语言教学 | 普渡大学写作教学系列General Writing 21-The Rhetorical Situation(4)

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Rhetorical Situations (4) -- Setting & 2 Examples & Conclusion

Setting

Lastly, all rhetorical situations occur in specific settings or contexts or environments. The specific constraints that affect a setting include the time of author and audience, the place of author and audience, and the community or conversation in which authors and/or audiences engage.

Time

“Time” in this sense refers to specific moments in history. It is fairly common knowledge that different people communicate differently depending on the time in which they live. Americans in the 1950s, overall, communicate differently than Americans in the 2000s. Not that they necessarily speak a different language, but these two groups of people have different assumptions about the world and how to communicate based on the era in which they live. Different moments in time can be closer together and still affect the ways that people communicate. Certainly, scientists discussed physics somewhat differently the year after Einstein published his theory of relativity than they did the year before Einstein published his treatise. Also, an author and audience may be located at different times in relation to one another. Today, we appreciate Shakespeare’s Hamlet a bit differently than the people who watched it when it first premiered four hundred years ago. A lot of cultural norms have changed since then.

Place

Similarly, the specific places of authors and their audiences affect the ways that texts are made and received. At a rally, the place may be the steps of a national monument. In an academic conference or lecture hall or court case, the place is a specific room. In other rhetorical situations, the place may be the pages of an academic journal in which different authors respond to one another in essay form. And, as mentioned about authors’ and audiences’ backgrounds, the places from which audiences and authors emerge affect the ways that different texts are made and received.

Community / Conversation

In various rhetorical situations, “community” or “conversation” can be used to refer to the specific kinds of social interactions among authors and audiences. Outside of speaking about rhetorical situations, “community” usually means specific groups of people united by location and proximity like a neighborhood; “conversation” usually refers to fairly intimate occasions of discussion among a small number of people. But in regard to rhetorical situations, both of these terms can have much larger meanings. In any given rhetorical situation, “community” and “conversation” can refer to the people specifically involved in the act of communication. For instance, consider Pablo Picasso who used cubism to challenge international notions of art at the time he painted. Picasso was involved in a worldwide “community” of artists, art critics, and other appreciators of art many of whom were actively engaged in an extended “conversation” with differing assumptions about what art is and ought to be. Sometimes, authors and audiences participate in the same community and conversation, but in many instances, authors may communicate in one community and conversation (again, think of Shakespeare four hundred years ago in England) while audiences may participate in a different community and conversation (think of scholars today in any other country in the world who discuss and debate the nature of Shakespeare’s plays). The specific nature of authors’ communities and conversations affect the ways that texts are made while the specific nature of audiences’ communities and conversations affect the ways that texts are received and appreciated.

Example 1

Example 1: “I Have a Dream” Speech

A lot of what was covered above may still seem abstract and complicated. To illustrate how diverse kinds of texts have their own rhetorical situations, consider the following examples.

First, consider Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Because this speech is famous, it should be very easy to identify the basic elements of its particular rhetorical situation.

Text

The text in question is a 17-minute speech written and delivered by Dr. King. The basic medium of the text was an oral speech that was broadcast by both loudspeakers at the event and over radio and television. Dr. King drew on years of training as a minister and public speaker to deliver the speech. He also drew on his extensive education and the tumultuous history of racial prejudices and civil rights in the US. Audiences at the time either heard his speech in person or over radio or television broadcasts. Part of the speech near the end was improvised around the repeated phrase “I have a dream.”

Author

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most iconic leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He was an African-American Baptist minister and prominent civil rights activist who campaigned to end segregation and racial discrimination. He gained inspiration from Howard Thurman and Mahatma Gandhi, and he drew extensively from a deep, rich cultural tradition of African-American Christian spiritualism.

Audience

The audiences for “I Have a Dream” are extraordinarily varied. In one sense, the audience consisted of the 200,000 or so people who listened to Dr. King in person. But Dr. King also overtly appealed to lawmakers and citizens everywhere in America at the time of his speech. There were also millions of people who heard his speech over radio and television at the time. And many more millions people since 1963 have heard recordings of the speech in video, audio, or digital form.

Purposes

Dr. King’s immediate purposes appear to have been to convince Americans across the country to embrace racial equality and to further strengthen the resolve of those already involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Audiences’ purposes are not as easily summarized. Some at the time may have sought to be inspired by Dr. King. Opponents to racial equality who heard his speech may have listened for the purpose of seeking to find ways to further argue against racial equality. Audiences since then may have used the speech to educate or to advocate for other social justice issues.

Setting

The initial setting for the speech was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963. The immediate community and conversation for the speech was the ongoing Civil Rights Movement that had gained particular momentum with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, which Dr. King helped direct. But the enduring nature of Dr. King’s speech has broadened the setting to include many countries and many people who have since read or listened to his speech. Certainly, people listening to his speech for the first time today in America are experiencing a different mix of cultural attitudes toward race than as present in America in 1963.

