ON RHETORIC
Review of Rhetoric and its situations
Rhetoric Defined
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Rhetoric is 2,500 years old
Originally considered as a study of the power of
language. In the classical era it was purely defined
as the art of persuasive communication through the
appeal to logos (rationality), ethos (a person’s
moral sense), and pathos (emotions).
In ancient Greece, there were no lawyers, so every
land owning citizen needed to have to be able to
defend, or persuade, a jury of his (no her)
innocence of any crime.
Classical Definitions of Rhetoric
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Plato: "art of enchanting the soul" (Phaedrus)
Aristotle: "Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic. It is the faculty of
discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion"
(On Rhetoric)
Cicero: "Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: inventio,
dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronunciatio. It is speech designed to
persuade." (Of Oratory)
Quintilian: "Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, the education of the
Roman gentleman, both useful and virtue."(Institutes of Oratory)
St. Augustine: "Rhetoric is the art of expressing clearly, ornately (where
necessary), persuasively, and fully the truths which thought has discovered
acutely." (On Christian Doctrine)
Contemporary Rhetoric
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Contemporary rhetoric scholars have attempted to
refine, revise, and extend the definitions of rhetoric to
account for the fact that rhetoric has endured two
millennia of critique.
At one time, rhetoric moved from the art of persuasion
to the “art of expression” (Perelman 1079) in which the
display and style of a speech was more important than
its substance. This is where we get a modern definition
as used by politicians and newscasters.
“Obama’s rhetoric on fighting poverty doesn’t match his
policies.”
 “Pope’s Rhetoric on Economy Worrying Rich Donors.”
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Contemporary Rhetoric
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Some “new” definitions:
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Kenneth Burke: "the use of language in such a way as to
produce a desired impression upon the hearer or reader"
(Counter-Statement 210)
Also “The use of language as a symbolic means of inducing
cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” (Rhetoric
of Motives 1032)
 Burke’s important addition is the concept of “identification”—a
writer attempts to create a connection with a reader through
identifying with her/him in turn seeking that he/she identify with
the writer. In other words, we cannot speak and magically change
minds—instead, we try to create connections with others.
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Rhetoric Defined, Again
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Despite these nuances, rhetoric still remains the art
of persuasive communication WITH the
understanding that your audience is not a blank
slate, that you have to acknowledge their concerns
and differences, and that your argument needs to
have evidence that appeals to those concerns.
Rhetorical Situation
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One more name (not that you will remember or even
have to) is Lloyd Bitzer.
Rhetoric just isn’t about the writer exerting some
influence on the reader. Instead, communication is a
whole situation consisting of a number of elements. Or,
as Bitzer defines it:
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“a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations
presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be
completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into
the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to
bring about the significant modification of the exigence"
Rhetorical Situation Defined
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“Thing” – my highly technical term meaning speech, essay, movie, poster,
advertisement, scientific study. (Sure, scholars might use the term “artifact”
or “text”, and you might even use these two in your writing, but for now, let’s
just stick to “thing”)
Audience – person reading/hearing the thing
Writer – the person creating the thing
Purpose – the writer’s intention of the thing
Exigence – some idea or happening that motivated the writer to create the
thing
Constraint – the limitations of the situation, genre, writer, medium, audience,
purpose
Modification – changing the exigence through the thing and/or situation.
Context – the situation itself and its evolutionary track.
Visually, it looks like…
The means of persuasion
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Appeal to reason
Appeal to personality, values, or character
Appeal to emotions
Logos – Appeal to Reason
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Logical appeal to an audience’s reason and
understanding of the facts of a situation. Recognize,
however, that facts can change, and different people
will see different facts within a given situation.
Academic audiences prefer logos over other appeals
 Scientific discourse requires logos and never pathos. Ethos
in scientific discourse is established by lengthy literature
reviews
 Popular writing privileges personal stories, and thus, ethos
and pathos are greater. Logos is often “revised” so as to
make it easier for mass audiences to understand.
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Connect with the reader using data and evidence that is
generated for the purpose of informing.
Logos examples
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“Pew Internet and American Life researchers found
that 44% of ages 18-49 have used Wikipedia to
find information” (1).
“According to a recent U.S. Census poll, 29% of
movie theater revenues in 2007 come from food
and beverage sales.”
“Kia offers a 10-year/100,000 mile standard
warranty on all of their vehicles, so it stands to
follow that they break down a lot.”
Ethos – Appeal to Character
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Ethical appeal – claims and evidence from one’s character (to
another’s character)
1.
2.
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Establish character of author
Provide details about the character of the evidence
Demonstrate authority and credibility.
Authority -- The author/character knows about the subject, and
provides evidence of such.
Credibility – The author/character is honest and respectful to the
audience and provides relevant support to claims
Look out for fallacies involving Misplaced Authority
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What does Bill Gates know about bicycles?
What does Al Gore know about computers?
What does Lance Armstrong know about politics?
Ethos How To
1.
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4.
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Style – complex, compound sentences, deliberate
fragments, sentence order including inversions and
conjunctive adverbs and phrases
Diction – word choice and usage. Sometimes appeals
to first person plural (“we”) associates the character of
the writer with the reader.
Format
Knowledge of subject and relating the subject to
audience
Provide background (Situate!) your sources, whether
experience, text, or testimony
Examples
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“Bob’s rant-now website recently reported that over
60% of Americans like to eat pizza for breakfast.”
“Professor Jones has studied learning and memory
theory for over twenty years and has served on the
board of Harvard Medical school department of
neurology.”
