According to Bitzer, a rhetorical situation is one that features three 'constituents': exigence, audience, and constraints.
In this thread, briefly describe one rhetorical situation that you have encountered (outside of our class) during the first week of the semester. Incorporate Bitzer's terminology and analytical framework in your description, paying special attention to the three constituents.
This week, I auditioned for shows at the FSU School of Theatre, and throughout the week I've been to callbacks, originally called back for Jesus Christ Superstar and The Full Monty. Ultimately, I did not get into either but was called back for The Full Monty a lot.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I encountered a huge rhetorical situation with friends and colleagues this week as I talked about my callbacks. I told them I was called back for The Full Monty. Most replied, "Do you really think everyone's going to be naked on stage?" Of course, I had no idea what the answer was, but it wasn't a response that really needed an answer, and the tone was clearly quizzical, so I just laughed and then proceeded to change the subject or continue on about the callbacks, never giving that question a second thought.
--Spencer Frankeberger
During the first week of the semester I have encountered many rhetorical situations. But, one that keeps occurring is trying to convince my friends to eat at a specific place or at least get a meal outside of the sorority house. Exigence appeared in the situation as girls claimed they wanted to eat at the sorority house because of convenience and that we pay for food in our dues, but I turned it around and tried to make going out to eat somewhere else as a positive thing. At zeta we only have salad bar and one option for food, but if we went out to eat we could have many, many choices. It would also be more time for a close group of friends to spend time together and be in a different surroundings rather than the same people all the time at the house. I was also careful with the audience/people that I chose to ask to go out to eat with me. I chose to ask people that I knew would be easily persuaded. I also made sure that I began the questioning and explaining that I wanted to go out to eat prior to dinner time so they could have enough time to plan out the rest of their night. I made my purpose of the argument clear and kept my thoughts and reasoning organized by explaining my thoughts and then backing them up with specific reasons.
ReplyDelete-Maddy Cuono
During this first week of classes I found myself realizing there are rhetorical situations all the time. The most recent and obvious, happened today in one of my EWM classes. I am in Air Force ROTC and every Thursday we wear our uniforms, therefore, today (THURSDAY) I am wearing mine. As we were all giving introductions, part of it was saying likes and dislikes and one person said they greatly disliked the military because they favored peace not war. Clearly, the situation became a bit tense and awkward since everyone can see that I am in the military, or will be. I did not say anything until it was my turn to introduce myself and as I stated my likes, I included the military because we fight wars only because they are necessary to restore peace, without fighting or wars who knows where or what the world would be like. I did not want to start an argument but wanted to make my point for her to understand what we truly fight for, all those in the military fight to keep protected the right for her to say whatever she wants to say.
ReplyDelete-Anais Tobar
Last night I was talking to a very good friend of mine, who is also my neighbor, about if he know what a rhetorical situation was. After trying to clue him in that a rheotorical sitauion was not necessarily the same as a rhetorical question I followed with an idea sparked from an example that was used in class with my own twist.
ReplyDeleteMy friend is vegan and I clearly am not. However I said what if we wanted to go someplace to eat, but I wanted a cheeseburger and obviously you are not going to be on the same level as me. He answered with well we can always go to a vegan restaurant. I replied back with but what if I really did not want to go to the vegan restaurant because I really wanted a burger, could we just figure out a place that we could both go that would satisfy both of our preferences?
He then asked me what does this have to do with a rhetorical situation and I told him that I was trying to persuade him into going with me at a place that catered to my desires. The exgence of this would be going to eat but to a place that would suit both of us. The audience is clearly the conversation between the two of us and the constraints that play into it was the fact he was vegan and I am a carnivore, which clashes. I think in the end he got the fact that we use rhetorical situations everyday, but I figured it was a good example to use that happened outside of the classroom setting.
-Krissy Zampaglione
There are many rhetorical situations occurring all the time. My rhetorical situation this week was when I tried to convince my best friend to take the 2 hour drive home this weekend for Labor day. She created exigence, giving reasons why we should stay here like the one: we only just got here, why go? With her as my audience,I found the right people to help me with my argument, her family, and with their help was able to change my friend's thinking. Now we both are going to split gas money to go home for the weekend.
ReplyDelete~Mary-Shannon Crawford
The rhetorical situation from this past week that sticks out most clearly in my mind concerns my Intro to World Literature class. My teacher, the speaker, was addressing our class, the audience. She was explaining to the class how extensive the reading for the class would be. This was said so that we could fully understand the commitment accompanying her class. The teacher was urging us to choose whether or not we could see ourselves being able to accomplish the reading required for the class. The exigence in this instance was the decision we students had to make whether or not this class would fit into our personal schedules. She was persuading us not to sit by and passively take the course, but to actively choose if we would put forth the effort to do the reading or, if not, to drop the course. The constraints of this situation was each of the students' time that he or she could dedicate to the class.
ReplyDeleteJenny McKee
Jenny McKee
After the detailed description of what a rhetorical situation is in our class discussion on Wednesday, I feel as though I can look back and think about a few instances in which rhetorical situations have appeared in my week. The one that sticks out most in the debate about driving to campus or taking the bus.
