The Rhetorical Situation
Rhetoric is the ancient art and science of persuasion, the study of persuasion, and the individual process of persuasion. All human activities are rhetorical, whether or not we are conscious of it. This is because rhetoric is about making strategic choices while communicating, whether the communication is textual, verbal, and/or visual. When we communicate to different types of audiences about the same topic, we make strategic decisions about what details to include or omit, what types of evidence or support to use, and so on.
Rhetoric is generally defined as the art of persuasion and argument.
While thinkers and scholars have debated the merits of various rhetorical strategies over the past few thousand years, some basic principles have remained constant since the earliest Greek philosophers began studying this topic.
To begin with, effective rhetoric (and therefore effective writing) begins with recognizing the purpose that you, the writer, are trying to achieve. Before you can effectively persuade your audience, you need to know what you hope to accomplish and why. Then, you need to think carefully about your audience: about what they care about and what they are capable of understanding and accepting. You won’t achieve your purpose if you’re not able to adapt what you write to your audience. That may mean using a certain level of formality, using certain kinds of examples, organizing or formatting your writing in a particular way, or addressing counterarguments that you think your audience might have. Whenever and however we communication, we are always engaging in a rhetorical situation
Thinking about the rhetorical situation is vital during all stages of any writing project that has a purpose to persuade.
Breaking Down the Rhetorical Situation
There are multiple components to any rhetorical situation, and each component impacts every other component. Always keep this in mind as you write to persuade. For example, if the audience changes, then the genre and subject might also need to change.
Elements of the Rhetorical Situation
The Big Three: Genre, Audience, Purpose
Genre
The genre refers to the type of text the writer produces. Some texts are more appropriate than others in a given situation, and a writer’s successful use of genre depends on how well they meet, and sometimes challenge, the genre conventions.
Audience
The audience includes the individuals the writer engages with the text. Most often there is an intended, or target, audience for the text. Audiences encounter and in some way use the text based on their own experiences, values, and needs that may or may not align with the writer’s.
Purpose
The purpose is what the writer and the text aim to do. To think rhetorically about purpose is to think both about what motivated you to write about a subject and what the goals of your writing are. These goals may originate from a personal place, but they are shared when a writer engages audiences through writing.
Other Key Elements
Writer
The writer is the individual, group, or organization who authors a text. Every writer brings a frame of reference to the rhetorical situation that affects how and what they say about a subject. Their frame of reference is influenced by their experiences, values and needs, race and ethnicity, gender and education, geography and institutional affiliations, to name just a few factors.
Subject
The subject refers to the issue at hand, the major topics the writer and text address.
Exigence
The exigence refers to the perceived need for the text, an urgent cause related to the subject that a writer identifies and then responds to through writing.
Context
The context refers to other direct and indirect social, cultural, geographic, political, and institutional factors related to the subject that likely influence the writer, text, and audience in a particular situation.
Rhetoric is everywhere and is a way to enact change in your world; however, it takes practice to recognize and use rhetoric. Remember—rhetoric can be a catalyst for change, in your writing and everything else you do, but it is up to you whether or not to harness its power.
Sources Used to Create this Chapter
Parts of this chapter were remixed from:
- Composition for Commodores: Reading, Writing, and Inquiry at Lorain County Community College (2nd Edition), by Mollie Chambers et. al., which was published under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