“I sat through every lecture. I read every assigned
page. I earned an A. However, with little reservation I
have to say that the First Year Seminar, Postcolonial
Politics is the worst ten weeks spent of my life.”
Pathos
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Emotional appeal – claims and evidence from the heart (and to the heart).
Connect with the reader using anger, sadness, happiness, and humor.
You are trying to instill these emotions in your audience – trying to
persuade them to feel emotionally as you do so that they will also be
persuaded by your overall argument or claims in your argument.
There are not specific strategies or secret words or even groups of words
that are guaranteed to inspire emotion. Any rational appeal can be used
to instill an emotional message – it just depends on how it is framed.
Theory of proximity – the closer you are (or portray yourself to be) to the
social, political, and ideological position of your readers, the easier you can
persuade them using emotions.
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A note about humor – a dangerous game because it relies on the theory of
proximity to work correctly. The basic premise of humor is that it is absurd (all
humor could be argued to be absurd). For the absurdity to work, a common
assumption must be shared from which to riff off of.
Pathos Examples
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“Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes, I can barely define
the shape of this moment in time. And far from flying high in clear
blue skies, I’m spiraling down into the hole in the ground where I
hide.”
“I’ve long regarded Saturn’s misty tantalizing moon Titan as the
Homecoming Queen of the solar system, courted and fawned over,
stringing us along with teasing glimpses under her atmosphere, while
Pluto was more like the chubby Goth chick who wrote weird poems
about dead birds and never talked to anybody. Still, I just can’t
stand by and watch as the solar system’s Fat Girl gets pushed down
into ever-more ignominious substrata of social ostracism.”
Kairos
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The opportune moment, finding that right time, is
also an important part of a rhetorical situation.
Situations change quickly, so making an argument
with evidence that is timely makes for a better
argument than using old evidence or making an old
argument.
Time is always relative
Examples
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“Recent discoveries in astronomy have found that
the earth revolves around the sun.”
“The U.S. Census Bureau reported that music
publishers saw an increase in revenue by 22%.”
“Microsoft stock should remain high after the
release of Vista.”
Types [Species] of Rhetoric
Aristotle defined three “species” of rhetoric.
 Deliberative – What should we do about the
future
 Forensic – What do we know about the past
 Epideictic – Praise or blame in the present
Their uses
1. Deliberative arguments are used in politics and advertisements. They
are used for writing about the future (do this, buy that, think this):
 Exordium (Hook) – Creating goodwill, connecting with the audience
 Narratio (Problem) – Background, situation, and problem.
 Confirmatio (Proof, Solution) – Outlines a solution to the problem
 Peroratio (Call to action) – Specific benefits of the solution and call to
action
2. Forensic arguments are used in law and science. They are used to
evaluate the past:
 IRAC (Issue, Rule of Law, Analysis, Conclusion)
 IMRAD (Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion)
3. Epideictic arguments are used to inspire, entertain, lament, praise, and
blame
Caveats
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Linear texts (movies, television, essays) rely on
patterns of development to make a case. They
more closely follow the hook, problem, solution, call
to action.
Non-linear and static texts (print advertisements)
have to rely on traditional arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery.
How does all this work?
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Thinking expends energy. Your body wants to conserve
energy. Thus, it will find ways to expend less energy.
Common patterns, models, and experiences will insert
themselves in new tasks to help you conserve energy—and it
is done subconsciously.
Theory (jargon, models, ideas) gives us a form and
language to talk about thought. It allows us to use tools to
create new jargon, models and ideas.
A good deal of rhetorical practice is implicit because its
practice has been repeated for thousands of years. Using
the language to talk about these implicit practice makes you
smarter because it allows you to uncover and disassemble
the subconscious thinking. In other words, it helps you figure
out how language works.
Keywords
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When doing any sort of rhetorical analysis, reflection essays on your use of rhetoric or your
understanding of the rhetorical situation, then make sure you use the keywords
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Audience
Purpose
Writer (or persona)
Exigence
Logos
Pathos
Ethos
Kairos
MOST IMPORTANTLY – Always provide evidence for what you are naming, drop the keyword,
then explain what it means.
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A recent editorial in The New York Times stated that while the economy was the most important concern
in the presidential election, many Americans still tended to vote against their self-interest. The
argument was effective because the writer provided election data from three years that show how
people voted for tax cuts and less regulation of home loan lenders, yet now the national deficit is twice
what it was, and many homes are in foreclosure. This effective argument relies on these logical appeals
for its primary evidence.
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DON’T say that there was “a lot of logos” or “I really saw the ethos” or “the pathos made me laugh.”
Any rhetorical analysis should attempt
to do the following
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Who is the audience(s)? How do you know? Be as specific as possible in
describing the audience. Include as many details as you can in this
description. Narrow the audience down as much as possible.
What is the primary purpose of the piece? What was it trying to persuade
the audience of? What are the other purposes? Be specific and clear in
describing the purposes.
What are some genre features used in this piece? Why were these
particular genre features effective in reaching the audience and achieving
the piece’s purpose?
Thinking about appeals to the audience (logos, pathos, ethos), how are these
features persuasive for the piece’s audience and achieve the piece’s
purpose?
Be specific in describing the rhetorically effective features.
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Give examples from the piece to illustrate the rhetorically effective writing
strategies you are describing.
Figure 1. Madden ’93. Sega-16 (1993).
Figure 2. No One Lives Forever 2
Wired (2001)
Figure 3. Mercenaries 2 TV commercial.
Youtube (2008).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB2rvCJMk2k