ReplyDeleteOn the humid and sunny Monday morning of the first week of school, I had a debate whether to drive or take the bus to campus. Although my roommates advised me to wait the extra 20 minutes at the stop for the bus, I was still torn. I had known my exigence was going to be the massive amount of cars attempting to find parking on FSU campus, yet I decided to go against my gut and drive my car. Low and behold, I was not able to find parking for an hour, which is less time it would have taken to wait at the stop and take the bus to my class. Looking back, I knew the exigence in the situation, and knew I should have listened to my audience, yet I was too confident that parking would not be as bad as I was thinking. And although the bus was a perfect constraint just waiting to take me to class, I didn't seem to have the patience to wait at the stop. Needless to say, I will be waiting at that stop every morning now.
Chrissy Reynolds
The first and perhaps most obvious set of rhetorical situations that popped into my head when I began pondering this question was the various introductory lectures that I attended in each of my classes over the past several days. But to make defining the three components of a rhetorical situation easier I will narrow that down to the professor in my Shakespeare class explaining to the litany of freshman that her class was most likely not for them. The exigence in this case is that my professor felt that students who were under qualified, and thus would not succeed, had signed up to take her class. The audience is of course the freshman (or anyone else in the class who upon hearing the professor's remarks felt themselves to be under qualified) enrolled in the class. The constraints element of the rhetorical situation seems to be the hardest part for me to define, perhaps because I feel like it is such a broad category. I suppose here the ultimate constraint is the ego of the audience; the professor has to be careful to not come off as if she is insulting the capabilities of her students.
ReplyDeleteChelsea Moore
A rhetorical situation that happened to me during this first week of school happened between two of my roommates and I. We are all three taking a family dynamics class together and had initially decided to rent one book and share it amongst us. Upon attending the first class, I realized that it may not be the best decision to do that. Our teacher explained that this friday our class (audience) would be participating in a in class write in which we could all use our books and notes. My roommates didn't hear my professor say this (constraints) so I had to explain to them that we would each need our own books (exigence) so that we would do well on the in class essays. They were unsure if I had the correct information and we had to consult the syllabus to confirm it. We discovered that I did indeed have the correct information and we all went to the FSU bookstore to rent three individual text books.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Collins
When first given this assignment, I was not really sure if I had an encountered a good enough rhetorical situation to write about, so I decided to wait the week out until something popped out at me. With that being said, the rhetorical situation I encountered happened today (Thursday) in my Intro to Public Relations class. The first day off class, which was Tuesday, we did nothing except listen to the role be called out of 186 students so I really had no clue what the class was even about. However, today class was totally different. As my professor spoke to the class, the speaker speaking to the audience, he kept reiterating the point of how important it was to come to class because of all the “extra credit” that was able to be gained, such as an extra credit quiz at the end of each day, but if one chose to not come to class he did not care. I believe this would be the exigence part of the rhetorical situation because I noticed myself thinking back and forth between the decisions of if I should come to class regularly or not. Although I personally chose to stick with the option of attending class regularly, I noticed many other students around me being indecisive, therefore a constraint. I would consider this to be a constraint because choosing/not choosing to come to class all depends on how bad a student wants an A in the course. If they want an A, they must attend class regularly and earn the incentive of a bonus quiz. However, they must make time in their day to attend class and do so.
ReplyDeleteChristina Natale
I am faced with rhetorical situations on a regular basis, especially at work. I'm an Assistant Manager at the Finish Line at Governor's Square Mall. One that has happened since the semester has started would be this morning, when a customer came in to purchase running shoes. This customer (not unlike most others) wanted Nike Shox because she thought they would be a great choice for her. I was faced with the choice of whether to just sell the shoes (which were rather expensive, making a nice contribution to my commission), or convince her to purchase a different shoe that, while not necessarily being as expensive, would ultimately work better for her and make her happier. I chose to take a crack at changing her mind. The customer (my audience) was difficult to convince. The major constraint of the situation is that Nike's marketing tactics and overall appeal are so successful that is difficult to deter anyone that doesn't know better (not to say that Nike doesn't make some great shoes- just don't run in Shox. Trust me.), this posed an issue for me and made it harder to get her to consider other options. The exigence of the situation was that this woman needed good running shoes that would not result in shin splints and other discomfort. I ultimately convinced her and she walked out with a new pair of Asics.
ReplyDeleteI am the Publisher for a new Greek newspaper on campus known as "The Odyssey" and recently experienced a rhetorical situation with such. Recently, Panhellenic and IFC (the "Rulers" of the greek community, if you will) sent out an e-mail to every chapter's president about how they do not support "The Odyssey". This is because, participants of this newspaper are allowed to write about whatever they want-which could sometimes reflect badly on the Greek community. When approached by my chapter president about writing for the Odyssey and making a choice on whether I thought it was right to do or not, I was faced with a rhetorical situation. My exigence in this situation was continuing to write for the Odyssey even if it technically wasn't "supported" because I knew that since this article is a brand new publication...It would be hard to give support to it just because no one knows exactly what it's like yet. My audience, being that of my own chapter and the Greek community, are who I will try and push this "exigence" on in order to prove what great things the Greek newspaper with do for the community at FSU. Even with the constraints of "No Support" from Panhellenic and IFC, the publication will hopefully thrive.
