Rhetorical Situation
According to Purdue University's OWL, understanding and being able to analyze rhetorical situations can help contribute to strong, audience-focused, and organized writing.
What is a rhetorical situation?
An academic way of referring to all of the different scenarios in which people write, speak, or read.
Writing is human tool that is used in a broad range of activities and settings in order a accomplish a purpose.
Things like going to the doctor, sharing your political opinion, applying for a credit card, writing a letter of complaint, and even writing notes in class are all activities that rely on writing.
Each rhetorical situation or writing context is different, and each requires specific knowledge of the situation, audience, other situational information, and each depends on differing assumptions, evidence, and language.
So...what is Exigence?
A philosopher in the late twentieth century suggested that what makes something (speech or writing) rhetorical is the action that ignited the need to respond in the speaker. So all writing has an exigence, as by respond through language--he would argue--that humans are trying to change something, are trying to fix a "wrong," or are trying to get someone "on their side" through the use of that language.
He defines exigence as “an imperfection marked by urgency,” meaning there is a problem that must be solved as soon as possible. In essence, something has happened that motivates the rhetor to respond and shapes the rhetor’s response.
Consider: Read "So...what is Exigence?" (above) then think about your own personal experiences to answer the following questions.
Describe a time--fairly recently--in which you felt the need to share your opinion on something. What prompted you to do so? Was it some event, some problem you noticed? Did someone ask you to respond?
What feelings were associated with that need to share your opinion? How might those emotions have affected your response?
Apply: Consider the following two opening sentences for an essay. Explain and write down which one intrigues you more? Why?
When I had to choose a topic to write about, I chose gender roles. There have always been differences in the ways that men and women were supposed to act and the ways that they were supposed to act with each other.
The other day, a friend asked me what I thought of the #metoo movement, and I realized that I didn’t really know. While I appreciate that it has raised awareness among boys and men about the ways they treat women, I wonder what it means for women and men in terms of how we should behave together and how it’s OK to express interest in each other.
Discuss:
What can you tell from the openings about what motivated the writer to write the essay that will follow? What textual evidence can you provide that helps you make those inferences?
What is the author's exigence? Explain your answer.
Which of the two openings better expresses the rhetor's exigence?
Consider: A student gets back an essay with a low grade and makes an appointment to speak with the teacher about it. When the student begins the conversation, she can begin in any of the following ways (or many others)
Why did you give me a bad grade on this essay?
I’m worried that my grade on this essay may hurt my class grade and my chances to get into a good college. What can I do to raise my grade?
Could we take some time to go over your feedback on this essay, so I can use this opportunity to learn to write better?
I missed a lot of class, and it is unfair you graded me so hard.
This class is too hard.
Discuss:
In each case, the same event has occurred, but its meaning and what is at issue about the situation has changed. Complete the chart. Note that while this focuses on the rhetor’s motivation for speaking or writing, it differs from purpose. The rhetor’s purpose is to encourage an audience to some kind of action. That purpose should in some way help to respond to the exigence that urged the rhetor to write or speak in the first place.
Apply: Suppose, for instance, you notice that recently, trash has begun to pile up in the school hallways. The issue that prompts you to respond—or exigence—is the increasing litter. How are the exegence and the purpose different for each scenario?
You write to the principal to work with the janitors to ensure that the trash gets cleaned up.
You could write a letter to your school newspaper asking your schoolmates to throw their trash away in trash cans, so we have less litter.
You could start a recycling club to help collect specific types of items that have been found around the school.
Consider: Think about everything you have done in the past 24 hours and write down the situations in which you wrote anything. Some examples include writing a note to your parent, text messaging, taking notes, writing email, filling out a job application. List these activities below. First, identify the rhetorical situation, then what features of writing are involved in that particular situation (e.g. length of writing, vocabulary, required content, medium, format, tone, audience, level of detail), and finally why or how do you know these rhetorical requirements.
Apply:
Create a chart with the situation in the first column, the features of the writing in the middle column, and how you know in the final column.
Work in groups of two or three to produce a collaborative piece of non-academic writing— a writing artifact. Each group should choose a different option below:
A thank-you to your parent’s close friends
A letter of complaint to an airline
A letter to a foreign exchange student or friend who is now away at college
An email to your parents telling them you wrecked your car
A cover letter for a job application
A short article for the high school newspaper
Be sure that your artifact is representative of the genre. Is this a letter you would actually send? An article you would write?
Discuss: What things did your group consider when writing the artifact? How are you able to know what to write and where to put certain details? Another way to think about rhetorical situation or writing context is by taking one task and writing for different audience. Using the same situation chosen above, each member of your group is to engage the same task but for a different reader. Depending on the audience, how does your tone change? How do your rhetorical strategies and evidence change?
A parent or grandparent
A teacher or professor
A boyfriend or girlfriend or partner
An employer
A sibling
An English class
A stranger
Consider: You are asked to give a speech on being a first-year student at Aquinas High School to a group of public school middle school students thinking about attending the AHS next year. The purpose is to increase their awareness of the positive aspects of coming to Aquinas and what the first year is like. You will give this speech in the theater at 7 p.m. on a Monday.
Discuss:
Identify each of the rhetorical elements.
How does each element affect the strategy for the speech?
Apply: What kind of information would you provide for the potential students? How would your message or presentation change if you were speaking with their parents or without? How would the speech change if teachers (specific ones or in general) were or were not there?
Consider: You are asked to give a speech about non-athletic extracurricular activities at Aquinas High School to a group of potential transfer students thinking about attending Aquinas next year. The purpose is to get them excited about becoming part of the Aquinas Catholic Schools community, so they might consider attending. You will give this speech in the outdoor classroom in the midafternoon, around 4 p.m.
Discuss:
Identify each of the rhetorical elements.
How does each element affect the strategy for the speech?
Apply: What kind of information would you provide for the potential students? How would your message or presentation change if you were speaking with their parents or without? How would the speech change if teachers (specific ones or in general) were or were not there?
Consider: You are asked to give a speech to a group of parents (of both current and future students) about the requirements of National Honor Society. You will give this speech in a classroom at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday.
Discuss:
Identify each of the rhetorical elements.
How does each element affect the strategy for the speech?
Apply: What kind of information would you provide for the potential and current parentss? How would your message or presentation change if you were speaking with the students and their parents or with only the students? How would the speech chance if it were just for new member parents? ...for existing member parents?
Consider: You are asked to speak to the Slippery Rock Township supervisors on behalf of a student group that would like to have sidewalks installed along roads to off-campus tennis and soccer practices for the safety of student pedestrians. You will give this speech at the Township Building during a regular supervisors meeting at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
Discuss:
Identify each of the rhetorical elements.
How does each element affect the strategy for the speech?
Apply: What needs to be considered when speaking on behalf of other students? What needs to be considered when thinking about this specific audience. How does this audience differ from the previous senarios? What kind of "stakeholders" are being engaged here and how does their stakes differ from the stakes of the stakeholders in the previous situations?
Consider: You would like to borrow your parents' brand new Tesla. The have just gotten it, but you have an epic night planned with your bestie/bae and securing the car is essential.
Discuss:
Identify each of the rhetorical elements.
In what ways can you manipulate the information to create the best possible argument to get your parents on your side and hand over the ride.
Apply: You are binging Riverdale (or replace Riverdale with whatever show is cool) on Hulu, and an ad comes on for T-Mobile/ AT&T. What are the advertisers thinking about when constructing their message to you? What is each part of their rhetorical situation? How does this consideration relate to you wanting a new phone and a future purchase or discussion with your parents about that updated phone you want?