetoric if they respond to a situation Situation either move on and grow or die down situations can exist without rhetoric coming along to solve them What makes a situation rhetorical if it is being capable of being altered by discourse Discourse is a response to a situation only rhetorical that it tries to respond to and intervene in a rhetorical situation Response will change going along with a situation not all are the same What is a Rhetorical Situation According to Bitzer those contexts in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse A natural context of persons events objects relations and an exigence which strongly invites utterance a complex of persons events objects and relations presenting and actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse introduced into the situation can so bring about the significant modification of exigence Exigence The problem that needs to be solved The imperfection in the situation An imperfection marked by urgency Something that can be fixed with rhetoric Components of Bitzer s rhetorical situation Exigence Audience Constraints Resources Where do constraints and resources come from Rhetor s prior ethos ex Someone wearing a fancy suit and then asking to donate money to poor people Topic Persuasive Field all the other messages that are out there circulating right now that might impact our rhetorical exchange Medium how the message is transmitted in person television Setting specific setting in which the message is being given ex Constraint that in lecture the message is being given to so many people not just me personally
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