ReplyDeleteKnowing what I know now about rhetorical situations I have been faced with several this first week of class at FSU. Today in my fiction technique class my professor told the class to come up with an opening sentence line to start a story. It took me and the whole class to write down an opening line. Then the professor picked eight people to share thier line and the whole class as a whole had to choose the best one they would like to write the first paragraph about. This reminded me of a rhetorical situation because the class had to choose which sentence was the best for a story and also come up with thier own for the whole class to like.
ReplyDeleteThis year, I have been living in an off campus apartment with three of my friends. There have been so many different types of rhetorical situations that I have encountered these few weeks.
ReplyDeleteThe one that has stood out to me the most has to be the fact that I don't have a car, and all three of my roommates do. What makes it so difficult and rhetoric is the fact that I have to always try to convince and persuade them to dry me places. The gas and the hassle to actually move when my roommates are being lazy are constraints in this situation.
-Laura Chami
In my 'Issues in Publishing' course this semester, my professor spoke on the first day about the lack of funding given to FSU and the English Department alike and how it would be effecting our class. When speaking, he took into consideration the audience (what kind of students would be taking the course - specifically English majors), the issues or 'exigens' which was the lack of funding and thusly man-power (there are no TAs for a 120 person class) and what the current situations and political climate involving and influencing the problem(s), namely the downward trend of our nation's economy leading to more and more budget cuts for Education.
ReplyDeleteHe spoke with an intention of inspiration; to inspire us to go and fight for more educational funding if we felt - like he did - that these kinds of conditions are ill-befitting of the small fortunes we hand over to the university year after year.
--Taylor Malkus
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ReplyDeleteAs an exploratory major, I am constantly burdened by the phrase “for majors only until drop/add” during registration. Thus, a rhetorical situation, one which has the potential for progression through persuasive discourse, presented itself. My inability to register for Writing& Editing Print online became the exigence at hand. This inability to enroll in said course was an extreme detriment, not only to myself, but to future generations, as well. This exigence hindered my acquisition of knowledge in the field of writing, editing, and media, thus denying the world of potential innovation in media writing.
ReplyDeleteIn rhetorical situations, rhetoric functions to produce action, which, in this case, would be adding my name to the roster. The professor of the class was the audience and the mediator of change, as he had the power to enroll me in the class. I used persuasive discourse to overcome to exigence, explaining that I was currently an exploratory major but I was soon to be EWM. I engaged him in my predicament and he was understanding, thus taking action to enroll me in the course.
A potential constraint could have been the professor’s high state of stress during the first week of classes, decreasing his interest in adding a student to his class. Contrary to anticipated constraints, the professor was very interested in bettering my knowledge in his field, and I was able to take the course.
The advertising world is filled with rhetoric. It is safe to say that we all are subject to some form of advertising at some point in our day. I was watching something on Hulu the other night that was sponsored by Listerine and began with an advertisement for their mouthwash. The first line of the narration was: “you know there are germs on every surface of your mouth, but did you know that these germs can form a… layer called biofilm?”
ReplyDeleteHere is a perfect example of what Bitzer considers exigence. In short it’s a problem that the rhetor (in this case: Listerine) is trying to persuade the audience to solve. The exigence or issue in this case is a so-called build up named “biofilm.”
This first line also covers the audience with a single word: “you.” Everyone that happened to be watching this specific program on Hulu has teeth and they identify under the “you.”
Finally, the constraints are shown in my personal lack of awareness on this apparently important problem called “biofilm.” The advertisement began to solve this by explaining first that we all know that there are germs in our mouths. In this case, the constraints are seen in the audience’s knowledge they bring to the rhetorical situation.
-Adam Sheppard
The Sunday before class started, I received a phone call from my friends who were planning on coming to visit. I thought that they weren't planning on being in Tallahassee until next week, so I planned on going home this weekend to trade cars with my mom so that I could have a bigger car to drive them to Tallahassee in. I was stressed when I found out that I would have to drive ten hours in one night (and still make it to an 8am class I was registered for) in order to get my moms car and pick them up in Orlando. After calling my mom and making arrangements, I had to call my friends and convince them how greatly it would help if they were able to get a train from Orlando to Jacksonville in order to shorten my driving. (the exigence) A constraint of mine was that these three friends are all from other countries and had no computer or prior knowledge of Florida to book the train tickets. They would also have to leave Universal studios earlier in order to help my situation. Luckily, my audience was willing to help my mom and me by kindly and spontaneously getting on a train. I therefore, had to only drive five hours in one night and was able to make it to class.
ReplyDeleteKatherine Kennedy
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