Kairos refers to: "The opportune occasion for speech. The term kairos has a rich and varied history, but generally refers to the way a given context for communication both calls for and constrains one's speech. Thus, sensitive to kairos, a speaker or writer takes into account the contingencies of a given place and time, and considers the opportunities within this specific context for words to be effective and appropriate to that moment. As such, this concept is tightly linked to considerations of audience (the most significant variable in a communicative context) and to decorum (the principle of apt speech)."
1. Who are the readers that form the primary audience for my writing?
What is their probable age, sex, education, economic status, and social position? What values, assumptions, and prejudices characterize their general attitudes towards life?
2. What do my readers know or think they know about my subject?
What is the probable source of their knowledge – direct experience, observation, reading, rumor? Will my readers react positively or negatively toward my subject?
3. Why will me readers read my writing?
If they know a great deal about my subject, what will they expect to learn from reading my essay? If they know only a few things about my subject, what will they expect to be told about it? Will they expect to be entertained, informed, or persuaded?
4. How can I interest my readers in my subject?
If they are hostile toward it, how can I convince them to give my writing a fair reading? If they are sympathetic, how can I fulfill and enhance their expectations? If they are neutral, how can I catch and hold their attention?
5. How can I help my readers read my writing?
What kind of organizational pattern will help them see its purpose? What kind of guideposts and transitional markers will they need to follow this patter? What (and how many) examples will they need to understand my general statements?
(from James M. MacCrimmon’s Writing with a Purpose. 8th edition, 1984. p 22)
Understanding Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Situation
Source #1: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/01/
Understanding and being able to analyze rhetorical situations can help contribute to strong, audience-focused, and organized writing.
Writing instructors and many other professionals who study language use the phrase “rhetorical situation.” This term refers to any set of circumstances that involves at least one person using some sort of communication to modify the perspective of at least one other person. But many people are unfamiliar with the word “rhetoric.” For many people, “rhetoric” may imply speech that is simply persuasive. For others, “rhetoric” may imply something more negative like “trickery” or even “lying.” So to appreciate the benefits of understanding what rhetorical situations are, we must first have a more complete understanding of what rhetoric itself is.
In brief, “rhetoric” is any communication used to modify the perspectives of others. But this is a very broad definition that calls for more explanation.
Source #2: http://rhetorica.net/kairos.htm
Rhetorical Situation and Kairos
Lloyd F. Bitzer described the concept of the rhetorical situation in his essay of the same name.1 The concept relies on understanding a moment called "exigence," in which something happens, or fails to happen, that compels one to speak out. For example, if the local school board fires a popular principal, a sympathetic parent might then be compelled to take the microphone at the meeting and/or write a letter to the editor. Bitzer defined the rhetorical situation as the "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."
Some elements of the rhetorical situation include:
Analyzing the rhetorical situation (which, at its most fundamental, means identifying the elements above) can tell us much about speakers, their situations, and their persuasive intentions.
The ancient Greeks gave special attention to timing--the "when" of the rhetorical situation. They called this kairos, and it identifies the combination of the "right" moment to speak and the "right" way (or proportion) to speak. Let's get back to the school board example. After voting to fire the popular principal, the sympathetic parent might grab the microphone and scream invectives at the board. This would be bad kairos. Perhaps a better choice would be to recognize that a mild rebuke fits the situation followed by a well-timed letter to the editor or column in the school newsletter.
1: Bitzer, Lloyd F. 1968. "The Rhetorical Situation." Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries. William A. Covino ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon: 1995.
Source #3: http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/rhetsituaterm.htm
Rhetorical Context
"[A] text's content, organization, and style are influenced by a writer's rhetorical context--that is, by the writer's intended audience, genre, and purpose. Reconstructing that context before or as you read is a powerful reading strategy. . . .
"To establish a sense of the text's original rhetorical context, use the available sources of information to formulate at least tentative answers to the following questions:
1. What questions(s) is the text addressing?
2. What is the writer's purpose?
3. Who is the intended audience(s)?
4. What situational factors (biographical, historical, political, or cultural) apparently caused the author to write this text?"
(John C. Bean, Virginia Chappell, and Alice M. Gillam, Reading Rhetorically. Pearson Education, 2004)