The Rhetorical Situation Summary

Zarefsky broke this long definition apart and repackaged it into a function statement that a rhetorical situation is a situation in which people’s understanding can be changed through messages (Zarefsky 9), and four components, namely the audience, the occasion, the speaker and the

Daniel Bor, a psychological researcher, and author, wrote an article titled “When Do We Become Truly Conscious” published on September 4, 2012 and in this article he discusses the idea of consciousness. Through use of deductive reasoning Bor refers to early opinions viewing consciousness as magic and discusses the science behind demystifying consciousness. Bor also discusses the ethical arguments behind learning for about consciousness. Bor also lists some of the emotional arguments centered on human awareness. Bor’s use of rhetorical strategies is designed to state his opinion in a simple and easily read way.

The rhetorical situation refers to “a situation in which people’s understanding can be changed through messages.” (Zarefsky, 12). The rhetorical situation analysis consists of four elements: audience, occasion, speaker and speech, each assessing the quality of speech. In this essay, I will analyze the rhetorical situation of the historical speech “The Challenger Address” delivered by the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

Bitzer gives 7 conditions to determine if a rhetorical situation exists. Based upon Bitzer’s seven fold criteria model, Paul’s letter can be classified as a rhetorical situation. It also can be classified as a rhetorical situation because it contains an exigence, and audience and constraints, the constituents of a rhetorical situation. Paul crafts this letter in response to his situation and uses rhetoric to persuade his audience to a certain course of action.

In her Cyberliteracy chapter “Humor, Hoaxes, and Legends in Cyberspace,” Gurak suggests that digitally literate individuals can determine whether content accessed online is authentic or not using rhetorical analysis skills. Her work focuses primarily on discerning parody and chain emails in early, unidirectional web environments (Gurak, 2001). Determining the authenticity of health information and products online have become inherently more difficult with Web 2.0, particularly due to the collaborative and interactive nature of this type web environment. Additionally, acting on untrue advice can have serious and lasting impacts on an individual’s health. However, I argue that refined understanding and application of ethos (authority) and logos

In this paper, the author, Olivia Miller, examines how zombie media texts affect presidential rhetoric through analyzing two of Obama’s foreign policy apologia speeches, one at the National Defense University and one at the Justice Department. She mentioned that the zombie narratives such as the Walking Dead and I Zombie have proliferated across media text and this popularity of Zombie text has caused the past decade’s cultural zeitgeist, “a fascination with the zombies that has been acknowledged by scholars as a response to the theorist attacks of 9/11 and a reflection to public uncertainty” (Olivia, 2016). She found a connection between the post-zombie apocalypse narrative, a differently structured narrative with more potential as a metaphor for the current political landscape and new terrorist threats, and Obama’s political efforts. That is, the post-zombie apocalypse narrative couches on surviving rebuilding society, reinstitution morality, and learning to live withe the threat of zombies while striving to regain normalcy. Obama’s speeches convey the similar thoughts that even

In Bitzers piece “The Rhetorical Situation” a rhetorical situation is described to be composed of three different key concepts. The first being exigence, exigence being the reasoning behind why the situation is happening in the first place. The second is the audience, which is who it is directed towards. The last point is constraints, anything that would influence the situation that is taking place. The Charleston Animal Society has a website with lots of information about their organization which is an example of a rhetorical situation

Donald Trump and Franklin Delano Roosevelt both use anaphora, imagery, and antithesis to provide a better understanding and clarity for the audience. Donald Trump uses anaphora to connect with the audience. He frequently says, “We will…” which implies that he will not abandon the citizens while he is the president of the United States. Trump uses anaphora in this example to make the audience feel like he is on the same level as the common person rather than superior to them. Trump uses anaphora to comfort the audience. Franklin Roosevelt also uses anaphora to connect with and assure his audience that he will do what is best for the country. He says, “It can be helped by…” several times toward the end of his speech. He repeatedly says

The presidential race for the 2016 election are in full effect. The candidates are campaigning hard and debating on various issues all for one thing the chance to become the next president of the United States. The reason people vote is to make a change. In order to win, they must convince voters that they are the best for the job, a part of a politician's job is to address issues. How do the candidates successfully do this? By the use of rhetoric, whether it be through oration, discourse debates, television, or radio political advertisements. A rhetorical situation has three components exigence, audience, constraints. According to Bitzer in order to have a rhetorical situation you must be addressing an issue, or else there is no 'situation'.

A rhetorical situation arises whenever a rhetor (either a speaker or a writer) sees a need to communicate with an audience in order to accomplish a goal. The rhetorical situation is the set of related factors whose interaction creates and influences a discourse—which may take the form of a speech or a piece of writing. The rhetorical situation is the environment in which the discourse will exist and

Rhetorical situations and constraints are the factors that affect what a rhetor presents to their audience. Depending on the situation, whether it is a funeral or a political speech, those certain situations constrain what content the rhetor must present to their audience. In the article, Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents, rhetorical situations are “the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse by presenting an actual or potential exigence, which can be removed if a discourse, introduced in an individual situation affects the decision or even a human action in the process” (Grant-Davie 265). Essentially, rhetorical situations are comprised of an audience and a rhetor trying communicate the content of their topic. Constraints work alongside of rhetorical situations and affect what the rhetor can and cannot do during a rhetorical

This article was published in Fortune Magazine, and seems to be aimed at a mostly general audience. It uses separate styles and tones to engage the reader. The article assumes a basic knowledge of some technology, but keeps its concepts at a level that most people can grasp.

Effective speakers engage audiences with provocative ideas that extend beyond the time in which the speech is delivered.

According to our text the context time, audience, and circumstances defines the rhetorical situation. Aristotle theorized the situation as the place where the speech took place and for that reason he categorized speeches into three categories based upon the purpose of the speech. Aristotle’s three types of speeches are forensic (trial), epideictic (funeral), and deliberative (senate).

Rhetoric situation is a fundamental aspect of the rhetorical theory, which no person has ever attempted to explain or analyze before Bitzer (2). Bitzer defines a rhetorical situation as a mix of people, events, objects, and relations that present an exigence, which can be fixed if discourse can, “constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence” (6). He also argues that the situation comes first, which then brings the discourse into existence. In other words, a rhetorical situation always calls for some sort of verbalization and it always controls discourse (2). A rhetorical situation has three crucial components: exigence, audience, and constraints, which is demonstrated clearly at Charleston Shoe Company. Exigence is defined as a flaw that can be fixed through discourse. Not all exigences are rhetorical, though. According to Bitzer, “exigence is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modifications and when positive modifications requires discourse” (6). As seen at Charleston Shoe, the exigence is that the employees want to sell the shoes, and they must use discourse in order to do so. In addition, Bitzer defines a rhetorical audience as “those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (7). The audience of the company are the customers, whom can solve the exigence by buying the shoes. Lastly, Bitzer says that constraints limit the audience’s ability to solve the exigence