The Rhetorical Situation

“At its most basic, communication is the set of methods whereby humans attempt to identify with each other” (“The Rhetorical Situation”).

What is Rhetoric?

• The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing• When humans communicate with other humans,

they seek to produce any number of responses, such as….

-understanding-emotional reaction -agreement -enlightenment -action

Elements of a Rhetorical Situation

• Author• Audience• Text• Context

An essay, a commercial, a conversation, and a billboard are each an example of a rhetorical situation.

What is the Rhetorical Situation?

Author

An author can be a person or a group of people

• Author’s purpose (instruct, persuade, inform, entertain, educate, startle, excite, sadden, enlighten, punish, console…)

• Author’s attitude (flippant, serious, sarcastic…)• Author’s background (age, personal experience,

gender, location, ethnicity, political beliefs, parents, peers, education…)

Audience

• Audience’s purpose• Audience’s attitude• Audience’s background

Text

“In terms of a rhetorical situation, text means any form of communication that humans create. Whenever humans engage in any act of communication, there is a text that serves as the vehicle for communication” (OWL).

Text

• Medium of the text (handwritten, typed, audio, verbal, graphic…)

• Tools to make the text (tongue, computer, research librarian, survey…)

• Tools to decipher the text (eyes, ears, projector, education, background…)

Context

The environment or setting of the author and and of the audience. The author and audience may exist in different contexts.

• Time• Place (room, book, journal, T.V. spot)• Community/Conversation

What is the Rhetorical Situation?

Works Cited

”The Rhetorical Situation.” Purdue Online Writing Lab at Purdue U, 2008. Web. 15 February 2011.