Journal 6: February 3 by Tara Volz

 

Bitzer: The Rhetorical Situation

•     For him the situation comes first and even dictates the discourse (when in fact discourse is accompanied).
• “ it is the situation which calls the discourse into existence"
• There are three constituents of any given rhetorical situation
1. Exigence: an imperfection(problem) marked by urgency
2. Audience: those who are capable of being influence by discourse and of being mediators of change
3. Constraints: limitations by the author/speaker and by external forces ( dictated by the situation)
• What makes exigence?
• There can be an unanswered exigence, where a problem or raised argument eventually decays and goes away. This can be defined as social inaction.
• Therefore exigencies do exists whether or not we decide to respond to them
• Often times situations are often more ambiguous or murky than we realize and can become unstructured due to: (pg.12)
• Numerous exigencies ( identify a single problem but with multiple interpretations)
• Two or more simultaneous rhetorical situations competing for our attention
• The rhetorical audience may be scattered
• Constraints can be limited in number and force
• Types of Constraints
• Audience Constraints
• There can be differential opinions among the audience
• Variances among political or religious ideals
• Divisions between gender, race, and class
• Speaker Constraints
• Personal Character
• His/her logical proofs
• Style of writing or speech
• Not all rhetorical situations must be ornately in manner.
• Mundane language: this was mentioned in the fishing example
• When the people are working to reel in the fish, the rhetorical nature of the situation will call for the response or the discourse to be rhetorical
• "Pull in", “Let go”, “Lift the net”
• Our language is shortened ( brevity) because our verbal responses are responding not to the person but to the situation

Situations Unbound: City problems

• A city was being transformed as the technology boom hit Austin.  It became more financially and technology empowered. There was a greater influx of people, increased income growth and a more professional population,  which  encourage larger corporations to influx in the area. Chains like Baja’s, Chipotle, Barnes and Noble, displaced local establishments. In 2002 two local businesses BookPeople Bookstore and Waterloo Records decided to take a stand against city’s plan to open up Borders Bookstore across from them by adopting the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” with both the stores logo.  It was a cultural pledge to keep local businesses.
• Through this text we examined how murky the rhetorical situation can get:
• A single phrase, word, image (or in this case logo) can be applied to different exigencies
• The liberal arts try to get people to major in liberal arts in Texas by adapting “Keep Austin Liberal Art”
• Same  with the “Keep Austin Reading” by the Austin Public Library

Is the rhetorical situation most important?

• Leaves out voice/genre (can't stand alone)
• Analyzed Bitzers claim: An exigence in fiction isn’t real, so the reader doesn’t have to act. They read and just live in that world. 
• Does actual change have to happen or just the capability of action?
• Class claim: Any texts, fictional or nonfictional can be considered rhetorical. Whether intentionally or not, words, art, images, can evoke a response.

#likeagirl commercial

• A group of candidates were asked to do various activities such as running, fighting or throwing and were to enact them “like a girl”. The older females/males, and the one younger male acted out the activities in a weak stereotypical fashion. However, when the same question was asked to young girls they performed much more realistic versions because they simply acted like themselves. This commercial was analyzing society’s gender inequalities, especially when it comes to female empowerment. 
• In class exercise:
• Task: encourage people on campus to use your hashtag “like a girl”
• Scene: you’ve been given a table outside of Strozier library and have been asked to make fliers that are ¼ of a piece of paper
• What you need to do: figure out the rhetorical situation of your task and scene.  What’s the exigence? Understand your audience, i.e. people walking by the table.  Understand the constraints of the rhetorical situation: your constraints, your audience’s constraints, and the constraints of the scene.
• Exigence:
• Gender can be an insult and that affect's girls self-esteem/confidence
• There's social inequality; gender is one kind
• Title IX:  No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
• Audience: Students coming in and out of Strozier
• Constraints:
• Busy population, ignore tables and fliers
• People think the know about the issue, already self-aware
• Gender of the messenger or the recipient (bad reputation of girls defending feminism due to misconstrued definitions of feminism).
• Competing for attention; open minds to new ideas
• Connotations of what "like a girl" would mean
• Medium constraints like the size of the paper
• Censored due to situation (that fact that we are on campus)