Journal #6

What does Bitzer not mean by “rhetorical situation”? In other words, how does his view differ from past views that readers might compare to his?

Blizter view on rhetorical situation does not only mean context. Rhetorical situations don’t just appear out of conversations, they need to be thought out and well planned. While past views put any situation having the ability to be rhetorical but then, it would seem to general. Rhetorical situation does not mean an issue of the audience understanding, does not mean the interatction of the past, and does not mean persuasive situation.


What does Bitzer mean by “rhetorical situation”?

To say that rhetoric is situational means that rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence in response to a question, or a solution in response to a problem, a speech is given rhetorical significance by the situation, just as a unit of discourse is given significance as answer ot as solution by the question or problem, a rhetorical situation must exist as a necessary condition of an answer, many questions go unanswered and many problems remain unsolved; similarly, many rhetorical situations mature and decay without giving birth to a rhetorical utterance; a situation is rhetorical insofar as it needs and invites discourse capable of participating with situation and thereby altering its reality; discourse is rhetorical insofar its functions as a fitting response to a situation which needs and invites it. Basically, the situation controls the rhetorical response in the same sense that the question controls the answer and the problem controls the solution

Therefore, rhetorical situation may be defined as a 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 exigence.

Explain what “exigence” is. Give your own example of an exigence someone could respond to in writing.
Exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency, it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, and a thing which is other than it should be. For example, suppose there is a 40 year old man still living with his mother, the discourse to explain to him that it is not socially expectable to still be feeding off your mother will provoke the action of the right kind and he will move out, finally giving his poor mother some peace.