Other Analysis

Dr. King’s speech is an example of a rhetorical situation that is much bigger than its initial text and audience. Not many rhetorical situations are as far reaching in scope as Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The following example of a research paper may be more identifiable to students reading this resource.

Example 2

Example 2: Research Paper for a High School or College Class

One of the most common rhetorical situations that people reading this will face or have faced is a research paper for some sort of class. Consider the following fictional example of the rhetorical situation surrounding a research paper written by a 19-year-old female university student from China who is attending her first year of classes at Purdue University in Indiana, USA.

Text

The text in this example is a 12-page research paper that argues for more efficient ways of harnessing hydroelectric power. The paper uses the Xiaolangdi Dam on the Yellow River in China as an example of what could be done better. Alternately, when the student prepares her paper to present at a conference, the text at the future conference would be her actual verbal presentation and any presentation aids she chooses to use (such as a PowerPoint or a handout).

As a paper for class, the medium is a stack of twelve computer-typed white sheets of paper. As a conference presentation, the medium is the author’s spoken voice accompanied with a digital PowerPoint display.

As a paper for class, the student uses a computer with a word processing program to actually type the paper. Using a computer not only makes the paper neat and readable, but it is also required. The actual physical tool used to write the text greatly affects how the text is received. She also uses the conceptual tool of research that she’s learned in class to help her find the material she needs. As a conference presentation, the student uses a computer and a digital projector to display the necessary images at her presentation. She also uses the conceptual tools of public speaking that she learned in her first-year communication and speech course at Purdue University.

Author

The author for this research paper is a 19-year-old female university student from China who is attending her first year of classes at Purdue University in Indiana, USA. She struggles at times with the mechanics of written English. She is an only child. She is studying agricultural engineering. All this has affected how and what she writes.

Audience

There are two audiences for this paper. The primary and most immediate audience for this paper is the student’s instructor. Her instructor is a 25-year-old female PhD student from New Mexico, USA, studying in English at Purdue University. This instructor teaches the first-year writing course that the student is writing the research paper for. The student also hopes that she can eventually develop her paper into a conference presentation, so she writes her paper with both her instructor and a future conference audience in mind.

The instructor has previous experience working with students whose first language is not English. The future conference audience will have had immediate background in the other presentations at the conference.

Purposes

The author has a few different purposes for writing this paper. First and foremost, writing this paper is a class requirement and she must do well on it to get a good grade in the class. Secondly, she has chosen to write her paper about a hydroelectric dam near her home in China because she feels strongly about clean, hydroelectric power. Thirdly, she feels she needs continued practice writing in English (which is not her first language), so she looks forward to the feedback she’ll get from her instructor in hopes she can improve the way she writes. Her attitude is hopeful and earnest as she writes the paper. But she is also worried because she fears she may not have enough mastery of the English language to write the paper well.

The instructor wants the student to master certain writing processes and principles and will be reading the paper with these concerns in mind. The future conference audience will likely want to hear more about the impact of different energy sources on the environment. The instructor retains a helpful but expert attitude toward the student’s paper. The future conference audience fosters an interested and egalitarian attitude toward the student’s presentation. Notice how each of these attitudes can affect the way that the student’s research is received.

Setting

Because of the split nature of the student’s purposes, the settings for the paper are split as well.

As a research paper, the text is situated within the fifteen-week structure of a typical American university semester. Also, the student’s research about hydroelectric dams and the Xiaolangdi Dam in particular reflect the most current information she can locate. When she presents her research at a conference a year or two later, she will need to make sure her research is still up-to-date.

As a research paper, the text occurs within the confines of the curriculum of the student’s first-year writing class. As a conference presentation, the text occurs within the specific confines of a presentation room at an academic conference.

As a research paper, the student’s text is part of a small conversation between her and her instructor in the small community of a first-year writing class. As a conference presentation, the community and conversation of her text got substantially larger: the community and conversation possibly involve a worldwide community of engineering and agricultural experts, researchers, and professionals.

Other Analysis

Research papers are common texts for students to prepare. It is important for students to be able to see their own writing projects in their own rhetorical situations. When they do so, students will be better able to communicate within the constraints of the rhetorical situations they find themselves in. The last example of a rhetorical situation is about a very common sort of text that many people may not have considered in rhetorical terms.

Conclusion

The preceding examples serve to illustrate some of the range of circumstances in which rhetorical situations can be found. But, really, rhetorical situations occur whenever one person attempts to communicate with another person. We could do the same activity with a painting, a work of fiction, a political debate, a film, a Facebook status update, a squabble between lovers, a personal journal entry, or any other act of communication. Invariably, all situations involving communication involve at least one of each of the following:

1. a text in a particular medium, made with certain tools, and deciphered with certain tools;

2. an author with a specific background;

3. an audience with an equally specific background;

4. purposes of both author and audience; and

5. a setting in a particular time and place involving a certain community and conversation.

Understanding the factors that shape rhetorical situations make authors and audiences more aware of what goes into different acts of communication. Overall, understanding these factors helps people better understand the differing perspectives of others.

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